eBay Nightmare

It's only been 3 days since the last time i blogged, but it seems like it has only been about a day. I guess time just flew right past me.

I'm starting to get a lot of things for my studio.. when i first came to LA - i thought about living very simple. A bed, desk, computer, and a small fridge. But now - i got all these posters from BR with frames that cost me $24 a piece.. I have a queen size mattress.. Desk with computer obviously - a small oven toaster.. I brought my reclining chair from home and also brought my 13" TV. I have an ab roller in the corner and bunch of other crap.

I recently bought:

1. Stainless Steel Fridge. I'll take a picture of it one of these days and show it here - it's perfect for me cuz it's not too small nor too big. It was $199 but i got $10 off cuz it was the last one on display.
2. I got a 900W microwave. The salesperson at Home Depot was trying to make me buy the 1200W which was $20 more.. but i was like.. err.. i don't need that much power. This microwave cost $59.99
3. I got a small vacuum cleaner. It's very small and compact - yet it's VERY powerful.. i can totally feel that thing sucking air when I'm using it. $60

I still want to buy a entertainment system. But this will come eventually when i have extra cash laying around. A few trips not gone to Ktown might help me do that. haha.

1. 25 or 27" TV
2. DVD player
3. VCR
4. TV Stand with cabinets for the DVD and VCR.
5. New computer speakers cuz mine are sorta broken.

I think other than that - i'm pretty set right now.. i don't feel the need to buy anything else right now.. is there anything else that i even need? Man - i've been charging my card so much to buy all this - now i gotta pay it off.

I also had to deal with eBay for quite some time now. Not really a great place to buy things cuz there are always problems.

1. The first story is when i bought my Geforce3 Ti500 video card off this guy.. i got it for a decent price and when i opened it - the fan didn't work. So i tried to fix it - and broke it. Thankfully the guy had a $200 insurance on the thing - so i sent it back to him so he could claim that. It almost seemed as though it was a scam to begin with. He gladly refunded me my money back. But then now i had to bid on another video card to replace that one.

2. I got a 64MB CF card for my digi cam - which works perfectly.. that was a good transaction.

3. I got a 512MB PC2100 DDR ram cuz one of my ram chips was damaged. OH yeah.. do you remember when my computer kept rebooting and giving me the blue screen of death? It was ALL because of the stupid ram.. not because of the video card.. not because of my motherboard, HD, or anything else. My theory is that when the rear fan broke.. and wasn't working at the correct RPM - the ram got too hot and burned out. Anyways, the computer ran very slowly with only 256MB.. so i bought the 512 and now i have 768MB. The computer is working great. But when i first installed the ram chip - the computer wouldn't boot.. so i thought i had gotten another mickey mouse.. and got pretty pissed off. I was thinking of how horrible it is to keep going back to the post office to return these items and have to deal with bidding again.

However, after a few more tries in different combinations of slot positions - it just magically worked. So now i'm happy and it's all good.

4. The current video card i'm running is a VistionTek Geforce3 Ti200 with 64MB.. i got it for a pretty good price and even got my shipping refunded, cuz the guy forgot to ship it 2 day fedex, instead shipped it with Priority mail. When i got the card - one of the ramSink had fallen apart and was dangling inside the anti-static bag. The backbone metal piece was also bent badly.

Now i was pissed again.. how could this shit happen twice? Ugh! So i used some pliers and fixed the metal piece, but i didn't have any thermal adhesive to put the ramsink back together. I e-mailed that guy and explained what happened. At this point, i really did not want to ship another card back - and have to deal with bidding all over again. OH yes, i forgot to mention - why all of this was going on.

- My video card Geforce4 MX fuxored on me.. so i didn't have a computer for a bit. I went to best buy and bought a Geforce4 Ti4200 for $189 bucks. I knew it was a rip off - but i had no other choice because i couldn't use my computer to buy something online. Best Buy also had a 30 day refund policy so i had 30 days to bid on eBay for a decent card. After the first card i got from eBay came with a bad fan - that was 2 weeks into it.. so i was running out of time to return this one.

