Up, up, and away! just doesn’t have that zing to it.

September 9, 2004

As I began experiencing a fresh crop of problems on my computer yesterday, I realized that while I’d examined every possible cause of the major annoyances I’d been experiencing, I’d neglected to actually try one step that is usually the first thing I try. My Dad has fond memories, I’m quite sure, of the two of us trying to get his blasted computer working (which time I can’t be certain, there have been so many times) with me under his computer table, yanking RAM sticks trying to find the one(s) causing problems. I hadn’t tried that with my own. I’d run a program called MemTest, which is excelletn for checking the integrity of RAM, but as I’ve discovered in the past, can’t always tell you when you have a bad stick. So I pulled the two “new” sticks of RAM I’d gotten from my Dad and found that my system ran smoothly without any problems. Those sticks of RAM had been high quality high brand sticks of RAM. The other one in my machine was a medium quality name brand.

Goes to show you that you don’t always get what you pay for, I suppose. I could still run further tests and find out which one of the two is causing problems, but since I’m at work and my system is working, that’s unlikely. Most likely, I’ll just buy a single stick of RAM to replace the two I pulled out. When I build my new computer next year, I’ll have to buy new RAM anyway. Might as well get it over with now. Well, my next paycheck, at least. I can wait until next week. I’m still left with 512 MB of RAM, and if I get one of the two sticks working, that will bump me up to 768 MB. Actually that would probably be OK, now that I think about it, but a gigabyte of RAM just has a better ring to it than 768 MB, yes?

The piece of software I was running in which I finally discovered the culprit of the problems was a new game I picked up called City of Heroes. I’d been mulling it over for quite some time, and ever since I first saw it was in development the idea intrigued me. It’s a game similar in technology to EverQuest, or like the game that sucked me in for a good six months earlier in the year, Star Wars Galaxies. It’s an online roleplaying game where you create a character, choose their attributed, their appearance, etc, and then play them in a dynamic world with thousands of other players at the same time. EverQuest was “might and magic” oriented (that is, swords and wands kind of thing), Star Wars Galaxies is…well…Star Wars oriented. City of Heroes lets you create a comic book-esque superhero in the fictional “Paragon City” where crime runs rampant. So rampant, apparently, that it requires thousands of superheroes to patrol the streets and fight off the villians and their henchmen.

So yeah, that’s my kind of game. It’s gotten excellent reviews for the last three or four months since release, and it’s a graphically beautiful game. I had a pretty good idea of what kind of character I wanted to make going in, and so I made a superhero who mutated to be able to control and manipulate ice named “Dry Frost.” I originally wanted “Cold Snap,” but that was taken. Other names I thought about were “Blue Ice,” “Sleet,” “Freezing Rain,” and other variations on the whole ice/snow/cold theme. “Iceman” wasn’t an option in my mind because that’s the name of one of the X-Men. The game requires you to write an origin story, even a brief one, and also to come up with a battle cry that gets yelled as you go into battle. My original was was pretty lousy, but Heather suggested a much better one that I adopted: “Time to kick some ice!” As you fight bad guys, you gain experience and upgrades to your powers, and as you level up you gain additional powers and additional ways to enhance your existing powers. At level 20 you can get a cape.

The expansion pack comes out early next year, called “City of Villains.” How intriguing….

My Dad pointed out in a comment to yesterday’s post that he found his house via the TerraServer website. I’m going to try and find it sometime today, which should prove a greater challenge than finding my Mom’s house. To see the picture I saved of my Mom’s neighborhood, visit the following link:

http://terraserver.microsoft.com/download.ashx?T=4&S=8&x=10311:10314&y=100858:100856&z=10

On the first colda-sac (sp?) from the bottom, take a look at the third driveway on the north side of the street. That little red blob is the Mustang. Cool, huh?

So I’m a bit happier with things now that I’ve largely figured out the cause of my computer problems as well as having a game to occupy my time. My Tivo’s going to get jealous and lonely.

Which reminds me, remember, if anyone’s interested in getting a TiVo, don’t forget to use me as a reference. I also still have GMail invites to give away if anyone wants one of those. I guess the more technically-inclined people who read my site already have them, but hey, never hurts to ask.

Time to kick some ice!

Posted in Geekery, General