After Math

Hellos,

It's great to be back to blogger world after the celebration of Christ's birth. Hoping that you all had a great merry time during the festive season and actually ate to the fullest.

I only just recently saw on a T.V add that turkey has an ingredient that is used in some sleeping pills. I did have more than a lions share of turkey which explains my high slumber affinity & slight delay in getting back to posting.

Much as I was not feeling Christmasy at first, I did have more fun than I had expected. First, my weekend began early on Wednesday when I was told the office would be closed from Christmas eve in order to enjoy x-mas days much to my delight and wishing. I had so much fun moving around taking pictures, shopping for last minute presents and buying the food for the meal.

I only just opened my presents yesterday and was very happy with what met my eyes. No it was not some tech stuff like I had secretly wished for but things to add to my wardrobe. I now have a different tie for each day of the week, a 5 Kg chain and an LR suit.

Since I came, there are still clothes I've not got chance to put on, and more seam to be coming in. All the clothes I had in Ug could hardly fit in the tin case and I was fine with that but now, hmm am yet to get used to the diversity, only good thing is I've not done laundry for over a month.

My mum surprised me this morning when she said she was hoping to get an ipod. How did she know about that? My mum is kinda traditional and hates any tech stuff, she has hardly mastered how to use her own cellphone so you can understand why the ipod was a shocker.

I think my sister might have given her that bad ipod idea maybe even someone at her work but much as I love her more than the cost of the ipod, the $150(-tax) for the latest nano is a bit outside of my rather tiny budget. I mean even Santa went into recession and may kids did not get stuff from north pole.

All of a sudden I have nothing else to say. Well may be I should close by weechu a prosperous new year and thanks for the time together the past few months.

How was the festivity your side?

Any real resolutions for 2009?

Adventure

Oh!!! How I so wish I could drive!! Problem is, I just can't face my fears and get behind the wheels of those menacing metallic horses. My first attempt at taming one of these beasts was a hilarious mess I remember driving straight into the then Jinja road round-about in a friends car and I left him yelling in the car and took a taxi back home.

When I moved to the big apple, a pal warned and mentioned how I'd have to gain driving skills to manage this place effectively but I quickly dismissed him saying such stuff is for only chosen few for I'm happy taking rides in the passenger seat. But after yesterday's mix, his words came rushing back in and maybe, just maybe I should probably do something to face my phobia of controlling the metallic horse. My mum would be the happiest, she has been bugging me since day one to get my driving license in order to become her personal chauffeur but I always claim business rather than my phobia.

How it started
Some crazy instinct took over me when I received a call on my way back home and I jumped out of the bus only to find myself in the middle of nowhere. Some elderly guy I tried to talk first asked me for money and when I said I was out, he went away cursing and could not listen to me, the next person wanted to sell me crack and calls back to that office and home did not yield any fruits. How unbecoming of me but I was determined to go for my appointment.

To cut the long story short, I took about 5 buses before finally reaching my destination. One gentleman I met taking his son home and showing him the bus routes and numbers was of immense help. He made me avoid the $2 /bus fare for two of the transfers and advised me to use the African accent with the rest of the drivers to get to my destination without having to pay anything and it worked. You see I made a stupid choice in getting off my home bound bus and I actually had no money on me.

Destination at Last
This was not all in vain the person I went to see was fiercely hot and I was charmed by everything she said, I did not want to leave her office and the K.b was flowing. See thing is I was only there to get help with my health insurance but some how forgot this and spent over two hours in there trying to sell my self and even landed on a Job posting which would suite me considering it has stuff to do with computer's -Ive already sent in my resume.

It's bad I had to call her back and ask for train fare which felt awkward considering it was form someone you'd just had a love at first sight moment. She did walk out with me until we could get change and I was short of giving her a huge hug and peck for being so nice & beautiful. Should I follow up?

I got back home 2hrs later exhausted,cold, hungry and with a splitting headache. This did not stop me from going to dell.com and getting my self a TomTom & some other stuff much to the charging of my mum but that's another storo.
This Friday marks the end of my first 4week Internship orientation, hopefully we're shipped off to the work sites this Monday for the real dance, but today, it's party time for completion. Am looking forward to the pizza, shiken wings and whatever else is thrown at me tomorrow at work.

