It’s simply a good round-up of the happenings and events around here since I last posted.

My Civic Duties

First and foremost, I guess the most exciting news is that I bought a car. Yup, I finally got all my hard-earned pennies and cents together and dove into the world of automobile ownership.

Midway through November I had asked Gerry (my bro-in-law) to keep an eye out for me for a good deal on a decent car, since he works at a dealership and knows a great deal about cars. After a couple of decent but overpriced offerings from a couple of his sources, he came through and found a great ‘95 Honda Civic VTi for me at a reasonable price.

It’s a burgundy coloured, gray-trimmed, 1.6, 4 cylinder automatic 4 door sedan fully equipped with power windows/mirrors/steering, driver’s-side airbag, but alas, no CD player. But I’ll end up getting one soon enough.

So I’m finding out about all the joys and wonders of owning a car… like having to fork out precious cash to renew the registration this week, buy accessories, keep up regular maintenance and fuel costs. But I guess that’s all part of the fun.

Pics below.

[singlepic id="152" w="230" h="153" mode="" float="" ]

Overtly PC

The other big news item is my latest new PC. In my search for the latest and greatest performance package at a reasonable price, I’ve gone and gotten the rest of my monies and built a custom PC. Of course, if you’d been keeping up with my previous posts and other pages on my site you’d know that I’d had mentioned most of the parts for it on my wishlist

It’s a Core2Quad Q6600 CPU on a Gigabyte EP45-DS3L motherboard, sporting a Corsair QUAD2X4096-8500C5DF 4GB RAM kit (soon to be 8GB), a Sapphire HD4870X2 2GB video card, Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro sound card, a XigmaTek Red Scorpion S1283 HDT CPU fan, DVD writer, card reader, all running inside an Antec P182 case and powered by the fantastic Zalman ZM850 HP power supply. I currently have it running Windows Vista Ultimate, but will be setting up a separate partition to try out Windows 7 Beta, hopefully after I grab the install CDs from work sometime this week.

As you can see, it’s no lightweight system I’ve built myself, but I built it to last me a few years, and to perform well at that. So far it has been a pleasure to use. Here’s a pic of the final product:

Take a look at the gallery for more pics.

Putting it together was as fun as I can remember with my old systems, which is to say I enjoyed the challenge but could have done without the frustration. Getting everything to fit in the case was a bit of a challenge considering the power supply took more room than the case was really designed for but I managed to get it worked out thanks to a work buddy who came over and helped me hack it one night (thanks Stuart ).

The best part of it all is that even after buying a car and a building a whole new PC, I still seem to have cash left over. There’s something to this whole saving business.

Christmas Fare

Well, Christmas came and went without a hitch really. Had my sister, brother-in-law, my nephew and niece down from Mt. Isa and my younger brother Juan up from Melbourne and we had a several good family gatherings at which much good food and beverages were consumed, not the least of which were alcoholic. :-“

The Christmas Day bounty was great, but certainly not as much as what the kiddies hauled home. As I’ve mentioned before, our family does the Secret Santa thing, where each person only needs to acquire gifts for a random family member drawn out of a hat (not including kiddies, of course) and spend big on them.
I was special enough to receive the Mario Kart for Wii pack which comes with a really nice looking Wii steering wheel, a funky alarm clock that doubles up as a mirror of sorts, a book, and a Wii-‘mote-shaped lollies dispenser.

It was a good haul. I’m currently devouring the book and hardly able to put it down. The lollies I enjoy only now and then, as I’m not such a huge fan as I was in my childhood. I much prefer and enjoy giving them out to my nephews and nieces.
The alarm clock wakes me every morning with functions, sound and tune I’m still trying to get used to. It’s weird after having spent over half my life with the same old alarm clock (which I also can’t bear to part with just yet ).
The game has been the most fun really. We all enjoyed racing and competing against each other throughout the holidays.
That’s why you gotta love a Wii; it’s group gaming abilities can’t be matched by any of the other consoles.

That’s pretty much about it for now. I’m sure a lot more things happened but they’re the major highlights of the last couple of months.

Related posts

• Secret Santa Stuff (0)
• My new awesome Chair!! (4)
• Cycling Half of Canberra (1)
• A bit of this and a bit of that… (1)

I’m somewhat against the whole idea of having to put together a list like this for a couple of reasons; the first being that I don’t believe I’m that difficult to shop for, and secondly, I believe I’m worth having someone spend the 10 minutes it would take to actually think about what I might like.  I’m not that complicated and definitely not that hard to get to know, given a little time.

Yeah, I suppose that could be taken as a little cutting, but if you actually stop to think about what the whole Christmas gift-giving concept is about, you might begin to see my point.

Also, before I delve into a list proper, you should know that I have no prejudice or aversion to you finding ways to save money when shopping for my gift.  Times are hard and finances are strained to the max for many people, so if you’re into buying on eBay, DealsDirect, or any discount store to save a buck, by all means feel free to do so.  Don’t feel as though you *have* to spend big on my account.  And hey, if you think you can make, build, or engineer a gift with your own two hands and save spending money altogether, go right ahead.  Whichever way you choose to come by a gift, I will nevertheless be thankful and appreciative.

So, here you go, lucky SS.  Pick and choose as you will. 

Some you may know that I’m beginning to acquire parts and pieces to put together to build a killer PC I can use at home.  It’s been a while since I’ve had a “real” PC I can use without it overheating after a half-hour’s use, or blue screen to death, so I thought it about time.  With that in mind I give you the list of some of the components I will need to build it.

• CPU: Intel QuadCore Quad Q6600
• Motherboard: eVGA 132-YW-E178-A1
• Memory: Corsair Micro QUAD2x4096-8500C5DF 4GB Kit
• Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon HD4870X2
  
• Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro
  
• Hard Disk: 2 x Samsung HD501LJ Spinpoint 500GB
  
• Case: Antec P182 Performance One
• Power Supply: Zalman ZM850W
  
• OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit
• Additional: USB Hub (with as many ports as possible… )

Other things I might enjoy or find useful would be the following:

• Gift voucher
  This could cover anything from clothing to DVDs.  Less personal and thoughtful but more versatile, I suppose.
• Bike riding gear -or vouchers.
  Jerseys (tops), nicks (shorts), jackets, etc.  For when I’m riding to work.
• PC or Wii Games
  • Mario Kart Wii
  • Command & Conquer:  Red Alert 3 (PC)
  • Mario Strikers Charged Football (Wii)
  • Call of Duty Modern Warfare or World at War (PC)
  • Dead Space (PC)
  • Mirror’s Edge (PC)
  • World of Goo (Wii)
  • de Blob (Wii)
  • Rock Band (Wii)
  • etc, etc…
• Nice summertime, light jackets, tops, etc
• A nice watch.
• Air purifier/ionizer… (sick of dust and crap… )
• Car stuff :-“

That’s about all I can think of right now.
Please remember that you’re by no means restricted to acquire any of the items on this list.  If you can think of something I might like that I haven’t put on there, get it.

If after all this you still have difficulty finding something just remember, I’m a technology geek; I enjoy riding my mountain bike; I enjoy gaming; I love clothing and if all else fails, I drink beer (blonde… less carbs ).

Hope that helps.

If I think of other things, I’ll add them on here.

Related posts

• December/January Round-up (1)