Dad: [enters my room unexpectedly and takes a seat on my bed]
Me: Did you get dinner? (I had been reminding him about this throughout the evening)
Dad: ...
Me: ...
Dad: Grandma's gone.
Me: ...
Dad: ...

My plans for starting this semester have been officially uprooted. Dad will arrange flight plans for us in the morning (the airline will no doubt make us jump though SO many hoops) and we will return to Florida this weekend for the funeral and associated... events. As of last week, I thought this day would be still weeks away, but as news of grandma's condition passed between my parents, those weeks became one week, then mere days. And now.... it's over. That is to say, this is the beginning of the end.

Sorry about the virtual silence over the last two weeks. I've been in Florida, visiting family.

Family is... very tough to deal with right now.  Mom is still in Florida, looking after her mom until... until her time comes. Keeping everyone comfortable and emotionally stable (particularly in looking after her younger sister) is very time consuming, and a considerable strain on her own psyche. That's all I'm willing to say on the matter for the time being.

There have been happier times, but the main events that have transpired have nulled all my desires to write about them. Most of them relate to games, both small and large. I'll get to it shortly, I suppose.

Smile, though your heart is aching. Smile, even though it's breaking...

It's been a very long two days, but it was totally worth it. ( Read more... )

It seems I got a little mixed up. The final exam I though was yesterday is actually tomorrow. I had the right time and place, just the wrong day. No big deal, as I had already done my presentation, and would only be there to view and comment on other student presentations.

Later that day is a straight-up multiple choice test for Media Relations, then... I'm free.
No more projects, no papers, no makeup work. Nice to finish on top of things for once.

That awkward, final stage of maturity that your parents never tell you about when you find yourself too old to be childish and still too young in the mind to resign yourself to the drudgery of responsible adulthood - which, mysteriously, doesn't automatically come gift-wrapped with legal age...

Is there a word for that? There really ought to be, because that's how I've been feeling for... the better part of this year, really.

My laptop has been getting somewhat unstable lately. It's probably related to the sharp spike in the number of hours I use it per day. I've basically phased my desktop out completely, though I may get back into it after I get an external hard drive.

Until today, I've noticed my RAM usage holds steady at 30% with no active programs. If I open a small program (that is, most anything I have) the difference is negligible. If I start running a major game (Think muhmorpurger) it goes to around 50%. The kicker is starting Firefox. Then it jumps to 60% and gadually slows everything else down the longer it runs. Upon looking at the process in task manager, it somehow takes up 80MB of ram, then steadily climbs. I saw it peak at almost 400MB at one point, which was simply absurd. This is known as a 'memory leak' and plenty of users of Firefox 3.0 and newer have been complaining about it. This might only be affecting me, but Firefox doesn't even close properly - the only way to get my RAM back is to stop the process directly from Task Manager.

I tried tackling this the other day by delving into the configuration options within the browser and reducing the maximum storage space for the cache. Didn't seem to hrlp much. A bit more research brought up a nifty add-on called AFOM. I don't know what it stands for, but it worked instantly - the memory is refreshed (something like that, it's a lot of technobabble) every half-minute, so now it doesn't get the chance to rise above 40MB. If I had figured this out yesterday, everything would be fine and dandy. As it stands, FireFox adds no slowdown while my idling RAM usage is 50 percent!

To counter this, I've been trimming startup processes and removing a few old or never-used programs. There's a noticable drop in boot time which is nice, but Physical Memory holds steady at 52 percent.

There's a lot of low-end online games out there that offer premium items with a unique kind of virtual currency. The kind that takes real-world money to obtain, just like tokens from brick-and-mortar arcades. The most common way of getting around having to reach into your own pocket is accepting offers from various third-party websites. They have many names, and they are no doubt a dime a dozen. Some of them only ask for your email address before promising to plunk down a bit of dough for this virtual currency on your behalf.

But what are you really offering in return?
( More than you think... )

With the help of a roommate and a cousin, I got across the state in time to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner. After tomorrow's get-together, I'll hunker down and shop for a car. Dad has helped my out a bit with checking out dealers, but considering the minimal amount of cash I possess beyond the insurance reimbursement, I'd really rather go the lowball route. If I'm lucky, I can find a decent ratio of price to total mileage, which seems to be dad's end-all-be-all factor in determining a vehicle's longevity. This philosophy seems to completely ignore the fact that he's owned his Ford Explorer since it had 30k miles, and it still runs smooth at 150k miles. By his logic, if anyone else owned that car by this point, they wouldn't consider paying for repairs worthwhile. We get into disputes over logic quite often.

In other news, my free time is currently divided between two mumorpurgers. In one, the gameplay is fun but the community is frustrating. In the other, the community is fun, but the gameplay is frustrating. Imagine that!

I woke up bright and early yesterday morning, eager to be productive. Just after taking care of a couple "pleasure reading" Firefox tabs left open from yesterday.

