:: theMediaman journal ::

:: Sunday, December 16, 2001 ::

Ok, another bit of a pause between journal entries... I seem to have my peaks and troughs when keeping up to date. However, since getting my new computer this weekend (and it's FAST!) other things have happened. I'll focus on that.

Friday night I was to join Laura and crew for her birthday fun at Jack Astors. It started snowing shortly before I left work, and by 9:00 there was three inches of snow on the ground and it was still falling. I might have considered going anyway - using my extensive Barrie Winter driving expertise to guide my path. However, the 404 and all other highways had cars in the ditch and there was no sand/salt on the ground being the first accumulation of the year. Most importantly, while I'm somewhat confident of my own driving ability in the snow, I'm very skeptical about the average Toronto driver's skills. So I just stayed at home and watched some TV.

Saturday I got to spend with Simone. I picked her up late afternoon and chatted with her mom, sampling some baked goodies along the way. We drove to Etobicoke to pick up my new computer. After I did a basic tidy I was able to fit the new 17" monitor on my desk beside my old system. I booted it up and in less than 60 seconds I had a desktop - all Windows XP.

...and this thing is FAST! I got massive benchmarking scores in 3D tests and I haven't even tweaked anything yet. I have a very high-end heatsink and fan running on the CPU to dissipate heat, so I should be able to over clock my system to get it going even faster.

Despite the attraction to a new computer, Simone and I went to East Side Marios for dinner and Oceans Eleven afterwards. This is a sweet film. There is nothing I love more than a good heist flick, and this is it. Plenty of twists and turns that the viewer just doesn't expect. I wouldn't say that it's a film that you have to go out and get the theatre experience, but definitely see it when you get a chance.

Sunday I went to Kitchener-Waterloo for a visit with Syl, and a meeting with Reg. The website is still moving forward, and I'll be very excited to add this to my portfolio. I also got to see Ruth for the first time in AGES... she and Sara were making a Casselman Sisters gift CD for their parents (I'm giving away the surprise since there are low odds that Ruth and Sara's parents actually read my journal). Sara's talented fingers in concert (hee hee) with Ruth's angelic voice mixed on Reggie's desktop media monster was producing some beautiful music...

...I'm tempted to take up a singing career again. Maybe something Silverchair-ish.

:: Stephen 11:45 PM [+] ::

...

Last night I drove to Ajax to see Frederick on his first day. I took pictures ,^_^.

Hopefully I'll get photos of my other new nephew, Robert, up online soon too.

:: Stephen 10:20 AM [+] ::

...

There is a new Clark and his name is Frederick James.

Frederick was born this morning. I haven't talked to the parents, Alison or David yet, but I hope to have photos when I go to visit them all in Ajax tomorrow. He was born 8 lbs 13 oz. - it doesn't sound like a lot relative to Erin's birth weight of over 10 lbs, but I'm sure Ali would disagree.

My brother, Dave, now has a boy. Odds are that it'll be only a short while before he's rummaging through Canadian Tire to find a baby-sized tool belt. Now that Erin is the only one of her Clark cousins that is a girl, it looks like she'll be a rose amongst the thorns. However, on her mother's side of the family, she's got two girls to play with... and she's always got her Crazy Uncle Stephen and his Magical Bubble Wand...

...I've already mesmerized Erin with my charm. Now I need to start on Frederick. When Dean and Robert come back from Japan, I'll have some catching up to do - but I'm positive that I can pull it off. And before you know it, I'll have compensated for not being the cutest one in the family anymore with being the most powerful over all the new generation of Clarks!

Until then I'll just enjoy the blowing bubbles and the playing with toy cars.

Welcome, Frederick.

:: Stephen 11:45 PM [+] ::

...

OK, so Rogers Cable Internet access is up again. However, the incoming and outgoing e-mail servers are non-existent. I can still receive e-mail from theMediaman.com and my ancient SGCI account, but my @rogers.com account can't be reached. That's not such a problem since I don't really use that e-mail address, but it is a problem that I can't send e-mail. Even if I want to send e-mail through my theMediaman.com account, I have to send it through Rogers' server.

