Little Kenny: 01/01/2006

Steve Gettin' To Know Ya Meme

So Steve sent this via an email, but the hell if I'm not gonna take the opportunity to post it here. Here goes.

1. What time did you get up this morning? 7:00am?

2. Diamonds or pearls? diamonds.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? I can't even remember. $10 to see a movie? No fuckin' way. It'll be on DVD soon enough.

4. What is your favorite TV show? 2 1/2 men & hockey

5. What did you have for breakfast? 2 small bran muffins and a fat free yogurt, 4 points

6. What is your middle name? Edward

7. What is your favorite cuisine? Filet mignon, medium rare, real medium rare. So far Houston's is the only place I've gotten it just right.

8. What food do you dislike? I'm pretty open to anything, but if I have to pick one then unagi, but that could change.

9. Favorite chips? Doritos Nacho Cheese.

10. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Dean Grey, American Edit (if you want a copy let me know).

11. What kind of car do you drive? Toyota Camry(sigh).

12. What characteristics do you despise? Disloyalty. If you can't count on someone no matter what, there's no use having a close relationship.

13. Favorite item of clothing? My flip flops.

14. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? European tour, north to south and east to west.

15. What color is your bathroom? Light blue (Mrs. Little Kenny hates the color).

16. Favorite brand of clothing? Currently my t-shirt supplier Threadless.

17. Where would you retire? Maui.

18. Favorite time of day? Early mid morning. You know around 9am. Not sure why.

19. Where were you born? San Francisco, California.

20. Favorite sport to watch? Hockey.

22. Person you expect to send it back first? No expectations.

23. What laundry detergent do you use? Cold water All or Tide, can't remember which.

24. Coke or Pepsi? Coca-Cola Classic all the way.

25. Are you a morning person or night owl? If those are my only choices then night owl, but it's getting harder and harder to stay up late.

26. What size shoe do you wear? 8.5

27. Do you have pets? My kitty Stella.

28. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with your friends? I've started Weight Watchers with Mrs. Little Kenny. Just so you all can follow along there will be a blog to track it. Stay tuned.

29. What (who) did you want to be when you were little? Honestly I don't remember. Something to do with going into space definitely would have been cool.

30. Favorite Candy Bar? I'm not a big chocolate fan and I like a lot of different kinds, but if I had to pick one bar it would have to be a good old fashioned Hershey bar.

31. What is your favorite childhood memory? High school, driving from Redwood City to a convention in Sacramento. Summer time. Open highway. '79 black Trans Am with t-tops. Wind blowing, radio playing. Had the best sex of my high school career. For the record it was only the second time I had sex and would be the last for a very, very long time.

32. What are the different jobs you have had in your life? Advisor(local ad paper) paper route, sandwich maker at Togos, bus boy at a local restaurant(I can't remember the name, but it was a Sizzler style knock off), Prima Deli making sandwiches, construction for a summer, Prima Deli as a manager, Checker Auto Parts in Phoenix, courier for a law firm while going to community college, a bit of tutoring while at Cal Poly Pomona, custom painting motorcycles after graduating, communicaton satellite construction and test for Hughes Space and Communications and after they were bought by Boeing

33. What color underwear are you wearing? Dark blue plaid.

34. Nicknames? Ken, Kenny, Little Kenny, Rumproast

35. Piercing: One, my left ear. Haven't worn an earing for about 2 years now.

37. Ever been to Africa? No

38. Ever been toilet papering? Once I think

39. Love someone so much it made you cry? Absolutely.

40. Been in a car accident? Try and guess how many times. Sheesh. None lately, knock on wood.

41. Croutons or Bacon Bits? Both, not sure though now with Weight Watchers

42. Favorite day of the week? Currently Saturday as that is the beginning of my weekend right now.

43. Favorite restaurant? Houston's Steakhouse.

44. Favorite flower? Pretty ones.

45. Favorite ice cream? Baskin Robbins daquiri ice

46. Disney or Warner Brothers? Disney

47. Favorite fast food restaurant? I don't have one favorite. I've got favorite items at multiple places. Bacon double del cheese burger at Del Taco, Filet o Fish at McDonalds extra cheese and tartar sauce, Chicken Sandwich with cheese at Burger King no lettuce extra mayo, Double Double Animal style no pickles at IN-N-OUT

48. What color is your bedroom carpet? Brown

49. How many times did you fail your driver's test? None.

50. Before this one, from whom did you get your last e-mail? Best Buy online receipt

53. Bedtime: Anytime between 10-12 at night during the week. Weekends are unlimited or at least as unlimited as I can take. If I'm in Vegas though I can manage to stay up quite a bit later. Imagine that.