Have a great weekend

My Latest Toy...

Finally after what seamed like months of waiting,(they did take their time & messed up my order) it finally arrived. When it comes to buying Tech-stuff, I prefer shopping online where you can have plenty of time to analyse, customise, compare and admire a work of art before ordering compared to going to the outlets where you have to depend on some sales agent interested in only getting you off their case and of course the shipping is usually free. Also you buy directly from the manufacturer meaning that you get a good bargain and can always apply the discount offers.

Am talking about the latest addition to my small growing family of gadgets....This time it's the over talked about Dell XPS 420. It looks something like this
hehehe I know sweet. This beauty set me back about $1500, it's a $2,279 value but I have my ways. It did come with a WNR2000 Wireless-N Broadband Router with 4 port switch and a free EasyShare C813 8.2 MP Digital Camera, which means I can actually start with picture for my blog.

The Specs are neat and most tech lovers would appreciate even the standard version reviewed on Cnet here. I did "pimp" it up a bit to match my desires and pocket and most notable is.

• The 6X Blu-ray and 16X DVD+/-RW. At least I can now be able to watch movies and burn on the blu-ray drive.
• 4GB DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz It's very fast to use.
• Intel Core2 processorQ6600(2.4Ghz 1066FSB)w/QuadCore. I don't even know what this means exactly but it sounds good and eye catching.
• A 640GB SATA Hard Drive. I know I could have done better than this but it's like 10x's bigger than the old one and can hold lots of music and movies.
  

Me Likes
At first time glance, you'll probably fall in love with the thing and after sample using it, you'll be completely drawn I did like most.

1. The 22" wide screen flat panel monitor with web cam & mic....My mum & sis complained that this is two huge and unnecessary but of course they do not know these things and showing them samples of their images was enough to change their minds. I had to re watch QOS on this and it was better than on the old one. They say this panel supports High Def but I'll test my self when I get the $$ for a TV card and hook it up to cable.
2. Speed...So much to say on this, stuff opens faster than am used to and the use is smooth. It came with a Dell Wireless 1505 adapter and after hooking it up to the home network, I was shocked by the download speed that almost clocked a record 1.5Mbs a personal one for me and am still in shock. Now imagine if I instead use the Ethernet 2 Gigabit Network Connection by connecting directly to the modem.
3. Blue tooth, it came with a 19 in one card reader with blue tooth, though I do not have use for this feature at the moment, it's going to come in handy in the near by future with addition of other necessary stuff.
4. The Blu-ray disk...Also a feature I'll be able too enjoy with passing time.
   
5. The Chassis is nicely and beautifully finished. worth just looking at.

Me hates
Of course I had to look for the bad bits, although some people may say am just over complaining and price might have had a role to play, but still the things i did not like and could not quite figure out are there and are:-

1. The Sound card, It has an integrated Intel^® 7.1 channel High Definition Audio sound card which is completely useless for me considering I could only afford the D"ell AX510 Sound Bar UltraSharp Flat Panel Attachable Speakers" whose out put I've failed to appreciate.
2. Windows Vista, I have no problem with Vista and actually prefer it to XP but I totally loath any Home Edition and the system was a Home Premium edition forget the Premium bit. It's just there to make it sound big but the limitations of using a Windows Home edition OS is clear in Vista. Up to now, am failing to connect to the shared drives of the old PC running Windows XPP Service Pack-3..I did manage this fit before at my old work place by assigning a static IP address to the XPP data storage machine such that the other Vista Home users could easily access it by using the IP-add instead and it worked. This time it is not and am starting to think it could be the SP-3 causing the zibs oba I configured the router wrongly(doubt highly) but am yet to know. May be if Solomon King and other tech geniuses and wizzards can offer a hand in this matter before am forced to upgrade Illegaly/legaly to the Ultimate edition.
3. The Include anti Virus....I hate McAfee not only is it resource intensive(not that I have issues here) but it's also difficult to use(control) and much weaker in protection compared to the Kaspersky Internet security which I've become so fond of. It has 15 months subscription which I'd hate to lose so am forced to stick with it that long.
4. The 128Mb ATI Radeon HD 2400 Video card I could have wanted something higher.
   

