Mr. Scott! I need more power!

I want to upgrade the power supply in my backup computer... right now it's 250w if I remember correctly, and I want to push it to 300w to see if that improves anything.

So Michael, you said I needed to find out what type of power supply it was? What were my two options again?

And I'll pick up some memory too I think. Anyone want to drive to a computer shop somewhere tomorrow?

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Soooo what I did today was I went MANGA CRAZY!

First I stopped at my comic shop. They had several things there for me, including a Ranma 1/2 video and volumes 2 of Love Hina and Marmalade Boy. And then, just to ensure that I spent waaaaay more money than I needed to, I grabbed Angelic Layer vol 1 and Kodacha vol 1 off the shelves. These new Tokyopop mangas, almost every one of them looks cool to me, so I can hardly avoid buying them all.

And then I added a $45 dvd on top of it all -- volume 1 of the Silent Mobius tv series. It actually contains 2 discs and 9 episodes, so the price isn't as outrageous as it sounds. (And I get a discount when I buy from my comic shop!)

But I did spend too much money.

And then I drove down to Cash & Carry, and over to Fred Meyers. I bought a large pot, soil, rocks, gloves, and a small spade, and later I repotted my cactus (the only plant I own) which I've been meaning to do for several years now. I really have no idea why it's still alive, but that's why I don't own any other plants you know.

And then I drove to Half Price Books. I'm sure you all realize what a mistake that is, we've all made that mistake haven't we? ^_^

I was looking for a copy of The Magician's Nephew, the fifth (or first, chronologically) of the Narnia stories. Now it's kind of a sad thing to admit, but my only real reason to do this right now is that I want to do a one-off joke in an anime fanfic story I'm writing, in which the two kids from that book pop out of a pool and then jump back in, or something like that. The problem is, while I grew up on the Narnia books, I've never actually owned them... my sisters and I had a set, and I guess one of them got to keep the set, so I haven't read these books in many many years. So it seemed like a good time to pick up a full set, and Half Price was the place to do it.

And that's what I did. Only... I checked to see what manga they had in, and wouldn't you know it, they had a LOT of the Tokyopop mangas, all volume ones, including most of the ones I already owned and a bunch that I hadn't bought yet. So I picked up Mars vol 1, Real Bout High School vol 1, Dragon Knights vol 1, and even Skull Man vol 1 (which, really, I wouldn't have been interested in except it was only $5 and I was a little manga happy at the time). They even had a few other series there that I could have bought... but I was already spending another chunk of cash so I decided to stop right there.

So I bought eight Tokyopop mangas in one afternoon. I have plenty to read now. ^_^;

It was really a good thing that it was so hot... it kept me from digging through their cds...

It's alive!

Woo! I put a new power supply into my computer! I almost feel like I know something about computers now!

Michael and I drove around today. Went to Tukwila (via 99 so we would avoid the Fremont Fair) to Fun-Key Computers. We looked at a lot of stuff but spent almost nothing. I noticed the Geforce 3 ti 200 128mb video card that I bought a month or so ago has come down in price a little, to $147 now. Michael saw that they had an even better deal -- a Geforce 4 ti 4200 128mb for only $199. That's a fantastic deal for a video card that is almost top of the line! Michael wanted one, but he was good and held off.

I looked at power supplies. They had a 300w in a box for $50 They had another brand of 300w power supplies that weren't boxed, just wrapped in a plastic bag. I asked how much they were, but the salesman had an accent and was talking from across the room, so we weren't sure if he said $40.95 or $14.95. We assumed $40, since the other brand was $50.

Michael started looking at tower cases and we realized that some of them were as low as $40 or even $30, and they came with power supplies (the $30 had a 350w in it). The cheap ones didn't have fans -- which were around $10 each. So I was seriously considering buying a full tower, but we asked again about the cheap power supplies, and it turned out that they really were just $14.95. So I decided if I could get what I wanted that cheaply, there was no need to spend more money. Even if I could get a nifty new tower. ^_^

I wanted to buy a 256mb pc 100 memory stick, but they were all out of pc 100. Oh well, it's not a dire need or anything.

I noticed while installing my new power supply that I don't have any extra fans in my backup computer. I should pick up a couple, probably could use one in my game computer too.

So then we went to Cash & Carry. I'd bought a large block of smoked swiss cheese there a month or two ago, and it was a really good deal and I wanted to do so again. I'd tried Cash & Carry in Ballard the day before, but it's a smaller store and they didn't have smoked swiss or even smoked chedder.

After that we hit CompUSA, which naturally was all out of Neverwinter Nights. Will pick up later this week I suspect. And we drove over to Burien and checked out Wonderworld, where I bought my 9th Tokyopop manga volume of the weekend, Ragnarok vol 1. ^_^

Then we went back to Ballard and ate at the Inn Bin. I got kung pao chicken and sizzling rice soup, and Mike got fried rice and egg rolls. Everything was delicious. ^_^

I think I need to pick up some book shelves at Office Depot tomorrow, and OfficeMax has some corner desks for $40 that I can use in my computer room....