Yesterday I added a Logitech Precision GamePad 2 to Fozzie. Now, I actually don't play games very often on my computer, so why would I want a game pad? Because, every now and then I do enjoy playing emulated games. Classic games, like Mario and Sonic, that sort of thing. Every now and then, I'm just in the mood for playing Mario Kart for 15 minutes. But, it's quite horrible to do that with a computer keyboard. So, I've been looking and looking for a good, cheap, PC game controller. I don't need a joystick, analog pads, or rumble features, because I'm only going to play older games with it. But at the same time, I don't want a really cheaply made controller that will fall apart after a few months. The Logitech Precision GamePad only costs $10, and has really good reviews on Amazon. Thus far, I've agreed with the reviews -- it's a really comfortable, sturdy controller, that really does just "plug and play" -- no drivers or anything required. Recommended if you want to play emulated games. Probably not so good if you want to play modern flight simulators and first person shooters.

This was actually a great birthday present from my wonderful girlfriend. Thanks, Leslie :-)

Over the weekend I did something I've been planning to do for a long time: increased the amount of RAM in Camilla. I swapped out one of the 128MB modules, and replaced it with a Kingston 256MB PC2100 module, bringing the total to 384MB.

It may seem odd that Camilla had two 128MB modules rather than just a single 256MB module, but at the time that I bought Camilla, there was a substantial financial savings by going the 2x128MB route. I knew that 256MB wasn't a whole lot for a laptop to run Windows XP, but I decided that I would save the money in the short term, and then upgrade one of the modules within a year. Well, now, 2 years later, I've finally done it :-) Even 384MB is a little low for a laptop -- when you're dealing 5400RPM hard drives, you don't want the OS to swap to disk very often! -- but my plan is to upgrade the other 128MB module within a year.

So look for that upgrade in November 2007....