Some people have asked me what I use to play PC games so here’s my setup. Going from left to right its cut off in the pic but first is my home phone … yea who cares.
Next is my HP Premium Stereo Headset ($40); btw NEVER EVER EVER BUY THIS HEADSET. I don’t care what kind of deal a store has on them stay far far away. Go buy something else. If I knew then what I knew now I would have never bought them myself. They have awesome sound, clarity and bass when it comes to gaming but they break physically very very easily and HP will deny everything if you try to fight for a replacement. I’ll tell you my story about my battle between me and HP over this headset another time … but anyway, ya gotta have a headset for voice chat on Ventrilo.
In front of that is my Belkin n52 Tournament Edition Speed Pad ($75), god’s gift to the PC gaming world; one of my best purchases I’ve ever made. Totally worth every penny.
Then I have my Logitech Cordless Desktop EX110 ($40) keyboard and mouse combo set (I hate wires). Nothing special about them but I love em too; never had a problem from them.
My HTC Hero Droid cell phone is chillin on the blue recliner over there. Has nothing to do with gaming but he was there so thought I’d mention him. Price? $400 retail when I got it back in May but I got it for free. And thank god I got it for free because now the retail price is $99 lol. I would be one salty pirate to have paid $400 for a phone that would suddenly dip to $99 only 3 months later.
Moving along next are my JBL Creature II ($100) speakers; theres a subwoofer thats sits on the floor and let me tell you these speakers are e-fuckin-mazing. I bought them at CompUSA in 2006 which is now out of business. I was having a hard time deciding what kind of speakers to get when I built my gaming PC. The deciding factor was when I saw the design and they were called Creature, the logo on the box said “We come in peace” … lol into the shopping cart they went. They are touch sensor speakers so all I have to do is touch them and the volume goes up, down or mute. Kewl amirite? Touch the left side to lower volume, touch the right side to increase the volume and touch both left and right at the same time to mute or unmute. JBL now has the Creature III out which I can only assume are just as awesome. The only problem with these speakers I have is I can never use them because my neighbors keep banging on the wall complaining I’m too loud 🙂
Chinese Baoding Balls ($2) … gotta have em for the wipes. Yes these are from China, not some run of the mill American commercial place. Bought them out of a Chinese store in China Town, San Francisco when I used to live in California. I use em for the nights when gaming just doesn’t go right and we’re wiping on stupid crap.
Next is my Acer 22″ widescreen LCD ($334) …. I don’t know how I ever lived without one. However I do think as far as gaming I like my old 19″ CRT, which I still have, better. The CRT seems to smooth everything out while this LCD everything is so crisp and clear I can actually see jagged edges while gaming sometimes. It’s 5ms LCD and handles gaming very well; no ghosting, no streaking. I use the DVI connection however it does smooth everything out when I hooked it up with the VGA but I stick with the DVI just so I can have a digital picture.
And finally my official The Rider Tarot Deck ($Dont Remember). Its the yellow box in the right corner. Has nothing to do with gaming but I do “play” with them time to time so I keep them on my desk although they are no playing matter. And yes, I do know how to read Tarot cards so if you want your fortune told you can shoot me an email anytime.
This is just my setup. I built this computer in October of 2006 so I don’t urge anyone to buy anything here. There’s much better out there by now. I built this PC intentionally as a portable gaming PC I could take to my friends’ LAN parties. The case is just a cube with a handle on it; an Apevia mini ATX ($80) case. The video card is a GeForce 8600 ($Free as a replacement for the original GeForce 7600 $129 video card that blew up … literally) and the CPU is an AMD DualCore 2.2Ghz . The whole setup cost me about $1200 which considering the other stuff thats inside was reasonable at the time. It’s been 4 years and it still runs perfectly. Very happy I built it. There’s no bigger pride in one’s self than for something you built on your own to last a long time.