Gaming Spree

So, I've almost started a new job. it all depends on me getting the controlled goods clearance, which shouldnt be a problem. the interesting bit about this contract is that theyre paying me weekly. im used to getting paid with a 2 month delay, so its definitely going to be different... but good, especially since christmas is coming up.

I should be saving my money for a proper house, but i think we may end up renting a townhouse just for convenience for another year or two. I was talking with melanie, loraleis sister, and shes only paying about 90 bucks a month more than what im paying now for my 2 bedroom apartment. and for that she gets a full townhouse, huge basement, washer and dryer, dishwasher, and more living room, dining room, etc. basically more of everything. which would make life so much more comfortable till i get enough saved up to buy a house.

of course when i know ive got money coming i have to go out and spend a bit, because ive been holding out trying to conserve. so i got a new creative X-fi soundcard, a few pc games, and some boardgame expansions.

for the creative x-fi soundcard, i just bought it to replace my onboard soundcard which might be good, but it has bugs and they havent updated the drivers in a year. so i decided id go out and get something that will hopefully last another oh... 10 years or so. soundcards dont really change that much so it wont likely be obselete for a very very long time.

as far as how i like the card.. i don't. its better than my on board one, but its not necessarily good either. it sounds nice, but it took me about an hour to get the speakers set up properly with it. instead of installing software from the cd, i figured id just go download the new stuff from their site and skip installing all the crap. WRONG. apparently the software you download from the website doesn't have even a basic speaker connection test, and a lot of the options arent available. so back to the cd, and then update, theres an hour wasted. the card itself sounds good, but the software is crap. i dont need another media player/music library organizer, why does everyone think i need another media player? and as far as the actual hardware goes it was pretty simple to set up except it has one less jack in the back than the audigy and sblive and every other soundcard. which is exactly one less than it needs. bastards!

my audio connection is discreet 6 channel, meaning that 3x 2 channel wires go between 3 jacks on the soundcard, to the speaker amp. no problem. but theres only 4 jacks. so..... where do i plug in my headset? i can either plug in my headphones, OR my mic. not both. ONE MORE DAMNED JACK. of course if i had payed out another 100 bucks to creative to get the next step up, i would have gotten a front panel that would be worthless except for it would have the one more jack that i need.

another knock against creative and their shitty soundcards is their lack of proper dolby digital encoding. they have a digital spdif output on the back of their card, but this only supports 2 channels, unless youre playing dvds and passing the DTS/DD signal through. this hasnt changed in years. i have an onboard nvidia soundstorm which does dolby encoding, which was GREAT! one wire, 5 channels, fucking fantastic. why hasnt creative done this? it seems like the obvious choice since a ton of new speaker sets support digital, why not make use of it? IDIOTS.

anyhow thats my soundcard rant, i hate it but ill probably put up with it for another few years.

new expansions for memoir 44 the military strategy boardgame came out. i got 2 of them but i didnt buy an extra board. new miniatures and new scenarios and terrain tiles. fun stuff.

also picked up an expansion for puerto rico which adds a bunch of new buildings to the game. definitely increased the replay value there. i think its still tops on my list of favorite boardgames of all time.

i went to this lan party this weekend, which was kinda fun. i havent done that in ages. got to play some warcraft 3 on the lan, and some unreal tournament 2004. i had so much fun with warcraft 3 and the custom games that i had to go out and buy myself a legit copy and get on to battle.net :) other legit purchases include neverwinter nights diamond. it includes the original game and 3 expansion campaigns for the low low price of $30. now it is a 3 year old game but its a fantastic adventure engine, which has withstood the test of time. and you really cant beat the price for the amount of content you get. now if only neverwinter nights 2 would come out it would be even prettier than the engine they used for knights of the old republic.. droooool.