My New Motherboard

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer1 Comment

I have been having the worst computer luck lately.  First my video card stops working so I bought a new one from Tiger Direct which took a week to get to me.

When I installed it, it didn’t work right away.  I turned it off then back on again and it still didn’t come on.  I had my hands in my face then I looked up and it came on.  It took a couple of minutes but it did come on.

I installed the software for the new video card and it needed to reboot and it rebooted fast enough so I thought, ok, it just needed time to read the new hardware.

I experimented with it to see what would happen if I shut it down all the way and I waited about 10 minutes.  I turned it back on and it didn’t want to come on.  It did finally come on a couple of minutes later but I figured, the only way that I am able to keep my computer working is if I NEVER EVER turn it off.

Then I get a notice from the PG&E telling me they are shutting our power off to put in a new pole…  CRAP!

My computer didn’t want to turn on again and I did some research and found out it was because my power supply wasn’t good enough for my new video card.  I had to wait a month to buy a new power supply because I didn’t have the money.  When I bought it on NewEgg, it arrived the next day and it still didn’t turn my computer on.

It did come on once but it told me to reset the bios which I did and it still didn’t want to work.  SHIT!

I did more research and found out that I needed a new motherboard.  I borrowed some money last night because I just want my stupid computer to work again.  I bought it from NewEgg because I get it the next day unlike Tiger Direct which takes a week to get to me.

ASRock A785GM-LE AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

I am not familiar with this brand but it was the only one that was compatible with my memory and CPU.  It also has an onboard Radeon video card so I know it will be compatible with my Radeon video card that I bought from Tiger Direct.  I read a review that said that the onboard video is crap for playing games so you will need another video card which I just so happen to have.

This should work and get me back up and running.  I already got my shipping confirmation so it should be here tomorrow afternoon around 4pm which is when we get our UPS packages.

I think the reason that Radeon video card didn’t work with my motherboard was probably because it wasn’t compatible with the motherboard.  My other video card was nvidia so I don’t know what possessed me to buy Radeon.

I will update this as soon as I get my new motherboard installed to say whether it worked or not.  I’m pretty sure it should but I will update this whether it works or not.

Coax Cable Splitter

On By Michel McDonaldIn TVLeave a comment

Something as easy and simple as a coax cable splitter should be cheap and easy to find, right?

A couple of years ago when all of the cable companies were forcing everyone to go digital, we decided that we would make the upgrade only because we wanted more channels.

I didn’t want to upgrade because our cable bill was only $50 and I could barely afford that.  After the upgrade to digital, my bill went up to $89.  It has gone up significantly since then but that’s not the point.

Before we were forced into the digital cable age, I was able to record shows on my DVD recorder which I had just bought 2 years before that.  Some nights I had 2 shows on at once so I would watch one while recording the other.  Other nights I would just record my shows so that we could go out to eat.

Then DVR’s came along and I couldn’t afford the monthly fees just to record my shows.  Why should I be forced to pay for that when I can do it for free?  Well, like I said, I bought a DVD recorder for $225 or so 2 years prior so it wasn’t really free.

When we switched to digital cable, our new cable box put a block on my DVD recorder so I couldn’t record anything.  Heck, I couldn’t even watch tv with it.

For reference, it’s a Panasonic DMR-ES35V which has a DVD recorder and a VCR.

So it has been sitting there not being used for a couple of years now, except when I rent movies at the Red Box.

I knew I was going to miss my shows last week so I decided to hook the cable up to the DVD Recorder to see if I could record it straight from the cable instead of from the cable box and it worked!

BINGO!

So, I went looking for a cable splitter.  I went to Walgreens on Saturday but they stopped carrying them.  I went to Radio Shacks website and they charge $15 – $30 for them now.  Screw that!  I remember when they only charged $1.

I went to the Sears and Target website and it was the same story.  There was no freakin’ way I was going to drop that kind of cash on something that I should get for only $1.

I found it on NewEgg for $5.35 with tax and free shipping so I bought it.  I’m still waiting for it to arrive by USPS mail.

Last night we went to the chinese buffet place and right next door to them is a Dollar Outlet Plus.  We decided to go in and look around and you will never guess what I found for only $1.49…

If you guessed a cable splitter you would be correct!

How can Radio Shack, Sears and Target charge such outrageous prices for something that a dollar outlet plus store sells for $1.49?  I’m sure it’s cheap and you probably won’t get great cable reception but I don’t get great cable reception straight from the cable to my DVD recorder anyway so it doesn’t really matter.

