New PC

November 19th, 2009 omo

Christmas is EARLY this year wooo.

This post is work in progress. I’m not too keen on posting my personal spending to the world wide web but think of it as a way to tell you about what are the prices this day and age. I picked my parts based on influence from Vinny and silentpcreview.com. It’s not a bad start if you don’t mind spending 200+ on case and PSU!

112.34 – Motherboard

283.98 – CPU and RAM. Nothing special here.

262.13 – Case and PSU. I actually didn’t mean to buy this particular case but I didn’t double check when I purchased it…

26.49 – some heat sink

259.99 – systems drive

The Newegg orders have 2% cash back totalling to 13.58

The X25-M 80gb has a 30 rebate. If I bought the P183 as originally intended I would have saved $20+tax on top of another 25 rebate (and drop the cash back down by maybe 40 cents).

Oh, I spent 30 on a digital copy of Windows 7 Pro. Yeah go Alumni Account Powahs.

That adds up to…

974.93

Ouch. In return there is 43.58, so it tops over $931. If I didn’t screw up with my order it would have been under 900. orz. But all this is for an i5 system with 4gb of ram and a 80gb SSD. I think you can probably do slightly better if you go the way of Dell or HP as they’ll give you an i7 for about the same cost, plus keyboard, mouse, cables, and an optical drive (woo another $30 worth of stuff). You just won’t have the SSD and you’ll have a 250gb or 500gb drive. You won’t have an ultra-quiet system either. Not that matters, since an Antec 1200 is not exactly the quietest kid on the block unlike its cousins P183 and P193.

Oh, you won’t have the freedom to go SLI either, nor will you have SPDIF outs. You will have a video card that’s…like the one I’ll migrate over into this box though. I won’t count it since it sort of is “used” or whatever.

Then again I’m not sure I’m done spending yet. There may be 1 more upgrade. We’ll see. In addition I might end up buying a optical drive anyways, since it’s cheap and rather useful, instead of using an old one. Or just wait till Blu-Ray write drives are cheap enough.

Tags: deals, pc building

Posted in Gadgets | 2 Comments »

Shure SE 115

November 17th, 2009 omo

Long time no post.

So my trusty Shure e2c has finally breathed its almost-last breath. The plastic shielding over the post-Y-splitter portion (the stretch of cable between the ear buds to the splitter) has gotten to the point where it’s too brittle to be stored, and the eventual breaks in the cable lead to too much lost of power to the buds that it is not working out of one end. That means it’s time for a new pair of earbuds. For postmortum, I’ve had these since 2005 and I bought them as open box from Circuit City via their eBay store. No, I didn’t take the utmost care with them either, especially in the final years of it.

So, Shure SE 115. I had a chance to pick up a pair of SE 110s for $50 (after cash back) but I passed it on for a sale on the 115. That sale never really came, and I was pressed to get a new pair, so I blew a bunch of Amazon gift certs. The problem with 110 and 115, from a brief google, is the lack of bass response. Supposedly if you go up to a SE 210 (about $100 more) you can win-win with both more fun dynamics and more “flat” response but lol.

The actual kit, if you’ve set foot in an Apple store, comes in this long box. It contains a carry pouch which beats the little circle thing the e2cs has, even if it’s like twice as big. Like all of Shure’s new earphones, it is separated into the extension cord portion and the earphone portion. Not sure I like it, but it works. Shure e2cs have bigger ear bud attachments–something not a problem for me but nonetheless I noticed, so it’s a problem for some users. The 115s come default with foam buds that are in a semispherical shape, but the usual array of optional buds of different shapes and sizes are present (as well as the removal kit) so it’s all good.

As to the sound quality? It’s definitely pretty bassy for something like this, but the frequency response is flatter than the e2c near the high end. What it does better is clarity and volume. Mid and low mids are notably clearer and louder, which is probably a good thing for most people, depending on the type of music you listen to the most.

I picked mine up for $68, black, from Amazon. It comes in 3 other colors. I think it’s a good deal.

Posted in Reviews, Social | No Comments »

Ugh

October 21st, 2009 omo

I feel kind of under the weather but I’m at work. Had been.

