So you may notice the new logo and color scheme. Pardon my dust while I screw around trying to get the colors relatively decent. It will take a day or two to go through, but I'm pointing my new domain afterglide.com to this site. If you recall, I had previously been using policenation.com. I'll keep pointing that domain here, but I felt it was a little too harsh sounding for the goofy-ass nature of my typical rantings. Afterglide.com is a bit more mellow sounding. What does it mean? Eh...nothing really. Just sounded cool. Like a combo of afterglow and astroglide (theoretically the astroglide would come first, then the afterglow, right?) *grin*

One of my Christmas gifts this year was a Mukka Express stovetop cappuccino maker (the aluminum one, not the tacky cowhide looking one). I'd put it on my wishlist half-jokingly since it was a bit on the pricey side, or so I thought. Now if you are a utter cappuccino snob, honestly, I don't know how this thing would measure up, but so far it rather impressive in it's simplicity. The milk steaming, mixing in of the espresso, and the foam are all done in one shot. Using it is relatively easy. Measure the right amount of water to put into the bottom steamer, plop in the metal espresso filter, pour the ground espresso coffee into the filter, screw on the top, and fill the pot up to the line with milk. Just want cafe latte? Leave the pressure valve open. Want cappuccino with froth? Push the button down. I like the froth personally. Set it on the stove, crank it up to medium high, and about 5 minutes later, you hear a distinctive POP and a WOOSH, and you've got cappuccino! Pour it into the cup, spoon out the froth, and there you go. It makes enough to fill two regular-sized coffee cups or one large latte mug.

I've got the process down enough that I can get the whole thing started in a little over a minute. Water, coffee, milk, heat, walk away. And that's the other nice thing. I can go into the living room or to my computer on the other side of the house and not have to babysit it. The pop and woosh are fairly loud and hard to miss.

Most importantly, I found sugar free mocha syrup at Rainbow last night, so now I can make skim sugar-free mochas at home! Sweet! Oh, God. I just heard myself say that. They're right. I've been watching too much Queer Eye.

UPDATE: I've now been using my Mukka Express for a little over 4 months, and it still am quite pleased with it. However, I've found that the twist on cap that pops to release the espresso and foam the milk sometimes releases too early, making for a lukewarm, foamless latte. I wonder, however, if it is because I've allowed a thin layer of burnt milk to form inside, reducing the heating efficiency. I'll have to give it a thorough scrubbing and report the results.

Here is a feel good, warm fuzzies customer service story that is the complete opposite experience of dealing with MSI. I've posted the MSI story here, but the synopsis is that I bought a video card from them in March, in July the fan started whining and rattling like it was on it's last legs. I contacted MSI customer support, was assured it would be taken care of, and FOUR MONTHS later, I contacted them again, finally got a response, and 2 weeks later, was sent the wrong part. Thanks for nothing. I contacted them again, and just last week, received the correctly replacement part. That is an example of how NOT to treat your customer. Here is an example of how every customer wants to be treated...

All of my workouts this time of year typically are at home running on the treadmill or lifting weights with my PowerBlock weights and PowerBlock adjustable bench. If you're not familiar with PowerBlock (see their website), they are adjustable dumbbells. All of the dumbbells are blocks of weights nested inside of each other. Want 20 lbs? Pull the pin out, and select 20 for each one. Want 60 lbs? Well, you get the idea. I suppose you could equate it to the ease adjusting the weight on a weight machine, except it is in free weights. The other advantage is that you don't have a load of dumbbells littering workout area. Just two neat, compact little bricks of weights.

So I've had an expanded Pro set of these weights for about 3 years now and just love 'em. Maybe 2 years ago, the weight selection pins on mine started cracking and falling apart. Hmm...very disappointing. I emailed their customer service to see if I could get replacement pins under warranty, and within 2 hours, I had a phone call and an email from their owner, Greg Olson. He informed me that they had redesigned their pins to be more rugged, and that he'd already put a new pair in the mail for me. They were there the next day! The company is in Owatonna, MN, a little over an hour south of where I live, so the speed of the mail didn't surprise me, it was the quick response from Greg.

