The Game Desk

[altec]

Haha, love The Thing and was actually a pretty good game in the end! John Carpenter was an absolute legend and I was bowled over last week when I heard there'd been a remake! Thankfully it was designed as a prequel and despite not being J.C.'s version it was still pretty cool. The advances in CG technology allowed for some seriously wicked Things and it was perfectly in keeping with the original. The only problem I had with it was the remarkable number of similarities between this film and the first. Seriously, it wasn't remake but it may as well have been for about 80% of the runtime...

The other whoopsie is not a blunder so much as a failure to consider the fact that an optical mouse won't work on clear plastic! My original plan was to use some fairly opaque window tinting film for a semi-permanent mousemat as I didn't want to risk damaging the expensive acrylic with the constant movement. Given this revelation though I guess I'll have to try something a bit darker and hope for the best! If not I'll get a custom mousemat made from a scan of the games it will cover up and then attach it directly above them. Will help to maintain much of the illusion that way but still sucks a bit...

I saw the prequel in theaters. It was good. I remember a few years about when I first heard mention of a remake. My first thought was simply "Why?" When I finally saw the theater release date I looked it up, and found that it was a prequel. It seems the crew for the new movie agreed the original was done right, and they wanted to add to the series. Not just overwrite it. I thought it turned out very well, and added a bunch of information to the story.

For the mouse issue, I would just run a nice gaming pad. Acrylic scuffs so easy bare, and tinting is a gamble if it'll work. Not to mention the rule of thumb I'd always had was that Lexan is the only plastic you can tint. A good solid pad seems the way to go. Maybe a special edition one for a game. Then you can find one of the old Doom 3 keyboards while you are at it.

[Munty]

Ok, I've been running off this desk for sometime but still haven't got hold of materials to finish the lower half of it. I've finally managed to get hold of some USB extensions this week though so after however long running with my DVD drive out of place I now have it tucked away as intended.

Turns out USB extension cables suck ass though... Who knew?

Having an external drive in the first place is a bit of a compromise as I know it'll never be up to scratch compared to a larger internal one. I never realised that there were varying grades of cable though, in this case USB extension cable...

I got hold of some 1.8 meter lengths (M-F) nice and cheap but I guess you get what you pay for and they're completely useless, preventing my drive to do anything at all. On the rare occasion that the computer is now able to detect the drive at all through these string and solder P.O.S things it fails to read from them or do anything else useful. I'm currently trying to install Crysis 2 and once I click 'Install' the computer seems to just completely lose track of what it was doing and give up. The drive is still visible but it NEVER makes any further attempt to install the game so I'm back to square one.

I had a similar rant to this when I bough a CD drive which was NOT a DVD drive remarking that there was no need in the world for such an item. What was the last game you bought that said 'CD-ROM' on the box? I'm now throwing these cheap **** cables to the fray by saying WHAT'S THE BLEEDIN POINT! If an item doesn't do it's job then why sell it in the first place? I bought a cheap electric razor from Japan last year and it was about as useful as a moist herring when it came to actually shaving. So why do these retards insist on thrusting inferior, nay ineffectual goods on us in every possible market? Why would I want a CD drive that doesn't operate any media less than 10 years old? Why would I want a USB cable that's unable to operate 90% of all USB devices? And why would I want to shave with something that would be better used as a masseuse than a razor? These people are ripping us off by selling us cheap crap that fails to perform even the simple tasks promised on the packaging!

So why the hell do I keep buying them!!!

If anyone has some decent USB cables and feels like helping me out that'd be great, I don't trust these things anymore. I just kind of figured that a USB cable was a USB cable. But then I aslo assumed a CD drive would be able to read all optical media from the 21st century. I've been wrong a lot lately... I think my new years resolution should be not to buy anything from anyone. At least I can't get ripped off that way!

[altec]

USB does have a limitation on cable length due to signal strength. You can get signal boosters.

Maybe a SATA card with external ports for your DVD? That might work.

I used to have a 15ft USB cable to hook my PS2 up to my computer. Worked a few times, then stopped. That is how I learned about the signal limits...

[Munty]

Guess what? It's finished! I've ben looking for donor legs to go with this desk for months and I finally found them yesterday! It was actually a very nice computer desk in it's own right and it only cost me £30 which went straight to charity so it's a win win win!

I was using a corner desk before so having constructed a straight replacement on top of it I had very little leg room. Plus the crappy old wood didn't really do it any justice... Anyway, I don't know if I ever posted a picture of the desk in use prior to the leg transplant so here it is.

Now, by the time I got the new desk home it was already in pieces as I'd had to disassemble it to get it in the car (we don't all live in the US and drive trucks ) That was a good thing anyway though as it meant I could reassemble it here without the glass top, keyboard tray and monitor pedestal. I forgot to take a picture of what it used to look like but it really was a quite nice piece already. Here it is in the form that I used it though.

Once I got to this point it was a simple matter of cleaning up the acrylic and reassembling the desktop on it's new frame. I've never glued any of it together as the weight of the pedestal/monitor is enough to keep it plenty sturdy. That made putting everything back together nice and easy, but then I ended up with some nasty virus when I tried to reboot so it actually tok longer to switch the thing on than it did to do the transplant :p

Anyway, this is my desk as it stands now, it would be perfect if my missus hadn't just snapped one of the corners off the big sheet of acrylic Still, I'm making her pay for a replacement so it's fine! Here she is...

I'm very happy to have my new legs now. I have loads of space whereas before I had virtually none and I can now get right in under the desk as opposed to just a little! The added bonus of it having a place for my tower is, well. an added bonus... I just feel it fits perfectly with the top, shiny but simple! It's a bit of a shame that the front of the two top supports come further forward than the desktop itself but it turns out that this is a perfect place to hang my headset so who cares?!

Next thing on my shopping list is a nice new gaming chair but not really sure what to go for. Oh and I'm looking for a graphics card that'll run all three of my monitors too. Ready for an upgrade anyway as mine is a good few years old now and I rebuilt the whole comp last year save for that so it's time!

So apart from needing to replace this one piece of acrylic (and reinforcing the main desktop as it has a slight sag now it's unsupported in the middle!)

THIS BUILD IS COMPLETE!!!

[msmrx57]

Very nice. The new legs go with the theme beautifully.

[d_stilgar]

Those legs are awesome. It's nice to see this one finished.

[altec]

Looking good man!

[AmEv]

Be careful with that wireless keyboard... >_>


Otherwise, nice build!

[Munty]

Thanks guys, really appreciate the comments! Why am I being careful AmEv? I've had trouble with the signal if that's what you mean, it disagrees with the acrylic I'm guessing :p Plugged the dongle into the front panel of the tower rather than the back though and it works pretty well most of the time now! Just seems to be a slight dead zone in the middle of the desktop but I cut my wrists off if I move it that far back anyway so it's all good!!!

Looking for a nice chair now and a new graphics card so I can run all 3 monitors together (will be for effect rather than quality as none of them are great) Does anyone have a better suggestion than the HD 6950 for that job?

Looked at the X rocker pro chairs as they have a sound system built in and look pretty nice but as they're primarily for console gaming I wonder if it'd be too low and a little too small for a grown man! Any advice or suggestions on either of those things would be great

[AmEv]

Neighbors.
And personal data.


That is all.