And back to my story.. when i got the current card i have right now, it was a Monday and actually the 30th day i had kept the GeForce4 Ti4200 which i went and returned. SO.. obviously i didn't want to return the card i bid on eBay because that would leave me w/o a video card on my computer.
The card itself works flawlessly at the moment.. so i'm not complaining but the heatsink worries me because it's there for a reason. Heat is the #1 cause of hardware failures.. so yeah. I e-mail that guy again and told him I would prefer not to ship it back to him.
First off he refunded me $15 for shipping cuz he fuxored up.. and now he even ordered a thermal adhesive from outpost.com for $20 to keep me happy. Now that's a great eBayer. Hopefully when the adhesive comes, the card will be brand new again.

I guess all in all - everything worked out with the eBay deal - but there was so much hassle for some of the bids.. unless you really want something for cheap - i would stay away from eBay.

I'm at the CSULB computer lab right now.. i had some extra time to write all of this. I have to drive to Home Depot today to return an extension plug and buy a multiple extension plug. I will probably also stop by Food4Less and buy some frozen food now that i have a fridge.

Free Gatorade!

Another pretty productive day.

I went to school early today - and made it to class a whole 5 minutes early. I think my teacher was surprised, cuz she kept looking at me and bulging her eyes open.
Then i went straight home and got a call from BR asking me to fold down the chinos (cuz i'm the only one who knows how to do them in a special way). There is some visit from a corporate person tomorrow so i went in for 4 hours and did that.

Later i picked up Simon and went to eat some dinner at a Chinese place, and we all went to play basketball. I'm so out of shape.. i couldn't do much - but i got a second wind on our last game. I guess i had to get my body working again. We finished our last game with a bet - loser pays for gatorade. Me and Simon beat James and Jay - so we headed to Chevron and got some free gatorade.

I dropped off Simon and wanted to ask my uncle to borrow the truck so that i could buy a fridge, but he was busy on the phone and i didn't want to bother him, so i just came back home.

Oh yea - i mailed in my fafsa today - haha! i was procrastinating on that for so long. I also mailed all of my tax stuff to my dad to get it to our agent.

So Many Things I Need

Very productive day today. I was able to force myself to wake up - then i finished my laundry - went to the post office to ship back a video card from eBay that was DOA (damaged on arrival) - went to get my haircut - went to blockbusters since it was on the way back to see what the deal was with them charging my credit card.

I guess that's not much, but it was a lot for me. Oh yeah, i also went to Home Depot to check out some fridges, and i found the perfect size for me.. it's $199 - the only problem now is that i have to find a truck to put it in..

Now that I'm going to have a fridge, I'm gonna need a microwave. Dang.. so many things i have to get. I also want to get a bigger TV.. and a TV stand - VCR, DVD player. I'm so greedy huh? I'm almost done with my FAFSA too - hopefully I'll qualify this year and get some money to pay all this crap off.

That's about it for today - do you ever have that feeling in the back of your mind that you're forgetting something, or forgetting to do something? But you just can't figure out what it is? Then you forget about it thinking it was nothing, and later it hits you smack on the face. I got that feeling right now.. it sucks.

UPS Sucks. Use Fedex

Nothing much going on these days.. it's v-day tomorrow so the mall was packed. Specially 10 minutes before we closed.. i guess all the slackers decided to head to the mall at that time. I woke up late today.. actually i woke up at 10am.. then decided to sleep another 15 minutes.

I woke up again - went to turn on the shower, and looked at the clock and noticed it was 11:40am.. DOH!.. so whatevers.. i didn't go to class. I feel so guilty whenever i don't go - because i miss out on what i have to do for hw, miss on lecture, etc. I e-mailed my teacher just now.. hopefully she won't be angry. (i didn't tell her I overslept.. haha).

I went to work on time though.. work was really busy - so time flew by. Now i'm at home.. pondering what i should do.

OH! the thing that sucks though - is the freakin UPS guy came hella late.. so i wasn't able to catch him. I stayed home until 2:30pm.. and he never showed. But once i got back from work, i had one of those slips on my door saying he was here. That bastard.. they usually come at 12pm.. but NOoooo.. not this time. uGh!