Flash forward to about a week ago. I got a little carried away lifting one day, and accidentally dropped one of the weights from a pretty good height at a very bad angle, bending a pin all to hell. Now it was nearly impossible to get the pin out. I wrestled it out, tried my best to bend it straight, but nothing I could do helped much. When you're used to a one-handed quick and slick weight change, screwing around with both hands struggling to pull that selection pin out every time is beyond frustrating.

Last night, I decided it was time to send another email to the company. This time, I explained that it was my bad dropping the weights and offered to pay for replacement pins. I mean really, they gave me great customer service, I'm thrilled with their product, and I have no problem forking over money to a good company to replace these pins. Sure enough, this morning I find an email from Greg Olson. New pins will be shipped via UPS today at no charge.

How many companies in this day and age will go out of their way like that? And for a customer who made a boneheaded move, admitted outright the damage was their own fault, and offered directly to pay for replacement parts? None that I can think of.

I've also seen in the last year or so that Bowflex started making a similar product where you turn a dial to adjust the weight. Now I'll admit, that looks easier and quicker than pulling pin out and putting it back in. But their dumbbells only go up to a little over 50 lbs each for 100 lbs total. That's less than half of what PowerBlock can be expanded to (up to 130 lbs each for a total of 260 lbs). Bowflex's 50 lbs set has an MSRP (and I don't know if you can order them anywhere but directly from Bowflex--help me out if you know otherwise) of $399. A 50 lb "Elite" set of PowerBlock weights goes for $349. But you can get a personal, less expandable 45 lb set for $239. Plus you can get them cheaper in a lot of fitness stores. And here's the kicker--is Bowflex going to give you the speed and quality of customer service the manufacturer of PowerBlock will? I'm sure they have good customer service, but I highly doubt a company of their size can provide that level of personal service.

And no, this is not a paid endorsement. *grin* I am that thoroughly impressed with PowerBlock and their manufacturer, Intellbell and wanted to pass my experience along to you. So if you're looking for free weights, or even if you're considering a machine, check out a set of PowerBlock weights.

Ha ha...so see my previous assorted postings regarding failing computer and ceiling fans. I dropped $30 at Microcenter for a high-falutin' replacement fan for my graphic card after the BRAND NEW manufacturer fan started rattling. Well the good news is twofold. First, the replacement warranty fan came from the manufacturer, and second, the existing fan suddenly stopped rattling. So I'm leaving it be for now. If it starts rattling again, I've got a backup. That's right, buttholes--I returned the fan and saved myself $30. $30 that I'm sure I'll find another way to spend on something stupid. Electric handlebar mustache cream!

Christmas on the farm in North Dakota is walking up to the front door of your mom's house and seeing a full spinal column from a deer in the front yard. Dogs drag in the most interesting things.

Merry Christmas

North Dakota, here I come! (insert 60's surf music here)

Um...yeah. Enjoy the holidays, everybody!

Yep, it's crunch time again. I have a hard deadline coming up at work that I'm working my butt off to meet. Today I was mildly irked because I was informed we had a 5 pm meeting. Um yeah, that's great, but I usually work 7:30 to 4:15 and had planned on leaving around my normal time. It was a bit of a misunderstanding, really. Our part-time system administrator filling in while we look for a full-time one wanted to go over a few things with us in a quick meeting and didn't realize I work such early hours. We've done this a few times in the past, but usually have gotten a heads up a couple days in advance.

Now I say mildly irked because like I said, he just didn't know my hours. He also has a separate full time job and is doing this as a favor to our boss, who he knows quite well. He can't get there earlier than 5. Not only that, but my boss made it pretty clear that with the short notice, he'd understand completely if I had to skip the meeting. Regardless, I felt somewhat obligated, as it was fairly important subject matter, and I wanted to participate.

