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My computer didn’t sell. I know it’s been far too long since I’ve blogged, but it is 3 AM and I have been setting up computers in my dad’s new office for as long as I can remember…well, okay. It wasn’t that bad. But I am indeed tired.

Earlier today I smashed my blue-glow keyboard to bits and took pictures. I’ll be posting them hopefully tomorrow, so that’s what you’ve got to look forward to! I think it will be one of my first ‘useful’ blogs…of which I’ll try to post a lot more in the coming days. Well, scratch that, I think my marijuana essay was informative.

Umm, yea, I’m not thinking straight at all and my writing may very well be completely incoherent babbling…so I’m going to bed now. Bye.

My Grandma Linda and Grandpa Chuck are in Salt Lake for a few days. They are extreme wine connoisseurs from Napa Valley, California. Fun to see them as they have never been here before. We ate at Z’Tejas in The Gateway (great place) and I showed them the Mac store >_<

I’ve started up a hosting company with a friend named Matt, but right now it’s not up. Or, at least, if it is, I’m not aware. It would be cool to make some money off that, if it could happen.

Speaking of money, my PC isn’t selling. It’s priced too high. I wouldn’t buy it for that (minimum bid is at $2500, buy it now is at $3500)–I wouldn’t even advise someone else to pay that. True, it competes with some of the stuff out there, in some ways. Computers are so completely difficult to compare to each other it makes me crazy. Alas, if I could sell the thing for maybe $1500 it would still be awesome. I could build another for maybe $1000, maybe even a bit less (especially now that the 8*00-series of NVidia cards are out, and I will also now allow myself to browse ATI cards as well since AMD bought that awful company out!). The 6 series cards aren’t even available on NewEgg now…and NewEgg has everything. I might have to get a 7 series, which would be really good.

But I’m wondering if I should do that at all. Should I just keep my PC and be happy? It is running a good bit faster now that I got rid of a few old programs that were running undetected in the background. However, I still want a Mac…I want one badly. I have hated Windows since well before I got a Mac…Mac is an option though. A mainstream operating system that you can actually live on, because there’s a good amount of other people out there who do so, and therefore software gets made for it! Linux…well, I love it from a functionality standpoint. But I’m afraid it just doesn’t have enough of a following. It’s difficult to run, and sometimes you just need something that simply works. You’re all aware of my opinion there…

I shall have to sleep on it.

Wow, Apple never ceases to amaze me. For starters, every time I walk into the Apple Gateway store, I go nuts, staring in awe at the futuristic pieces of hardware all around me. This time I was there for a Mighty Mouse. I’ve heard about them, I’ve been able to use them once or twice, and it was time for me to have one. I didn’t know they came with a $50 price tag, but it was well worth it I can tell you already. The thing is amazing!

First off, I love that you can program the side buttons to pull up Expose. I am constantly using the Show Desktop function in Expose, so it is very nice to be able to do so with my mouse! It will certainly speed things up for me!

I also love the scroller. It’s not like a normal PC mouse…it goes in all directions. It’s more like a very tiny, very precise trackball. I love it! It doesn’t really sound appealing, or at least it didn’t to me, but actually using it is very cool. The whole mouse fits your hand quite awesomely, and yet it’s so simple. I’m getting pretty sick of all the gimmicky weird-shaped mouses. Logitech has a $90 one that seems to me to be very crappy indeed. I can’t stand that in my hand.

My only complaint about the Apple Mighty Mouse is that it has a short cord. It’s perfect for use with my little iBook, though, and that’s the main reason I got it. Won’t work for my PC unless I get a USB extender.

Oh, and I’m also quite disappointed that the Mighty Mouse does not boldly display the word “MOUSE” on the bottom like a lot of other Apple mouses do! Very disappointed indeed!

