chalkley3's Blogs

I wrote this up for a thread on SomethingAwful's Crackhead Clubhouse. It's quite personal to me, so if you're going to comment, save the rhetoric and vitriol for your weekly D.A.R.E meetings. I'm not going to write a boilerplate DRUGS R BAD disclaimer, but I will say that these substances need to be treated with extreme caution. They can bring good times, but also astonishing lows. If you are going to make the decision to take drugs, I ask that you approach them with respect, planning and maturity. They are unpredictable. They are illegal, and often dangerous. Don't go and ruin your shit by making off the cuff decisions about what might be fun or hilarious without being aware of the potential consequences.

Moderators: If I've broken any rules in this post, then please contact me immediately and I will take any action you reccomend.

Nicotine
Bad
I used to just bum smokes off my friends at parties, but later on I met some friends who used to smoke all the time, and that's when it really took off. I first bought a pouch of rolling tobacco for joints (port royal) and it just sort of got out of control from here. You really do accellerate into a full time smoker really easily, and you don't notice the hold it has on you until you try to quit for the first time. It's hell. Having said that, the social aspect of having friends who smoke, smoking while otherwise intoxicated, and the ritual of rollies still makes me smile. It's a false feeling, but it never really goes away. Pipes are entertaining, but quite a bit of work for me to be bothered with them.

Weed
Mixed
The main event. I love it dearly, but at times it can just be boring. I don't find it addictive, but if I have it, I smoke it pretty much compulsively 'till it's all gone - half the time all I end up doing is eating chips like I haven't seen food in years. I've had great times, but it's certainly not a means to an end unto itself. Plan your sessions for maximum good times and make the most of it. Sometimes the culture can be awesome, 420chan is one of the funniest places on the web, but other times it can seem a bit lame - full time stoners are often arcane douchebags, who've wasted their potential on something that should be little more than a brief interlude in your otherwise normal life.

Alcohol
Bad
I just can't really be bothered with drinking most of the time. It's pretty pricey, and I don't care for the taste. There's a sweet spot for me that marks the difference between depression and good times. One drink over, and it's ruined for me. It also makes me damn horny, but limp as spaghetti. Your mileage may vary.

Ritalin/Concerta
Good
I haven't done this much because of difficulties with supply, but it's never really been that bad. I feel a little hungover afterwards, but it's not nearly as bad as some of the experiences here. It varies for me from feeling like I have had too much caffiene and being generally unnoticeable, to making me very very speedy and animated. I've never gotten euphoria or anything other than a racy feeling, but I'm probably not taking enough. Cutting it up and snorting it can be a fun activity between friends - pretend you're a stock broker.

LSD
Mixed
Some of the most amazing experiences I've ever had were on LSD. It just overwhelms you, the sensory flood. I've never had full blown hallucinations, but at times I've seen fractal patterns just covering surfaces and the world taking on a whole new shade of surreal. I tend to get very jittery though, and it doesn't take much to make me feel uneasy or alone. I'm on a hiatus since one of my friends had a major freakout (couldn't remember who he was, what he was doing, where he was going - he just kept walking around the block trying to get home and ringing my doorbell as if he'd never left). I spent 4 guilt ridden hours with grating paranoia , which can feel like an eternity, worrying about him, but there wasn't much I could do to snap him out of it but wait. I feel responsible for him, even though it wasn't my fault (I sold it to him). Those negative feelings are still incredibly strong even 6 months later. Try it if you like, but be very careful - and be prepared for unexpected events. 12 hours in my opinion is just too long.

I still pine for the high points I've had on this, but the experience from last time has sort of filled me with uncertainty about it.

Xanax
Good
This does fucking nothing on it's own, but it makes weed very, very pleasant.

Things I'd like to try
DXM: I've heard good things about it, and the fact that I can buy it down the road makes me wonder why I haven't tried it already

Ketamine: I've heard wildly varying reports on this, but the positive effects sound attractive.

Shrooms: My friends warned me off it after a couple of attempts that ended in nothing, but I'm convinced that if I can find a decent supply it'd be fucking awesome (I blame you goons for this)

DMT: Can't decide whether I want this or not, for obvious reasons

MDMA: I can't believe I haven't had any of this, but the market in my area is dodgy at best - I don't know anyone who can sell me pills that don't have a bunch of shit in them.