54. Who are you most curious about their responses to this questionnaire? Well seeing as I'm not passing it on this one doesn't apply

55. Last person you went to dinner with: Mrs. Little Kenny's Maid of Honor, Renee (at Houston's btw)

56. Ford or Chevy? Ford as my high school car was a '65 Mustang. My brother is still keeping her running and slowly restoring her.

57. What are you listening to right now? Something About Mary in the background.

58. What is your favorite color? Blue.

59. Lake, Ocean, River? Lake or Ocean, not so big on the river

60. How many tattoos do you have? None. I like them, but I just haven't found anything that has truly moved me to permanently put it on my body.

61. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Well it all started with a big bang and it went from there...

63. Favorite Cocktail? Currently rum and coke(diet coke)

64. Where would you go for a girl's weekend get-a-way? Don't listen to Steve, he is a girl, but if I had to go away for a girl's weekend it would have to include Sonoma Mission Inn, wine tasting and spa treatments.

65. What would you do if you had to select another career? Go back to painting motorcycles.

66. Republican or Democrat? Registered republican, BUT I'm definitely a centrist when it comes to it. Republicans are just too "conservative" and democrats are just too "hippy".

67. Favorite Family Vacation? So far, Maui.

68. All Time Favorite Concert? I think it would have to be the concert where Metallica opened for Ozzi. That was for the Master Of Puppets album. Great energy at that concert. Especially when Welcom Home Sanitarium was played. Good shit.

Labels: Meme

Winter-Een-Mas

Not a bad picture considering I took it myself of... myself.

So tomorrow is the last day of Winter-Een-Mas. I haven't really done my part to celebrate it either. It's too bad really. I've done my best to play Eve, but I haven't even turned on the PS2. Luckily NHL '06 over at Dave's last weekend helped with the celebration. Still I suck at celebrating this holiday. I wish it had been around when I was growing up or even better when I was in college. Definitely had the time to devote to this in college. Anyway, Happy Winter-Een-Mas to all! Now go play.

ATI Plus Dell FTW! I Think?

(Geekery follows. If that offends or bores you then move along, move along. This isn't the post you're looking for.)

So Rick posted about the 30" monitor that Dell is selling. Basically competition for the Apple 30" monitor. He mentioned that it's resolution was 2560x1600 and I wondered if my current video card could even support that resolution. Not to mention the price tag of the monitor. It turns out that no, my current video card would not work with this monitor. I poised the same question to Rick.

Dell 30 - $2199"

Apple 30 - $2499"

So I'm thinking there is no way I would need to have the top of the line card to use this monitor. I must just need to research this more. But wtf, to my surprise Rick's statement is pretty much spot on. At least if you stick with ATI. I did a brief search of the Nvidia offerings and the 7800GTX looks like it will support it and Dell's site backs that up as well, but the cost of the 7800 is pretty friggin' huge. In fact the only card solutions Dell is recommending are Nvidia solutions. Nvidia lost favor with me a while back for various reasons and I've switched to ATI. I'd rather not have to go back to Nvidia. At least not right now.

So what are my options Ken? Well I'm glad you asked Ken. Here's what I came up with initially.

The X1600XT, around $160 + tax, looks like it will support the resolution of the display. At least with a single card as far as I can determine, but this card is not at the high end as far as performance so bummer. Now it is Crossfire capable, which means you can put two in one computer, but I didn't find any benchmarks to say how much that would help. Plus you'd have to have a board that supports Crossfire. There was another variation of the X1600, the PRO version, but with that one the memory looks to be clocked at about half the speed of the XT so it's even further from being worthy.

Now the next card up is the X1800XL. Way better performance than the X1600 due to the fact that the actual chip is more high-end on the inside. By a bunch in fact. You can see a comparison of the chips here. In fact it's the same chip as what's on the next model up, the X1800XT. The only difference I can see between the two is that the XT is running faster, both core and memory, and has 512MB memory instead of 256MB. Now these cards are running from ~$400 for the XL to ~$500 for the XT. Is the performance difference worth the extra $100? I don't know. To some I'm sure it is. If I had to pick one card right now though and at the current prices I would go with the XL. I'm not good enough to probably even need the XL let alone the XT so that's where I would save a couple bucks.

