From top to bottom and left to right:

• Smith and Wesson 1911PD, “Gunsite”, .45ACP
• Spare Wilson Combat 47D Magazine
• Key chain, with Utilikey, flints, and spare lighter fluid
• Casio digital/analog watch
• Leatherman Charge TTi
• Surefire E2L Outdoorsman
• Black Crackle Zippo lighter
• Lamy Safari Charcoal with fine nib
• Mantis Knives “Classier Act” pocketknife
• DIFRWear RFID-blocking wallet
• Work phone: Motorola Q
• Personal phone: Nokia E71x
• 64GB iPod Touch

You can see that I have added a bit since I did this last year. Two things from last year are missing; my Mantis Knives Necessikey was confiscated by TSA on my way to some convention last year and I upgraded my personal cell phone. I bought the Lamy pen partly on Marko’s recommendation with the hope that if I spent a few dollars on a pen and made it my dedicated “carry pen” that it might not go missing like all my cheap disposable pens. So far, so good, as I’ve been carrying it for about a month and it is still handy whenever I need a writing instrument. I bought the iPod mainly because it’s a better music player than my Kindle (for airplanes), and I find that I use it all the time so I consider it money well-spent. The Zippo I purchased mainly because I wanted one. No compelling reason, really.

Since I had planned to spend this weekend vegging out on Mass Effect in preparation for the arrival of ME2 later this month, I popped over to Best Buy to find a new card. Apparently, Best Buy no longer stocks high-end video cards in their stores. I guess that makes sense, since their selection of PC games has long since dwindled to copies of Hoyle 73, Fast Food Tycoon, and The Sims 57. Frustrated, I headed next door to Fry’s Electronics, who didn’t have what I wanted either, but did have high-end cards from the current generation. I grabbed one in the hopes of getting my uber-rig back online this weekend.

It was not to be. The machine would not even POST with the new card installed. My damaged card could do better than that! That’s what I get for buying from Fry’s. I brought the ‘new’ card back to the store where the girl at the returns desk helpfully verified that the device they sold me was, in fact, as functional as Ted Kennedy.

Defeated, I went home and ordered the card that I wanted. A better card than the one from Fry’s at a much lower price – even after expedited shipping – than I paid to those assholes.

There is a silver lining to this ordeal, however. About year ago I had to RMA my motherboard after my new mobo got toasted barely a month after I installed it. It was a huge pain to get all four of my DIMMs installed in the original motherboard; there was much tweaking of voltages and timings involved in getting it to run 8 gigs of low latency DDR3. I never bothered to do that again with the new board. Today, since my computer’s case was open and I had nothing better to do, I got the two extra DIMMs I’ve had on my desk for a year reinstalled in my PC. So, although I have a barely functioning video card that I can’t use to do anything fun, at least I have 8GB of RAM, again.

Child’s Play assists Children’s Hospitals around the country by donating video games, movies, board games, books, and other forms of entertainment to help children keep their minds off the pain and loneliness of extended hospital treatment, similar to what Project Valour-IT does for wounded soldiers. Here’s how it works: each participating hospital sets up an Amazon.com wish list which anyone can use to purchase the items the hospital needs. This is, in my opinion, the one of the best things about the charity. With the Amazon wish lists, I know exactly where my donation is going, because I choose the hospital and buy the items with my own money, and then they get shipped directly to the folks in need. There’s no worry about how much of my donation is being spent on the children, because I decided how the money is spent. Genius! Better still, there are participating hospitals all over the US and Canada, so there’s probably one near you that you can help.

In addition to the wish lists, you can always donate cash at the main site, or at the Desert Bus For Hope fund drive, or if you’re in the Seattle area there’s a pretty sweet charity dinner and auction hosted at the same venue as PAX. All the cash collected (less 2-3% for administrative costs) goes straight into the hospitals.

Head over to the website. Check it out. I dare you to read the letters from grateful children and parents and not contribute.

I’m not on any fancy program like JR (who’s story is inspirational, by the way), it’s more of a “get off your ass and eat less” thing. I find that now I get full on normal-sized portions instead of stuffing myself with anything that happens across my path. Sometimes I’ll fix myself the same portions that I used to eat and end up wasting a lot of food because I just can’t finish 2000 calories worth of meal anymore. I don’t drink as much soda and get more of my liquids from water or juices. I eat more fruits and (ugh) vegetables. My diet is, if not well-balanced, at least more balanced. I walk more and take the stairs at work instead of the elevator. The little things all add up to a less-fat me. Hopefully, in another six months, they’ll add up to a not-fat-at-all me or at least a comfortably-and-endearingly-chubby me.