Just some things that have been happening, since its late I don’t want to spend too much time typing.

Our June camp has just ended with a more or less neutrally with some hiccups here and there. It’s probably the first camp in the organization’s history to be come close to reaching 100% slack efficiency.

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Err the above was a draft from a post 4 months ago so yeah you can see how much I procrastinate some times.

BTW, this is my 100th post.

Exams are over and I know that I didn’t do very well. I hope it isn’t too big a disaster, but I’ve decided to properly enjoy my 10 days before the results come out. I just hope I can go on to next year..

Started off with a class BBQ which err, looked like a screwup at the beginning but became slightly better later as more people turned up. There were some clashes here and there between classmates though, too bad I couldn’t stay over to watch the drama but I’m not too fond of chalets. Looking back, I should’ve brought something to while away my time. I ended up watching people play poker, learning how to use an XBOX controller (or any type of console controller for that matter), and err, watching people play FIFA.

Next, helped yet another person to build a rig, this time it was budget, so it was back to AMD territory for me, no more E8400s and hard to install intel coolers. Was planning to use his old case but to my dismay it was BTX.. never really thought of that possibility but then again it was a Dell during the Pentium 4 era.. complete with RDRAM. In the end I just assembled the rig bare, and now its sitting in a rather optimal position on his desk. He likes it that way so I think he’ll leave it bare, but how he’ll protect it from spills and EMI I’m not sure.

Grabbed a XFan120L and a Hyper212 while at SLS. The XFan despite being made in china actually comes with a rather competent packaging with proper english, proper specs and proper website. In terms of technicalities it pushes a very average amount of air for a 120mm, 44.71CFM as rated on the box. As an intake fan it’s alright though I would prefer a higher capacity fan. However, the shade of the blue LEDs that it sports is very, very attractive (something like a brilliant cobalt-azure blue) and it lights up the 5-1/4″ drive cage and bezel very well. I may consider getting a 80mm one to replace my HDD cage fan if there exists one. As for the Hyper212 I couldn’t really use it yet to my disappointment as most of the shops in SLS have stopped selling the AMD Athlon64 X2 5000+ Black Edition as it’s EOL-ed already. It was a really good processor though so now I have this half-hearted thread on VR trying to buy one though now I think I’ll wait for the K10 AM3 dual cores to arrive. The AM3 is backwards compatible to AM2 so it wouldn’t be a problem to both my motherboard and the Hyper212.

I’ve also gotten a pair of CrossRoads Mylarone Bijou 3 IEMs courtesy of ndoo. It hasn’t been fully burnt-in yet but I’ve been listening to it for a few hours and I’m very pleased with it. The sound has been gradually becoming tighter, very little overlap between the bass, mids and highs, clarity is good. I’m a bass freak so while it doesn’t have the same amount of bass as compared to the bundled iPod earphones, I find that it has a very controlled bass which is good because it’s there but it’s not overwhelming and stays within it’s boundary. I hope it becomes even better with burning-in. Build quality is also top notch and while they do look rather different from most IEMs they fit very comfortably in my ear. I’ve also realized that my nano fits perfectly into the semi-hard carrying case which is another plus point for me as the screen is rather delicate.

In other news I’ve finished Crysis: Warhead and it isn’t really much of an expansion per se. The main engine is fundamentally identical with the addition of the 20mm mounted autocannon, the APC with either minigun or 20mm autocannon, the dual-wield miniSMG with selective fire, the automatic self-loading grenade launcher and the PAX gun. While reviews say it’s supposed to be less taxing on the system, I find it to be even more taxing on my system. While on Mainstream settings  at 1024×768 (which is the new name for “Medium”) my 9600GT only managed to pump out 31FPS average. With the original Crysis I’m able to reach 40FPS at points. In terms of story it has become even more drama and the immersiveness is there, I thoroughly enjoyed it though it is imperative that you play the original Crysis and know the story first or you won’t get what’s going on.

I’ve also managed to grab a ccfl kit for carbon which is mostly inactive now since there isn’t really much use for bright blue lights in my room at the moment though I think I’ll try sourcing out a supplier for the SunBeam Sound-Activated CCFL Controller Module which is extremely hard to find though from scouting the forums it looks like it’s around $13 making it a rather easy buy if I can come across it.

I have 656MB left of a 500GB drive. Go figure. I’m thinking of getting a 640GB drive soonish as I’ve sold my 80GB IDE drive.

I actually owe 2 memes from ndoo and cflee but I’ll hold off till another time to do them.

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