Nitrous: Sounds like a laugh, but inhalants in general seem a little bit stupid. Still, if you're careful, it sounds hard to mess up.

I'd appreciate hearing from other people on this, and how you feel - it's never a boring topic.

*guitar solo*

SURE IS BORING AROUND HERE

I LOVE YOU GUYS

Not all sonic fans are retards, but indeed all retards are sonic fans.

LOVE IS OVER.

Since you all bitched so much about getting eye cancer from my last release, I repacked it with some tweaks & some toned down... tones.

ENJOY!

8-Bit Riot by =chalkley3 on deviantART

Wallpapers : trnctd

There's some weird shit going on with my TV setup right now. Let me explain. My TV tuner's cable popped out while I was moving my case around so I reached around to plug it back in. Upon touching the metal contact of the (coaxial) cable, I recieved a weak electrical shock. Further... ahem, testing of this effect made me find out that both the core and the shielding were delivering the current, and while not enough to do harm to me, when grounded on the chassis of my pc a small spark could be seen.

So I decided to do some Investigationing®.



That is my setup at the moment. Cable A is 1.5m long and Cable B is 20m long.

I decided to remove the splitter from the wall and plug a single cable in, and dug out the multimeter. Grounded, I measured around 40-42v AC current coming out of both cables. The same was measured direct from the wall socket. I have other wall sockets in the house but I have nothing to ground them to to test.

Now, the thing is, I've never noticed this current before, and my equipment is still working (although I'm leaving the TV tuner unplugged just in case. A 1700 dollar PC is a lot harder to replace than a 100 dollar set top box) without ill effect or interference. Now the antennae isn't amplified before it gets to either TV or PC, and the current is the wrong type to be a short circuit from the house (Aust. power is 240v AC. There would have been smoke, fire and a dead me if it was shorting with mains power) and judging from the pulse when I touched it it seemed about 10-20hz.

tl;dr What the fuck is this mysterious current, is it bad, and how do I get rid of it.

P. Diddy says:

VOTE OR DIE MOTHERFUCKERS.

now, where's <blink> when you need it?

Good christ this motherlicker is fast. Gecko might have some serious trouble on it's hands with Google's implementation of Webkit.

The real question is though is whether Chrome will get the add-ons and developer support. With FF addons such as AdBlock, I'll be interested to see how this goes.

I did try not to jump on the chrome bandwagon, but I got curious, and well, it's fucking fast. I mean safari on meth fast. Whether I keep using it remains to be seen...

Who are we kidding. We all do it. Whether it's music, games, movies or something else, everyone has their vice. We're all savvy internet users, we all know we're breaking the law, but are we aware of what we're doing? I'll be honest. I'm no saint. I have a 5000+ song music library, probably only 1500 of which is legal. I've been served C&D's for torrenting sims expansion packs, and I have 120GB of pirated TV shows. Where do you draw the line though?

I'm certainly no stranger to the more extreme e-brigands either, some of my good friends on some less than scrupulous IRC channels frequently boast their 3TB+ uTorrent downloads, some even with dedicated seedboxes to spread their wares around the world. I'm on the supplied side too, I've ripped DVDs and encoded music videos, although I try to stay away from sharing in the more litigious area of music.

I'm conflicted, friends.On one hand, I'm sure as hell not helping another cocaine addled celebrity to buy another Gold Plated Ferrari, I support the free sharing of information around the world. I have my own set of morals that I stick to, I don't download indie records, and I buy the stuff I really like. I frequently buy DVDs and boxsets, my shelf overflows with shiny anime collections and Adult Swim collections. I hate the way the RIAA works, and the way it's dug it's heels in to stubbornly protect it's outdated sales strategys. I hate the cult of celebrity. There's success, and there's excess. So you'd think I'd be pretty happy with myself, but I'm not.

