Well I still haven't got around to posting about all the good foods that I've come accross during my "health tavels," but this one i just have to share with you. I picked up some Diet Arizona Peach Ice Tea (made with Spenda!) and WOW this stuff tastes great, I mean there is nothing diet about this taste and it's 0 calories...Here is the RDA on it.




Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 8 fl. oz (240 mL)

Amount per serving
Calories 0
Calories from Fat 0

------------------------------------
% DV*

Total Fat 0 g 0%

Saturated Fat 0 g 0%

Cholesterol 0 mg 0%

Sodium 20 mg 0.83%

Total Carbohydrates 0 g 0%

Fiber 0 g 0%

Sugars 0 g

Protein 0 g 0%

*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

If you like tea...GO GET SOME OF THIS STUFF!!

Posted by Krez at 3/28/2006 07:46:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

- just a shot of the "cool" (get it!?!) fan I installed. Got'a keep that air flowing when you are working out or things can get nasty...and not in a good way! ;oP

- I love this desk, I got the idea from the one Eric has. Glass and metal always looks great! Anyhow you can see the whole computer shot in this image. Of course this picture was taken before I did the cable management (to clean things up,) but oh well. I also extended the padded floor to act as one of those "carpet protectors" around desks. By the way those are just temporary speakers. I have some real nice metal ones coming that will go with the desk...Everything has to "look right," ya know?!? ;o) -

- Now to "kill" the lights. Sweet! I've always liked how the blue-glow looks when it comes to computers...Leave the crap off your cars people! ;oP -

- "Into the Blue." Just a better shot of the machine. Check out the fans, yes that’s three 120mm sucking cool air into the case. As loud as this may look the system is very quiet. Larger fans turn slower while pushing larger amounts of air, it is those small little fans that make all the deafening "blender" noises...The machine is very quiet with and idle case temp of 26 to 29-degrees Celsius. =o) The CPU, at idle is anywhere from 33 to 34-degrees Celsius, very cool for a CPU that isn't water cooled. -

- Just a closer view so you have a shot of the illuminated ribbon cables, just for an added touch of geekness - LOL Also you can see a bit of the blue glow from the VGA card fan cooler I installed. That puppy never gets above 60- degrees Celsius at full load and idles around 36-degrees Celsius. First thing you do whenever you buy a new video card get rid of those STOCK coolers; they are cheap and usually suck! -

- a Heads up shot of the hole thing. Illuminated mouse, pad, and keyboard and the 19" wide screen LCD. Man I love it!-

The final system breakdown:

- Asus A8V Pro motherboard

- AMD 64bit X2 (Dual Core) 3800+ (Over Clocked to 4200 speeds) and very stable!

- 2 Gigs or DDR RAM (OCed 440Mhz) - Stable

- ATI X850 (256MB) AGP Video card (OCed to 578 memory & 579 Core) Stock is 500x500 =o)

- One 140mm fan and three 120mm intake air fans

- two 120mm exhaust fans

- 550 watt modular power supply with LCD temp and fan control (3 1/4 bay insert)

- 80Gig SATA drive just for games

- 120 Gig IDE ATA133 drive (separate boot OS) just for video editing, rendering.

That's pretty much it, but this little dude, should last me for some time! Remember design it well and keep your system cooled and it will last you forever!

Posted by Krez at 3/27/2006 10:28:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Posted by Krez at 3/24/2006 09:01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Cool, last night I was doing my usual nightly pushup routine and I reached the

70-mark

without stopping and without too much trouble...pain, but not feeling dead afterward. In other words I think I could have done a few more, but didn't want to push it before I crashed out for the night. If I did I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get to sleep if my body slipped into that "workout mode" LOL!

