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11.01.02 :: 22:24
I had a pretty okay day at work today. The uber-boss sent an email to each of the techs soliciting suggestions for how to improve the tech department. [evil grin] I sent him a 4.5 page letter outlining my observations and suggestions. No worries, it was well thought out and carefully worded. That afternoon he sent me a reply thanking me for my well-put letter ^^v I showed the letter to a co-worker and he was flustered by my ability to eloquently express what he had fumbled when he tried to say it to the uber-boss in his letter. He joked about sending another letter to the uber-boss saying "me too" to my letter. [laughs]
I'm grateful that the router Jeffy chose for me to buy is smarter than I am. It arrived today (finally!) and I didn't know how to configure it. I knew where all the cables went, so I hooked that up. Then I put in the CD and tried to get to the configuration screen, but was unsuccessful. So I just flipped everything on and hoped it work. For some reason it all did ^^; I didn't configure a thing, but everything seems to be working so far. I can email, surf, IRC, have messengers going, and (the whole reason for all the bother) have the Xbox connected while the computer is still online ^^v
Annnnnnd, I'm not that bad at Whacked! if the matches that I played tonight are any measure of my skill. I always end up playing as Eugene (the green penguin). I don't know why, but no one else seems to like him and I always end up joining at player 4 :P S'kay, the name Eugene has special meaning in my family. I'll take it as a good luck charm and a symbol of my gaming prowess!
The 'rents agreed amongst themselves that I'm going to help them at the print shop tomorrow binding books ^^; (Nice to know that I didn't have a vote in this ^^; ) S'kay, I didn't have anything planned for tomorrow anyways. It might be nice to spend a day doing something that doesn't involve being on the phone and / or sitting on my butt ^^; (I have to get away from the computer every once in a while, eh?)
I'm happy to report that dad is acclimating well to DVD technology. He's mindful to not leave his DVDs in the tray and last night skillful maneuvered the menu screens to get to the trailers on the DVD he was watching. "If I didn't know what the button did, I pushed it!" he confided in me with a touch of pride in his voice. Mom then pointed out that he could always read the manual that came with the DVD player. Psh, who needs manuals, mom? :D
11.02.02 :: 21:15
Working with the parents today went well. I ran the book bindery machine for 4 hours before I was pooped ^^; We all took a break and went to Wal*Mart to buy supplies for the shop and a space heater for me. (This year's plan for cutting down on the heating cost: keep heating to the rest of the house to a minimum and only heat my bedroom with the space heater. That's where I spend 95% of my time at home anyways. If the combined gas and electric bills are under $300 per month that means the plan's working ^^; )
Wal*Mart was an absolute mad house, gyah, no wonder I don't like going out there. The checker was a moron as well. Mom bought 30 bottles of isopropyl alcohol (used for cleaning the press and plates). You'd figure most people would scan 1 bottle and ring it up as 30. No, this checker had to scan each and every individual bottle. IT'S THE SAME THING! --; This is not rocket science, it's grade school multiplication!
Mom asked me to return to the shop tomorrow to continue working on the books. (I'd gotten about half of them ran through the machine today). I might, I don't know. I did a lot of the chores I'd usually do on Sunday this morning. The only thing I'd really miss by going down there to work is Sunday football.
Dad got word from the specialist yesterday regarding what he should do about his arm. The specialist recommended shoulder replacement surgery =/ Said the surgery was the only way to relieve dad's pain and prevent any more damage from being done. (The muscles in his arm are being torn and if they don't go in there and stop that the arm's going to be really weakened). It should go through as a workman's comp claim since he'd injured the arm at work. Hopefully everything turns out okay. I remember when grandma had both of her knees replaced (and taking care of her and making sure she did her strengthening exercises). Just been thinkin' of ways I could help dad recover the best he can if (probably when) the surgery is performed.
11.03.02 :: 01:25
I just finished an unplanned binge session of Suikoden III ^^;v I've been flipping between games a lot lately 'cause nothing seems to be grabbing my interest and holding it, but Suikoden III has a good chance of changing that. I finished the introduction and first chapter of story for one of the three characters (Chris). I'm not sure how many chapters there are, but whatever I do with one character I'll have to experience from the point of view of the other two so I should be kept busy.
I only have one real complaint (and one quibble) about the game so far. The quibble is that I don't know what the little stars that I gain upon level up mean. I looked through the manual and didn't find mention of them. I'm sure I'll figure it out before the game's over ^^; The complaint is with the camera angle. In most games the camera floats over the character's shoulder or is completely independent of the character. That way you can either see things from the character's point of view (slightly removed) or be completely removed from the character. In Suikoden III the camera is focused on the *front* of the character, so you're always looking over their shoulder behind them instead of in front of them. In other words, it's a darn good thing Chris wears armor because I've been hitting her shins against a lot of boxes, people, dogs, buildings, etc. that I couldn't see because of the camera angle :P I'm getting used to it, but it's really weird o.O; And you can't rotate the camera [grumbles] Every self respecting game should allow camera rotation...
11.03.02 :: 01:25
More Suikoden III talk ^^v I *so* like the game opening (I forgot to mention that earlier). The song is great and sounds like something Adiemus would have done. You can download the not so good trailer here (it's number 11 currently) and see for yourself. It's a shame that they distro-ed the trailer with the OPM demo disc this month instead of the game opening. They did the game a disservice with this trailer and the slices of game that were presented in the demo. Don't judge Suikoden III by the demo disc! Go rent it and *then* judge, you'll see that Chris isn't such a heartless bitch if you do. (They used a part of story in which she just ordered the burning of a village without giving the backstory of *why* she ordered the village burned.)
