Hello World...

Hello hello... time for me to make some use of the time I have outside of work... and maybe some time @ work too :p What have I been doing since the last time I was blogging? I guess I'll sum it up.

The wall in our front yard has collapsed so we have to replace that.

My sister has moved into the Strathcona area, and I'm very surprised at how nice her block is... among the projects.

We've recently had a death in the family. My aunt had a stroke and fell into a coma, she didn't recover and passed-on the following morning :(

Games I've played:
God of War II
Tomb Raider Anniversary
DiRT
Zelda: Twilight Princess
Rayman Raving Rabbids
Transformers: The Movie

Movies I've watched:
Epic Movie
Transformers (pre-screening)
The Good Shepherd
Hostel II
Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman
Sicko
28 Weeks Later
1408 (pre-screening)
Hannibal Rising
Bin Jip (3 Iron)
Devil's Playground
Jesus Camp
Lucky Number Sleven

TV Series
Dexter
Red Dwarf
Robot Chicken (s2)

Since I've been getting so lazy I'm also getting very restless... the summer has finally arrived, as late as it is, and I'm hoping to have enough motivation to go out and enjoy the sun. The other day I went with AK to a park in North Vancouver. It was perfect out... there was a nice breeze & the sun was shining bright, everywhere but the park that we were in :@ Anyway, we tossed a football around for about 2 hours, my arms hurt :/ Before that we ran around looking for a place to purchase a pair of baseball gloves. I found 2 that I had kickin' around in my house. Problem: they're from the 90s, hence, too small. Problem 2: AK is left-handed so he needs a left-handed glove... shite. Oh well, at least we got to enjoy the evening.

Hmm... what else has transpired? Oh... I attended a Company Golf Tournament on Friday! Haha... what a Gong Show! Drinking from noon... attempting to play 18 holes. Mmm, yes... much tomfoolery amok. We played at the course nearby, Mayfair Lakes. Just by looking at the name I'm sure you can deduce that it's a course with water... too much water :D One of my collegues is reported to have lost 8 balls in the drink :P Fortunately for me, my game didn't suck that bad! Well... maybe I'm lying, but this is my blog and I can make up whatever I want. Heh. Ok I sucked, but only after I left the tee... you see, when I go to the driving range I only ever hit off the tee, never from the matt. As a result, I can't hit a ball unless it's sitting on a tee, grrr. I even have footage of someone getting their golf cart hung up on one of the curbs, how great is that. She won't give me permission to post it :( Maybe if I get her drunk enough I can get her to sign an authorization :D

Back to XP...

Well... I've switched back to Windows XP professional and curbed Windows Vista for the time being, so I can get back to business!!!

I was soooo close to switching over to Linux or purchasing a MAC.. no, really, I was pissed. Don't get me wrong, Vista as an OS is superior to XP in that it offers alot more, has a fancier User Interface, and nifty little widgets, higher security, blah blah blah.... and I'm sure it runs like butter when you install any Microsoft Product with it... BUT... ALMOST NO THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE IS OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED!!! :@

I was almost willing to just stick it out and bear with it... but I NEED those applications to do my stuff. Something as simple as Winamp is not supported. What did that mean for me? That meant that I was not able to setup my shoutcast server. I didn't even bother to see if there was a hack solution to that problem. I didn't want to messy up my Vista install with bs hackjob solutions. I tried to install Alcohol 120% as well... just so I could make images and burn them for my co-worker... oh, and so I could make a couple of virtual drives... but nooooooooooo... I couldn't install that either.


My solution was to install Windows XP and create a dual-boot system. Easy enough, right? What a crock of shit... apparently Windows Vista and XP don't play nice... If you don't use the Vista boot disc to prepare your HD for an XP install and just decide to use the XP CD... it fracks your bootloader / partition table / don't know what else. :@


I'm no tech guru, but I have enough experience to know how to research extensively and implement my findings. Plus, it's not like I haven't built a dual boot system before... not to mention, I DID graduate from Tech College :)


So anyways, I put in the Vista Boot DVD and then realized that I hadn't partitioned my primary drive... actually, I did, but for some reason it didn't show the secondary partition. Instead of following the instructions that I found online and deallocating some space, I decided to pop in the XP CD and go from there... wow... not a good idea. Even XP couldn't see the other partition. When I tried to boot into Vista to free up some space it would do the POST.. but then just sit there, cursor blinking... fak.


When I used the Vista DVD to boot again, my primary drive wasn't showing up AT ALL!!! I was pissed... now when I used the XP CD... it DIDN'T show up!!!

After fiddling back-and-forth between the two I connected my backup drive to see if it would recognize that. Yes, it did... then when I put in the XP CD... it fracked it again... Either way I couldn't boot into my OS... And when I tried to run Vista Recovery it didn't do anything... there was no drive showing up thus no OS to install...


By this time I was irate.. and pretty anxious because my backup drive contains at least 3 years worth of data filling roughly 120 GB... about 15-20GB just music and a whole smackload of photos from over the years. Yes, I'm a pack rat :p

I remembered that a co-worker of mine had an external HD housing that I could put my SATA drives in so I drove back to my workplace at 9:30pm just so I could swap out my drives and check to see if the data was intact still. I was soooo prepared to pay a data recovery specialist some big bucks if I wasn't able to see the data on the drives... one thing that I was also upset about is that I couldn't remember if I had xferred my parents' vacation photos to my primary drive or my backup drive... that would have been 600+ photos down the drain.


After placing my drive in the housing I plugged it into my laptop and let out a sigh of relief. Everything was intact!... however, when I plugged in my primary drive, it said that it was not formatted, so ya... XP trashed the partition table!