I know, and I'm sure part of you knows when you download that this is coming out of someone's pocket. We assure ourselves "Well I wouldn't buy it anyway" (you're still getting it though, that's cheating isn't it?), "They're rich enough as it is" (true in most cases), but if everyone applied this logic, the entertainment business would collapse. True, while you're hardly pillaging the coffers of the band's who already made it, publicity is illusive. Many a time I've been surprised to hear that some artists I considered to be well off are actually not doing as well as they deserve because of piracy, and I feel very guilty about it.

Strangely enough, I hate PC game piracy (I won't judge you. not naming any names ¤onom, simply for the reason it's such a destructive cycle. "PC gaming is dying" they trumpet with aplomb. Well this is why. Small devs who embraced digital distribution have flourished, but all the big name publishers who refuse to change have instead moved to consoles to protect their bottom line. The irony is delicious. People buy a $3000 gaming PC and are then too cheap to pay the $50 for Crysis?

So, Napalm, I want to hear. How much do you download, how do you feel about it. Do you have moral reasons, or is it just because it's free. Would you be willing to change if the providers did. Let me know your opinions.

FlCl is a strange, strange show.

This weekend is rocking so far, I'm still high of the adrenalin from this match[ so we'll see how long that lasts. I'm busily working on my clan site which you can see a half baked preview of here which I'm super stoked about. I'm looking to register the domains but it's something I haven't embarked upon before. Can you recommend some good cheap registrants? Paypal is preferable too.

How's everyone else doing?

Oh yes, and Metalocalpse is fucking hilarious.

Feh. I'm having a bad week. I spent more effort than I should of on that uncle's (who has been very ungrateful about it, too) computer, I've had train credit machines eat my money, I've had some less than amusing infection require the use of antibiotics, and everyone on CoD4 has suddenly become a noobtoobing teamkilling prick. chalkley3 needs some manpons.

Have some .gif:

It's been a while since my last blog, for which I offer 3 explanations.

1. My 4850's came, so I've been indulging in the latest DX10 japery, hopping rooftops in Assassin's Creed and the like. Can't Sleep... Gaming.

2. I re-formatted my computer. I had some bugs left over from when I installed SP1 that couldn't be fixed any other way. As you can imagine there has been some downtime.

3. Shaped. Again. Fucking download cap. I hate you I hate you I hate you.

Oh look, shiny!



Founder's Circle II on DeviantART

"Hey kids, what time is it?"
"4am. Please dad, go back to bed. You scare me."
"Wrong, it's BADGE TIME!!!"
"NO DAD.. NO!"

This time, not one, but TWO hand crafted pieces of imaginary jewelery that looks so good you'd wear it even without clothes on.

This week I pander to:

The Developers of Napalm - You give us the features we know and love, and also occaisionally hate.



The Volunteers - For taking ӝspot's load. Work load, of course, you didn't think I was talking about something else did you?

Download the .ZIPs with all the juicy goods including transparent .PNGS, layered and fully editable .PSD files over on my deviant page.

Volunteer Pin by =chalkley3 on deviantART
Developer Medallion by =chalkley3 on deviantART

Also: Space Ghost: Coast to Coast is not funny. It just isn't.
Also Also: If you like a little pre-mixed electronica, I suggest you go and pick up "Mashed 4" by Ministry of Sound. One of the best compilations I've bought in a long time.

Remember those replacement fans I ordered? They came. After switching them on for the first time, I think I did too. My air cooling I think has surpassed the "extreme" level, and gone straight to "fucking retarded". It's a patch on some of the zany water setups, but excluding that guy who made a case out of 80mm fans, it's pretty damn impressive. These things push almost 70CFM at max RPM, and I have three of them pointing at my videocard, in addition to it's big ass cooler. No more overheating for you, oh hohoh no. I used to be doing around 60 idling, with these babies turned up I sit nicely at 20 degrees, which is not bad for an ambient temperature just a few degrees under. I haven't even been able to push it over 60 with ATITool's heat up program.

These things howl too, like a goddamn airbus. Not even my new X-540's can drown them out without making the other members of the house want to stab me in my violently siezuring-out-of-delight body. But it's ok, because even on half speed the own. I am happy. Also, the X540s are fucking awesome. How did I get by with 2.1 for so long.