I've been playing Wild ARMs 3 'cause I like the system, but the story isn't anything to write home about. With Suikoden III, I like the system (I think I figured out what the stars mean! They're if the character performed a deathblow to a monster) *and* the story. I've played through the first chapter of Chris and Hugo's stories so far and there's enough back-stabbing going on to keep me intrigued =D (I strongly suspect that the Zexen knights are going to betray Chris. They strike me as being ruffians in shiney armor, but that's just a hunch.)
11.04.02 :: 19:20
You're all about status and popularity, but you'd throw that all away if the person you like would return your feelings. You're rebellious and hate stereotypes and being told what to do by anyone, and you want to stand out from the crowd. Inside, you worry about being thought of as different, but it's those idiosyncracies that are what makes you lovable. All that's left is to pick up some Chinese from somewhere OTHER than Hong Kong action movies.
Which Persona 2: Innocent Sin Character are you?
Okay, okay, so Lisa's not quite a match. I don't think there's an Innocent Sin character that does match me ^^; I finished reading the script to it this afternoon. It's good stuff ^^
I turned in my voter's ballot tonight (all elections in Oregon are mail in). There was a stupid camera crew standing in front to the ballot drop off box filming the "back up at the box". A back up *they were causing* I'd hasten to point out --; Move from in front of the box and there wouldn't be four cars waiting to pull up to it and deposit their ballots.
Alessar sent me the music video to Ace of Base's 'Beautiful Life' today. I think they could have done better ^^; "the bridge" was one of my favorite albums during college. The songs on it still get my toe tapping whenever I hear them. I admit it, I'm an Ace of Base fan. (I also admit that I have no taste in music ;) I'd quote the lyrics to 'Beautiful Life' because they usually cheer me up when I'm feeling down (which I have been for a few days now), but I don't think I'm ready to be chipper yet. I'll quote from another group that isn't from the US; The Tea Party. (Odd isn't it that a majority of my English language CDs aren't from US artist :P )
'The Messenger' from "TRIPtych"
got a letter from a messenger
i read it when it came
it said that you were wounded
you were bound and chained
you had love and you were handled
you were poisoned you were pained
oh no you were naked
you were shamed
you could almost touch heaven
right there in front of you
liberty just slipped away on us
now there's so much work to do
oh the door that closes tightly
is the door that can swing wide
oh no not expecting to collide
for a minute i let my guard down
not afraid to be found out
i completely forgot dear
what our fears were all about
oh no there's no need to be without
if there's a chance i would take it
this desire i can't kill
take my heart please don't break it
i will crawl to your foothill
i'm frightened but i'm coming
please baby please lay still
oh no i'm not coming for the kill
11.05.02 :: 20:12
Funny work quote from today! Okay, it should surprise none of you that sometimes after we hang up with an especially lame caller they might be mocked afterwards. Tech: "Help! Help! I can't get chat!" Me [deadpan]: "Wanna talk about it?" The room cracked up :D
11.06.02 :: 22:31
I was modestly productive this evening. I answered about a dozen emails out of the 2 month old pile that was sitting in my inbox ^^; (I'm horrible about answering emails, sorry. It's much easier on everyone to catch me on IRC or ICQ or something). It reminded me to shoot over to IGN to tell them to stop sending me solicitations (since they never display right for some reason) and I got sucked into filling out my member profile. They had a section where you could stick in the games you owns.
After wasting nearly 2 hours doing so I think I've got most of them (minus at least a dozen NES games and some PC games that I'm not going to bother pulling out of a storage box because I never play them). I've come to the conclusions that I am one seriously spoiled son of a bean... ^^;; I guess it could be said that I collect video games like some people collect baseball cards. I just wish that I hadn't let me folks sell off the Atari 2600 when I was a kid! =| My bro's going to bring back the NES during the holidays so then I can finish recording the NES games ^^;
It brought back so many good memories while looking through lists of games trying to jog my memory! Like when I rewired some of the controllers so that they were for a left handed person even though neither my brother nor myself are left handed ^o^ And how my bro and I would play together! I would map out the game dungeons on graph paper with colored pencils while he played the game. Afterwards we'd draw up "nice" versions of the maps and mom would take them to the print shop and laminate them :D We had some very nice maps for Super Mario Bros, Crystalis, Ultima: Exodus, and Dungeon Magic (the latter two I got into a lot more than my bro did).
I remember beating Double Dragon with my bro and my step-cousin(? he was related by my grandmother's second marriage, anyhow..). Nanki and I played through Blaster Master while listening to MC Hammer on a tape recorder (o/~ "You've got to pray (pray), pray (pray), you've got to pray just to make it today!" o/~). And I used to go into the zone while playing Tetris. I remember reading an article once that discussed how video game players can reach the same sort of intense concentration that athletes do. Tetris is what taught me that trick. Nanki and I were both freaked out by some of the stuff that happened in The Uninvited.
The local rental place was all too familiar with us (and not always that nice =/ ) This was before Blockbuster came into our area... Which reminds me of the Gamepro sponsored video game tourneys they used to have annually. The second year it was a Donkey Kong Country competition and I entered while grandma rented a game for us. I played once (you were allowed to play up to 10 times) and got 8th place for the store. I was the only girl in that store to break the top 10 (and I disliked Donkey Kong Country to begin with!)
