Interestingly enough, I have a disc called miniPE which is a bootable desktop with utilities. That booted w/o drives attached. Now I'm trying it with the drives to see what happens.

Hmm. PUlling the CMOS battery didn't fix it. Still starts for about 30 secs then powers down.

Thanks for the reply.

There's no cards in the unit, simply the memory at this point. But resetting the BIOS is a great idea. I'll give that a shot.

Hey dudes, trying to turn an old server into a media server for my home. It's "old" in that it's been sitting around, but for all intents & purposes, it is new. Anyway, prior to me noodling around, I would boot it, it would start running W2K, then about 3/4ths of the way across the progress bar, poof, off it went.

It seemed to be ok when I would boot to safe mode. I could use the computer that way, but, obviously it was crippled. It was my old business computer and I decided to shelve it. Until now.

I downloaded a bootable version of XBMC and burned it to CD. When I start the computer now, it boots to that, but again, about 30 seconds in, the computer just turns off. I thought maybe it had something to do with the attached hard drives (4x 80gb SATA Western Digitals), which were attached in a mirrored RAID, I believe. So I unplugged all 4 HDs and tried and got the same result.

I tried pulling the memory and would get the same shut down. Right now I'm running a built in memory tester from the XBMC CD and it appears to be working ok.

It's been a few years since I've done the computer thing. What could be causing this thing to shut down with nothing but memory and a DVD drive plugged in?

Apparently I'm now on the Plus (thanks Wire). Now what?

The M1 thing was sorta cool. It's the new GTI!

The Amazon commercials that do this (with that super cute singer) are cool. But this video by Coldplay takes the cake. Incredible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb9X5jMofEo

Hard to say, Ron. I worked for a year at Google on temp basis and basically came away with 2 friends, one of which is way too much drama to keep in touch with and the other, though super cool and a great guy to work with, is just too far away to really keep in touch with either. Though the wonders of IM/chat do help with those situations.

More recently, I started a new job and after about 2 weeks, feel quite comfy there and get along with most. Not sure if I'd necessarily hang with them on a regular basis outside of work, but I think the potential would be there more than with the friends I made at Google.

I can't say I've made any super close friends in the past few years. I think the friends I have are mainly ones I went to school with or grew up with. More recently, with bands I play with, I have met some people. As well as at church. But I find as I get older, I'm happy hanging with my family and seeing those folks every once in a while, as opposed to wanting to go out all the time and hang.

Anyway, I'd say if you have a connection with some people that you hit it off with, call/email and just go hang out. When I got into photography, I found that it was a great ice breaker and met some people that way as well.

Good luck and I'd say that it is great to have friends, but it's not all there is.

And by the way, happy birthday!

Just finished Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.



Started off interesting, I suppose. But then it was sort of like a mystery that had no end. It was all about feelings and missed opportunities and by the end, I was feeling gypped. I thought it was highly recommended but either I missed something or it was just lacking.

Now reading Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales. Already more interesting.

I love the Rock.

PURTY!

How to almost be hit by a car like a BOSS.

I really enjoyed those books, Eco. And I have to thank my local library for introducing Neville, Nesbo, and others to me on their "Recommended Reads" shelf. I have a bunch yet to go through, including a series about, what else, a detective, in Sweden, I think. A bit trendy, but I love 'em!

Hey, Coach Taylor is in it (Kyle Chandler). Want to watch!

Just finished Collusion by Stuart Neville, the follow up to his excellent The Ghosts of Belfast (aka The Twelve in the UK).

These two books were violent, intense, emotional and pretty brutal. Do read Ghosts/12 first, as they are definitely sequential.

Highly recommended.

[gamer belly]

And yeah, the gamer belly doesn't help.

 

Just remembered the name:

War of the Coprophages

I seem to remember enjoying this one quite a bit. Along with many of the others already mentioned.

Very excited for this, picked up Forza 3 today for $12 just to get my driving fix

$12?? Where??

I am interested in trying (if I get an invite) but I am in love with free wifi xfer by Winamp, as well as hard button controls when my screen is locked. Don't know if GM will do that, but the cloud access seems cool.

It does has options to use wifi in the settings and when you say 'hard button controls' do you mean the physical buttons? My 4 droid buttons don't do anything with music when the screen is locked, menu unlocks, the other three do nothing at all, but music puts three new buttons on the touchscreen, rew, play/pause and ffwd.

I have my G2 rooted and though Winamp does put touch buttons on screen for pause/play/ff/rew, etc, with Cyanogenmod, I'm able to control the phone w/o looking at it. I use my camera button as pause/unpause, and my volume buttons as, well, volume, as well as advance/rewind. With the screen controls, I have to touch, then look, then press.

Call me lazy.

I am interested in trying (if I get an invite) but I am in love with free wifi xfer by Winamp, as well as hard button controls when my screen is locked. Don't know if GM will do that, but the cloud access seems cool.

I am hooked on Home Run Battle 3D. Lots of fun.

Just caught up with this tonight and found it really excellent. The "battles" are really intriguing and the talent was darn good too.

I was rooting for Tyler and I'm glad Adam didn't choose "Mr. Almost," though the girl didn't do too much for me (vocally, anyway) either.