Bodyshop in North Hollywood

Body Shop:

Arroyo Autobody
6901 Farmdale Avenue
North Hollywood, CA 91605

(818)-765-7430 ask for Rafael

BR On-Call

Yet another slow day.. woke up and called in to work to see if they needed to take my on-call. They said no, so i went back to sleep when they called back around 2pm and told me someone called in sick and told me i needed to come in at 5pm. So i worked 5 to 10 and then went to Starbucks and chilled for a bit and came home.

Mechanic in North Hollywood

Here is my new mechanic:

I live in the valley... and my mechanic is awesome and extremely knowledgeable. Paul can do, and install anything you want. Give him a call and tell him that Tyler sent you. Ask for Gene (Owner) or Paul(head mechanic) when you call.

J&C Import Car Care (Honda+Acura Only)
5810 Lankershim Blvd
North Hollywood, CA 91601

(818)-763-8245

New Computer Problems..

A rather uneventful day today.. woke up.. went to work to cover some girls shift. After, i went to church - then went home to eat Ramen! I was craving that all day. The cool thing about today was i didn't spend a penny all day. Simon and Jinah came over a little later and hung out for a bit and went home.

Now i'm sitting here trying to figure out my computer problem again.. it's been acting up again even after the new fan. UGH! I think it's either the ram or MB now..

Pointe in LA

Today was a lot better.. I woke up and went to work - which wasn't that bad. Time went by pretty fast so it didn't bore me out. Afterward, Simon came over my house and we chilled for bit before i headed over to Pointe with Judy and a few of her friends.

It was pretty chill and i got a good buzz.. nothing much else other than Pae feeling sick. That foo needs to sleep .. and so do i.

Bailing out a Friend

Lol.. i thought yesterday was wack.. tonight was even more wack. I feel bad for a lot of ppl right now.. and i spent +/- $600 bucks today helping out friends.
Can't really explain much about it here.. too many ppl i don't know come here. If you wanna know details IM me.

Wackity Wack Wack!

Omg tonight was so wack. Wackity wack wack wack...
Went to school - couldn't find parking so ran in circles for 30 minutes. Got to class late - went to work, then to LA where it was just wack.

UGH! WACK!

New Fan + New Video Card

i just installed my new fan.. and dang! some of the weird noises that my computer was making is gone. I guess the noises were from the old fan - i have a feeling the bearings on that old fan died.. and so there was too much friction for the fan to spin. Hence it put a lot of load on the motherboard trying to power it up to spin.. this could have caused problems.

The new fan is really cool because it doesn't use the motherboard for power - it uses a connection directly from the power supply.. and it has double bearings for longer lasting life. I won an auction on ebay for a Visiontek GeForce3 Ti500 64MB for $100 bucks.. not bad considering these ti500's still go for 200+ online. Now i can return the card i bought at Best Buy for 180 bucks. I think i could have gotten a lower card such as the GeForce2 GTS cards.. but i got a little greedy.. doh!

The new fan is pretty quiet.. "double bearings".. yeah..~ It took a while to install it because the screws on the back of the computer weren't coming off as easily as i thought.
I also took some time to clean all the dust ouf of the computer.. i wish i had a vaccum cleaner right now cuz it's SO dusty in there.

I took off the fan on the CPU and cleaned that out - and also had a bitchy time cleaning the heatsinks on the CPU..

Financial Aid Fail

Yesterday i went to school early - saw a financial aid advisor who told me it's really hard to claim independency to get more money. I would have to write a letter explaining why i believe i shouldn't have to report my parents income along side 2 other letters. One from a relative - and another one from a non-biased person (lawyer, doctor, law officer, minister) explaining why my parents wouldn't help me with college. Bleh.. i dunno if i'm going to go thru all that.

I totally have to fill this thing out though.. it's due pretty soon so i'm going to do it by this weekend.

I went to my classes and came home and went to work. After work I met up with some friends to eat dinner and then they came over my house to chill.

