Ahh. Mid-October. I love it! It smells like the thought of a cold chill running down your back as you wonder what your next move should be, only to realize that no matter what you do, you can’t win. And tra-la-la-la-de, more apathetic emotions to come later.

I guess it can’t be all that bad though.

I want to apologize to my .. oh.. three readers, for not posting a god damn thing in such a long time. I was going through some pretty rough times at the end of August through now. I can’t deny that it hasn’t gotten any better. There’s so many things going on at the moment that I can hardly think straight enough to write about them all; but, I’ll start and probably won’t finish.

I won’t get into all the things that have gone horribly wrong, but just by looking at the picture to the right (I call it, exhibit A), I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to figure out what has happened.

It’s not one of those particularly inspiring, awe-striking, proud moments that everyone makes it out to be. It’s not something I would call an accomplishment or any type of positive, forward moving event. I can say in all honesty that I was mislead, deceived, and lied to.

That’s all that really needs to be said about August 29th, 2008.

Do you remember that girl I took to the Journey concert back in July? Well despite all of the times I screwed up while on dates and just talking to her, she still decided to be with me; after months of consideration, of course.

It’s only been a little over a month since we’ve been together, “Officially”, and everything is going great so far. I worry about the so-called “honey-moon” phase ending, but after really thinking about everything, I don’t think that can happen.

We have something real unique, Isabel and I, that I don’t believe will end anytime soon. I’m real lucky to have her. And even though she’ll probably never even glance at this a second time, I know she’d appreciate the picture. I think the Mongolian police took it while responding to a fire.

I turned 20 last week, on the 7th. No big party, no gifts, really, not even my family. It’s all starting to fade away too quickly, and honestly; it’s a really weird feeling knowing that it’s all down hill from now on.

Isabel is such a sweetheart. She coooked dinner for me and a few friends and even made me a cake! I wish I had taken a picture of it, but I think there’s still a large piece left.

Even though there wasn’t anything big for me on my birthday, I had a great day.

Thanks.

Wait til next month.

Thanks.

Great find Gizmodo!

It seems like someone in their right minds has finally hit the brink of geek innovation. No it’s not a latest cell phone or a super-ultra-realistic-game-pad for the PS3 or XBox, but it will render you into a mindless, drooling, .. person.

Yes, someone has made a bikini that somewhat resembles a classic NES controller, complete with D-Pad, B/A, and Select Start buttons in geographically respectful areas.

I wouldn’t mind giving up that nude beach in Europe for a pool party at a friend’s neighbor’s house if all the girls played video games and were wearing this bikini.

No. The button’s don’t actually control anything.

Oh joy.

Taking the plunge, he doesn’t even hesitate to inform the world of his suffering. To no one’s surprise, the unprotected Bold won’t stand up too well to pavement, gravel, or tile, whathaveyou, when dropped from as little as two feet — maybe this is where a real metal bezel would come in handy, right RIM?

BGR doesn’t go into whether or not any essential functions of the Bold were rendered useless but I’d take him up on his advice if I were you.

Buy a condom skin for the Bold. As big and ugly as it makes the device, you’ll appreciate it in the end.

I really hate my computer. Somewhere between the time I built it and now, it seems to have developed a problem with the memory I put in it or the motherboard I put it in. Sometimes it just erratically bursts into flames and the fan spins at inoperable speeds. And most of the time I’m battling the dreaded BSOD which only supplies me random codes having to do with the IRQL not being less than or equal to something and memory equivalents. When researching these errors I end up with “replace your motherboard” or “replace your memory” solutions.

So what the fuck, I’m going to rebuild my computer from the ground up. I have the money to buy the majority of shit I need but I’ll buy it in pieces within the next few weeks. Let’s take a look at what I’ll be putting together, piece by piece.

A full spec list and parts list after the break.

So I figured I need a new machine. But I’m going to spend that much money on buying a pre-fab, instead I’ll just build a super-PC. Here’s what I’ll put in it:

First, is the case. You have to have a bitchin’ case to put all your shit in, so I decided to go with a classic Cooler Master Elite 330 Mid Tower. This case is every man’s fantasy. It features superior thermal solutions and easy installation. It has a black meshed front panel that forms a “succint” appearance. It’s steel chassis supports the kick ass ATX mobo that I’ll be installing with support for  4 external 5.25″ drives, 5 internal 3.5″ bays and 1 external. The I/O panel in the front takes up a 3.5″ bay and features 2 USB ports, an 2 audio ports and what looks like a 1394 but let me not open my face. It’s a steal at $39.99.

