Updates

Computer - I formatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows yesterday. Would've done this earlier last week, but fortunately realized in time that my original Starcraft CD was at home and I wouldn't be able to reinstall it after formatting. Phew, that was a close one... might have been craft-less for as much a week.

So after church yesterday I stopped by the D-town pad and picked up the goods. Spent most of the afternoon formatting, installing stuff, and changing all the settings back to what I'm used to. For now, it's all running smoothly and no random freezing so far. By the way, if anyone has good cheap anti-virus software to recommend, please do. I got used to getting free McAfee updates as a University student but now I'm just a regular guy who has to pay for this stuff. >:-O

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TV - Since I was home, I thought why not bring one of our 4 TV's back to Palatine. So I grabbed the one from the basement, not too fancy or big, but it does the job. The next time I need to get a TV, I've promised myself to buy a flat-screen HD, no less than 27".

Bringing the TV to my room paid dividends almost immediately. Even though the Sox game sucked, the TV made up for it by showing me some quality episodes of Punk'd and Jackass afterwards. I have to say that Jackass is one of the best shows ever. The best ones are where Bam Margera tries to beat up his dad, who is like twice as big as him but never fights back for some reason. Pretty much any stunt with Johnny Knoxville or Steve-o is guaranteed to be hilarious too. Although they are all disturbing at the same time.

Yesterday, one of the guys dressed up in a pink bunny suit and then they sent a trained attack dog after him. Even though I saw that one before, I could not stop laughing because come on, what can be funnier than seeing a big pink bunny being taken down by an angry dog? Just writing about it now and thinking about those images is cracking me up here at my desk. Meanwhile, the other guy in my cube is wondering, what could possibly so funny about 1553 modules and Digital-to-Analog-Converter cards in a VXI card cage?

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Telescope - I spent a little time looking up info online about telescopes. Telescope.com is a decent source, run by Orion, which is apparently a major manufacturer of 'scopes. Basically, I learned that there are 3 main types of telescopes. There's the traditional long one where you point the big end to the sky and look through the small end. Then there's the "Newtonian" style which is shorter, and you look through a eyepiece that is mounted near the top end. Finally, there is the short, fat kind that looks and acts like a "bucket of light". It just captures the image and reflects it back and forth inside before it reaches your eye. All three types have pros and cons, which I am still learning about. But over the weekend I talked to Ray (who bought a telescope last year when I still had zero interest in the subject), and he recommended a Newtonian to me. Since I like Ray, I will probably heed his advice.

Also important advice I learned is, don't buy a telescope from Walmart or Target. Those are too cheap to see anything cool, and usually almost impossible to mount and use in the right way.

And yes, once again, I am serious about getting a telescope. I ordered a catalog from Orion and expect to have a 'scope set up and ready to go in my room within a month.