Back to Life, Back to Reality

I had a wonderful family vacation in Las Vegas. It was great spending time with my parents and Reggie. Noot really enjoyed her first Vegas vacation too. It was just excellent being with my family, not worrying about work, not worrying about money, being unplugged from my computer, and all that good stuff. This was probably the least stressful family vacation we’ve had in a while. It looks like the key to a stress free vacation is gambling. Ha!

Mom and Dad lost a bunch of money on slots. Reggie lost a little. Noot caught the gambling bug a bit. She won $70 on her first night on penny slots. For her, that’s a lot of money. She went up and down the rest of the trip. At the end, she was probably even. I only played video poker (9/6 Jacks or Better) at The Palms. I was surprised that my game was a sharp as it was. I made a few mistakes, but my play was 99% spot on. I played about five hours and won $60. I also got a little over $20 in comps.

Stupid Fan Issue

So I had this annoying fan issue with my XPS M1330. I updated the video drivers on Thursday. After that, the fan would constantly stay on. It didn’t bother me when the TV was on, but when there wasn’t any other noise in the room, it was frickin’  hell.

I did some research on the topic. Some other users have been having this problem due to faulty nVidia 8400 GPUs and overcompensation by Dell. However, the problem (generally) dates back to before I bought this laptop. I didn’t have time to deal with the problem again until Sunday. I contacted tech support via email. Then I had the brilliant idea to update the BiOS. That solved everything. I should have done that right away. My PC Mag Labs training has left me. Oops.

Meaty Weekend

I had a lot to think about this past weekend. I also had some excellent friends over. I’ll talk about the former in a few days (if all goes as planned). For now, I’ll talk about the latter. Martin, Amanda (Martin’s hot daughter), Andy, and Mod came over on Saturday. It was neat seeing my Thailand friends in San Francisco. Noot invited Ging’s family too, so there were plenty of people over for wine and barbecue.

We went through a lot of bottles of wine (Kenny’s and mine), the Thai people ate fish stuff, Amanda and Andy had tuna steaks because they’re communists, and the smart people had rib eyes. The steaks were from this butcher in my old neighborhood. They were absolutely brilliant. Martin brought me this awesome Thai motorbike-taxi driver vest. That was even more brilliant. I’ll post photos of the vest soon.

There was unused hamburger meat from the BBQ, so I made my excellent onion/beer burgers tonight. Yeah…way too much meat this weekend.

C’est Moi

It’s me on NXE.

So Long Ted

Ted moved out today. He’s off to LA for an excellent job. Obviously, I’m going to miss him. I mean, he’s been a part of my everyday existence for the last three years. I’m glad I woke up early today to share his last few minutes as a Potrero Hill resident. I’m super happy for him and I know he’ll do well, but I’ll miss him a lot. He was a great roomie and always had positive energy.

Something New (Game/Work Stuff Edition)

Here are some new stories that I wrote today. Learning a new CMS is rarely fun, but this is one of the better ones I’ve used. Anyway, check them out and add some comments if you can.

Microsoft Upgrade Pack story

Nintendo DSi poll story

Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades story

Hellgate story

That’s Original

That’s one way to do it. Dude has to learn how to say no.

Holy Shoes

Personally, I think Palin’s 150,000-dollar wardrobe is getting way more attention than it ought to. The major issue I see with the expenditure is that it contradicts a lot of what McCain said in regard to campaign-finance reform. Still, I couldn’t help but laugh about the situation when I came across this fine pictorial and this excellent photo in particular.

50 Nifty United States…

…from 13 original colonies. Anyone else know that song? Anyway, I got this from Kit. It was fun.

visited 30 states (60%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or determine the next president