Changing Winds

~pulls out his most holy Bolter blessed by the Emperor and opens fire on his previous post. Seeing that it yet lives he slips on a powerfist and tries to re-encact scenes from the Hulk on it~

Blah... so I finally got around to updating this. Unlikely to see anymore honestly after this. At least for some time. I mostly just use this site as a link resource at work. I really should use my new site for that.

So yeah, really gotten back into 40k alot, if my intro didn't make that obvious.

Julie and I are no more. It was a fairly mutual decision. Mostly I was just tired of doing all the damn driving up to Muncie anytime I wanted to spend time with her. I could go into a rant, but I've got better things going on so I won't.

I met this nice gal by the name of Felicia. Apparently yesterday was our 2 month anniversary. Or is it today... not really sure. She lives alot closer to me... but thats silly to say considering we're living together now. I've just got 2 months to move all my stuff from my old place to her/our place. Go to my Myspace link for piccies.

Sieze the Day

Ok, since I can't seem to remember to update my Myspace when I'm home I'm putting an update here.

Been dating this lovely gal by the name of Julie for about a month now. She is really quite fantastic ~smiles~ We went out for Valetine's Day and had a really good time together. We're going bowling on Friday and that should be quite humerous as neither of us have bowled in ages. Just follow my Myspace link if you want to see pics.

Work is work and WoW is WoW. Nothing really new going on in either one. As much as I like/dislike the fact they are removing attunements in 2.4 for MH/BT I'll bear that change with a smile as I'm finally getting a title on Rindaris that is cool, Hand of A'dal... or something like that.

Also have a 40k tourney this weekend.. first actual 40k tournament I've ever taken part in actually. I'll definitely post something on my 40k blog about it, but pics I'm iffy about right now.

Oh... and I just read a news article that Gen Con is going bankrupt. They have assured the Con will continue through 2010, but nothing past that yet... I'll have to cry if Gen Con disappears from Indianapolis.

Just an FYI

Since I've become a member of Deviant Art I've been using that gallery alot. And I must admit I've pretty much been using the journal there as my blog, really little reason to post here as well. So I might do some posting here off and on, but if you want to keep up to date, then check my Deviant Art gallery.

So I officially hate Christmas season.

I'm not gonna go into my full rant. But beyond having very little money to even get through with gas and groceries, and movie theaters having different times on their online site then they are actually showing, then another theater having their show stop half way through and not being able to resume it... and now a bank charge hitting twice throwing me into a negative balance, and having to jump through hoops to try and fix this.

I've been updating my Deviant Art site quite a bit as I've been working on my 40k stuff. Gonna have a slow day at work today while I'm on the phone with both IPL and my bank to try and fix this error, so I might work on chapter 5 of my story.

I'm just so frustated with life lately. If it says anything I havn't really even been in the mood to play WoW for the past few days. Maybe thats just the boredom from lack of raids during the holiday season, but normally I can still farm gold or honor mindlessly and be quite content, but I havn't even been able to do that.

I'm currently of the firm belief that I ever intend to celebrate Christmas again, even in the most meager of ways. This holiday has only brought my sadness and disappointment. Its supposed to be a happy, joyful time. But its been anything but that.

Oh yeah... and lets add that I sent my defective Dell back to them a couple of weeks ago, but apparently they are saying now they never got it.... all this makes me want to stab a gnome.

Oh, and can someone tell me how Sweeney Todd ends?

Time for an update

I suppose I should post an update.

First I'll start with Dell. I didn't notice someone from Dell had responded to my previous post until a week after they did. I've been in contact with them since. We're not sure precisely what is wrong with my machine, but its a hardware issue that existed when it shipped out. Doesn't make me to happy since I was told on the phone that all this stuff was supposed to be checked before it was sent out. So maybe someone in their assembly department isn't doing their job? But to be fair the crashes tend to happen after the machine has been running awhile, so its possible they did get it going and just met the standards to ship it out before it crashed on them. Its possible of course.

Anyways, after sending a photo of the blue screen o' death to the dell rep he has offered to replace my machine. Now here is the truly surprising part. I fully expected I would have to send my defective machine back before they'd send out the new one. If that was going to be true I'd have to find a way to send the machine back to them (remember I already through out the box), most likely pay for it... and then hope it all worked out. But thats not how its going to work out.

They are sending me the new machine and I can use that box with a shipping label included to send back the defective machine. Can't really complain about that arrangement at all.

Of course I'm still pretty peeved about my previous customer service experience with Dell. And I truly hope I have no issues with this new machine, so I don't ever have to call them again.

If I could give any advice to Dell it would be to ditch the outsourced costumer service asap. They arn't helping your business what-so-ever. I've never heard one postive thing about them, only horror stories.

Would I buy from Dell again? I don't know. Ideally it'll be many years before I have to decide. If they ditch their current outsourced customer service then I would definitely be more likely to do business with them again.

But I only have high marks for 'John' who has truly helped me and due to him I'm hoping to finally have my new system shortly after the holiday.

Nothing else much to post I think. The 2.3 WoW patch has been interesting.

You can definitely feel the difference in leveling up to 60. I was several bars shy of 56 yesterday on my warrior when I got a group to run me through BRD. I had just about every quest, if not all of them. Even did Jailbreak. Ended up being quite a bit into 57 once I had all the quests turned in.

On Rindaris I switched back to Marks due to needing hunters with range on Vashj. Was so happy when they asked me to make this change. I've always prefered Marks and find it a much more enjoyable spec then BM. And after a few raids now I'm still placing well on the meters, so its definitely not hurting my damage much if any. Al'ar dropped the gun last night and I decided since it could still be a bit before we kill Vashj and then she drops the bow, I went ahead and bid on it. Not a massive upgrade, but its nice. The higher damage threshold defintely works well with Marks. Just funny that a week ago I was starving for +Hit gear and now I have to much honestly. When S3 gear finally comes out I should never miss a single shot really.

