New Orleans

I think xydexx  summed it up best with this quote... You probably have to watch his LJ to get the quote...

Aw hell, from olde_scratch via xydexx :

I just have a mental picture of a Jazz Funeral marching down a completly empty canal street as the water rises around their ankles. Playing a slow funeral dirge in that sad bluesy tune that is the epitome of New Orleans.

How fitting for the decaying jewel of the south... nothing half assed... if we are going to have a direct hit, lets go out with one of the most powerful storms to ever hit the U.S.

http://www.nola.com/bourbocam/ -- webcams of the storm.

A challenge for a new system, from Maximum PC

Okay, another geekout moment here.  Maximum PC has a PC Hardware guide out now.  Hidden on page 50, we have a budget guide -- set below $2000.  They reached $1255.

Of course, I don't need a gaming system.  Lets try cheaper.  Refrence prices from NewEgg, shipping in parenthesis, comments in italics.

CPU:  Athlon 64 3000+, a Socket 939 processor, with fan, $149 (+ $0 shipping). Might as well go 64 bits
Mobo:  MSI K8N Neo4 (no need for SLI).  $55.58 (+$1) refurbished, $82.99 (+$2.50) new and on sale. A difference of about $28 combined.
Vid Card: ASUS EN6200TC128/TD/16M NVidia Geforce 6200TC.  $50 (+$2.50) Do I really need SLI?  I'm not using the rig to play games!
Case: Antec Solution SLK3800B.  $105 (+$18.99) For $4 more I could of gotten the Performance TX640B
Optical Drive: Plextor IDE DVD Burner PX-740A/SW. $90 (+$4) Funny, it burns dual-layer DVD's at 8x, compared to the PX-716A's 6x.
OS:  Gentoo Linux (FREE) No duh.
HD:  Maxtor DiamondMax 10 Ultra ATA133, 160 Gig.  $77 (+$2.99) Do I really need 300 Gigs of HD space?  I just need to get FLCL off my HD, and I've reclaimed half the space!
RAM: 2 x Cosair ValueSelect 1 GB DDR 400 - $89.75 (+$3.83) each. About $20 cheaper than what MaxPC said they were, but then at the end, I get 4 half-gig sticks.

So, rounding up to the dollar, that's $697.  I've now just saved almost half of what MaxPC did -- and by using NewEgg!  Anyone can try for cheaper?

Gaming Laptops

Not that I'm intrested in one (I'd in a different realm with Linux here), but a friend of mine is looking for a pure gamers laptop, strong enough to run Half Life 2 and Doom 3 on eazily.  She's looking for one that's light on price, though... and I can't seem to guide her towards a good one.

Anyone got any suggestions?