So now that we have the house for the kids to play in lets take a look at the mother of all motherboards. EVGA’s 132-CK-NF78-A1 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI mobo makes me want to wet my pants so bad. It’s rocking the nForce 780i SLI Northbridge and a bad-ass MCP Southbridge. It’s utilizing Azalia’s new audio codecs for sweet 5.1 6-channel on-board audio. It features on-board DUAL gigabit NICs for extra and intra nets and all the bandwidth I can steal. It supports the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 1066MHZ FSB 8MB processor that I’m going to jam into it. At 8GBs of memory support and Vista SP1, I’ll be golden. Cashing in at $229.99, it’s like taking candy from a baby.

I think I might have mentioned it earlier, but the brains behind this whole new monster computer will be Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q6700 processor. With its lightning quick 1066 MHz FSB and 8MB of L2 Cache this processor is more than enough power for my needs. It’s bringing an OEM Heatsink and Fan that I might want to upgrade later. It’s recommended for running on this motherboard and it will fit perfectly in that 775 socket.

It’s $272.80 pricetag is easy on my pockets but killer on the competition.

Which brings us to the memory. I think OCZ is doing amazing things with RAM these days and it’s all too true about OCZ’s 4GB PC2-6400 (DDR2-800) kit. I opted not to use the SLI certified OCZ memory because of it’s price (and it’s unavailability at the moment). I went with this titanium cooler kit that’s supposed to be perfectly optimized to run memory-intense (versus Processor intense) programs. It has a great CAS latency of only 4 and clocks at 2.1V.

And it’s $115.50 price hits the spot. Perfect!

Let’s recap, we have the Case, the Motherboard, the Processor, and finally the RAM.

What’s next? The graphics power- house. I chose XFX’s GeForce 9800 GTX+ with 512MB of GDDR3. The 128 cores in the 9800 GTX+ clock in at a new high of 1836 MHz, making it one of the the fastest graphics cards in its price range. It has a max resolution output of 2560 x 1600 which will be great when I put to use the HDTV output (or buy a new monitor). It’s DirectX 10 ready and when running inside my shiny new EVGA nForce 780i motherboard with built in GPU, it will ramp up it’s processing power by 2.8 times the performance.

At $199.99, it’d almost be a shame to not throw it in. Ku-dos!

Now, I already have a hefty 300GB harddrive, but why not more? Right? I’m also planning on buying a MASSIVE internal SATA 1TB harddrive to host all my music and misc. data. I much needed upgrade from my current 160GB external SimpleTech that I got 3 years ago. It’s at a great price right now at $163.99.

Since I’m rebuilding, I thought I’d take the high road and actually BUY my copy of Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 this time. I guess the price has gone down and I’d be nice to have the little genuine sticker with the product key on the side of the computer. It’s only $168.99 with in an OEM package, so why not?

Have you been keeping tally? If you haven’t, this whole endeavour will cost me about $1191.25 and some change for shipping.

Let’s go!

As of this morning, T-Mobile has officially gone live with 3G (HSDPA, UMTS) in Las Vegas. We’re all still stuck with the regular, old, crappy handsets if we want to use a 3G one, but T-Mobile has promised us they’ve got an HSDPA-capable device coming soon. (We’re hoping its the Bold.)

Wahoo!

Press release and water-bottles after the break.

T-Mobile USA, Inc. announced today the continued expansion of its next-generation wireless network with the launch of 3G service in Las Vegas. The company plans to expand its 3G network to at least 20 additional markets by the end of 2008.

T-Mobile has invested more than $37.5 million in infrastructure and spectrum to bring its 3G service to the Las Vegas market, according to Neville Ray, senior vice president, engineering operations, T-Mobile USA, “Customers in Las Vegas are already accustomed to reliable and robust service from T-Mobile, which gets even better with this additional network availability,” Ray said. “This investment in today’s 3G network also sets the foundation to help customers stay closer to their family and friends in new and exciting ways.”

