Still off

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Computer @ Home is still dead. After some testing I have decided that the CPU has died and there’s not much I can do about it. What I tried is, I unplugged everything and left the MB only with CPU and Power and it won’t start (even the PSU fan), however the power led on the MB starts which means it is still getting power. I then removed the CPU and booted it again, the led still lighted which is the same effect as before. Ergo the CPU’s dead.

I’ve been using Knoppix on the Smoothwall Firewall to have at least basic internet access but it is dead slow. I mean KDE is unusable and icewm is only marginally better. How could we even work on these thing 6 years ago? Has our OS bloated so much? Anyway, problem is that my optical mouse is USB and that antique does not support that, so I settled for keyboard manipulation, which is fine if you know the shortcuts. Unfortunately I didn’t and it was hell…

At work now, I have taken an MB from work to test it. I hope it works without too much hassle because I do not have money for upgrades even at this time.
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Bootbootbootboot…nah.

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Crap, I came home yesterday and found my PC shut down. I tried to start it up but it refused. This sometimes happens when the power goes out in the house and back up again and until now, the solution had been to take off the power for a while (until the MB is uncharged) and put in back again.
This time however it wouldn’t boot at all. I would boot, the fans made a small jerk like starting the get power and then stopped. Another boot didn’t do anything until I removed power again. I tried a few things, mainly taking out all power except to the MB but it didn’t help either. I am afraid this might be an unrecoverable MB short-circuit and I’m seriously lacking the funds to have an upgrade at this point.

Now the error is either with the MB, the power supply or most unlikely, the CPU. All I can do at this point is change the power with one I’ll take from my job temporarily.

At least that made me do something else other than spend time in front of the screen which in my case was to sleep and prepare for the Evernight campaign.
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Once more into the Night

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We’re once again in business, the Evernight campaign I had put on hold 7 months ago is starting once more.
One player has left (I do not want him back) and two new have arrived, Konstantis and Elena. This brings us to 5 PCs which is the optimal number for this campaign. Now I can feel a bit more secure that the encounter won’t be too hard.

Problem is that Konstantis has started working on an internet cafe which means he has a variable schedule, which means he decides the day we will play. Since that is the case I plan to make him be the “Game Crier” (the one who takes phone calls to schedule the game).
As always he decided to play the combat monkey, creating a Red Knight when he found out he didn’t have enough money to create the double sword, double gunslinging character he wished. I allowed him to take an edge when he couldn’t and I’m afraid it might disrupt the game, however I am a yes guy and it would make him happy (and shut up about those 3 exp)

Elena decided to makes a rogue-like character. I tried to dissuade her but she doesn’t seem to want to play anything else. There are two problems I foresee with this.
A. She is very inexperienced and tried to make a kind of jack-of-all-trades character. Unfortunately that is not a very good tactic for RPG, especially for heroic RPGs. The player finds it hard to shine at one place and thus get into the spotlight. The end effect is that she may get bored. Everyone needs his 15 minutes of fame.
B. She is also too similar to another player, who has the street rat archetype. I hope to give her some alternative ideas she can follow. Right now I’m thinking of a tomb raider archetype. It fits with the world and is rogue-like enough.

I also would like to have Sideris play as well but he asked me too late unfortunately. If someone drops out however he will be my first choice.

I noticed yesterday as they were making characters that I had forgotten the rules almost completely. That sucked.
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Staff Update

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I have been in contact with the guys from Firetoys for the last day, trying to see what will happen with my staff break.
It seems it was from an external manufacturer and that may be the cause of its bad quality. I don’t really know, the could also be bullshitting me in order not to look bad. I did make a post in their forums about my mishap.

Anyway, the original plan was for me to send it and they would send me a replacement. However the postal costs are a bit high for such a large item and as such they told me to email them pictures of the break which they will forward to the manufacturer as proof in order to send me a new one.
Image hosted by Photobucket.comImage hosted by Photobucket.comFor anyone interested, here’s what the break looks like

I took those with a friend’s camera. Mmmm, I need to get me one of those…

Lets hope everything works out alright…

I don't fucking believe this!