Note: This article is a summary of my beliefs on Marijuana.  You can find additional blog posts related to marijuana here.
Legalize Marijuana
There are those who would have you to believe that the use of marijuana can lead to serious long-term side effects, addiction, and worse. But there really is no valid scientific evidence that would suggest this. There are, however, reasons why marijuana became and remains illegal. It is in The People of America’s best interest, however, to legalize marijuana and therefore reduce the amount of drug-related deaths, aid the economy in many ways, and give citizens the freedom they deserve.

If you’ve been through high school, chances are you have learned about the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s. Long story short, the US government made alcohol illegal and the use of alcohol increased dramatically, alcohol-related deaths soared, and the government was spending more money than ever to try and prevent these things. Alcohol was soon made legal; and with good reason! Marijuana was similarly prohibited in many states across the union from 1930 until 1937, when a federal law was put in place recursively prohibiting use or possession of marijuana. The use of the drug is projected to have increased significantly since it was made illegal. As a direct result of its being illegal, many are led to other, truly lethal drugs. Many otherwise law-abiding citizens can get mixed up in the affairs of criminals since the only way to obtain marijuana is through drug-dealers.

Although marijuana’s illegality is ineffective and actually increases its and other drugs’ use, it still costs American taxpayers roughly $10 billion every year to attempt to enforce these freedom-barriers. The richest man in the world is worth about $6 billion. Many small countries are worth far less than either of these figures. The National Science Foundation, the government agency dedicated to furthering science and technology, has an annual budget of only $5.6 billion. Yet America is willing to waste $10 billion a year covering up their lies about a harmless plant.

Most everyone learns in school that marijuana is a terrible drug, and that it can destroy your life. Yet when it comes down to why, few can answer the question. The most popular answer is that marijuana is a ‘gateway’ drug–that it leads to the use of other drugs. This is true, however it would be far less a gateway drug were it legalized. It would no longer harbor the stigma of illegality, and would therefore not have the connection with worse drugs that it currently does. It is also common to hear that marijuana can lead to schizophrenia, though there are no conclusive studies to support this argument. In fact, other than the obvious effects of temporary memory loss, hunger, and a dry or sore throat (which can result from the inhalation of any smoke), there are no studies showing any long-term effects for sure. There are, however, studies suggesting that in many instances, cannabis can actually revive dead brain cells, something thought impossible before these studies. There is no doubt, however, that marijuana’s use as a pain killer or stress reliever is far superior to “legal drugs” and with little harmful effects. These facts considered, there is no reason for marijuana to remain illegal.

Essentially, there are several reasons why marijuana was made illegal, and why it remains so. Initially it was a racist, anti-Mexican movement. More than anything, however, it protects the corporate profits of medicine and “legal drug” companies. Drug companies, and specifically the FDA, have no responsibility to cure any health problems. Their only obligation is to increase the value of their company’s stock shares. And therefore, if people were generally healthy, they would fail their obligation. So it makes sense that if something actually does the job that their products claim to do (pain killer, relief from stress, sleep aid, and more) that they would want to stamp it out. That is why lies are made up. That is the ONLY reason marijuana is illegal. Conclusively, while it may not be in America’s best interest, it is certainly in The People of America’s best interest to legalize marijuana and therefore reduce the amount of drug-related deaths, aid the economy in many ways, and give citizens the freedom they deserve.

Now I’ve got four frogs.  I was at the pet store the other day, and I saw a massive amount of frogs inside a tiny 10-gallon tank.  I felt it my duty to relive two of them from the mess.  Well, that, and I’ve been considering some more frogs for a while now.  Anyway, just a quick update.  Now I must watch the last Halloween episode of the Simpsons :’(

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110052117101

That’s it. My PC is up for grabs. I couldn’t do a reserve price because it costs 1%. Not worth $30 to me to test the market. So I just went for it. Minimum bid $2500, Buy it Now $3500. Sure you could get it cheaper, but it’s one-of-a-kind. No PC on the market has this much care put into it.