Totally making up for the late meeting, I found out tonight that our deadline has been pushed back by at least a week. So that eases the pressure...somewhat. I still plan on keeping my head down and plowing ahead at the same pace, just in case I run into issues. And my boss gave me $125 in Buca gift cards tonight! How kick ass is that! He'd offered dinner to whoever could answer a question in a meeting a couple weeks ago, and I knew the answer. I had totally forgotten about it, so it was quite a nice surprise. I didn't expect it to be for so much, either.

So I get my fan shit situated over the last couple weeks, first replacing a dead graphics card fan, then a dying chipset fan. Now the fan on my brand friggin' new graphics card (I have two in my computer) is rattling like a street performer's change cup. WTF?? Screw it. If I have time tomorrow, I'm going to get another one of those high end replacement fans at Microcenter over luch or after work. This rattling fan shit has got to stop. All this and my ceiling fan in my bedroom now sounds like someone's trying to turn over a Buick with a bad alternator.

Perhaps I'm missing a message some greater power is trying to send to me through fans. Listen to the fans for they are your salvation. What? Just tell me! I don't read or hear subtext. Just give me the message already. I hear a rattling fan, I replace it or, if feasible, turn it off. I'm not going to sit next to it with the narrow end of a Victrola bell wedged in my ear trying to find out if voices are speaking to me from the ether. I already get enough voices coming from my soup spoons. Shut up, shut up, shut UUUPPPP!!!

In a rare moment where I actually saw a tv commercial (Tivo, I could kiss you if I weren't afraid of electrical shock...or disapproving stares), I saw a SuperAmerica commercial and was informed that a gift card from SuperAmerica makes a GREAT Christmas gift! Hmm...am I completely out of touch with reality here, or does that sound like about the shittiest, most thoughtless gift you could give someone aside from outright taking a big, viscous, peanut-filled dump in their stocking? Even if it was for a casual acquaintance or a former coworker, I couldn't fathom buying someone a gas station gift card. Unless they had some sort of consumer hardon for SuperAmerica. Then I suppose that would be a good gift. For everyone else, I'd give them the peanuty dump first.

The saga of my video card is at last over...for now. After being unable to get my new video card to work over the weekend, a card which theoretically was exactly the same as my old card, other than the manufacturer, my fancy-ass $30 replacement fan for the old video card arrived Monday. I plopped it onto the card, plunked it into my computer, and low and behold, it worked. Hmm...dare I press my luck? I took the new card, put it into the second slot (these particular video cards are designed to be chained together with a bridge to divide and conquery the processing of graphics while gaming), by some miracle managed to find the SLI bridge that came with my motherboard when I bought it back in March. It booted! Windows XP recognized it, it immediately asked me if I wanted to enable SLI, and blam!

Wow that new fan was quiet. I touched the card. And no vibration!!! Wait a minute...it wasn't spinning! The fan stuck out far enough that the new video card rested against it and kept it from spinning. Yikes. Shut down, shut down!!! The temporary solution? A simple wooden clothes pin. :-)

But throughout all of this, I'd noticed my chipset fan on the motherboard had started whining and vibrating. A sure sign that death is nigh for a cooling fan. Dammit. It was loud enough that it was driving me up the wall, even with the cover on the case. Aha! As you may recall, the manufacturer of my old card had sent me the wrong fan as a replacement. Would it work for my chipset? Um...no. Wrong connector. But wait! I snipped off the connector from the old chipset fan and the new one, spliced the connector onto the replacement fan, and voila! New fan! Oh, and of course I had to drill new mount holes in the heat sink, jury rig clips for it, and use the only glue I had in the house, Elmer's glue, to affix the fan to the fan casing. So obviously, this was a stopgap fix.