I'm feeling all WAFFy now ^^ And I miss my brother ^^; I'll give him a call tomorrow and tell him I love him (if I called him now I doubt he'd appreciate it ^^; )
11.07.02 :: 21:37
Okay, being the evil older sister that I am I ended up calling my bro last night ^^; Of course, he was already asleep :P S'kay, he said it's worth being woken up to be told that you're missed and loved ^^ (He wakes up a lot better than I do).
There was one heck of a wind storm last night. It woke me up around 1:30am and I was scared witless --; Stupid wind! Stupid trees! I was || close to going over to my mom's apartment and spending the rest of the night over there. There aren't any tall trees that might fall on me in concrete covered downtown. (I get the feeling that I'd never make it through a tornado or hurricane. It's probably a good thing that I don't live in an area that has either of those disasters ^^; ) Pisces was still awake ( o.O;; ) doing homework at that time, so she calmed me down. Thanks a lot ^^;;
Work has become it's own little office politics soap opera. I'm expecting everything to come to a head tomorrow or early next week. I should take a bag of popcorn with me tomorrow and enjoy the show :P
My parents pinned me down at dinner about what I want for Christmas. I wrote out a list that had every bit of info they could get out of me (except for price, they didn't say they needed that :P ) Bah, the problem is that if I really want something I just get it ^^; It really flusters my parents ^^; So I wrote down some things I'd been eyeballing and where they could be found ^^;
After that mom asked me if I had a spare scanner tucked away with my spare computers parts. As the case may be, I actually have two right now (three if you count the one I need a SCSI card for). She wants a scanner for her print shop, so I took one down to the shop after dinner and scared the crap out of mom ^^; (I wasn't expecting anyone to be there and neither was she. She'd gone down there to pick up some things ^^; )
11.08.02 :: 20:51
The exciting stuff I was expecting to happen at work today didn't. So, it was a pretty dull day, though I did get a call from the uber-boss. He was following up on a customer complaint (not against me, but since I sit right by the accused tech I could tell him what I heard) and to ask me about a proposal that Lincoln submitted earlier in the week.
The uber-boss was pretty sly about how he approached the latter topic. "Lincoln submitted a proposal earlier this week." "Yes..?" "The sophistication of the writing was beyond anything he's displayed before..." Subtitle: 'I know you had your hand in this, fess up.' I admitted that I helped Lincoln structure an outline and then heavily edited the proposal after he was finished with the draft. The uber-boss wasn't upset or anything. In fact, he said that he appreciated receiving such well prepared documents.
Other than that today's been dull. It rained buckets in Grants Pass today (and only sprinkled in Medford =/ ) I'm taking Pepper to the clipper's in the morning and I have the last DVD of Princess Nine to watch. I also resumed reading 'Darth Howie's Creek' today. (I've been trying to get through it, but I've been so distracted by other things ^^; ) In a nutshell it's a FFVII fanfic that takes place before the game in Midgar. Many of the characters are avatars the author inserted, but they aren't 'fanboy' inserts. It's more of a gritty story, edging along satirical.
11.09.02 :: 16:43
Today was anime day ^^ First up, the first episode of Arjuna that came with Newtype USA. My summary of it: a well animated Captain Planet :P Blech, if I wanted to be slapped upside the head with pro-environment themes I'll watch Nausicaa. Next up, the last DVD of Princess Nine. Wai! P9 rocks your world (even if you don't know it yet ;) Excel Saga rounded out the anime binge. (Specifically, the episode that spoofs baseball / sports anime. It seemed appropriate :) I don't know if I'll watch anything else today. I haven't gotten any game playing in yet this weekend...
11.09.02 :: 16:43
I totally adore Nash in Suikoden III ^^v He's a "lady's man", but not prick like the character by the same name in LUNAR :P He's more clever with his come on's while assuring that he's not hitting on anyone because of his missus. I really liked one of his comments to Chris, referring to the old damsel in distress scenario. Nash: "I've always wanted to be a knight and save a princess in a tower." Chris: "No, oh no..." Nash: "But you're both the princess and the knight. That doesn't leave much room for me [sigh]" or it was something close to that ^^ Very cute.
11.10.02 :: 20:08
Suikoden III has been ticking me off in all sorts of anti-happy ways. I was doing just fine until I got to Geddoe's chapters. First I have to go over this long mountain pass with monsters kicking me all over the place. I finally get to the peak only to find a big ass monsters standing in my way. That was most unpleasant --; I managed to beat the monster, but I wasn't very happy about having a boss just sitting in the middle of the road like that.
I finished up the chapter and went onto the next one. Yay, I had to go over the mountain pass again and what do I find but ANOTHER big ass monster sitting there. WTF?! After having my butt handed to me three times I look online for strategies on how to beat the monster. All I find is a passing reference that say "it's not too hard." Well screw you Mr. It's Not Too Hard. It *IS* and I'm getting tweaked about it!
I gave up on doing Geddoe's second chapter for now and went back to working on Chris's since her's don't tick me off --; I've started going around collecting the other 108 stars even though that's really not what I'm supposed to be doing right now. I don't care. I want to have fun, not get mad at the game for using LAME TACTICS AND CALLING IT A "CHALLENGE".
[huff huff] Okay, I've gotten that out of my system. I need to go recruit more stars now...
