the whole thanking and buying ordeal
after the rush of Black Friday is saturday, and for me its a sleepy saturday.
wednesday
we were to have a thankgsgiving dinner at my aunt's place so i figured i'd whip up a couple of dishes. first off, i made my potato salad. while the taters were boiling away, i worked on making a pasta dough for a ravioli dish which i just felt like making at that time. cause of that, i wasn't able to remove the water from the taters after they were cooked which resulted into them being a little mashed from too much water absorption. so, take note of that guys. anyway, kneading the dough was tough. and stuffing the filling was tougher. thinking about it makes me tired. the filling was a miixture of tomatoes, onions and bologna. the sauce was made from the chicken and potato stock from the potato salad, onions and cream cheese. too much work, kneading that is. next time, i'm gonna get those wanton sheets so i don't have to make my own dough. geez.
thursday
its my first real thanksgiving here. and as far as holidays and celebrations go, it is at par with major holidays like christmas here. and i have no problem celebrating it with the rest of united states.
thanksgiving may have hadits beginnings as that of a commemorative thing for the first feast which native americans and the settlers celebrated together, thanks giving for not killing each other. nowadays, its still that, plus some more. it has grown from a mere remambrance to that of a real thanks giving. we don't just celebrate that first feast but also the founding of a country, the world's bounty, the fellowship of men and the grace of God.
and so we say thank you to...
...the past, for giving us today.
...the world, for giving us itself.
...the people around us, for giving us their company.
...people everywhere, for giving us the collective force of life.
...life, for giving us its gift.
...God, for giving us His grace.
...ourselves, for giving us ourselves.
anyway, my potato salad won some more fans but the mashed nature worked against it in the sense that the mayonaisse wasn't absorbed as much. then the pepper i got had a hard time going against the taste of the un-absobed mayo. but i was surprised at how my raviolis turned out. it was great, this was my third attempt in making those little critters. the first one was purely tomato based with different kinds of mushrooms. it was nice but not that good. my second attempt was a disaster. made from black-eyed peas and bittermelon leaves. idon't want to elaborate. so this was a real surprise. i liked it, they loved it, i gotta write the recipe down somewhere before i forget about it. lol.
what i like about the thanksgiving feast, apart from the gobble-gobbling turkey, is the stuffing! gad, i just can't get anough of it. sigh. drool... i'd have to attempt making one soon. nyahahaha.
friday
the road to friday is littered with catalogs, ads and more ads. the friday after the fourth thursday of november is called black friday. and its the biggest sale event in america. so, what better way to devirinize a first timer than to partake in the whole conundrum of black friday.
around 5 in the morning, the time stores opened up their doors to let the hordes in, i was still bleary-eyed in bed. got up, then reviewed the catalogs sprawled on the coffe table in the family room. i decided to go for a tv a target, a laptop at best buy and a chair at officemax. so we got on or way around 6. here is the store-by-store account in chronoligcal order:
fry's electronics. our first stop, we got here around 20 past 6. i insisted on this first stop cause generally, this is where the cheapest stuff are, electronics-wise, usually. i couldn't believe that the 1 page ad they took out was all they were offering for their sale. they're the biggest electronics boutique here and their regular prices would pass off as marked-down prices in other stores, so there has to be more. and when we got there, seeing the parking lot full, and everyone coming out pushing a trolley with something big like an LCD tv, reinforced this idea. but sadly, a quick look around the store said that the 1 page ad was indeed exhaustive of their on-sale items. interestingly enough, it was full of people inside, and their really long row of checkout counters are full and with a line which snakes around four times. so we left, gotta keep focussed on what we were really after.
best buy besides fry's electronics. wasn't even 7 and the store was packed like megamall on a mega-sale. it was a little hot inside and you really get to smell the different aromas, you get the picture. the check out line wound its way around the store, attendants were shouting, everyone was rushing around the store. but, me? i went away bitter. the laptop i wanted turns out have been gone long before we got there, they gave out tickets to the stuff inside the store around 4 in the morning so the early bird really did get the fattest worm. the laptop i wanted was from hp featuring a centrino processor, 512mb ram, 80gigs hdd, DVD+-R and a 15inch widescreen, meager by today's standards, but at $380 that's a bargain. normally goes for $750.
