An update? In MY blog?!

It's more likely than you think, but sadly, there is no free scan.

For those of you that didn't get that joke, welcome to the internet, where the porn is free but the coffee is pretty crap.

So I figured it was probably about time for my bi-annual blog update, which will no doubt cause another financial crisis, flood hapless American cities, incite the Russians to declare war on everyone and ramp up global warming so much that the Earth farts its way into the Sun with a most unsatisfactory 'pfarp'.

Before all that, though, I'll update my rapt audience with the happenings of the past few months. I'm still volunteering at ReBOOT, doing my bit in Workshop 3, where I have firmly nested. Myself and my friend / co-worker PiLoT have accosted a corner of the warehouse and made it our own, complete with tidied and organised boxes full of things. Truly wondrous.

Which of course means that I'm still gainfully unemployed. But the truth is that I can't think of anywhere I'd rather work than ReBOOT. It's also possible that there might be a government scheme where I could get paid a "wage" of sorts for 6 months; a lengthier placement, basically. I don't know all the details, but my fingers are firmly crossed.

Gaming-wise, I've been spoilt for choice. My recent purchases / pre-orders include the new Professor Layton, Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, Scribblenauts and Aion: Tower of Eternity. The latter of these is a new MMO - while I've not stopped playing WoW, it's a strong competitor for my time. A lot of people don't seem to like it, since WoW has pretty much set the standard for levels of grind and pandering to the masses, but it's definitely a lot better than anything before or since. Except for WoW at its best, of course.

I could talk quite a bit about Aion, but I won't, since I want to keep this entry relatively short. Continuing with games, I believe I am fated to pay the stupid amount of £45 for Modern Warfare 2. Call of Duty 4 is quite assuredly the best first person shooter I've ever played, so a sequel can only be a good thing. I saw the demo earlier this year when Microsoft showed a demo of the ice-cliff climbing / snow mobile escape mission. Sort of set in stone from then on.

I've also pre-ordered the new Star Trek movie on DVD, complete with prequel magazine. It's due out in November, so still a little while to go, but I'm waiting with baited breath.

On the TV side of things, PiLoT has been both a blessing and a curse. He has introduced me to both LOST and Dexter. The former, I am coming to rather late, I realise, but that doesn't make it any less awesome. The latter, I have only just finished the first season of, and it is also awesome. Very refreshing to hear proper, full-on swearing in a US TV series. On a lesser note, he also made me aware of The Big Bang Theory (which I gave as much attention as anything else on Paramount Comedy) and FlashForward (which has just started, and is shaping up to be cool).

I've also been keeping up with my usuals; House, Heroes, CSI: Miami and CSI: New York. It's gotten to the point of me having too many shows to keep track of off the top of my head. A bookmark system has been set up, for great justice.

I'm not entirely sure if this is the first blog since my computer decided to take a nosedive... I think it must be, since Dante hadn't gone to Honduras the last time I posted.

So yeah, my Alienware decided to stop working. I think it was something to do with a registry fixing program going a bit haywire. Booting up would only occur under the rarest of circumstances; Safe Mode wouldn't function, but hitting space bar when booting up "normally" would let you see the standard explorer shell. Of course, complex tasks like dragging and dropping, copying and pasting, plugging in a USB stick or burning a CD/DVD were completely out of the question. I found out I could copy files under a command prompt, but only one at a time, and then only to the same hard drive.

I bought a new 500GB Hitachi Deskstar after I stopped wailing and fretting like a little girl, installed it, put XP back on, slaved my old drive, then made the horrible, horrible mistake of turning it off for the night. Idiot that I am, I neglected to remove my other hard drives before installing the fresh XP, so the system partition was called F:. I didn't think this would be a problem, until I tried to turn the PC on again, and it looked for Windows on C:, which was my 80GB storage drive. Another fresh install, after disconnecting some troublesome cables, solved the issue.

Oh, and before I forget, I may be in eternal debt to Dante for introducing me to The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. They top even the Song of Ice and Fire series in my list of favourite books. Read them. Yes, this means you, Ravus.

And here I was saying that I wanted to keep this short. Ah well, an interesting read for some, I'm sure. Now assume the position, the apocalypse is surely just around the corner. Worry not, sinners, for hell is also frozen.

Determination

I am of the firm belief that I can do just about anything, should I decide to devote enough attention to it. It requires a healthy dash of me being interested in doing it in the first place, coupled with more than a touch of perseverance. In the case of this blog, I'm most certainly interested. The fact that I keep coming back to it shows that I'm determined. It's just that I so often forget about it, in favour of doing something a lot more interesting at the time. Like gaming.