11.11.02 :: 19:01
I had a rotten day that turned out okay. I didn't sleep last night. Augh, that sucked. I went to work even though I was tired because (knowing how things have been going lately) half the crew wouldn't show and it'd be just Lincoln and me again --; Surprisingly, even did show for their shift, yay. Anyhow, I was tired, but mostly non-grumpy. I just wasn't going to play games. I told one co-worker to grow a spine ( ^^; A common complaint) and another I barked at to get out of my way when he was meadering through the narrow hallway back to the tech room. (He kept telling me that I had a call and was dragging his feet to get to the tech room. Get out of the flippin' way so that I can get to my desk already!)
Erm, anyhow, so I was doing all right until right before lunch. A woman called and tore me a new ass hole. Wanna guess over what? Because I had the temerity to ask her what her email address was. The call began with me picking up and saying "Technical support. Amanda speaking, may I help you?" (how I start each call). Usually that would be followed with a hello from the customer and them giving their name. Not in this case. The woman launched immediately into a long-winded RANT about how one email sent to her was bounced. When she took a breath around two minutes into the call I asked her if I could have her email address. (I can look up a customer's info from the address and then run tests on the account).
Things went straight to hell from there. She started YELLING at me about how RUDE our techs always are for INTERRUPTING her. I assured her that I wanted to help her, but I needed her email address to be able to do that. She continued to yell at me going in tight little logic circles for another two minutes. She kept asking me why I wouldn't shut up? I kept trying to answer her (she asked a question, doesn't she want the answer?) She then demanded another tech. I refused. She threatened to report me to a manager. I shrugged her off. She threatened to hang up. I dry said, "That wouldn't be very productive." Finally I put myself on mute (wish I could have done the same for her) and let her go on for a couple more minutes. Finally she got back to ranting about her email and let slip what her email address was :P
I couldn't pull up her file, but I was able to do some tests. I won't go into the boring details, but the end result was that everything checked. I sent her two test messages to prove that the account was receiving messages. Then when *SHE* shut up for a bit I took myself off mute and told her that there were two test messages sitting in her inbox. The account was working fine, a fact she couldn't ignore with the results sitting in her inbox. She then began to say how the sender of the one message that didn't make it to her probably put it in wrong. I let her babble for a bit more and she finally let me go.
And once she was off the phone I started crying --; I was too tired to put the energy into a call like that and it left me completely off balance. The boss was like "[pat pat] C'mon, Amanda, big techs don't cry." But I was too tired to control it ;_; He sent me home to get some sleep and hope that tomorrow was a better day.
I got a couple hours of sleep, then ate lunch. I then went to the theatre and bought three pre-sale tickets for a Saturday showing of Harry Potter. The 'rents complained about the 10:30am showing I chose. I thought it was the kids that were supposed to grumble about being up early on the weekends? :P
After that dad and I went Christmas shopping for mom. We managed to make a pretty good dent in the list of things we wanted to pick up for her ^^v Who knows, I might be finished with my shopping by December (haha, not likely, but I can try can't I?) Nanki's done, mom's almost done, I haven't started dad yet, but I'm doing his shopping with my next paycheck. So I'm still on schedule =]
11.12.02 :: 20:09
Today went a lot better than yesterday. I'd taken some sleeping medicine before I went to bed and that knocked me right on my fanny. I only had one somewhat aggravating call. It took 25 minutes for a woman to 1) find her DSL modem, 2) unplug it and plug it back in, 3) restart her computer. Yes, she was *that* clueless... Office politics wise, a saleswoman out of the Medford office was fired today. Yeah, I see an increasing churn rate when it comes to my co-workers... And I read another chapter of "Darth Howie's Creek". I'm about half way through the story now.
11.13.02 :: 18:19
Today was boring. Here are the highlights: Finished reading "Darth Howie's Creek". The uber-boss sent me an email acknowledging my application to be the new tech manager. I'll know if he wants to interview me after Nov. 27th. Yggy's power supply fan is rattling so much that it's vibrating my foot. Yggy won't be on 24/7 until I can replace the fan (probably this weekend).
11.14.02 :: 21:21
Today was merciful in that it went quickly. (I had to be there at 7am, which meant I had to be awake at 5am to be there on time --; ) I was mildly stunned by how things I consider to be no-brainer good-manner sort of things don't even cross other (co-worker's) minds. Things like if the trash can is overfill take the trash out. [Shakes head] The office girls weren't kidding when they said that only the girls take the trash out around the office.
After work I went to dinner with my folks. The restaurant had recently opened a bar area and that's where they wanted to seat us. Of course the night manager carded me (even though he familiar with our family). Then I was carded by another person when we were seated. The waitress was flabbergasted that I was really 25 years old ^^; My parents, of course, got a good laugh at my expense and calling me their little girl :P
11.15.02 :: 21:14
Today was an interesting day to say the least ^^; Okay, it started at 5:30am when I woke up from a dream. I dreamt that Brian (co-worker) and I were playing games on Xbox Live (which was officially released today) and it was a *really* cool game. Then Adam showed up and he wanted to play too. So we were all playing this *REALLY* cool game and then I woke up and realized Xbox Live doesn't have any games that are THAT cool :P
Since Friday just *couldn't* go away quietly about every networking / computer issue an ISP would dread happening happened at work. The odd thing was that relatively few people notice when you're talking about the thousands of customers that are serviced. During the course of the day the main mail server died (literally, they had to restore it from a backup), DSL along the coast was so slow it was useless, there was a power outage in one of the main server hubs, and the central authentication server for the northern part of the state was swapped out with a new one. Any *one* of those issues could make for a Bad Day. We slid through all of them without barely a peep.
