Current Mood: Angry

Cool–WP had saved a copy of this post for me!! So, here it is after all!

This week started with craziness and idiots and the trend kept going all week long.

First, some junk happened that I won’t mention further here.

Then the other day, a merchant got the notion that it should decide what it’s worthwhile to spend MY money on. Did they overcharge? Ship 10,000 things I didn’t want? Noooo! The opposite. They refused to sell what I DID want! So they’re fired.

And, despite their claims of having an “exclusive” on the machine I’m after, they do NOT have any such thing. They may have made a deal with that *particular* manufacturer, but there are several competing manufacturers, who surely have dealers who are not so jealous of someone who wants a private garden…and, the machine to delete the work of it.

In amongst all that, were other idiocies. I was shorted 3 items by a different place. Who didn’t know about it? Their billing department… So I had to deal with that. Did they email a confirmation that they read my emailed protests? Noooo…I was just about to send the check (sans cost of missing items) when surprise, a “claim number” arrived in my email with a request to include that number with the payment. The email had the title “claim”–even though my original email was titled “shortage in order!” I almost deleted it unopened–I figured it was spam. But something about the “from” name looked just *barely* legit, and I opened it.

And, yet another wholesaler held onto my order for 2 1/2 weeks before admitting to being sold out on an item. Thanks dudez for the notice! But at least the refund has come through.

A person returned some merchandise as defective. It’s clear that she broke it–the box was mashed. That’s the *inner* box. Shipping box, not mashed. So it had to have happened after the “customer” got it, unless the Post Office has invented a new way to dent inside boxes that were surrounded by peanuts–without affecting outer ones.

Another, more minor, irritation was reading a comment on Wordpress MU that said people who didn’t want to have to mess with their server’s root config ought to just “use [his] multi-user hack” for regular WordPress…saying that if someone couldn’t figure THAT out, they should just go with the version of WordPress hosted by WP itself (that’s the commie noncommercialiable version :p ).

Needless to say, when I went to the post with the “hack” in it, it was a pile of ununderstandable gibberish and non-explanations. Programmers love to put up stuff that’d take an MIT degree to understand and then call everyone a n00b for not getting it by osmosis *grrr* And of course, I have zero use for the commie version. If I want to have FUN, that’s what games are for. Sites are for money.

So I did the easier thing. Changed the server config file to prepare for the install of the full Wordpress MU setup! Yes that was easier. The config file has clue comments all through it! Unlike that unhelpful git’s hack.

I haven’t installed MU yet, but the supposedly-hard part should be done. But with any kind of program, I don’t relax until I see it running and not crashing.

I wouldn’t say changing the config is a “totally newb” operation, but it’s certainly not hard like he was making out. Reading the file plainly marked README gives plenty enough info. I had more trouble with vi…I hardly ever need to use it, so I had to look up the commands in Google. (Hint to people who find this while trying to find out how to use vi: Search for “vi commands” in G…)

Of course, I tried to find relief in the wonderful pixels of an old game. But, no dice even there! The game which had seemed so great 10 years ago–Pacific Theater of Operations–now strikes me as incredibly slow. I’m sure it’s partly because I instantly remembered exactly how to win.

The computer will OCDly send its entire Pacific Fleet at its objective, one small fleet at a time. ALL it takes to win, is to figure out the comp’s objective (easy to do), sail nearby with a full 16-ship fleet which has about 8 CVs in it, camp within easy airstrike range…and torpedo-bomb the blazes out of anything that dares to sail within range.

But the other problem is that between every operation, the ships’ crews require “shore leave” or their morale will drop (causing their fighting ability to start sucking), and if you push them too long, they’ll even get a “plague.” And, the ships have to be refueled often, unless you always sail at half-speed. So, most of the game is spent waiting for shore leaves, refuelings, and doing administrative junk.

It was fine and great when it was new and I actually used that time to think of my next move, but now I wish I had a hack that’d make them always have no fatigue and 100% fuel. Then I wouldn’t have all that infernal waiting. I’ll have to try to figure out the code. To heck with “realism,” the fun part is sinking all the enemy’s sh*t! So maybe tonight I’ll see if I can get the lead out of the thing.

Now…IE had better not crash…
*Hits “Publish”*

Current Mood: Angry

I had written a big post about it all…

And then, to top it off, just as I was putting the finishing touches on it, IE crashed (thanks to the GOOFLE toolbar, according to the crash notice) before I could hit post! I even did “select all” to try to save it, but when IE closed on me, that dumped too.

So bah.

I need a proper Pbbbbtt icon for the “mood” thingie, because that needs to be there along with the “Angry” one. And the default tongue-out one looks freaking playful, which is NOT the ticket.

Current Mood: Erm…

That was sarcasm.

A few posts ago, I talked about hearing the sound of a fan dying. I thought it was the CPU fan–a simple job. Really simple: Unscrew old fan, unplug from mobo, plug in new one, screw fan to heatsink, turn computer back on. And, I’ve got a spare sitting right here, so I wouldn’t even have to wait for delivery of a new one.

So of course, Murphy couldn’t have that! It’s against his Law!

Yesterday the thing was sounding off rather badly and I downgraded its survival rating from “up to a year” to “mere weeks, better get on it.” But for some reason, I decided to look in the case with my keylight to make sure it was indeed THAT fan.

And, it’s not.

When I touched the case, the bad fan was actually vibrating it on each revolution. Grind…grind…grind, it went… and each grind rattled the whole box. I looked with the light, and all the fans were spinning away, with no visual clues. So, I touched the fan case of each one.

CPU fan case…no strong vibration. Graphics card fan, no strong vibration. Case fan? Nope.

That left one. The power supply fan. Sure enough, that PSU was jumping around like it had a jet engine inside!

So, I “get to” tinker with a type of part I’ve never opened up before! (sarcasm) Goodie! (/sarcasm) Well, somewhat sarcasm. It beats buying a new PSU or paying some clod to do what I can do for free (labor-wise). On the other hand, I only bought that PSU a few months ago and the fan shouldn’t be dying yet! But, it’d cost more to ship it back than it will to just get a new fan.

So what’s different about this fan other than it’s in the PSU? The PSU isn’t made to be opened by “the consumer.” But I’m opening it anyway. So, chances are, it won’t have an easy-peasy plug for the fan’s power intake, and I’ll have to splice the new fan in. No biggie from a technical standpoint, but it’s a pain because I’ll have to find or buy some electrical tape as well as a new fan.

You may be wondering why I’d need to buy a new fan, when I’ve got one here! Simple: It’s a different size. The PSU has a big 120mm fan. The CPU one is 70mm. And the case fan I’ve had laying around here for 2 years daring me to forget about its presence and step on it one night, that’s 90mm.

So Murphy’s done a fairly good job of making a simple fan switch into a Job. I just keep reminding myself, I can:

Get a new PSU of this size and type: $89.

Send back the old one for an exchange: $10-12 shipping to California (via DHL)…AND about 2 weeks of being offline while it’s in transit both ways + another 3 days or so while the new order’s being processed

or
Just get a new fan and a little roll of electrical tape, timed to arrive before the old one’s death: $10-$15, free shipping, and no significant downtime.

Needless to say, I’m going for Option 3 and adding another Thing I’ve Fixed to my portfolio!