target at Paradise Village. got there around 8, it wasn't full. normal crowd, seems everyone's priority was to get to the boutiques first before hitting the one-stop shops. however, the electronics section was still the most popular one. i saw two ladies with the tv i wanted so i had high hopes i'd also get one. of course i didn't, they just ran out. tough luck. it was a 19" LCD HDTV on sale for $180. normally its $400. now i'm really frustrated. on the up side, we were tipped by a guy who works there that a truck will arrive around 2 in the afternoon and it might have the tv. oh ok, our place is just two blocks away anyway so it wasnt a problem.
circuit city near Mayo Clinic. there around 9. same case with best buy. really full. by the time we got there, the gameboy sp my bro was eyeing for was out as well. it was goin for $50. they were also offering at a lot of games and dvds for $5. wow, but its not worth the line for the checkout.
target at Desert Ridge. this is the bigger target. same deal, the tv was out as well. oh well.
officemax at Desert Ridge. hurrah! no lines! fewer than 10 people customers inside! normal crowd! yay! best of all, the $50 chair, which normally goes $130, greeted me at the door! yay! my bro also got a corner desk, wonderful piece for $60 from $180. yay! we weren't bitter anymore!
paradise bakery at Desert Ridge. hungry, gotta have a bite.
best buy at Paradise Village. not the first best buy we went to, this one's near our place. got here around half past 11. we were tying to beat the 7-hour specials or "til noon only" most stores had. my laptop was still nowhere to be had. my bro were luckier than me. they just brought out this pile of desktop PCs which wasn't listed in their ads. we were just lucky to spot it. it was a $375 rig from emachines. P4HT 3.0GHz, 1gig ram, DVD+-R, 200gigs hdd, 15"LCD, canon printer. couldn't get any better. in 10 minutes, all that was left of the pile was the floor. sweet. i didn't walk away there empty handed, i got a 2gig flash disk from SanDisk for $30. a $65 savings.
target at Paradise Village part deux. substantially more people now. waited for 2, watched the attendants restock. still no tv. grunt.
compusa at Paradise Village. normal crowd. no great deals to speak of. boring. as usual.
walmart near scottsdale airpark. it seems they didn't have much stuff on sale. dang. a lot less people outside now. its now 3pm.
best buy near scottsdale airpark. hoping in vain for a laptop... still na-da.
staples near scottsdale airpark. uh, why were we here? oh right, we don't know as well. lol. just felt like droppin by.
home. around half past 3. unloaded cargo and me and my bro were off again.
target at bell towne center. i never give up. and no matter what ido, it still won't magically materialize in thir shelves. sigh.
fry's electronics part deux. much more pleasurable atmosphere now. no more checkout line, but the row of checkout counters were still busy. went around checking out items in more detail. anyway, my bro talked me into getting a tv tuner card for the pc instead of a tv since i already have a 17" LCD monitor anyway. and you know what, it actually made sense. so i got a HDtv tuner card from ati for $100. this way i get to extract the HD signals already being broadcast over the air, watch it, and save it. yay! my pc just became a dvr as well! lol! but, oops. my 3 hdds have a combined free space of about 20gigs. not a good idea if i want to snag videos from the air. and i can't put in anymore hdd cause the ide channels are already full(3 PATAS + dvd = 4 drives = breaking point). then i got this wierd idea to put in a SATA drive even though my motherboard doesn't natively support it. so i searched the aisles for a SATA controller PCI card. yay! it exists! and quite cheap at $30. so now i have to look for a great deal on a SATA hdd. back to the aisles again! lo and behold, a 500gig SATA drive was on sale for $150! yay! more storage! woot! i was ecstatic. and had to leave the store premises immediately for fear of finding another item which i won't be able to reist getting.
home again. after 13hrs(6am-7pm) of shopping, it was finally over. still no laptop though but i'm sure there's something out there. i got into assembling my chair so i'm enjoying sitting on it right now as i type this. no more aching butts from the hard wood chair for me! then i took on my pc again. it was probably as nervous as i was. another surgical operation. here's the technical story:
i opened the flap. i figured it would be safe to remove my highly buggy and unstable video capture card, which i only used for about three times anyway i think, and my modem card anymore since i slapped in a wireless usb adapter at the back when i got here in the states to access the wifi around here. so, with the two recently freed pci slots, my rig was substantially cleaner. those two cards were covered with dust. T_T
i slapped in the sata controller card where my modem used to be. i ran into a bit of problem installing it with the included driver so i went to their website and got the latest driver. that fixed the problem.
next was the hdtv tuner card. it was big, but it went in comfortably where my video capture card used to be. interestingly enough, this tuner card can also capture video from anything since its also got a s-video and the yellow, red, white, input plugs in it. yay! got it working right away, no snags in the installation. although the reception i get in my room from the included antenna is weak, but its ok, i'm working on a fix for it right now.
