First Computer at home

The year 2000 comes to it's end and we finally decided it's time for a computer. The basque government gives a 45.000 pts discount so our parents have bought us a PC tower. Here the specs and a pic of the monitor:

Pentium III 800Mhz Processor

128MB RAM

Savage 32MB AGP graphics card 

20GB Hard Drive

2USB ports

10XDVD unit

17inch Samtron 75E CRT 1280x1024

Windows Millennium Edition

Price: 243.000pts (discount of 45.000pts) = 198.000pts>1190€ the EUR to USD Currency Exchange Rate is appropriately 1€>1.1$ (in late 2000) so that will be approx.1300USD* That was a ton of money for those years in our house.

I'm writing this in march 2012 so is really great to see how much everything has changed in a decade. My brother and I knew nothing about computers those days, and now everything we do  is related with them. For example, in my laptop I draw with a Wacom, I edit videos, I write, I post, I stay tuned to wha´s going on in the world with Internet, I watch videos online and I work and speak with my brother, who precisely has become an Telecommunications engineer in this period of time.

Today techies are already talking about the post-PC era. I just hope things will change to better as much as they have in the last years.

*if we adjusted with the inflation to the day this post is written, March 2012, $1,300USD in 2000 had the same buying power as $1,743.16USD  in 2012. 

sources: 

Euro to US Dollar Exchange Graph 

USD Inflation calculator

Aloña basketball team 2001

Right to left. (standing) Ioannes Busca, Michael Zelaia, Josu Arregi, Etxebe, Jonatan Martín, coach Iñaki, Ibai Osa, Iñigo Bikuina, Beñat Madariaga, Ander Zelaia, Mikel Maiztegi

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This is our team roster for the 2001 season. We are back with the team mates of two seasons ago. We have all change a little bit in two years.

playing with a iBook

This Easter Holidays our cousins bring to Macotera an awesome computer the Apple iBook. My brother and I have been playing with it and learning a little Macromedia Flash. It's been a great experience, we need a computer at home!

Aloña Basketball 2000 season

Right to left: (standing) Ander Zelaia, Jonatan Martín, Michale Zelaia, Ioannes Busca, Jon mendiola, Beñat Madariaga, Iñaki, Asier, Lens, Ibai Osa, Mikel Maiztegi, Gorka Aranburu, Gartxi.

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Here this year's Aloña basketball team where I was playing with my friends. Last year we played with kids one year older than us in the team, so this  year we were the oldest and played together with kids one year younger than us.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

It was a boring summer, and I saw on a newspaper a full page commercial of a cinema related magazine called Cinemanía. It featured the current issue: a triple page cover with the most anticipated movie of the year: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I knew almost nothing about Star Wars back in those days. I believe I saw the old ones on TV someday, but I wasn't much into movies anyway. I also remember having watched an animated series that aired on the Basque TV, but didn't like it too much either. The thing is, that Dragon Ball, both the manga and the animated series I grew up with, ended a couple of years ago, and for a long time I was looking for something new to follow. I gave a small try to the Evangelion manga, but I didn't enjoyed too much. But when I saw this Commercial, I began to realize how Star Wars was a big influence for Akira Toriyama, the author of my beloved Dragon Ball, so, I decided to give it a try. I bought the magazine and I immediately started to get interested on this new universe created by George Lucas.

When summer vacations ended, a friend let me the original trilogy on VHS. I saw the three classics films and then went to the cinema to see the newly released Episode I. I really enjoyed it, and got hocked to it. Some time later, another friend let me the the original trilogy again, but this time it was the Special Edition VHS set that was released on 1997. This was the first time I saw some behind the scenes features on the making of any movie. The introductory videos showed how they restored the films and  how they added some new special effects. This featurettes changed my life forever. Here  is what I saw: