CostcoWarrior

Let the fun begin 30 November 2008

During the holidays a group of family and friends get together for a crazy night of computer gaming.  The latest session was held on Black Friday. We met at MostYellow’s house, to take advantage of their newly finished basement. During the first few hours of playing everything was working fine. During the pizza break a couple people showed up and started up their PCs. As soon as they powered up the circuit flipped.  Apparently running 8 gaming computers on one breaker isn’t a good idea.  So we ran an extension cord to power up the 2 additional computers.  After a few hours of gaming we noticed one of the cords, that was powering 5 computers, was HOT to the touch.  Rather than shutdown the computers we opened the window and ran the cord outside to cool it down.

We had a great LAN party playing Far Cry 2 and Call of Duty 4.  The evening was a success and we were able to leave without a trace, except maybe a slightly higher power bill. 

——- UPDATE ——-

I was a little distracted while writing the original post, so I added some clarification.

As a sidenote here is an approximation on the cost of powering all the PCs for a 12-hour game day:

8 computers @ 400 Watts (avg) = 3,200 Watts (3.2kW)

3.2 (kW) x 12 (hours) x 0.07 ($/kWh) = $2.69

If you ask me that is a great value, when you consider the $/fun ratio!

A few funnies… 2 November 2008

So my blog stats are down.  Can’t say I am allowed to be too depressed about it, because it’s my own dang fault.  I wonder if I’m holding back on the posting side so I don’t get as addicted to blogging as I was the first time around?  Maybe I just need to get over it.

This last week I’ve been sicker than sick.  Sicker than a dog, except we don’t have one.  So I guess that makes me sicker than our neighbor’s dog that incidentally barks at anything and everything and is so big I think it’s going to crash through the fence one day.  Meanwhile, back on my sickie-chickie ranch, if what I have the is precursor to this season’s cold/flu virus, may God bless you all with mercy.  It’s been horrible! Sore throat, cough, headache, muscle aches all over, ear aches, sinus pressure, no appetite, trouble sleeping, and the list could go on, but it would start to disgust you.  I sat through work on Tuesday completely dazed.  I missed work completely Wednesday and Thursday. I have spent the entire weekend in bed and still wonder if I’m going to make it out of here tomorrow for work.  Let’s just say, last night I sneezed, and it was so painful that I wasn’t sure it hadn’t turned my body completely inside out.

Yesterday TW worked with Jose’ to install some fancy schmanzy remote controlled light dimmer switches.  Jose’s roommate Chad took on the role of supervisor since he had “been known to have done some electrical work in his day”.  Never mind that he was still in his red fleece pajamas.  I was worried they were all going to kill themselves on current.  But the roommate “supervisor” assured me that getting shocked isn’t that bad–just a bit of a wake up call.  Hmmm…Like a wake up call on the other side of the veil.  But in the end the lights came back on and no one was dead.  Chad was super pleased, although I don’t think he touched any tools himself.

We had our first MBA class the other night.  We really like our teacher.  He’s well educated and very animated.  At one point in the lesson he was coming up with an example and he asked if anyone played an instrument.  I raised my hand and a guy behind me raised his hand.  We both played the piano.  Then the teacher wanted to know which of us played better. Neither one of us wanted to admit that, but TW saved me so graciously by piping up with: “I bet the other guy is better.  Let’s just put it this way: We OWN a piano and I’ve never heard my wife play.”  Um.  That’s not true.  But that didn’t stop the entire class from rolling on the ground laughing.  It’s a good thing I have a sense of humor.

Well…I’m taking my sick body back to bed now.  Until next time…if I live trough this.