So I picked up Neverwinter Nights 2. (Pre-order discounts aren't as good as waiting around a couple years for the game to half its price, but I want to play *now*.) I don't pay close attention to its sysreqs, because I already know my graphics card is four years old and doesn't play new games well. (See, I had that problem with Indigo Prophecy, but it would still run, so the reason I don't like IP isn't because of the way it sometimes lags, but the way they've designed their game mechanics. I don't play FPS, and I'm not about to start playing any other game that doesn't offer you the choice of using a mouse to point and click, instead of wandering around the room using the number pad, hoping you don't miss anything important. Which is sad, because the game story is supercool. If anyone's at all interested in it, I can send you my copy.) I wasn't expecting the run program to tell me it couldn't find a compatible Direct3D client. (It installs the game, and then says I can't play? Don't these games have computer-checking software before I spend an hour installing?)

So I'm going "I think that's something to do with graphics card" but really, I've got no idea because I know more about chainsaws than I do computer hardware. Then I get to thinking- maybe my computer's just getting too old (but it's a Pentium 4. Don't they still make those?), so I head over here to find out if there's something else my computer is lacking in. Except I have no idea what the difference is between the 1.79GHz my CPU has, and the 2GHz CPU the game requires. (The only other thing being my graphics card that is an issue. It's a GeForce 2, which while spiffy back when I got it, is getting a little old. But seeing as how I've run other games that require a better graphics card (ie- KotOR2), I'm thinking maybe it's just I need to update the driver. I've never heard of Direct3D. Could be new, and I only update that stuff when the thought hits me. (Every other year or so.)) So now I'm off to figure out what the deal is with gigahertz. Maybe it's the speed of the computer?

Whee. I can change out a DSL modem with a cable modem in half an hour. (Don't tell Pug it took me ten minutes to notice I forgot to plug in the power cord for the router...) And it only took restarting my computer three times. (Which was primarily me being in the habit of restarting my computer every time I restart the cable modem.)

(Also, there are now, like, fifteen wires behind the television. The OCD person in me wants to straighten it up right now, but the lazy person in me succeeded in the 'eh, whatever, just make sure the TV hides most of it' plan.)

Roscoe supervised the installing of the modem. It was more like 'Ooh, plastic noises! Ooh, stringy things! Ooh, twist-ties! Play now!' with his nose six inches from whatever it was I was doing, up until Lee got annoyed and exiled him to the bathroom. And then the serenade of the tortured cat began. Because, dastardly fiend that Lee is, she had separated him from us! And him only eighteen months old. He was traumatized. (So was my cat. She kept staring at the bathroom door.)

Only get through channel nineteen on our cable TV. I'm going to spend all of tomorrow refraining from calling Lee to see if she's fixed it yet, because come hell or high taxes, I'm watching Eureka, and it airs on Tuesdays. (Which is weird, because I'm still used to being addicted to Friday Sci-Fi shows and haven't quite adjusted (which is perfectly normal, seeing as how Eureka is new, and tomorrow will be all of episode three).) I've been spending Tuesdays at the folkses. (I've turned down dinner for it. Admittedly it was also my mother's birthday...)

Lee got a call from someone named Ruth, who I'm guessing is the one she's visiting in October, as pillows were mentioned, and geez, I thought online friends were like invisible friends. Real only to you, not real as in reality.

Awfully white on this page. And every other page on here. LJ did some cleaning up of its scripts, so I'll poke around my modifications tonight when I've got the four hours to blow. (If I actually knew what I was doing, it would take less time, but I'm a member of the 'use it, then learn it' theory of gaining knowledge. Though sometimes I also whip out the 'kick it until it works' card.)

I'm having way too much fun figuring out how to change stuff on my livejournal. (Look, dotted lines! Don't ask me how long it took to figure out how to do that without doing all the boxes that way. Eyestrain.) But I still haven't figured out how to make the quote box for the thought box be centered instead of left-oriented. And I haven't touched the calendar page. That's next on the to-do list.

Combine this with figuring out more of Photoshop, getting Outlook to realize the store has an email address (and to get the damn email already), learning how to make a year calendar fit on a single sheet of paper *in Word* and have room on the side for notes, and slowing inputting inventory into Access (which I haven't used for seven years...). I haven't had this much growth of software information in my head since we first got a computer and I first figured out how to use more than just the basics of Word.

My brain hurts.

Lee spent a lot of time yesterday trying to change her mood theme. Not just to the bouncing stars and gray kitties. Even I can figure that out. I'm talking personalized, 'you had to upload all the damn things yourself' mood theme.

We never got it to work. I would've kept at it- but she wanted to eat, and had been trying to get me to help decide where to go for the previous three or so hours.

Helping her try to get it to work got me wanting to try it for myself. Admittedly her Shakespeare images- should she decide against the Sin City mood theme she originally wanted and couldn't find- are cooler than mine. But I like Star Wars. And Dark Jedi are hot.

...

...

Er, yeah.

Further musings you never wanted to hear from the non-coder monkey.

She had spiffy icons, so I went hunting too... (Liz says that way too many of my posts involve boredom, (and then said that the rest all concerned her, but who else do I spend regular time with besides co-workers?). I'm sure you need no explanation as to why I would bother going through LJ communities looking at icons.) Some of them were vastly amusing. I decided that it would be cool to have more, so I followed Liz's example and paid for my account.

I still need a happy icon.

Suppose that's rather like me. Get everything that could go along with me but the happy icon. (And here is where I could wax philosophical on the fact that happiness is fleeting, and I don't like being happy because when I'm in my usual depressed mode, I can remember how happy I can be and how I'm not that way currently, making me sink even lower. My thoughts circle like sharks sometimes.)

Liz also doodled an icon I should have. Because I bring up my evil issues so often. It's cute, and very me. I kinda wish it was scanned.

I also am tiptoeing around html. New-found respect for geeks, btw. I'm simply altering pregenerated stuff. Real geeks write the entire damn thing themselves.

Theresa told me my RPG icon was broken. (Click user picture to view my different icons. The RPG icon is the one that says RPG on it.) Her sense of humor was out of practice. I rather like it. Stealth humor. (Of course, my sense of humor is often both broad and completely incomprehensible at the same time, but I like the double-take you make with it to actually get the joke.)

( I take myself far too seriously to be insane. )