wolfie2kX

Oh yeah.. Checked, double and triple checked to make sure everything was plugged in correctly and not being bent. Everything is, per the manual... Yes, I RTFM'ed.. lol

OK.. Think I may not have been quite as clear as I could have been. It's not the hard drive. 1.) I've swapped in another hard drive (this one with Windows 7 on it. It blows chunks at about the same spot. 2.) I've tried booting from a Windows 8.1 DVD (One that came direct from Microsoft.) 3.) I tried a Windows 8.0 boot dvd. 4.) I tried a few Windows 7 install DVDs. 5.) I even tried a Windows Vista install DVD. 6.) Just for grins and giggles, I even downloaded a copy of Ubuntu (whatever the latest flavor happens to be) burnt it to a disk and tried installing it 7.) I swapped out SATA cables, the power supply, the RAM. The motherboard was swapped out first as the one that arrived with the rest of the system had no video. Every instance of Windows we've tried to boot - blows a BSOD at or about the same point with the same error message. The Ubuntu boot process kicked up a LOT of cryptic messages before blowing it's own flavor of chunks. 8.) The only thing that DID work is a boot disk running Grub4DOS by Hirens. It's got a few useful tools that can be used to check things like RAM, use LINUX tools to fix passwords, etc... It boots, and the memory test (Memtest86+) runs completely without errors. So... I'm 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999% positive it's not the hard drive, nor the motherboard, nor the RAM. The only thing left is the CPU. Oh.. and I checked the BIOS version against the recommendation for the flavor of CPU that's installed on the board - and it's the correct revision.

The setting in question is buried in Windows. under the system properties and has to do with what Windows does after a BSOD.. Unfortunately, that particular setting is only available when Windows is up and actually running... The boot, BSOD, reboot, BSOD cycle actually breaks down and stops after a few dozen cycles. The system crashes after so many times and you can read the BSOD.. It has something to do with an unhandled exception error. And of course, all of the known fixes require booting the system successfully and going in and changing settings - which aren't ever available as the system blows up well before even the Windows Kernal is fully loaded. As for dealing with frustrations... I have my means of dealing with those. A good romp thru a video game beating up on baddies usually does it for me.

LOL... Kinda can actually.. There's a rather frustrating computer I've been working on at work. It's a brand new system a customer bought as parts and had someone build it. Looks great, but it doesn't seem to want to boot beyond the BIOS screen. It starts loading Windows (ANY flavor - XP, Vista, 7, and 8.1) and blue screens with some error (can't read it most of the time since the BSOD reboots the system right after the BSOD appears). It doesn't matter if it's booting from a hard drive OR booting from an installation DVD. I've swapped out everything in the system thus far except the CPU and the case - to NO avail. Getting the guy to RMA the CPU this weekend... If that doesn't fix the problem, quite frankly, I am quite stumped as to what it can be. I seriously doubt the case could be at fault. Now then.. That class.. There's some seriously outdated tech being discussed in there.. Does anyone still employ anything beyond Ethernet, Wifi and TCP/IP any more?

Yeh.. She does seem to be a bit taller than Ruby... She was even joking about that at one point - they were talking about them doing a live action cosplay of the show. Blake and Weiss's voice actors seem to fit their respective parts better, I think And another thing crossed my path the other day - they're releasing RWBY in Japan.. Dubbed in Japanese..

And today here's a special treat ICYMI... The RWBY panel at RTX.... Hard to believe the gal who voices Yang is such a tiny thing... LOL

That "petting zoo" is the CM Patch guys way of putting the credits for all the people who helped out with the CM Patch by contributing, testing, translating and so forth. If you look at the names, you'll find the names of many residents of DarkMatters.org... They should be quite familiar to one and all.

Er... FWIW, RpH (Regen per Hit) works just fine in Ice and Blood and with the CM Patch. In addition, the expansion also includes two new playable areas - the Crystal Plane and the Blood Forest. I'll have to go along with what Daniat suggested - namely skipping the guides and going thru the Wiki and pick through the skills for each character and see how they work. You'll still need to play each character a bit to see how the skills actually work and you'll need practice to make use of them... Try to pick something that is effective. By that, I mean does what it's supposed to do - KILL the enemy.. Some skills are indispensable. For instance, a Seraphim with dual wield becomes a virtual veg-o-matic when you use the Pelting Strikes CA... She slices, she dices and makes thousands of julienne fries out of the baddies. It also helps to have a pair of sharp blades... Other skills are just not quite so much. Like the BeeEffGee mixed with the same Pelting Strikes. While the dual wielding swords will give you 6 hits per use, the big gun only gives you two hits per. But hey, some people prefer a ranged game instead of getting up close and personal with the enemy.. It's up to you to check out the skills and CAs and see what works best for you.

Yes, Today is Hansi Kürsch's birthday..

WOW. Some major plot issues there. These idiots went way out of their way to assume that people could figure out what the device was, how it worked, and could reverse engineer it before the German bombs started dropping.. But this isn't the first time something sorta like this was used as a plot device in a movie. There was one back in the late 80's/early 90's that had an entire aircraft carrier being somehow sent back in time to the morning of December 7, 1941 - just off the coast of Hawaii.. Of course, the Navy guys were all gung ho to go in with their F14's and teach the Japanese a lesson before they strike. Of course the time vortex that sent them back in time returns just before dawn and they weren't given much of an opportunity to change the tide of the battle. One pilot was lost in the engagement.. And at the end, it's revealed that he managed to leverage his technical knowledge off modern era stuff - and became a major player in the military industrial complex - and the guy who happened to have built the aircraft carrier in the first place.. At least the plot of this one is at least semi plausible - unlike that other one.

