As some of you may know my current PC is pretty much operating on willpower and pixie dust. In fact if I stand it up straight there is a pretty good chance the cpu cooler will fall off lol. So I decided to build myself a new one instead of pay way to much for an underpowered high street or Dell mess.

Any way I decided to buy one piece at a time and in strict phases. Phase one is the basics: Case, PSU, CPU, HeatSink and Motherboard. I have now completed this with these parts:

ASRock 4Core-DUAL VSTA motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo e4300 1.8Ghz
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
MS-Tech ATX case with perspex window and lights
WinPower generic 650Watt PSU

I realise the PSU is not the best but it will get me going and I already have my eye on an OCZ 700Watt with lights and 120mm fan.

So far the cost has been extremely reasonable. €70 for the board, €80 for the Cpu, €85 for the case and cooler and €35 for the Psu. Total = €270

Add to this two components I am carrying over from the old machine. A Sapphire X1950Pro AGP 512GDDR3 and Creative Soundblaster X-FI Platinum, and I am almost there already.

The Next Phase is OS and Storage. I'm not exactly excited at the prospect of Windows Vista yet especially as I actually like playing games so I have decided on an OEM copy of Windows XP Media Centre Edition, I've been very fortunate in tracking down a copy of it on Ebay for €90 . I also got 2GB (2x1GB) of DDR2 for just € 50 again from Ebay and including some Aluminium heat spreaders. I expected Windows to cost a fair amount but so far the total is only €410! Since this is going so well I have decided to splash out on 2 500GB WD Caviars each with 16MB Cache to set up in RAID0. The price on them is actually fairly low so fingers crossed.

The final phase will be customisation including fans, braded cables and extras such as an external modem, tv card and MCE remote. Lets see how well I can undercut a stock Dell offering for eh?

Leo Martin,

A wonderful father and a great man. He was a Ballroom Dancing world champion but had to give it all up for family. He worked as a carpet fitter most of his life and was recognised as the best in his trade. Just mention his name to anyone in Dublin, Laois or West London.

He passed away this afternoon, suddenly and while working exactly how he always wanted to go. "I will work till the day I die" they were his words all his life and he stayed true to his word. I only wish I could have been there for him rather than see him in the morgue. I don't know how I will cope with his loss, the whole town of Rathdowney is now mourning his loss as he influenced everyone he came into contact with.

I am honored and privileged to be his only heir, I only wish I can some day make him proud of me.

Leo Martin 14/11/36 to 25/05/07 Rest In Peace dad.

Well where do I start? Oh yes on how extremely poor the first movie was. I can probably count on one hand decent comic book movies (Hellboy, Batman, Spider-Man, V for Vendetta and The Crow) yet despite the travesties that I have sat through (Spawn, X-Men, Punisher, Daredevil, Judge Dredd.... Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D... Hasslehoff as Nick Fury *Shudder*) I always look forward to one.



The Fantastic Four have lost a lot of their cool over the 80's and 90's but they are still the home of some of the greatest Marvel super-villians such as Doctor Doom, Annhilus and Galactus so there is a lot of rich source material to exploit here. However what they did was completly ruin Doom for the first movie. Gone was the noble monarch of Latveria with a genius intellect and mastery of sourcery and hello generic Hollywood bad guy. I hated the movie.



Now the second movie is about to be released. People have said the first movie was awful yet it grossed $300,000,000 BEFORE DVD sales so a sequel was inevitable. For this movie the inspiration is the classic FF story 'Coming of Galactus' and will feature both the big G and the Silver Surfer. Now I am very impressed with the trailer, the effects on the Surfer are nothing short of astonishing but I am worried about what will happen given the pedigree. I have no desire to see two extremely important Marvel characters ruined like Doom was just for the sake of 90 mins of popcorn entertainment.


I have no objection to Marvel reaching out to new audiences through film as it's only natural these days but not if they are going to prostitute their IP's to anyone with enough money. I grew up reading about these characters and I really don't want to watch a whole new generation applauding as they are completely destroyed.



I truly hope FF2 is a massive success in every way as thats what I want to see with Marvels franchises. DC seems to be getting it right with Batman Begins and Superman Returns not to mention the success of Smallville, I just wish Marvel could do the same.



Here's hoping the Surfer is awesome as their are plans for a Surfer movie and a FF3 featuring The Negative Zone and Annhilus

Well I was back then i decided to muck around with my PC's BIOS settings and I killed it. Oh well lesson learned. Anyway I am back again and will be posting regularly again.

Top 100 cult TV on the way soon as promised :)

Sorry for the delay. I'm making a mega post! The top 100 Cult TV shows. Stay tuned here as ther are a lot of classics you will love.

I just checked out one of my favourite websites Last.FM and found there has been quite an overhaul in the software. If you have never heard of last.fm then the idea is very simple, it simply records what you are playing on your music player of choice (Windows Media, iTunes, Winamp etc) and up loads the tracklist to their website and compiles a personal chart for you. In addition it will make recommendations to you and you can talk to thousands of other users who share the same musical tastes.



The new version of the site is superb, with a database and photo gallery of litterally hundreds of thousands of musicians and a completely overhauled s/ware engine that gives you a desktop program that displays current track being played, biography of the act, similar artists and a direct link to Amazon.com where you can buy featured artists. Check it out it's a quality program and in memory terms it's tiny and very 56k friendly.



Here is what it looks like on my desktop:

I'll be adding a link over there >>>

Anyone who knows me knows I am a big fan of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. So it's no surprise that I recommend everyone to see the Sky One adaptation Hogfather. Honestly it's the best christmas movie made in a LONG time and is watchable by any age. The sheer quality of the actors alone makes it worth watching but when you marry that talent to the writing of Pratchett you have an unmissable experience.

David Jason, Ian Richardson, Mark Warren, Joss Ackland and David Warner lead a brilliant cast in a film I cant wait to own on DVD. I defy anyone to not laugh when Death says "Apple Sauce". Highlight of the Xmas season for me.
Find it, watch it, love it!
Head on over to the official SkyOne site for more details including videos and podcasts here: http://www.skyone.co.uk/hogfather/

If this has interested then why not click the L-Space link over to the right of this page for links to all kinds of Pratchett goodness!

An open letter to Motorola:

Dear sir,
I am writing to let you know that the RAZR V3x, is an incredible piece of hardware. Honestly the video playback is execptional and the sound quality is more than adequate for my current needs. Memory access is very swift with the microSD format and the screen is both bright and sharp.
Oh one other thing... I CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT A NIGHTMARE THIS PHONE IS TO TEXT ON!!!!! iTAP my ARSE!!! The phone doesn't even know the word MARTIN! One of the most common names in the English language and it doesn't know it. This wouldn't be a problem if the standard text entry was intuitive but it's not. Who designed the software a Monkey high on caffine and nicotine?
I would like to offer my phone to you as long as you insert it up your backside... flip open!
Kindest regards,
Delixe

Well here I am with my proper name! Hyjacked I know but all is fair in love and webblogs :D

This will be my blog from now on as everyone knows me as Delixe.