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My Fire Staff just broke.

For FUCK’S sake, the fuckin’ aluminum shaft broke! How fuckin’ unlucky can I get? I don’t even have it for a month and it broke! AAARGH!

I am so GOD DAMN PISSED OFF right now I could punch someone!

This ruined my whole night (and it looked promising as well 🙁 ) and probably tomorrow as well.

I just sent a mail to the company that I bought it from Firetoys and I hope for a quick response. I hope as hell they take it back and I also hope they don’t make me pay the postal cost. They’ll cost as much as the actual thing for fuck’s sake.

GOD DAMNIT! FUCKIN’ GOD DAMNIT!

Jesus Loves You

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Man, these religious fanatics are so amusing at times.

Yesterday I was at the docks practicing my fire staff skills and I decided to move away from the Alexander the Great’s statue and to a more dark area. The lights around there glare at my eyes and I cannot catch the staff correctly.
Anyway, right next to the statue some people were gathering and were making sound checks, I decided to move further down so as to not be near the noise.

Then the fun started.

It seems those people were religious zealots and they believed in “Our Saviour Christ” with an astounding fervor.

They started with a silly little song about how much “Jesus loves us” and I could hear people clapping (not many though) and then they started shouting.
It reminded me of times of past when people would stand in the town square and advertise the religion of their choice to anyone who cared to stand and listen (think The Life of Brian)

‘Jesus Loves Youuu’
‘He gave his life for Youuu’
‘Don’t look awaaay’
‘Jesus is your saviooor’

etc. which went on for quite while.
I mean, not even one convincing argument? Just that Jesus loves us and that’s that? Shouldn’t they be trying to convince us heathens with their facts and depth of knowledge?

They were also giving away pamphlets and new testaments for free. I guess reading the new testament once more after school (as if they didn’t perform a big enough proselytism there) is supposed to be all the proof we need.

At one point I was passing next to them and a fat man wearing a purple shirt came and gave me the pamphlet and the book. I was too tired to argue with him so I just took them among blessings and shit and then threw them in the garbage.

Since that whole charade was supposed to be for the teenagers and young adults, they brought forward some converted young men to talk about their experiences.
They were talking about how they were saved and it seems they only thing they were saved from were generic “sins” and booze and drugs. Well I’m not into drugs or excess booze so I can safely say that I was “saved” as well. Although in my case I’m pretty certain “God” had nothing to do with it.

Anyway I was minding my own business and hoping that they would go away soon and then along comes an old lady along with yet another fat man (I wonder how those pious men seem to be fed so well) and wanted to give me the pamphlet and the book. Only I didn’t want them this time.
As soon as they heard that, they were on me like vultures.

‘Just take the pamphlet and all will be explained’
‘I’d rather not’
‘Look, here’s the new testament, it’s free’
‘I don’t want it’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t have anywhere to put it’
‘Aren’t you a Christian’
‘No’
‘What are you then’
‘I have no religion’
‘Then take the book, you need it’
‘No I don’t’
‘Look, there’s more important things than playing with that stick of yours’
‘Don’t tell him that, he’s a good kid’
‘But I like my stick’
‘Yes and it must be good excercise, but aren’t you afraid for your immortal soul?’
‘I don’t know if I do have one’
‘Sure you do’
‘How do you know?’
‘God tells us’
‘He didn’t tell it to me’
‘What are those numbers on your shirt’(reading them aloud in case they magically turn into 666)‘9-8-6’
‘Look, I don’t need the book or the pamphlet, I’ve made my choices’
‘But what about your spirit…?’

This conversation continued for a while until another lady (ugly as hell) came and took them because they were “late” (for what?)

Then after a while two little girls came, with pamphlets again.
After staring at me for a while they made their move

‘Hey mister, take a pamphlet’
‘No let me, it my turn’ the other girl would say
‘I don’t wanna’
‘You don’t? But it’s free’
‘Yes I know, but I don’t need it’

I don’t remember that conversation very well, but I do know that those girls didn’t try to convince me and I regretted not telling them to think about things a bit more.

