Mostly about my amusement

Month: December 2008 (page 1 of 2)

EVGA GTX-260 and Far Cry 2

One of the items I got for Christmas was an EVGA GTX-260 with 896 MB of DDR3 RAM. This is an upgrade from a pair for GeForce 7900 in SLI mode.

The game comes with Far Cry 2 which works really well since I was going to buy it anyway.  The game runs really well at 1920×1200 with all the bells and whistles turned on.  VERY COOL.

The game exiting to the Vista desktop without throwing a single error? Not so cool.

I have the latest 1.02 patch, DVD in the drive, etc.  I’ve looked online for a solution and found none.  It’s very disappointing so I press F5 often to quick save.  If I don’t quick save, I know that after 45 minutes of trekking across the map I’ll lose all my progress.

Caroline Kennedy should run for Senate

That is, Caroline Kennedy should wait until 2010 or 2012 and run for office the old fashioned way.

Hillary Clinton came to New York and campaigned for that senate seat.  She did not walk in and just say “Clinton!”, like she did in the presidential primaries. She worked the counties and listened to her future constituents and she earned being elected both times.

Aside from her family history, what qualifies Caroline Kennedy for office?  Or put it a different way: if she was not a Kennedy would anyone take this seriously?

I hope that Governor Paterson ignores the Camelot theme music and appoints someone who will do a great job for the state of New York.  Personally I would love to see Carolyn McCarthy for the job as I think she has the right experience and get up and go.

Christmas Eve 2008

It’s been a quiet day today.  In a couple of minutes I’ll wake Lily up from her nap and we will get to work. The kids are asleep and I’ll get everything that we’ve carefully hidden. In case I am too busy, Merry Christmas everyone!

Must be the HBO connection

I heard this on the radio last night.

A State Supreme Court jury in the Bronx found the defendant, Lillo Brancato Jr., 32, guilty of first-degree attempted burglary, a felony, but said he was not culpable in the death of the officer, Daniel Enchautegui, who was shot by Mr. Brancato’s accomplice after a night of drinking and a search for drugs.

Under the law, a person is guilty of second-degree murder in a killing that occurs in the commission of another felony. But the law provides for mitigating circumstances in a defense.

via Ex-‘Sopranos’ Actor Cleared of Murder Charge in Officer’s Death – NYTimes.com.

I do not get this at all. This man participated in a crime and off-duty officer Daniel Enchautegui died as a result.  That’s a direct line event to this officer’s death.  No crime and that officer may still be with us today.

No one likes to put people in jail, and serving on a jury before the holiday’s must be especially difficult.  But it is a duty, a responsibility and justice must be fair and equal.  This was not a plea deal, this was not a administrative move or legal trick.  The jury intentionally gave this man a pass after buying his story.

What an actor. I can’t help but think that if this eloquent actor had been Puerto Rican and the murder victim an off-duty Italian American officer, would the jury’s result have been different? I don’t want to think about that, it makes me more upset.

This result from the jury is unfair and I hope that the judge sentences this man to 15 years in jail for “attempted burglary”. I hope that that would provide some small comfort to Officer Enchautegui’s family.

Oh. That many pictures.

Today is slow and almost all of our shopping is done. So I am going through my photos this evening and notices something.

I purchased my Nikon D60 in May 2008 and have been using Photoshop Elements since then. My external 1TB WorldBook is where I keep my photos and PSE keeps a tally of all the photos in it’s catalog.

PSE file counter

10,272 pictures.  From before May 2008 there were less than 300. Wow. Most of them are disposable and will never be shared but… wow.

All my snows remembered

It snowed here Friday, so when I got home I started shoveling before I even went inside.  My driveway is on a slope so if you don’t drive an SUV (I do) then going up the ramp is a problem.

2008 snow thrower

This picture is me 2 years ago when I had some forethought. Friday night I thought of that picture a lot. With some effort I was able to clear the driveway in short order.  It was messy but any car would be able to make it up that ramp.

It all was good afterwards, except Friday night and Saturday morning it snowed again and all my work was for naught.   On top of that, Saturday my back started to hurt.  Today I plan to take it easy and go outside and salt the driveway.  If I can I’ll gas up the snow thrower and see if that helps.

It will be fun but no matter how long it takes I need to clear that driveway.  The kids still have school and my folks need to be able to use their mini van.

Update: Let’s hear it for warmer weather, some rain, and Lily. She and I went out and scraped all the ice off of the driveway.

Driveway with no ice on it

I wanted to stop much sooner but she kept us till my folks car could come and go without touching any ice.

She’s always been much more determined than I am.