Update on Laptop and a cool site for some Sweet Deals

Well I got word from my brothers former Geek Squad friend. My laptop is dead. The portion of the internals that draws the power from the battery or the AC adapter is fried. He also warned me that in the past when he has seen this problem the HDD may also be toast. He did comment that he thought no one other them him could use a computer to the point of death, stating my laptop has been well used, even past the point where most people would have purchased a new one.

Luckily I still have access to this desktop (my parents old one that they gave to me) and my parents newer desktop.

Now on to an early Halloween treat for my fellow bloggers, though the treat doesn't have anything to do with Zombies. I know we all like great deals. The nice thing about this site is they ship (almost) anywhere in the world and almost every item (if not all items) they have has free shipping. The company is called Deal Extreme and they are located in Hong Kong (site can be found here Deal Extreme). I have done business with them over the past couple years for various bits of camera gear including the Battery Grip for my Digital SLR, lens hoods, a couple of Flash/Umbrella brackets (for holding a Flash unit and and Umbrella on a Lightstand), along with some other miscellaneous camera gear. Just recently I placed an order for a coupel of Nintendo Wii Nunchucks (a pink one for my mom and a blue one for my dad, $5 each, both are a third party nunchuck), a Wii Remote with built in Motion Plus and nunchuck (about $20 for the two together, third party, will primarily be used in the Wii Zapper), and a new Gamecube controller (third party for about $8) since I no longer have mine from when I owned a Gamecube. Granted you do need to be careful some items such as the Genuine Nintendo Wii Remotes (imported from Korea and Japan) and Referbished Wii's (imported from Korea) can cost more then the ones you can buy locally. Also certain items such as some of the lasers or the BB/Airsoft guns may be prohibited in your country/state/providence/region. Now I don't work for Deal Extreme, I am only a customer that has done business with them in the past and will continue to do business with them in the future, though I do typically look for the items I may order from them locally first, or in the case of the Wii Nunchucks and the Wii Remote, I purchased them because if they break or fail to work after a couple months it wont be as bad as if it was a (more expensive) official Nintendo Branded Wii Remote or Nunchuck. Also word of warning, though I havent had it happen nor has any I know who has used Deal Extreme has had it happen, as with any international order, there is a chance that you countries Customs may inspect the package and you may have to pay a Customs fee.

October is a very bad month for me

Other then a few bright spots such as the Walking Dead Season 2 premier that aired today, which was awesome btw, October is proving to be a real craptastic month for me.

My laptop is officially DEAD. The Battery Gauge on the battery shows a full battery, but the laptop wont power up. The AC adapter shows the green power light but as soon as its plugged into the laptop the light goes off. I know its not the AC Adapter since it works perfectly fine with my dads laptop. So I am going to have to try and see if I can work it in tot he budget to order a new laptop from Dell. Granted I have a Dell Preferred credit account, but I will need to see if I can budget in a higher monthly bill from them.

Luckily I do have my parents old Desktop, and access to their newer desktop so I can still get online. But unfortunately most my pics are all on the laptops HDD. (will be getting a external casing for the laptop HDD so I can pull everything off of it and use it as external storage).

Not looking good...

Well October has already started and it looks like I am going to have little to no real free time. Got my schedule for the month for work and lets just say they want me working shifts that kill any plans for gaming, especially since they moved me to a new studio and its about 45min drive from my house where the studio i was working at was only a 10 min drive. Plus the shortest route (the 45min drive one) is probably going to be taking longer right now since they are doing construction on part of the road and its been shut down to 1 lane for that stretch, though the projected completion time is in about a week and a half.

What gaming I have been doing is nothing to write about, it's all been on the Nintendo Wii, more specifically Wii Sports (Bowling). I did find my Game Cube copies of Resident Evil and Resident Evil 4, now jut need to get a GC memory card and a GC controller and I can play them on the Wii.

If everything works out and I have me money available after the bills I should be getting either the Wii version of Dead Rising or Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles (which as far as I can tell is RE2 and Code Veronica with a new smaller game taking place before the events of RE4). Of course I also plan on getting a non-zombie game, one of the best party games ever, Mario Party 8, and if the store I was in a couple weeks ago still has it and RE gun adapter for the Wii remote (also planning on getting another gun adapter though this one will be the one that comes with a Cabela's hunting game).

Now a question for those of you followers of my Blog who own Wii's. What are some good games you would recommend that I get (other then the RE ones, since I already plan on getting them) for some single player gaming? and how about for family gaming (just a note these ones need to be fairly non-violent since 1) my mom would be playing them and she isn't into violent games and 2) I may also be having kids between 5 and 10 playing these games too)?