Andy Wood

Can a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) save you from getting a heart attack! I would answer, “YES” so that.. All this week, we are getting a lot of rain, wind .. you know.. a series of storm cells that will be pounding the area.

Last night there was a flicker that caused the UPS to start chirpping like they were singing in a choir, but everything was cool! Or so I thought, as it wasn’t until I tried to remote connect to my media center computer when I got an error message. Sure enough, I looked over and saw that the power wasn’t on and that would pretty much explain it. The plot thickens as the computer would not power up at all (CRAP!!)

I zipped down the road to my storage unit and took apart a spare computer (my grave yard) and removed that power supply and swapped it out. That fixed one problem, but the D drive wasn’t spinning up either, so this storm took our a 400watt power supprt and a hard drive. (nothing important on it)

Needless to say, the rest of the household was on a UPS and that pretty much saved me from having both a lighter wallet and heart failure and I have hooked up the refurb’d media pc to the UPS now too.

I got this movie coming from NetFlix:

Zombie Night which I never knew came out a couple of years ago, this is what happens..his postapocalyptic horror flick stars Danny Ticknovich, Sandra Segovic, Dwayne Moniz and Andrea Ramolo. In World War III’s nightmarish atomic aftermath, any survivors exposed to the chemical residue left behind soon begin to mutate into flesh-eating ghouls. Facing overwhelming odds, can the quick defeat the undead in the planet’s ultimate showdown?

I was also able to come acorss this slappy little Zombie Quiz that someone put together. I scored an 83 ..

The 2nd part of this review is not going to happen, not that I am unhappy with the phone, but I am unhappy from the company that I bought it from. They have very good support when you are getting ready to buy the phone, but after the $$ has swapped hands. The company Saberpoint have been very hard to get a hold of. They offer no phone support, only EMAIL!

I have been after them ever since I got the phone to get help with the bluetooth, I can’t seem to get it to work (yes, it is on) correctly! I can send to the phone from another phone or from a PC, but from the phone to any other device it just fails!

So, I contacted my credit card company and I have filled out all the forms.

I have already replaced it with a Motorola Razr V3 - Silver

As some of you might know, I have started to do GamersCircle Podcasts:

Currently I am only recording to my PC using Audacity 1.3 Beta which is a very easy to use audio application and is free too!

I think I am pretty set on the basic equipment -

As the microphone is going to be a Shure SM7B

The popular mixer for the art is the Behringer Eurorack UB802

I am going to go with Dan’s suggestion of the Sony MDR-7506 for the head phones

I am also getting an iRiver iFP-890

As soon as I have more to report on this topic, I will keep you all posted

I was watching the Ultimate Avengers DVD today, which I think is a great Direct To Video (DTV) movie. If you follow the Ultimates, I don’t think you will be disappointed and if you are new to comics. Then this is a great time to get introduced to characters from the marvel universe.

(Early Iron Man [Bob Layton style], Iron Man Centurion, War-Machine, Hulk Buster, Modern Day Iron Man, Ultimate Iron Man

As I sat in my den/computer room and watched the Hulk just tear into everyone on the team; (well, not everyone, there was someone that stood up to him) as he was bashing Iron Man I glanced up at collection of Iron action figures and started to laugh.

Before the can opener punch

After and oops!

I don’t get this, but perhaps that is because I didn’t major as an electrical engineer? The den here at GamersCircle HQ needed to have a new fan and light combo installed. The new one has been sitting on the floor in the box for about 6 months now and has been searving a very good purpose, “A Shelf!!”

This long weekend, I thought that it would be time to hook it all up. It wasn’t really hard, just never really did anything like that before. Did all the right things, powered down all of the printers, all of the computers, the tivo.. you know.. Then I went out to the breaker box and located the correct breaker, turned it off. (knew I had the right one, as the UPS units were chiming away)

Spent the next hour, taking apart the old ceiling fan, removing it from the ceiling (wow it was dusty up there) assembling the replacement unit, fishing the wires through all of the cosmetic pieces, getting it all wired up, making a couple of tests before I get it all sinched up and mounted. No one died, no cuts, no bruises, no electrical shock. It was a pretty successful endeavor all and all.

However; when I went to fire up the computer, the printers and all. It would seem that the Klipsch Promedia 4.1 didn’t want to give me any sound. I unplugged it a couple of time, opened it up to check the fuse, didn’t see anything wrong. (Shoulder shrug!)

It was off to my local Best Buy to see what they had to offer. I decided to go with the Logitech Z-5300e 5.1 THX setup.

About 2 weeks ago, I got an email from a friend of mine whom asked me, “Have you ever thought about doing a Podcast?” I have to admit, my initial response was, ” [sigh] Everyone is doing them! No!”

Then every day after that, that email sat in my ‘inbox’ and just plaqued me! “Have you ever thought about doing a Podcast?”, “Have you ever thought about doing a Podcast?”, “Have you ever thought about doing a Podcast?” Needless to say, he planeted a seed that just would not go away. After consulting a few (Chris, Todd and Steve) genius’ and then getting a couple of books , it would seem that the Podcasts are on thier way.

Head on over to the GamersCircle Podcast website and check them out.

I attempted to get todays release of Buy Star Wars: Empire at Wars from “Pricks are Us” (aka Game Stop) only to be turned away because, “Dude.. you didn’t reserve it.” Nice way of doing business, so I swung by the local Best Buy and got it with no problem and without even knowing, the person working the register was dropping a $10 gift card in my bag.

Whoah.. there fella.. I didn’t want to buy a gift card…Only to find out that they are passing out Gift Cards when you buy this game.. could be a Star Wars only thing.. but hey! That is cool with me.

My new plan with anal retentive business practices of “We have no Brains” (aka Game Stop) is to allow them to pucker up and kiss my white bung-hole!

I did a little “spring” cleaning on my gaming shelf, mainly because it had migrated to places around my computer monitor and under my desk.

These are the chosen few that I have seleted to keep on the shelf of fame.

These bore bastards are heading to eBay in the quick and near future.