MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!

Posted by lilyput at 07:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chicago, my hometown. Boy, I can't wait to move! I've lived here all my life & I've watched this town change with the times into a town I can't recall being "home". We can't go back again... First off, some of the places I used to patron are now gone. Where have all of our local venues gone? No more Fireside shows. =( & the Double Door is now a liquor store? It's like Chicago is not the place for bands unless you're mainstream. I miss the days of watching my friends' band play at a small venue where the beer was cheap & you were surrounded by freaks. Instead, my friends only play at corporate sponsored events, the beer is pricey, & I'm surrounded by yuppies or hipsters (not that there's anything wrong with them).

You can't smoke anywhere anymore, either. It takes away the ambiance that once was a "dirty" bar or club. I never liked some of them, but I miss smoking & drinking. I have to wait for closing time to head out to my favorite bars, because then my friends & I can light up. Otherwise, I don't go out to bars or restaurants as much anymore. It saves me a lot of money, but I'm too old for the numerous house parties that have become the norm around here. It sucks that there's an extra tax on alcohol, too. It's so much cheaper buying from the liquor store than going to a bar, paying the extra tax, & throwing in for a tip. One night at the bar equals three or four 24-packs of beer for my friends & I to enjoy at home.

My sister & her husband were looking for a condo to raise their son in, but they couldn't afford one (for now). I think that's fucked up since there are at least 15 condos or town homes I live/drive by every day that have been up for sale for the past 3 years & numerous people are left homeless from foreclosure. I can't begin to count the number of people I've seen living lakeside, park side, under the bridges, etc. or begging for money at almost every other major intersection. How is it possible that people are homeless, yet banks can't sell any condos? A few of my clients complained that their property value has come down too much due to the non-sale of the units in their building/neighborhood. I've lost at least 5 clients in the past year because they moved to the suburbs where life is a little cheaper.

I'm happy that gas prices went down. When it was almost at $5/gallon, I nearly had to quit my job. I drive a lot for work & half of my income was going towards putting gas in my car. If I had to quit my job, I would've been jobless for months! My boyfriend had quit his job last year & couldn't find another one for 6 months, even with an education. Having a degree/certification didn't even matter, because employers were down-sizing & still are! My relatives recently had a pay-cut at work & are now working for the same salary when they first started the job. I hate to see that happen. It sickens me that after graduating college & working at a job for 10+ years, they're back to being paid "out-of-college" salaries while still having to pay back their student loans & raise a family.

Continue reading "Chicago's the Worst Place to Live" »

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This charmingly eccentric cartoon from Korea features a little mound of dog poo on a quest to find meaning and purpose in his life. Left all alone on the side of the road and feeling abandoned and helpless, he believes his life is without value. Luckily, the despondent poo is befriended by a dandelion sprite who helps him recognize his worth. The film includes a behind-the-scenes documentary, music video, alternate endings and more. Rent it from Netflix!

Posted by lilyput at 03:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've had my Dell Studio 15 laptop for over a month now. Here are the specs:

Model: Dell Studio 1535
Processor: Intel Core Duo T5750 (2.00GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
Video Card: 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450
Memory: 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2
Hard Drive: 320GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)

The Dell Dock crashes often, but you can close the Dock & revert to the classic desktop icons if this becomes annoying. I don't know why this happens, but whenever I empty the Trash, a .NET Framework error window pops up & asks if I want to continue or close the Dock. I don't bother emptying the trash anymore. I just have Disk Cleanup do my dirty work.

I despise all the added security software included by Dell, Windows, & McAfee (aka Windows Security Center). I had to disable/uninstall some of them because of the constant pop-up windows (the dreaded "approve" or "disapprove"). On my 10-year-old HP Pavilion, the only security I had was my Norton Antivirus software & enabling firewall. It was good enough to keep my computer safe from viruses, malware, etc. I'm the only one who uses this laptop & I'm pretty careful when I connect to the internet.

Above the keyboard is the touch media control buttons. There's a button to open Dell MediaDirect 3, & buttons for rewind, stop, play/pause, forward, mute volume, lower volume, raise volume, & optical drive eject button. It has the same functions as the button on my HP laptop, but the Dell has the "touch" feature. My problem with "touch" is that when I open the computer lid & Windows wakes from sleep mode, the media buttons get stuck. The eject button continues attempting to eject a non-existent disc at least 6x before it stops & the volume automatically sets to max. The eject button thing happens only if I close the lid without putting the computer on sleep mode first, so I try to remember doing so. The max volume setting happens every time the computer wakes. The only problem I have with that is I forget to lower the volume when I'm out in public & my music blares through the crappy speakers.

As for playing Sims 2 on a Dell Studio 15 laptop, I recommend going with the 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 instead of the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100. I tried playing the Sims 2 on my sister's Dell Inspiron 15 laptop with Intel GMA X3100 & it immediately crashed after installation.

On my Dell Studio with 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450, I can play Sims 2 + University + Nightlife + Celebrations + IKEA Home. The special occasions movies can be a little choppy, but I've never been able to play them on my old laptop so it was a treat to watch my Sims grow up or get married! There's also a bit of a lag when my Sims changes clothes, but I'm not complaining!

I now have access to the "Smooth Edges" option & it's just amazing to see the game without jagged edges on my Sims or objects! If you want to see what it looks like, I've created a webisode which you can view here. I recommend watching it in "high quality", because YouTube compresses videos during upload & this often creates a pixelated final product (especially if you can't control your fps or bitrate for better quality videos).

Get the Sims 2 Patches! This is important if you're installing on a Windows Vista computer. I remember having a few problems during installation, but I can't recall what it was. If I remember, I'll update this section.

Unfortunately, I had re-download a lot of my custom content. When I tried to copy + paste the downloads folder into The Sims 2 folder, I would open the game & some of the content just didn't show up. So, I had to go back & reinstall them. Once I did this, I had no problems. I keep my custom content to a minimum (less than 100 items) because I've heard that overloading a game with custom content can cause problems during game play. When my friend deleted half of her 522 custom content, she noticed that her game play was less laggy & there were less error occurrences.

It's only been a month since I've had this laptop & I love- love- LOVE it! I especially love that it's Tangerine colored - one of my favorite colors (I love fall colors). I read somewhere on the net that someone had a problem with playing Sims 2 on the Dell Studio 15 after several months. I also read a few complaints about the keyboard being cheap plastic & some people said their monitors stopped working. I hope that these things don't happen to my laptop (knock on wood). I guess this means that 5 months from now, I'll write up another informal review.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me!

Posted by lilyput at 09:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To all my friends, I hope you have safe & filling Thanksgiving weekend!!!

Posted by lilyput at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)