Half A Cup of Coffee: 30 September 2004 Refill

*slosh*

it's me again! the long absence was mostly due to my malfunctioning computer, and last night i FINALLY FINALLY found out wat's wrong with the poor fellow. here's a quick recap of the last two weeks:

a) 2 weeks ago (d-day): left computer on for 16 hours, then played wolfenstein 3d. it crashed as the screen corrupted horribly. restart computer and windows was corrupted as well.
b) d-day + 1: windows back to normal. all games disabled. decided to uninstall all my games since i couldn't play them... much to the delight of carol and my mum. haha! surprisingly the lack of games caused me to finish my work way ahead of time... microp, finance, analogue all got extra attention coz i was bored.
c) d-day + 2-3: computer behaving erratically, with random restarts. unable to finish certain programs, especially uninstallers. suspect that something was seriously wrong when I couldn't install ICQ.
d) d-day + 4: bought new SDRAM, in case the RAM is damaged. even if it wasn't, i needed more RAM eventually... found 256MB for RM150, sold by a guy called AGM119Penguin. decent price.. and my wallet bled dry. cash transfusion from mum! thanks mum.
e) d-day + 4 and a few hours: with the new RAM, programs could be installed and uninstalled. yippie! then tried the sims 2... was fine too! yippie... not. crashed again after half an hour. same screen corruption. ok, so it's not just the RAM?
f) d-day + 1 week: erratic computer behaviour throughout. only seems to work when i'm doing work on the computer. even mirc seems to crash randomly.
g) d-day + 2 weeks: suspecting 3D card, asked around for the price. but always felt that i shouldn't buy... unlike RAM, an extra 3d card would be useless if it wasn't the problem. there was always a little voice that said i should identify the problem first. aaron's computer went kaput so borrowed his card to test. savage ran fine for an hour. but still.. something was wrong with the picture... FX 5700 is rock solid usually.
h) Just Last Night: ran the computer with the computer casing open and saw something that shocked my socks off. the little fan in the middle of the motherboard stopped spinning whenever the temperature rose. YARGH! had a closer look and saw that the power cable for that motherboard fan was stuck against the heatsink of the processor. YARGH TIMES TWO! moved the poor scorched cable (insulating was intact, no signs of melting). left the computer to cool. and hey managed to play both savage AND the sims 2. hopefully no permanent damage was done...

Diagnosis (in retrospect):
Turned out the poor computer was having a raging fever everytime i tried to run games. Screen corruption wasn't due to a faulty card after all (PHEW), rather, the motherboard was shutting itself down due to the excess heat with the card running. So it was just a heat problem, and so far things are fine. THANK GOD! (maybe he wants me to study more and pay less attention to the computer... hehe. he's always doing things to make u think, eh?) Buying extra fans later tonight to make sure the computer stays cool.

So there u have it! a great adventure ;)

btw, i found out my mum reads this. so uh, HEY MUM WASSUP! *hug* haha. erm. i don't usually hug my mum, but yeah kinda thankful for the extra financial support (else i would have had to eat grass) and the useful computer advice ("leave it alone and go to sleep"). :P so uh thanks mum. haha! thanks dad too, in case he feels left out. coz i know he's concerned deep inside.. ;)

right. just read rom's blog. hope he'll do fine in manchester!! here's to let him know that we're all back here cheering for the budding architect, water-in-the-brains and all... :) hehehe....

well that's it. gotta get back to work.. EMT test tomorrow. study study.

*slosh*

nerdook

Half A Cup of Coffee: 25 September Refill

*slosh*

an update after some time... my 3D card's acting all funny, sigh, i think smth went wrong with it. spent the last week trying to see if something else could be causing the problem... games get screen corruption, and i hafta restart. bleh. so now i can't play games, except for those that don't haf 3D graphics... on the plus side, i now have to study!

thanks to the computer's current sabbatical from games, i got my microp project done! in 2 days. it's some alarm clock thingie... to be honest i was completely lost by the time i got to the last few hours of coding. thankfully, i prepared a scrawled sketch of the data registers to be used, and after slogging past 4am i managed to get everything working as it should. which is good.

yesterday my doggie died. in dog years, it would be 102 doggie years old this year... *moment of silence for the dearly departed doggie named ruby* mum said dad buried it under the lime tree in the backyard... guess there won't be any pets to keep me company during the next hols.. :)

it's been a pretty quiet week otherwise. 2nd week of this half of the sem. plan to get my 3D card changed during the next hols, which means no new games for me for the next 7 weeks or so. heeee. thank goodness for DYNOMITE.

