Breakin' The Law

So, last week I started growing out a goatee of sorts. Now, I've been a clean-shaven man since I first wielded a razor, so being unshaven for a week and a half is quite a change for me. Comments range from "hey, that looks pretty good on you" to "when are you getting that Harley?". I do look decided "badder" with this thing...

Anyway, I've been up at my mom's place the last three days, so I've been sidetracked with other things and not blogging.. obviously.. Anyway, this all comes together nicely. I'm driving home, and the drive involved about 2 hours on 65 MPH highway, and then I get onto a 2 lane 55 MPH road... Well, after going 70 for 2 hours, 55 seems pretty damn slow. I'm cruising along and crest a hill and my high beams illuminate, rather nicely, two state patrol cars. I glance down to see my speedometer pegged at 70. I look back up to see the lights flicked on on both squad cars.

Fuck.

So, I now am in posession of my first speeding ticket in 7 years. The officer was nice enough to knock off 5 MPH to make it a 10 over violation, which saved me a trip to court, but here in Wisconsin they don't take speeding lightly. My total bill to the state works out to about $160. Craptastic. Perhaps this badass look is going to get me into trouble?

At least now I understand why nobody in this state seems to be able to go at, let alone exceed, the speed limit.

Anyway, I was able to screw around with poker some at Mom's place. She has a new Dell and I was able to crunch her screen down to 1600x1200, which is perfect for fitting 4 tables on. How could I resist? I played around for about 5 hours total over the 3 days I was there and ended up with a whopping +$3 gain for my troubles. Typical multi-table stuff.. Up on 2 tables, down on one and killed on the 4th. That sort of stuff...

Today I get home and, after battling with my computer (more on this later), I hop on 3 50/1 tables. Of course, I can only get my resolution up to 1024x768, so playing 4 tables would be a real adventure. As it is, playing 3 tables is a touch of a challenge, but I did so, with pretty darn good results. After about 2 hours of play, I walk away with a +$28 profit. Finally, a winning session.

Yesterday the new video card I ordered arrived. Since I was busy talking to the police, my wife picked it up, so I didn't get to install it until this morning. I remove and clean out all portions of the old video driver, install the new vid card, and install the new vid drivers. I'm met with some funky video problems that last for about 2 minutes, then finally the screen blanks out.

Uh oh... Okay, I boot up in safe mode (which, for WinblowsXP takes about 15 minutes) and remove the drivers. Then I try to boot up again. I get a loading screen, then... nothing.

Okay... Troubleshooting. I'm staring into my computer case and scratching my head when it suddenly occurs to me... The Radeon cards are pretty power hungry. So, I look at the power supply sticker and it advertises a maximum continuous load of 220w.

It's a wonder my computer was operating with the existing hardware!

So I ordered a 420W power supply and it should be here some time next week. In the mean time, I'm still running with my old card, and since the monitor won't let me go beyond 1024x768 anyway, I'll gain nothing with my poker play. Given the power deficit my computer apparently has too, it's a good thing I didn't try to add that PCI card I was threatening to do.

I haven't really had time to scour the wires for your daily "WTFWTT" report. I did however notice that Bin Laden is trying to tell the Europeans to "please stop hurting me".

The EC promptly invited Bin Laden to go outside and play hide and go fuck yourself. Gotta wonder what old BL was expecting after offing a bunch of Spaniards a few weeks ago. Perhaps we're getting closer to the target then we think?

Okay, kids.. Be safe, I'll catch up with you tomorrow.