Speechless - thank you everyone!

[Handruin]

I just got off the phone with Mercutio not too long ago as he explained to me why I had a large box full of goodies I didn't expect.

A few weeks back I had arranged to buy a couple of parts from him to build me a new machine. Well today the mail man buzzes my apartment with a package that required a signature. I run downstairs like a 3 year old on christmas day. At first site I was dumb found at the size of the box, but I said, ah, maybe it's two tiny parts with a shit load of packaging material.

So I carried the box (http://www.storageforum.net/forums/images/thanks/gifts1.jpg) inside (http://www.storageforum.net/forums/images/thanks/gifts2.jpg) and tore open the top. To my amazment, there was quite a few more parts than anticipated from Mercutio... I knew something was up when I dug out an awesome (http://www.storageforum.net/forums/images/thanks/gifts3.jpg) t-shit with an tone of signatures printed on. So I sat on my floor in awe knowing that I had to get an explaination from Merutio.

Well here I am now sending a great deal of thanks to everyone! I really don't know what to say, I'm in shock. You guys sent me such a nice gift! It really means a lot to me that you took the time to put together this for me. After looking through all the things you sent me I feel guilty for getting such a nice gift, you guys spent way too much. :oops:

I'm really glad to be a part of such great group of individuals. I think back over a year ago and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I also lucked out that I had ordered a web hosting package from my friend, never with the thought that I'd be hosting a site to all the people I knew from SR.

What else can I say, you guys rock! Thanks so much for the nice gifts, I really appricate it. (It's been a long time since I built a machine, I'm so psyched to play!)

Many thanks!

Sincerely,

Doug (like a kid in a candy shop)

[P5-133XL]

You are welcome and Enjoy.

[Mercutio]

I've already expressed my thanks to you as well, but I'll do so again. The users of Storageforum owe you a tremendous debt for providing us with a special place on the internet.

I'm glad we could get together and do this for you.

[Mercutio]

I am teh l4me. I just noticed that when I added CougTek's name to the shirt I spelled it with a lowercase "T". Sorry man.

[SteveC]

Thank you, Doug, for everything you've done with this site. And thanks to Mercutio for putting all this together.

Steve

[Adcadet]

Doug - thank you very much. I'm just glad I was able to play a tiny part in this site and reap the benefits. Obviously this would not have happened without all your hard work, and it is appreciated.

And thank you to Merc for putting this all together!

[Tannin]

You deserve it Doug. Enjoy and be welcome.

[Clocker]

:wink:

[blakerwry]

Have fun and enjoy the new toy!

[mubs]

Everything I want to say has been said more eloquently by others. But still, Thanks, Doug! SF is a very special place.

And Merc is da man. He cooked up this idea, and made it all happen. We thank him for all the time and effort he's put into this.

:D :colors: :bglaugh: :D

[Fushigi]

Everything I want to say has been said more eloquently by others. But still, Thanks, Doug! SF is a very special place.

And Merc is da man. He cooked up this idea, and made it all happen. We thank him for all the time and effort he's put into this.

:D :colors: :bglaugh: :DDitto.

- Fushigi

[Buck]

What else can I say . . .

You're not supposed say anything. We're all trying to say thank you, and that was the best way we could.

[Bartender]

Drinks on the house for everyone! Doug gets first pick!

[Vlad The Impaler]

:D

You captured my handwriting perfectly!

[Vlad The Impaler]

This place kicks ass!!

[Mickey]

Doug, thanks for all you've done with this site. Consider the "candy" a token of our appreciation, to borrow the phrase. ;)

And thanks to Merc for putting this all together. 'Tis really a great place and a great bunch of folks.

[time]

Ditto, ditto, ditto ... :D

[Jake the Dog]

you fully deserve it Douog. Thanks!



(bugger. I only just sent off my signature yesterday and obviously I'm too to get it on the shirt! it's my fault for taking to long sorry)

[Buck]

Doug is gonna need to put his new system specs in his signature once he has the whole thing assembled.

[Handruin]

:oops: I just noticed how many typos I had. When I wrote t-shit, I certainly wasn't implying the shirt was shit. :oops: :oops:

oops

I'll take a Coke with some Captain, Bartender. ;) A round for everyone on me.

:beer:

[CougTek]

Now now now. Kid got it all wrong and nobody had the heart to tell him. First thing first. Those parts aren't "gifts". You are granted the right to play with them, but under some conditions.

You see Doug, we collectively decide some weeks ago that something had to be done about our lame F@H stats compared to our competing teams. Since all of us were too cheap to pay the extra electricity bill for yet another system, we asked ourselves who was the nicest and most generous guy around that wouldn't be able to say 'no' when asked to maintain our most powerful cruncher up 24x7. Since you're the one with the parts, it means it was your name that ended up on top of our list.

