Real Life

Stupid computers

stargrace January 22, 2007 1 Comment

As happens with computers it seems, once you buy one new piece, the rest falls apart. So, after buying the new monitor I now sport, my drive has decided to stop working on me. How nice. 3 random reboots and 5 crashes later, a disk scan and a defrag and virus scan and a whole lot of other tests to see what was the issue, Shadowgeist determined that it was indeed the drive while I pouted and stomped my foot.

Granted, the drive was almost 5 years old, and I do use my computer quite heavily every day, but still it’s disheartening. Especially knowing I’ll get to re-install everything that was on it. Including WoW and EQ2 and all their patches and expansions and adventure packs. Ew.

So I’m on the 2nd computer for now. Which of course is not nearly as nice as mine (ok it is just as nice, but I miss my keyboard and my computer chair and my UI on games and all the rest already) to update my blog. I miss the off line blog updater I was using too. Just little inconveniences.  No wonder I hate computers.

So if there’s a lack of posts (there shouldn’t be, I imagin it’ll be fixed late tonight or early tomorrow) well, at least know that I’m blogging in mind!

The diferances between girls and boys (or, girls rule and boyz drool!)

stargrace January 17, 2007 3 Comments

 

 

My computer desk, note the kitty cat desktop!

So, I was looking at the two computer desks in my livingroom. I live on the 11th floor of an apartment building, so there’s really only two choices, put them in the bedroom, or have them in a corner in the livingroom. Taking a look at my desk, well, it’s not the neatest of desks, there’s a bottle of multi-vitamin there, cute teddy bears, some pictures along the top, a candle and pens and pencils in a glass. the ever-present water glass.

Shadowgeist’ desk, just missing the pop cans

Note the WoW desktop (though he plays EQ2 mostly) keys, wallet, cell phone, house phone, boxes of kleenex… nothing as personal or soft as my desk. I have the biggest desk, but he has the brand new monitor (which makes me drool, I’ll admit). So it’s only safe to assume that when it comes to gaming habbits, there are differences. In play style, in attitude, and countless other things. There are times when I tend to be a little more… bloodthirsty, and times when I’m content to sit back and just heal. It’s finding a balance between the gaming styles that makes things work (or not work, as the case may be). Unlike a lot of couples who play MMO’s, we typically don’t play together at all. We’re in the same guild for the first time in five years, I want to craft, quest, and explore, he wants to squish things. I squish too, but at a more.. lady like pace.

Anyhow, I just wanted to point out some differences in play style. A small break from the every day MMO comments I post here. I’m heading out to see if there’s any copies of TBC left in Ottawa, I bet $5 there are none, Best Buy’s online merchandise check thing says they’re sold out, Future Shop claims to have some left, so we’ll see!

Eek! I’ve Been Tagged! Five Things About Me

stargrace January 4, 2007 3 Comments

Thanks to Saylah I’ve been tagged to share “five things you didn’t know about me”… wow, a difficult list to come up with, particularly since I’m… boring? Yeah that’s the word I was looking for, it nails me dead on.

1. Lived in Germany for 5 years – That’s right, I was a military brat (as the term goes) for the better portion of my childhood. I lived in Germany on the Canadian military base for five years, from when I was 7-12. I was there for the fall of the Berlin wall, and the gulf war (which was scarey). I miss portions of it, like the castles. I don’t miss moving around though.

2. Am a lefty – And the only one in my entire family and extended family except for my great grandmother who passed away, and my younger brother (who of course takes after me in some ways, artistically and the fact that we both hate to wear socks).

3. Favorite artist is Salvador Dali – I love his work. I have a calendar of it hanging close to my desk, and could spend hours lost in his work. If you’re familiar with any of it, you probably think it’s pretty messed up stuff. Maybe it is, but that’s just a portion of the charm!

4. Won an award in highschool for a class I never took – Hah, talk about luck of the draw. I took photography (which I adored) in high school, and took the grade 11 course for it. When graduation rolled around and awards were being handed out, they called my name for the grade 12 course that I had never taken (it was on-going while I had co-op and was teaching grade 12 art at the time). Imagine my surprise! My photography teacher whispered to me “I know you didn’t take the class, but you were most deserving of it”, as I was handed a huge trophy and a plaque. I guess the grade 11 class wasn’t an option for graduation rewards.

5. Dj’d for the sims online – When the sims online first came out, I was hooked (it grew boring fast though). I started Dj’ing for players on an online radio station for a few hours every day using a program called Sam2, it was awsome, I had an incredible time doing it, playing and talking to the listeners, I went by the name Lisa Love, and had anywhere from 100-500 listeners at any one time. I only did it for a month or two, but the experience of it I won’t soon forget.

 

Now that I’ve done my 5, I’m tagging Mrrx, and Wilhelm2451 Have fun ;)

The G15 Logitech Keyboard

stargrace December 27, 2006 No Comments

Santa was good to me this year, what a busy holiday. I’m safe and sound back snug in my home, with visions of… keyboards? Dancing in my head. One of my presents this year was the G15 gaming keyboard, by logitech. Which is pretty spiffy. Except. EQ2 doesn’t support it what so ever. It’s got an lcd screen, which can display various ‘things’, if any were supported. It’s also got programmable buttons.. for macro’s.. again, if any were supported.

Wait, that’s not exactly true. You CAN use them for macros – if – they use one of the three hotbars you have that come with key commands already. Ie: Those alt 1 alt 2 control 1 control 2 keys. But no more then those three. See, unlike WoW, where you can bind every single hotkey to your own personal command, EQ2 doesn’t give you that option. I know, the g15 has been discussed up one side and down the other, if it’s breaking user / game agreements, if it’s ‘cheating’, blah blah blah. But it’s just a gadget, much like any other gadget out there.

 I did find a use for it in eq2 though. Oh yes. My parse program, ACT, supports the g15 keyboard. And it will also time aoe’s for you. So on those icky raids where the mobs are tossing out aoe’s every 45 seconds or 30 seconds, it will tell you when they’re about to hit. Giving you time to back out of the way, if you’re in any way squishy, which I typically am. The keys also light up, nice for those dark nights. WoW is supported, and so is Vanguard even though the game isn’t even out yet.

I went and poked around looking for responces to why sony hadn’t added any sort of lcd support, and their response was basically that they figured the g15 was not used by enough people to bother with it. Glad to see their customers are so important. I know a good deal of people who use these keyboards, that’s the whole reason I even heard about them or have one.

It’s a fancy way to turn the pages of your hotkeys if you want, instead of hitting shift # to turn them you can bind it to a gkey, but other then that…again, there are good sides and bad sides to every argument. People are still bickering about how the paint used to come off the keys (which has since been fixed, and no longer presents an issue). It seems a little more complicated then I would have liked, I have a hard enough time learning computer stuff as is, but oh well.

One huge thing I like about the new keyboard vs. my old one, is that if I’m listening to music on winamp (since eq2 does not have an in game music player, unlike eq1.. which I miss) I can pause / change the song / start / skip etc. in game, as opposed to having to tab out to the music program I was using. Another huge bonus.