I ended up formatting the drive and reinstalling XP... no more Vista for me, not until a Service Pack or I find out that the majority of 3rd party companies have announced Vista support. Then I'll go and purchase a new tower and build a new Vista PC. Oh yea, I had the same problem with Windows Media Center on the Final release of Vista Ultimate as I did with RC2. Even after installing the Vista Codec Pack and ensuring that my media would play on WMP 11 I fired up WMC, when I went to play the media... it told me that it couldn't find the required codecs. Screw you MS :@

If I didn't only have 1 tower, I would already be playing with Linux... and if MACs didn't cost so much... then I'd consider one of those too!!! If not just because of their awesome commercials :p

PCs are great! :)

Poor B.C. Place Stadium...

In case you haven't already heard... BC Place Stadium, one of the most recognized structures in the Vancouver cityscape, has had a tear in panel which has brought down her inflatible roof :(

The tear occurred in the first week of January during the wind/rain/snow storm that we had, but they're uncertain of the exact cause of the deflation.

Since then I've had conversations with different people and everyone says something different. One of the more interesting explanations is... when snow starts to settle on the roof, the keepers at BC Place will over-inflate the roof such that the snow will crack and slide off. It appears, however, that was not the case.

Below is some footage of the roof deflating...

If you would like to learn more about BC Place... click here!

I Never Procrastinate...

I guess this will be the final post before I officially leave the country ;) Unless, of course, I manage to get internet while I'm in the airplane O.O... how cool would that be? Mind you, if they do offer those services on-board, I'm sure I'll have sacrifice a limb or two. That being said, there aren't going to be any accompanying photos until later :(

On with it. Sooo, actually, this is the first post from my personal laptop (Toshiba satellite 5200) because, as you know my HardDrive died awhile back. The reason I bring this up is because...

Since I am going on this trip and my Personal Laptop was dead I HAD to go out and purchase a new HD in order to feed my 7.7 lb a day Laptop addiction. After consulting with ASOO my choice had been made. I wanted a: Momentus 5400 100G 2.5" Seagate 100GB 5400RPM ATA6 2.5" 8MB Cache for notebook. I was now officially on a mission.

I realized now that I probably shouldn't have put it off to the last minute cuz I had other things to do. I was expecting to have the weekend off but was asked to work a full day of OT and seeing as I'm taking 2.5 weeks off (unpaid) how could I turn down the offer? I got off work at 2pm and began my journey... here's a list:

1) Pick up car from dad's work (to run errands).
2) Get haircut. (I was past my bi-weekly limit and was almost at 'afro' stage).
3) Go to ATIC computers and pick up the HD.
4) Pack/install/reimage computer.
5) Try to call up AK for a last BBT run.

** 2 and 3 were kind of a toss-up but meh... actually, nm... 3 had priority but for some reason I didn't feel like I had my priorities straight that day **

*sigh* it's almost boarding time... more to come...

*** Update from Narita AirPort ***

I got a ride to H&R Block on Kingsway and grabbed the car. Then I booked it over to the Hair Dresser's on Rupert & 29^th Ave. There were 2 people in front of me so I was contemplating just leaving and to go pick up the HD. Turns out that it was a good thing that I didn't go, it didn't take long for Andy to cut the first 2 guy's hair :D Maybe he rushed cuz I tip him well? :p dunno.

I managed to get out of there by about 4pm and made it home by 4:10pm. I then proceeded to go to ATIC on Broadway. For some reason traffic this Saturday was retarded busy. wth. I took Boundary to Grandview and decided that Grandview was too narrow and traffic was too dense. I busted a right on Rupert and then took Broadway all the way down. What a waste of time. ATIC didn't have ANY Seagate notebook drives in stock! FEK!

I then proceeded to make my way up to NCIX. On the way there I got a phonecall from pa. "Can you go and pick Jeff (my cousin) up? I need him to sign his income tax papers". WTF... so I had to make a detour and head back home to pick up my cousin. I forgot to mention earlier that I initially went home to pick him up because he said he wanted to come along but subsequently decided to stay home (bastard).

After going home (yet again) we went to NCIX. Ya... they don't carry Seagate drives in stock. they order them. ARGH! You can imagine that I was frustrated by this time.

"So what DO you carry here?"
"Samsung."
"OK fine, let me see what you have."
"Uh..."
"Nevermind, do you have the 80GB HD that comes with the enclosure."
"Yes, it's on special."
"Fine, I'll take it."

$140 later (after taxes) I had my drive and started making my way over to H&R Block again.

"Hey Jeff, can you check the receipt?"
"Uh.. where is it?"
"Shit."

I had to go back to NCIX cuz I forgot to pick up the receipt after I left.

We eventually made it back to H&R Block, signed the papers and then went home. I spent the next hour and a half: swapping out the HDs, using the recovery discs (as I didn't have the time to do a clean install and do all the updates. Then I partitioned the drive, installed Ghost, and reimaged my laptop with the last one that I had. I was all set to go.... except that I had to take over 1.5hrs to xfer all the files that I had backed up on my external drive.



The remainder of the night I spent in-between chatting w/ Jacq, packing and installing the apps that I thought I'd need... so that was my day :p



I ended up passing out fairly early... without finishing my packing first but continued after I woke up this morning. Then I had to taxi my (work) laptop back to the office to lock it up. I'm not allowed to take it out of the country because of the sensitive information that's on it... (tho I know of a few people who have done so :p) psh.

frack.. I want to upload pictures.. but I'm not sure I have enough time :( Ah crap... they're boarding my flight... :@

Ciao for now.. I'll post the pics.. I promise ;)