There was one notable exception to this (for me). During the authentication server switch I got a call from the uber-boss. Usually when he calls the tech support line it's with the intention of fixing a customer's issue because they called the main office to complain. He didn't mention anything about the customer he had on the line complaining, just said that they needed a tech. Okay, that was typical enough, other offices would then bring the customer onto the line and then release the call and go about their own work. He didn't. He brought the customer onto the line and then stayed while I listened to her explain her problem. I tried to remind the uber-boss that we were moving servers without *saying* it, y'know? ^^; Anyhow, I muted myself while I tried to find out the ETA on the server move, then went back to start doing the basic troubleshooting. They were obviously expecting me to do *something* besides say that we were doing server maintenance. I walked the woman through very basic DUN stuff and then crossed my fingers and told her to try it ^^; And, by God, it worked. They got the server up in time so that I looked like a hero :P The uber-boss wrote me later that day (we were discussing something else) and he tacked on how he enjoyed listening in on the tech call today. Uh, okay ^^; I enjoyed being a nervous reck :P
I played Whacked! on the Xbox Live for a couple hours tonight. I really hope I didn't tick off the guy I was playing with ^^; He kept saying "That isn't cool Greenbeans".. ^^; I wasn't *trying* to hit him. Whenever I saw him I turned and ran. But there's a certain art to dodging and running like hell in that game :P It's all about the trigger buttons and jumping high / maneuvering. You can jump up and then pull back to land *behind* a missile targeted on you. You can also jump up and then dive back down again so that it goes over you ^^; If anyone else is on Xbox Live my Gamertag is Greenbeans and I like playing Whacked! as Eugene :D
11.16.02 :: 17:10
The 'rents and I went to see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets this morning. We got there an hour early and the theater was already half full o.O There was a cute little girl running around in a Hogwarts school uniform (without cloak and later with cloak and wand). We followed the girl up to get some seats and I spotted Ms. Tiger (my first computers teacher in high school) O.O I knew who the girl was then, and the last time I'd seen her she was just a baby!
I spoke with Ms. Tiger briefly (she had her hands full with a horde of kids ^^; ) At some point she'd read the essay I'd written a while ago about who my heroes were O.O; Haha, I never expected that. She said she really appreciated it and said that she really hadn't done that much. [shakes head] That's why even little things count. They may be little to *you* but very significant to someone else.
The Chamber of Secrets was good, definitely worth the time and money to go see it in the theater. I'd forgotten many of the finer details of the book ^^; I really liked Herminone. Not sure if I can put a finger on exactly why though. Maybe because she wasn't as much of a 'geek' in this movie? Or maybe because she was? I like how she had her hair tied back in a couple scenes.
11.16.02 :: 20:18
Oi, what an evening I've had. Sorry I didn't get back to Jeffrey Grubb. If you want to email your document to me I'll read it, else we'll cross paths again, I'm sure. And y'know, I *still* haven't gotten dinner yet even though I said I was going to at 6pm. That's just how messed up this evening as been.
Anyhow, Yggy was being exceptionally noisy. I couldn't stand it anymore --; Unfortunately I'm one of those people who becomes angry when a noise annoys them. It's like.. It's hard wired into my brain how a "healthy" computer should sound and when one isn't sounding that way it's like fingers across a chalk board. I tried cleaning the fan out thoroughly with canned air and q-tips, but that didn't work. Then I went into my parts stash and looked for another power supply. I found one, but it wasn't the right type --; Desperate times calls for desperate measures: 3-in-1 oil time.
Of course, I didn't have any. So I went to Freddy's. That was a nice hour long distraction. You'd think I was doing a live action version of "Too High for the Supermarket" or something. I started in electronics and found some nice gifts for people and kept winding my way through the store to automotive where the oil was. I walked out of there after spending over $100 and I'd only gone in intending to buy a $3 can of oil ^^;;; (S'kay, I'd planned on going Christmas shopping tomorrow. I just got some of it out of the way early).
When I got home I started the operation. And since it's what's on my mind I'm going to tell y'all how to do the repair should you ever find yourself in such a situation! Okay, what we're going to do is oil the bearing in the power supply fan. First step is to unplug the computer, pull it out, and take the case off. Power supplies are usually anchored into the case by 4 screws in the back of the machine (they're in the 4 corners of the power supply. It's pretty easy to spot them).
Depending upon your model of power supply you may need to unhook all of the devices it's connected to so that you'll have enough room to work. WRITE DOWN where things go if you haven't done this before or aren't comfortable. The larger white plugs with 4 holes go to devices like *-ROMs, the small white ones go to things like floppy drives, and there are 2 'thick' white plugs that connect to the motherboard. Usually there's a small hook you have to press in that keeps them secured to the board. The two of them are side by side on most boards, just mark one as "1" and the other as "2" and you should be okay :)
Now that you have the power supply singled out you'll need to remove the case (depending upon the model. I have one with a grill covering the fan itself, so removing the grill is good enough). With the fan singled out you'll want to do a couple things. I would recommend cleaning the blades / casing as much as possible using canned air and q-tips. At the center of the fan there is a sticker. Use a knife to lift up the edge of the sticker (try not to cut the sticker since you'll want to put it back into place when you're done). Under that there should be a smallish hole. Take your 3-in-1 oil and put a half drop to a drop in there then put the sticker back into place. Use electrical or duct tape to reinforce the sticker if you need to. Spin the blades of the fan around with your finger or the canned air to work the oil around. Then you put it all back in where you found it.
