Brian's Morning Newsletter

Friday, March 12th 2010

Boy howdy fire dancers, yes sir we need em.
 

Good Morning

Entertainment, do we need it? Good question, really. 2012 end of the world scary tales, worldwide fossil fuel depletion, crazy extremists want us dead,  our mere existence as modern man may jeopardize nature adversely, how much more can we take? Perhaps a couple of fire breathing jugglers might be in order, que no? Yeah we all need to have a little bit of fun to celebrate life and bring in a new year of camping in the natural world. Natural, this is the direction we headed over the last couple of Tusas Camps, with solar and wind energy power a low(er) power audio system with limited stage lights.

Here is the quandary as I see it. In order to hire a band we need to do at least a little promotion, hire a small gate crew for Saturday night, charge a small admittance fee, and put on a real show. We've not hired a band in many years, and when we did we passed the hat to pay them. Then there is the question of which band, I'd like to hear Jon Gold's bluegrass band, and I like the character of bluegrass followers. We had considered letting a rave group spin their records, and handle the door, but honestly raves are too wild for this old guy.  

There I just wrote Jon on myspace http://www.myspace.com/unstrungheros We'll see if he checks his myspace pages. I'll keep you informed.

Well, yesterday wreaked havoc on our electronics here. Actually this machine delirium has been going on since last week when our livingroom computer, our last Windows PC caught a virus and I cleaned it before erasing Windows and installing Linux. Technically, I'm not entirely sure what happened to the PC except that during a software upgrade it made a loud pop, and shut down for the last time. There was an awful lot of dust inside, perhaps it died from to much air flow. The staff of http://www.yourgcs.com/contact.htm, the PC repair side of Desertgate Internet kindly lent us a PC until we can figure out what to do about a livingroom PC.

Anyway, yesterday during the composition of the morning newsletter my desktop PC started showing some very crazy graphics which somehow seemed oriented toward certain aspects of menus. I shit you not. Big perfectly formed arrows appeared on the screen pointing directly to some menu buttons. I hadn't seen anything like it before. Visions of alien forces attacking my system briefly went through my mind. Then I remembered that I had also cleaned this PC with compressed air since the PC in the livingroom had its episode.

Perhaps my fancy new video card which is cooled by its own fan had suffered from excessive dust bunnies and quit.

The problem with my $100 video card are the capacitors, the round turquoise cans with the lines on top. Those lines are not supposed to be there, and worse the electrolyte is spewing out. Capacitors are a little like batteries, they are supposed to hold electricity for a moment then release it. It the case of these capacitors they act like filters, and when they fail they let bits of video noise through, until the card quits working all together like it did when I re-installed it this morning.         

I spent the whole day convalescing from two days straight working for Desertgate. I never changed out of the sweats I wear for pajamas. I was content to watch movies and make calls to see about what kind of warranty this video card had. Sweet Jesus, what a runaround. I began my search at http://nvidia.com it took them a little more than a hour to let me know that they don't actually manufacture video cards, only chipsets. Somehow I knew this and still I let them string me along hoping they were going to be sympathetic to a device diagnosed by the brilliant doctor Brian. In the end they did tell me who manufactured the card, which I could have learned if I really wanted to know by simply calling Genesys computer where I bought it,

But no, apparently I was content to be in string-along-mode, watching movies, smokin a fat cigar, lounging in the comfort of our wood-fire-heated living-room. At some point Nvidia gave me the number for the next set of clowns I was going to be spending time with, www.evga.com/products/ After another lengthy telephone interaction it was determined that, had I registered my expensive video card with AVGA within 30 days of purchase it might be under warranty, however since I registered it yesterday the two year warranty reverted to a one year warranty. Hmm tricky of them hug?

Anyway I could swear I remember buying that card not that long ago, so I made a call to Genesys computer, and they quickly produced an invoice dated 2 years three months ago. How does this sort of thing happen so often. Well it used to be a brand new video card, for whatever that's worth. I made one last ploy at the tech support guy from EVGA, "Your company wants to know and see their products that break down in an almost catastrophic manner, in warranty or not, right?" I chuckled in my most endearing homeboy voice. They kept  me on the line for ten more minutes before he said, "nope."

So I got a useless video card which cost $100 more than two years ago. As you can imagine Brian no longer endorses EVGA G-Force or any of their junk. I went looking and found out that pretty much any video card good enough to entice an enthusiast will set you back more like $300. I don't need gamer quality video, I just need a little memory and a quickish graphics, you know like they offer on new PCs, which coincidentally cost less than $300.

So that was my day, how is everyone?

If you have input about entertainment for Tusas this year I will start a thread on the forum http://outfitnm.com/forum/

Sincerely, "Have a great weekend."
Brian Rodgers

Entertainment

Horoscopes

March 9, 2010 | Issue 46•10

 

Aries Mar 21 – Apr 19

You will give birth to a beautiful, bouncing baby girl this week, moments after going into labor inside that giant inflatable castle.

 

Taurus Apr 20 – May 20

Fear and Jealousy will soon tear you apart, which is rather unfortunate, as Fear and Jealousy are the two pitbulls that live next door.

 

Gemini May 21 – Jun 21

Use the watering can of good intentions to nurture the fig tree of expectations. There, enjoy figuring that one out, you jerks.

 

Cancer Jun 22 – Jul 22

Your life will soon be divided into Pre-Angering-Of-The-Ants and Post-Angering-Of-The-Ants eras.

 

Leo Jul 23 – Aug 22

Don't let anybody tell you what you can or cannot do. That's for you, three to five of your ribs, and most of the hearing in your left ear, to decide.

 

Virgo Aug 23 – Sep 22

The stars indicate that you've been looking really great lately. Also, the stars indicate that they could really use your help moving next weekend.

 

Libra Sep 23 – Oct 23

You claim that nobody understand you, but then, the strange white men in lab coats are doing the best they can.

 

Scorpio Oct 24 – Nov 21

It's never really been about race, or religion, or even politics for you, which is great, since "it," in this case, refers to eating a meatball sub.

 

Sagittarius Nov 22 – Dec 21

You can try dancing around the issue all you want, but in the end, you still don't know what to do with your arms while on the dance floor.

 

Capricorn Dec 22 – Jan 19

Advances in science will soon allow man to travel to the most distant corners of the universe. Still no word, however, on it being able to get you off that couch.

 

Aquarius Jan 20 – Feb 18

If someone had told you 30 years ago that you'd end up an insurance salesman, you probably would have laughed. Then again, you would've been 6-months-old at the time.

 

Pisces Feb 19 – Mar 20

Romance is in the air for Pisces this week, as well as on the bed-sheets, the nearby curtains, and in a growing puddle on the floor.

--
Visit the forum at: http://outfitnm.com/forum/
 Read the BMN online at: http://outfitnm.com/category/brians-morning-newsletter
 Oh yeah, I turned the comments back on at http://outfitnm.com