LadyCrimson

Forgot...was going to mention I saw the 1st episode of Sherlock Holmes (2010, BBC http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1475582/ ) last night. It's set in modern day London. I'm a huge fan of the original Holmes stories & am pretty picky about film versions of Holmes, so I was all set to be disappointed/irritated...but it surprised me. Based on the 1st episode alone it's pretty nifty. Modern, with cell-phones and cars such but yet somehow still retains a feeling of the original setting concept. I loved the actor playing Holmes right away. He's perfect for a modern Holmes retelling. I could do without the occasional use of text titles to illustrate Holmes thought process, but other than that... Watson isn't a bumbling idiot...the actor playing him feels a little...small...compared to my image of the healthy, strapping Watson Holmes would rely on for physical & gun backup, but I can overlook that because so far he's been pretty good in the role. Just the right amount of pride when he says he's a very good doctor, the right amount of stoic+indignation or quiet curiosity at other times. Hope the rest of the episodes are as good!

I have stability issues with the O/S HDD. 8-9 days ago the C: drive decided to made grindy noises and freeze (not BSOD), which started a long chain of HDD stability troubleshooting. The noise is not the mechanical failure click-click sort, just a loud grindy noise like it's stuck. Tests show the old drive had bad sectors that for some reason neither Windows/Linux recognize, so they kept writing into those bad sectors & then would get stuck trying to access from there. If I waited long enough it would usually recover from being 'stuck' and you could keep going, but occasionally it would crash/auto-boot. So replaced the C drive with a new bought drive (different brand), and about 2 days after installing Windows+GPU/sound drivers & Firefox (and nothing else), that one did exactly the same thing. Same noise, same symptoms. Reformatted & reinstalled Windows, 10 minutes later, same symptoms. Tested the new HDD and it had some minor errors that the diagnostic repaired...waiting for hubby to run his more extensive tests on it as well. Going to try to exchange/buy another HDD & new cables, but if that one does the same thing, I have to assume something is wrong with the rig itself, causing HDD sector failures. Hence...maybe I need more/new PSU. :D (edit: going to run meter test on the PSU later) But happens when just sitting at idle and there's been no flickering or other weird stuff that sometimes occur if power is unstable. Temps for all things are below 35C. System RAM is not an issue (tested). Pretty sure house circuits are not an issue, altho it is remotely possible. Besides GPU, I have a soundcard, 2 internal drives (C: + storage drive), the DVD drive, mobo/CPU+lotsa RAM, 6 case fans...that's it. Fairly sure the 2nd HDD has no issue, altho it's a bit hard to tell when they're both plugged in at once (it's currently not connected). For 3-4 weeks after I bought the 590, everything was fine/solid like usual. Then kaboom. hehe

Well I, at least, haven't seen anyone, or any digital clock, call 7am as 00:70... Today I'm sitting in front of the wall heater & relaxing a lot....main PC still needs fixing but I'm tired of thinking about it. Wasn't gaming much lately anyway, so it's not like I miss the pc-power rig much to begin with.

Yes, it was a cute cameo. I'm laughing because he was our governor & then now that he's not, we get to see the "Governator" on-screen again. Altho that office sexual misconduct/infidelity/divorce legal stuff that occurred not long after his governorship ended kind of put a crimp in his plans for a while. Don't get me wrong, I still like ol' Arnie, & I didn't actually dislike him as governor, but well...maybe you have to live here to understand. It's just....funny.

Hey Gorth, what kind of PSU are you using? I'm wondering if my current 750w PSU might be a little weak for the card+all the other PC stuff it has to supply...eg if it's possibly part of my current pc troubles. I'm sort of doubting it, since the pc problems occur even when the GPU is idling (eg, not doing anything but browsing folders on the desktop), but never know... (edit) Even on gaming load, most places say the 590 is using about 500W...so just for GPU alone I think my PSU is fine...but since PC's are not made of GPU alone, maybe I need an 850w or something)

Pandorum was pretty good, altho I could've done with a bit less of of the bad-creature stuff towards the end. Also....Arnold's going to be in EX2? Bwahaha....

Spam Blacksmithing? ...guess just using your combat skills wasn't enough in your case. That's really funny. (edit) - I think I've explored 1/3 of the map and I was still only lvl 12 when I was forced to stop...and 3-4 of those levels came from blacksmithing. Another 1- 2 from sneaking.

Ready to toss this computer in the trash. Re-watching Limitless so I can drool over Bradly Cooper instead of see red over tech issues.

Since my Win7 pc is in the process of troubleshooting/testing, I'm playing some Stronghold:Crusader on my XP machine. After hearing about how terrible SH3 apparently is (from reviews+users/players) I felt like playing the original game...even if your melee units can absurdly break down stone walls with relative ease, still one of the most fun RTS+sort-of-sim's evah. imo.