I’ve decided that I am not going to send my coax cable splitter from NewEgg back since I’ve waited such a long time for it to arrive but I now know for future reference that if the retail stores charge you up the ass, check the dollar store first.

Update: My splitter came and it worked and I was so glad to be able to record again.

Gay Pride in Bakersfield with Human Rights Campaign

On By Michel McDonaldIn gay prideLeave a comment

Today was the day that I volunteered for the Human Rights Campaign.

I got an email last week telling me that they will be in Bakersfield for Gay Pride this weekend and they were looking for volunteers.  I immediately thought, Hell yeah I want to volunteer.

I signed up for 1-4pm and of course I stayed until 5 because I didn’t want to leave at all because I was having such a good time.

The people coming up to the booth were just the most friendly people you would ever meet in your life.  Everyone had a smile on their faces.

Apparently, HRC has never been to Bakersfield pride so the event coordinator was thrilled that we were there.  I was shocked to find out that Bakersfield even had a gay pride.  I thought that was so cool and I was really glad I was involved.

What we were doing was we were getting people to fill out the petition for gay marriage for 2012.  If they wanted a free sticker, temporary tattoo, or a canvas bag they had to just fill out the little card or the petition sheet.

We were selling memberships and if you bought a membership you got a free t-shirt, cap, necklace or a bracelet depending on how much you paid for your membership.

I didn’t want to go but I left at 5pm with my “Legalize Gay” t-shirt on and a smile on my face the whole bicycle trip home.

If they ever ask me to volunteer for anything else I will do it in a heartbeat.

Hey, just because I’m not there anymore doesn’t mean I won’t still ask you to help them out. Please visit HRC.org and become a member today to help in the fight.  You know you want to.

Follow @HRC on Twitter and Like them on Facebook

Gay Pride in Bakersfield

On By Michel McDonaldIn gay prideLeave a comment

I had no idea that Bakersfield ever participated in Gay Pride until a week ago when I received an email from the Human Rights Campaign asking me if I wanted to volunteer.

“Of course I want to volunteer” was my first thought.

I got on AIM and told our good friend Venda that I would volunteer if she would volunteer, of course I was going to do it anyway, I just wanted to see if she would do it too lol.

She agreed that she would do it so I sent her the email from HRC so she could sign up.

You know it’s funny, I haven’t been to a gay pride in years.  The first and last time I ever went to gay pride was when I was 23 years old and that was in West Hollywood.  They had a parade and then they had like this fair afterwards with these booths where you walk around from booth to booth getting free stickers and what not.

The reason it has taken me this long is because when I lived in Hollywood, we just never had the money to go anywhere and then we moved here and we just figured that Bakersfield would never have a gay pride.  Well, they do now.

I’ve never volunteered for this kind of thing so I can’t wait for tomorrow.  It’s like Disneyland but the only mice you will find are really bears.

At first I thought I should be worried about protesters but it doesn’t matter, they can suck an egg for all I care.  I’m not even going to waste my time thinking about them or waste any of the fun I’m going to have when I’m handing out whatever it is I will be handing out.

If you are in Bakersfield Saturday October 15th, come see me at Stramler Park between 1-4pm.  I’ll be the bald guy with the glasses.

Solve Your Frozen Food Problems with T.G.I. FRiDAY’S “Entrees for One”

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of T.G.I. FRiDAY’S for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Sizzling Chicken Fajitas

Are you tired of the boring freezer dinners at the grocery store but don’t want to have to spend a fortune going out to a restaurant?  YES!  That is a question I ask myself practically on a daily basis.  I am so excited that T.G.I. Fridays meals are available at the grocery store because I love going to T.G.I. Fridays but we don’t get to go there very often.  First of all, they are so popular that it can take half an hour or longer just to get a table and I really hate waiting.

My diet has gotten so boring and I’ve seen these T.G.I. FRiDAY’S “Entrées for One” in the freezer section at Target for only $2.79 each and I bought a couple.  I was actually quite excited when I saw these because it gives me the chance to eat restaurant food at home.

I bought the Sizzling Chicken Fajitas (picture above) and I’m not really a huge fan of onions or bell peppers but if they are cooked enough then they don’t really bother me.  I figured that T.G.I. Fridays wouldn’t give me under cooked food so I took the chance and I’m glad I did because it was really good.

