wyred dot nu

Last Wednesday, the fan in the Power Supply Unit of my webserver stopped spinning, and the PSU started giving off lots of heat. Just to be safe, I had to shut it down.

So when Friday came, I took the time to move the harddisks over and designate my Athlon machine as the new webserver. This time with careful planning, I managed to keep a neat arrangement of the IDE and power cables. Just when I plugged in the power cord, there was a pop sound as loud as casually clapping your hands. I noticed bright light from the back of the tower. I suspect the fuse blew up.

It was a golden what-the-fuck moment as I stared for a while. Tried powering it up again and the whole thing’s dead. My router that shared the same multi-socket power outlet froze, the LEDs that blinked remain lighted up. A funny way of telling me he’s shocked too.

So in a short period of 3 days, 2 PSUs died on me. I was so used to working on 2 computers at once that I find it rather uncomfortable using only 1.

Saturday came, I had agreed to meet up with some anime lovers from HardWareZone’s anime forum. Out of 6, 4, including me, turned up. They were all very nice people and there was never a moment of silence. We chat on hardware, games, anime and career. Walked around SimLimSquare after lunch together, followed by a trip down to Anime House at Sunshine Plaza. I’m glad the place has more new shops that hold a lot more anime stuff.

I bought a Pinky Street: Evangelion designer toy for $35, a Narusegawa Naru figure for $9.50, 3 anime OSTs (Sakura Diaries, Mahou Tsukai Tai, Hoshi no Koe) totalling $62, and to put all these stuff in, a printed paper bag featuring a very beautiful Evangelion art for $4.

Back home, I rearranged the harddisks and cdwriter in my Athlon64 machine. So now, I have the noisy harddisk cooler removed, the harddisk cage in the Tsunami casing full with 5 harddisks, cooled by a 120mm fan. The temperature of a harddisk without cooling was 50-52 degrees celcius, with the harddisk cooler, 43-44 degrees, with just the fan blowing, 40 degrees. The 120mm fan gave more airflow then the 2 40mm fans in the lousy harddisk cooler that also came with a huge heatsink.

Sunday was a day of Final Fantasy 11 all the way to 3am~ I was lucky to join a group of people that played their roles well. A WhiteMage would heal us, DarkKnight deals lots of damage, A Summoner/WhiteMage summoned the cute Carbuncle to fight with us and heals us at important times, a RedMage casting spells that affect the enemy, a warrior dealing damage and tanking occassionally. I was a Monk/Warrior who had to pull monsters and tank.

Monday, managed to stay awake most of the time except 10 minutes of nap in the morning and afternoon. After work, it was straight down to SimLim Square for a new PSU at $29. Then spent the rest of the evening fixing and setting things up all the way to 3am again. [X(]

I’ve been heavily into classical music again but it probably won’t last long. Currently listening to Johann Pachelbel’s Kanon in D-minor which inspired me to write this entry.

It was about 2 years ago when I borrowed Neon Genesis Evangelion VCDs from a friend and watched 3 episodes everyday. Even skipped lectures once to go home and watch it. It wasn’t totally about the sleek looking mechs or the pretty Ayanami Rei that got me hooked but the character development, and I was most interested in the main protagonist of the show, Ikari Shinji. Young teen bearing earth-saving responsibilities.

*Spoiler Alert*
Towards the end of episode 24, Shinji had to kill someone who he believed, could have been his closest friend, Nagisa Kaoru. Even though they met and known each other for only a short time, it turns out that he was an Angel and thus, needs to be eradicated. In the end, Kaoru allowed himself to be killed by Shinji. He had to be killed so mankind will survive. And he wished for his own death because he believed mankind deserve to live.

It all began with Kaoru taking control of EVA-02, bringing it with him down to Central Dogma and Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 playing as the BGM making it more dramatic. Shinji piloted EVA-01 and soon caught up. A fight between the two mechs broke out. After a series of events, there was a one minute frozen scene showing EVA-01 grabbing hold of Kaoru with one hand and in the next scene, a head falls into the sea of LCL below. This one minute scene was exceptionally painful for a lot of Evangelion fans out there and me.

This scene was repeated again in one of the Evangelion moves, I believe it was Death and Rebirth. Will check it once I get home. Instead of the TV ending, this depressing scene ended off with Kanon in D-minor and a beautiful sunset scene with ending credits rolling horizontally slowly. After the show ended, Kanon kept playing on and on in my head.

Each time I listen to this classical piece, I am reminded of the pain Shinji had to go through before he killed Kaoru. Gradually, I started listening to other classical pieces by other great composers and perhaps maybe I learned how to appreciate classical music a little. But depending on my mood, I still listen to other genres so don’t think I listen to classical 24/7/52.

I dedicate this blog entry with respects and admiration to writer and director of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Hideaki Anno.

More info of him at IMDB.

I’m a little pissed. Well, the 30 days trial period on my webhosting provider expired. They sent me an email which I replied, asking for payment details and if there are any special prices for paying for 1 year. No news from them. Next day, I sent another email. Still no reply.

In their first mail to me, it was stated that my files will be purged on the 3rd day. It did not happen so I assumed they were busy with something else but will get back to me some time later. But on the 4th day when I found out my site went down, it felt like I had been ignored and am just-another-unimportant-customer. So I paid their website a visit, searching for other emails to contact. Found a contact form which I promptly filled up with my details and made a rather negative comment which ended with “I no longer have interest in signing up with a webhost that does not respond to their customer’s email.”

I guess my email was lost in cyberspace, cos they replied apologetically last night and provided me links to their price plan page, and the signup page which did not answer my original questions. It doesn’t seem sincere enough so I guess I’ll pass and continue my hunt for another reliable webhost provider.

I was prepared to sign up with them because they provided 500MB of storage, Unlimited data transfers, a good PHP configuration file, a good-enough control panel for me to manage my website’s configurations. There were a few minor problems which I believe, we can iron out in time. But heck, if they can’t manage customer service well, I wouldn’t take the risk.

Still a bit pissed. But thank goodness I decided to back up my files when they did not reply to my first email.