Lots of stuff happened, but let’s talk about one thing–Google wave. I’m on it. It’s interesting, but I’m not sure if it is intuitive enough as is.

I’m sure I’ll find a use for it, once people bother to decentralize it and have better clients.

Tags: google wave

Posted in Experimental, Social | No Comments »

LOL FCC x BLOG

October 6th, 2009 omo

So the FCC finally got its advertising rules for blogs straight. Or gonna.

To me it’s hardly a surprise. But if I didn’t shop around for ad services for my blogs I probably would have been surprised. There are, to say the least, ethical grey areas in the way some of these services operated, getting paid by post and only when the advertisers are happy about it…

But my question now lies how free samples work. I think in most of the instances that I’ve read, all reviews tend to mention where they got the stuff from. For example if I review Crunchyroll I will say I bought it, because, well, it’s part of the consideration for it. However if I review Strained I will have to say something like “Funimation’s promo copy” or some such. But this is different than people who are otherwise paid for their writing beyond the sample.

That said I think Jtor needs to have a giveaway policy. Right now it feels too much like people are treating the samples like part of their perks for writing for it :x

Tags: blogging

Posted in Anime, Social | No Comments »

Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation – Endless Frontier…ugh

September 4th, 2009 omo

So, I got this DS and is playing a game. Here is one of many jokes localized by Atlus–

Haken: It’s amazing what you can learn from wasting time on the internet all day.

KOS-MOS: Strange… In my time, the Internet is for–

Xiaomu: Sh-Shut up, you fool! Don’t mock my technical expertise!

Posted in Admin, Games, Reviews | No Comments »

DS First Hits

August 31st, 2009 omo

Long time no blog it seems.

I’m going through a verbal drought of some kind. Need some time to introspect, recharge, pray or whatever.

And a Nintendo DS is also partly at the heart of the problem. So the DS came in. Took about 2+ weeks for it to ship and get here. I ordered a R4 type thing, or a acekart 2.1. After light research I found a place that sold it for $20, and I’m kind of satisfied with the typical Made-In-China quality, and yet it’s a shade better than I expect. This place I got the stuff from is definitely “good” for a shady consumer enhancement. Shady in that no reputable store sells DS hacks, yet this is just as reputable as any other…

At any rate, it even came with a micro SD card reader and a couple screen protectors. I put one on. Botched it a little. So I highly recommend that store. Ships fast, not too pricy, omake for new owners; what’s not to like?

First game I played was Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation – Endless Frontier. The only cross-over element of it is KOS-MOS and T-elos and couple other guys from previous games. So there’s not a whole lot going on–the entire series of these games ride on fan fumes anyways, but I was surprised the number of boob jokes in the localization, and I guess also the plain amount of boob-age in the game. I mean, there is one token pettanko character (voiced by Mamiko Noto no less) and two guys, which leaves the other 4 characters delicious boobage material. That’s on top of all the enemies you fight (which adhere to the same ratio of boobs:guys:others as your party).

The visuals are as expected; things dash and flash like a pachinko machine as numbers scroll and pop across the screen like 1-yen metal balls falling off the display. Boobs jiggle–lightly and heavily and everywhere in between–when special attacks and supers are called. If you really pay attention, there’s quite a bit of fanservice, but all tampered with some amount of cute or cool, so it’s mostly tolerable. More importantly, it’s toned down so it has a proper ESRB rating, so no clothes come off or undergarment really… but they do wear some pretty sexy costumes. Also, so much furries…

But seriously, this is a kid’s game. So liberal, Japan!

That said, I think I’m playing this game because I’m 18 hours into it and already 2/3  the way through. If I was more on top of it I could have finished it in 3 days…. part of the reason why I bother.

Next up is probably Fate Stay Night, but I will have to finish Revelation Space first. Which, so far, is a definitely good change of pace.

Tags: reading

Posted in Anime, Games | No Comments »

Binge Buys

August 18th, 2009 omo

I really shouldn’t be buying all this crap, but damn, Microsoft.