I also bought the Grilled Chicken Mac & Cheese .  If you know me then you know that I am a macaroni and cheese fanatic.  I have loved mac and cheese since i was a kid and I think it will my be my favorite until the day I die.  The other brands in the frozen section are good, one brand in particular is my favorite but it’s so expensive.  The T.G.I. Fridays grilled chicken mac and cheese is SO much better.  It’s not too much food and it has chicken.  The cheese is a different flavor which is perfect because it’s not so boring.

I also bought some T.G.I. Fridays snacks.  I bought the potato skins with cheddar and bacon and steak quesadillas.  Hey, we can’t have T.G.I. Fridays without appetizers.  I mean seriously.

Hey, did you know that T.G.I. Fridays is having a Fun Freezer contest on their Facebook page?  All you have to do is decorate your freezer, take a picture and enter it in the contest and hopefully win one of a few prizes, it’s really that simple.

So what are you waiting for?  Go to the freezer section of your grocery store and pick up some of these “entrees for one” for dinner tonight.

Visit Sponsor's Site

My Book is Coming Along

On By Michel McDonaldIn BooksLeave a comment

I have been trucking along with my writing which means I haven’t been blogging as much and I would like to.

There are 8 chapters that are written in my autobiography.  The one I wrote today still needs editing but there are 106 pages total.

I found 5 of those chapters on a USB drive and naturally those had to be totally rewritten because I wrote them last year and they weren’t written with the same technique I am using now.  Also, they didn’t even make sense so I just had to rewrite them.

I never thought that I would get as far as I have because I didn’t think I would know how to write this book.  The problem was, all of the things that happened to me all blended together and I could never remember the exact time lines.

Writing this autobiography is not only therapeutic but it’s also helping me put the pieces to the puzzle of my life together and I’m remembering which order things happened in.

I believe I have another 5 chapters to write and then I will be ready to send it to a publisher and hope it gets published.  If it doesn’t then I will try to copyright it and self publish it through Barnes & Nobles Pubit.

I don’t want to self publish it because I probably won’t get very many readers because I won’t have an advertising budget.  If I have a publisher then perhaps it might sell millions.  Who knows.

My main objective in writing this book is that I might help people understand the mind of the abuse victim.  What they are going through when they are being abused and why they do the odd things that they do.  Which in this case would be me.

Even if I don’t help anyone, I am helping myself because it is making me feel so much better to have all of this out in the open.  It’s like a huge weight is being lifted with every word I write.

I changed 95% of the names in my book so if I said something about someone and they don’t like it then they can’t sue me for slander because their name isn’t in it.

I hope it’s finished soon because it’s killing my eyes and my back lol.

My New Power Supply

On By Michel McDonaldIn ComputerLeave a comment

In late July this year my video card stopped working in my desktop so I was forced to buy a new one. I bought it and it didn’t work right away but it did eventually work as long as I didn’t turn off my computer.

A month later I get a notice from the PG&E that they are shutting off our power to install a new pole. Well that meant that my computer would shut off and if that happens who knew if I could turn my computer back on? Well, my worst nightmare happened and it didn’t turn back on.

Now it’s the beginning of October, I haven’t had a desktop computer in over a month. I read somewhere that my problem was that my power supply isn’t good enough for my new video card. I looked at the huge list of recommended power supplies and researched every one of them and compared the list with what NewEgg sells and bought the least expensive one which was all I could afford to pay.

I bought the new power supply yesterday and it arrived today. That was shocking to me that I got free 3 day shipping with UPS and I got it within 24 hours. Awesome right?

I installed the new power supply right away. I made sure all of the plugs were plugged in properly and put the door on the tower and plugged it in and it still doesn’t work.

I don’t know what is wrong with this desktop of mine. I should have just sent the video card back to Tiger Direct right away and gotten a new one instead of going through all of this headache.

Back to the drawing board!

New Kindle, Kindle Touch and Kindle Fire

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Gadgets, Kindle, Nook, Products I Like, Reading, Tech1 Comment

Amazon has done it again.  They have surprised us with new Kindle devices.  Not just a replacement for their popular Kindle but 3 all new Kindles.

First there is the Kindle Fire (pic) which is more like a tablet and some people are calling it an iPad killer.  It’s battery lasts 8 hours which is pretty good for what it is.

The specs on the Kindle Fire is an 80GB hard drive for storing 80 apps plus either 10 movies, 800 songs or 6,000 books.  The Kindle Fire has a 7″ vibrant color IPS screen with multi-touch.

I had never heard of an IPS screen before so I had to look it up and I found some information on it on a message board.  This is what someone said it was.

