So I’m watching some damn thing on the intertubes the other day, right? And then I get a phone call, so I kink my headphones off of one ear so I can hear the answering machine lying for me — since hell if I can be bothered — and I notice something odd. There’s a noise coming from my computer that sounds like some cable or other has drifted into a fan. So I open it up and, hey, all the fans appear to be unobstructed.
So here’s my plan. I’ll start pulling components out and cleaning them, because, hey, they’re pretty dirty. So I take out the PSU, figuring that it’s probably the rear fan giving me issues, and then I discover that it probably actually isn’t the rear fan on account of apparently my PSU ain’t got a fan in that location. So, okay, the other fan. Doesn’t look obstructed. I can spin it around with my fingers. Hmm. So I successfully remember — on the first try! — how to rig an ATX PSU to power on without connecting it to an ATX motherboard, and I don’t even electrocute myself in the process. And, yeah, thing works fine. So it must be some other component.
So now, about an hour into this process, I decide it’s time to do what I should have done in the first place, and test all the fans to see which one is balky. My fan-testing method is what I always considered pretty much the standard fan test: stick a paintbrush into the fans one at a time and see which one makes the rattling noise go away. My wife found this endlessly amusing, though she was a bit unnerved by the huge overheating alarm that began sounding when I stopped the CPU fan. It took about six seconds to find the culprit: the video card.
A quick glance at the calendar confirmed my suspicions: Saturday 3 July.
Is there some sort of federal mandate that says all consumer electronics are required to fail at the beginning of holiday weekends? No sooner is it fourth of July weekend than my PS2 and my faithful, long-suffering GeForce 8800 GT — Alpha Dog Edition, muthafucka, which came with a free copy of some super-popular game that I can’t recall and never played because, hey, it didn’t come with a Steam copy, and who the fuck remembers how to install games off of DVDs anymore? Not me — both suddenly fail to proceed.
That’s the story of how I ended up with this: the GeForce 9800 GTX+. It’s an absolute wanker video card, running a bit over ten inches long and two slots tall. To give you a better idea of how ridiculously overlarge this video card is, I’ve prepared this image. The thing is so goddamn big it even came with a case badge that says "powered by EVGA," since I guess there’s really no reason to own a three-pound video card unless you’re gonna brag about it.
So I have the gigantic video card — which, even in my decidedly non-miniscule case just barely manages not to foul anything, and pushes right up against the drive cage. Also, I have a PSU with a clear fan lit with blue LEDs, but that wasn’t on purpose; the product listing billed it as like a serious rackmount server PSU, and apparently I didn’t click through the pictures to spot the one with the LEDs shouting "HAY RICERZ GET ME FOR UR PHAT SYSTEMZ." Is there any possible excuse for me not to go all-out and just get one of these?
July 8th, 2010
Posted by
Darien |
Bullshit |
2 comments
I am depressed. The Cubs are beyond awful, and the interwebs have pretty much completely given up on them. I’m seeing articles like this one all over the place that carry the same basic message: blow up the whole team and start over. That makes me sad, because, really, I don’t think the Cubs are that far out of contention, but I also don’t think there’s any other reasonable move. This is an old team by and large, and the players, they ain’t getting any better. Here, because everybody cares what I think, is what I think the Cubs should do.
• Don’t get rid of Aramis Ramirez. Ramirez is at his absolute low-value point right now. He’s not a free agent until after next season (because, come on, he’s going to pick up that $14M option), and he will not be worse last season than he’s been this season. In fact, it’s looking like he’s starting to pull back up — his OPS over the last 28 days is .790, which is a lot better than it’s been. Whatever it is, he’s getting over it. Somewhat.
• Don’t trade Derrek Lee unless somebody offers way too much. Derrek is also at a low-value point right now. What are you expecting to get for a .713 OPS 1B? You won’t get a goddamn thing is what. I’d hope he pulls up to class-A FA status (which is a random event based on fairy dust and rainbows and has nothing to do with anything), offer him arbitration, and see if I can’t turn him into draft picks. And if I can’t? Well, then I get one more slightly-cheaper season out of Derrek Lee as opposed to, what, Micah Hoffpauir? That’s still a win, really. And since he, like Ramirez, probably won’t be this bad next year also, he’s liable to bring more return.
• Trade pretty much anybody else you can, except for Randy Wells and Ryan Theriot. This is really the key here, I think. Randy looks bad this year, but his BABIP is astronomical, which probably indicates rotten luck on batted balls; his sophomore slump involves an ERA about a run and a half higher than his xFIP. Theriot always sucks, but he sucks more this year than he’s ever sucked in the past, and as before: quit selling low, schmucks.
Everybody else can bring you good value. If you’re really dead-set on blowing up and rebuilding — and after today, when the Cubs lost to the Pirates without actually allowing any earned runs, I can kind of understand why you would be — shift them all now before they slide down. Maybe you can package them all up and trade them to the Giants for their entire farm system and every draft pick they’ll get from now until 2016. Would anybody be surprised if Brian Sabean accepted that?
June 30th, 2010
Posted by
Darien |
Baseball, Bullshit |
no comments
Sure, this article is pretty much bullshit too — and rather badly written, at that. You notice how it professes to be a list of the "hardest" — explicitly the "hardest to defeat" — video game bosses of all time? And how it took them all the way to the second entry to shift the criteria away from "hardest" and toward "coolest?" And how the title definitely says "end" bosses and many of them are not? And how entry 11 is explicitly the Death from the NES Castlevania, accompanied by a wonderful screenshot from Symphony of the Night on the PSX? Yeah. Fuck that article.
