girlofprey

I have my tiny wee netbook on the desk where my laptop used to be, and it's so tiny, I am caught between the cuteness and the ridiculousness. But mostly it's just a feeling that I love my netbook. I think it has basically paid for itself at this point. Keyboards are so good.

I have gotten a guide for building a PC in the price range I want though, and I went to my local computer store and asked them to give the parts in it a once-over, and I've asked my dad about maybe getting some of my money back to pay for it with, rather than taking any more out of my ISA and maybe not being able to pay it back this tax year. So - I'm getting on with that, even though I'm a little apprehensive about it. The guy at my games store was giving me tips about installing the processor, and he was like "you know the gold pins? And the gold triangle in the corner?". And I was like "...no." But I'm sure it will all work out eventually. And I can play games, hurrah! Hopefully it won't take too long. At the moment I'm mostly a little sad about having to go through Halloween without playing my custom Scary Soundtrack that I created last year. It's all on the hard drive. And possibly (hopefully) on my backup external hard drive. Like so many other things. Fingers crossed.

One thing I have learned about my netbook is that hotmail's stupid setup doesn't love it resolution enough to actually, really, let me read emails on it. Which is a shame, because that's the account I'm meant to be using to work out a problem with my references at my new job. Hopefully it won't be too much of a problem. But fuck Microsoft, what the fuck? Fix your shit. And now to find out how it handles playing 60fps videos on Youtube. Hopefully 'well'.

Also they're going to start putting ads on Adblocker. The Youtubers I watch who produce content for 'free' are thrilled about the irony of this, but it's pretty annoying.

We've got an electrical storm flashing disco lights across the sky where we are. No rain, no thunder, but on just one side of the house there's sheet lightning flashing across the sky once every few minutes. It's pretty awesome.

Anyway. In what I'm sure is more interesting news than my job-hunt, I decided the computer that the guy in my computer games' shop's mum was selling wasn't really for me. I started looking at some of the new games coming out that I wasn't even paying attention to, because I didn't have a machine that could play them, and a lot of them need a much more powerful processor. His mum's only had Intel i3, which is what my laptop actually has at the moment. So I said thanks but no, and that I'd have to go to PC World instead, and he said you were generally better off and saved more money by building your own. So...I'm thinking about it. If it's cheaper, I may as well. It's a lot easier to get parts than I thought, Amazon literally sells them off individually, but none of the sites I've seen so far in my search for 'how to build a gaming PC' actually tell you how to build a gaming PC. It's just 'pitfalls for the beginner to avoid', not literally how the nuts and bolts screw together. So I'm continuing to search. Because I'm a fool who always wants to go big or go home, I have my heart set on an Intel i7 processor. The rest of the parts are to be confirmed, i.e. whatever some site tells me are the best ones. A site like techradar or pcgamer though. I'm not a total mug.

My Windows 10 Start menu is 'suggesting' Facebook to me. Telling me it's 'free' and giving it a star rating.

This is hell.

My laptop spontaneously died last night. I was watching a Youtube video, tried to move it back a few minutes, and my whole laptop crashed. So I figured it was finally time to format my external hard drive and back everything up again. I forgot exactly how long it takes to format it, so I stayed up late last night then had to leave it running all night anyway. And now I'm remembering how long it takes to copy all the files over. Which I have to do without a mouse, because my external hard drive needs two USB slots, and I only have the two. Sigh.

A part of me would just like to replace the laptop, but a) that's expensive, and b) I may have convinced myself it's old and tired when actually I've just let it get dusty. And maybe I just want some up-to-date specs so I can play more PC games on it. I mean, it does struggle sometimes just to load webpages, but sometimes it runs completely fine, so I can't be sure it's not just Windows downloading updates and slowing everything down itself. I've tried to turn off Windows updates, but sometimes that doesn't seem to make much difference.

Last night Dragon Age crashed because of an error, and I didn't think much of it, but today when I turned it back on as it was loading up the menu it said "Save data corrupted, and could not be retrieved" and for a minute I thought I was going to have to replay the first 40 hours again.

It turned out I did not, it was just that I couldn't have the 'Continue' option so it had to reload the menu. Still fucking terrifying though.

In other news I am on my period and nearly out of Mefenamic Acid. I noticed on Friday, too late to get my prescription refilled before Monday. I actually have enough to last me till then, since I can't have more than 3 a day, and I had cramps yesterday anyway, despite taking a pill. But it was a slightly more stressful day than it needed to be, which was a shame.

I also got my DBS check back from - wherever that comes from. So I can call the volunteering place and tell them I'm ready to start, pretty much. I sort of forgot that's going to mean I have to start getting to a place for work for 9am every other Saturday. Oh well, hopefully I will rise gracefully to that challenge.

The malware I got yesterday was adware, and even after I uninstalled it I still had a few adverts popping up on my Google results. I don't know if that means it's still lurking about somewhere, or it just messed with my Adblock plugin. I checked the Adblock settings and apparently it was allowing 'unintrusive advertising' - I changed that pretty sharply. But I still don't know if it's on my machine, gathering data I input. Including this blog entry. Apaprently it's not too harmful, it only takes stuff to target you with ads. But still.

Also, FYI, if 'Browser Champion' pops up on your toolbar telling you it's 'protecting your machine!' - it isn't.