But yeah, mounting these things was... trying. I bought this stainless steel bracket thingy so I could cool the backside of the card with the fans and such a setup is not without it's frustrations. I just hope to got I don't have to do it again anytime soon.

Pics will be forthcoming, but now: sleep.

Sorry folks for the repost, I tried to edit the last one, and that bug happened again. Basically, if I check the "Do not reset post date", the post is removed from my user page and blog list, but still technically exists but only people who watch me or have the URL can access it. I would suggest either disabling the option or fixing the bug lickety-split, because losing blogs is a ragemaker. Lucky I wrote this in Notepad.


Ahh, the mid year stocktake sales. A time for joy, gaming, and BARGAINS. Going to the city to buy a new pair of jeans, I managed to find myself 2 hours later without new trousers, instead cradling an armful of gamey goodness. Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, Gears of War and Condemned: Criminal Origins joined my collection. Now, you'd think this would mean a fun-filled weekend of electronic entertainment, but unfortunately, no.

I spent more time fucking troubleshooting all my stuff than I did playing games. Oh yes, and my side intake fan split in half. So, now I have a whole bunch of graphically intesive games, ATITool more often than not refuses to crank my fan up to 100% (the stock dynamic setting sucks ass), making the already ludicrisly hot X1950XT in my case even hotter, to the point where the sheer amount of visual artifacts and model deformations made the games unplayable.

Rage building.

And Gears of War, comes with the wonderful Games for Windows Live, something which never works for whatever reason, and I spent about 3 hours just trying to get that running so I could start single player. First it was the dreaded "could not download update" error, then some more BS involving firewalls, then I found out you have to close XFire to be able to run it.

RAGE FUCKING EXPLODED. GOD DAMN, I CAN SEE WHY PC GAMING IS GOING DOWN THE SHITTER, IT NEVER WORKS.

And again, my inability to control my wallet transformed what should have been a 7 dollar replacement fan into 3 UV super-quiet-blows-harder-than-george-bush fans, a 20pk of electric blue thumbscrews, and some crazy pci mounting rack which lets me put the fans practically anywhere I like. I don't see these as a negative though, and it should help keep things nice and frosty.

Speaking of which, nobody here knows about connecting the GPU fan to a fan controller instead of the header on the board itself do they? I had a look, it's a 3pin cable, but the order of the wires is all wrong and the pins on a standard 3 pin fan cable are too big for it. Is there an easier way, or would I have to do some warranty voiding? I don't even know if that would work, since the incompatibility might actually be for a good reason (needs less power maybe?)

I've been busily working on this little thing for a while now, and I'm glad it's finished. Basically, it's an interactive guided tutorial for all you aspiring photoshoppers out there which shows you how to achieve the "Web 2.0" glossy look. Made by me. On the Internet. What are you waiting for? Go check it out!

VOTE 5 OR I'LL CUT YA.

it would be on deviantART but their upload system decided to have a sad today.

You wish you were cool enough

2.38AM Okay, last bump for the day, I promise (I think I raped the message center somewhat.

Doing the meet n' greet around my ungreeted users, I've noticed a trend to just copy and paste messages to users. Now, I won't pass judgement, it's a free internet after all, but I feel this is against the spirit of the community. Anyone can ctrl+c the same message over and over for the sake of their statistics, but I feel the point of it is that you prove that you notice them. Props to the people who've been writing individualised messages, I really think it makes the place a lot friendlier. Ok, now we return to our sheduled programming. PENIS.



P.S. ӝspot the blog script still hangs on publishing.
P.P.S. Argh, FFS, sorry about all the edits and bumps. The post got deleted somehow, it went all weird.

Oh well, nothing much has been going on around here. The other day I bought S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to see what the fuss is all about, and I'm sort of getting into it (I'm stuck at that damned lightening in the railway underpass) but there's still a few teething problems (GOD DAMN YOU, I WANT TO BIND WEAPON SWITCH TO THE MOUSEWHEEL AND I WANT A QUICKSAVE KEY). I also picked up the first Pheonix Wright game (I'll teach you to make me think while gaming) and I love it.