Ugh... it really sucks not having a car. I was looking into one earlier, a 1995 black Ford Explorer for $2000, offered by a trusted friend of my boss. Unfortunately, he sold it to someone else before I had the chance to make a follow-up call. It's just as well - I was not yet sure how much money the insurance company would give us, nor how soon my parents could transfer the money to my checking account.

Now I know I have $6800 to work with. This is more than I expected. While it's less than the value of the car when I purchased it, it's more than the combined amount I've paid in insurance since the purchase. I can pick up an ancient yet reliable clunker and have enough left over for a new PC. I hear copies of Windows 7 are just $30 for anyone with a .edu email address.

However... Dad wants to make sure I know that if I am to purchase a car by myself, as in the title is transferred directly to me, I would also be responsible for my own insurance policy, which would likely be up to three times as what I've been paying up until now, due to my age and relative track record. That much makes sense to me, but my current income level means I wouldn't be able to afford said insurance for long.

But here's something I didn't bring up, and that Dad probably didn't even consider. Insurance is optional. Think about it. If I buy a highly-used but dependable vehicle from a local individual for a couple thousand bucks, after a year and a half I'd have paid more than the value of the car in insurance. And since payouts are capped at the value of the car prior to any major incident... see where I'm going with this? I doubt my parents would. They've been wrapped up in the insurance safety net so long they see it as just another bill.

I'm in a tight spot. I was just on my merry way back to campus (west on I-95 past Lansing), when I slammed into a deer at 75 miles per hour. I was uninjured, but my hood was dented considerably. I kept thinking, "should I stop? Where should I pull over?" Fortunately I saw a rest area sign and managed to pull over within five minutes of impact. Darn good thing too, as it turns out the impact punctured my radiator, which led to quick overheating, which could have resulted in further damage to the motor, or worse.

I called Emergency and explained the situation. The dispatcher sent in an officer, who called for a tow truck after filling out a crash report. Meanwhile I tried to laugh off how utterly shaken I was (delayed shock and all) in the lobby of the rest area. The woman offered to stay with me until my parents came to pick me up, bless her heart. To pass the time, she called her family and retold the tale of the accident to passers-by.

Now I'm sitting in the lobby of the Best Western hotel in Portland, along with the primary witness (she says the deer would have hit her car if I wasn't in the left lane) and the hotel lobby attendant. She's done so much for me - primarily because she has a son just my age. Praise science evolution for maternal instincts! My insurance should cover everything, and may even supply a rental car... not like I need one to get between my townhouse and campus. In about an hour my parents will arrive to pick me up and bring me to campus. If for whatever reason they couldn't have made it here (like if this happened closer to midnight) I could have called my cousin who currently goes to MSU to rescue me, or possibly call D and wait for her to pick me up on her way back from Youmacon. It's always good to have a backup plan, but it's even better to be alive.

I'm getting tired of staying up until stupid o' clock in the morning hammering out papers I could have worked on earlier in the evening.

I'm feeling much better physically these days, but I'm risking a relapse. I just know it. There's no stopping it, really.

I've started playing NetHack in my free time again. Very difficult but very fun, seeing all the ways you can die and eventually survive. It's incredibly unlikely, though. Eventually the game just starts throwing an endless stream of monsters at you which inevitably throws off your ratio of character strength to character preparedness. What I mean is that your gear is WAY more important than your stats, even if you don't know what all of it even does... unless it's cursed.

I'm looking into playing an online version... while stumbling upon the graves (and therefore massive loot) left behind by my previous heroic incarnations is a nifty boost toward victory, I'd like to mix it up a little... and by a little I mean a lot.

OH HOLY NIGHT am I exhausted. My desktop wound up in an infinite restart loop earlier today, and I just got it repaired. What follows is a walkthrough of how I fixed it (minus the parts that were effectively useless) so that anyone else caught in this Windows Automatic Update glitch can avoid despair. This method is not as refined as one found here, but it is potentially faster and essentially allows you to create your own Windows boot disc if you have none. All you need is a blank CD or USB drive (or one you are willing to format), 7-Zip or WinRAR, and room to download two freeware programs.

( Here we go! )

I'm so glad mine is fixed now, and I hope this solution works for you as well!

Since I got accepted to Closed Beta Testing and had a rollicking good time trying out this brand-spanking new game (new to Americans, at least) I might as well give thanks by giving a comprehensive review. It's only fair that other gamers get every possible opportunity to know just what they're getting into, right? Let's begin.

( Really freaking long! )

That covers all the bases, I think. Not quite as professional as those published gaming magazines, but would fit in nicely among the reviews at Jay Is Games. Closed Beta Testing ends on the 14th, and Open Beta will start some indetermine period of time afterwards, probably a couple Thursdays from now.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH This freaking cold will just not go away! The lump in my throat is gone, but now there's a lot of head congestion - not enough to mess with my brain focus but pretty much ANY physical activity amps up my mucus production considerably, regardless of whatever medicine I'm on to cover up the symptoms.

