Silence after a computer update can only mean one thing…

… that everything is going fine.

Which is mostly true. After playing for a bit, I noticed I was getting some 3D artifacting. At the suggestion of a few people, I bought a new card to see if it worked. If it did, I had a bad card and I could return it. If it didn’t work, then I’d have to return one and figure out what the problem was.

Since there wasn’t a post in my LJ with the angry Andy icon complaining about the evils of computers, you can probably guess which one it was.

And on a completely separate note, I got a phone poll last night, and it had the standard political questions, then some demographic questions. Then, mixed in with the demographic questions was the very innocent “Do you consider yourself a NASCAR fan?” Wow, I’d sure like to the see the correlation of that question with the other ones.

Et tu, ell jay?

Undeadjournal?

BRAINS.

On a completely unrelated note, I got to try the infamous bacon ice cream yesterday. It was everything you’d hope for in a pork-related dairy product.

Edit: Holy crap, there’s actually a Brains in France….

Tempting fate

So, besides the bodily harm on Wednesday, assembling the computer went off mostly without a hitch. After a false start with the computer failing to boot because I (once again) forgot to connect the second 8-pin power cable to the motherboard (yes, I’ve done this before), it booted without any problem. Vista installed much faster than I expected as well… I’m guessing the hard drive came pre-formatted because it started copying files to it right away.

By the time I went to bed last night, I had WoW fully patched, with all my addons and configurations copied over, running in all its 60fps glory (42 in Shattrath). I also downloaded FireFox, TeamSpeak and Ventrilo, and I need to remember my TS login which has been saved in my old computer for so long I’ve forgotten it. Next is to download and install Steam and re-install all the various games my old computer couldn’t handle well, like Half Life II.

There was just this one small problem: When I first got Vista running, I was playing WoW on my existing machine, so I tried doing something that would be very passive. I just started downloading the WoW 2.0-2.4 patch. At one point I decided to play a bit while that was going, so I started another program and it BSODed. I lost half of my download, which sucked, but even more so it planted the seed of doubt that everything may not be hunky-dory. This was, however, before I ran Windows Update, so hopefully it was just a matter of it being not fully patched. The BSOD didn’t linger, so I couldn’t read what it said, and Vista’s error reporting tool didn’t provide much other information other than some other (maybe) unrelated issues with the VGA adapter’s driver not being installed.

I looked in the BIOS again to see if there was something I missed, but it’s all newfangled mumbo jumbo to me that’s all set to auto detect and looks like the sort of stuff that I’d cause more harm than anything if I messed with it.

A blood sacrifice has been made.

On Monday, I got the case for my new computer in the mail, which sat in the box unopened until yesterday, when I got the parts that go into it in the mail as well. Aside from a Karazhan quick-clear which I sort of had to go on because I’m one of only a few people in my guild who’s still specced for healing, I spent the evening putting the pieces together. Very early on in the process, I gave my finger a good gash on the case, providing the blood sacrifice to the computer assembly gods, and hopefully appeasing them.

I’d also like to take this moment to express how completely different the inside of my new computer looks compared to every other computer I’ve assembled in the past. This is the first time I’ve dealt with SATA, PCI-X, Core Duo sockets, and the really neat silicone-mounted sliding drive bays that the case offered. I just hope I managed to get the CPU heat sink attached properly, I had problems getting all four of the snaps in place, and the manual that came with it was unfortunately not in English… or any other language for that matter. It was just a series of illustrations that was not as useful as I’m sure Intel’s tech writing and legal departments assumed it would be.

I am very glad I bought a new case and didn’t try using an old one.

Oops.

So in preparation for this trip, I packed over the course a few hours so I wouldn’t forget anything. I decided to take the Wii with me, so I remembered all the games in a cd case, the console, the sensor bar, the AV cable and the power cable.

About 200 miles from both my home and my destination I realized I forgot the controllers.

Well it’s about friggin’ time

I think it’s time for me to get a new computer. I’ve been trying to prop up my current one with more memory and a better video card, but since it’s a small form factor Shuttle, I’m limited to what I can do. And they don’t really make AGP video cards anymore. (Yes, AGP. It’s been that long.)

I’m going to probably go off of the Grand Experiment from Tech Report’s current system guide. I’m not too keen on Radeon cards, so I’ll probably go for an nVidia. And I don’t need a quad core CPU. The real sticky point for me is the OS, because the latest version of Windows I have is Windows 2000. Yes, I’m still using an 8 year old version of the operating system and it’s served me well so far.

At least until Blizzard announced today that Wrath of the Lich King won’t support it.

I’ll actually have to pay retail for Vista Home Premium, because I’m scared to get the OEM and being stuck with the x64 version. Maybe I can poke one of the people I know at Microsoft for a discount…

One of the more complicated upcoming weeks

Due to a very odd set of coincidences, I will be spending the next week down in Southern California.

Wednesday is driving day, but I won’t make it home in time before sundown, when Yom Kippur starts.
Thursday is Yom Kippur, with services and break the fast with my family.
Friday I have a meeting I have to dial in to for work, and may end up having to do actual work as well. That night I have a planned dinner as well.
Saturday. DISNEYLAND! First time I’ve been in um… 12 years? At least since before California Adventure was even being built.
Sunday is a free day!
Monday and Tuesday I get to work out of the Yahoo! Burbank office, because there are day long meetings regarding redesigns of one of the pages I worked on. We had to send two of our engineers down to attend, and since I was already going to be down there, I volunteered.
Wednesday I drive back again. Or possibly Tuesday night after work, since Burbank is like 45 minutes in the right direction for that anyway.

VP Debate

Three things:

– Both candidates have actually been pretty good about answering the questions asked to them.
– The only “body blow” level rebuttal sadly goes to Palin when she totally flummoxed Biden on the General’s strategy in Iraq comment.
– You keep saying McCain is a Maverick. We get it.