I was looking at the Apple products I would want to purchase with the resulting influx of cash at auction’s end. My biggest pipe dream? The 30-inch monitor But that won’t happen this time…$2000 for the monitor (that’s actually not too terribly bad, but ’tis still a lot!). I can actually get it for $1800, though. There’s an educational discount on all their products. It’s only for teachers and staff (and college students), but I am pretty sure I can give my awesome teacher Nathan Jones some money and get him to pay Apple with it

The realistic things I want include two laptops and two desktops. I am thinking on which one of these I want. One of them is more a money-saver than anything. But it’s still a very powerful machine and would match my current one in just about everything besides gaming. The MacBook has a 2GHz Intel Core Duo, 2GB of RAM, 80GB Hard drive (I would need an external drive if I got this), and I put in a Mighty Mouse because I would NEED one for my laptop, and if I don’t get it at the time of purchase, I might not get one.

Now, I’ll give you the cost of the thing, but the deal is that Apple wants $500 for two gigs of RAM. I can get that elsewhere for roughly $200. So there’s no way I’m getting it done with Apple. $1,636 without the RAM, with AppleCare.

Second item I’m considering: The MacBook Pro with a 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor…that’s fast…a lot faster than the Core Duo in the MacBook. Two gigs of RAM, 100 Gig hard drive, mighty mouse…the price? $2,817 before tax.

Third: The iMac. I wish they still looked like the iMac G4s did. Alas, they still look very cool, and this one’s a 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 250 gig drive. $2,297 without the RAM I would need…that one sounds pretty enticing. But it do like the idea of a nicer laptop, portable and whatnot. Certainly would be nice to be able to work on my crud while on the go.

And finally, there’s the Mac Cheesegrater Pro. I just went through all the specs of the machine…and there’s just no comparison. It’s utterly flattening. It’s got two awesome 7300GT graphics cards running SLI. The thing’s got FOUR VIRTUAL PROCESSORS!!! Four! Okay, I’ve made up my mind. This is the one I want, if I can afford it. Two 2.66GHz Dual Core Xeons (I could bring those down to 2GHz each to save 270 bucks, it would still be wicked sweet). I would definitely upgrade to 2 gigs of RAM, though it comes with only 1. 250GB hard drive, I could upgrade that to as much as 2TB..two mouth-watering terabytes!!! I don’t have that much pocket change floating around Still, all I described. $2,711 prior to tax…so like $3000. Not bad. It sure would be nice.

Guess we’ll see what happens with the PC.

Well, after giving this a lot of thought, I’ve decided that I’m going to put my PC on eBay with a reserve price of something like $3000. It isn’t likely to sell, but then I’ll have an idea of what I can get for it. I just keep thinking about how sad it is that my $1500 PC can’t work as fast at a lot of things as my $380 Mac laptop. Yes, its processer is faster, so it does accomplish certain things MUCH quicker than my laptop, which operates at only 700MHz. But the OS handles the hardware so much better, and things like launching applications,
music, video (can’t play a DVD on my desktop without closing EVERYTHING)…and my laptop can’t get viruses! Can’t get spyware or anything of that sort!

With the cash I would buy a nicer Mac, and it would have that faster processor, and a faster graphics card, and still have the faster operating system: Mac OSX Tiger (and I would, of course, upgrade in a few months when OSX 10.5 is ready!)

At any rate, David Letterman just exploded a huge 1000+ pound pumpkin on national television! It was pretty awesome! One of the chunks flew out and struck the camera! Quite an explosion, and quite a show.

I just thought I’d update you on the status of my sick frog. He’s no longer fat, and both are actually very healthy looking. He does maintain a bit of his dark green color, and I’m hoping it will go away soon. I read somewhere that they can get brown skin from eating too many crickets–that would fit well, since he was so bloated when it first occurred. I think that perhaps it is better to keep them fed mainly with guppies.

In any case, it looks like he’ll be alright!

Update: Uh-oh. He’s getting even darker green. Not sure what to do here. I hope he’s alright.