I still haven't had a chance to play the CoD maps yet, and it's burning me up. Creek looks so... deliciously snipey.

I recently bought the complete (well, they say complete, but where's decay than?) Half-Life 1 pack for a little blast from the past, and I have to say, for something 10 years old, it's impressive.

Something weird I found on the net, if you hadn't seen it before: Open C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\USERNAME\opposing force\gearbox\dlls\opfor.dll up in your favorite text editor. Search for "lime".

This is what you find:

Quote:

.the half-life of lime jello.nuclear bedtime story...crazy
customizable..programmer's head on a stick....frictionless, massless
mormon...put it in your report, bill.i don't need the influence..i'm
coming out of the booth.in the middle of a storm....it tantalizes me
so.you are my favorite thing...i leave the windows open....and fed
you to the chickens.candy corn chicken fetus....the silhouette of a
dog.guns exploding all around...a rising column of smoke....you don't
jump like a monkey....i have to call chuck....rebel boat rocker...
colostomy bag...walking in memphis..exploding midget....white cotton
panties....nub technology..anonymous nub...more bunny justice..evil
evil boy...you have been a fool....do not send me porn.i must escape
it....those creamy white thighs...keeping us all cool.air
conditioning....so what if I sweat..fresh air is so sweet...live mice
sit on us.digital squirrel....liquid banana...peas and hominy.
miscellaneous...gravity assist..random tuna head....some quick goat
thinking....a velvet codpiece...let's tease the weasels. nice
vomiting spell.a specific dick.the growing yodas...

Verily, I ride my bicycle onwards to hell, encapsulated in an iridescent irradiated irrational digitized bagel, of which my own demise is computed daily. A turing machine made of cheese, calculating it's own existence to which there is only crackers. No tunnel, only Luxembourg.

A thousand typewriters chained to monkeys will Shakespeare crank out?

Scintillating.

UPDATE: Full size optimised grayscale image available HERE


Rejoice, citizens of earth, for I come in peace bearing fabulous gifts!



I made whoever is interested a flyer they can print to advertise everyone's favorite site. Granted, the opening text may have been an exaduration, but it's something nonetheless. It's done in full A4 300DPI print resolution, but you'll have to request that specifically, it's quite hefty.

DA PAGE: Larger Preview

To whichever gormless fuckwit thought it a clever idea to seal molex connectors with epoxy to stop the pins coming out: fuck off, come back, then fuck off again. And kill yourself. Not only did your stupid ass idea fail to solve a nonexistent problem, it also managed to fill the connector part of the plug half full of glue, making it impossible to use.

So, I was faced with a choice: pay courier fees and wait another week to send the shit back, or fix it myself. I, of course, chose to DIY that sucker. So I stripped the wires, chopped off the connector and prepared the transplant, only to realize at the point I had no electrical tape to insulate it, as my kleptomaniac brother decided to souvenir my only roll. So, what do do? I can't splice the wires if the two touch, as it will make a short. I can't leave it like that, it's stodgy. So, at about 1am I had a brainwave. With no tape to speak of, mind some teflon plumbers wrap, I got some old aquarium tubing, chopped off a piece for each wire, crammed the bare splices into them, and kept everything in place with a generous application of heatshrink. Now I of course, view myself as a genius, a master of lateral thinking. Others however would view my work as possibly dangerous and very dodgy. However, I don't give a crap what the critics say, and now I'm going to bed before I electrocute myself. I've already managed to jam my finger in a case fan.

Well, my birthday went off without a hitch, although I have one sage word of advice. Never bring up science, relgion or politics at a party, no matter how interesting or varied the guests opinions are. Especially when one is infamous for steamrollering others to prove her point. Trust me, once you start this unholy trinity it's impossible to get rid of it. I got some choice loot too, the complete Cowboy Bebop Remixes (with the very sexy artbox), an illustrated copy of Frankenstein and an XKCD shirt (Stand back, I'm going to try science!) to name a few. Oh yes, and the gum. Pokemon gum.



Chock full of poke-goodness. Nerd parties rule.




Oh yes, and I finally got Call of Duty 4's multiplayer module working. Fuck yes. Or at least it would be fuck yes if all the servers weren't empty all the time.

