Are you a Gamer?

If so, you may want to go check out what's going on at DrivethruRPG right now. Why? Well, here's their press release:

Gamers Help Haiti! DriveThruRPG Offers a Mega-Bundle to Spur Donations

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

DriveThruRPG announced a major incentive to the roleplaying gamer community today to incite donations to aid in rescue and recovery in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Called the "Gamers Helping Haiti Bundle," the product includes over a hundred products totaling over $1000.00 in retail value. For a simple donation of $20 - all of which goes to Doctors Without Borders to support their post-earthquake Haiti relief efforts - RPG fans can have this once-in-a-lifetime collection of gaming products.

DriveThruRPG already had opportunities to donate up and running within a day of the disaster. When publishers began asking how they could support the cause, the bundle was created to be an all-inclusive shared effort. Those who donated at the lesser levels won't be left out, however; gamers who have already donated $5 or $10 will be receiving a special coupon code that lets them pay the difference from their initial donation to get the bundle.

"We are humbled by the generosity of both our customers and our publishers," said Sean Patrick Fannon, Marketing and Communications Manager for DriveThruRPG, "all of whom have stepped up at this time of terrible tragedy to offer aid to a desperate people. We are also very proud to facilitate these collective efforts, providing the necessary tools and technology to bring it all together."

More than tools and tech, though, DriveThruRPG is really putting their money where their mouth is, so to speak. "We have always believed in the power of giving and sharing to make the world a better place," said Steve Wieck, President and co-owner of the site. "To that end, we are matching funds with everyone who's making a straight donation at the $5 and $10 level."

There is no set date for terminating the donation efforts, though the bundle will only be available until the end of January.

Anyone wishing more information about this effort, or about DriveThruRPG overall, should contact Sean Patrick Fannon at sean@onebookshelf.com.

Welcome to the Future

2009 was a very hard year for a lot of people, myself at least partially included. But there's still stuff to be happy about. Incidentally, it's stuff like this that makes me scratch my head when people say they just can't take ANY country music seriously.

Technological goodness

I'm all for the wisdom that comes with age, but when you want to know what tech stuff is cool, you can do worse than to ask a teenager. I've been using an old, creaky keyboard from an e-machines PC I owned many moons ago for years now and it was time for an upgrade. A 16-year old kid off some forums I frequent recommended the Razer Lycosa.

After having bought one, I now recommend it, too. The feedback is snappy, clicky, and beyond comfortable and it's PRETTY and feature-rich. Not a bad deal for what I paid for it.

Well, that was frustrating.

I lost a perfectly good opportunity to game yesterday due to time constraints, lack of communication, and homework. Grrr.

Some improvements.

When I built my computer back in January, I was on a limited budget, so I cut some corner on PSU and case. Back then, I bought a Powerup Case and 450W power supply for $50, but I knew that I shouldn't keep using that forever. As an aditional cooling measure, I pulled all the drive bay covers off the front of the case and aimed a standing fan in there to help keep things cool, but my HDDs still got pretty warm. Furthermore, I knew that using a cheap, off-brand PSU in a rig that routinely sees gaming probably isn't smart over the long run, so this weekend I took some saved cash and birthday money and upgraded both my case and PSU. My new case is a nice CM 690 mid-tower. It's got the red LED fan from my old case in the behind-the CPU spot and the one aftermarket CPU fan I bought for the old case on top as an exhaust fan. I'm eventually going to add some more fans (at the moment I'm thinking of using AeroCool Silver Lightning fans) but it still keeps things much, MUCH cooler than the old case did and has a bunch of very nice features the old case didn't. (Cable management clips, tool-less drive bays, and the "front panel" plugs are located on the top of the case, just to name a few.)

For a PSU, I really lucked out. Tigerdirect, my favorite computer store, period, had a very nice sale on a 650W power supply built by Ultra this weekend, so I put that in the new case, too. It's not a PC Power & Cooling Silencer, but it's a huge step up from what I had and should be more than sufficient for my fairly modest rig. I can finally stop worrying and just enjoy the system now.

New Blog

I'm currently taking a couple of computer courses and am trying to find my way into the IT field. One of those courses, a network essentials class, requires us to blog about the chapters as we work our way through the book. I've decided to take it up a notch from what's required by the class.

If you'd like to learn a bit about computer networking with me as I learn, check it out.

How did I ever do it...

...before I had my wife?

My wife is off at her parents' house tonight, helping her dad get started on his home business. (Apparently the entrepreneurial spirit is hereditary). It follows, then, that she's not here.

Nothing like her absence to make our cozy little apartment feel cavernously empty and deafeningly quiet. I don't hear the hum of the sewing machine, and if I wander into her craft room, she's not there. I didn't get a hug when I came home today, and the cat is wandering around looking kind of melancholy.

As they say, "absence makes the heart grow fonder."

I'm glad she'll be back tomorrow.