November 2005
11282K5
Hello, Internet. I'll bet you've been wondering what I've been up to since my last post. You would know by now if Florida Power didn't suck quite as many buckets of balls as they currently do, and if I had remembered to re-write what I had written a few days ago. So, here's the jist of what I vaguely remember:
On the eve of Turkey Day I went over to an aunt's house and had spaghetti. Ate way too much, and my second cousin (visiting from wherever the hell it is she lives) stopped talking only long enough to swallow her food.
On Thursday I went to my other aunt's house and had deepfried turkey. It was dry and tasteless, much like it is every other time they make it. I've heard of people burning their houses down while deepfrying turkey. Why can't karma come to claim my aunt's house, as well?
I was tired all day at work Friday and Craig forgot to give me my paycheck. Planning to ebay one of his Sony HD camcorders.
Saturday I went to go get my tires put on, and ended up just getting some Chinese because there was a 3-hour wait at the tire place. Was hungry again an hour later, despite having the spicy altered according to my taste.
On Sunday I tried to wake up at 8 to get my tires put on. I went to sleep at 5, though, so my attempts at getting foot-first out of bed were unsuccessful. It also took me about five minutes to realize where the beeping noise was coming from. Woke up again around 1. The guy at the tire place liked my car so he did the tire change off the books and was willing to charge me whatever I felt like paying him, which ended up being $20 because that was the smallest bill I had. Bought lunch for my mom and went out to my uncle's place to fix his computer, and found out his wife's family is almost as crazy as my dad on a good day. Almost. Destroyed some clown in a mustang on the way back, and played around with Premiere for the first time. Made this video: DoT Grinding. If you don't play WoW and don't have Divx player, then don't download it because it's not worth it.
Bought a Plextor DVD writer and a ton of DVDs today. Amazon had an awesome sale. They also have a fist-shaped dildo for sale.
11112K5
Got my computer built and setup. I've only run into one issue so far, but updating the sound card drivers seems to have fixed it.
The 4400+ doesn't seem much faster than my 3500+ doing single tasks, but it multi-tasks like a Korean on speed. Unfortunately I don't really do enough to put it to good use. I suppose I could record myself kicking someone's ass in a duel in WoW with Fraps, then have the video encoded, compressed and uploaded to a web server as I'm still in the game listening to whomever I just trashed bitch about lag or glitches or whatever excuse for losing they pull from the dark recesses of their ass. That would also make use of my dual monitors. Hmm..
The Cooler Master Praetorian is a badass case. Internally it's the same as the Wave Master but has more fans and screens for said fans in the top and front. The front is different in that it doesn't have the drive bay door or the big chunk of solid aluminum covering two retardedly bright LEDs. The coolest thing about the case, like the wave master, is that the motherboard tray and back of the case slide out as one unit, so you can put the drives and power supply in the case, put the mobo, cpu, memory and cards on the tray, and then slide it in and just hook up the cables.
11072K5
My brother's newish motherboard -- which I estimate to be either his 92nd or his 93rd this year -- died yesterday for no apparent reason. The fans spin, but nothing else happens, and no explanation to go with it. I suspect it could be one of two things:
- The cheap power supply killed it with unknown motives.
- Josh shorted the motherboard with a screwdriver in a fit of rage after wiping on Onyxia with his noobtastic guild.
It seems that everytime I swap out a part on his system, something else soon dies. So, I offered to sell him my system, instead, since my computer is a shining beacon of awesomeness that shines a light which reveals with stark clarity the darkness and filth of all our corrupt souls. This would give me an excuse to build a new computer, and I have just ordered the parts. Here they are:
- CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo
- Motherboard: Abit KN8 Ultra
- Memory: 1GB OCZ EL Platinum Revision 2 PC3200
- Primary hard drive: Western Digital Raptor WD740GD
- Video card: XFX PVT70FUNF7 Geforce 7800GTX
- Sound card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
- Headset: Sennheiser PC 150
- Case: black aluminum Cooler Master Praetorian
- Power supply: Antec Neopower 480W
- CD/DVD reader: black Asus 16X DVD-ROM/48X CD-ROM
- CD writer: black Lite-On 52X CD-R/32X CD-RW/52X CD-ROM
- CPU cooler: Thermaltake Venus 12 (with arctic silver 5)
Salvaged from my current system are a 300gb SATA drive and another gig of OCZ platinum rev 2.