- Side note I finished putting my machine together and finally figured out why it wouldn't boot last night, stupid oversight on my part - hehehe. I needed to connect another cable to the motherboard that I had overlooked. I had forgotten, since this mobo is a bit more beefy, that it requires additional power. Once I made the connection it came to life! =o)

Posted by Krez at 3/24/2006 09:42:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Just a small post about the custom gaming machine I’m building, which I’m modding as much as I can too increase air-flow while keeping noise and temperatures down. First off I decided to get a very powerful chip, one that will last me awhile and lead me into the “next-gen” of computing so I don’t have to buy anything new for quite some time. The chip of choice of course was an AMD over the Intel, both for price and other reasons that some, on both sides of the chip-wars, could debate over for hours (not me, AMD is hands down the winner, both on price and quality.) Anyhow I decided to go with the AMD 64 X2 3800+ The X2 represents what they call dual-core and a dual-core chip has two separate CPUs all on the single chip. Now without going into some major deep geekness, this dual feature provides some serious advantages over a single core setup, especially as more software is written to utilize dual core systems…Blah Blah Blah! ;oP

I went ahead and slapped in 2Gigs (2 x 1Gig sticks) of dual channel memory running on a FSBus of 2000Mhz (that’s right no more 800Mhz FSB) Next I moved on over to the Video card, while still AGP 8x, stock, is only a few FPS (5 to 10 frames per second) slower than the new NVida 7800-7900 PCIE (PCI-Express) video cards. Plus those cards cost several hundred dollars more than the one I have, which is the ATI-X850. As you can see from the pictures of the video card I removed the “stock” cooler and installed a solid copper cooler over the video CPU, and put heat sinks on each of the memory chips (something absent on stock cards.) Why do this? Because I plan to OC (Over-clock) the card and when you do this you must control the heat to keep things stable. This over-clocking should allow me to equal those Nvidia cards if not pass them in FPS for 1/3 of the price. ;o)

This cooling to stability balance is why I also added the custom heat sink (with those copper looking pipes) to the motherboard to cover the actual computer CPU. This will allow me to OC the computer itself if need be. The monster of a CPU cooler you see in the picture is capable of keeping the CPU very cool, almost as well as some water-cooled systems can (this is really due to the heat-pipe technology on the heat-sink.)

When you add all of the modifications up, and several I didn’t mention (small ones here and there, such as fan filters, etc,) you end up with a system that will surpass any gaming needs of those out today, and those in the distant future. Of course I don’t plan to use this system for just gaming, I also plan to use it for all my video/audio editing and encoding I like to do. Maybe dabble once again into computer aided art design and animation, which of course takes a vary beefy computer that can do numerous calculations every second.

Doing this all myself and have a few parts already, I was able to build this bad mofo for around $880.00. No way in hell you will find any gaming system out there that could match it for that price…Once I benchmark things I bet it will give some of those $3500-$4000 systems (most of the stuff they throw in is junk except for a few items – video card/CPU) a run for their FPS monies!
By the way if any of you out that have some questions about doing this yourself and would like some advice I would be more than happy to give it. I’ve been building and working on machines for more than fourteen years now, so ask away. =o)

…end of nerd rant. =oP


The X2 chip with two cores -- Mmmm Good!


Now that's a BIG heatsink - Got'a cool that chip down!


The Bad-Mofo with the memory


The Video card with the custom copper cooler I installed, gon'a OC this baby!


Those heatsinks I added to the memory chips on the VGA.


The all aluminum case with 550watt power supply. Notice the nice turbine fan intake - that's gon'a move some air!

Posted by Krez at 3/21/2006 10:02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Well I had a busy weekend. For the most part I ended up gutting a room, filling nail holes, taping and painting walls and assembling the “bad boy” in the previous post. That was a bitch! When they say needs assembling, they mean it! LOL I also laid down a padded workout floor in the room as well as set up a new computer desk for the new computer I’m currently building. This room is going to serve two functions, an exercise room and also a PC gaming room. It’s kind’a the Ying-Yang approach, you have to have your relaxation with your exertion! ;oP In addition I'm also assembled something called the AB Lounge, that thing was almost as hard to put together as the Power Flex machine was. Well that’s about it for a busy 48 hours…Oh yeah I also found time to build a computer, from scratch with OS and "goodies," somewhere in that same time frame! LOL busy busy!

