Peoria Pundit

I’ll tell you. What ticks me off is when you buy a piece of equipment
for your computer — in the hope it might speed up performance and stave
off the need to buy a whole new computer for a half-year of so — then
struggle to get the @%*@$! installed, and /then/ discover the CD with
the drivers weren’t inside the effen box!

O&&#^$)(^@^%!

^#@(*^^$!!##!

… my new graphics board is working fine now, thank you.

I actually did go to the manufacturers Web site and download the drivers
(thanks for the tip, but I had already done this by the time I saw the
comment ).

On a lark, I used some “found money” to buy a new graphics board. I
didn’t have an open AGP slot, but I decided to sacrifice my dial up
modem to install a lil’ ol’ 64 MB card from nVidea. I had to move around
some other cards inside my HP mini-tower, but I was able to get
everything to snap into place.

Videos now run faster and pictures pop up quicker. But I was surprised
about how quickly some applications open, especially Photoshop and
Windows Media Player. I am hoping that monitor freeze is now a thing of
the past.

I might actually set up a second monitor to use it to drag pallets out
of the way.

? /Journal Star/: Landlord allegedly videotapes women

Police arrested Rick W. Anderson of 204 Lyons Court in Toulon on a
single count of eavesdropping and five counts of illegal videotaping
after a woman who rents from him in Knox County notified police Thursday
of hidden video cameras she discovered at a Lake Calhoun residence in
rural Lafayette.

“The victim of the videotaping discovered the camera,” Knox County
Detective KeithRickard said. A search of the 2743 Cottage Road rental
house at the Lake Calhoun residence and Anderson’s Toulon residence
turned up a “fairly large amount of videotapes,” Rickard said.

Sheriff’s investigators seized cameras, videotaping equipment and other
recorders.

Rickard estimated some 40 secretly taped videos were discovered and
seized as evidence. Most of the footage, which captures numerous
unidentified females and includes sex acts, appear taped at the rental
property.

The trick will be to find out how many of these tapes are being shared
across the Internet through Kazaa …

? /Journal Star/: Area men caught in file-sharing dragnet

Eric Estrada, 118 E. Hines Place, Peoria, and Evelio Alvarez, 715 W.
Jefferson St., Bloomington, are among more than 700 people who were sued
by the music industry Wednesday for allegedly downloading copyrighted
recordings and then distributing them over the Internet.

Each of the court files contained more than 50 pages of computer screen
printouts showing music files being swapped through Kazaa, just one of a
few software platforms used to share songs over the Internet. Artists
whose music is alleged to have been downloaded and shared include LL
Cool J, Alan Jackson, Ice Cube, Twista, Los Tigres Del Norte, Alicia
Keys, Mobb Deep, Bob Seger and REO Speedwagon.

REO Speedwagon? REO SPEEDWAGON? Jeezus! I guess you really /can’t/ give
their music away.

? Journal Star: Get to know your local TV personalities
I suppose I’m
tilting at windmills here, but does anyone else object to the word
?personalities? and a synonym to ?television news reporters??

I would have liked to see Steve Tarter write separate articles on one
individual television reporter at a time, focusing on their opinions
about the news business, Peoria-area politics, etc., rather than this
shotgun approach that focuses as much on these folks’ rather short resumes.

Jeff at Peoria Television Stations has
called it quits
.
He’s blaming it on the start of the fall semester.

I’m not taking it off my blogroll, for two reasons:

1. Jeff might very well decide that retirement just didn’t take.

2. Someone else with a love for local television might want to take up
his cause and take over the blog.

Consider this: Jeff could sign up a permanent guest blogger who could
keep the site alive, giving Jeff the opportunity to post then the mood hits.

… who are you to say no
?

I see Rob Berry has discovered the
joys of photo blogging . There’s a lot of
sports-related eye candy
over there.

… and I’m not the only one .

Murrel Rhodes has the scoop
on the Peoria Area
Chamber of Commerce’s plans for another portal serving the Peoria area.

On one hand, I’m glad to see there’s competition.

On the other hand, you just /know/ they are going to find some way to
use public funds for this.

One the third hand, I wonder what they could provide that would be any
different that the “yellow pages” approach that the other three existing
portals (with Murrel’s own Peoria.Com
coming down the pike) will provide.