So here I am, wallowing in self-pity because I can't really DO anything, nor can I motivate myself to do anything creative that would take minimal physical energy, such as writing a short story to possibly be converted into a screenplay, or updating my comic of all things, or hammering out some code for the sake of either my job or my internship... heck, even a simple "howdy-do" email to my extended family would probably have a superb risk-return ratio.

The worst isn't over. Due to these circumstances... illness this week, rainstorms of biblical proportions last week, and a cushy desk job the week before that... I'm facing a return of the dreaded pylonidal abcess. It already hurts to sit down. I can't get it fixed up until Monday. I have plenty of antibiotics, but they won't do me much good, nor will doubling my showering rate.
BOB SAGET!!

I've spotted kuri_taichou a couple times while walking by the LGBT center... I've thought about going in or even just calling out a greeting from the doorway, but I'm pretty sure I can't cross that barrier without my sexual identity being questioned. Maybe if they opened the center up to include more of modern society's acceptable targets. Then it would sound like the LGBTFMQQZ Center or whatever.

(Lesbian-Gay-Bi-Trans-Furry-Metro-Emo-Zombie)

Called in sick to work today as both my computer and I don't feel very well, and I 'm not sure how long it will take to get both of us fixed up. Here's the story... Earlier today I was randomly browsing through Google in hopes of finding a method to bring my four-year-old desktop back up to speed. The longer I have my machine on, the slower everything runs. Not just loading - it struggles to move, resize and tab between windows, internet and otherwise.

I found some advice on removing unnecessary startup processes and the power of defragmenting while in safe mode, but suddenly I noticed my search results shunting me to some OTHER search engine who-knows-where. I tried a system restore to two days ago and it helped by giving me the proper links in right-clicking, while left-clicking remained unreliable. I have a guess at which webpage is the culprit, but seeing as I've already cleaned my history, cache and cookies, that's all water under the bridge.

I've gone through a deep cleaning of my hard drive, installing a few new trustworthy programs, and getting some minor glitches out of the system. The search-engine hijacking issue still remains, and while it seems relatively minor, there's a chance it could be some kind of "gateway bug" that could open up bigger security holes, given the right opportunity. My case is nearly identical to dozens threads outlined on two different forums, one of which I've posted my logs to in hopes of getting help within a reasonable time frame (read: as soon as freakin' possible). Forums devoted to free tech support - imagine that! Kind of a bummer (not gonna say ironic) and I wind up bogging down my computer further while seeking out ways to streamline its processing.

As for my biological ills, there's a very persistent lump of phlegm in my throat. I borrowed a bottle of Robotussin from D, and that seems to help, but I gotta get to a pharmacy and restock my own medicine cabinet with Vicks Vaporub and other stuff specific to handling cold and sinus bugs.

A couple more weird dreams lately.

The first was a smorgasboard of activity, starting out like one of those animated Spy Vs. Spy cartoons (not TF2, I mean MAD Magazine) where I was White, driving a big long car through a dense costal city (California style) trying to find Black who was last seen driving in a similar car along the beach. It then segued to a LOT of stuff I don't quite recall. I only remember that it was a lot. Then I wound up in the role of Alex, the gamemaster from Captain SNES. He was trying to apologize to his girlfriend of sorts. I was helping out, probably by invisibly selecting his dialogue options. Everything seemed to be going well, until the girl suddenly sprouted five extra heads, all the same and supported on long skinny necks, like a hydra.

The second took place in a... semi-distopian future. There were no major catastrophies decimating Earth's population... everything just decayed. The climate became very harsh, all forests giving way to plains or deserts. It was made clear I was no longer myself, but specific identity of the other was not clear. I was supporting my mother and possibly another female. Our living space was very small, and one wall was dominated by a huge piece of machinery with several number displays, like a giant calculator. They were all dollar amounts, and they reresented how huch we intended to spend with what little we had. I realized something important (either health care or food) had nothing allocated to it, so I deposited some pocket money into the machine and tried raising the readout by $50. I then looked on in horror as several other groups began zeroing out to compensate for the move, in ascending order of priority. That's how impoverished we were.

ME: Oh there you are
ME: Thanks for accepting my buddy request
EK: Who is this
ME: I was present in your room last week
EK: wow dude it waz a prank
ME: Not likely. Too many witnesses
ME: Or should I say, couldn't have put THAT many liars together at once
EK: lol
ME: In other words, I don't trust you enough to believe that you lied. How's that for a head trip?
ME: So... [names of the four players gifted] were just PRETENDING to crap their pants with glee.
EK: ya
ME: Well, if that's your idea of a good time... it beats megaphone spam by a long shot
EK: lol srry
ME: Ah, I'm not mad or sad or anything
EK: you get astros?
Me: Naw. I'd give you a cookie but I can't afford one
ME: So I'll just say "well played"
EK: thanks
EK: happy pranking

It really was too good to be true. Still, it's a great alternative to scamming. OGP says it's best just to not trade, which is just stupid. It's their fault the gifting system in RF, when applied to trading, is essentially a hostage situation. You send out your gift, then pray you get gifted back. I lost a good number of carats to a couple smooth talkers, so I'm expected to be bitter about trading in general.