Today, while I was sitting at work, I decided that it was time for me to change in my change. After sorting all the Gold dollars, Susan B's, Eisenhowers, half dollars, quarters, nickes, dimes and pennies, I wound up with $74.50 in change less than half dollars. I came up with $14.50 in half dollars and $201 in gold dollars and susan b's. I debated changing that change in, and in the end, decided against it - back into the scotch whiskey jar it went...waiting to be changed in at some other time. Sometimes (very rarely though) it is nice working at a bank since we have racks to easily sort the coin and I had all the wrappers I needed. And, since I'm a customer (it gets me direct deposit a day before payday), there was no charge for changing change (as opposed to the Coinstar machine I usually use which takes 8 or 9 cents on the dollar). So, I'm now $70 richer (though it went straight into my other bank account since I had some charges come through I forgot about) and I've got 3/4 of the way to go to fill up the whiskey jar again before I can cash out. Hopefully, by that time, I'll have $400 and can upgrade my video card.

Speaking of which, while at work today, I had some down time and read my latest CPU Magazine (see link below) and I got some new ideas for the computer I've been dreaming up over the past few months. The new Athlon 64 4000+ chips look amazing, but at $729, that's a bit high. Right now I'm planning on plugging in an Athlon 64 3500+ (939 pin) chip with a nForce4 Ultra motherboard (not sure the nForce4 SLI motherboard is worth it as I don't play enough games to justify the SLI). With the new nForce4 motherboards, I'll have to get a new graphics card to utilize the new PCI-E interface. Not something I wanted to do, but my Radeon 9500 is getting a bit outdated (how sad is that - it's only 12-15 months old). I'll then plug in 1 GB of DDR RAM (2x512 Corsair probably - as my hodge-podge 1 GB in this computer isn't the best - that's what I get for mixing brands). Not much else I need. I'll move over the dual layer DVD+-RW I have in this computer and put the CD-RW back in and the keyboard and trackball will move over too (I've got a 4 port KVM awaiting my new computer). To top it off, I'll most likely throw in one of the new 300GB Maxtor hard drives that just came out which feature command queueing and a 16MB buffer. Although...I am still considering having a Western Digital Raptor drive as my main operating drive with a secondary drive for storage. I just wish the prices would fall on those. A 74 GB 10,000 RPM drive still retails for about $130 where you can get 4x the storage for just $70 more. But the speed would most likely be noticeable - especially on a high-end system that I'm envisioning.

So...I'll either put together that computer or I'll put my money into a SFF box with three tv tuners and build my own PVR (personal video recorder) that I can network and watch any tv show I have recorded from any TV. Drop a couple 300 GB drives into that and you've got pretty much unlimited recording space. Plus, I have been thinking about ripping (*cough*MPAA:making a backup*cough*) of all my TV shows on DVD so they would be on demand as well...think of it - every Family Guy, Simpsons, Seinfeld, Alias, X-Files, CSI, on demand, from any tv. Maybe I'll need 4x300GB drives.

URL: Computer Power User Magazine