IPS – in-plane switching…. the liquid crystals are aligned horizontally instead of on an angle. This process greatly increases vertical viewing angles. When coupled with the high brightness and contrast of the glaretype displays, color reproduction is almost perfect. Basically it becomes a 1/4″ professional graphics flat CRT monitor…. which is why the display is primarily for those in professional graphics.

Very interesting.

The new Amazon Kindle Fire is $199 and it is a WiFi only device.

The 2nd new Kindle is a smaller priced Kindle with no keyboard.  It is WiFi only, has a 6″ e-ink Pearl screen, 2GB storage for 1,400 ebooks and its battery life is 1 month.

The new $79 kindle doesn’t have a keyboard but it does have a 5-way controller at the bottom for navigating.  With no keyboard I would imagine that it would be a bit difficult to type in the name of a book you are looking for.

I noticed that it allows you to check out books from the library.  That was something that will make it easier on most people who can’t afford to buy a lot of books but don’t want to have to go to the library for their books.  I looked that feature up when I was researching last year and our library is not in the system so it wouldn’t work for me unless they changed that in the last year.

They still have their Kindle with the keyboard which they have 2 versions of, a WiFi only version for $99 and a WiFi and 3G version for $139.  That went way down in price since last year when it was $150 for WiFi only and $200 for 3G.

Now they have a new Kindle touch in WiFi only for $99 and WiFi and 3G for $149.

The battery for both the Kindle Keyboard and Kindle Touch lasts for 2 months which is longer than before.

All of the kindles use the Amazon cloud storage for unlimited amazon content and they have an experimental browser with the exception of the Kindle Fire which uses their new Amazon Silk cloud-accelerated browser.

I remember when e-book readers first came out.  I had just made my new years resolution to start reading in December of 2005.  I saw the Sony reader at Costco for about $500 or $550, I can’t remember.  I do remember thinking how cool it was that they were coming out with them but I didn’t think they would catch on at that price.

I started reading the Harry Potter books in January 2006 and got hooked on reading.  I was reading all the time after that.

Then Amazon came out with their first e-book reader which if I can remember was almost as high as the Sony Reader but eventually they lowered the price down to $250.  Then B&N came out with their Nook after a little controversy with another e-book reader with a color screen at the bottom.  The nook was also $250.

The war was on and every year these 2 rivals have come out with a new version of their e-book reader with a lower price.

The Kindle has dropped from a high $500 all the way down to a low $80.  I never thought the day would come and it has.  Before you know it there will be another Kindle or Nook on the market that will be as low as $50 and every kid will have one in school with their textbooks on them.

My question is, what ever happened to the Sony reader touch?  That was a good one and it’s a shame it’s gone because you could write on the screen.  I seriously thought that the Sony Reader would evolve into the Sony Trapper Keeper where you would have all of your textbooks in there as well as a notebook with tabs for each subject and you could write your notes on a notepaper screen and have it turn it into typed text that you could save.  That would’ve been awesome.

Maybe that will be the next evolution for the Kindle or the Nook, or who knows, maybe even both.  It would be much easier for a child to carry to school rather than a heavy 20lb backpack filled with books and a notebook or a laptop.

Style Exposed “Sperm Donor: 74 Kids and More”

On By Michel McDonaldIn TV10 Comments

I was fortunate yesterday that I found the most wonderful gift in the tv guide.  It was a show called “Sperm Donor: 74 kids and more” on the Style channel.

With a title like that, who couldn’t resist watching it?  It put’s the show “19 kids and counting” to shame.

We meet this man named Ben who was hurting for money when he was in college and when he heard he could make $900 a month donating his sperm, he took full advantage of the situation.

Hey, I don’t blame the guy.  I mean, your body is constantly generating something that usually just goes into a tissue, why not make some money right?  I mean, if I had a dollar for every tissue I threw away I’d be the richest man on the planet.

Unfortunately for him, his fiancé doesn’t like knowing that not only was her future husband a sperm donor, but now he is finding out that his donations have produced more than 74 children.

There is a scene where they are in a restaurant and she is telling him that he is selfish for letting this happen.

What?  He’s selfish?  Is she kidding me?  If anyone is selfish here it’s her because if it wasn’t for Ben donating his sperm, there wouldn’t be so many happy families out there with children that they couldn’t produce on their own.  His donations gave people the gift of life.

They showed a couple who used Bens sperm donation because the husband was shooting blanks.  They wanted children but he wasn’t able to give one to his wife.  They decided to use the donor sperm and they made daughter out of it.

That daughter found out that he wasn’t her real father so they sneaked a q-tip from her fathers trash can in his bathroom and sent it in for DNA testing.  She discovered that he wasn’t really her father.