Damn, I really gotta stop doing this. Perusing the catalogue of my local modding shop, PcCaseGear.com, I couldn't help but notice some the very swish looking Sythe Kaze Master temperature monitor/fan controller. Long story short, not only did I buy the fan monitor, I also walked away with about 90 bucks of uv lighting, cable sleeving and other miscellaneous crap.

I think I'm going to add that site to my blocklist, which incidentally I hate because my new security suite has marked about two-thirds of the executables and archives on my computer as viruses and malware, granted most of them are software cracks I put there intentionally, but for some reason it marks things like the F.E.A.R. multiplayer .exe and the splinter cell auto updater as .TROJ_generic. Needless to say, I'm giving my exception list a run for it's money. And I don't even think I can be bothered with the website blocker, I'm not that much of an idiot.

After getting extremely bored almost every other happy-sharing-is-caring web 2.0 fad, I'm glad to announce I joined another one!

It works, bitches.

Whoa. Seriously, people are here. When did this happen? I suspect many can be attributed to zikes handiwork though, but I really have been falling behind on befriending the newcomers.

First off, hi. Second, Blog: FYI - FAQ (Thanks infog!). Third, try and keep the place respectable. We love it here, and we want everyone else to enjoy it too. That means exercising your spelling ability, although I think some original members (heh heh) have more trouble at that than you will.

I'm willing to bet most of you came from dA, so you won't find this very different.

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, POST ON THE FORUMS. They're withering and need some serious love.






Oh yes, and spot, for some reason I can't center my images. Neither

Code:

[img align=center title="That is all."]http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/3196/footerdy9.png[/img]
or
[img align=centre title="That is all."]http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/3196/footerdy9.png[/img]

Neither real english or yankspeak seem to work here, what am I doing wrong?

Well, not strictly ON fire, just sort of smoking.

You see, my 8" blue cathodes burnt out a while ago, and it's a good thing I noticed. I've heard it happen to other people, but I always assumed that it only happened on ghetto cathodes from the vast unknowns of china. It happened in the inverter, because there's this big melted bubble on the side and there's smoky colored crap on the inside of the tube.

I'm going to write PcCaseGear and give them a peice of my severely confused and mentally unstable mind, and in the meantime turn off my other cathodes. Kinda scary, just a good thing they were out of the way and there was no current backflow.

And now for some pics. (not mine, but exactly the same problem and failure point)

Well, as you will have no doubt concluded by the spiffing image you see above (barring some technical snafu), subscribers fucking rock.

Seriously, the latest feature dump gave Napalm a lot of stuff it badly needed. The place is so much more professional, not that it was amateurish, it just needed a bit of spit shine. I'll be very interested to see how the other features are introduced, and I'm very interested in all of these secret projects going on (you tease).

Having said that, there are a few things that need some attention still, and rather than clogging up the forum with some more threads I'll post them here. All issues are present on FF2.0.0.12 & 2.0.0.13 running Vista.

General unresponsiveness. Clicking the blog posting button, saving my profile info or uploading new avatars and signatures all seem to freeze the page rather than reload after they finish to indicate some sort of activity. The things are still applied (although it did eat a poll once, it came out with one blank option) and all the content appears where it should, but you would never be able to tell from the page in which you inserted it from. I suspect this may be behind the double blog posts that have happened recently.

While fantastic, (I love to tinker) the new Preferences page could use a few tweaks, mainly instead of having to click "update preferences" on every tab, you can set your preferences in all of them and then hit the button, rather than hitting it for each of them. Just one of those tiny things.

And something that isn't really a bug, more a request, can we please has <allign> tags?

I LIKE BIG BUTTS AND I CANNOT LIE.

But something a bit different this time...

Level Up by =chalkley3 on deviantART

Rather than being a napalm exclusive, this can be used for any site. Especially Napalm. How you use it is up to you, but I suggest awarding one to yourself on post count, as thats the best milestone over here. Damn, that means I'm still a bronze... Oh well, call it expandability.


As per usual, .psd and transparent pngs included.

