I haven't said much the past ~4 months.  I don't have a very good excuse other than being busy and not having a lot to say.

I'm thankful that, at the time of this writing, I still have a job. My friends and family are healthy.  Life is going smoothly.  What more could I ask for?

Here is to a year better than the last. May anyone reading this be blessed!

I decided to take a gamble and go with an Asus monitor.  I've used their motherboards and dvd drives in the past without problems and the reviews on various sites were pretty good.  Since I prefer to see what I'm buying before even considering online ordering I went into Fry's for a gander.  I ended up finding 25.5 inch beauty that looked very appealing... the VW266H.

I got it home, set it up and was instantly unhappy.  No dead pixels but everything had a blue tint.  So I went in search of some settings others had used online to see what I could get the monitor to do.  The annoying thing is I didn't really find anything very helpful.  I may still take the monitor back since I haven't made my final decision but I figured I would post the settings I found to be the best after a couple hours of messing with them.

Splendid Mode: Standard Mode
Brightness: 70
Contrast: 92
Sharpness: 63
OverDrive: 60 (default)
Color Temp: User Mode
Red: 85
Green: 75
Blue: 62

So that is that.  I'm going to try the monitor out for a week and see how I feel.  After the changes I'm pretty happy but time will tell.

Times change.  Apparently, ATI has made a huge comeback after being purchased by AMD... and it shows.  What change my mind?  A coworker told me that he was in the same boat but decided to go with ATI when his built his most recent machine since the cost to performance ratio was better.  

After taking a look at what he proposed, a 1Gb Radeon 4890,  as an upgrade to my 512Mb Nvidia 8800 GT I said sure why not.  I went to Fry's (instant gratification much?) and bought one after work.  There was only one... maybe it is the overly strange shape of the box that is attracting people?  It only took about 20 minutes to install... mainly due to having to shuffle around the internal wiring coming from my power supply.  The card requires two 6-pin or 8-pin  power connections instead of the 1 my last card needed and I had pushed the wire I didn't need in an awkward place out of the way in my case.

The ATI Catalyst software seems to have been revamped and improved greatly.  Setting up my dual monitors was a breeze and everything integrated perfectly into Windows 7.  My FPS in WoW went from 60 to 140 (outside Dalaran).  An incredible improvement. 

ATI Radeon 4890

I've only ran into a few problems... and I am going to list their solutions here in case they may help anyone.

Extra hard drives don't show up and can not be accessed... but Disk Manager can see it!
This ended up being a pretty simple issue to remedy. Right click on the drive in question and go to "Properties" and you will find an option to "Add a drive letter" to the disk. Just give it a drive letter and you are on your way...

Symantec anti-virus would not install...
I ended up going with AVG Free, since no matter what I tried, Symantec would not install correctly.

Apart from that I've had no issues and everything works great so far.

I'm still going to the gym, eating healthy and all that... which brings up something I saw on Consumerist a week ago. Two clowns (working at a Domino's pizza) thought it was funny to make a video where they do horrible things to food while they prepare it. Despite the possibility of the incident being a "YouTube prank", it just reaffirms my already solid disinterest in eating food prepared by anyone I don't know. While I don't care for their pizza, I do feel pity for Domino's pizza... more power to Domino's for taking them to court. Other news I've been watching closely is the case against The Pirate Bay - where the greedy corporations are trying to stifle technology (imo) to make another dollar because they aren't innovative enough to utilize P2P for their own benefit. I hope TPB wins either the 'conflict of interest', which would make the guilty verdict be thrown out, if not that at least to win their appeal.

Let's see what else? I am looking for a new place to live since my lease ends in August and I am ready for a change after being at my current residence for over two years. I have a few ideas but I fully intend on taking my time until I find exactly the right fit.

EXTINA® (ketoconazole) Foam, 2% is used on the skin (topical) to treat a skin condition called seborrheic dermatitis in patients 12 years of age and older.

www.extina.com

I have had issues with seborrheic dermatits and psoriasis since I was around fifteen. Year after year the condition has worsened and finally I got so annoyed by it I could take no more. I went to the dermatologist and he suggested I use a prescription product called EXTINA.  I have been using EXTINA foam for approximately 2 months now and the results have floored me.  About 40% of my skin (scalp, face, chest, shoulders, back and legs) displayed symptoms (redness, scaling,etc) which made me pretty self conscious at times.  Especially due to the fact that I couldn't wear anything darker than gray without it looking terrible by the end of the day.  Unfortunately, there is no generic and the product is expensive even after insurance, but personally I feel it has totally been worth it.  Once the symptoms have been decreased you can lessen the usage significantly - just enough to keep things under control.  As far as side effects, the first month that I used EXTINA every time I put it on it felt like using pure alcohol after shaving. Ouch!  However, as the symptoms have decreased so has the burning.  If you are suffering from this disease EXTINA may be able to provide relief.

Like most techno savy individuals I find myself frequently needing to help family and friends to fix their computer problems.  Most of the time the  issue is something I would be able to fix within a few minutes if I were physically at the location.  Since that can't always be the case I have taken to remotely connect whenever possible in order to be as efficient as possible.  Previously I used Window's Remote Desktop feature to do this but recently something changed with my mom's router/computer configuration that kept me from making a connection to her machine.  After multiple failed attempts I was about to give up when I stumbled across an application called CrossLoop.  CrossLoop is a "simple, secure" and FREE method of connecting remotely.  All that is necessary is for both parties involved to download and install the CrossLoop application and create an account.  Once everything is set up you will see a screen like below... allowing you to either share (give access) or access (gain access) to a machine remotely.

Access

Share

That is all there is to it. The application takes care of the rest and you can be on your way to fixing problems in less than 2 minutes! So far I have had no issues and connected at least 4-5 times to someone's PC to help out.

Give it a try!

I felt cold chills the first time I listened to the track No One Knows.  And bringing Anette Olzon from one of my other favorite bands, Nightwish, for the track Follow Me is just icing.  Check it out below!

Incredible!  Buy it.  Now!

They came out pretty strong in the beginning but the other team prevailed in the end.  I could see doing this again.  My only complaint being that I didn't think to bring a mat... 2 hours of sitting on concrete isn't cool.

Eastwood plays the role of a miserable and bitter Korean War vet that has but one remaining love... his flawlessly maintained 1972 Gran Torino.  Without spoiling the movie all I will say is that initially Eastwood's character "Walt" wants nothing to do with his Hmong neighbors but eventually finds himself protecing them from the local gang members.

I was either laughing or completely drawn into the moment from starting scene to finish.  I had never heard of the Hmong people prior to JoAnn... I hope this film makes Americans a bit more aware of their presence.  Definitely a good movie to check out!