New power supply!

My old supply died last night in spite of technically being above the level required for my new card. My computer guy put in a new one for me without labour fees since he'd just put in the video card. Its a gigabyte superb 720 (which gives me some wriggle room for other upgrades). He also suggested I get a bigger case, mine's a bit old and not really designed for big gaming components and max airflow. Since he has a similar set up, in a similar not air-conditioned environment, I'm thinking hew understands what I need best. He suggested I look around and find the one I like most (he'll do the swap over if I want). I was going to get a couple of suggestions off him today but I forgot.
Anyhoo - I have a power supply replaced with something nice in about 2 hours with no labour cost. I like my computer shop :)

now off to reading up on case brands :D...I may wait till another couple of pays to buy one.

new card!

I just replaced my old Geforce 8800 video card with an Asus gtx560Ti. With no load, its running over 20oC cooler! Now, lets start up LOTRO....heh 25oC cooler than it was - and the fan had to be on 100% for the other one. This one is on 44% speed tops!

So far, so cool.

Incorrect assumption

There's a book in my cupboard that Andrea gave me in 2000. Spindle's End by Robin McKinley. Every time I've been thinking about reading an old book, I've brushed past it thinking "thats the one with storyline X" I'm not in the mood for that. I pulled it out the other day thinking..mmm.. storyline X, that'll do. And its Not!
All this time I was mixing it up with another book - which I'll now have to find. Its also been so long since I read this one that the story was completely new to me. It didn't ring a bell at all!
I like Robin McKinleys books, so its not that I skimmed through it and didn't actually read it...I think I must have read it only once however and somehow got my brain wires crossed...perhaps its been written over in my long term storage because I lost the link to it.

checkout the new link

funny - on the places to go list

Apparently this is not unique

I have no dial tone on my home phone, but my internet works. I've spent a couple of days with looking for the fault and so far no dice. Wednesday they come and check the lines in my yard. I finally thought to google "no dial tone but internet works fine" and lo, I am but one of many. Apparently one line can break and the other will carry the internet (or something like that, I choose not to understand any more than that) but both lines are needed for a phone call. Alternately, some sort of connection at the exchange may have lost contact with my phone line but still be contacting my ADSL. I'm expecting the former since a tech has already apparently looked at the outside my home things. I've tried 3 separate phones and combination of direct into the wall and in via the internet splitter - so its from the wall onward somewhere. I know theres an old line under my house that we don't use, but its split off after the main entry point (I think) so I'm hoping thats not interacting with it.

Wildlife carer! - not!

As I drove in my driveway today I noticed a car swerving up the street & something white and pink on the road. The next car also swerved and I thought... that looks like a galah - why isn't it flying away. Then a car backed out of the driveway right next to it and it did a weird - my wing is broken-flail to avoid turning into a recently deceased parrot. They didn't even see it. So I walked up the road thinking - "I should have got a box and a towel - this is going to hurt - large, injured wild bird with big beak - but there's too much traffic - I'll just shoo it off the road and then come back".
Another car saw me walking towards it and just stopped on the road to give me time to get there. When I got there it let me walk right up to it and just edged a bit away, then it let me touch it, so it was either really badly off or a tame bird.
I picked it up and carried it off the road and it only bit me gently before it got out of my hands. Then it made a "I've learned human speak noise" and I picked it up again more stably. The lady drove off and I thought "great, now I'm going to have to deal with an injured bird and find the owner" (at least I have some big empty cages at the moment).
Luckily a guy walked out of a yard before I had a chance to walk home and said it belonged to a neighbour who lets it wander. Apparently the wing break is old. Anyway I handed it over and it walked up his front onto his shoulder, so he took it home to care for until the owner came home.
If he hadn't I would have had to take it to a vet to check on the wing & there aren't many bird savvy vets here. (plus I expect they would have charged me).

The owner is very lucky the backing car didn't go right over it.