Today.. Simon spent the night - and we woke up pretty late. We headed over to Cerritos to eat some lunch - then we went to Best Buy to check out some refrigerators.. but they didn't have the size that i wanted. So i'm going to Home Depot this weekend to check some other ones out. We then went to work out - and met up with a few ppl in LA and chilled.
I also bought a new fan from Best Buy.. it was $10.. so not bad. This one also connects to a power supply rather than the MB - so hopefully it'll take away some strains.. and fix a few problems i can't quite debug.

Lost an Auction with 2 Sec Left!

Oh.. what did i do today.

I woke up early in the morning to go to the post office and buy stamps to send my rent money. Then went to work at 10am and stayed there until 4pm. I went to the market and bought some food - and came home.
Pae came over and we ate a cheeseburger at a local restaurant by my house. I think it's really good.. very big burgers and not that expensive. We came back to my house and checked his car - cuz his exhaust got loose. I played war3 while he watched tv.

After Pae left, i stayed home and watched my bids on ebay.. i lost one of them today.. DOH!.. someone outbid me with 2 seconds left. How sad is that? Then i played some cs with Pae online and watched Miracle on channel 7. It was a rather interesting show.. got me tuned in through out. Now i'm just sitting here chillin.. and i will have to go to school early tomorrow, or i won't find parking.

Do I Need a New Video Card?

I woke up around 10am to call in for my On Call at work - and my manager told me they didn't need me today. So wopee.. i got it off. I went back to sleep and woke up around 2pm and just played warcraft III for a few hours. I wanted to eat something, but was broke so i cooked rice and ate it with Kimchee.. haha. I watched tv for the next few hours - then got hungry again so i gathered some loose change and went to Carl's and got their Chili Fries.

I came home and my computer is acting up again - even though i got my case unopened games still freeze up and crap. Now i'm thinking it's something to do with the Motherboard.. and not the video card. I think something in the motherboard is making the video card overheat or something... dang - i really hope i don't have to buy new MB/CPU.. i only had this system for about 1.5 years now. Bleh.. i have so many extra computer parts at home too!.. i wish i had them here right now.

I have to pay my rent tomorrow - so i need to buy some postage in the morning. I'm bidding on a few VC's on ebay right now - when i get a card, and it still doesn't work - i think i'll look into a new MB/CPU.. this is so much bs.

Computer Fan Out of Order

I'm having these memory relapses whenever i try to write on this blog. I sit here to write what i did - and i just blank out into space and can't think of anything. For the most part, i haven't been home much. I think i've gone out for the past 8 days with Pae and the boys in Cerritos. I think i should slow down a bit. I also kicked it with Judy and a few UCLA ppl .. oh yea, another interesting thing was.. i saw Derek from Los Gatos the other night at Pointe.. he was the one that first recognized me - and i didn't recognize him until he told me he knew Morris from HS.

School started.. it's not that bad - my classes seem pretty chill so whatevers. I found out the problem with my computer. It's the extra fan unit. I have a AMD chipset which gets pretty hot - so i bought an extra cooling fan for the back of the computer. I noticed while i left the computer case cover opened that it would sometimes stop or spin very slowly. My computer would freeze every time i play a graphic intensive game with the computer cover on.. so conclusively, the Video card was getting too hot so it would just shut down.

I wonder if any of that made any sense - but for now .. i'm keeping the computer case open to vent out the heat. I will get a new video card from ebay and a new cooling fan from Fry's in the future. Dang, i gotta return this PNY Verto card to best buy in the next 20 days.

I've been working a lot these days.. my body is pretty tired. This past week it was like this:

Go to school in at 10am cuz any later i won't find parking. Classes until 4pm, then go to work till 10pm, then meet up the homies and head to Ktown where i stay until 4am. Sleep for a few hours and go back to school. How crazy is that? muhahaha..

I need to go grocery shopping.. and i think i'll go to Home Depot and buy one of those small fridges.. not the mini fridges, but the semi big ones. i think i'll be perfect for me.