T-Mobile’s 3G network in Las Vegas supports voice and data services consistent with available service and handset offerings. The company today offers multiple phones that are able to operate on the UMTS network. These phones are designed to automatically connect to the best available network (3G or GSM/GPRS/EDGE) to provide the great call quality and rich communication services customers expect from T-Mobile.

Customers using a 3G-capable handset from T-Mobile will also experience faster data speeds when accessing the Web, or downloading content from the T-Mobile t-zones content portal, for example. T-Mobile plans to soon offer its first HSDPA device, along with new and compelling data-centric, all-in-one devices that help make the most of T-Mobile’s high-speed data network. The launch of the 3G network in Las Vegas also enables T-Mobile to accommodate and serve more customers more efficiently through the use of its AWS spectrum.

As the 3G service rolls out in targeted major markets, T-Mobile will continue to build upon its T-Mobile® HotSpot Wi-Fi network — its wireless high-speed Internet offering that launched in 2003 — and its nationwide voice and data network, to empower customers to effortlessly stay connected using the best available network.

I hope you have a fantastic day, week, rest of your year and I wish you the best, always.

The phone new colorway will be available starting tomorrow, August 4, at all T-Mobile retail stores, and over the phone, for $149.99 with a 2-year agreement. I’m not really sure what OS it will be running, but I’m betting all my nickels and dimes it’s going to be v4.2.2 even though Boy Genius’ leaked doc says any BlackBerry that launches before September will run 4.5 OOB.

Been lost for a while?

Spec savvy:

• GSM, GPRS, EDGE, Wi-Fi
• Quad-band world phone 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• 2.5” display, 320×240 pixels, QVGA display with more than 65,000 colors
• 3.5 mm headset jack
• Dimensions: 4.2 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches; 3.9 ounces
• microSD slot supporting up to 4 GB of optional removable memory
• 2 megapixel camera
• T-Mobile myFaves-enabled
• Stereo Bluetooth® capability

A can of Krylon and Gas Masks after the break.

The BlackBerry Curve 8320 in Sunset is enabled for Unlimited HotSpot Calling from T-Mobile (previously called T-Mobile HotSpot @Home) offering great mobile coverage and unlimited calling over any accessible Wi-Fi network and at all T-Mobile HotSpot locations across the country. When leaving home or a T-Mobile HotSpot, calls are seamlessly transferred onto T-Mobile’s wireless network, and the same is true for transferring calls from T-Mobile’s network onto Wi-Fi.

The BlackBerry Curve 8320 in Sunset includes a 2 megapixel camera, music and video multimedia player, a microSD expandable memory slot that supports up to 4GB of memory and stereo Bluetooth® as well as HTML Web browsing at Wi-Fi speeds, personal and corporate email and built-in spell check.

It will be available at select T-Mobile retail stores and online at www.t-mobile.com for $149.99 with a two-year service agreement.

The search results are presented in a kind of “magazine style,” and will apparently have better relevance and organization that will allow for more pertinent results as it goes down deep into the contents of the page, something Google has yet to master with it’s complicated ranking system.

Despite it’s high-ball A-list of Ex-Google developers and it’s over-exaggerated $33M venture capital behind the new website, I still have trouble finding important sites such as Gizmodo, Engadget and the Boy Genius Report — and not to mention myself. I’d say it still needs quite a bit of tweaking.

A revolver and plenty of quilted paper towels later.

Google.org, the search wizard’s benevolent offspring, has thrown a hefty bone towards Aptera Motors — the people that are throwing convention out the door to bring you the bird-like, over-futuristic gas-sipper, to the tune of $2.75 Million dollars, adding another note-worthy notch to it’s belt with this investment.

Along with Aptera, ActaCell (an electric car battery maker) also received an infusion of $2.75 Million spearheaded by Google.org’s RechargeIT investment program. Hopefully, some of the money will be put to use bringing Aptera’s Typ-1 vehicle to the open market. It’s $30,000 estimated price tag and crazy 230+ MPG fuel economy will be a welcomed relief from rising fuel costs … and of course, our lack of a funky-fresh ride.

Plug to GoogleBlog, and a can of worms later.