This is my favorite effort to date, but don't let that discourage any criticism. Now, it's 1am and I have to be somewhere at dawn, so I'm off!

So, I have come into some money that seems to be burning a hole in my pocket, and I think I might finally watercool my PC and overclock my CPU to a decent level.

I think I'll go for the Bigwater 745, as it has a large cooling capacity and seems to get favourable reviews, and the price is quite reasonable. Question time.

1) Now, If I add a GPU to the loop, it obviously reduces it's efficiency, but does the order in which the loop is make any difference to the temperatures? It's a dual radiator setup, so if you wanted to you could have it go Pump>CPU>240mm radiator>GPU>120mm radiator (althought the tubing would be a mega pain in the ass). Now, it's still the same water, so It shouldn't really make a huge difference to if you just went pump>CPU>GPU>240mm>120mm should it?

2) How much does RAM limit an overclock? My ram isn't cheap no name stuff, but it isn't performance either. I have this. I realize I won't get insane clocks out of this, but will it limit me severely over the average?

3) Oh yes, and is the Bigwater any good? Most of the reviews give it the thumbs up, but I read one that seemed to spew hate over the acrylic top on the waterblock that cracked and leaked.

4) Methyl Glycol coolant. Yay or nay?

5) Any other points for a first time water cooler to consider?

And oh yes, I'm sure I could get better performance and quality if I went to Danger Den, but that tacks an extra 200 bucks on (at least) that I don't have.

I lol'd

And you thought I'd stop at Beta. This time it's a pin for the members of the Founder's Circle to stick on their profile. Yum.

TAKE ME NOW, BIG BOY

To all the beta testers left who couldn't wear my last badge, steady yourselves for the second installment!

Get your badge on

If you want to set this as your ID, I suggest you download the pack and use the transparent .PNG included, the light green that DA uses clashes with the dark greys on napalm.

In other news, I bought Audiosurf and the entire season one of the Sam & Max games off steam. My friend reckoned Audiosurf is the sort of thing you'd see if you ate the brown acid, which begged the question, what would Audiosurf look like to you if YOU ate the brown acid? Sam and Max is hilarious, I recommend it to anyone. At 30 bucks for 6 episodes, you have no reason not to own it.

I'm over the moon today, I just got my new monitor. Holy fucking shit it's awesome. So big, so bright, so sharp (3000:1 Contrast ratio, 2MS, 22" bitches). I think I need a towel. Pics tomorrow when there's some decent light to take photos in.

Also, forums much? I logged in and I harldly recognised the place. Ona more serious note, the forums have died down lately, so either spot needs to do another advertising drive, or you lazy bastards (Not really, you know I love you guys) need to log in more. I challenge you all to start a thread today and and post in at least 10. Make the forums happy again.

I'd probably write some more so this post doesn't sort of aimlessly peter out, but I'm on a caffeine/sleep-deprivation yoyo at the moment and my brain isn't working quite right.

Seems Gary Gygax isn't the only person I've heard pass today, I just received some pretty awful news from one of my friends. Seems one guy that I used to hang out with died in hospital today. He, his sister and his grandparents got wiped out by someone in their car about a week ago, his grandparents were killed instantly and his sister died in the ambulance. He got messed up really bad and it seems that he just couldn't keep going. It's terrible really, while I didn't really know him that well, some of my close friends and other people I know were quite close to him and his sister. It's tragic, and I can only imagine how the parents feel.

Life seems abominably cruel sometimes.

My Tankmen T-Shirt and Three Panel Soul prints came in the mail today.

I'm such a consumerist whore, and I'm loving it.

Hit up my deviantART page to grab yourself a tasty Alpha Tester badge if you got in on time. .PSD included, so if you want to modify it or use it as a template, go nuts!

Napalm Alpha Badge by =chalkley3 on deviantART

If people dig this then I'll make some more (beta, mod status, post count and whatnot).

Three words and a number:

Metal Gear Awesome 2


Vote 5.

I was bored, and couldn't be bothered sleeping, so I made this. Now only if I had some friends on Virb to click it.

[http://chalkley3.deviantart.com/art/Napalm-Riot-Banner-77994090[/url]
Edit: Get the pack containing the .PNG, the .PSD and a clean version from my DA gallery.