1. I ordered a HDD and a mouse from Newegg, thanks to the 10% Bing cashback deal. Bing used to be called Microsoft Live, but it’s the same thing. Wait 60 days and your money can be requested to be sent to your paypal account, or in a check. I was so tempted to just deck out one or three more Fujitsu Spinpoint 1gbs. But no. The HDD I got is a Hitachi 2.5″ 320gb, to be inserted into the PS3. After rebate and cash back I think I’m looking at a $17.50 saving, which knocks the total down to $57.50 before shipping. The mouse I got because…we need a mouse, so I got an intellimouse 1.1 for $16, or something like $15 after cashback. Shipping was something like $6.

2. In the past 2 weeks I ordered 3 figures. Two were  from HLJ and the other was from eBay. HLJ was giving away 10% off coupons at Otakon, for any in stock, non-sale items they had. The coupon doesn’t apply to pre-orders, but still there were a few figures that tempted me. One figure was just tempting and I’ve had my eyes on it for a while now, even if it’s kind of “tempting” in the indecent kind of way. The 10% makes this 1/6 figure actually quite affordable, after SAL shipping. The other figure is a preorder of a popular character, so there’s not much I can do about that besides HLJ’s normal early bird discount.

3. The eBay figure was discounted by Bing’s cashback for eBay, which is currently 14%. The discount value varies all the time, but I guess I caught a break. This figure is a well-rated figure that sold out quickly, so auctions was the only way I can snag it. I think after Bing  cash back (which is instant for eBay) I paid about $107 total, including shipping. The retail price of the one was 7810 yen… wow, I actually made it out close to even! What is interesting is that the figures I got from HLJ are definitely cheaper, despite being slightly bigger in scale, but only because I do math in yen. Once I convert it to USD it doesn’t seem that different.

4. And yeah, I bought a DS and an acekart. The acekart came in already, where as the DS lite is scheduled to arrive sometime betwee 8/15 and 9/15. Weird. The retailer for the acekart (and many other DS “illicit” crap) is good, I recommend them. The retailer for the DS, well, is Amazon/Target. So that’s that.

At any rate, the whole point of this rant is that I need to stop spending money. But the sales! They are so good!

Posted in Anime, Social | No Comments »

Ponyo in Theaters, Matsui homers way too often.

August 14th, 2009 omo

At any rate, Hideki Matsui homered for the 18th time this season last night, his second blast in the game in which a fan kinda-sorta interfered with Ichiro Suzuki during his leap at the right field wall. That means GoGo Curry for the third time in two weeks. It would be the third of four visits if today was a Thursday.

Tags: baseball

Posted in Anime, food | No Comments »

Nintendo DS Lite

August 10th, 2009 omo

I bit the bullet and bought a DS Lite. Which was on sale this week at target. I think after all the taxes, fees and cash back, it’ll come to $96 or so.

But I also ordered an Acekart 2.1. That’s an impulse buy…as I don’t even know if I’ll use it. But if I have it I will use it… It’s not like I’ll use a DS to watch video or listen to music anyways.

In retrospect a DSi would be a much better fit for me given the apps on it and it has a real browser of sorts, also you can put a SD card in it built-in. But that’s easily $50-70 more than this deal.

Tags: deals, ds

Posted in Gadgets, Games | No Comments »

Fighting the Fight

July 27th, 2009 omo

So I’ve been sick the past 3-4 days with a stomach malaise that turns into pain and back into a vague feeling of discomfort that may have involved light fever and other bowel issues, but I think given the tight sleep schedule I was trying to wrangle back from it was reasonable.

It’s finally 8 days after Otakon and I’ve at least gotten sleeping back on schedule, even if at the expense of writing some stuff for blogging and cleaning and whatever.

Just kind of thankful that I have the luxury of sick days, that I can recover while catching up on anime back log.

And that my unrest the day after Otakon did turn out to be fruitful–my PC hasn’t crashed since the BIOS upgrade.

I also don’t have a lot of stuff to report from Otakon besides that I think I’ve definitely hit the limit in terms of too much to do! It’s a perfect storm in a way, in terms of working the press gig and having so much to cover for once, and so much to look at and things to do, crowds to push, pictures that I didn’t take… Ah well.

And I still have crap to upload and what not! Insane.

Tags: otakon

Posted in Experimental, Social | No Comments »