Articles/Editorials

Just general thoughts and outburts…

Uberclok Press Release

Hmmmm.. I just got a Press Release from one of my contacts regarding a new company on the block called ‘Uberclok

Click HERE to read the press release

What’s interesting about this is they claim a 55% overclock for one of their systems, but yet they don’t mention how they did this or specifically with what type of hardware, only ‘air-cooled’ is mentioned on their site about it.

From the pictures on their site it looks to be an Antec Nine Hundred Gaming case that they are using for their systems, but it doesn’t specify this exactly… The Nine Hundred is an excellent choice for a gaming systems and for an overclocked system as well, it offers quite a bit of airflow and cooling that would be needed…
also if you look more into the site there isn’t too many details really and I personally wouldn’t have chosen some of the hardware they did like a Rosewill power supply? Or Wintec ram? Especially for a gaming rig that is supposedly ‘high-end’…

Oh well, if they want the enthusiast crowd to get interested in them they’ll need to do a bit more work with their site I think, and provide some more details…

Rebates Suck!

I hate mail-in rebates, then again I don’t know many people that actually like them so I’m sure you understand..

Anyway, last month I bought three  EVGA products from NewEgg, I needed to update my system so I got a new motherboard and two video cards. I really wasn’t paying attention that there was a rebate on them I got them because that’s what I wanted and I wanted to match the brands up.

Well it turns out there was a $10 rebate on the mobo and $15 rebate on the video card. Now everywhere you look EVGA and every other company for that matter promotes SLI and that you should buy two cards for the best performance…

So I got three emails a couple days ago mentioning that they got the rebates and were processing them, I checked the status and it says one of my video card rebates was invalid because only one is allowed…

It’s only $15, but it’s still the point, anymore when people are building a system they’ll buy two cards, either for SLI or Crossfire and they know this, so is this just a way to screw over customers?  To save a few bucks here and there by denying the rebates, even though they know people are going to buy two of the cards for SLI? Kind of discourages people from buying two of the cards with the rebates… The point of the rebate is to attract the consumer to buy the products right?

And of course a two weeks after I bought cards  EVGA announces that they are giving Quake Wars for free if you buy one of their video cards…. so I got screwed all around here. I would have rather had Quake Wars than the rebates, if I would have gotten the full rebates it wouldn’t have been enough to pay for the game most likely….

Oh well… sucks to be me!

The Country of Vermont ?!?

So I had heard about this a while ago but totally forgot about it till another article popped up on my radar, the State of Vermont want to become the Country of Vermont by seceding from the Union. Technically they want to become the Republic of Vermont…

There are a few websites devoted to this idea, and apparently quite a few people are very interesting in this idea. The main website is VTCommons.org  and here you’ll find all the information to learn all about this rather cool idea…

Anyone want to move to Vermont? I seriously thought about it, but I’m not sure of the logistics of it all, they have the idea but from what I can see no real groundwork laid out for the whole thing. The website sort of leaves quite a few questions unanswered as to how it would all work, they mention other countries that have been successful at this, but that really doesn’t prove to much…

Can it work? They want to do it peaceably, which essentially means no  military intervention from Vermont’s Army (hehe) and the US Military, they want to secede without any problems or casualties of a war. According to them it is their constitutional right to do so, but will the U.S. let them?

Why do they want to secede? From what I gather they just want to secede  because as a whole or majority they are not happy with the state of the union as it is now, and I can’t blame them there..

Will it work?

I’m wondering how it can work actually, I mean essentially they’ll be on their own with no federal monies to help with anything including social programs, emergencies, or just basic needs…

Hey, I’m up for it! Let’s do it…. I wouldn’t mind having dual citizenship…

Past Lives

So Tom went to the Digital Experience show today to cover it for DSM, and he said it was kinda boring actually but he mentioned he went to one of the luncheons there held by Sprint and Palm.  I’ve been to these shows and there’s usually really good food there and of course I replied back that at least he got to eat for free anyway, and he replied back to me that I seem very fixated on food…

There’s a point to this actually, the reason I’m fixated on food is that I was an Executive Chef in my ‘past life’ as I call it, past life being what I did before doing what I do now.. not the supernatural past life thing…

But it got me thinking about all that and my time or I should say years of my culinary escapades… Not to blow my own horn or anything but I was damn good, and well I still am, but I rarely get the chance to make any extravagant dishes anymore. I do miss it sometimes, but I think I’m happier now.. one of things I hated was all the ass-kissing and nepotism of the restaurant industry, sorry I don’t kiss ass, and well sometimes that’s what it took to get ahead, so I didn’t get ahead as far as I could have…

but I can say that in my time I’ve had my food creations published twice in magazines, I’ve worked with some of the top chefs out there, I’ve catered events with senators and congressman and met numerous celebrities as well, so it wasn’t all that bad…. I even had a chance to try out for the culinary olympic team… just a hint but you shouldn’t go out drinking and partying the night before you try out for the olypmic team, it ruins your sense of taste and just ruins your concentration and everything else needed to do do good at something like that .. I was young and stupid.. ah well

