frostbain

I just had to document my computer woes, and 140 characters wasn't doing it.

I've read reviews of the Dell Studio Hybrid that absolutely love it; and those that absolutely hate it.  The jury's still out for me.  It's an awesome little machine, I actually check my e-mail and do most of my browsing on it; as well as letting it handle the entirety of my media center needs (T.V. recording, watching movies, playing music) it literally never gets turned off unless it forces a restart or encountered an error where the only option was a restart. Becky and I also play simple video games on it - with my Gyration remote it almost acts like a Wii on crack (some of that has to do with Gyration creating the Wii-motes, then putting better technology in their remotes). Heck, I even manage a L4D server using it.

All-in-all, when it's working, I absolutely love it. When it's working...  I already know I'm going to need to get a new gaming rig, and turn my current gaming rig (ex-media center PC) into the main media center - and put this one up stairs to act as a media center for the kitchen, dining room, and front room - just playing music, or turning on over-the-air TV during times of need.
You see, when this cute little thing encounters a problem, it likes to do it in a big way.

The first, is the Blue Ray playback.  I think, after over 8 months, I've finally discovered exactly why it will only play feature-rich blue rays for approximately 3-10 minutes. I called Tech Support, and did everything I could think of; and finally, I realized that my other tower raises the temperature in the room to an average of 75-80 degrees (with the A/C on). The ambient temperature of the room was just enough to overheat the unit while decoding blue rays... I tested it too; by not using any other computers in the room for approx. 12 hours before trying a blue ray - worked just fine.


The other problem is related to the disk drive too though. This one, I've been struggling with all day - I was attempting to watch "Stroke of Genius" with Becky. I popped the disk in, and booted up Windows Media Center.  The disk wasn't loading - it wasn't being detected.
Throughout the course of the day, particularly after Becky went home, I restarted the unit over 15 times - every time, holding the power button, because Explorer would lock up whenever I attempted to eject the disk - both with the button on the chassis, and in My Computer.
Eventually, I broke down - since the disk is rented, I decided I would disassemble the unit, and manually eject the disk.  I got to one screw left holding in the drive. I couldn't get it out - the screwdrivers that were long enough, I couldn't put enough power into; those that were powered, weren't long enough.  So, I attempted to hold the drives flap open, while pulling out the disk with a pair of tweezers (gently - I didn't scratch it). Unfortunately, the spindle was still through the disk.
So, I got fed up, and just decided I would reassemble and bite the cost of the movie while getting a hold of tech support. I put it all back together, and plug it all back in. Just for fun, I decided to push the eject button on the chassis one more time...
It makes it's normal "ejection" noise, and the disk pops out...
...


...
I put in another disk.  Eject it via Explorer...  It works...




My ultimate diagnosis - it got scared after I pulled it's guts out and put them back in. No other reason makes any more sense.
So, if you're looking for a great media center PC - I would definitely suggest it; just be wary of occasional problems (besides the blue ray thing, this is the first real problem I've had with it since getting it 8 months ago).

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In other news - I've released 2 Left 4 Dead maps, and I'm working on a campaign at the moment.  For the most part, the first level is done - I just have to add some things to make zombies spawn more often and in more places. I had a one-on-one Hunter battle in front of a museum already, it was crazy. All I had was two pistols, a hunting rifle, and my wits - I couldn't see more than 30 feet (fog), so I could barely see it when it was getting ready to pounce.  Didn't touch me, but it was more exhilarating than a tank battle.

I know Wacom has that competition going on right now - and I should be entering my own piece (decently along already; but still a lot of work ahead of me); but my Graphire 3's mouse finally died so I didn't have a choice.
I use that machine, and thusly the mouse, for graphics and gaming. With the release of Left 4 Dead, the 3+ year old mouse/tablet just didn't stand a chance. I had noticed it a while back, but just thought it was my computer being stupid - then yesterday, it became constant: the left click button only worked if I was pressing it in a weird, obscure, sideways sort of way.

So, I picked up a Bamboo - Fun. It's a sleek little tablet. The packaging was very nice too - formal, clean, but with a bit of fun to it. I played around with it on the image mentioned above, and with just a little tweaking to the firmness, the lines were already blending in flawlessly with those from the Graphire 3.

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I found out there's basically nothing I can do for my cat allergies.  I'm worse off against a bunch of other things (as one person put it, I'm basically allergic to outside during the spring and fall); but I'm going to be constantly exposed to cats - Becky (fiance) is going to bring two with into our new home, one of them at my request (she's adorable and silly).
Looks like I'm going to be taking Zyrtec, Alaway, and Flonase for the rest of my life. Totally worth it though, especially if I get a laser pen.

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Speaking of a house, fiance, and such:
We're looking to put in a bid by late July, with closing by late September - giving us about a month or more to move in.  Only problem is we may have found "The One" and we haven't even actually looked at it yet. That particular house is a 4 level split; with a detached 4+ car garage, parking for 8 cars outside the garage, about 1 acre of land, city-quality playground; plus the house itself is ~2800 square feet.
Plus it's pretty much all hardwood floors - which'll help on the allergies (and let the Roomba zip around faster).

So apparently they're renaming the Sears Tower to the Willis Tower (this has probably been in the news for a while). What's slightly more confusing is that there are 32,000 people in a facebook group protesting the right of the company that owns it to rename it...

I'm one of those people that will still call it the Sears Tower, just because it'll be a weird habit to break; but I still believe it's fully within the rights of the company to change it.
As a spokesperson for the Willis company stated: it's the building itself that is iconic, not the name. Even the name "Sears Tower" is just the name of the corporation that initially owned it - the name has no deep tie to the Chicago culture (other than that people are used to calling it that).


Funny how so many people aren't just resistant to change, but will fight it to the last breath - no matter how small the change is.

By the way, I'm engaged now!

Don't know date or anything yet. Gonna wait 'till I get the new job to flesh the details out.

Now that's an awesome game.

Only problem is, the AI director absolutely hates me. Literally. There are not words for this level of hate. I'm talking, 2 witches, 2 tanks, 5-6 boomers, 4ish smokers, and at least 4-5 hunters - all in the "Dead Air - Offices" level going from the top floor to the bottom... Yeah. That was painful. And to think, I was trying the Unbreakable achievement (use no healing throughout the course of the campaign).
Meanwhile, there are the standard hordes of zombies rushing at us - but, of course, our brawling has invariably set off a car alarm or two... Oh joy. (Loud noises attract every zombie in the city).


Oh, and this was all on Easy difficulty. If that was "Easy", I don't think I'm ever going to try Normal again.
Don't be discouraged from buying/playing it, normally it's got the pacing down well - this one time was just WAY too much though .