RPG Articles

You lot shouldn’t be allowed to have kids.

Seriously. I could call strangers all day trying to get them to meet me, for anything, and you know who would show up? The stupid, the intensely bored, and the really young ones that aren’t being observed by their parents, let alone interacted with.

Should facebook have responded quicker? Sure, I guess. But that really isn’t the heart of the matter. The issue is that you are all freaked out by something THAT HASN’T HAPPENED.

What’s that? Someone asked you for naked pictures? DID YOU DO IT RETARD??? NO? It really takes two, or more, to make this sort of bad thing happen. It isn’t like being snatched in a mall.

Are your kids dumb? Like really dumb? Don’t let them get online, play in the park, or wander around on their own. Maybe buy a leash and harness.

Are they bored, restless? Welcome to having a teenager. If they meet random strangers from websites for sex, they also fall into the first category and you have failed by not restraining them.

Are your kids younger than, say, 10? Why the fuck are they doing anything on the internet without you paying attention? They’ll end up on some bestiality site by mistake, one that’ll mess up you, them, and everyone that you come into contact with. No, netnanny isn’t an excuse. It’s a tool, and a stupid one at that.
Take some responsibility for yourselves and your little burdens.

Now, I don’t just mean in Windows, but even from boot cd’s and built in utilities. The box was brought to my attention because it was giving an unmountable boot partition error. No trouble, either the drive is toast or it needs a good chkdsking. Chkdsk solved that, and the SMART data on the drive looked fine, so back to Windows.

Churn churn churn. Up yet? No? Ok. Play with my phone… stare at people… Up now? No? And so on. Eventually it opened up, this was getting into Safe Mode mind you, and just ran like a sack of broken legs.

It was slow in my bootdisc environment, but I checked for infections anyway, just to clear the path. Pretty clean. Hmmm….

Next step- yanking stuff out. First, hard drive… no change on the boot cd. Next, the other optical drive. No change. Switch CD to tray two.. ok, that one is actually broken anyway, it’s not the culprit, but it’s disconnected on GP. Ok….

Fiddle… faddle some… decide to run memtest. Everything is going… what the hell? The L1 cache is running at 37MB/s ? That isn’t right is it? L2 at 36MB/s??? Huh? Note, the clock speed was fine, at 2.39 some odd gigahertz.

Now, at this point, I only vaguely recalled what numbers I usually see there, since they normally aren’t what I’m interested in, but it nagged me because it was obviously too low.

Back into the BIOS. CPU Information… numbers look fine. What is this Mode setting? It’s in Compatibility, with a Normal option. Change it… numbers look the same. Well, maybe it doesn’t update until a reboot. Make it so!

Huh. Numbers are still the same. Let’s try memtest again, for giggles. L1 cache? over 19000 MB/s. Hot damn! Back to the house of pain, er, Windows!

Soars like an eagle!

The only thing I can find are vague indications that this was for some Windows 95 install issues, but why you’d worry about that on a later model P4 is beyond me. Why someone fiddling with the BIOS would turn it on also is beyond me, though I fear it’s just the default setting.

First, I realize that nobody reads this, but I have to try. So, with that out of the way-

Movie Reviewers- Make sure you can remember things longer than my dog. A sequel shouldn’t have to retell the previous film(s), since that’s an aggravating waste of time for those of us with normal IQs. Also, a movie shouldn’t ever have a flashback to something that we watched happen earlier in the film. While this benefits people who can’t remember if they’re diabetic or not, the rest of us are going to want the film makers to die.

In short, if you aren’t sure that you can follow a movie well enough to tell someone about it, here’s a quick test. Pick up a Mad Magazine. Did you get a genuine laugh? Yeah? Then no, you aren’t able to read and comprehend, thus it is extremely unlikely you can understand any kind of story, and should likely just off yourself.

First off, this was a great action flick, and an above average zombie movie. Lot’s of tension, some scene misdirection to enhance surprises, and whatnot. Madam Jovovich is stunning. And that, apparently, is an issue. Rather than admit a woman has pores, every closeup of her face has this radioactive retouch applied, making it look like she’s been using radioactive mutant seed for moisturizer. Why? I mean.. damn man. Why’d a perfectly good scene have to be ruined like that? Still, well worth watching, it’s just weird and distracting.

I saw some people indicating there’d be a fourth movie, and while you could certainly make one, it’s hardly required.

Just as a side note, if you’re a security guy/enforcer for some mega-corp, and some lady comes strolling through your guys, taking them down like mannequins, take a moment to consider throwing your gun into the far corner, laying down, hands on your head, and begging to be allowed to be tied up in a zombie safe closet. It might still not work, but it’s worth a shit, ’cause that chick is gonna kill your ass.

This is just a small note to anyone writing a book or story. If you’re going to make up some poetry or lyrics for the story, think twice. Examine whether or not you really need to. If you have heat stroke and decide yes, this is really what you need, then write a rough draft and have people that don’t like you, not just don’t know you but actually dislike you, read through it. Chances are good that it is awful, but strangers and friends will be too polite.

Last night I copied all my files over and nuked XP. I feel… liberated somehow.

I never expected it to be good, but I was still disappointed. We were promised fairly free and open gameplay, and instead I was directed everywhere and had, at most, the choice to follow the direction or look at areas with absolutely nothing worthwhile in them that led to absolutely nowhere else.

Sure, it looks good, but I even take some exception with that. In the first videos I saw, it seemed to me that you may as well be a generic magic user in some sort of twitch game. Like Oblivion. The character waves his hand around, and depending on what power is equipped different colored lights or fairy dust fly off his hand, causing some stuff to happen. No real physical change is perceived, but suddenly fire and lightning squirt from your limbs.

In the demo, you get your first power from a syringe you find laying around. Apparently you’re supposed to be the world’s most frightening junkie, because you just immediately cram this unknown thing from an obviously messed up place into your tender surfaceworlder flesh. Then bam, lightning fist, with nary a change in complexion.

I’d like to have seen some physical change, possibly with detrimental effects if I switch back and forth a lot. The option to carry a couple of things rather than immediately shoving them into my body would be nice too.

Ah well. It was to be expected.