One of these days my blog here is just gonna up and leave it's key on the kitchen counter with a goodbye note. I suppose I owe an explanation. Lately, my time has been spent with another, younger, more attractive site. My latest venture is another site for myself, to promote my business: Justin Hayes Consulting. Yes, I guess that means I'm sorta cheating on this site, but I am all for polygamy :) I still love them both.

Anyway, in other news... traffic here is up, big time. Welcome visitors, take a look around, and enjoy your stay :) Seems many people are interested in how I got Ubuntu working on my laptop. Google, and several other search engines I'd guess have gotten wind of that, and now many searches are directing to it. I'll have to thank FeedBurner for the detailed stats :)

Just thought I'd plug my friend Dan's first stop-motion animation. So watch some G.I. Joes duke it out, it's hilarious :)

Ok... uh... I GOT THE LAPTOP! Alright, guess that's one way to just get that out of the way :) This thing just rocks... I re-installed Windows (default install was crap), and then proceeded to install Ubuntu Linux 6.10 Edgy Eft (LP isn't going to be happy...) on it. I've spent most of the morning and all afternoon so far configuring it. Still need to do a bunch of work on Windows, including installing games.

Carrying on... I also got Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter :) (oh what a surprise, harr! :P), a $20 gift certificate for a local mall, $90 cash from various relatives, some clothes, assorted chocolates, and.. oh, get this... 4 Bacardi Breezers (rum coolers), and a 1 litre bottle of Vex (vodka cooler :D). From my parents. Overall, a good haul, but I would have been happy with just the laptop ;)

Time sure flies huh? I for one am looking forward to Christmas for the most part (especially getting that laptop :D), but I'm also a little disappointed because I am not spending it where I really want to be, or with the people that matter most to me (you know who you are). Oh well, maybe next year...

Anyway, I've got a metric ton of e-cards to send.. ah screw it, no I don't. Just a few people, but by golly they're going to get their cards!

Oooh! I should make a Christmas theme for the site :P

Just thought I'd put together a little Christmas list I can direct my family and friends to, and perhaps even generous strangers out there :) (Ya.. right, like anyone else reads my blog...)

...where you kick yourself for not doing something at an advantageous time, that could have brought your fame, or fortune, or both, or something else valuable to you?

I'm having one right now, realizing that I could have bought two PS3s and sold them on Ebay and make thousands of dollars profit, even considering the $1300 initial investment.

Ya, I'm a dumbass idiot (let's not be too harsh now...)

Let's assume I could have sold each for $5000, that's $10000 minus the $1300 spent gives me $8700 to spend on the laptop I've been after for a while (the reason I have $1300 on hand) - $1700. A 24" 30" LCD - about $2000. And to power that behemoth, a GeForce 8800 GTX, which is $850 or there abouts. That still leaves me $4150, so why not throw in about $2000 for a new Core 2 Duo computer, and even that's fairly modest, I could go higher...

Point I'm trying to make here is, I had an opportunity to buy all the things I want right now, and STILL have change to maybe buy a PS3 for keepers. And I hate myself for not exploiting it.

* None of these measurements should be considered totally accurate on account of my being too lazy to calculate taxes into them or even look up actual prices.

Yesterday, with deep regret, I finally put an end to the hobby forum I ran for Warhammer 40,000 for two and a half years; The Smoking Bolter. The final closing thread is here.

I hadn't mentioned more specifically why I had to close the forum besides it's recent stagnation. Truth is, I haven't got the time to properly run a large forum anymore, and I didn't think it fair to the members and staff that supported it for me to do a half-assed job at it. I have an education, and a future career to worry about, and it doesn't leave a whole lot of time for my hobbies. It is a sad thing to do, but unfortunately, I had to do it.

RIP The Smoking Bolter.

...and I am still using my server. Bullshit? Definitely. So...my graphics card was ordered on a Tuesday, it arrived at my dad's friend's house several days later, at which point he then mailed it here. However...some idiot at the post office must have misread the labels, because it was mailed back to my dad's friend. This was about five days ago. He said he mailed it again, this time express. I still don't have it. I wonder if some customs agent is enjoying his new toy...either that or express is just really slow.

By the way, I never did mention how much I paid for this card of cards. The total came to $450 CAD. Much less than retail in the US, and half of the cost locally.