Reformat/reinstall went from fine to not so fine. After testing system RAM (it's fine) I'm installing Win7 again, only removing that stupid 100MB "reserved" system partition this time. Also, not installing any of the nvidia 3D or HD sound drivers since I need neither. Some people get weird blank screen BSOD w/the sound ones so I'll try anything at this point. Yup, it's gonna be a "computers suck, why do I even bother" week. At least my XP pc is still lively. *knock wood* In other areas: those Firefox persona things are pretty nifty...yeah, I'm only trying them out now. Gotta figure out how to make them myself so I can create more personalized ones.

After 8-9 hours ... 55% done! ... I have a lot of errands to do this morning, so probably for the best anyhow. Also...I've seen some videos of this years Black Friday madness. That stuff is just crazy...mob mentality. I'll never understand wanting something (materialistic) so badly that I'd put up with the risk of being trampled, pepper-sprayed, fist-fights over toys, camping out in line for days, etc.

Most of the FXAA injector vids/screens I've seen have been pretty terrible too...mostly just over-saturating the color palette, kids going crazy with the setting I guess. Looks awful imo. But Bokshi's shots aren't bad...some more color, selectively, isn't unwelcome, imo...there's no grey sky inside a fire/lamp-lit cabin, for instance. You can create a general bleakish mood without having to make all colors/lighting everywhere muted to death.

Apparently, formatting (not the quick format...) a 2TB USB external hard drive takes a really, really, long time. I was hoping it'd be done by now so I could reformat/reinstall Win7 then do a quick system image backup of the clean install on it, but at this rate it'll be tomorrow morning. Stupid USB drive I bought was in FAT32 so I have to reformat to NTFS...

...nope, still not even close to photo-realistic. Sorry. But some of those look a lot better than the vanilla game, that I've seen at least.

Woke up. Started PC. Browsed a couple forums for about 5 minutes, the (new) HDD made weird noises, Firefox froze again, then system froze. At this point I'm pretty sure it's not the HDD/hardware itself, something else has gone wacko that's causing programs (possibly FF) to wig out and then corrupt system data. Even hubby was like "weird, don't think it's the HDD now." Running a complete long-arse virus scan now;doubt that's it but may as well check. May have to reformat after all. Overdue anyway I suppose. Pretty strange stuff. Gremlins...

Death Spank was cute. Played about an hour. Not sure it's cute enough for me to play very long, but it's definitely amusing. Played Skyrim for a couple more hours. Still just running around looking/finding places & locations....which half the time seems to trigger quests even without talking to anyone. The walruses were funny. There's definitely something about ES games that make me not care about doing quests. At all. Every time I try to do one, talking to ppl and doing what they say, I get bored and ignore it.

Hm. Good idea, especially for it's current half off price. I liked the sound of the "open worldness" of the gameplay, even if the setting isn't something I typically go for. That and the insurance fraud humor and beating people up with that long purple .... weapon.

I played a bit of the last Anno and while it was decent, it's not quite as city-building/sim as I like. Or...something. I'm not sure, just wasn't the same. There was this one indie Farming sim that almost tempted me....it just looked cool, heh.

I like this. I've been noticing more games there that are "only" 4-5 years old, stuff like that. And the Witcher2, very recent. Just nice to have an option other than Steam for some stuff, when possible.

Anyone playing Saints Row3? I can't decide if it's a game I'd like or not. Some of the stuff you can do in it (from videos) makes it look like my kind of quirky humor, but other than that...I'm having a hard time figuring out what the exact gameplay is supposed to be... Is the demo any good? I could try that I guess. Just seems like most demos I've ever tried suck....

I can't wait for specific sales because I don't check Steam every day...or even every week. heh. I was definitely annoyed at 2W2's sale price from when I bought it a few weeks ago or whatever it was. ...I was looking for a city building type strategy sim but most of the ones I saw look like garbage. That genre seems pretty dead right now.

Is that the 2nd Batman one? Liking it so far? I noticed the 1st was on cheap Steam sale and thought about buying it but...I already have too many games.

The game is far from photo-realistic. I've seen so many talking about how awesome the leaves in particular are, but they drive me absolutely insane when I see them, heh. (the birchbark tree trunks look pretty good from a distance tho). As are all games, outside of some non-gameplay cutscenes. The tech may be there to do it, but probably too much work+expense+they have to keep games with low hardware in mind.

They still haven't actually confirmed that its related to Aliens in any way... I know the wiki isn't the best source for everything, but reading the page on this film, it sure sounds like they have. It's not actually a direct prequel...more like a "pre"- re-visioning/reboot of the alien world/universe, perhaps.

Hey, I said I'd give it a chance.