So today it was a quick jaunt to Microcenter over lunch with my coworker Jon, who was all to happy to tag along for some geeky computer part browsing. Found a replacement fan, thermal paste, and some of those little spring-loaded peg thingies for mounting fans and heatsinks. Ready to rock. Putting the new fan on was a snap. Thermal paste on chip, fan/heatsink on chip, pegs in holes. Plug in the little power cable. Blam (I say "blam" a lot and incidentally said it long before Emeril Le-what's-his-nut ever scared his grandma into spilling her soup her soup in her lap with a sudden and uncalled for "Bam!").

Ok, now what about this friggin' clothes pin in my computer. The solution is obvious. Take the manufacturer's fan off the new card, put it on the old card, and put the new fan on the new card. There! Now there's all sorts of space for that big-ass fan to spin free and clear. Power on! Yes! It boots! It works, it works, it--what the...dammit. The new chipset fan wasn't spinning. The problem was immediately apparent. The new chipset fan was taller than the old one, and the edge of one of the video cards was resting quite firmly on a fan blade. Fudgecicle. I had to ponder on this one a bit. For now, there are two pieces of cardboard wedged between the card and the fan casing. Can't have a home built 'puter without at least one kludge, huh?

I went as far as to install a different operating system on my computer (Windows Xp 64-bit -- I have a 64-bit AMD processor in my machine) and same shit. Put the new video card in, the damn thing won't boot up. I contacted the card manufacturer's tech support, but considering the shitty tech support I've received from these Taiwan-based computer equipment manufacturers in the past, I'm not holding my breath. I'll give them less than a week to respond, otherwise I'm returning it to newegg. Either way, like I said, the $25 I paid to have it overnighted here is now officially wasted money. Son of a bitch. And I wasted pretty much all of last night and a good chunk of this morning trying to figure out the issue.

Now the thing is, the card obviously isn't just plain dead in the water. My system shows the BIOS screen, memory check, etc. But as soon as windows starts to boot, nothin'. Black screen. I even left it that way for over an hour just to see if maybe it was chewing on something and taking a long tie to boot. Nope. My guess it's some horribly obscure incompatibility with something in my system. Memory, the motherboard, a controller, a chipset...who friggin' knows. Such are the risks of building your own computer I've found. You save money on a high end system, but you lose the savings and more in the time you spend tracking down pissant crap like this.

I fucking hate computers.

As a temporary workaround to at least be able to use my computer while the fan on the video card is kaput (and try to figure out why the hell my computer won't boot up with my NEW card in it!!!), I pointed a regular ol' every day fan inside my computer case. Using the graphic card monitoring software, I watched the temperature of the GPU drop from 100 degrees Celsius to 51 degrees Celsius. That was pretty toasty. Never mind the fact that I have a strong breeze blowing on the lower half of my body now, and it sounds like a wind tunnel when I sit at my 'puter. At least it will help me have the computer on so I can tinker with settings, install patches, updates, etc. to figure out what the hell the deal is.

So if you had little desire to wade through my moderately technically dense posting last night, the sub-Cliff's Notes version is that my computer at home is down. I have a crappy laptop at home, but my email and myspace access will be limited for the next day or so. Apologies if I'm not Johnny on the spot with my replies.

All you non geeks out there cover your eyes, put your fingers in your ears, and seal your buttholes shut because I'm about to talk shop.

Yesterday the warranty replacement fan for my Nvidia Geforce 6600GT video card manufactured by MSI arrived. Oh yeah, and it came nearly 5 months after I first reported the problem to MSI. Tonight I decided to put the fan and heatsink on, only to discover IT'S THE WRONG FRIGGIN' FAN!! Totally different heat sink, much smaller fan, and the power cable for the fan isn't even compatible with the plugin on the video card. For the fuck sake, people. I wrote them back, and this time got a reply right away.