lastly, the sata hdd. i left this for last since this will be the trickiest to install. when i slapped in my 3rd hdd, i had to disable one of my chassis fans(which rides along the secondary ide channel power supply) for it causes my whole secondary ide line to disappear from the system or worse, a lock up. apparently the power supply is not enough with the fan. when i took out the fan, my rig worked fine. so with an additional drive, i figured i'd have to disable one of my current drives so that my supply won'te get overloaded. so i directed the supply for my 2nd hdd to the new drive using the included ide to sata power calbe included. it worked fine. but i wasn't hapy losing a hdd. sure its just an 80gig drive compared to the 500gigs im replacing it with.
so i was about to close the flap when i noticed a sata power cable sticking out from the tied up bundle of power cables. i stared at it and i couldn't believe it. did my power supply really supported a sata drive natively? how can it? can it handle the additional power requirement? well, only one way to find out. i put the plug back into my 2nd hdd and used the newly discovered power line for the drive. pushed the power and prayed it won't make the long beep which says inadequate power in bios terms. it didn't. it worked. so i guess my supply can hande it. so i guess the additional chassis fan really wasn't overloading the supply, just the line which makes sense i guess. so i now have a 4th hdd! and as this writing, i don't know how i will partition the too-much-space in it. i'm all ears for any suggestions.
i closed the flap and declared the operation a success. my rig is once again breathing without fear.
by the time i finished around 3 in the morning, i was just way too tired.
saturday
i'm going to stay home and rest. period. . . . .......!
wednesday
we were to have a thankgsgiving dinner at my aunt's place so i figured i'd whip up a couple of dishes. first off, i made my potato salad. while the taters were boiling away, i worked on making a pasta dough for a ravioli dish which i just felt like making at that time. cause of that, i wasn't able to remove the water from the taters after they were cooked which resulted into them being a little mashed from too much water absorption. so, take note of that guys. anyway, kneading the dough was tough. and stuffing the filling was tougher. thinking about it makes me tired. the filling was a miixture of tomatoes, onions and bologna. the sauce was made from the chicken and potato stock from the potato salad, onions and cream cheese. too much work, kneading that is. next time, i'm gonna get those wanton sheets so i don't have to make my own dough. geez.
thursday
its my first real thanksgiving here. and as far as holidays and celebrations go, it is at par with major holidays like christmas here. and i have no problem celebrating it with the rest of united states.
thanksgiving may have hadits beginnings as that of a commemorative thing for the first feast which native americans and the settlers celebrated together, thanks giving for not killing each other. nowadays, its still that, plus some more. it has grown from a mere remambrance to that of a real thanks giving. we don't just celebrate that first feast but also the founding of a country, the world's bounty, the fellowship of men and the grace of God.
and so we say thank you to...
...the past, for giving us today.
...the world, for giving us itself.
...the people around us, for giving us their company.
...people everywhere, for giving us the collective force of life.
...life, for giving us its gift.
...God, for giving us His grace.
...ourselves, for giving us ourselves.
anyway, my potato salad won some more fans but the mashed nature worked against it in the sense that the mayonaisse wasn't absorbed as much. then the pepper i got had a hard time going against the taste of the un-absobed mayo. but i was surprised at how my raviolis turned out. it was great, this was my third attempt in making those little critters. the first one was purely tomato based with different kinds of mushrooms. it was nice but not that good. my second attempt was a disaster. made from black-eyed peas and bittermelon leaves. idon't want to elaborate. so this was a real surprise. i liked it, they loved it, i gotta write the recipe down somewhere before i forget about it. lol.
what i like about the thanksgiving feast, apart from the gobble-gobbling turkey, is the stuffing! gad, i just can't get anough of it. sigh. drool... i'd have to attempt making one soon. nyahahaha.
friday
the road to friday is littered with catalogs, ads and more ads. the friday after the fourth thursday of november is called black friday. and its the biggest sale event in america. so, what better way to devirinize a first timer than to partake in the whole conundrum of black friday.
