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My RMA for the G.skill finally arrived yesterday. Oh, the joy of my computer actually performing with the speed it ought to have. I ordered a stick of 512MB ‘value’ RAM to get me by in the waiting interim, sure it worked, but wow, I felt like my Core2Duo morphed into a 486…sx.

I’ve been out using my 10″ Telescope a lot lately, wow that thing is awesome. I had a view of Jupiter the other night that rivaled the image of the ASH 17″ Cassegrain (granted, I’m sure it was more an issue of seeing and cooldown with the Cass, but still!). It turns out though that Planets pale in interest factor when compared to the multitude of deep space objects. I really enjoy star clusters and nebulae, even if they’re much more difficult to find than that bright planet in the sky.

A couple of times over the last week or two I’ve noticed compile errors when updating software in Gentoo. I finally decided to reboot to do memtest, and to my horror I had hundreds of errors. My fancy G.SKILL memory has failed.

I go to their website to get RMA information, shouldn’t be a problem since the memory has a lifetime warranty. I then remember that part of the reason for going the G.SKILL route with Newegg was that they offered replacement for a year after purchase. Using Newegg seemed to be a better idea.

So, I file the RMA, and even use their ‘buy the UPS label’ thing (which I’m still waiting on) only to then realize that my memory is out of stock and won’t be back in stock until the 21st or so. The problem is that if the product is out of stock when they receive it they can’t replace it, they simply refund the money. This seems like a reasonable thing, except when it’s memory absolutely critical to your computer running and even doing a RMA at all is going to be horrific. The UPS label will expire and be refunded if not used in a week, and the RMA itself will expire within two weeks. Agh! I shouldn’t have been so quick to get this all started. The big kicker, if all that wasn’t enough, is that if I have to buy it all over again, I’ll have to pay shipping again, but… Newegg doesn’t offer 1 year replacement on memory any more! Agh!

Maybe I’ll be lucky and the memory will suddenly become available. Either way, I can’t compile anything in Gentoo until I get it replaced.

A few months ago (May!) I bought a Buffalo Airstation router. It had rebates to deal with, but those rebates made it half price. I sent the one in, with a COPY of the upc per the Circuit City instructions, and I sent the other to Buffalo with the original UPC as per instructions. The circuit city check came and all was well, the Buffalo check never came.

Today I got a little letter, folded just like it would be if it were a check. It said I didn’t include the original UPC. Now, I absolutely know I did. I even had to pay additional postage because it wasn’t ‘consistent thickness.’ What to do now? Well, nothing I guess, because if they ‘lost’ my UPC, they’re not going to accept a copy now are they? Bitches.

For 10 dollars and losing my UPC, they’ve effectively lost my business forever. Good job Buffalo!

Anyone that has ever been to my lounge would know that I have a little (4.5″) reflector telescope. It’s one of those cheapie department store style ones with the tiny focuser so it doesn’t really accept any of the ‘good’ eyepieces. Eyepieces being basically half the telescope system, so it’s a relatively big deal.

I had been looking at getting some sort of sweet SCT with all the automagic guiding business, but my budget wouldn’t ever reach to the multi-thousands necessary. I compromised, hopefully early next week my new Zhumell 10″ Dobsonian mounted reflector will be here.

I also ordered two of the Orion Expanse knockoff eyepieces from OWL, the 9mm and 6mm. Those two are supposedly as pretty much as good as the more expensive ones, so hopefully that’s true. Eventually I’ll get myself some fairly nice Baader Hyperion eyepieces, but at $130 each that’ll be a slow process. I’ll also need to get some ludicrously expensive collimation tools, though I’m sure the manufacturer/vendor doesn’t feel that $100 for an aluminum tube is overpriced, heh. Precision is expensive.

I’m really excited about the new telescope, even if I still have horrible neighbors with their insecurity lights and the worst offender of light trespass ever, the Cumberland Valley Christian School, whose staff apparently believe that the proper way to light a parking lot all night long is to aim intense lights horizontally away from their building! … right at my house. I’d like to practice some ‘golden rule’ on them, show up at their house and shine a spotlight into their windows all night, every night.

Oh, I never mentioned it, but back before summer started I got a Wii. It’s great fun, but I don’t find myself playing any games (PC or Wii) lately. I also just paid off the balance (in full) on the credit card for my Nikon D40 I bought last month. A very sweet camera, especially considering that with tax and a 1GB SD card, it was $600; only $100 more than my Nikon point & shoot several years ago. I do wish that it had a focus drive for the older lenses, and that it had more than the measly three focus points, but to get those I’d have to spend twice as much. Twice as much would mean I’d not have a new camera at all, so… I can live with it.

I guess you could say that I’ve been quietly aquiring all the fun things that I’ve been wanting for a while.