I don't recommend doing this as a permanent fix. It's a stop-gap measure for when it's 9pm on Saturday night and no computer shops are open. Using the 3-in-1 oil also works with processor fans. (Same steps of getting the fan itself out of the casing and then putting a drop onto the bearing from underneath the sticker).
Which Fanboy are you?
this quiz was made by Sarcasm-hime
11.17.02 :: 18:10
I got a lot of stuff done today ^^ Mom and I went Christmas shopping for dad's gifts. We did pretty well on finding the things we wanted to get him ^^ Afterwards we went to mom's shop and wrapped 'em. Oi, I haven't wrapped that much in years (I usually find a way to get out of it ^^; I don't like wrapping and I'm not very good at it). Mom's evil. She puts things into odd boxes so that you can't guess what they are. Dad has gifts that are in cylinders, a triangle tube, and a really deceptive flat one. (He'll never guess it). Sometimes I think mom enjoys being evil with the wrapping a bit too much ^^;
When I got home I started on the chores that I'd been neglecting ^^; Gave Pepper a bath, did the dishes, laundry, etc. Mundane stuff, but still relaxing. It feels good to see the chaos around me put back into order :)
Hehe, Pepper continues to amaze me. I'd drawn her bath and then left the bathroom to get changed into some shorts. When I got back she was standing in the tub waiting for me to scrub her down ^_^ One of the places mom and I went today was the pet store. We picked up stockings for the pets while we were there ^^ (They're part of the family too y'know ^^ )
11.18.02 :: 22:03
Man, what a day at work. Being that it was Monday morning and Mondays are *always* the busiest day of the week we were of course understaffed --; Not only were we short people but we were slammed all morning. I kept landing the 20+ minute calls when we were 7 lines deep and there was nothing I could do to shake the customer tying me down off. Plus, just in case we didn't have enough people calling us, the mail server did an encore performance of eating itself (like it did on Friday).
Even when the second shift of techs showed up we were still pretty busy. It was shortly after they did that I got a phone call from the human relations director wanting to do a phone interview this afternoon for the manager's position I applied for. Oi oi, today wasn't a good day, but you can't choose when things like this happen ^^; I did the interview and I think I did okay. I know that a couple of my answers surprised her, not sure if it was in a good way or not though ^^;
The boss came to my cubby mid-afternoon to ask me to take a package to FedEx on my way home from work. (He needed to get it to the airport depot for it to be there on time and that's on my way home). Hey, he let me off work 45 minutes early to do it, so who am I to disagree with that? ^^v
I finished chapter 3 of Chris's story in Suikoden III this evening. And it's a cliffhanger, augh! Chris is searching for the Flame Champion. She *just* finds him and the chapter ends with her gawking and before the camera swings to show who the Flame Champion is [shakes head] I was all ready to jump into chapter 4 to continue the story but I can't! It's locked me out of continuing Chris's story until I go back and finish up some more of the other characters (I worked too far ahead me thinks =| ) Rats!
I found this link at Pisces6's blog.
GREENBEANS
From the Arabic root meaning "Voyeur"
(Not that I'd ever admit it...)
Characteristics
greenbeans drives over old ladies at intersections.
(Is that what those speedbumps were?)
Personality
greenbeans should never baby-sit.
(Duh!)
Natural
greenbeans has a few genetic abnormalities.
(I blame my parents and the 70s...)
Emotional
greenbeans refuses to show emotion.
(Persona... Persona... Come out now...)
Character
greenbeans isn't fond of thinking.
(Nasty habit. It can only get you into trouble.)
Physical
greenbeans punches like a little girl.
(Yep, right below the belt.)
Mental
greenbeans has the brains of a three-year-old.
(In a jar XD! )
Motivation
greenbeans sings in the shower.
(And none of you will ever been lucky enough to be serenaded by my sweet voice!)
11.19.02 :: 20:16
Today wasn't as busy at work as it was yesterday (yay). At lunch I called my mom to see how the dr. appoint she had today went. The dr. said she was suffering from allergies (why she's been feelin' sick lately) and that her blood pressure was way too high =| Dad and I know that mom's been poppin' allergy medication like M&M's and you just *can't* do that. That stuff'll shoot your blood pressure through the roof.
I've been invited to go bowling with my co-workers on Saturday night. The conversation went something like this...
Debbie: You're going bowling on Saturday since you skipped out on us last time, right?
Me: Uh... Last time? (There was a last time? o.o )
Debbie: Yeah, so you have to come.
Me [???]: Uh... I haven't bowled in years...
Debbie: That's alright. There'll be money on it!
Me: Uh... (So you're going to rob me of my lunch money, eh?)
Debbie: You better watch out. I'm one of those bowlers who gets better the more she drinks!
Me: (Tipsy Debbie..?) Uh... Okay, count me in. This I've gotta see.
Now I have until Saturday to find the bowling alley in GP and remember how to bowl ^^; I'm pretty sure that I remember how the scoring works, but I don't remember how to actually throw the ball down the lane. (Like, what foot to lead with...)
