Awesome.

So, how to benchmark this thing?

SuperPI? Forget it.
PCMark Vantage? Nuh-uh.

So what then?



Obvious, right? Besides, what fun are benchmarks where you just press start and the computer does it all by itself?

For this benchmark, quality was set to low, and no cheats were used (e.g. level skipping and going through walls).

First, my old P4 1.4GHz:



And the core i7 920 2.66GHz:



Thoughts:

The game is much more difficult to play on the core i7. It's really fast and you slide around like crazy. It doesn't help that on my fancy new $12 Logitech keyboard you can't press up arrow, left arrow, and the space bar at the same time.

The 2008 World Series Of Poker Main Event Final Table - Finally

Today they finally play the final table of the 2008 World Series Of Poker main event. Usually of course they play it straight through in July, but this year they delayed the playing of the final table almost 4 months so that everyone doesn't already know who wins several months before it finally airs on TV. I used to always watch the WSOP coverage on ESPN, but I only watched a little of the 2006 WSOP coverage, and none of the 2007 or 2008 coverage. This is probably in part attributable to already knowing how the events play out from following the coverage online at Tao of Poker and other sites, but the main reason is that I'm simply not into poker as much I used to be. Still, I'll follow the coverage online today for sure, and probably watch the 2-hour highlights on ESPN Tuesday night.

Update (5:30 PM): It took 52 hands and over 4 hours to get the first elimination. This could be a long day. To pass the time in between updates I've been working on a sales script thing for DMI. It's been fun to work on, even though it's probably pretty dumb to read, assuming I'll even able to use it. I guess I should have made sure of that before I started.

Update (7:30 PM): 25 hands and two hours later there have been 2 more eliminations. I tested my sales script and I only had to change a few things. I had so much fun working on it, I don't care if no one likes it.

Post-Election Speeches & Indecision 2008: America's Choice

President-Elect Obama's Victory Speech



Senator McCain's Concession Speech



Indecision 2008: America's Choice

Here are my favorite moments from last night's Indecision 2008: America's Choice special hour-long live broadcast:

3. Aasif Mandvi reports from Al Qaeda headquarters



2. Larry Wilmore and Wyatt Cenac take over



1. And the winner is...



The complete hour-long broadcast can be watched (or watched again in case, like me, when you watched it live you were a little distracted since you were also on your laptop flipping through 10 tabs of different sites' election coverage) here.

10:01 PM - "Game, set, match. Point."

Obama is the projected winner of the election.

Woohoo!

Congratulations, Senator Obama... or, I should say, Mr. President-Elect!

8:20 PM - Fox News projects Ohio for Barack Obama

Flipping through the channels, I just saw that Fox News has projected Ohio for Barack Obama. A minute later MSNBC did as well. I think that's the election.

Election predictions

Over at HuffingtonPost.com they have compiled predictions for tomorrow's elections from 26 pundits. Only 1 of the pundits, Fred Barnes, predicts a McCain victory, with an electoral college count of 286 for McCain and 252 for Obama. These are the exact same electoral totals that Bush beat Kerry with in 2004, although I assume he has PA going to McCain, and Iowa, Colorado, and Nevada going to Obama. In any case, if he seriously expects this, I think he's delusional, even if by some miracle he turns out to be correct (similar to how a person who buys a Powerball ticket and honestly expects to win is delusional even if against 150,000,000 to 1 odds they end up winning). The next lowest predicted electoral college count for Obama is Charles Mahtesian who has Obama winning 311 to 227.

Here are my predictions.

Winner: Obama
Electoral College: Obama 349 McCain 189
Senate Seats: 57 Democrats 41 Republicans 2 Independents
House Seats: 260 Democrats 175 Republicans



The two states I'm most uncertain about for the presidential election are Missouri and North Carolina.

For the Senate, the best chance for the Democrats to reach 60 is probably Jim Martin in Georgia. The polls indicate that Saxby Chambliss has increased his lead over the last few days. I'd really like to see Martin win that one even if the Democrats don't hit 60, so I'll be watching for results from that one. I'd also really like to see Kay Hagan trounce Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina. The latest poll numbers have Hagan leading by 5 points, her largest margin since polling began in May. But as with all the races, it's not over until all the votes are counted.

Tomorrow I think I'll stop at the store and get a bottle of Crown Royal. If things go as unexpected, I'll have a drink or two to celebrate. If not, I'll finish the bottle.

My thoughts on The Mist (2007)

1. What a bleak ass movie.
2. The song at the end, The Host Of Seraphim by Dead Can Dance, was awesome.
3. It would be cool if they did a movie following things from the military's perspective (similar to the rumor for what was being considered for a sequel to Cloverfield). Or even better, the people who own the rights to Half-Life could get their act together and make that into a movie.