Goodwin 1st MRB

This thread delivers!!!

I'd say that's excessive... 6 months seems like a reasonable time to wait. Even 1 year if the upgrades and price reductions will put a GREAT machine in his home rather than a 'moderate machine' that will be dated by then. He'll have more money for better things - just takes a bit of time. I don't see the failure in that logic... but... it is what it is.

Honestly? You might just want to try saving your cash during your study abroad. Think about it - take that $600, set it aside in a savings account or something - earn some interest on it while you do nothing with it - then when you come home you have more money than you started with and can get a rig with even more up-to-date components instead of components that will already be a semester behind the curve. Also, by the components that would have been more expensive now, will be cheaper - meaning a better rig for you all around (and more money to spend on it!)

Lunch today consisted of: Steak, lightly carmelized onions, mashed potatoes and peppers (jalepeno, red, yellow and orange bell); The steak had been marinated about 40 minutes and braised in a white wine. It was delicious (although the steak could have been more pink for my liking). Finished with a glass of Riesling.

LIES! Blasphemer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's his birthday? Oh man.... look out. He's getting old(er). I expect a fully drunk Kirkendall to be gracing us with his presence late in the night on vent yelling random things and playing at a more human level

Sure. Feel free to experiment with it! The chipotle mayo gives it a great bite IMO - but again, I use 4 chipotle peppers. Never thought about spicy mustard - not sure how that would play with pico de gallo. Let us know!

you can do without the peppers all together... and for the chipotle mayo if you were to just put in 1, or 1/2, it would just have barely any kick but be delicious (probably about the same kick as the onions). If you use the sweet onions you'll be far happier because there is no 'hot' bite to them... it really helps the pico de gallo to be very mellow. That will make it not hot/spicy at all, but still delicious!

I'm with you. WoW became a game for babies - once you could just level up, get epics from doing virtually nothing and have end game quality items without doing any of the work from the old days (40-man MC anyone?) I was done. The 25 man format? Okay, I dealt with it.... then came the 10-man... then the nerfs... then the pvp epics that were easy to get and on par with end game raiding gear... Everyone had an end level player(s) that were decked out. I too had 5-6 end game champs all in epics that were capable of handling any raid/role... healing, tanks, dps, etc. I finally had to say "no thanks, let the kiddies play" and look for something else. I am still looking. Although, I think WoW may have ruined MMO-RPG's for me. I'll give GW2 a try, but I don't have high expectations. I had high expectations for SW:TOR; but once everyone hit 50 they stopped playing... I never hit 50 because I got a late start and no one was around to play with me - so I rarely login. I like those games for the 'play with friends' aspect of them... without that? It's boring. One I did like, was Everquest 2 actually... they had some REALLY cool features, that even today WoW is still stealing and trying to integrate into their game (surprisingly). Guild banks? EQ2 had those from launch (including guild houses, etc); EQ2 had some really cool ideas and functionalities that benefitted WoW... they simply didn't have the player base and required a bit more PC/Graphics power than I think most people were ready for at the time which killed it. Also, WoW was easier for people to pick up and go - where as EQ2 had more grinding (professions were far more difficult to get good at). Anyhow.... yea, I used to WoW, a lot. So glad I don't do that anymore... but I think it's ruined MMORPGs for me

Did you try it? Or are you just assuming? Because my fiancee was ready to not try it. She said it sounded gross, told me she would hate it and was sure it would be gross. She was converted at first bite!

So - you've got a woman (or man) who you're trying to impress... what better way to woo them than with a good homecooked meal? Okay, maybe it's a not a 'meal', but it's hot sandwich (panini?) that will leave them begging for more and feeling completely satisfied! I first tried this at a small joint called the Morgan St. Cafe, close to the Sears tower (eff the willis tower!) in downtown Chicago. This restaurant is actually around Greektown, but it's amazing. The sandwiches are top notch and it's there I first had their "Desperado" I couldn't find the recipe (or remember exactly what kind of meat was on it); but I've found this to be almost identical! The sandwich rundown: A hot ciabatta roll with turkey, munster cheese, pico de gallo and chipotle mayo. If you're like my fiance, some of you may be saying "wow, that sounds like the worst combination ever."; but give it a chance - the flavor combination will absolutely turn your whole idea of flavor balance on it's head. The Pico De Gallo: If you know how to make pico de gallo you like, go for it. This is how we've decided to go about it: 4 tomatoes (cubed pretty small) 1.5 sweet onions (some people use red, or white, we've found sweet onions balance the flavor very well) 1/4 of a jalepeno 1/2 (or 3/4 if you're daring) of a habenero (de-seed for less heat, or add a few seeds and a bit of the stem for a nice heat that really rolls on) You can also eliminate the habenero all together, and just use a bit more jalepeno for more heat if you'd like. Or if you don't like hot? Just use 1/4 jalepeno. 3 TBsp of Cilantro (or to taste) the juice from 1/2 of a lime 3 cloves of garlic 1 tsp garlic powder 3/4 tps Cumin dash of salt, dash of pepper (to taste) Mix all ingredients together in a bowl - and you're done. Chipotle Mayo: buy 1 can of Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce In a food processor add 2-4 (depending on the heat you want) of the Chipotles out of the can 1 cup mayo (we used salad dressing/miracle whip with GREAT results!) 1-1.5 TBsp of the adobo sauce from the can the juice of 1/2 (or a whole - depending on your taste) lime pinch of salt, pinch of black pepper (to taste) Puree that mixture for a bit - add any additional salt/pepper to taste. Put it all together.... Cut yourself a bit of the ciabatta roll, put the turkey and cheese on it, top it with some of the pico de gallo, and put the chipotle mayo on the roll and put it together! Toss it on a panini press (or on a hot grill) for a bit to warm it through. Eat and enjoy. This sandwich will make your mouth thank you, your stomach happy and your date think you're an Iron Chef. It's easy/fast to make and is amazing - you will not be sorry. My fiancee can be a pretty picky eater and she does not like trying new things; we have eaten these for dinner probably 4 times in the past 2 weeks. Despite her doubts, after her first bite she undeniably proclaimed "Wow, this is amazing" - she rated it a 9.7 out of 10. It's nice because you can adjust the heat to your liking too - we used around 3/4 of a large habenero in ours tonight... and the pico de gallo was VERY hot. We used chipotle peppers in our mayo too - so our sandwiches have a lot of bite. The sandwich really surprises you. Even with lots of heat, it's a 'slow heat' that just makes your mouth warm - but slowly and in such a way that you don't mind it - and you get all that great flavor! Seriously, try it - you can thank me later.