Have fun lagging, bitches.
11042K5
Please bid on my
staple remover.
11032K5
Last night my grandmother got a call from my brother. Everything electronic on his car shut off one-by-one, which is particularly annoying at night, and he was on the side of the road about twenty minutes away. I was just going to drive out there and give him a jump, and do it again everytime his car died on the way home. My grandma wanted to take her car, though, and insisted that it was because the battery was dry. So, we found him after passing by once and - holy shit - discovered that the battery wasn't dry. Tried to jump him, but I couldn't find the battery on her car. I hate new cars. I removed the cover on the only thing that even remotely resembled a battery in her engine bay and it turned out to be a fuse box. I'm guessing it's somewhere in the rear. She called my uncle, who lives even farther away than we do, and he came out to jump it, and had to do so two more times on the way home.
This morning she wanted to take it to a garage in Eustis, which is three towns over and pretty close to where I work. She didn't want to charge the battery, and thought that, since the car started, it would make it all the way there. She also followed him in her car instead of letting me follow him, even though she knows she wouldn't be able to jump him. I guess she thinks that the headlights were the only things draining the battery last night. They made it a whopping 3 miles and had to call AAA.
And, since she was coughing all over the place while we were sitting in the car waiting for my uncle to show up, I've not got a cold. This throat spray stuff is great, though. Gargling it helps a lot more than spraying, and now I can't feel my tongue.
11022K5
Here are a few tips for so-called "trolls" from an old school usenet pro:
If you say you're a troll, congratuations: you're no longer a troll. If people realize you're trolling, it takes away the whole reason for trolling in the first place. With some of the best trolls I've seen, I'm still not sure if they were trolling or not. That makes them either brilliant, or dumb as hell. Either way, the replies are classic.
Spamming is not necessarily trolling. Being obnoxiously stupid is not necessarily trolling. Posting nonsense, as amusing as it may be, is not necessarily trolling.
It's not a troll's job to be funny. That's the job of the rest of the forum. The whole point of trolling is to laugh at the responses you get, and the topics created in your honor.
While closer to the mark than what I see most people going for, simply being hated is not the ultimate goal of the troll. Anyone can do that by posting images of sick shit, or something similar. The best trolls can piss a whole community off, but their posts, to an outsider, will seem reasonable, or at least innocent.
Subtlety is usually the best way to go, especially on a forum that would have a lot of novices and a few gurus. I personally love putting the noobs against the pros and making the pros eventually leave. Subtlety also keeps you off the administrators' radar. Knowing the subject really well helps, but is not required.
Most trolls are new-comers to the forum, and don't intend to stick around for very long (and if you do you should be sure that whatever material you're using won't go stale). If you are a regular to a forum, becoming a troll would be pretty difficult. It'd have to involve some kind of life change. Saying you've accepted the Lord as your savior is a pretty good one.
Generally speaking, the smarter and more informed about the subject at hand the regulars of the community seem, the better the trolling will be. Dumber forums will most likely yield an equal response, but they will be predictable and tiring.
If your intent is sabotage, you have to know the inner politics of the target community, or else you'll be the common enemy and will be united against. Turning people against each other is much more fun.
I hope that helps. If you'd like any more specific information or examples, let me know.
11012K5
Earlier today I was reading through my news archives from 2002. Man, those were the days. Sure, it wasn't exactly the happiest period of my life, but I actually had something to write about. Now, if I wanted to write something interesting, I'd have to make it up.
So, the retail and repairs part of the business is going away. It sucks, mainly because I have to put a bunch of crap up on eBay. At least I keep my job. I think.
In WoW news: my warlock now has a Shadow Mastery - Demonic Sacrifice build. When I get exualted with Arathi Basin, I will have a little over 300 in damage gear.