MacGyver: Season 4 - Compressed from 32.4 gigs to 15.4 - a decrease of 52.4%. Grey's Anatomy has gone from 14.2 to 5.46 gigs, a decrease of 61.5%. Then...Seasons 2-5 of Viva La Bam (picked up Seasons 2&3 at Fry's today).

URL: Google

Sometimes life is just completely strange. As I blogged about a few weeks ago, my grandmother passed away. After that, my grandfather moved in with us and had been staying in our den. Today, as my mother and him drove down to Oceanside, the car careened off the side of the road, flipped, and skidded for about 40-50 feet before being stopped by some trees just north of the rest area on the I-5 South.

While my mom was somehow able to walk away with just bruises, my grandfather didn't make it. And while the pain of losing my grandmother was hard to cope with, it's even harder this time. I was much closer to my grandfather as I grew up spending hours with him in the garage building model trains. We spent countless hours playing cribbage while the women chatted. This one is going to be hard to get over.

On the positive side, my mom is doing fine, though she has refused to go to the hospital. And my grandfather probably went out how he wanted to. Growing up, he was a bit of a daredevil, and, in fact, one of his legs was shorter than the other due to a motorcycle crash. He always loved to be out and about and couldn't stand sitting still. So when he got a check a couple days ago, rather than mail it to his bank, he decided that he wanted to drive on down and deposit it in person. It's just who he was. And we loved him for it.

So my grandparents are reunited and we're having to deal with the second death this year. When it rains, it pours. 2006 just sucks.

URL: BB ~ Blazer's Blog

Not only has the Seasonic made my computer quieter, temps inside the case have dropped about 10 degrees. Previously, at idle (idle for me is 100% CPU, no graphics stress), the temps hovered around 40-42 degrees celsius. At the moment, it's reading 29. It may hop up to 32-33 while playing WoW due to heat dissipation from the video card working overtime, but it's amazing how efficient this power supply is. Also, while the NeoPower was only 480W and probably working at max power, the Seasonic is 600W and probably outputting around 450 at peak power, well under its maximum and thereby working cooler and quieter.

I just can't express how thoroughly impressed I am with this power supply.

And...Season 3 of MI-5 compressed 10 episodes to 9.34 gigs from 28.5 gigs - A savings of 67.2 percent. Note: those discs are absolutely wonderful - just two episodes per disc with amazing quality. Kudos to the BBC for putting out such a high-quality product.

URL: :::: Sea Sonic ::::

I want!!



URL: GERMANY -> Nike Swift Replica Jerseys - RIVER CITY SPORTS

Still nothing for the website, but I am still working on the tvSERV project. Recently ripped all of the "Best of Saturday Night Live" DVDs I had. Total for 8 compressed: 18.1 gigs. Now, to watch through them all - Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, John Belushi, Mike Myers, Phil Hartman, Tracy Morgan, and Will Ferrell Volumes 1 & 2. I'm just buying them up whenever they go on sale. Compressed from 27.2 gigs. Savings of 35.5 percent.

Last night I also compressed Curb Your Enthusiasm - Disc 1. 6 Episodes - 3.63 gigs compressed from 7.00 - A savings of 48.1%. Working on MI-5: Season 3 (minus disc three since it was damaged, but Amazon is sending a new one as we speak).

Also, Da Ali G Show: Season 2 - 6 episodes compressed from 9.86 gigs to 5.45 gigs. A savings of 44.7 percent.

Now available at any time for viewing on the HTPC:

Arrested Development: S1
Curb Your Enthusiasm: S1
Da Ali G Show: S2
Deadwood: S1
MacGyver: S1, S2, S3 (S4 coming soon)
MI-5: S1, S2, S3
Scrubs: S1, S2
Seinfeld: S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, S6
SNL: The Best of...(see actors above)
Viva La Bam: S1 (S4, S5 coming soon)
The X-Files: S1, S2, S4, S5 (S3, S6 coming soon)

Also to be added: Jackass, The Office (American Version), and possibly others.

URL: .: tvSERV :.

Excepting for a monitor upgrade, my computer building is finished. Today I received my second Seasonic S12 600W Power Supply and I am in love. The first one I put into my server since I had it turned off due to mandatory evacuations here in Orange due to the fires last week. Since I upgraded the server, I can hardly hear it (though it occasionally produces a high-pitched buzz which you can only hear when you're right next to it (e.g. at my computer)). Since the server took the S12 so well, I bought another one for my main computer as I had originally planned. I am now a die-hard Seasonic lover.

I have 2 Seasonic S12 600's in my two main computers and one Seasonic S12 430 in my HTPC. They are all just amazingly quiet for the amount of power they have to output. For example, my server has 2 optical drives, 6 hard drives and an Athlon 3700+ with 2 gigs of RAM. Combine all those with a case made for silence (not cooling) and the power supply has to ramp up a little extra to sufficiently cool itself and it's barely audible. My main computer has one optical drive and 5 hard drives along with a dual core Opteron and 2 gigs of RAM alongside a very power hungry eVGA 7800GT video card. And though I haven't stressed the video card yet, I have the Opteron running at 100% and I can effectively turn down my TV volume 5 or 6 notches (from 48 to about 42) for the same amount of clarity.

Combining the Seasonic S12 with my other upgrade this weekend, the main computer (ZEUS) is very quiet. My other upgrade was to replace the stock fan on the eVGA 7800GT video card which was making a ton of noise with a super-quiet Zalman VF700-Cu cooler. It is pure copper and though my video card runs at the same temperature under Windows, it runs about 2-3 degrees cooler at full load (when playing World of Warcraft) and is infinitely more quiet than the stock fan. So it's all done. I've got a Zalman on the video card and the CPU in my main rig and three Seasonics throughout my setup.

I do have to figure out how to quiet the HTPC a bit (I think the Thermalright XP90 is making all the noise and might be replaced with a Ninja Scythe or a Zalman 7000 (as my main rig has)), but other than that, I'm done.

Oh yeah, I am waiting for my tax refund to purchase a 24" widescreen LCD monitor from Dell. I'm waiting for the price to go down as well or for them to come out with the 2407FPW which adds HDMI support so it will work with Windows Vista if I ever upgrade to that. And even though I don't plan on upgrading when it comes out, I've been with my 17" Viewsonic since 2002 and if my 24" Dell lasts four years, the extra support will be a nice feature.

URL: :::: Sea Sonic ::::