around 5 in the morning, the time stores opened up their doors to let the hordes in, i was still bleary-eyed in bed. got up, then reviewed the catalogs sprawled on the coffe table in the family room. i decided to go for a tv a target, a laptop at best buy and a chair at officemax. so we got on or way around 6. here is the store-by-store account in chronoligcal order:
fry's electronics. our first stop, we got here around 20 past 6. i insisted on this first stop cause generally, this is where the cheapest stuff are, electronics-wise, usually. i couldn't believe that the 1 page ad they took out was all they were offering for their sale. they're the biggest electronics boutique here and their regular prices would pass off as marked-down prices in other stores, so there has to be more. and when we got there, seeing the parking lot full, and everyone coming out pushing a trolley with something big like an LCD tv, reinforced this idea. but sadly, a quick look around the store said that the 1 page ad was indeed exhaustive of their on-sale items. interestingly enough, it was full of people inside, and their really long row of checkout counters are full and with a line which snakes around four times. so we left, gotta keep focussed on what we were really after.
best buy besides fry's electronics. wasn't even 7 and the store was packed like megamall on a mega-sale. it was a little hot inside and you really get to smell the different aromas, you get the picture. the check out line wound its way around the store, attendants were shouting, everyone was rushing around the store. but, me? i went away bitter. the laptop i wanted turns out have been gone long before we got there, they gave out tickets to the stuff inside the store around 4 in the morning so the early bird really did get the fattest worm. the laptop i wanted was from hp featuring a centrino processor, 512mb ram, 80gigs hdd, DVD+-R and a 15inch widescreen, meager by today's standards, but at $380 that's a bargain. normally goes for $750.
target at Paradise Village. got there around 8, it wasn't full. normal crowd, seems everyone's priority was to get to the boutiques first before hitting the one-stop shops. however, the electronics section was still the most popular one. i saw two ladies with the tv i wanted so i had high hopes i'd also get one. of course i didn't, they just ran out. tough luck. it was a 19" LCD HDTV on sale for $180. normally its $400. now i'm really frustrated. on the up side, we were tipped by a guy who works there that a truck will arrive around 2 in the afternoon and it might have the tv. oh ok, our place is just two blocks away anyway so it wasnt a problem.
circuit city near Mayo Clinic. there around 9. same case with best buy. really full. by the time we got there, the gameboy sp my bro was eyeing for was out as well. it was goin for $50. they were also offering at a lot of games and dvds for $5. wow, but its not worth the line for the checkout.
target at Desert Ridge. this is the bigger target. same deal, the tv was out as well. oh well.
officemax at Desert Ridge. hurrah! no lines! fewer than 10 people customers inside! normal crowd! yay! best of all, the $50 chair, which normally goes $130, greeted me at the door! yay! my bro also got a corner desk, wonderful piece for $60 from $180. yay! we weren't bitter anymore!
paradise bakery at Desert Ridge. hungry, gotta have a bite.
best buy at Paradise Village. not the first best buy we went to, this one's near our place. got here around half past 11. we were tying to beat the 7-hour specials or "til noon only" most stores had. my laptop was still nowhere to be had. my bro were luckier than me. they just brought out this pile of desktop PCs which wasn't listed in their ads. we were just lucky to spot it. it was a $375 rig from emachines. P4HT 3.0GHz, 1gig ram, DVD+-R, 200gigs hdd, 15"LCD, canon printer. couldn't get any better. in 10 minutes, all that was left of the pile was the floor. sweet. i didn't walk away there empty handed, i got a 2gig flash disk from SanDisk for $30. a $65 savings.
target at Paradise Village part deux. substantially more people now. waited for 2, watched the attendants restock. still no tv. grunt.
compusa at Paradise Village. normal crowd. no great deals to speak of. boring. as usual.
walmart near scottsdale airpark. it seems they didn't have much stuff on sale. dang. a lot less people outside now. its now 3pm.
best buy near scottsdale airpark. hoping in vain for a laptop... still na-da.
staples near scottsdale airpark. uh, why were we here? oh right, we don't know as well. lol. just felt like droppin by.
home. around half past 3. unloaded cargo and me and my bro were off again.
target at bell towne center. i never give up. and no matter what ido, it still won't magically materialize in thir shelves. sigh.
fry's electronics part deux. much more pleasurable atmosphere now. no more checkout line, but the row of checkout counters were still busy. went around checking out items in more detail. anyway, my bro talked me into getting a tv tuner card for the pc instead of a tv since i already have a 17" LCD monitor anyway. and you know what, it actually made sense. so i got a HDtv tuner card from ati for $100. this way i get to extract the HD signals already being broadcast over the air, watch it, and save it. yay! my pc just became a dvr as well! lol! but, oops. my 3 hdds have a combined free space of about 20gigs. not a good idea if i want to snag videos from the air. and i can't put in anymore hdd cause the ide channels are already full(3 PATAS + dvd = 4 drives = breaking point). then i got this wierd idea to put in a SATA drive even though my motherboard doesn't natively support it. so i searched the aisles for a SATA controller PCI card. yay! it exists! and quite cheap at $30. so now i have to look for a great deal on a SATA hdd. back to the aisles again! lo and behold, a 500gig SATA drive was on sale for $150! yay! more storage! woot! i was ecstatic. and had to leave the store premises immediately for fear of finding another item which i won't be able to reist getting.
