Welcome to the ancient, mystic society of No Homers.
My three 1gb sticks of RAM came today. Was all excited to start up CoH to see if the performance was any better. Instead it immediately froze. Turns out the 2nd memory slot on my mobo is bad. I hate computers so very much. The last three mother boards I’ve owned has had this issue. So not even sure buying a new one will help. Such a God damn gamble with computer hardware these days. So I have 2gb of worthless RAM sitting on my desk. Fun.
Normally I don’t post about stuff like this because up here it is an every day occurrence. But there was a little extra crazy today that made it extra special. Every time I go home from work there are a few lights that seem to be victim of some very poor driving habits. I’m usually going straight and waiting for the left turners. Their light goes yellow and they keep on coming, then it goes red and you think it’ll at least start slowing down right? Nope, they keep coming. Then our light turns green, so now they really should stop right? Nope, they keep coming. Eventually the folk with the green light get sick of waiting and just start going. Ends with left turners slamming on their breaks and swerving around a bit.
I find this baffling. Is the 2-3 minute wait really worth that much? Today on the way back from lunch it happened again, but at a much smaller light. Their light turns red, ours turns green. But this time the left turn lain is cleared out. But then this bitch hauls ass down it and tries to turn, like she can “beat” an already very red light. The through traffic is already moving at this point. So she slams on her breaks and starts honking at the through traffic. The ass holes that they are. After all, she was merely trying to run a red light and they fucked it all up. Inconsiderate pricks.
That I find most baffling. No shame. No thoughts of “shit, that was dumb and impatient of me.”. We were the fucking ass holes for getting in her way. She was going to Wal-Mart God damnit!
In conclusion, women drivers, no survivors…. Actually, I’m finding the elderly are by far the most dangerous. That South Park episode wasn’t far off. Average age male and female seem to be equally retarded.
Talking to Sosacms about my miserable damn day while transferring data from a crummy 900mhz, 256mb RAM PC to the new Mac Mini and playing a bit of City of Heroes. Then I notice that I can’t move my mouse or use my keyboard. But all my City of Heroes animations are working just fine. Look at my USB hub and all the lights are out. Think, “Great, this shit just never ends.” But it turns out that wasn’t the problem. No matter where I plugged my keyboard and mouse in, they wouldn’t work. I even have extra USB cards because I am so used to my motherboards’ on board USB crapping out. I have a total of 10 USB slots and I barely managed to find a combination that would support just my mouse and keyboard. So not only is my RAM slots bad, but the on board USB is hosed now too. This mobo is really trying to fill in the shoes of it’s predecessors.
I have no idea what to do next. I loathe the idea of trying yet another motherboard. Not only because I think it will fail me too, but the thought of tearing apart my entire PC really isn’t appealing. I am so very, very sick of PC repair.
*edit* Did a complete power cycle (turned off the power supply) and all the USB ports seem to be working. Think the hub died and temporarily killed them.
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The new Crucial RAM is either bad or incompatible. Can’t get even one stick to pass Prime95 tests. A new mobo could solve that, but I’d rather not risk it. So I am sending it back for a refund and picking up these babies. Along with a USB hub to replace the one that just fried. Even with a $50 restocking fee I will come out even. I would love to go all Mac right now, but I think I’ll keep this sumbitch alive a little longer.
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After that last batch of RAM, I was worried that my motherboard wasn’t going to support the full speed it was supposed to. But this new Corsair XMS stuff is working just dandy. Same speed as the other stuff (PC3200/400mhz). My co-worker is the one who talked me into trying the higher end stuff. Never had a problem with the normal Crucial before, but now I am definitely sold. I ran 2gb of Crucial for a while, when it wasn’t crashing I thought my computer ran much better. Especially with games. Now I’m running 2gb of this Corsair stuff and I am noticing a significant difference over the 2gb of Crucial. This stuff is damn fast. Cranked City of Heroes up to max graphics and ran around town with Super Speed. Normally, even with the 2gb Crucial, it would start cranking pretty heftily. You just move so fast and they have so many people and objects in a town. With this new stuff, not even the slightest pause. Don’t think I have ever seen this game run so smooth.
Windows is still a pile and demands 1.5gb for page file. I had it set to 1gb, but I guess it was doing a “give or take 500mb”. So I set it to 512mb. Still uses 1.5gb even though my RAM isn’t even close to being all used up. It’s looking like a re-install will happen at some point, but at least I can function until then. And I’ll be all the happier with this RAM and a working Windows. If that’s even possible anyway. Maybe this time around I wont apply a single update. Those are what seem to keep hosing my install. I’ll do SP1 and stop there.
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I like it when we cure things. When I read this, two of my favorite quotes popped into my head. I don’t remember then verbatim, but here is the jist.
Mel Gibbson:
There was an interview I watched on T.V. where he claimed stem cell research was a scam and has made zero progress. This was a while ago, but even then they had cured a few diseases in mice.
Bush:
“These cures are several years away, so why even try?”.