11.20.02 :: 19:15
I fired an email off to Charter's technical support this afternoon asking them why my cable Internet keeps puttering out on me. I detailed the outages to the best of my recollection and detailed every troubleshooting step I've taken. I know I've done pretty much everything a tier 1 tech would recommend (I could have always forgotten something). Hopefully they'll either say "yeah, we're working on it" (and it's not my computer) or elevate me to a tier 2 tech without all the BS. See, even techs dread working with techs sometimes :P
I also got an email from them today outlining tiered speeds. I already paid the cable bill and discarded the statement, and hell if I know what tier I'm already on so I rang up their customer service to ask some questions. (I most definitely didn't want to be on the 128k/128k package). I found out that I'm currently subscribed to their "silver" 786k/128k service Internet service. The Internet service + basic cable + expanded cable was $75 a month. The rep looked at that and said "Y'know, for the same $75 a month you could have all that and digital cable." Being the sucker I am, I bit and asked him to explain. They were running a promotion right now that was all that and free installation. Okay, I could dig that. Of course all of their installation times *completely* conflicted with my work schedule (the techs went out from 8am - 4pm, Monday - Friday). He was very accommodating (gotta love sales people.. well, unless you're a tech) and he found me a time on the last Saturday in December ^^; I have to wait 6 weeks, but that's okay. I won't die if I don't get 6 more VH-1 channels right away ^^;
Dad's workman's comp claim went through and he was given a date for his surgery; Dec 9th. That actually works out really well since I'd already asked for the 9th off (I have some appointments in the morning. An annual exam with my dr. and I'm taking Pepper to the vet for a check up). We're hoping things work out so that dad's surgery is in the afternoon. My parents would like me to watch the print shop so mom can go to the hospital with dad. Usually I try to squirm out of watching the shop, but in this case I'm more than willing to hold down the fort for them.
And I just found out that mom has been raising hell with the downtown urban renewal committee again. I don't have all the nitty gritty yet, except to say that she tore into them for wanting to do something stupid. When they tore out all of the sidewalks downtown, they put them back in with these brick 'islands' (that are flat, they're not curbed islands) that are damn near impossible to not run over with your car (never mind that they encourage pedestrians to stand in a dangerous place). Anyhow, so many cars have ran over the islands that the bricks have sunk into the ground, making an uneven puddle-prone surface. Urban renewal's latest idea was to put up cement barriers to keep cars off of the islands. ... The incredibly stupid part of this idea is that a couple months ago they had to *remove* the cement barriers they'd put up on the islands on the other side of the block because so many cars were hitting them. It would have been better if they'd just made the sidewalks the boring traditional ones instead of the whole island git-up, but sensible doesn't seem to be in their repertoire...
11.21.02 :: 18:38
I called Charter's technical support this evening after receiving a response to my email (in broken English) telling me to do so. It surprised the hell out of me that I got a tech on the very first ring o.O; Now I'm envious ¬.¬ Best case scenario for where I work; a customer will get a tech on the fourth ring (because of how the phone system works). Anyhow, as soon as I told him what town I was in he knew what the problem was. The router in our area is having problems and they performed a firmware update today hoping to resolve the issue. (Why didn't the email tech just say that? ^^; ) Yeah, I know the drill. Be patient. Log the disconnects. Call back if it's still a problem after a week. I can do that.
My oh so helpful parents were giving me bowling advice last night. Advice like "be sure you let go of the ball..." "but not during the swing back!" mom hastily amended. They told me to never ever put a toe over the line because the oil gods will grab a hold of my foot and drag me out onto the lanes. "Your co-workers will laugh at you; twenty years from now and they'll still be laughing!" dad cautioned. "And remember, strikes thrown in the lane next to yours don't count!"
...
I needn't wonder why I never asked my parents about the birds and the bees when a subject as mundane as bowling elicits these sort of answers :P
11.23.02 :: 09:30
I didn't blog last night (duh). I too busy obsessing over Valkyrie Profile, wuvin' my new book, and smacking my Internet connection upside the head.
The copy of Valkyrie Profile I have here (I lent out the other one) is scratched to all hell =( I wonder if there's a way to 'resurface' discs or something like that to try to make them good again. Of course, where the scratches are correspond with where I am in the game --; I can't continue through Lezard's Tower even though I have an urge to get my butt kicked. Guess I'll keep pluggin' away at Suikoden III then :D
The thing that's triggered my recent replunge into that game was Touma Yume (Urd in Ah! My Goddess). At the beginning of episode 5 she's battling Skuld in a snowfight and when summoning her champion she declares, "Ide yo, Snowman!" Okay, so I was listening to the Valkyrie Profile Voice Arranged CD and the first song "Heaven's Requiem" uses a lot of samples from Valkyrie's battle cries. Specifically these two lines: "Shi no, saki wo yuku mono-tachi yo!" and "Ware to tomo ni ikiru wa reigen-naru yusha...ide yo!" Wanna guess who the seiyuu for Valkyrie is? ;) The "ide yo!" in both are like, a calling card. Touma Yume does well as Norse mythological figures ;)
I picked up "War of Honor" by David Weber last night. I was going to wait until it came to paperback, then I learned that there was a CD bound to the book that more than made it worth the $26 cover price. (I'd pay $26 for the CD alone ^^; ) What's on the disc? How about all of the Honor books plus another dozen from other authors, some fan filk (o.O;), Honor artwork, audio book samples, etc. It's like, the perfect Honor Harrington fan disc *_* Now I'm going to spend the better part of the next year rereading Honor books :P
And finally, Charter obviously hasn't resolved their router issues yet --; It was really bad last night. I had to reset the cable modem multiple times to be able to go anywhere on the 'net. Blech.
11.23.02 :: 23:44
Today ended up being way too busy @.@ I took dad to see "Die Another Day" as I promised I would. It was your average Bond flick. Dad liked it a lot and kept pointing out all the nifty Bond spy-toys he'd like to have for Christmas. I wouldn't mind trying out the switchblade thing m'self ^^;
Before the movie started dad *insisted* that I'll take mom to the movies tomorrow. There was no arguments to be had on this point; we were going. I know mom really wants me to see The Santa Clause 2 (even though I haven't seen the first). It could be that or mom wants her turn to bond with me or dad has some Christmas related preparations to make while we're away. I figure it's a bit of all of those things.
