The damage is finally undone….

Finally was able to replace the processor I f*cked up 2 months ago. Now comes the worst part: the cleanup….

A little creative bookkeeping….

Payday was last week. First I paid out all the bills due before the next payday. Then I realized that I could afford to replace the Ryzen 7 3800x that I fucked up last month. That will arrive later this week.

Did something today that I normally don’t do of late. I crossed Pacific Avenue. Normally when I do grocery shopping, I’ll have Target deliver, or I’ll catch the bus down to Wally World. But today, I crossed Pacific Avenue and went to Saar’s Marketplace. A bit on the expensive side, but I’m not paying a delivery fee, and dealing with the bus schedule….

Happy Shove Bread Up A Turkey’s Ass Day….

Today is Thanksgiving. Normally I’d be at work right now, but they give the overnight crew Wednesday night off (which is usually my Monday). Last year, they just gave me a three day weekend. This year, they just shifted my weekend. So I’m off tonight…

Normally my brother cooks Thanksgiving dinner, but he got invited out. And I have to work Thanksgiving night (related to Black Friday and working overnights). And my sister is having her Thanksgiving dinner right when I’m sleeping and getting ready to go to work. So I bought some sliced turkey breast at least for a sandwich. And I’m out of bread. C’est la vie….

So it doesn’t matter if you’re celebrating with turkey, ham, Soylent Green, or pizza rolls, have a happy Thanksgiving.

All this trouble for naught….

So after putting the 8 tb hard drive in my backup tower, I went to install windows (my last post was written on my phone. And the computer wouldn’t turn on at all.That gave me a hunch. I plugged another power cord into my ‘broken’ tower. And it turned on. It was all a bad power cord….

So long story short, my main tower is up and running again. The ‘new processor I had in it is shot, but a Ryzen 7 2700X isn’t that bad of a processor. So I can put off upgrading it for now….

Here we go again....

When we last last our hero, I was using my back up tower pending replacement of several parts on my main tower. Taking a look at my finances, I realized it was going to be several months before I could afford them. I'm not putting them on my Christmas list, as they're too expensive, and it was my mistake in the first place. So moving forward, I pulled the TV tuner card out and installed it. I also pulled out one of my 8tb hard drives (old tower only had space for one drive).

But this means I'm rebuilding the system again. Had a bit of a scare this time. When I put everything together again, and went to torn out on, nothing happened. Pulled everything out, cracked open the case and started checking connections. Ave then I heard the satisfying click. The cable to power the processor had come loose. It happens when you're moving stiff around inside. Put everything back together, and it starts up.

Not the best of situations, but I still have something, and I just have to make the best of what's around.... 

Been looking around online…

Replacement motherboard was located on Newegg. That and a replacement processor mean it will be about 3-4 months, possibly longer before I can afford it. Gambling is the quickest way to lose money, but IT is the surest…

Well this just sucks...

 So, after upgrading my tower to Windows 11 last week, I decided to upgrade the CPU cooler. Order an Arctic Freeze A35 A-RGB from Spamazon. Arrived on Wednesday (or my Monday according to my work schedule). Got home from work, and immediately broke my tower to install it. And I hurried. And I swore. But I  got it installed. I thought. I put the tower back together, and nothing happened when I turned it on. Took everything apart again, and this time, I saw lights, but it wouldn't boot up. Multiple tries, even reverting to my stock Wraith Prism cooler, didn't work. Eventually, I just gave up and went to bed. At work the next day, it occured to me that it might have been excessive thermal grease.So I ordered some thermal grease remover, which arrived Saturday. 

Fast forward to today. I get home form work, start my weekend, and take everything apart again. This time I used the grease remover to clear out the thermal grease from where it shouldn't be. And while cleaning it out, I took a look at the CPU (the Ryzen 7 3800X that I bought recently). And it wasn't good. Bent pin city. the CPU was dead. Fortunately I had my old Ryzen 7 2700X, which I put in. And then I tried powering on the tower. Nothing. I guess it looks like I'm replacing my motherboard and CPU. Again. Until then, I'm using my HP Pavilion 500-314 again. Once upon a time, I thought about giving it away. It's a good thing I didn't.

I've already priced the replacement components, and it's going to be a while before I can afford to them, so I gues I'm using this for the long haul. For now....

20 Years Ago Tonight....

It was 20 years ago tonight when my brother announced that I was going to the hospital. Add I was too sick to fight it. That's when I found out that I was a diabetic, and Type 1 at that.

So let us take a few minutes and commemorate little brothers and insulin.... 

Giving It Another Try…

Trying Windows 11 again. This time, I’ve ditched WindowBlinds and I’m going with just Start11. And this is what I’m going to stick with. I hope.

Ok, I Voted Already!

So, when I did my ‘weekend’ errands this morning, I also dropped off my ballot (the Parkland/Spanaway library branch has a ballot dropbox). So I’ve voted now. All the attack ads can stop, please. Seriously, if you can’t say anything nice about your opponent then don’t say anything at all.

Experiment Over

Ok, so I went back to Windows 10. I’m just not ready for Windows 11 yet. I know it’ll work fine on my system. But so does Windows 10, and it’s still supported for now….

So I did take a nap last night.

A couple of posts ago, I posited who really needs sleep. And I was toying with the idea of ordering pizza last night. And then my brother texted me that it was spaghetti night. So after that, I got through about half the Minday Night Football game before sleep finally caught up to me. So I took a 4 hour nap. Then finished reinstalling all my crap on my computer, and well you should’ve seen the previous post.