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Co-worker told me about this sweet app. I’m not normally a fan of such things, but it is supposed to have a very nice memory manager, which as you probably got from my recent posts, I could probably use. Ended up checking out a lot of other functionality it provides and am very impressed. Goes through all your Windows settings and gives advice on tweaking settings for performance or you can just let it take care of it. Cleans up your registry, temp files, etc. Even checked out my Firefox settings and gave like 14 recomendations on improving it’s performance. Even lets you restore stuff you permanantly deleted. Does some XP “styling” too if you are into that. Ran it on the work computer and it had a lot of cleaning up to do. Looking forward to trying it at home. Maybe it will help Windows stop using a 2gb page file when I have a gig of RAM still unused.
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Probably going to be moving in the next month or two (towards glorious Utopia) and there is no way I am taking that massive Wega with me. I think we’ve sacraficed enough toes. It’s a great T.V., but about 150lbs too heavy. So I am leaving it with the house and was needing a replacement. Preferably one that doesn’t match the Wega’s fantastic weight. Thought about doing a projector, but all I knew about them is that they project. The Projector People helped with that a bit. They have some good buyer guides and tutorials and such. Ended up buying this sweet rig. The picture makes it look a bit goofy, but the manual really shows it off.
Seems more then perfect for my needs. Since we will be renting I doubt thy want us punching holes in their cieling to mount cages and such. This is a table top unit, so no problems there. Until the 30th they are running a special, so it comes with a 92″ screen and a sub woofer. 92″ is kick ass, but the subwoofer may seem wierd. Turns out this unit has a build in DVD player with stereo speakers. Making it very portable. Want to watch a movie in another room or even outside and you will have a DVD player and basic sound without transporting half your entertainment center. As far as quality goes it is supposed to be very nice. Does HD, VGA, Component, S-Video, and Composite. Supports 480i/p, 720p, 1080i and some other less common resolutions. So as far as specs and features go I am very happy. Hopefully I don’t find out I hate projectors in general though. Never seen them in action in a home theater environment.
My sister and her hubby came to visit for about a week. They decided they wanted to go to Lagoon Saturday since it’s been nearly a decade since we’ve been. Figured the younger siblings would really enjoy it. That morning I have a massive allergy attack thanks to the storm the night before. Not even Claritin D could phase it. But I figured I’d suck it up and try it anyway. I only did three rides and a family picture before I couldn’t take it anymore. Two out of three of those rides were fun at least.
Got home and rested a bit, then tried to hang out with Mike. But all of a sudden my voice cuts out completely. I don’t really raise my voice, even on roller coasters, so I’ve never “lost” it before. So I went upstairs to rest some more. Noticed the temperature was 76 on the way to my room. Crawled under some pretty hefty blankets and started shivering and convulsing like crazy. Starting thinking, “Shit, I have a fever”. But before I could think or do much else I became completely delirious for several hours. When I came to I tried getting in the tub to try and keep it under control, but that wasn’t helping much. After about 7 hours I finally had to text message my mom. “Bad fever. Delirious. Lost voice. Bad pain. Help” was the message. That’s actually I was was talking too. Could use one or two words at a time. Not that my lack of a voice was allowing any of that to come out. My back was in incredible pain as well.
Between extra strenght Tylenol, some funky health drinks of my dads, and lots of very cold baths we were able to keep my temperature from going over 103 and eventually got it down to 100. I could walk around a bit and even watch some T.V. to help with the boredom. Then I laid down for a nap and it spiked again. Even in the bath it wasn’t going down. Was eating ice to lower my internal body temp until I lost all feeling to my arms and legs. Couldn’t move my fingers at all and my arms and legs felt like a million needles jabbing them.
But my temperature eventually calmed down again and last night it didn’t spike again. Still hovering at 100 though. At least I can keep down solid foods now and walk around the house. But I missed the chance to get the paperwork in for our new place and they guy just left for the holidays. Not that I’ll be up for moving stuff anytime soon. I did talk to him though and he will still hold it for us until he gets back. He’s getting offers like crazy, so glad we jumped on it.
Worst weekend evar!
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Was going to post about this earlier, but didn’t get the chance. I’ve been playing Diablo III of and on since Friday night. The name of the game is actually Titan Quest, but don’t let that fool you. It really is Diablo III. We’ve been dieing for something like this for a very long time. I could not be happier.
Well, I could be a little bit happier, but not because of any game flaw. They use SecureRom copy protection and it causes the game to crash a lot. And whenever the game crashes it corrupts your character. You have to delete your saved data, like quests, just to load your character up again. Your character is fine, game just puts you back to the beginning and forgets all the quests you did. I’ve found a few tricks (save every 2 minutes and ALT+F4 to quit instead of menus) that have let me play for a very long time without a single crash though. They are also looking into the problem, but they say it is hard to troubleshoot since some people are using a cracked game and some are using Deamon Tools because the idea of swapping game discs like crazy in this day and age is a joke to some (myself included). And others are doing everything legitimately and still having the issue. I think it’s a great anti-piracy strategy though. Nothing will prevent people from pirating your game more then making it unplayable for everybody.
When it is working, it is a most fantabulous game though. And plan on playing it a lot more and really enjoying myself.
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