After the movie dad and I went Christmas shopping for mom. He hadn't gotten everything he wanted to get her yet and I knew where we could find some of the things. I have yet to talk him into giving the self-checkout scanners at Freddy's a try. I'm sure he can figure out how to use them, he's just being stubborn :P [laughs]
As soon as we were finished with the shopping I left to go bowling. Oi.. I suck ^^; My high game was 75 (which was the lowest score). There were 10 of us bowling and it was pretty fun. No one was there to seriously bowl, more to socialize and drink. Heh, good, because otherwise I would have been whapped for such a pitiful score :P I discovered that Jim (one of the admins) and I have more in common than I thought. I knew that he was the only other anime fan in the office, but I didn't know that he was also an Ace of Base fan. And it was insightful to learn what sort of things are on other people's minds with regards to the company.
11.24.02 :: 22:00
I went and saw "The Santa Clause 2" with mom this afternoon. Eh, it didn't do anything for me. There was only one really good line in it (and that was for personal reasons since I know someone who always wears sandals with socks ;) My parents were disappointed with my lack of Christmas cheer. I don't know why it surprised them since I'm rarely take joy from this season ^^;
11.25.02 :: 19:00
I had a pretty good day today. The interview I had this morning went well (at least, it went as well as I could have hoped). Now to see if that was good enough ^^; I also found another copy of Valkyrie Profile (one that *wasn't* scratched to all hell). And, as icing on the cake, Yggy's managed to stay on connected for a full 24 hours in a row [gives Yggy a cookie].
11.26.02 :: 20:00
In gaming news today, Square (creators of Final Fantasy) and Enix (creators of Dragon Quest / Warrior) stunned the gaming world by announcing that they were merging into Square Enix, Inc. Can we say "Final Dragon Quest Fantasy XV" everyone? Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not going to say that this is a Bad Idea. Just that the Number 1 and Number 2 RPG-genre gamer producers in the world are going to be pulling their resources together. (It's easy for North American gamers to forget how *big* Enix's Dragon Quest series is in Japan. It's sales numbers for DQVII are more than FFX, over 4 million copies strong. Though DQVII really didn't do anything for me.. ^^; )
Anyhow, Enix is also the company that published Valkyrie Profile. So, when y'all are done merging in April please, Please, PLEASE come out with another VP-type game *_* Perhaps tapping Mayan mythology this time. I mean, who wouldn't want to explore the nine levels of Xibalba? You could play as Hunapu or Ixbalangue avenging their father's death! Or, if you have to stay within the whole "so much time before the end of the world" theme then they could borrow from Aztec mythology and do a telling of Nahui Olin.
11.28.02 :: 21:20
Today went pretty well. I laid around until 9am and then got up and played Valkyrie Profile =D I did that until a bit before 5pm when it was time to go have Thanksgiving dinner with the folks. ^^ I'm still on track to get the good ending and I'm doing building up my einherjar well (with a few setback and resets, but that happens ^^; ) It would be nice if I could finish the game during the holiday, but that would mean spending most of the holiday in front of the tv ^^; I'm not sure I'm quite willing to do that, but I'll enjoy it while I do :D
Anyhow, dinner with the 'rents was pretty good. We had ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, fruit salad, biscuits, pie, ice cream, yum :)~~ We watched The Mummy Returns and the Ah! My Goddess movie. I did some basic updating / maintenance to dad's laptop while the movies were going.
The only downside to the evening was ReRun. We were getting along fine before dinner and during it. I'd pet him with his brush and he was being good. After dinner though --; He was on my lap and I was brushing him like I always do (which means just hold the brush and he'll rub his face up against it) and then he latched onto my hand with his teeth. Usually he'll bite and withdraw, but not this time. The little prick wouldn't let go when I pulled away and didn't let go until dad swatted him --; Mom got him shuffled off to the bedroom while I cried and my hand bled some --; Flippin' cat!! That's the worst he's ever bitten me.
Mom gave me an Advent calendar. Heh... ^^; It like I'm a kid again... (Not that I'm complaining, mind you ^^ )
11.30.02 :: 01:39
I cannot properly express how much the Lost City of Dipan is ticking me off. First you get stomped on by Barbarossa, then you run into Life Stealers. Grrr... They grab your character, suck life out (refilling their own life bar), and you can't do enough damage to them to keep up. And don't even suggest that I might not be leveled high enough. Guides say to be level 24, I'm level *30*. I should be more than ready for this dungeon, but the monster tactics are getting to me --; I did finally work my way to the three mage bosses... Bah, I need to figure out how to hurt Gyne or I'm not going to get by them. So far the only thing I've found that hurts him is Mystina's familiar and that'll just peck at him, not do any serious damage.
Um... Well, b'sides Valkryie Profile and sleeping I didn't do much today ^^; Oh well, time for more sleep ^^
11.30.02 :: 19:16
It was an unexpectedly busy day for me o.O I received an email from Chaos that inspired me to work on my writing. I wrote 3k on the SeeDfic when I received a call from Adam telling me that he and Mare would be in town in a couple hours O.O; We had a good afternoon together ^^ Went to the mall, I hooked them up with a lot of anime goodness, caught up on each other's lives. It's all good :)
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