*slosh*

nerdook

Half A Cup of Coffee: 17 sept 2004 Refill

*slosh*

whoops! haven't blogged for some time... :P

i made it back to utp safe and sound, and so far i've survived most of the first week. there were some interesting events, such as a narrowly averted batch skirmish (haha), a postponed test (didn't study in time, thank God.. i think. maybe i shud haf studied!) and an analogue lab session that actually went quite ok. all in all a pretty decent week with its fair share of ups and downs. :)

phew~

first on the games stuff! :) almost lost my pcgamer in johor! the plane i took from kch to kl stops by johor (1st time i took a transit flight. ultra long journey.. almost 3 hours to reach klia!!), so i went to the toilet while the cleaning ppl came onboard d plane. and when i came back, my pcgamer magazine was GONE! :( so sad. looked around a bit in case the cleaning ppl took it. luckily for me, an air stewardess saw me looking for smth, and then she went to the back of the plane and it was revealed that my mag was taken by this elderly fellow who thought someone didnt want it anymore. :P hehe. so yea was a pretty interesting flight... :)

summary: also installed a few demos and played a lot of cs. maybe a bit too much, come to think of it. completed my map, after 12 iterations... phew. yay! *sense of achievement*

on academic stuff: got back a couple of tests, so far things seem ok. must keep studying.. or at least not play as much. :P got two projects due in a few weeks, but i PLAN to start some work this weekend, at least. let's hope so.

SPECIAL MENTION #1: my friend fong choong chiu who came here and said "so disappointing, no mention of me at all". so here's a mention for u, iceblue. FONG IS THE BEST. FONG IS THE BEST. good looking too. and nice. there. hope ur happy!

SPECIAL MENTION #2: carol got back her results and it was good. :) yay! *happy*

k. not such a long blog. weekdays are usually pretty uneventful. so that'll be all for now. :)

*slosh*

nerdook

Half a Cup of Coffee: 10 sept 2004 Refill

*slosh*

here's a free refill for your half a cup of coffee. it's friday, and my short one week hols are coming to an end. sniff. was a pretty good break from the usual tedium of work. went out a lot wif carrot.. :P

so, yeah, sorry for the long delay between posts. the last few days went pretty well, spent most of my daylight hours... elsewhere. hehe. recently discovered the joy of having streamyx, which is faster than my usual hostel connection. top site to recommend: www.the-underdogs.org. go haf a visit. click on the banners a bit, it helps keep good sites like those alive. basically it's a gigantic archive of (mostly) free classic games, and i do mean classic. definitely does not require an X800 to run. spent the last few days searching for the games i grew up with (a touch of nostalgia), and managed to snag most of em. wasn't that hard, since the files were mostly below 3 meg. so if anyone complains that 120gig just isnt enough anymore, go and play THOSE games!!!

oh yes. and speaking of which. few weeks before i downloaded paperboy (i remember playing it), and loaded it up only to be horrified at the graphics. ugly. ugly. guess i'm getting old, memory seems to have failed, since i don't remember it being this ugly. and then... just d other day... it turned out the game i played was paperboy 2!!! TWO. as in SEQUEL. so did a search and voila there it was... pretty nice graphics and all. oh, and like most games of that era.. there was no way to quit. top tip: ctrl-esc and manually close the program. it beats resetting the comp every time you play! (that was how i used to do it. ahh... the good old days...)

special mention goes out to carol's auntie, for the DELICIOUS lunch at Hock Lee's Li Garden. never been to that shopping complex til today. brocolli and scallops and black pepper ostrich meat and a plate of ULTRA nice mayo-ish fried prawns. NYUM!!!! also met an ex josephian, pretty sure he was my year, and i have at d moment not the slightest idea who he is. rats.

hm. tomorrow's saturday already. time sure passed pretty quick. and sigh im twenty and counting. old. old.

*slosh*

-nerdook-

Half A Cup of Coffee: 8 sept 2004 Refill

*slosh*

Went out wif carrot today... and another day is over. It's amazing how time flies during the holidays, isn't it? Was quite fun, although I must stress that shopping is an acquired taste. Not everyone loves shopping. I know I certainly don't. It's nothing more than wandering around looking at stuff, then buying a few. *shiver* Buying games/game magazines, now THAT is fun! What can be more fun than wandering around looking at games/mags, then maybe buying a few? Certainly better than shopping.

*cough*

Plan to pig the night away, and make the most of what's left of the holidays to relax before I roll back into work. Not particularly looking forward to the workload that's coming. Got a test for Finance, a project for MicroP, a project for FInance... and probably a lot of assignments and tests coming up as well. Wheee. But this sem's been quite ok, mostly thanks to the fact that we've finally moved to the NICE NEW HOSTELS! With a network connection, rampant violations of intellectual rights (which we categorically deny, of course), and round-the-clock game sessions. The wonders of technology, hehe. Got a recently-turned-twenty-year-old rmate too. Goes by the nick 'tomato'.

*extra wave for roomie*

Well. That's it for now. Today's half a cup of coffee.

*slosh*

-nerdook-

Half A Cup of Coffee: 7 sept 2004 Pouring

*slosh*

Some people like their coffee hot, and some like it cold. Some add ice. Some like to put in lots of sugar. Some prefer the bitter taste. Some like the taste. Some like the fact that it keeps you awake.

As for me, I always pour my coffee to exactly half a cup, not a drop more and not a drop less. It's fascinating, really. Half a cup of water is philosophical enough, but when it's coffee in that cup... the possibilities are mind boggling. Or maybe not.

Enjoy my half a cup's worth of coffee. It'll be refilled as often as i can.

*slosh*

-nerdook-