Mitake Play/Work.

So, I had about $1200 to play with now that I paid my last RRSP loan payment early. I put together the parts necessary to rebuild Hagiwara… then I thought twice and came up with a better idea. Since Athlon 64 is out, I wanted to go with that. However, prices are still too high for that, plus the technology has yet to mature, and don’t forget that there’s aren’t enough 64-bit applications out there to justify buying all the hardware.

So, with that in mind, I decided to pick up some components for Mitake to turn her into a play/work PC for myself. I have two hard drives that I set up exclusively to do work on. I also needed some new optical drives for Mitake, since the ones in Hagiwara are getting a bit dated. Leaving a firewire card and more RAM for later, here’s what I ordered:

Samsung Syncmaster 172X 17″ LCD Monitor
LG GSA-4163B DVD/DL+R Drive
LG Black CD-RW Drive
ByteCC ME-740U2 Hard Drive Enclosure (Qty. 2)

Pretty cool, eh? Of course, this may all sound foreign to you if you’re not a hardware/tech geek, but it all comes down to this – the LCD monitor is pretty self-explanatory, but here comes the tech talk – it’s only 500:1 for a contrast ratio, but I chose this monitor because of its slim-bezel design and the ability to fold the base down so that it can lie flat, making for easier transporting. Or hanging it on a wall. ^_^

Everybody’s going dual-layer, so I decided to hop on the wagon as well. Once again, I’m going with LG, since they’ve proven their reliability thus far. I also went with a faster CD writer, since the one I have presently is dated and slower than today’s standards.

The hard drive enclosures probably sound like a strange add-on. Well, with the enclosures, I can turn my two work drives into external, USB 2.0 compliant, portable hard drives that I can plug in when I’m working and unplug when I’m playing, which will help to keep the data safe from accidental… glitches (ie. me messing around with file systems and whatnot).

So… what of Hagiwara? One day, I’ll get her up and running, but right now, I’m strapped for cash and I’m planning a few trips out of town, plus I have a new RRSP loan that’s twice the amount I took out last year. So, all in all, even though I spent more on these upgrades than I would have if I fixed up Hagiwara, I would’ve had two systems that need maintenance. I don’t want that.

Tomorrow morning, I’m going over to INCO to help Patrick do decoms. At 8:00!!! Am I a loser or what? I finally get a weekend off and I go to voluntarily sign up for more work. Hahaha.

Current Music: Ootsuka Ai – Amaenbo (#jpopsuki TV)