Hello everyone! As this is my first post here I toyed with the idea of conjuring up some attempt at expressing to the community at large how much I have enjoyed lurking in your midst for the past year or so, wiling away precious time that should have been spent being "productive" in some way. I also considered going over my until-recently negative attitude towards the very idea of internet communities and how Destructoid completely revamped those notions and encouraged me to listen to my first podcast and subsequently become hooked on them. Of course, there was always the tried and true fallback of telling everyone a little bit about my experiences of being a gamer and what a positive influence it has been on my life.

But then I thought, screw that! I'm going to introduce myself as the blatant consumer whore that I am by entering into this Turning Point gaming rig contest that I don't rightly need or even want to win outside of being the afore-mentioned whore for all things material. And so, without further adieu, I present to you what is not my Turning Point gaming rig...



I'm actually quite fond of my current setup despite some of its space limitations. This used to be my closet before I demolished it to make way for a place to do some "work" in. Everything is built right into the structure of my room, which kind of sucks, but it works for the moment. At the very least, I designed it to be able to fit not only a nice computer system and tv, but also 3 consoles + a gamecube in its little cubby-hole. Anyways, on to the computer...



This is my current rig, outfitted for gaming. Its important specs are as follows:

- 2.66 GHz Intel Core2Duo Processor
- 2 GB RAM
- nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX
- 2 LiteOn DVD-RW Drives
- Creative SB X-Fi Sound Card
- 500 GB HDD

Its case is freaking massive, and it definitely has an odd front-piece. I've been thinking about switching out the led on the front with a red one so it can be an Eye of Sauron. Being a complete fantasy nerd I affectionately refer to my computer as Gandminstlin which is a combination of Gandalf, Elminster, and Raistlin.

Here is a shot of Gandminstlin with his front gates open...



And here is a shot of his side door...



This is a shot of my desktop space...



Now, as a budding game developer / general programmer I cannot overstate how awesome it is to have dual monitors. It just makes so many tasks that would consist of tedious flipping about of windows a breeze to work through. Multi-tasking kicks ass. Oh yeah, in this pic you can just see Gandminstlin hiding under the desktop in the lower right. Hiding on the opposite side is my...



Sub-woofer! Seriously, the only reason I'm including this shot is because it just looks so damn lonely in that corner and I kind of feel sorry for it because, well, I have no girlfriend and must therefore direct my feelings towards inanimate objects to take away the pain of my own loneliness. I think I've said too much...



I know it's kind of unnecessary to show this seeing as I've already got two other shots showing very much the same thing, only more stuff besides. Thing of it is though, I just love the G15 Gaming keyboard. It is simply the best keyboard I have ever had the pleasure to use and anyone considering a new keyboard who doesn't mind shelling out a bit more than usual should seriously consider this buy. It is pure sex.

Oh yeah, and I was in the middle of setting up a Hackmaster session for tomorrow when I got bored and decided to take these shots, which explains the dice, in case you were wondering.

Well, that is my gaming rig, although I suppose I could show my laptop, even though I don't really use it for gaming. Yeah, might as well, wouldn't him to feel left out either...



Yeah, just a basic Dell Inspiron. It's got pretty good specs, though obviously not as good as my main rig. Still, it can play a lot of new games seeing as it had to be powerful enough to code games on in the first place.

All right then. That obviously wasn't my Turning Point rig, but I'm pretty sure it was my greeting to everyone here at Destructoid. Hope you enjoyed the read; I know I can get really wordy and that won't be stopping anytime soon. At least, I hope not.