hwan.com

It's been a month and how have I been? Not miserable, but not boomingly good either. Winter has cast its shocking gaze, and I find myself little prepared for it. Drained, I find myself. I just got back from visiting my parents, who are well enough. My father had a mild heart attack a couple months ago, and seems to be relatively good now, though he still suffers from high blood pressure. We're all getting old, very old. I feel new aches and pains all the time and find the value in stretching throughout the day. I went to the AGO with the aim of seeing the David Bowie exhibit but the thing had sold out, such is its popularity. I took in a couple of other things, eager to avoid the crowds. A quiet gallery is a blessed thing. Some coffee, some sweets, some escape. Saturday MJ and I picked up groceries from the St. Lawrence Market, some of which made its way into a simple meal. We started in on the third season of The Walking Dead -- such violence, such gore! They really took...

It pains me every time I think about it -- my parents have sold their house. They've done so many renovations in anticipation of it going to the market, you'd hardly recognize it now. Well, the interior anyway -- the kitchen is completely redone, upstairs is all hardwood, as are the stairs. The cobblestoned backyard patio they've had for a while but looking at it now I'm amazed anew at the result that my dad put so many hours into. I really should visit them more often. I've just about picked out a new video card, and am aiming for either the XFX ATI Radeon HD 5850 ($280) or the XFX ATI Radeon 5870 ($380). I'd forgotten that there are so many flavours of each GPU these days. I used Ars Technica's system picks to help me get to my decision, which I've always found useful in the past. My current card, a Sapphire ATI HD 4870 x2 (2x1GB), conks out whenever I start doing anything that tasks the 3D GPU stuff, though at times (and more frequently with each ...