Long overdue partaking of a Christmas tradition

It took 21 years, but this year I got my first Christmas tree. When I saw a 7 feet Christmas tree on sale at Canadian Tire, my mind was set on buying the damn thing. I realize this is one thing bad about co-op because I'm finding that I'm a lot more trigger happy on purchases now that Ihave a little bit of money :@. I thought I would have to lower the back seats to fit the package in my car but I didn't. Anyways, here is the largely unimpressive packaging of my first Christmas tree.


The first look inside the box was equally unimpressive.

It was rather depressing to look at once out of the box, too. I was excited, but not exactly enthralled.

So, three segments, a base, and an instruction manual. This shouldn't be too hard, I threw the instruction manual to the side and started construction on the base. The entire unpackaging and construction process took less than two minutes but once I had a look at the skinny skeleton of a tree I realized the cumbersome task ahead of isolating every tip.

Before

After

Who would've guessed?!

I must say though, it does look a lot more impressive but I realized the much more cumbersome task ahead of decorating the damn thing. I bought some frosted pine cones, some bells, and a an ornament bundle because its a lot less thinking than picking out your own ornaments. I do prefer an angel though, its got more majesty to it than a star. That, and most of the stars are literally flat so you can't see it from the side.

So by the time I put up all the ornaments I realized that the white wasn't exactly great against my white walls so I took down everything and exchanged it for a red and green package. One and a half hours wasted. :(

So I started at 2:30 and I finally had the tree up and lit by 7:00 because of the entire ordeal with the white ornaments. I also bought some yellow ornaments while I was there so I guess it wasn't a complete waste of time. Anyway, here it is.

Much more impressive

I pushed it into the corner beside my TV where it'll stay until Boxing Day. I can't wait to have to go through the painstaking process of undecorating and putting away the damn thing. Oh, goodie! Hopefully it'll be quicker, since I'll just toss all the ornaments into some rubbermaid containers. Oooh, it's shaping up to be an annual chore!

Hindsight is 20/20

When I started this blog I saw this as a potential problem, but now I finally see how severe it actually is.

I don't do enough interesting things to blog about. X.x

Epic fail.

I will try to do better. Try being the operative word.

So heres a very very quick sketch of my DAT day
very tiring throughout the whole thing. started early and last for 6 hours, but I survived and now im finished. I have some other pictures for later till then!

sup

so after this post, im gonna be posting all in comic format, ill try to get one a week, itll mostly be doodles on lined paper, just to spice things up a bit : D back to wc then studying!

Halloween Post

Because I'm obviously more interested in my computer than my friends. I did the H50 post before the Halloween post :P. I originally wanted Jeffrey to write this post but he's busy with his DAT preparation and won't be available until this coming Saturday which will be a full week after Halloween. Since I don't like to leave things undone, I thought I would start this post. Mind you, this is my second post in the last 1-2 hours so I'm rather out of it. (Jeffrey, feel free to make additions)

Anyway, because girls are smelly, it was just the guys (me, Eric, Jeffrey, and Keith) last Saturday for Paranormal Activity and late night sushi afterwards.

Paranormal Activity started out pretty slow, I actually dozed off twice in the first half hour. The pace did pick up a little bit afterwards and it compounded with teenage girls screaming every 5 minutes. I actually didn't mind this as I would be furious if I slept through the entire movie I paid a good 12 bucks for, no matter how bad it may be. I'm rather satisified with the ending though as I did not anticipate it at all (I won't spoil it for you guys since I think you should watch it yourself). A little advice for the pirates/renters out there, dim lighting and proper audio is very important when watching this movies. The rumblings add a lot to the experience.

Late night sushi at Tomokazu is one of the hidden gems of Vancouver, I still prefer this place over Toyama. Eric's bulking also seems to be moving along quite well, I haven't seen him eat as much as he did in a while. However, Eric, you'd be hard pressed to top your performance at the IB banquet that one year when you had an eating contest with Jeff, that was just epic.

I seem to be pointing down, how awkward.

Anyhow, I'm now completely out of it, I just can't write anymore. Maybe Jeffrey can add to this post when he has time.

My Latest Toy

As some of you may know, I'm running STOCK Core i7 940. I may be the only person you know that's running a stock i7 of any sort. The major reason why I've been running a stock i7 is because I've yet to acquire an aftermarket heatsink. After much deliberation, I've finally taken the first steps to overclocking and gotten . Behold, the Corsair Hydro Series H50, a factory sealed CPU water cooler.


I was considering the Swiftech H20-220 Ultima water cooling kit at one point but I realized that, with my clumsiness, it would only be a matter of time before the externally mounted radiator would come loose. That, and the fact that it costs more than 4 times as much as the H50 with the chipset block. One downside is that I'm relegated to a noisy 40mm fan to cool my chipset since I've yet to find one that provides good airflow while remaining quiet.

Despite the H50 being my first ever aftermarket heatsink, I was able to install this thing with no problems.

Backplate installation was straightforward and simple. I originally forgot the metal screw guides and eyeballed the placement of the backplate. After I corrected my mistake, there was no guesswork at all. *facepalm* (note to self: always go through all the parts and instructions first)

Notice the dried up thermal paste on the processor in the next shot. :P

Since you rarely take out the motherboard, I thought this would be a great chance to clean up some of the dust behind the motherboard. Yes, I used a brush. I use a brush more often than not. Compressed gas aint cheap dude.


Anyways, this is the part where I wished I had bought a better case with a motherboard tray. Although getting the board out was easy, getting the board in was a pain in the ass.

After 5 minutes of positioning and losing screws, I finally re-mounted the motherboard and got to attaching the heatsink. Look at the pretty thermal paste. (O.O)

The best thing about the H50 is that the radiator is mounted internally which means nothing hanging around the case. However, I had to remove that dusty rear fan first.


And here's the final product.

I've yet to overclock yet, I still have to refresh myself on bclks and multipliers but I'm running 15 degrees cooler than I did using the stock heatsink fan which gives me much more headroom since I didn't want to push the system to its thermal envelope in the first place.

Now, if only Jeffrey will stop making sense so I can go out and buy a 6GB DDR3-1600 kit. I think there's a limit to how far you can push DDR3-1066. >.>