So nothing has really happened over the last few weeks - still going to ReBOOT more or less constantly, though I did take some time off on Friday last week. All that would have happened is cleaning, and it had been a tiring week. Lots of lifting and wrapping and whatnot. This week is shaping up to be quite busy as well - got a large shipment of equipment to be recycled / refurbished, and we're spending all of tomorrow working on it. Or, at least, some of us will be. I may be drafted into building three identical PCs for a training group in Inverness.

I've slacked off on creating a list of all of my games, though I do have all of the PlayStation ones input. Again, it's something I'll get around to for a certainty; if there's anything I love more than gaming, it's making lists / filling in details. You'd never think it, what with my hatred for all things database related (MS Access, hisssss), but I've always been like that. I assume my room would really piss me off if I actually wanted it structured in the same way, but when it comes to the point that I'm buying games that I already own, it's definitely time to start taking notes. Next up is the PS2 collection, and I dread to think how many I've not completed... hell, never mind that, how many I've never even played.

On the brighter side of things, I've started Final Fantasy XII... again. This must be the third or fourth time now. Each previous attempt has resulted in boredeom with the plot (which is pretty tame, to say the least) or the battle system (which is basically a direct port of Vagrant Story). Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure Vagrant Story is even in the same world as Final Fantasy XII...

*Checks*

It is as well! Ivalice gets everywhere - FF Tactics, FF XII, Vagrant Story... makes you wonder if the designers are getting a bit tired of making new worlds. I hear the fjords are particularly tricky.

WoW is coming along nicely - my Druid has some semi-decent healing gear, my Hunter is progressing through Northrend (albeit painfully slowly, much to the despair of my levelling partner), my other Druid is sitting pretty at 58, waiting for the aforementioned levelling partner to run through Scholomance once or twice before I rape Outland. Aside from that, my various other alts haven't budged more than a level or two. Always trying to strike a balance between the games and other pursuits.

Speaking of which, I trudged my way to the end of the Dune "sequels". I now fully agree with the majority of Dune fans in saying that Brian and Kevin have ruined the new novels - they are badly written and replete with plot holes, conveniences and petty storylines. Please, stop making them, or at least hook up a dynamo to Frank's grave so we can use the perpetual rotation as a green source of energy.

I moved from Dune to Pratchett, namely "Nation". Boy, does that start out depressing. Not in a "this is no good" way, but in a "calamity and woe" way. It's all very dark when compared to his other work, but the hilarity stands out all the more for it. A fantastic read - I'm glad I got around to it. Yes, I had a backlog of books as well, argh. Pretty sure it's gone, now. I dread to look in my cupboard, just in case any more jump out at me, demanding to be read. For now, I think I'll go back to one of my favourite trilogies - one that is barely even known: The Sea King Trilogy (Madbond, Mindbond, Godbond). Written in the first person, don't you know.

Another extensive blog! Brought to you by the power of Ye Olde Packarde Belle Keyboarde.

Another Keyboard

So I’ve gone one step further in my search for the perfect keyboard typing experience, and my travels have taken me back in time.  It occurs to me that the best part of my typing (the majority, if not the best quality) has always taken place on keyboards that are “clicky”.  Yes, that’s a technical term.  My laptop keyboard is like this to a degree, but not to the extent that I would like.

At work, I’ve come across one of the best keyboards in the entire world – it’s attached to a Dell Inspiron 8000 Laptop, however, so it’s not a viable addition or extension to my own laptop or PC.  But it did put me in mind of another keyboard that felt strikingly similar, if not identical – my old, old Packard Bell PS/2 keyboard.  It’s been sitting in the cupboard for years, ever since we gave away our old 100MHz Packard Bell machine (huge 1.14GB HDD, massive 32MB RAM).

Now, I’m not suggesting for a second that it’s a better keyboard than my shiny Logitech G15, but it’s certainly much nicer for typing.  The G15 is a gaming keyboard, and the keys are designed to be softer and more responsive.  When I’m typing, I take a certain amount of pleasure from having to hit the keys properly (another technical term that makes perfect sense).  To that end, I decided to take it out of the cupboard and put it to good use.