Last night I couldn't find the server - it literally didn't exist. I tried several networking tricks to find it, but only found the POP server - which means that I can now receive e-mail from stephenclark4448a(at)rogers.com (stupid arbitrarily assigned e-mail address). I still can't send e-mail.

After about half an hour running through retard steps on Rogers Tech Support with a guy who would not listen to what the problem REALLY WAS, he finally told me to call the main tech line instead of the e-mail configuration tech line. Fully aware that the queue for tech support is a 10 minute wait and it was already 1:30 in the morning, I begged for him to find a way to transfer me right in. Considering the fact that he couldn't configure a custom e-mail account without immaculately detailed instructions to save his life, my confidence that he would be able to do so was limited. And I was right. He gave me a phone number to call and sent me on my way.

...oh, and the dude had a periodic cough that he would pleasantly share with me without warning. My ear still hurts.

I hate humans.

:: Stephen 10:01 AM [+] ::

...

Rogers went up and down all weekend... well, more down than up. When I was able to connect, only a few connections would work and only for a few minutes before outright dying. The good thing is that I hardly noticed since my sleeping patterns were so screwed.

At work on Friday I was coming off the end of a cold. Really, I had a couple of stomach cramps early in the week that I attributed to my own poor cooking, but my body was definitely flushing something out Friday. After four hours of sleep when I got home, I woke up to a message from Hwan asking if I wanted to join in on the weekly LANparty. Despite my better judgement I spent the night playing Starcraft. Luckily Hwan, QYV and a2chow are wicked players and more than made up for my newbie lack of skill.

Around 8:00 AM I went home, slept for much of the day, woke up and worked on the Clark Family Calendar 2002. Right now I'm just doing the layout and templates. The new computer (still unsure what it'll be named) will be here next week and with more processing power, and with it comes the ability to handle large graphics without waiting ten minutes to see the effects of my touch-ups.

Went for coffee with Simone - she's crunching her way through exams right now and needed a break. It timed well with my own break from the calendar. Simone has the same kind of mind as I do where it can sporadically jump from deep, political insight to a two dimensional analysis of Timbits to a third-person point of view on the media industry. Imagine my rants in verbal form and the smell of Tim Hortons coffee and you get what this part of the evening was like.

Returned Simone to her studies around midnight and returned to the calendar for another five hours. After a sleep that took me clear through my weekly session of "Coronation Street", I woke up and headed to Barrie. Several things accomplished there; scanning photos for the calendar, pulling half a pound of knotted hair out of the cat with a brush, unsuccessful attempt to install USB into Dad's computer, home-cooked meal and, of course, quality time with my Mom and Dad.

Well, my Rogers connection is back and my new system is only days away. Hence, the end of my productivity.

:: Stephen 1:26 AM [+] ::

...

Fully aware that I was out of food (well, at least vegetables) at home, I picked up a Swiss Chalet Festive Special. Having to suffer with Lindt chocolates instead of a Toblerone is not a great ordeal... in fact, it's probably a testament to how well off Canadians are that we can justify complaining about something like this. However, it doesn't change the fact that the Festive Special has always had a Toblerone and now comes with little chocolate truffles.

This is blasphemy. Last year, Rick Mercer did a bit on 22 Minutes about the new included dessert. Either people didn't know or displayed mild disappointment. Perhaps a movement is needed. Perhaps I should set up a petition to have the Toblerone's brought back as a standard of Christmas for Canadians everywhere...

...nah. I'm getting my new computer in a couple of days and that'll probably take up most of my time.

:: Stephen 12:56 AM [+] ::

...

Definitely a productive day. First, I finished the last of my projects at work. Now I'm strolling around begging for people to give me work to do or let me help with theirs. Normally this would be an excellent example of watch what you wish for, but not in this case. Being swamped with duties I don't enjoy would be only slightly more painful than what I'm currently going through... and it's also better for my image when I go in for my review.

Second, my pining for Japanese culture sparked a sudden interest to find and rent "Gung Ho". Another reason I love my Rogers - I walked in and it was sitting there on the shelf, waiting for me. My only worry is that the movie's timing (mid-80's) might put a negative spin on the Japanese.