She signed onto this website where people who were born from donated sperm could find not only their donated father but also perhaps other donated siblings by way of the donated sperm donor number.

It just so happened that Ben signed up for the same website so he was able to find more than 20 of his children.  He thought that perhaps he might have 100 or maybe even 120 children out there but he wasn’t sure.

Two of his daughters found each other through the website and they were able to meet and they hope that one day they might have a relationship with their sperm donor father.

There was another woman who had 2 children from Bens donated sperm and she told her oldest daughter who was in my opinion too young to know.  The reason I say that is because she wasn’t mature enough to understand the circumstances for why she was created.  She thought that her mother had a relationship with Ben and when Ben meets her mother he would fall in love with her and marry her.

This poor little girl thought that Ben was breaking up with her mother because he was getting married to someone else.  In that situation I think that she should have waited until her daughter was at least 15 or 16 years old before telling her.

The problem that most people will have with this is that he has 74 kids, more than most people should have.  First of all they aren’t his children.  I mean sure they are technically his because they have his DNA but he doesn’t have any responsibility towards them.  I’m sure he signed away his parental rights the minute he handed over the little cup.

His fiancé is worried that he will want to have a relationship with all of those children.  She’s afraid that there might be a reunion every year.  Well so what if there is!  If that’s what he and the children want then I don’t see why they shouldn’t get that.

If all of the siblings find each other and want to have their own reunion then I really don’t take issue with that because they are all half siblings.

It’s funny because the first thing that came to mind was that these kids need to know each other.  What if they meet, get in a relationship, get married and have their own children then find out that they are really brother and sister?

It is up to those kids parents to talk to their kids and say look, I used a sperm donor so that we could have you.  That sperm donor isn’t your father, he’s just a donor.  Your father is still your father.

And if that parent is a single parent or a lesbian couple then they need to have a different conversation.  “Ben isn’t your father, your other mother is your father.”

I don’t think that what Ben did was as wrong as his fiancé thinks he is.  She needs to stop being such a jealous and selfish person.  In my opinion, Ben doesn’t have any children because he didn’t make them with another person, other people made those children.  Ben masturbated in a cup, multiple cups and he shouldn’t be penalized for that.

His fiancé needs to realize that what he did was a good thing and move on with the rest of their relationship.  Stop thinking about how horrible he is for having 74 kids and more and start focusing on the love that they have for each other and possibly the baby they will make with each other.

On a side note, did anyone who watched that show see a resemblance to Seth Rogen?  He had the curly hair, he sort of had Seth Rogens face, he definitely had Seth Rogens voice and laugh.

I’m just gonna go out on a limb here and say that Ben might have fathered Seth Rogen.  Ok so maybe that’s not possible but maybe they might be related to each other some other way, maybe their real father was a sperm donor.  Hey, it could happen.

Writing My Autobiography

On By Michel McDonaldIn BooksLeave a comment

I started writing my autobiography a year ago but I stopped after I wrote a couple of chapters.  I fizzled out on it after a few days because it was harder to write than I thought.

I started telling a story of my childhood to someone a few days ago and it got me thinking about working the book again, so I did.

As of right now I have 3 chapters finished and 2 chapters that are halfway written.

I turned those 3 finished chapters into an epub file to read on my Nook because I wanted to see how it looked but I didn’t like what I saw.  The paragraphs were too big and it was very difficult to read.

I went through the book again and started fixing all of the paragraphs so that they were shorter, you may notice that I have learned a thing or two by the way this blog post has very small paragraphs.

While I was editing that chapter I discovered a lot of grammatical errors so naturally I had to rewrite those paragraphs.

I talked to someone about copyrighting which also lead to talking about people’s names in the book.  Since it’s an autobiography I will be talking about people in my family and it’s not good stuff so in order for me to write it without worrying about being sued for slander I needed to change everyone’s names.

I made out a huge list of everyone I will be talking about and gave them fake names.  Not all of those people will be slandered but I thought I should change their names anyway.

It’s funny because now I am writing the fake names without thinking about it.  So now when I think of that person, I think of them with their fake name.  I guess you had to be there.

Anyway, 3 chapters complete and edited for the 10th time.  I still have maybe 10 or 11 more chapters to go.  This is going to take me a long time but I don’t care if it takes forever, I just want it to be written.

I haven’t been blogging that much anyway and now I will be blogging even less because of this book.  So if you don’t see me blogging, it’s not because I gave up on it, it’s because I’m very busy writing a book.