There is also a new chip out from ATI, the X1900, that as far as gaming performance goes even beats Nvidia's latest greatest, the 7800GTX, which had held the crown as of late. Apparently the X1900 has taken the crown back. What is interesting though is that during my digging it seems the X1900 has taken a step backward and can't support resolutions higher than 2048x1536? What the hell? I thought as you moved up in the chain you got everything that the previous old models had and more. Apparently not the case here. I must be misinterpreting something somewhere. (Please advise if you can. Thx.)

So Mr. Rick it seems you were right sir. If you want to run that new monitor that both you and now I are drooling over you will also have to spend another $400 bucks, minimum, plus tax on a new video card. That's in addition to the $2199 for the monitor itself.

Looking some other places though makes me doubt the above research a bit. I've seen a couple of reports that say some of the older cards, i.e. the X850XT, will support the monitor. I've also not seen exactly what makes a card support this monitor. I realize it has to do with TMDS and DVI-I(Dual Link), but man I just haven't come totally to grips with all of the requirements yet. I guess the most surefire way of guaranteeing the monitor will work with any card is to actually contact the card maker and Dell. Yikes!

But Ken, you ask, even if you figure out which card you need why could you possibly need that monitor? When it comes to this shit it has nothing to do with what I need dammit. It's all about what I want. Oi! Sheesh now that I think about it though that sucker would almost be as big as my TV. I'd probably have to reinforce my desk just to the hold the sucker up.

Edit(2/3/2006): Rick had mentioned an article to me regarding the new ATI video cards and a reference that was made to the high resolution monitors. I took a look at the article, but still had questions so I emailed the author. Here's his reply. The following is from Tim Smalley at Bit-Tech and I think it pretty much clears up which ATI cards support the new monitors for basic 2D use.

Hi Ken,

Thanks for taking the time to email me.

The Radeon X1000-series cards all have support for two dual link DVI connectors, meaning that both of the DVI ports are capable of running at 2560x1600. What I was saying in regard to gaming on a Dell 30" monitor was that you'd get the most out of the monitor if you've got a CrossFire setup.

With only one Radeon X1900, you're going to be forced to lower details, or run at a non-native resolution. With two cards together in CrossFire, you're going to have more of a chance of running at the monitor's native resolution with a good level of in-game detail too.

I hope that makes sense to you. Any problems, let me know.

Cheers,

Tim Smalley
Technical Editor
bit-tech.net

It's No Lazy Sunday, But...

Money For Nothing

So I've got some work to do. Even if there was some way to cash it in I don't think it would be worth it. I guess I need to drum up some more attention. ;) Heh.

My online journal is worth $3,951.78.
How much is yours worth?

Thanks Sherri. ;)

You'll Kill Me After This

They may not be politically correct, but then I really don't give a shit. John turned me on to the Greatest Blond Joke Evar.

Right In His Stupid Face, Damnit!

Today's Penny Arcade made me laugh and I had to control it as there was an upper level meeting going on right next door. Hoo-ah!

Filling Space

The following story was mentioned in the Los Angeles Times today, Mac mentioned it and I'm sure it will be or was carried on any number of local news shows. To summarize a judge in Arizona ruled that a woman's unborn fetus did not qualify her for driving in the carpool lanes. The judge stated that "the law is meant to fill empty space in a vehicle." The story states she was visibly pregnant so wasn't the unborn child doing just that, filling empty space? If that's all that is required then me and my conjoined twin ... ...

.....

Ok I went looking for more info on conjoined twins and related topics just to make sure I got all my terms correct. I haven't, but I got so side tracked that I really don't feel like finishing the post as I had originally envisioned it. I was going to go the route of conjoined twins, elephantitus of the nads, etcetera riding shotgun. However, look at the truly odd stuff [WARNING: The link will take you to a site showing people with birth defects who were put on display for profit. If this topic bothers or disturbs you don't click the link.] you can find when you're not even trying. There's a ton of info here on past freak show participants as well as on what appears to be the main site for a current freak show.