( Dragon Age: Inquisition )

Fuck Darren Wilson.

I was away over the weekend and now my laptop is backing itself up forever.

I was away over the weekend. I went to see jekesta, slemslempike and alicamel, it was brilliant. I watched Coronation Street with someone who truly appreciates it and I watched the first few episodes of The Invisible Man, and learned exactly how quickly a man could get over the death of his brother. Also little Rita was there to lick me forever. It was great.

I'm so tired. I don't know why, I had some VAGUELY early mornings over the weekend, and today on the train I had a moment of dizziness that instead of happening and then going away, lasted for about thirty seconds. While I was sitting still and the train was sitting still. I'm going to get some sleep tonight and hope it goes away. I'm considering just getting up around 10am from now on though, rather than about 12, and letting my body get used to it. I'm getting kind of sick of this now.

I need to sign up for Dragon Age Keep and see if I can pre-order Dragon Age: Inquisition at my local games store and see if I can pre-order Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel at my local games store. Also I should probably email my volunteering dude and see if he's back in the office yet, and maybe wants me to come in soon. For some forewarning.

I hate the Dragon Age prequel novel and want it to die and want Maric to die and want Katriel to die (I think I'll get my wish with her), kind of want Rowan to die (next book) and kind of want Loghain to die. I really wanted to like it because I do think Loghain is an interesting villain and wanted his backstory, but. No. At this point I think I'd prefer a really dry recounting of all the Fereldan battles and a genealogy of all the noble houses to the endless double love triangles. At least that would have some facts I can work with.

ANOTHER Blue Screen Of Death, right as I was in the middle of a big format of my External Hard Drive so I could back my files up anew, which had already unexpectedly taken 4 hours and was only halfway through, that's just great, computer, that's just absolutely superb.

I am concerned that I might have blocked a plug-in and that's what's making my computer crash. Yesterday as I was clicking away from a Youtube page I clicked on a 'plug-in' symbol in the address bar, and it said something about blocking it. I didn't select anything though, I just clicked away from it, thinking 'oh I clicked the wrong thing'. But now that's all I can think of that might have caused a problem, my computer crashed last night when I put on a random Youtube video and then tonight when I opened my Tumblr Dashboard - which I'd already had open earlier today. I have no idea how to check for that problem though, or if that would even cause what's happening now, or how to fix it. Alternatively my computer is just falling apart. Amazing.

So. I went to the comic convention. Paul Cornell wasn't there, or if he was he was SHIELDED FROM MY EYES. I did have to get up at eight though, which basically left me feeling a bit not-real all day. I decided to eat some lunch before I tried spending any money, which was probably wise. I still spent loads though. But Thought Bubble is only once a year and my arrears have just come through, so eh.

When I got there this morning I was all proud because I'd booked my ticket in advance and could walk past the queue going all the way around the block and just walk in. Then I learned that the queue was FOR people who'd booked in advance, to have their paperwork checked, since everyone had apparently had the same idea. So I had to walk all the way back again. At least it was quick. And I don't know if this is a new thing or I just never really noticed before, but it was a little annoying how a big part of the first aisle was taken up by the major comics publishers. I know it's a comic convention and they're the big suppliers, but I've always seen Thought Bubble advertised mostly as a Small Press and Indie Convention. So to have the first set of stalls taken up with books you could buy in any comic book shop or on Amazon at any time was a little irritating, really. They used to just have stalls somewhere in the middle of the showroom, or on the end of each aisle, so people who were just interested in major titles or in looking for back issues could go there while everyone else wandered around with the indie creators. I don't know, I did see some - I don't know, "well-funded" - titles I'd never seen before, but...it seemed to not really be in the spirit of the convention.

But it was good. I had my usual problem of not being able to talk to the people on the stalls, as though I am literally just going "No, I don't want to speak to the ARTIST, I just want to see the PRODUCTS". But most people were pretty nice about it, and I actually had a chat with one writer about her having come up from Milton Keynes. Huzzah. And I got some art, for the first time ever. Two £5 prints, one of which is a picture of Mako Mori drawn by Nich Angell. You don't get that every day.

Steam, however, continues to irritate me. And Adobe Flash Player - Adobe Flash Player won't let me update the Adobe Flash Player. When it gives me a little notice about a new version being out, I go to download it, go to a nice page claiming to be Step 1 of 3, click the "Update Now" button, and it just sends me to Adobe.com. Is anyone else having this problem? I don't know what to do if it continues. I can still play videos and animations NOW, but in a few updates time I probably won't, and if it still won't let me update it then what? When I go to the Adobe support page it just tells me to check if I have the latest version of Flash Player, and when I click the link it just sends me to the page that eventually sends me to Adobe.com again. I can't even see an address to email them at. I'm starting to think I'm going to have switch my updating options to "Yes, update whatever you like whenever you like, it's your computer not mine".

And my MN is apparently about an inch away from being expelled from school. That's the 5 year old. Yesterday mum and I had to go pick him up from his school because he was kicking off and messing about so much his teacher couldn't handle him, or have him disrupting the lessons any longer. And I don't always hear a lot about it, but this is an ongoing thing, he's had a special teacher sort of sitting with him and trying to keep him focused for months now. They've mentioned getting him a mental health appointment, but so far neither the school nor my sister have done anything about it. For now we'll have to wait and see what happens on Monday, I guess.