2 Bit Hacker

Another year, another post for the holidays, whichever ones you might choose to celebrate. I’ve been claiming Pastafarianism for most of this year, which prescribes a simple Holiday season. I really ought to pick up a copy of the holy book one of these days.

Anyway, I’ve got my desktop PC up and running again with a shiny new power supply. Hopefully this one will last for a while. Delia’s desktop’s video card started having fits when we hooked it up to a DVI monitor. I had similar issues with another card back when I first built this system, so I think it may have been a flaw in that line of cards. We picked up a new one at Best Buy, so it’s all happy again.

What with the new expansion pack and all, we’ve decided to take up WoW again. I figure with Jason playing and a few other friends on there, it’ll be a good way to waste away some winter nights. I’m looking to avoid all the stupid guild drama crap this time around though. So far it’s been pretty fun. A lot has changed since we stopped playing, so it’s kind of fun to discover all the little new things.

Not a whole lot going on otherwise. Thinking of having a New Year’s Eve party here. Slowly working on getting my stuff out of the second bedroom so Delia can use it as a massage room. She still needs to get in a bunch of practice hours before she can get her state certification back, so I figured having a place to practice would help.

I’ve been playing a fair amount of video games lately, most recently Fable 2 and Fallout 3, both on the XBox 360, with some Castle Crashers mixed in. I also picked up Soul Calibur IV a while back, but that’s more fun to play with other people, and people don’t visit my apartment all that often.

Fable 2 is good, but I found the main storyline to be way too short. Sure, there are plenty of side quests to do, and some obscure achievements to unlock, but it doesn’t feel like the content is all that rich. I’ve played through the main story twice now, in order to try once as good and once as evil, and it just doesn’t feel all that varied. I’ll keep poking at it though, as it’s easier to just let it collect dust for a bit between playings in order to build up cash, since you keep earning in-game while not actively playing. Not a bad game, but I somewhat wish I had rented it instead of buying, though Delia appears to enjoy it.

Fallout 3 on the other hand feels much much larger. I’ve been playing on and off for a couple of weeks, and haven’t finished the main storyline yet. There’s just so much to go out and explore that I find myself wandering around the Wasteland instead of trying to advance the story. At least once I skipped part of the story due to exploring, which I was surprised to find the game allowed. The combat system is a little weak, as it lacks the target lock that a lot of the other FPS games I’ve played on the console have had, and aiming is fidgety. The V.A.T.S. combat stuff makes up for this though, making it so you don’t have to aim on your own, though it does slow down combat, but it also conserves ammo; a precious commodity in the Wastes. I’m considering buying this so I can get on to the next game in my GameFly queue. It’s a great game, and there’s already downloadable content on the way for it.

I’ve also been thinking about fixing up my home PC and picking up World of Warcraft now that the second expansion is out. Jason still plays, and apparently the end-game dynamic has changed a lot since I stopped playing. I just don’t want to get sucked into it again and get wrapped up in all the guild drama. We shall see. At the very least I need a new power supply, and I might need a new motherboard, which would pretty much require a new CPU as well. Tech Report just put out a new system guide, which is tempting me to just buy a whole new system again. We shall see…

Well, I have not one but two new computers now. The first is my new desktop at home, the system described in my previous post. It’s all assembled and running happily now, and I’ve finally been able to play the likes of HL2 (the demo at least.) Having a modern computer again is really nice. I could use suggestions for games to play though. I’ve reactivated my WoW account (yeah, I can see the comments on this one coming already) though I’m trying to limit my playing to a few nights a week and not letting it take over my life again.

The other new computer is an IBM Thinkpad T43 laptop, with a Pentium M 2.0Ghz CPU, 1.5GB of RAM, 80GB HD, an ATI Mobility Radeon X300 with 64MB of RAM, and a 1400×1050 screen. This came to me thanks to Big Dave, who I am very much in debt to. If you have need of hosting or consulting services, check out IronCastle Systems (plug plug…) The Thinkpad is so much nicer than my aging Sony VAIO. It just feels a lot more solid, and it’s default software loadout is a hell of a lot nicer. No stupid media programs that I’ll never use, just useful stuff like the Thinkpad’s location manager for changing settings based on what network I’m on, and the fingerprint ID stuff. I’d highly recommend a Thinkpad to anyone looking to get a laptop.

Aside from all that, not a lot new or exciting in life. My diet is going okay, I’ve been sticking too it fairly well, though I need to get out and exercise more. Should be easier now that I don’t have a cold and the weather isn’t hitting 100° F anymore…