My computer is starting to stutter and shudder and exhibit other symptoms of old age, which sucks. It's a couple of years old, granted, but I always expected it to last forever, or at least into the next century. Sadly, the little box that I thought could, probably can't.

For the last couple of weeks it's been harping at me about the system battery. "Alert!" it would say. "Buh?" I would reply. Then it would continue with "System battery voltage is low!". I'd come back with "fuh?".

Then it made a big mistake and gave me the option of pressing F1 to continue or F2 to review setup. I responded to that with something like a "pah" and hit F1 to continue into the realm of personal computing.

Yesterday however, I got a kick in the pants for my renegade ways. The system booted thinking it was July in 2003, which simply is not the case, at least as far as I'm aware. I did some research and apparently that little battery on the motherboard (that's just a regular looking watch-style battery) is in charge of allowing for information like that to stay intact when the PC is off or somesuch.

Later in the night the system started crashing randomly, sometimes just shutting off and sometimes giving me the highly irritating blue screen of death! Well that simply wouldn't do, so I made plans to get a new battery for the thingy, and do some OS reinstall/repair type stuff in the hopes all would be well afterwards.

So I went out to the shops today to procure a new little battery thingy, which cost me five bucks. I came home and popped the hood to replace the dead battery, and as soon as the fan on my video card noticed that opportunity for freedom, it lept free of the card and started clattering around the interior of my once top-of-the-line machine.

After staring at that little snapped-off video card fan for a few moments, I uttered an obscenity that would explode a nun's head and render holy water acidic.

It snapped off in a way that quite literally ended the card's life. I'm not about to go in there with a hot glue gun and try to re-attach it (like some misguided schmendrick did with Amanda's computer back in the days before she had a wonderful man-friend like me for tech support).

Anyways, I had to yank the video card from Amanda's computer JUST to get my system running again and perform some disk checking and diagnostics which have thus far proven to be effective in ridding my PC of the demons which plague it, or at least in holding them back for a while longer.

Now I have to go buy another video card before Amanda notices I scavenged her machine for spare parts... ¬_¬

Labels: live

I'm going to start this one out with a bad comedian's opening line. It's a little classic I like to call "Didja ever notice?"

Didja ever notice...that...wow, this is sounding completely random now, even in my head. Anyways, didja ever notice that R2-D2 always gets told to remain with the ship AFTER he's already taken the trouble to eject himself and start following the main characters?

It happens in both the prequels and the Holy Trilogy. Anakin is walking away from his ship with Padme in tow, and Artoo can be seen in the background, trooping along obediently.

They're already a fair distance away, when Anakin turns around and tells the little guy to stay with the ship. So Artoo turns his little self around and starts rolling back across the SAND to the ship. No wonder Anakin became Darth Vader. His subtle cruely is staggering.

His son isn't much better. In Empire, Artoo takes the trouble to use his little lifty-elevator thingy in his droid socket on Luke's X-wing and starts moving towards his master. In true Skywalker form, Luke looks back and tells him to stay with the ship!

Then of course Artoo gets dragged around into all manner of locations where his little wheelies aren't really meant to go. Forget the polished corridors of starships and pristine hallways of Cloud City. We're gonna bring our astromech along to go clambering around the SANDS of Tatooine, the many STAIRS of Naboo, the ICE caverns of Hoth, the slimy MUDHOLES of Dagobah, and the UNEVEN foliage-laden ground of Endor's forest moon!

However, he doesn't actually seem to ever have any trouble in these places. I guess in most cases he traveled along routes where the ground was more packed down and flattened, though I can't for the life of me think of a way he could have successfully gotten himself around on the forest moon.

There's only one place I can recall where Artoo was actually stopped dead due to an obstacle he couldn't pass, and that was the door on Cloud City that Luke stepped through on his way to the carbon freezing chamber. Even if the door hadn't closed quickly behind Luke, there's no way Artoo could've gotten over the lower part of the frame that cam almost a foot off the ground.

The prequels did give him some more tricks to hide up his metaphorical sleeves though. There's two places where I remember Artoo deploying some kind of crazy apparatus to assist in moving around wierd places, both in Attack.

On Naboo, he used his third leg in a truly bizarre manner to move up some steps. And on Geonosis he utilized the amazing one-time-only rocket boosters. I guess that really was the only way to get around that crazy-ass droid factory with it's conveyor belts aplenty.

Where'd these fancy prequel abilities go over time? The Wookieepedia article on Artoo has summed up some interesting theories...

However, while I'm complaining here, it can be noted that Artoo never complains. He "mostly" just does what he's told, maintains his sense of humour, keeps an eye on those troublesome Skywalkers and Solos, logs away every little bit of information he can get his hands on, and remains secretive and mysterious, even to his jittery buddy C-3PO.

I salute you, Artoo. For all you do, this blog's for you....Artoo...doodeedoo.

Labels: muse, rant

This is a story about a train ride! A while back, Amanda and I took a trip over to the magical land of Pickering for some festivities. This was actually the first time that I'd been on that journey during the daylight hours, and I was surprised at the amount of landmarks that I'd been missing out on in the dark of night!