Damn Proselytizers.

Anyway after two hours or so of yelling and preaching and whatnot, they finally left. Unfortunately at that point I was too tired as well, and had to go to the Navarinou street to mingle with the rest of the heathens 🙂
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Admin of Fruit

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I’ve just been made a SysOp over at Kiwilyrics. Sweet.
The other admins are either missing or too busy so that will allow me to fix some things that have fallen by the wayside.

In case you don’t know it, Kiwilyrics is a lyrics site using the wiki engine. This is especially helpful in the case of lyrics since there are usually a lot of typos and other mistakes. In other sites, if they allow lyrics submitions at all, you have to submit the lyrics to the admins and hope they are allowed soon. If the site sports a quick response time, that usually means that the lyrics are not reviewed at all. Fixing bad submitions is almost impossible, since the responce times are greater still.

The beauty of the wiki is that you have the power to change something immediately and it is also very hard to destroy things. See a mistype as you read a lyrics? Fixing it is only two clicks away.
Missing a song? Submit it yourself immediately. Hell, submit the whole album. Kiwizer makes that braindead easy (although it still has one or two bugs)

Bow before me for I am Op.
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Argh! Panic!

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I’m metaphorically running around like a headless chicken.
I’m saying metaphorically because I’m not actually running around but I’ve been switching through support tasks so quickly that it sure feels that way.

Today I’ve fixed the damn DFS replication of the primary file server and what I gained for my trouble is a loss or user rights in the dfs and me frantically scrabbling around to see what happened. I reset the system, took the opportunity to update the AV engine as well and between two reboots I’ve had about a million fuckin calls, and that was after I sent a notification that users should get out of the shared folders.

‘Kosta, some people got a message to close their files on shared folders but I didn’t’
‘Did you have open files on shared folders?’
‘No’
‘Then it’s logical not to get messaged isn’t it?’

‘Kosta, my shared folders are not opening’
‘I’m still working on it. I didn’t give the OK to get in yet. Why are you trying?’
‘Uh OK, when will they be up again?’
‘I dunno, probably as soon as I can get off the phone and keep working on it.’

(Well, OK. I didn’t say that last part, but I really wanted to)

‘KOSTA OMG I NEED THE SHARED FOLDERS OPEN FOR ME BECAUSE I NEED TO DO SOMETHING FOR THE IRS. IS IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!1!’
(Trying to keep calm) ‘Uh, I can’t do that. I’m still in the middle of it’
‘OPEN THEM JUST FOR ME, STOP WORKING I DON’T CARE. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND? WHY DIDN’T YOU CONTACT ME!’
‘Look, I cannot just “open” them for you. I’m trying to fix the system and I’m in the middle of it and I…’
‘CLICK’

and on top of that the ERP server started failing and even more calls started pouring in.
So I was trying to fix a server while answering stupid questions about two servers.
Finally we got things in line and I found out the real cause of the problem and I hope it stays fixed.

Then I tried to update the antivirus of the primary domain controller. Only he didn’t have IE6, but for some reason it thought it needed a reboot. So I do that, and the backup domain controller does not take control, so everybody is unauthenticated, which means out of the exchange server, until the primary is back up.
It comes up, I install the explorer, reboot and the same again, only now I’m also in fear because the IE6 setup has a tendency to crash the system in some cases and if that happened now…well, I’m just happy it didn’t.
Anyway it comes back up, and I install the new AV, and now I’m waiting for the inevitable reboot request, which won’t happen.

Then a remote router failed because the technicians trying to fix the network between two small stores were careless and took out one small cable, bringing down approximately 100 users. Then the systems are too slow, then the programs are not working, then…ARGH. As soon as one problem appears everyone thinks that everything is broken.

Oh and my “good mood” is not alleviated at all by my near sickness, which means a runny nose and a constant cough.