To add insult to injury (and a cliched phrase to this blog), before I noticed that the heatsink/fan wasn't right, I'd removed the old one. The plastic clips are such that they are ruined once you pull the heatsink off. Now I had been running this card for months without a fan (I haven't done any gaming for a while). Now the card was running a little hot without the fan as it was, so I'm not going to chance running it without the heatsink. I have all sorts of old video cards, but they are AGP. My latest 'puter's slot is PCI express. So my computer is unusable (I'm on an ancient laptop as I type this)

I'm sick of screwing around with this crap, so I did the froogle.com and pricewatch.com thing for deals on cards. What kind of fool pays $25 for overnight shipping and rush processing on a video card? *raises his hand* I ordered another Geforce 6600GT from newegg.com (those guys rock for parts deals!!), but this time it's manufactured by Gigabtye. Brand new, $120. Not bad. They had a remanufactured Chaintech version for $110, but for $10 extra dollars, I'll get a fresh one, thanks. I also had a bad experience with Chaintech's shitty documentation and horribly designed, next-to-useless tech support website when I used one of their motherboards building my brother's new computer earlier this year.

Now, why pay $25 for overnight shipping? For that matter, why not wait until the FREE replacement fan gets here? I want my damn computer running ASAP, that's why. And it's still cheaper than if I'd bought the same card at Best Buy or CompUSA. The same model by a different manufacturer would have set me back $170-$200 AND I would have to pay sales tax on top of that.

The other reason is that now I finally have an excuse to have two cards running in my system. My motherboard is SLI capable, so I can chain these two video cards together and crank out more performance for certain games. My new card should get here Friday, which will get me up and running. Plus I ordered a third-part high performance, low noise fan replacement for the other one. Both will be here LOOOONG before my replacement fan from MSI comes. So weekend after this next, I plan on crankin' on some GTA San Andreas after a 5 month break.

Brown is the new purple. Now for those of you keeping score, this is a change from last month when brown was the new almond, purple was the new peach, and white was the new eggshell. It is also a sharp contrast from early in the summer when thistle became the new gainsboro and pale violet became the new salmon.

The fashion and interior decorating world's constant color swapping has effectively rendered existing RGB and Hexadecimal color maps useless. Never mind the hundreds of billions of dollars of televisions, computer monitors, graphics equipment, and latex paint that now have to be junked because designers in New York and Paris cannot settle on which color is which. Our landfills are already full of obselete technology leaching mercury, lead, and countless other toxins into our soil and water tables, and the target markets of E! and the Style Network just keep sending truckloads more there each day.

Effective immediately, I am declaring a rebalance and lockdown on the color palette. Black is black. Purple is purple. Periwinkle is Periwinkle, and so on. You may now go about your lives in peace. Thank you.

Hmm...I've realized that lately my blog has slowly devolved into--well, like any other blog. I was determined to make it fun and random like me. Like listing states I've pooped in or cryptic messages about conspiracies that don't exist. The last couple weeks, I've been just posting shit that's happened to me. How lame is that? Who the fuck CARES about my day to day life other than me? No one, that's who. I have little illusion about my audience posting here. It tends to be my friends and family and the occasional random passers by and looky loos.

But I've found that posting my pedestrian, mundane day to day bullshit to be a good diary. In the past, my email has been my diary. But at the moment, I'm not really regularly corresponding with anyone to the point that I relay my goings on.

So I could just make some stuff up, but I'm too lazy right now. Today, I drove to Bloomington to have the snow tires I'd bought online put onto my car and balanced. Ironically, the roads were terrible today. I didn't realize it was supposed to be snowy like this all day, so it caught me a little off guard when I rolled down the driveway (in my car--I waited to roll down my driveway naked until I got home).

It was a 2 hour wait, so I wandered over to Au Bon Pain across the parking lot for lunch. I'd never been in one before. Had a mocha and a turkey sandwich with swiss on a multi-grain roll with jalpeno mayo. Not bad. I passed the time by reading today's Star Tribune, chatting on the cell phone with my mom, and reading cnn.com on my phone. That took up a little over an hour. I wandered over to Cub, drifted aimlessly, wasted $1.50 on 3 tries at a hideously creepy Christmas doll in the claw machine thingy (I need a white elephant gift for a party after Christmas and thought that would be hilarious). I had nudged it perilously close to the chute, but ran out of quarters and was bored with the endeavor. Some lucky kid is going to get an easy shot at a psychologically scarring doll that looks like a real child painted in 1930's era racist blackface with a teddy bear suit on.