Should be going to a local gaming shop soon and starting to play 40k again on Fridays. Stuff has come up that prevented it the past few weeks, but hopefully things will settle down soon so I can. I've been working on my models though in the meantime and you can see some of them on my Deviant Art site. Not professional quality, but I like them.... just need to find a better means to take the pictures to do them justice on the site.

Dell and frustations

So for many years I bought my computers and upgrades for them from a local establishment. But I had gotten my wife (now ex) a computer from Dell years back and I kinda wanted a new system versus a rerfurbished one. I should have stuck with what was tried and true.

So I order a machine over the phone, telling them its primary purpose will be to play World of Warcraft. I am quite clear about this. So I end up upgrading the video card and get a better monitor and think it should all be good. The video card in the Dell won't be quite as good as what is in my older Compaq, but its still well above and beyond what WoW needs. Now the one issue is that I don't want Vista, I want to stick with XP. But if I want the system specs I want, then I have to get Vista with it. I figure since I'm getting a special and saving a few hundred dollars that I can deal with Vista.

Keep in mind that Vista is default with this system....

So I finally get my system after like 2 weeks. I'm really looking forward to playing WoW on a much crisper and faster system. So after I finally install WoW and all the patches and my mods I start playing. 5 minutes or so into the game the machine suddenly freezes and then I get a blue screen o' death. This happens several times as I adjust WoW settings and even try without mods, but nothing helps. I call Dell customer support and get some Indian guy (I believe). Now mind you I have nothing against people from foreign countries and some I can understand their ascent over the phone. But Indians I can't to well, some are better then others. So the first guy ends up being completely useless, doesn't even seem to understand what the problem is. But its a guy from their pay-to-fix line... I mean I had just gotten the machine out of the box that day and they already wanted me to pay to fix the problem. But this guy had told me I wasn't gonna have to pay. But when he couldn't come up with a solution he transferred me to another department.

After being on hold for like 15 minutes I finally get someone else. This guy is little better and I ask to speak to an American, explaining that I'm having a hard time understanding their ascent, and with the frustation I was having with the machine it was just really making me quite mad. He says ok and transfers me. After being on hold for about 10 minutes I get someone else, expecting a voice I can clearly understand its another Indian guy. So at this point I'm royally pissed... I mean if you can't transfer me to someone I request, thats fine. But don't lie to me.

So this third guy ends up being just as useless and I get transferred again, this time back to the pay-to-fix line, after requesting that I don't be transferred or put on hold again. So I'm furious at this point and ask to speak to a manager. I get one and he insists that I pay $130 to fix my brand new machine.... even though I was told earlier I wasn't gonna have to pay anything to fix my brand new system.

So I'm frustated and call it a night, hoping that some rest would bring an idea to mind so that I could fix the system myself. Nothing comes. I end up calling the company who made the video card I had in the system since that seemed part of the problem, and get another patch to install (at this point I'd already installed several different patches and drivers). It doesn't help. I call Dell again later hoping for some fresh input, but that doesn't end up being any better.

At this point I just put the new monitor on my old system and played WoW that way. I posted on a freelance tech support forum and was pointed to some services I could turn off on Vista that would help, but getting another gig of ram (it only has 1gig of Ram) is the key thing to getting this system working.

Oh, I should say that before turning off some services on Vista that the computer couldn't even handle playing more then a handful of songs through Windows Media Player before having a memory issue and blue screening, so its not an isolated problem with WoW. It just can't handle much. Now after turning off a number of Vista services the computer can run for awhile before blue screening, just doing something like Media Player. But it will still end up blue screening before long.

So now this machine is sitting aside waiting for me to get another gig of Ram in it, because Dell sold me a system that couldn't handle the OS they insisted it come with. I considered returning it, but after reviewing their return policy and the fact I had already thrown out the box the system came in, I decided it wasn't worth the risk, plus I could still use the monitor.

Lesson: If Dell keeps up with this service then take your business elsewhere. Until they make things right with me they'll never see another dollar from me and I'll make sure to recommend anyone I know in the market for a new computer to go elsewhere.

New days

So its been awhile since I wrote a blog. Really since I left my previous server for greener pastures, as it were. I was pretty nervous about the move at first quite honestly. I was leaving behind a handful of friends. But in hindsight its been the best thing I've done in my WoW career.

I'm part of a kickass guild, which according to WoW Jutsu is 3rd on the server. I've got lots of friends here and rarely find myself with nothing to do.

I honestly never thought I'd see Vashj or really any of the major bosses of TK or SSC. But we're on Vashj now and we got her to Phase 2 on our very first try.

I've finally actually started to write Midnight Tears. Its slow going certainly, but my girlfriend is telling me I should try and get it published once I'm done with it. It'd be great if that happened, but its fun to write it all the same. Havn't done much work on it this week, but work has been rather crazy.

Looking forward to the 2.3 patch for WoW. Finally doing something about the hunter 'deadzone'. We'll still have a one yard window it sounds like, but that will be alot harder for people to exploit then what it is currently. The buff to arcane shot and aimed shot sounds very nice as well. Not a whole lot of times I could use the Aimed Shot mortal shot ability to arena now, and I reckon with it added the oppurunities will be lessened. And I should have enough arena points to get the hunter 2h axe, S3 chest and S3 helm the day the patch hits, so that will be quite nice.