My Musical Companion
This is a Samsung YP-T7Z. It was released in America over seven years ago in early 2005. For an MP3 player this old, it still looks pretty modern, huh? Aluminum unibody, color screen, FM radio, voice recover, and even more. This little guy was pretty feature-packed back in the day. Sadly, many more players have come and gone, and this little gem has been long forgotten. You can’t find this player anywhere anymore. Try buying one online; they’re nearly impossible to find. So why am I talking about this player? What’s so special about this piece of aged hardware? Well, it’s because it has a lot of sentimental value to me.
If you’ve been around me recently, you know that I’m always wearing a Sansa Clip Zip on my arm along with a pair of Adidas PMX 680 headphones around my neck. I use them both nearly every day when I’m at school. They’re really useful and convenient together, but unfortunately, they’re also of little sentimental value to me. The YP-T7Z is a different story though. I received this as a gift for my 16th birthday from my mom. During that time, my mom was suffering from immense pain in her lower back. Her spine was injured and she was in desperate need of surgery. The only problem was, she had no form of health insurance and thus was unable to afford for it. My birthday was coming up around this time. I was fine with skipping it because my mom’s condition was more important to me. Regardless of that, my mom, despite her bad health and financial situation, drove me to the store and bought this top-of-the-line MP3 player with her own hard-earned money for me.
I still remember that moment perfectly. My mom was so ill and it seemed like death could creep up on her at any moment, yet she was still willing to show how much she loves me. I used this player all the time and I always had it with me. Unfortunately, I lost it sometime around the end of my junior year of high school. I spent days backtracking and searching for it with no success. I was really upset that it was gone. As I said earlier, this is a rare device so finding a replacement wasn’t easy. After a five years of searching, I found one from someone living in the UK. It took a little bit of haggling, but he agreed to sell it to me, and I’m glad too. When I received it, I was immediately reminded of my early high school years and how much my mom cares about me, even if she isn’t the type to show it all the time.
I don’t plan to use this player on a normal basis, I have the Clip Zip for that. For now, I’m just going to keep it at my desk to make up for lost time. And yes, my mom did receive her surgery. I wrote about it a while back.
Nam Hee Smith
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Thank you for the birthday gift!
Nothing is more satisfying than making you look stupid as a mother.
I hope your pride was worth it. You’re welcome.
November 26, 2011 – Looking at this post 7 months later, I know that I was wrong for posting this. I don’t stand by it, but I take responsibility for posting it. As a result, I will not take it down.
New Year, New Computer
For the past few days I’ve been working on upgrading all of the current computers in the house. My mom and my sister Eunice were always nagging about how they need a better computer. To be honest, I was nagging to myself about my own computer. Well, something had to be done. So all of the computers in the house were upgraded in a hand-me-down fashion. My sister gives my mom her computer, I give my sister my computer, and I simply build a new one. :)
My new computer doesn’t exactly need much, just needs to be faster and more reliable. I don’t play any games on it, but I do a lot of high resolution image editing and some potential HD video editing. All I needed to purchase was a new CPU, RAM, and Motherboard. In layman’s terms you could say that means a brain, memory for it, and a skull. I had everything else. I’m stocked up on hard drives and power supplies. I don’t do any PC gaming anymore so I could still use my old graphics card without any problems. And of course, the my new Antec Mini P180 White which I reviewed not too long ago is here to stay.
All of the computers in the house were upgraded to Windows 7. Home Premium for my mom and sister, Business on my netbook, and Ultimate on my desktop. I have to say, it feels good to have a unified, up-to-date home network. :) Below you’ll find the specs for my new build as well a gallery of of it being put together.
CPU: Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz @ 3.4GHz
Motherboard: MSI P55M-GD45 LGA 1156 Intel P55 Micro ATX
RAM: CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (4 x 2GB) DDR3 PC3 12800 @ 1600Mhz
HDD: Some Seagate 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0 I should probably upgrade soon
GPU: XFX GeForce 8600GT 256MB 620MHz Core 1600MHz Memory
PSU: BFG 450-Watt ATX
Case: Antec Mini P180 White
Whoopsiedaisy.
Hello! This past week has been quite a long one. Christmas hasn’t been the greatest thing in the world, but it has nonetheless been good to me. I didn’t receive too much, but then again, I didn’t give much either. I bought Christmas cards for about fifteen people and spent about 3-4 hours delivering them all. There’s still a few people that I haven’t been able to give their cards to and they know who they are. Hit me up! So remember how I spent over $1000 in gifts last year? Well this year, I decided to simply save. I spent less than $70, which I actually feel good about. There’s no reason to be wasteful again. So what did I get for Christmas? Well I got…
- A tie clip and cuff links. (Thanks Mom!)
- $370 over time. (Thanks again Mom!)
- Popcorn, candy, and a $25 gift card. (Thanks Melyssa!)
- This…
This is a framed illustration of Crimson Viper, also known as “my obsession on Street Fighter IV.” It was drawn, colored, and remastered by Eunice. I can tell that a lot of effort was put into this project. Though there may be some flaws with the drawing itself (disproportions) the message is clearly there. For the past year, Eunice has clearly paid attention to my interests and took full advantage of it. Hands down, this has to be one of the best presents I have ever received. My main problem is wondering where I’m going to hang it. My wall is already filled with cards. I might just have to move some of them. Thank you Eunice!
I’m sorry that I haven’t been pumping out posts like I usually should be, but I promise you that my blogging finger has been itching for a while. I’ll be sure to dish out posts well into the new year. I really hope that everybody had a good, if not decent Christmas. Looking at the astonishing number of negative Facebook status updates on Christmas Day really has made me worried. If your Christmas hasn’t been too bright then I hope that the new year will at least bring you a better memory. :)
60′s 70′s 80′s 90′s 2000 AND NOW?