But now my car has snow tires, which worked great on the way back (last winter, I got stuck spinning at intersections several times with my old tires, and was determined not to have that happen this year).

Now it's just a new battery (possibly) and my 40k service in a couple weeks. Yee frickin' haw.

I was surprisingly motivated after work tonight. Worked out for an hour, looked at the time, and decided to take advantage of having most of the evening ahead of me. My two main objectives were to get a haircut and get the bulb for my headlight bulb replaced. I noticed this morning on the way to work that it was out. One fucking thing after another with the car, but more on that later.

Mission 1: Haircut--status: word to ya mutha. I lost my regular hair cut lady, Jesse, (I refuse to call her my stylist, as my testicles would resent me for days) when she left Cole's in Eagan after having her (and I presume her husband's) baby in June. So I've bounced around between 3 different gals there, all of whom have been ok, but not "Jesse great". The one who cut my hair tonight gets a thumbs up. I'd go back to her. Perhaps my new haircut lady has been found?

Mission 2: Get headlight bulb replaced--status: Yup. Bloomington Acura, of the Broken Rear Window Incident fame, is open until 1 am weeknights. Ever since the aforementioned incident, they have been extry customer service oriented when I stop by. Though some of that perception in tonight's case may simply be due to the outgoing, friendly nature of the guy who took care of my paperwork. And thank God, the RSX is still under warranty. 5 years/50,000 miles covers even rinky stuff like wiper inserts and wonder of wonders, bulb replacements. Good fucking thing too, since it would have set me back $40! And only $12 of that was for labor. Damn! When I had my shitmobile Ford Exploder, I'd just go to Napa, pay like $6 for a bulb and do it myself.

I was told it would be about an hour wait, so being in a restless and and quite hungry, I set in for a freezing walk to grab dinner at the Boston Market a few blocks away, just off of 494 and Lyndale. I wanted someplace where I could get some nice green veggies with my meal, and that was just the ticket. By the time I got there, I thought my goddamned ears were going to fall off of my head. I restored warmth to my body with a cup of decaf coffee. Too late in the evening for the fully leaded stuff.

The wind was mercifully to my back on the return walk to the dealership. A couple free cookies and half a cup of decaf later, they had my car ready to roll. Dude who handled my paperwork was back, and his level of friendliness was approaching almost uncomfortable levels. He hovered over me as I signed the bill and my credit card receipt happily chatting away. Shook my hand both before and after I signed everything. Um...ok. I like friendly, but I could have stood for him to back down from his 8 to about a 7. He wasn't completely overbearing, but just a little over the top. Incidentally, a 10 would be if he'd put his other pinky finger in my butt while shaking my hand. That's just too friendly...but call me sometime.

But my evening wasn't quite through. The car wash this time had ripped off my cheap little wide angle mirror I'd stuck on my driver's side mirror. Eh...it's a $2 mirror from Target. It's stayed on for 3.5 years and was bound to fall off eventually. So I stopped at Target on the way home (it was 10:30--gotta love holiday hours!), found a similar, but slightly bigger mirror for $3. Nice. But on the way out the door, I found $2 on the ground. Nicer.

So much more on the damn car though. Just regular maintenance type stuff, but it all seemed to need to get taken care of NOW. Just before Christmas. Perfect timing. $368 for new snow tires I bought online at tires.com. And it'll cost me about $70 to have them put on and balanced. My 40k mile service is also due. That'll set me back about $200-$300 if I recall. My brakes are squealing so those need to be looked at, and my battery is getting a little droopy (I think it's the battery anyway--Acura wanted $20 just to test it when I can get that for free at many auto parts stores).

Um...no, probably can't get away with that.