Also, since we were all unwilling to take the responsability of the blame in the event we would grill the CPU by being a tad too optimistic in our overclocking experiments in our quest to reach the highest possible frequency, we again asked ourselves who was the perfect candidate to take all the responsability and tomatoes in case something goes wrong...you won there too.

So there you are, with a box full of goodies, but with a mission in your hands. You are charged to build the baddess possible F@H cruncher ever, maintain it 24x7 (and every time it shuts down, we want a detailed report why), pay the electricity for it and takes all our complains if you don't succeed to make it perform up to our expectations.

So enough "Oh thank you guys" and to work now.

[/joking]

;-)

Like others wrote, you've earned it. Congrats and do whatever you want with it ; it's yours. I am, like others, happy to see you like it.

[CougTek]

I am teh l4me. I just noticed that when I added CougTek's name to the shirt I spelled it with a lowercase "T". Sorry man.
[searching Merc's address on Yahoo white pages]

I guess it won't be Prof.Wizard who's gonna eat that Micropolis-full bag once I can get my hands on you for this unforgivable mistake...

[Mercutio]

Also, EdwardK's signature didn't make it on it the shirt. I don't know why. I have it. :(

I also missed time & JtD. I TRIED to remember to write in those who couldn't scan, but I was in a hurry to get everything in the mail and, well, you know.

I did try, though.

For those who weren't "in on it", I tried to email or at least PM everyone who I remembered from SR, or who had more than 50 posts or so. I was only "shot down" outright by one person, but if you weren't informed, I'm sorry.

The contents of Doug's box:
AMD AthlonXP 2200 retail CPU.
(2) 512MB PC2700 Crucial DDR DIMMs
(2) WD800JB hard disks
Spire Microflow cooler
Abit NF7 nForce2 motherboard
Samsung 16x DVD-ROM (black)
a KVM and some rounded IDE and Floppy cables

There was $100 additionally provided by the donations, for upkeep on the site and/or purchase of a decent video card. :)

[Mercutio]

I guess it won't be Prof.Wizard who's gonna eat that Micropolis-full bag once I can get my hands on you for this unforgivable mistake...

Bring it on little man. My burlap sack is already filled and ready for battle, and besides, I seem to recall an email full of blackmail material some weeks ago...

[Tea]

Whooah!

You better zend another zhirt, pronto, Merc! EdwardK waz a zeriouz contributor! You know that old-fazhioned Auzzie bush hat we pazzed around over on this zide of the pond? Don't get the ideas that it waz our tightwad Tannin who kicked in firzt - Edward waz da man.

[Tannin]

Doh! I saw the shirt in it's pre-publication sneak preview form, thought I saw Edward's sig there.

(That waz Steve K, you numbskull human.)

(Yeah, yeah. I stuffed up. I always get the "K"s mixed up. Steve K, Edward K, City K .... put it down to my lexdixia. Anyway, I didn't see you picking up on it, small hairy one.)

(Me? Why do I have to do everything around here?)

(Because no-one trusts me to remember anything. :()

(Guezz you've got a point, large not-hairy one. Let'z juzt blame Merc.)

(OK.)

(Err ... Tannin?)

(Mmm?)

(What are we blaming Merc? Didn't he do all the work in the firzt place?)

(Shhh!)

[e_dawg]

Enjoy, Doug! You deserve it. Thanks for starting a community that seems like the techie version of Cheers.

Merc, impressive work putting all this together... even though you forgot me :)

[CougTek]

Merc, impressive work putting all this together...The floors...

even though you forgot me
..and the floors' pot. ;-)

[e_dawg]

I'm not sure what you mean by that expression, Coug :?: ...

Anyways, I feel bad now for mentioning it in this thread. I should have taken it offline. My apologies...

[CougTek]

Sorry, guess I was too tired (and still am). I meant flowers, not floor. Translater down time. I was simply having fun with your remark, no second thoughts about it.

[CougTek]

The contents of Doug's box:
AMD AthlonXP 2200 retail CPU.
(2) 512MB PC2700 Crucial DDR DIMMs
(2) WD800JB hard disks
Spire Microflow cooler
Abit NF7 nForce2 motherboard
Samsung 16x DVD-ROM (black)
a KVM and some rounded IDE and Floppy cables
Hmmm... Apparently, from the picture Doug has shown above, he didn't receive the plain NF7, but the full-featured NF7-S. And the improved revision 1.2 of it to top that. A pleasant surprise.

[mubs]

e_dawg wrote:

a community that seems like the techie version of Cheers

That's brilliant!

[Handruin]

Hey everyone... I'm posting with the new box!!! It runs super fast (at least the fastest machine I've used to date). After the machine posts and windows XP starts to load, it takes about 10 seconds to get to the desktop!


Looks like the nforce audio has some cool tools. I can't wait to bench mark the SATA controller. I didn't even realize the SATA controller is also a RAID controller. :o :o

I'm super psyched! Can't wait to buy a video card. (i'm borrowing the GF3 from my old machine until tomorrow)

[Tea]

Cool! :wink:

[Pradeep]

Thanks Doug. :)

A cold Crownie pls Bartender. Just line them up. Gotta coupla venison and duck/wallaby snags on the barbie, if anyone wants some.