Interesting side-note: When they open the case to check that the video on the inside is the same as what's labelled on the outside, they now check to make sure the video is completely rewound. At first I thought it was my imagination, but I've since rented several movies and every one has been set to the beginning. Either I'm hitting a lucky streak with videos or they actually acted on my letter to Rogers Video Customer Care.

Third, the version 1.1 of this page includes a modified side bar so that all archived entires are sorted by calendar month instead of calendar week. It cleans up the page a little and buys me enough time to push off the version 2.0 of this page until the new year when I'll have a little more time... and a new computer.

Bringing me to four. The order for my new computer went in today and they've started collecting the parts to build it. The P166 will forever remain the "MediaBeast" and will probably spend most of it's time running protein folding simulations to assist in finding treatments for Alzheimer. Here's the specs for my new, unnamed system with the parts that non-techies should understand bolded for your convenience. Links to reviews have also been included for most items:

• AMD Athlon XP 1700+ (1.47 GHz) CPU
  
• Thermalright SK-6 Copper heat sink with Delta fan
  
• Asus A7V266 ATX KT 266
  
• 256 DDR RAM
  
• Maxtor ATA/133 7200 RPM 40 GB hard drive
  
• 3 1/2" floppy drive
  
• ATI Radeon 7500 DVI 64 MB dual monitor & TV-out video card
  
• Pioneer 16x DVD-ROM
  
• SoundBlaster Live! Value 5.1 channel
  
• 10/100 Ethernet network card
  
• KeyTronic Win95 keyboard
  
• Windows XP Home Edition
  
• Optiquest Q71 17" monitor (max rez 1280x1024, 0.27dp)
  
• Microsoft three-button scroll-mouse (from my old computer, MediaBeast)
  
• 8x/4x/32x CD-RW (also from MediaBeast)
  

:: Stephen 7:39 PM [+] ::

...

Redoing my specs for the new computer, I've yanked about $200 off by choosing a CPU case that is not as pretty as my first choice, use my current speakers for a while instead of buying new ones, a 17" monitor instead of 19" and a few other minor changes that aren't worth mentioning here.

The 17" monitor will do me fine for the time being and will be easier to pack into the car to head to any LANparties *hint* *hint* *hint*

When I become rich and famous (I'm planning for next April-ish) then I can pick up a 19" and use the 17" as a secondary monitor. The video card I'm probably getting supports dual-monitor -- something that has come in very handy on multiple occasions at work when working in Flash or Adobe Premiere.

:: Stephen 1:14 AM [+] ::

...

Visa didn't raise my limit as high as I hoped they would. Now I'm about $1500 short of my plan to get a computer. I'll have to do some creative rearranging of funds, but I'm smart - I'll figure it out. Visa probably thinks that I'm trying to get away with something. They're probably right, but I do have a pay raise due. Not to mention that this freelance contract will pay for at least half of the new system - so what's the problem, guy?

I'm bored. I think I'll do some work now...

:: Stephen 1:29 PM [+] ::

...

Saturday, I drove to Waterloo for a meeting with Reg and a few other New Media specialists. Sitting in that room with Reg, Kiwi, some audio-mixing master and a fifth guy who's designing the interface (I think), it seems to be a real dream-team that's been assembled and I'm anxious to see how it all gels...

...and I'm going to be getting a new computer. Since all I have is my Pentium 166 with 64 MB RAM, I really don't have a choice. Before this weekend, I wanted a computer. However, if it means that I can get freelance contracts, I now "need" a computer. I'm probably going to put the order in this week.

Here's the specs (and some layman-izing so you understand)
AMD 1.47 GHZ (the competitor to Intel... about as powerful as the Pentium 4 1.7 GHz)
512 MB RAM
40 GB hard drive
16x DVD-ROM
8x CD-burner (from my current system)
Soundblaster soundcard (with 5.1 surround support)
2.1 Speaker system (I can add the other 2 speakers later)
19" monitor
Windows XP

sweeeeeet.....

:: Stephen 4:01 PM [+] ::

...