That’s not what I came to talk to you about. I came to talk about the extreme contempt Square Enix has toward its players. Do you see this? Do you see this shit right there at the top, at number 1? This boss from Final Fantasy 11 that takes twenty-four hours to beat? And the interwebs suggest to me that it isn’t the only takes-an-entire-day boss in that idiotic game.
Now, I spent five years playing World of Warcraft, and I can tell you this: World of Warcraft has its share of awful encounters, but nothing even close to the sheer unstoppable tedium of a day-long fight. Only Square Enix could possibly think that was a good design decision. Remember, these are the same people who thought that shipping Final Fantasy 7 without finishing the graphics or actually making all the plot cutscenes was a good idea. And who thought that shipping Final Fantasy 8 without bothering to include a game anywhere on the four discs was a good idea.
I guess my point is: Dragon Quest 9 comes out in two weeks and better not have anything this goddamn lame in it, or there’ll be hell to pay.
June 30th, 2010
Posted by
Darien |
Bullshit, Games |
5 comments
The city I live in got dominated by a storm last night. I’ve not received word yet if it was a proper hurricane or just a really high-powered regular wind storm, but it apparently obliterated a pretty big chunk of western Massachusetts, with good ol’ Greenburg finding itself in the exact epicentre.
Thank god for all those emergency crews the state sent in. Except that they aren’t actually apparently doing any work; there’s no sign anywhere of anybody actually clearing out any downed trees or super-dangerous downed power lines dangling in the roads. Meanwhile, both of the city’s Dunkin Donutses are packed. Hmm.
Most of the area doesn’t have power, and may not for days, which is why I’m writing this instead of being at work. I clearly do have power, because I’m a big jerk.
May 27th, 2010
Posted by
Darien |
Bullshit |
no comments
Happy Everybody Draw Muhammed Day! Reason had a contest for the best Muhammed drawings, which I entered but did not win. You can check out the results and a whole long explanation of the purpose here. I’ve read a whole lot of words on the subject in the last few days; the debate has been pretty interesting. On the one hand you have people saying that it’s important to show solidarity with the victims of violent repression; on the other hand are two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right people saying we shouldn’t risk offending non-insane muslims for the dubious benefit of pissing off some of the crazy ones. I can see where both sides are coming from.
I’m coming from a third direction entirely. This picture might help explain what I mean, assuming you’re one of the four or so people in the world who know what’s going on in it. I’m stubborn and willful, and I do not appreciate being told that I can’t do something, or told that I’m not good enough for it, or threatened with force or violence in retaliation. In all of those cases, I’ll just be given even more reason to do the thing in the first place. In a way, yes, I can appreciate showing solidarity for others, but moreover I’m just standing up for myself. I’ll not be cowed into silence by a bunch of thugs any more than I’ll be told how I can and cannot play a video game by a bunch of asshole teenagers.
For the other angle — the possibly offending the good muslims angle — well, if any of you happen to be good muslims, and you’re offended, then I apologise. I’m fairly sure none of the Muslims I’ve known would be offended by this; they were all pretty cool, normal people who don’t really take internet memes and goofy cartoons altogether that seriously. But if you are offended, well, I’m sorry.
That said, it’s time for the picturin’. Since my picture wasn’t published by Reason (since, quite frankly, I was outgunned), I figure I need to publish it myself if I hope to get a piece of this sweet getting-murdered-by-religious-zealots action. Since I’m a terrible artist, I’m just repurposing a sprite from my game — I used the same repurposed sprite in the political joke from the other day, but I actually created it for this. I also used a repurposed Richard Pryor joke. And now, without further ado:
May 21st, 2010
Posted by
Darien |
Bullshit |
no comments
It’s pretty political, so it’s not the sort of thing I’d normally feature here, but I worked on it all fucking day and it’s pretty funny. So I’m linking it anyhow. Don’t click here if you hate America.
Also it features a few modified (and greatly enlarged, to my ceaseless amusement) images from my upcoming video game. So, hey, sneak preview!
May 18th, 2010
Posted by
Darien |
Bullshit |
no comments
So I’m watching Freedom Watch — as you do — and Judge Napolitano is talking about immigration, and the new Arizona law. And then, about a minute into that segment, who suddenly pops up on my screen? The Clown Prince of Stupid, Ozzie goddamn Guillen. Why can’t I quit you, Ozzie? Why are you everywhere in my life? It worries me.
May 8th, 2010
Posted by
Darien |
Bullshit |
no comments
Back when I said this, this was the exact sort of thing I had in mind. See, I’m playing this word association game on the ‘tubes, and the word it throws is "vi." Which isn’t a word, but never mind that. So I checked the stats on that word, and this is what I see:
You see how the second-most-popular association to VI is "4?" That’s IV, assholes. VI is 6. This is why I’m declaring the end of roman numerals.
Oh, added comedy. Here’s the "associated from" list:
Good job, nerds. I mean, yeah, that’s what I said, too. Once it told me that "pico" isn’t a word.
May 6th, 2010
Posted by
Darien |
Bullshit |
no comments
Medgadget is going with "New Robotic Arm Design Based on Elephant’s Trunk" as the title for this piece. It contains this picture:
I’m thinking a better title for this article would be "Scientists Invent Robotic Arm; Robotic Arm Invents Nesting Buttplug."
April 28th, 2010
Posted by
Darien |
Bullshit |
no comments
Category: assholes
We are geneticly an evil species that needs to be corrected
Hint is here.
April 24th, 2010
Posted by
Darien |
Bullshit |
no comments