I just want to say - I can't stand "sleep mode" or "hibernate" I've seen it screw more things up than it's EVER helped anyone - ever. At least in a domain/workgroup environment. For some reason - it's just a shitty feature from my years of experience. Also, with SSD's it can reduce the lifetime of the drive quite a bit (when it sleeps - sometimes gigs of data being stored in RAM gets written to the HD - on a SSD you want to avoid that as much as you can within reason, so 'sleep' is a bad idea with SSD!) I said my peace in the other thread - it depends on the hardware setup and how long you'll be leaving it off, etc.

Yes Sir, great system. I echo Dillon - SSD is pretty frickin' sweet. From cold start to up and running and opening programs in around 10 seconds. As I said in vent - with an SSD I make sure to shut off my PC when not in use and with such short boot times - why not? It saves even what minute extra writes might be put on it (whereas a sleep/hibernate will caused things to get dumped do it). I never worried so much with HDD - and it really probably isn't all that much of an issue with SSD. But... once you have SSD - expect to never go back. I use my SSD just purely for OS. Apps/games all go on the HDD; and even doing that they load amazingly fast (7,200RPM drive). IMO it's not worth the extra fractions of a second you'll save in load time to put the wear and tear of games on your SSD. Also, it's nice because you can install the OS to the SSD fast as well (7 minutes or so)... so if it crashes? No problem, just reinstall the OS and be up and running quickly.

You had better not!!!!

I kept thinking "omg... that is high" the he would transition to another part.... and another... and another. I found myself making noises I didn't even know I could - just watching the video. I could never do that unless I had a parachute attached.

My woman (bless her) woke up and made me this to eat while I sat at the PC playing games today: Sausage, scrambled eggs, cheese, over garlic hashbrowns. Delicious! Almost as filling as when I ate this 1.5lb burger at Durty Gurts (by Kirkendall, great restaurant!) Of course, I need to start watching my diet... it's almost this time of year again.... I want to hit up at least a few sprint triathlons this year. Maybe, if I feel ballsy, I will go for a half-ironman!

OMG! Yes, that looks awesome!.... 10 years ago here.

Remind me yellow lenses in MX... I LOVE them, makes things so bright and clear when it's nasty weather and such (or even when it's sunny). That said, I never bothered to buy more than 1 pair. haha

Not me. There are better out there. Every year they just release a new number (1,2,3) and they're always just slightly beefed up but essentially same stuff, new wrapper. Not worth it with the other options that are out there now, cost considerably less and do just as much.

...wow

Seatools is a good HD health test. I've never found the registry cleaner in CCleaner to be too bad either. Combofix dat bitch. Also, I keep all my games/data on a separate internal drive, and run my OS/core files on an SSD. Nice part? The 'data' drive is plug & play (although I do create backups of my stuff should something go bad, on an external). If Windows is your problem, would be easy enough to reinstall if you had either 2 drives, or had partitioned out an OS partition specifically. In the future it will save you literally HUNDREDS of hours if you either A) start doing 2 drives, or B)Partition your existing drive so your OS sits on a separate partition.

Happy Birthday guys!

They make adapters for the standard 4-pin to a 6-pin IIRC. That way you can use that power supply with your card. Maybe not "ideal" but... it's do-able.

Well, I didn't look at compatibility to be honest. I just took a look and it seems like a decent economy rig. Lots of space on the HD - but the HD is slow. 5900RPM is not fast by any means (it's laptop type speeds); so I'd use your current drive if I were you (assuming it's like a 7,200RPM drive but smaller probably. Then just use that as a 'data' drive. That's what I do anyhow - I've got a 60gb SSD for OS, and a 1TB for everything else data related. The processor seems okay too - but I'm not much of an AMD fan myself. Like I said - for the price? Decent rig IMO. Budget buy - but a buy none the less.

Not bad, you'll be plenty happy with it.