I spent the best part of the last few months looking at what I need to get to build a great new PC at MWave. My build was in the $1200-$1700 range depending on processor, mobo, video card etc. So I decided to take a look at a few electronic stores, just to compare.

I won't touch a Dell or Gateway (my first PC was a Gateway) anymore, they are overpriced and their proprietary designs makes future upgrades a nightmare.

So I happened to browse through the Circuit City website looking for a computer with a top end AMD processor, similar to what I was planning on building. There it was...a HP Pavilion, AMD x2 dual core 5000+, 320GB hard drive and 2 Gigs of PC2-4200 DDR2 ram. On sale for $929! So I stuck it on the plastic and took the "pickup at store" option.
If I can be arsed to go through that monotonous ordeal known as "sending in the rebates" I get $100 dollars back! $829 + tax, not a bad deal in my book.

The Graphics card is an onboard piece of crap (NVidia GF 6150LE), but for $140 I can get an eVGA GEFORCE 7600GT KO.

By the way, I have shopped with MWave a number of times in the past and they really do have excellent prices, in fact my Athlon 2700xp PC I put together, was from parts bought from there. Almost three years later and it's still running great.

I've been mighty busy at The Garden Centre the last few weeks. And it's freakin' killing me!

November 1st we were tearing down the outside Halloween displays. This mostly consisted of hauling wet straw bales to the dumpster and disposing of the leftover unsold pumpkins.

Over the first week of November we started preparing for the Christmas season by setting up large wooden structures that resembled crosses, for displaying the Christmas trees we'll be selling. Then we had to sort through the orange spaghetti of outdoor lighting cables and nailing them up.

Then came a tree delivery to unload. 400 trees! None of which had anything at all to do with Christmas. Pear, Magnolia and Birch to name a few. Each with a large heavy dirt ball surrounding the roots.
Two days later another delivery. About 100 evergreens with similar heavy dirt balls.

This week we got the first of the Christmas tree deliveries. About 200, no dirt balls so they weren't very heavy. Just awkward and prickly. And the sap, my god, superglue isn't this sticky!

Yesterday our tree vendor brought us an additional 200 Christmas trees which they had loaded up in our company box truck. It seems the city and the neighbouring one order about 100 trees each, for their city centre displays every year.

Guess who got to walk along side a moving box truck, pickup and put each tree next to it's appropriate set of mounting stakes as his supervisor dragged them out of the back door? Of course, it was also the day I had to work the evening at The Deli.

Today, I spent most of the day raking leaves. I had hurt my back so bad that walking was very painful and difficult. I think I was using the rake more to stop me from falling over than anything else.

A Merry Christmas? At this rate of physical abuse on my body, I might be dead by then.

Those wonderful plants that represent the Christmas season so elegantly.
I spent much of the week delivering poinsettias to a number of businesses. Several were more than a one hour round trip from The Garden Centre. That's more than 60 minutes of me listening to the radio and driving. That's some easy money, for a change. Jackal be luvin' them poinsettias.

Management have also been a bit easier on me, since my tree slinging/ back hurting escapade. The owner likes me because I hussle more than the young guys, but he doesn't want to overwork me in fear I might leave, or if I get seriously hurt and claim workman's comp (not that i'd do that). So easier tasks have come my way recently. This gives me mixed feelings. I like the easy work, but after my many years slaving in "the steel industry" I leave at the end of my day feeling a bit guilty, that I didn't work hard for my money. Of course, once I get home and have a few beers all guilt leaves in a hurry.