Must forward to brother.

Um, how amazing is Rush? Excuse me? How amazing is Rush.

Awesome. Will watch on lunch break.

WRT Rowdy: we went through a phase last summer where my son's room had pee in it seemingly several times a week. He's 6 and potty trained, but prone to accidents every once in a while. However, this pee thing was out of control. We figured it wasn't the dog as she's never had an accident inside and some of the places where we found pee were not medium dog sized places. And we figured it wasn't the cat as it would've smelled way worse.

Apparently it was my son after all, possibly waking in the middle of the night and just peeing somewhere (under bed, corner, in his Lite Brite). We never confirmed it, and it has gone away, but man, it was lame at the time.

Good luck with your cat. I feel your pain, though your pain seems much worse than mine at this time.

I'm not reusing the mats, but throwing them out once they're peed on. I think she just hates me.

We have a cat and I can't stand her.

She's probably about 17 years old now. For the past several months, every couple weeks, she'd pee on the floor by her litter box. Sometimes she'd drop the kids off there too.

Many times, it's even when the box is clean. Most times, the pee would run under our laundry dryer and I'd have to first slide a paper towel under to sop up the excess, then move the whole dryer to properly get the rest and clean. Big pain.

We found some mattress pads in our garage recently. They're designed for kid's small (crib) beds to go beneath the sheet and soak up any accidental bed wetting episodes. I started putting them on the floor next to the dryer to help with the problem. We also got her a lower litter box, thinking she's getting older and doesn't want to jump in this big box we had for her.

Anyway, it worked in that she'd go in the box with an occasional pee on the mat, which was easy enough to clean and no pee under the dryer. Trouble is, the past 3 days or so, she's been using the mat exclusively. Pee, poop, it doesn't matter, and all the while, the box is untouched.

So, long story longer, the dilemma is, am I training her to not use the box because of the mats? I gotta admit, it's gross, but it's easier to clean than a litter box. Plus, I can just flush the poop. Now that I think about it, maybe that's the way to go... put mats out, no more litter, no more dust/litter everywhere, fairly quick clean up.

Hmm. Quite the dilemma.

Hey gang, does anyone have an add on flash for their SLR?  I was wondering if even the basic Canon Speedlite would be worth it (Ex: Speedlite 270EX II), or do you really need to spend a little more to get something that will make a difference?

Someone gave me a Speedlite 420EX last year. It works, in that it's a flash, but it is pretty weak. Unfortunately, to get a big boy flash, you're gonna have to spend $300+, I think. But, then again, it is better than the pop up flash.

I have half a mind to report CK as it is FACT that KD is a huge Rush fan.

[Spoiler]

Just finished The King of Plagues last night. Was a quick read, but I found some of the main elements to be a little... off.

Spoiler for Hiden:

Specifically the Seven Kings and their "all-in" attitude with the Goddess. Just didn't seem authentic to me. Stuff like, "TO THE GODDESS!" just seemed weird.

You are all motherfathers. I was just about to go to bed and Jag had to SPOIL it for me!!!!

I enjoyed it as well, though I thought Levine was a bit arrogant. Hopefully he'll be cooler in the future.

I was turned off by Beverly, especially when she sang Joplin. It was way too cliche for me. I don't see her lasting too long.

[Spoiler]

Ron is great. Did you know he is

Spoiler for Hiden:

ONLY 42?? I had no idea!

I also love Donna. I'm trying to find a clip of when she rage tackles Leslie Knope in last season's hunting trip... but I can't find it.

YES! I watched this 20 times when it first aired!

You shot my Mercedes??

I was going to trade in a handful of games to try to reduce the buy in price.

Then I remembered that "trade-in" means "take it in the corn hole" and decided that I'll just wait for the price drop instead.

Or, if someone wants to "gift" it to me, that might be cool too.

No, but WRT King of Plagues, what a brutal first chapter! Yow.

Finished The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly today. I really enjoyed it and like the direction he's taking the Haller books.

Next up,  The King of Plagues by Maberry.

Wait. You said musicians. Drummers are... different.

How do you know the stage is level?
The drummer drools from both sides of his mouth.

What do you call a drummer who gets dumped by his girlfriend?
Homeless.

What do you call a guy that hangs out with a bunch of musicians?
A drummer.

But seriously, I have no idea about drums. Just make sure that when you get the kit, get yourself some earplugs too. And thank me later. Good luck!

I've been reading "The Day After Tomorrow" by Alan Folsom for what feels like forever now. The book is pretty good but it's a big one and it tends to drag in places. Also there is like 160 chapters and each is only a few pages long.

I should finish it this week.

I read that about 100 years ago, it seems. I also remember enjoying it quite a bit. Thanks for the reminder, I'll have to look it up again.

lil and Pete, have you finished "The King of Plagues" yet?  I'm 90% finished with it and will finish it at lunch today.

I loved it.  More of the same, but I actually think I like this one a little better than the first two. 

Not yet. Reading through Connelly's The Fifth Witness now and will do Maberry next!

There are people that have left this gig for better gigs. But that was before being told they were being let go.

Anyway, apparently they are cutting a bunch of people. So, people in the PacNW that want a gig at the Goog, COME ON DOWN!