Apart from those, there is nothing else bad with the system with time, i should be able to customise it to the perfect best friend and it should be able to meet all my entertainment and gaming demands for my satisfaction and well being

This is the second most powerful machine am having at my exposure and use. The first one was an XPS 700 Jet black which was more costly and not as powerful as this because it only had 2GB ram & a 20" monitor without webcam. Originally I'd thought I'd call it the beast but It's actually quite a handsome machine and would certainly pull other female Pc's if they saw him.....

Am just now lucking a suitable name. Prince charming sounds really lame & gay....any suggestions?

The Playlist..one

Dear all, It has been a rather uneventfully weekend for me and as such have noting much to write about hence bring up this post I'd made some time back to use on such days. Of course, with the US election high up, I have nothing to say except Am hoping history is made today.

From the time I got that Mp3 player, I've been looking for music to fill up most of the allocated 2gb. Back home in Ug, this would have been a rather simple task considering that half of my lapi was packed with only music all compressed to create more space, long story short my backup external fell and I left my lapi home with big sis.

Music I love, Top of the list is rock, gospel, then some reggae. I was able to replace most of my collection with the help of the internet and some individual songs, I get Here!

My small player is not yet full and has space for about 130 more songs, Am not going to fill up a whole post with all that music only the top 5 artists in each music genera. This first bit will only have alternative rock the rest will follow in more scarcity times.

Rock- The Alternative

1. Linkin Park This is one of my greatest bands, I somehow find myself listening to their music and I have most of their albums with me. The songs that get to me are from
   
   • Album: Hybrid Theory(2000): -Crawling(Lyrics), -In the End(Lyrics) I totally love the video and head shaking attached to this song -Runaway(Lyrics), -Pushing Me Away(Lyrics)
   • Album: Collision Course(2004): - Numb/Encore (Lyrics) Most people I know like this song, - Izzo/In the End(Lyrics)
   • Album: Minutes To Midnight(2007): -What I've Done(Lyrics)
     
     
2. Cold Play Most of the cold play songs appeal to my inner self and I find them immensely comforting. The notable ones are:-
   
   • Album: Parachutes(2000): -Sparks(Lyrics), -Yellow(Lyrics), -Trouble(Lyrics)
   • Album: A Rush Of Blood To The Head(2002): -In My Place(Lyrics), Clocks(Lyrics)
   • Album: X&Y(2005): -Speed Of Sound(Lyrics), -A Message(Lyrics), Til Kingdom Come(Lyrics)
     
     
3. GreenDay All my friends like green day, so its natural
   
   • Album: American Idiot(2004): -American Idiot(Lyrics), -Boulevard Of Broken Dreams(Lyrics), -Wake Me Up When September Ends(Lyrics), -Boulevard of Broken Songs(Lyrics)
     
     
4. Red Hot Chili Peppers.
   • Album: Californication(1999) -Californication(Lyrics), -Otherside(Lyrics)
     
     
     
5. Sound Tracks. These songs I mostly learnt about after watching the movie and had to get the full versions.
   
   • Gavin DeGraw - I Don't Want To Be: "One Tree Hill, Vol. 2" Ost
   • Breaking Benjamin - Forget It: Smallville: The Metropolis Mix
   • Goo Goo Dolls - Before It's Too Late: Transformers(The Movie)
   • Snow Patrol - Signal Fire: Spider Man.3
   • Dashboard Confessional – Vindicated: Spider Man.2
   • David Grey - Its Not Easy To Be Me: Smallville: The Talon Mix
   • Maximum the Hormone -What's up, people?: Death Note Ost
     
   • Goo Goo Dolls - Iris: City of Angels

That winds up the first few rock songs that made it to my player and cant seam to get enough of them. next is the rock- The Christian.

What's in your Player?