For those of you unnecessarily keeping score at home, I’ve also done laundry and filled out my ballot. It will be dropped off at the dropbox when I head out to do my errands….

Underway On Windows 11. Again….

Ok, I upgraded to Windows 11. The last time I tried this, it lasted for about 3 days. My main issues the first times around were the Start menu and the taskbar, but after paying for both Start11 and WindowBlinds, those have been squared away. I will miss the ribbon in File Explorer, but we’ll see how that goes…..

Who Needs Sleep?

Ok, I’m probably going to regret this in the long run…..

So, I get home from work this morning, and it’s the start of my weekend. Uber’ed some Burger King, took a shower. Eventually, it was time to go to bed. And I couldn’t sleep. So finally I’ve just decided that I don’t need sleep today apparently. Besides, there’s a Monday Night Football game on tonight. And then there are 3 T20 World Cup matches. I’ll probably end up having to take a nap, but for now, my eyes can’t stay closed….

So, I just did a test…

Made an early morning trip to Wally World, and grabbed a Covid home test. And the results are negative. It’s just a cold. This time….

I hate being sick….

So, at the end of my weekend, I started feeling a headache. I thought it was caffeine withdrawal, since I’ve cut back on my coffee and my energy drinks. I could either self-medicate it, or I could go to bed early and sleep it off. I chose to sleep it off. After 8 hours of shut-eye, I woke up to a sore throat.. Showered, and then realized the body aches were trying to set in. And so I’ve called out from work tonight. Whatever it is, this is most likely just the beginning, and it’s most likely going to get worse. And once I get in to work, there’s really no way for me to get home (can’t even afford an Uber, and buses shut down for the night right when I get to work).

So sorry co-workers, it’s just not in the cards tonight.

Another weekend…

And another email that had to be sent. Not going to go into much detail here. Bills got paid. Laundry got washed. And I’ve watched 4 T20 matches. Yes the T20 World Cup is in full swing.

And now for the real farewell to my tower….

A couple of posts ago, I titled a post A farewell to my tower, but when I was writing it I got sidetracked writing about something else, and ultimately didn’t even touch the original subject. So what. Big deal.

Anyway, last week, I ordered a DVD (yes DVD and not Blu-Ray) set of the 3 Stooges. 17 DVDs with 25 years of their shorts. All from Spamazon. This is a story in and of itself. I had tried to order it a couple of weeks ago, but it was lost in shipment (which is odd since Spamazon uses their own delivery system). But they were good sports and refunded the order when I cancelled it. So I ordered it again. And it arrived Sunday. So Monday night (my night off), when I was redownloading my EA games library due to a botched migration from the origin app to the EA app, I thought I’d watch some shorts. For those of you keeping score, I disconnected my Blu-Ray player in favor of my old HP Pavilion 500-314. I had put a Blu-Ray drive in my tower previously, so I still had Blu-Ray capability. I went with this for streaming reasons. My ‘smart’ TV and Blu-Ray had basic streaming (ie Netflix, Hulu, Spamazon Prime…). But they didn’t have the new streaming services (like Discovery+, ESPN+, and what not). So I used my second tower and just streamed it through Chrome. And things were good. Logitech even makes a good wireless keyboard specifically for home theater PC’s. Problem was that this was still a full-sized tower, and the only place I could place it was behind the TV, and it was a pain to get up to turn it on, and/or change discs. And the end-of-life is coming for Windows 8.1 (it’s running currently 8.1 Pro with Media Center). Since I’ve set this up, things have changed. I can now stream all of my streaming services through my cable box. And it’s easier to reach for my cable remote than it is to get up, head behind the TV, physically turn on the tower, and then wait for it to boot up, open chrome, and then start streaming.

So, I unplugged the HDMI cable from the tower, and plugged the Blu-Ray player back in. And more importantly, I found the Blu-Ray remote. It is no longer a ‘smart’ Blu-Ray player (most of the apps on it are old, and have been pulled). But it still plays discs, and I still have a library.

So, I can get a couple of nyuks, one short at a time….

Saw the game today….

Well, from the time I saw it vs. when I’m writing this, it was actually yesterday….

The Mariners made it to the post-season this year. Last week, they played the Wild Card Series in Toronto, and because of my work schedules, I slept through them. And they won, sweeping the Toronto Blue Jays. So fast forward to yesterday afternoon, when they were playing the Houston Astros. It was during my weekend so I pulled an all-nighter to watch the game. And the Mariners lost. So, in order to give them the very best chance of taking a pennant and/or the World Series, I will never watch a Mariners post season baseball game again. I’m not boycotting them. It’s just I’m not going to jinx the team….

A farewell to my tower….

So, after I got my video card 2 weeks or so ago, I wiped everything last week. And tonight I finished it. Redownloaded almost all of my games, including my Spamazon, Steam, Epic, Origin (now EA), Ubisoft, and Gog libraries. Almost 7 Tb. And now I’m backing up my key files to an external hard drive. Some people use cloud backups, but in reality, the so-called ‘cloud’ is just somebody else’s computer. At least with an external drive, I’m not worrying about my cloud credentials getting compromised. And you can’t get hacked if your drive is powered down.

Origin has switched to EA. Basically,the Origin app is going away, and your EA Games library will be played through the EA app. After downloading the entire library through the Origin app, I tried to switch to the EA app, but on the first attempt, it was requiring updates to my entire library. Which took forever to download, and install. I had to redownloaded everything. Again. But I got it to work, and more importantly, it kept me busy on my days off…