home again. after 13hrs(6am-7pm) of shopping, it was finally over. still no laptop though but i'm sure there's something out there. i got into assembling my chair so i'm enjoying sitting on it right now as i type this. no more aching butts from the hard wood chair for me! then i took on my pc again. it was probably as nervous as i was. another surgical operation. here's the technical story:
i opened the flap. i figured it would be safe to remove my highly buggy and unstable video capture card, which i only used for about three times anyway i think, and my modem card anymore since i slapped in a wireless usb adapter at the back when i got here in the states to access the wifi around here. so, with the two recently freed pci slots, my rig was substantially cleaner. those two cards were covered with dust. T_T
i slapped in the sata controller card where my modem used to be. i ran into a bit of problem installing it with the included driver so i went to their website and got the latest driver. that fixed the problem.
next was the hdtv tuner card. it was big, but it went in comfortably where my video capture card used to be. interestingly enough, this tuner card can also capture video from anything since its also got a s-video and the yellow, red, white, input plugs in it. yay! got it working right away, no snags in the installation. although the reception i get in my room from the included antenna is weak, but its ok, i'm working on a fix for it right now.
lastly, the sata hdd. i left this for last since this will be the trickiest to install. when i slapped in my 3rd hdd, i had to disable one of my chassis fans(which rides along the secondary ide channel power supply) for it causes my whole secondary ide line to disappear from the system or worse, a lock up. apparently the power supply is not enough with the fan. when i took out the fan, my rig worked fine. so with an additional drive, i figured i'd have to disable one of my current drives so that my supply won'te get overloaded. so i directed the supply for my 2nd hdd to the new drive using the included ide to sata power calbe included. it worked fine. but i wasn't hapy losing a hdd. sure its just an 80gig drive compared to the 500gigs im replacing it with.
so i was about to close the flap when i noticed a sata power cable sticking out from the tied up bundle of power cables. i stared at it and i couldn't believe it. did my power supply really supported a sata drive natively? how can it? can it handle the additional power requirement? well, only one way to find out. i put the plug back into my 2nd hdd and used the newly discovered power line for the drive. pushed the power and prayed it won't make the long beep which says inadequate power in bios terms. it didn't. it worked. so i guess my supply can hande it. so i guess the additional chassis fan really wasn't overloading the supply, just the line which makes sense i guess. so i now have a 4th hdd! and as this writing, i don't know how i will partition the too-much-space in it. i'm all ears for any suggestions.
i closed the flap and declared the operation a success. my rig is once again breathing without fear.
by the time i finished around 3 in the morning, i was just way too tired.
saturday
i'm going to stay home and rest. period. . . . .......!
appendix:
HD- High-Definition- a digital television broadcasting system which allows for significantly higher resolutions than what traditional formats would allow. from Wikipedia
PCI- Peripheral Component Inteconnect- a computer bus for attaching peripheral devices to a computer motherboard. from Wikipedia
PCI card- a device in the form of a silicon wafer or a card which adds functionality to your computer. pretty much any none-core functionality of a computer is based here. ex: modem, lan, wifi, tuner, etc.
PCI slot- these are the slots in your motherboard where you put in PCI cards. there will be removable flaps in your cpu's casing(usually at the back) that lines up with these slots which will allow cards to "peer" into the outside world.
RAID- Redundant Array of Inexpensive(or Independent) Disks- a data storage scheme using multiple drivs to replicate or share data among themselves. from Wikipedia
SATA- Serial ATA- the successor to PATA(Parallel ATA)s. faster communication speeds and dedicated lines. from Wikipedia
SATA Controller PCI card- PCI card which enables a system to use SATA disks. also features RAID functionalities to hooked up drives. some cards can host up to 4 disks. you can put as much of these as there are PCI slots making for immense scalability.
tech-savvy- glorified way of saying geek. ex: i'm tech-savvy. lol.
knowledge-enrichment- a glorified way of saying "i'm bored so i'll surf the net". ex: what you're doing right now.
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