Posted by Krez at 3/20/2006 06:10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Well it’s finally time to add in some serious weight lifting, now that I’ve reached my target weight (180lbs.) Since I decided to turn one of my spare bedrooms into a weight room, rubber padded floor and all, I figured I needed a real machine again. So I went looking for something well built, not overly large in size, while still delivering a wide range of exercises…I ended up purchasing the new Gold’s Gym Power Flex. This puppy is really going to rock; my muscles are already feeling sore just looking at the picture – LOL!



To keep with how I have been doing everything else over these past 14 months I will not be working out more than 30-45min or so each time. I really think “part of the key” is not to make what you’re doing feel like WORK. Keeping the time duration down to that level still gives you a good burn but never quite begins to feel like another “job.” Man I can’t wait to see how I’ll have changed when I reach the 24month mark, ya hear that you &%^$#@ abs!?!? LOL

The 'Goodness' on the Power Flex

- Now, does this count as a real post, Cath? ;oP

Posted by Krez at 3/17/2006 06:42:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Just a photo from the BBQ as Piojo played on the Guitar singing about Eric and his master race, to the tune of Willie Nelson's 'Blue Eyes' LOL

Posted by Krez at 3/16/2006 02:10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Man I didn't even know they cared about CP back in those early days, but I guess from this unbelievably bad info-ad, someone did. An old school bud of mine sent this to me (Thanks Edward,) so enjoy it, in all its old-school style train wreck 80’s fashion - LOL




Did any of you ever see this, back in the 80s???

Posted by Krez at 3/09/2006 09:21:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Click to Play The Cathy 'wacked my head' tribute flash

Posted by Krez at 3/07/2006 09:12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

180!!!

180!!!

Click To Launch 'I Don't Know What Language' Flash

Sweet my target weight has finally been reached, one year two months and six days! YEAH!!!

Posted by Krez at 3/06/2006 06:28:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

I've been in an exceptional "UP" mood as of late. Everything thing seems to be going just right in life for me - minus the girl though =o/ But HEY who ever knows with that, right?!? That may just happen tomorrow, or not. I think my increased positive attitude towards things is also because my body/health is finally really transforming into the way I've always wanted it too, and never thought it was a goal that I would possibly be able to achieve. The whole process has been a positive boost to the old ego and outlook on everything...Each day seems just "brighter!" Not that it was ever dark for me or anything, it's just easier to smile it seems, if you know what I mean?!? ;o)

By the way this little flash happens to be one of my favorites from the same guy who did the last flash in the previous post...Also it may be because I've always liked the song. =o)



=o)

Posted by Krez at 3/04/2006 06:25:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

This guy has some real flash animation talent

Posted by Krez at 3/03/2006 10:58:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

This is the kind of spontaneous publicity I need. My name in print. That really makes somebody. Things are going to start happening to me now. - Steve Martin - The Jerk



Okay so I was yap’n with Cathy, and I pretty much realized that everybody else’s blog has some real lengthy posts while mine on the other hand {cough...} tend to be more pictures and videos - LOL! What can I say, I don't "DO" letters. I left that behind from my college days, Hehehe. Well I decided I should do a post with a little more "umph" to it so here goes...Well it actually won’t be in this post but the next one, if we are going to get technical about it. ;o) As you all know I've pretty much changed how/what I now eat, something I have spent the better part of 14 months working on now. Well I've eaten a lot of quick prepared meals (TV-Dinners) and have come across some very good ones and some very shiiittttyyyy ones too! Soooo, I think I'm going to start posting about some of the meals I've had and create like a little rating system based on price, quality, nutrition, etc...One reason is because I know allot of you out there are always rushing around (like me) and often don't have the time to cook a good homemade meal {sigh,} like we might like to do, so you need something quick to whip-up...Well you might not have to look much further than my little food critic site to find some quick, good, and healthy meals to slobber over (well none have been that good yet.) I'm a tough critic so if I post that it is CRAP, I would steer clear of it...If it is good, then give it a shot you'll probably like it. Whew okay now there....a somewhat longer post - hehehe! =oP

Posted by Krez at 3/01/2006 06:26:00 AM | Permalink | Comments