Picture courtesy of www.phreeque.com

No Diamonds From Her

So it's been all over the news. Really it shouldn't be any where except in a tabloid rag. If there. Yet even I am still giving it play. I'm referring to Ms. Jolie and her announcement. There have to be more important things to focus on than her carrying her and Mr. Pitt's love child. Apparently there aren't. Mac Attack couldn't have summed it up any better than she did.

"Unless the baby is born a bearded purple cyclops with scaly mermaid legs and Angelina squirts diamonds out of her uterus during the birth, there’s not so much to get excited about."

Success

So I was reading over at Sherri's today and she had a brief post with some links to places telling you how to have a successful personal website. I won't go into details here. Take a look at the links over at Sherri's. Basically if you want to win the poplularity contest and have a gazillion readers there's a formula you need to follow. Once you've followed the formula then luck needs to be on your side. That basically is how you have a successful popular blog.

However, there are more routes to success than just that one. In fact if you define the goal for your roadstop on the information superhighway to be something completely different than just numbers of readers you can succeed as well. Which brings me to the point of this post. When I originally decided to put up a site I had intended to put something together as a focal point for stuff I wanted to share with my friends. I wanted some place where I could post funny stories, post pictures, post links to goofy intarweb shit, etc. Basically I wanted a way to share the stuff I stumble on without having to send out mass emails to all my contacts.

There's another reason I wanted to establish an online home. Prior to starting mine I read a few other sites. Not a lot, but a few. While reading these sites I felt like I got to know a bit about these people and wanted to comment. What was weird for me was leaving these comments for people that have no idea who the hell I am. By putting up this site I was able to give them a place where, if they wanted to, they could find out more about the idiot that left that stupid comment.

Based on those criteria I've been a complete success. Thank you very much.

But wait, there's more. Another thing happened because of my desire to share stuff with friends and strangers. Directly because of my site I have had the opportunity to meet some awesome people. None in person, but only via their sites, their responses to comments I and others made and by directly commenting on mine. These people are kind, funny, intelligent, sarcastic, giving, dorky and so many other wonderful things.

So have I been successful with my bit of hacked, cobbled and rigged html? You bet. Could it be better than it is? Yup, but I can't imagine being any more successful with it than I already have been.

I Wanna Go To Chuck E. Cheese

Happy Birthday to Me.
Happy Birthday to Me.
Happy Birthday Little Kenny.
Happy Birthday to Me.

Yay. Half way done? We'll see.

Edit: Sorry to keep you all guessing. This makes 35 such occurances.

Tastes Like Burning

These pictures have been sitting in my draft bin since before Christmas. December 13th to be exact. Yeah, I know how to procrastinate. I figured I'd finally make use of them.

So we had a white elephant party way back sometime before Christmas. I think I mentioned it earlier. Twas a great success. Much fun was had by all. One of the gifts was a huge bag of stuff from the 99 cent store. We had a $30 limit so there was probably close to thirty items in the bag. Imelda ended up coming home with that bag. The picture below is of one of the items in the bag.

Sounds tasty eh? Well I couldn't even leave the next day, we spent the night, without trying it. Unfortunately I didn't think to take pictures of the liquid itself. Amazingly enough it kind of looked a bit like a slightly milky Tang. Looking at the ingredients showed why.

So basically it's a carbonated orange-milk drink. Again, mmmmmmm. Now we all know how well a glass of orange juice goes with a bowl of cereal. Exactly, it doesn't. Something about all that citric acid mixing with milk......yuck is all I can say.

I couldn't figure out what the "New feeling of soda beverage" meant. Until now. Assuming that the "Original" Milkis didn't come with carbonation then my guess is that the added carbonation gives this "new feeling".

I'm not sure just how fantastic it really could feel. I mean it couldn't have cost more than 99 cents right? I decided since it had not been refrigerated that I would have my Milkis on the rocks instead of straight up. It isn't a large can and one glass held it all. I hadn't read the ingredients beforehand so I didn't realize at the time that it would be carbonated so I wasn't expecting the bubbles. The carbonation was light and left no head. Again it was a light orange color, less bright than tang, and with slightly milky sheen. Without further deliberating I took a healthy sip and was pleasantly surprised. It was actually very good. Maybe it was the fact that while I wasn't hungover I was definitely ready for some nice cold liquid refreshment. Regardless I'm ready for more. Not ready enough to actually go search it out, but if it's around I won't hesitate to have a glass.

Next time we try it with vodka.