What I really miss is the rush of it all, it might not seem to some that it’s that stressful, but it is a very stressful career choice, if you can’t handle pressure then don’t even think of the field of culinary arts. I actually loved the stress and pressure of it, I thrived on it really. I remember years ago a study in some major magazine or newspaper that ranked the stress levels of jobs, what I did ranked right under Brain Surgeon, so yeah it was stressful at times… but damn fun

I think the part that I missed the most was seeing the looks on peoples faces as they watched me work, they were just in amazement at my ‘skillz’. and I’m serious, not just bragging, I was good at what I did. I prepped/catered parties for 1000+ people with little or no help from others, and I don’t mean wedding buffets, I mean sit down fine dining, black-tie affairs…yes I’m seriously good at multi-tasking…

I think I can say that I’ve ate more different types of food in my time cooking than most people will ever eat in their entire lives… there was actually a point where I would say no to filet mignon and lobster and prefer a hamburger because I ate so much of it…

ah well, I have my memories anyway…

Need a great motherboard?

I’ve got my review up of the EVGA 680i SE motherboard model 122-ck-nf63-tr, over at DSM and in my time with it I’ve come to love it. It’s just great, and I haven’t had any problems at all with it.

So if you’re thinking about upgrading your system to a better chipset then this could be what you need…  so stop on by and check out my review, I also picked up a couple EVGA 8600GTS video cards as well to pair up with the motherboard, that review will be up in a few days..

Excerpt:

Technology is an ever changing landscape of advancements and new ideas being implemented all the time with new versions of products being released every time we turn our backs. I don’t know if it’s the technology companies or the game producers that are the ones to blame for the constant upgrading cycles we as a consumer have to put up with, but we do it because we basically have to if we want to have the latest and greatest hardware and play the newest games being released. I’ve recently upgraded from an NF650i based system to an NF680i based system, the board I have now is an EVGA nForce 680i SE SLI Version, specifically the 122-CK-NF63-TR model number. The SE in the title stands for ‘Special Edition’, though I’m not quite sure why it has that moniker attached to it. There are several versions of the EVGA 680i based motherboards and I picked the one that had the features I really wanted and needed, along with the fairly low price point for a board of this caliber. So continue on as I explore this board and run it through some tests, I can say that in my time with it I have found it to be an excellent and very stable board with no problems whatsoever…

 Click HERE to read the review, I’ve got tons of pictures and a few tests comparing it to my 650i chipset motherboard

Halo 3 pt2 – spoiler warning and gizmodo

Oh well… if you haven’t seen it yet, and if you don’t want to know, Brian over at Gizmodo posted  a video where he re-bags all the Halo 3 swag and then throws it off his balcony, and then gives away the ending to the game…

what a moron… I’m not a Halo fanboy or anything but it’s wrong how he treated the gear that was given to him and it’s really wrong how he gave away the ending of the game…

I mean yeah he can be pissed off at the comments he got, and I agree totally that he did treat the stuff wrong in his first video unbagging… he just tossed the stuff around his room like it was garbage… but why would you go and spoil the ending of the game for everyone else just to get back at a couple assholes who posted rude comments and supposed ‘death threats’ about him…

I don’t know… I guess he’s just a total asshole, and I’ve lost quite a bit of respect for Gizmodo now… not that that really means much though…

anyway, the things I treat carefully and with respect, I guess it’s because I’m happy to get them and thrilled that the companies would give them to me… I guess Brian is just a fucking primadonna who thinks he deserves what he gets from companies… I know if I was in the marketing dept of the sponsors for gizmodo I’d be thinking twice about sending anything to Brian anymore, just for the lack of respect and just basically for being an asshole….

Oh well…  it must be nice to get great stuff like that from Microsoft and literally throw away a few hundred dollars worth of stuff… I just don’t understand it… what an asshole

Halo 3 – Hey Microsoft

HEY MICROSOFT!!!

I want one of those cool Halo 3 limited edition press kits!!!!!!!!!

The ones with the limited edition Xbox360 and all the other cool stuff!!

I don’t even care about the special personalized gamer tags, just send me the other stuff

PLEASE!!!

Oh, well.. figured it might be worth a try… it’d be fun reviewing over on DSM anyway… and well, I’m sure my kids would like an Xbox360 seeing as I never got one yet…

Guess I’m dreaming though, my site is nowhere near as popular as the likes of Engadget of Gizmodo… so my chaces are pretty slim for getting set up with one of those kits eh..