I just realised that the computer I'm using now has live de-pinned molex connectors just floating around. Note to self: Finish jobs properly involving things that can electrocute you. Time to fix that...

Apparently I've won the Irish AND the British national lottery. Must be my lucky day! Now if you'll excuse me I have to go and change a password for a bank I'm not a member of.

It's not that uncommon for customers to rage in a fast food place, but when an employee goes apeshit, things get a little more interesting. I was in this shop talking to my mate who works there when one of the employees was having a heated row with the manager over why she'd locked his mobile in the safe. Something about texting when he should have been serving customers. Anywho, I stuck around to see where this went, my mate providing running commentary.

The argument, containing a lot of "effin and jeffin" (and many other words you probably hadn't heard before) went on for about 10 minutes when the guy totally lost it, picked up a skateboard and smashed a window all over the shop. For a window that size, you'd be amazed at the shards it made. He stormed out, leaving everyone in the store silent for about 30 seconds. No-one was hurt (Although he did threaten to "punch her fucking face in"), and some customers complained about being showered with glass fragments and the police were called in.

I'd probably take that as his resignation notice.





(He must be regretting it now, as since he hit the customers with the glass who made complaints and he threatened people with violence, he's got himself into pretty deep shit)

Wow, the internet sure moves fast. After cutting short my camping trip by 2 days (rain) I come back to find 47 napalm messages and 68 emails (A lot for me, albeit most of them were message center notifications). All the news blogs I frequent were so far ahead I couldn't even be bothered catching up (Except macworld coverage, tee-hee) with it all. 5 days, and already feel out of the loop.

I wonder how many messages I would have had if i'd stayed for the whole 8 days...

...Camping (The real world kind, not the hide-behind-a-rock-and-shoot-whatever-fool-walks-past-with-a-12-gauge kind) for the next week, so if I don't reply to you, don't feel bad. Either that or I just don't like you. Bye!

(damn, I'm going to be overtaken by b0x0rz in the post count war..)

You wish you could wear this.






P.S. ӝspot, the blog script still hangs upon publishing, and is it possible to include an "allign" tag for text as well as images?

Ahh, the mid year stocktake sales. A time for joy, gaming, and BARGAINS. Going to the city to buy a new pair of jeans, I managed to find myself 2 hours later without new trousers, instead cradling an armful of gamey goodness. Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, Gears of War and Condemned: Criminal Origins joined my collection. Now, you'd think this would mean a fun-filled weekend of electronic entertainment, but unfortunately, no.

I spent more time fucking troubleshooting all my stuff than I did playing games. Oh yes, and my side intake fan split in half. So, now I have a whole bunch of graphically intensive games, ATITool more often than not refuses to crank my fan up to 100% (the stock dynamic setting sucks ass), making the already ludicrously hot X1950XT in my case even hotter, to the point where the sheer amount of visual artifacts and model deformations made the games unplayable.

Rage building.

And Gears of War, comes with the wonderful Games for Windows Live, something which never works for whatever reason, and I spent about 3 hours just trying to get that running so I could start single player. First it was the dreaded "could not download update" error, then some more BS involving firewalls, then I found out you have to close XFire to be able to run it.

RAGE FUCKING EXPLODED. GOD DAMN, I CAN SEE WHY PC GAMING IS GOING DOWN THE SHITTER, IT NEVER WORKS.

And again, my inability to control my wallet transformed what should have been a 7 dollar replacement fan into 3 UV super-quiet-blows-harder-than-george-bush fans, a 20pk of electric blue thumbscrews, and some crazy pci mounting rack which lets me put the fans practically anywhere I like. I don't see these as a negative though, and it should help keep things nice and frosty.

Speaking of which, nobody here knows about connecting the GPU fan to a fan controller instead of the header on the board itself do they? I had a look, it's a 3pin cable, but the order of the wires is all wrong and the pins on a standard 3 pin fan cable are too big for it. Is there an easier way, or would I have to do some warranty voiding? I don't even know if that would work, since the incompatibility might actually be for a good reason (needs less power maybe?)