My quest to type more was cut short when I saw that little purple PS/2 connector – my laptop (like most others) does not possess a PS/2 connection.  Of course, there are billions of USB to PS/2 converters in the world, but the reverse of this is not so common.  Amazon soon sorted this dilemma, and I’m now the proud owner of a Belkin PS/2 to USB converter.  Spent around £5 for it, and while there were cheaper options, they all had complaints about keys not working, or the converter not working full stop.

The end result is one I’m very happy with – I’m typing from my new, old keyboard right now, and I can already sense that this is the solution.  Whole streams of thought are becoming easier to put to screen, with my fingers reporting their satisfaction at being connected to an adequate peripheral.

Now if I can just get some of the myriad ideas I have floating around in my head to stay put for long enough, perhaps I can being writing properly again.

Silly Reasons

Once again, I find myself updating my blog for no other reason than I like typing on this laptop.  Similarly, I’m using Windows Live Writer, for no better an excuse than it’s shiny.  Of course, this means that any attempt to change the font from the default results in horrible, horrible failure, usually followed by the deletion of 90% of what I’ve just typed.  So I’ve decided to make it a distinguishing feature – I’ll be able to tell which posts I did from my laptop as opposed to my PC.  Suck that, formatting.

You won’t be surprised to find out that nothing much happened in the last 24 hours.  My last day of placement at ReBOOT went pretty well, with lots of cleaning.  A customer who got a new PC from us came back in because the graphics card was causing it to crash – likely a power issue, but since it wasn’t an ATX PSU (and the only replacement we had that could pump out more wattage was borked), we had to pop a smaller card in.  The chronic lack of PCI cards meant that we ended up replacing a 512MB card with a 128MB one, but the guy got a refund.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to bring one of my old 6600GT’s in to replace it.

Looking forward again, I’ve started what must be my four billionth alt on WoW, and will probably spend a decent amount of my weekend on levelling him.  Will try playing silly buggers in the Barrens this time around, since they put a ton of new graveyards in the place.  I’ll be making a start on the list of games that need playing – might expand it a little to encompass all of my games.  Having a catalogue will only serve to prove how much of a gaming geek I really am, but I’m OK with that.

Filled in my Volunteer Application Form for ReBOOT earlier today as well, which means that I’m now free to show up at work whenever I like… within reason.  To be honest, I’ll probably end up spending quite a bit of my time there, since I do have a lot of fun.  Plus, I actually feel needed and valued, which is a first for any job.  Just a damned pity that I don’t get paid for it.

Speaking of money, I’ll have to remember to visit the Job Centre soon, to get my arse back on the dole.  Apparently, the government is all too happy to cut off my cash, glibly assuming that I must have found work now that my placement is over.  Make a point of going there this weekend if it’s open, and Monday afternoon if not.

Hell, might as well update my Twitter while I’m here.  More to follow.

Two Thousand and Nine

So updates.

Not posted here for a good long while now, so I figured I'd update things a little, more for my own sake than anything else. My memory is becoming more and more sieve-like as time goes on, so it's probably best that I try to document things as much as possible.

Still unemployed, as most people will already know. Went on a two-week course with a place called Support Training in Elgin last year, was alright. Started a placement via the Job Centre at ReBOOT back in November: tomorrow (i.e. today) is my last day, but I intend to keep volunteering. The place is a lot of fun, and I get to spend time doing what I like most - tinkering about with computers, fixing computer-based problems and helping people. That's right, Vertex didn't totally destroy my affinity for customer service.

Of course, I'm still playing WoW and loads of other games. I've got such a backlog right now it's not even funny. I know for a fact that I have at least 6 games sitting on my shelf that haven't even got the wrappers off yet, and countless others that have been partly played, but not completed. Constructing some sort of list / timetable for working through them is on the agenda. Tried, liked, but stopped playing WAR - what was a good game just wasn't as good as WoW, and I couldn't really afford to finance two MMO's.

Keeping up on the best of U.S. television as well - pretty sure I was watching Heroes since the last blog post, and definitely Scrubs, but I've also taken rather well to House and CSI (particularly NY). Not watching Mythbusters as much as I used to, mainly because I don't watch Sky that much anymore - Freeview has just about all I need in terms of TV.

Aside from the aforementioned... nothing's really changed in the last nine or ten months, which suits me just fine. Looking forwards, I have sent a few emails to Moray College to check when courses are starting for Computing, and what funding I'd be entitled to - they tell me to come see them in April or so and then apply. In the meantime, I'll keep gaming, searching for a job and making vague promises regarding attempts to update this blog regularly.