[EdwardK]

Thanks Doug for all you have done to SF :P Whenever I have time to get onto the internet, SF is the first site I goto. Glad you are enjoying your new machine. Also to support everyone who mention it, a big thanks to Merc for organising it all. Hear hear!

Merc and Tea: its okay my signature is not there, really. In some ways, I am relieved that it was accidently not there because I might get embarassed :oops: I guess its usually my way to help and support in the background without bringing attention to myself :wink:

Cheers,
Edward

[Howell]

You deserve it Doug. Enjoy.

[Buck]

Apparently the full-featured NF7-S

Indeed. Only the best for Doug. Just in case anyone would like to review, the specifications can be found here (http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/nf7-s/).

[Dozer]

Doug,

Thanks for making this such a great place. The "candy" is but a small token of our appreciation for what you do here.

Thanks again,

Bill Crum
Dozer

[jtr1962]

It was a privilege to be able to give thanks to you for all the effort you put into SF. Three cheers for Doug!

:thumbleft: :beer: :jumpin: :beer: :thumbright:

[The JoJo]

Thanks for a great site Doug! You deserve the stuff!

And now, crunch on! ;)

[Buck]

All this talk over here (http://www.storageforum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2319) about ABIT boards going sour; I hope Handy's board is still working fine.

[Handruin]

No complaints here, so far so good. 24x7 operation since the day it came in the door.

I had XP running fine for 45 days without a reboot...then it acted weird so I rebooted. none-the-less, it's been running great. (knock on wood)

Once again, thanks a ton for the generous gift!

[Buck]

You are welcome Handy. It is good to read that your system is running like a champion.

[blakerwry]

You are welcome Handy. It is good to read that your system is running like a champion.

i agree

[Piyono]

How come I'm always the last one to hear about stuff like this?
Just when I had some cash burning a hole in my pocket, too!


Piyono

[Tea]

It'z OK, Piyono. You can juzt zend it to me. Tannin zeems to think that I owe him quite a bit just at the moment, so it would come in handy.

[blakerwry]

It'z OK, Piyono. You can juzt zend it to me. Tannin zeems to think that I owe him quite a bit just at the moment, so it would come in handy.

I imagine in Tannin's shop, the number one reason for PSU death would be discarded banana peels.. I realize you have to put them somewhere... and those holes in the back of the cases are awfully convenient, but maybe you do owe him something.

[Tea]

Awww ztop complaining. At least it makes them run quieter. (I picked up that little trick from a gorilla friend of mine who works in the motor trade. He zays that banana peels are juzt the thing for a noisy differential.)

[CougTek]

I imagine in Tannin's shop, the number one reason for PSU death would be discarded banana peels..
IMO, accumulations of foot-long red hairs around chassis, CPU and PSU fans do far more damages.

[honold]

I imagine in Tannin's shop, the number one reason for PSU death would be discarded banana peels.. I realize you have to put them somewhere... and those holes in the back of the cases are awfully convenient, but maybe you do owe him something.

THE ONLY REASON ANYTHING IN THE HISTORY OF TIME HAS EVER FAILED WAS THE PRESENCE OF AT LEAST ONE MOVING PART

[honold]

almost forgot, dell-branded pcs or peripherals purchased through them are a notable exception to this rule!

[Tea]

Better zend it back, Handy. We are all going to get together and buy you a nice, furry Dell. :)

PS: I will write to Dell and ask them to remove the power switch and power leads. That way none of the parts will move and it will never fail on you.

PPS: I juzt realised ... if we ban moving partz, does that mean all; those UPS and FedEx people are going to have to look for different jobz? Or iz it OK to be moving complete systemz, juzt not moving partz?

[Howell]

THE ONLY REASON ANYTHING IN THE HISTORY OF TIME HAS EVER FAILED WAS THE PRESENCE OF AT LEAST ONE MOVING PART

Do you give motivational speeches? My light bulbs need a good talking to.

[honold]

howell, nearby bugs count as moving parts.

[Tea]

Honold iz right. Also, electrons iz moving partz too. It iz only with my patented customizationz that you can get rid of all those pesky darn electronz out of your computer and make it 100% reliable!

[Fushigi]

PS: I will write to Dell and ask them to remove the power switch and power leads. That way none of the parts will move and it will never fail on you.You missed some other moving parts:

- Mice
- Keyboards
- Monitor swivels
- hard/floppy/optical/tape drives
- PC Card eject buttons on laptops
- Speakers (they produce sound by vibrating)
- Printers and scanners
- Lastly, the human -- or orangutan -- operator of the machine. Definitely prone to failure.

[P5-133XL]

The only time people stop failing is when they are dead - No more moving parts.

The most obvious and common point of failure - The operator (a moving part)