Amanda was kind enough to be my guide. She told me to look out for the following, and when they appeared I made little noises that may or may not have been related to rising levels of glee.

The first landmark was Che Guevera. Not the actual dude since he's kinda dead, but some graffiti of him on a wall. Intense!

Shortly after we passed a wall that had "Welcome to Cliffside" spray-painted on it. According to Amanda, it previously said "All your train are belong to us" which has since been painted over. Genius is always squelched in it's own time!

Next up was a couch. That's right. A couch in the OUTDOORS. Pretty crazy, yes? You betcha!

After that was a horse. Amanda told me that sometimes the horse is there, and sometimes it's not. It seemed to just be in some guy's backyard. I was skeptical, but then there was a horse. Bizarre.

I didn't think anything could really top the random horse, but Amanda insisted there was some really pretty greenery coming up, and that the greenery was very green and pretty.

She kept looking for the greenery, but couldn't find it. I saw things that were green, but apparently they weren't part of the greenery she was looking for. We never did find it. However, if we had, I suspect there would be sasquatches afoot.

Our next landmark came after the trees gave way, and we were right there beside the lake shore! It was really nice and watery looking, and I imagined that there were all manner of sea creatures within, living their complicated sea lives.

Then we apparently passed some area that sometimes has groundhogs. I don't really remember, I'm just going off my notebook here. It just says "groundhogs". My notebook doesn't lie! Watch out for groundhogs!

The final landmark was a funky tunnel that went under the highway. Though the other side could clearly be seen, it was nonetheless a mysterious tunnel that held many secrets. One can only speculate what might dwell therein!

It was a fun journey. Remember, something doesn't have to be large and impressive and French-built to be considered a landmark! The best landmarks are the ones that might have a horse present or the ones that may only exist in your girlfriend's delusions!

Labels: live

Book/Album Cover
Originally uploaded by chr0nometer

Just testing out some fancy Flickr functionality. This seems to be a pretty good tool for posting photos to your blog, so I may indeed use it more regularly!

Also, there are other changes about. See for yourself! The madness!

That is all.

That Sega Genesis I salvaged from a junk heap works just fine! Well, it's a little jittery, but once you give it the old blow-in-the-cartridge maneuver, it works like a charm. Although, that was the case for these things when they first came out new, so maybe I'm just nitpicking.

I was perusing the shelves of a downtown video game store that actually sells old Genesis and NES games for really cheap, and snatched up NBA Jam, because Amanda has fond memories of playing it back in the day. Not the Genesis version in particular, but it's all good :)

I also picked up a second controller for the bugger (one actually in worse shape than the one I found with the system). It is necessary for good old fashioned one-on-one combat. I totally kicked her ass in game one. I'm awesome.

I didn't just want to get a sports game though, so I also bagged an ancient classic by the name of Ecco the Dolphin. I remember playing this game about three million years ago. I also remember playing the sequel, and the Game Gear version. They're all hard as fuck. You play as Ecco and try to find your dolphin buddies and go to the past and the future and stuff. It's weird.

Finally, in an abrupt change of system and on a wild impulse, I snagged Diddy Kong Racing for the N64. That game rules. You can race in a car, a plane or a friggin' hovercraft. It's awesome. You should go play it. Now! That's what I'm gonna do!

*abrupt end of blog*

Labels: live, play

Boxes. Boxes! We've got boxes here! See, nobody cares. Nice hat. What are you trying to look like, a secret agent?

Now that I've got my Jurassic Park quoting fetish all nice and satisfied, I might as well tell you about boxes, and the fact that I'm currently surrounded by them.

A lot of moving-type things have been occurring as of late. Such as this blog moving to it's new home here at wrathbox.com! Kickawesome! My previous domains of bustedribcage.com and snaptofiction.com have been allowed to expire and fade away without a trace, much like the elusive ninja, in favour of this one new, all-encompassing domain.

I plan merge my web presence together into only this website and it's subdomains, so there's gonna be a lot of cool art stuff on here, organized nicely! Oh and mattatack.com still belongs to yours truly, and redirects to wrathbox.com. Gotta hang on to that one :)

This website still needs some bits added onto it though, and those will start to appear as soon as I can clear my work area of actual boxes, which are filled with my girlfriend Amanda's stuff, as she's moved in to my place!

In her defense, there's not actually much. Most of her things had to go back to her parents' place in Pickering because I quite actually have no room here, an area once lovingly referred to as M-Spot, due to the fact that it is just a tiny little spot :P

In fact, this surge of stuff has me finding nooks and crannies I didn't know existed just to accommodate it. All of her clothes are stowed away neatly, so there's just a few small boxes of odds and ends to find a temporary home for, and we're set.

We're only crammed in here for May and June though, then we're skedaddling to a new apartment will actually have been built to hold more than one person, and will allow for the inviting of guests!

Well, after we scrounge up some kind of furniture that is, or it'll just be a campout on beach towels. Fun time!

Anyways, I'm off. I've got to brave some cold rainy weather in my currently less-than-healthy state and travel to Amanda's place of work to borrow her Metropass, then go pick up some supplies, a new backpack (my previous one got destructified) and possibly a few ancient games for the Sega Genesis I snagged a few days ago :)

Labels: live