FWIW, I don't get upset. I realize that these people are just putting something on the screen to make it look entertaining. The bit with the 3D holographic projector thing - I WANT THAT! I do have issues with Apple that go beyond their false advertising. They're idiots. Period. Full stop. Long story short - have a client who has 17 years worth of data in his old Windows based program. He can't migrate to an all Mac platform because Apple in their infinite stupidity makes it impossible to import all of his info. He can get basic info - name, address, city, state, zip, phone, fax, email address - but NONE of his notes. He has this guy in his database, but there's not much to tell him WHY this guy's info is in there. The flavor of SQL available to Apple can't import anything beyond a CSV file which means NO NOTES. NO emails... Always wanted to see the PC be some sort of Start Trek borg. Here is how one would go: "Hi. I’m Mac" "And I’m a PC" "What are you doing PC?" "The next gen video card arrived. I’m replacing it." PC rips out his arm and replaces it with a better one. Another Mac walks into the room and shoots the first Mac. "Hi. I’m new and improved Mac" "And I’m a PC" Haven't seen Chappie yet.. Haven't really had much interest in seeing it - but I do get where you're coming from. The scenario makes no sense - if you get this key anyone can reprogram the bot to do his own bidding - and given what I've seen of the movie (trailers mostly) that's exactly what happens. The rebels reprogram Chappie to do their bidding and fight the big bad government/corporate entity.. The Mac Vs PC thing.. Hmm.. Maybe might work... Tho, to be honest, that scenario doesn't fly very well with me. The Borg were all about conformity, and that's more the Mac's thing - you gotta do things the Apple way.

Movies aren't the only time they get things royally wrong. Just about EVERY single TV show out there like NCIS, CSI, and the like mucks about with computer software.. They show a screen shot of whatever they're doing and it's like Holy Hannah! are they doing? WHAT OS is this? It's not Windows, It's not OSX.. It's not even any flavor of Linux I've ever seen. You see them typing furiously to get things going - which in today's world is so... unnecessary. We've got these things called MICE... And then there's DNA.... Seriously... DNA analysis can take DAYS, if not WEEKS to do - and yet, they magically get it done in a matter of a few hours or even minutes... Granted, it's a TV story and they have all of 40 - 42 minutes to tell the story from start to it's conclusion. Still. Not very realistic. Going back to CSI... The New York spinoff... They also seem to have this rather cool, if not yet available holographic 3D projector tech which lets them display a body's innards, blood vessels and the like including the damage done by bullets and stuff.. It's like what year IS this? It's supposed to be taking place in the current world. And yet why don't we see this technology more commonly available? There are stupid commercials too.. I could list a few hundred that are utterly preposterous.. Like this one with some ditzy blond who is deleting a bunch of her pics because she has yellow teeth. Gee.. Ever hear of PHOTOSHOP? But my all time "What were they smoking" ad - Apple computers with their Mac Vs PC ads.. One of their earliest had PC saying the most fun you can have on your PC is playing with spreadsheets.. Seriously..? I think the 4.5 BILLION dollars the PC gaming industry rakes in every year kinda puts the kibosh on that. The other side of the Mac vs PC issue in this lame ad had Mac saying the most fun you can have on a Mac is making slide show disks for granny... Once again, there's that pesky 4.5 BILLION USD the computer gaming industry rakes in every year. They DO make games to run on the Mac.. Might not be quite as many as for Windows, but there's still games out there.. And frankly, any game still beats making slide shows and burning them to a disk. Let's face it.. the entertainment industry is clueless as to how things work in real life. They write some crap and it sounds good - they run with it without bothering to check pesky things like facts... And that's all that's really expected of them. Oh. And for the record, the first time I heard that stupid Mac Vs PC ad - I was playing GTA San Andreas - on my PC....

OK.. I'm gonna finally chime in here.. On the one hand, respecing sucks. As everyone pretty much has said, it takes a lot out of the game. On the other hand, it can save you from a potentially BIG mistake. I recall doing something in Sacred 2 many moons ago - I was checking out skills and for some reason I was hovering over Divine Devotion.... I clicked on something else and somehow I wound up getting that skill. It was NOT in my game plan.. Fortunately, there's a game editor that allowed me to fix that. So SOME respecing in case of a mistake like that IS a good thing. On the other hand... In Wartune - a flash based MMO RPG I've played, you do have the option of respecing.. You need to pay about $9 USD worth of game currency and you can remove all your accumulated skill points and redistribute them... Early on, this can be a good thing - but by the time you reach level 80 (which is max), you have all your skills maxed anyhow - and it's not like you can just dump points into any one skill to make it overpowered.

I have a rather ecclectic taste in music. Here's one I found many moons ago that falls into the Electronic scene... Shades of THX-1138...

I can't say ye or nay on how their food is - never had it before. They weren't readily available in my neck of the woods - and still aren't for the most part. I will say that they DO somewhat amusing advertisements. There's a billboard on my way to work that reads "May we rekomend the chikn" - being pasted on said billboard by a couple of cows. Seems the cows have been at it for a while now - and even have a facebook page...

I'm all for having lunch (or dinner) and dessert.. BUT NOT IN THE SAME DISH! Wondering if a 4 yr old came up with that one. That's the only explanation that makes any sense. As others have pointed out - the people running Chik-Fil-A is religioius.. hard core religious. And as such, well.. they've got a right to be that way. Religious freedom and all that...

FWIW, there are like 4 or 5 major chicken chains around - at least in my area. Who knows how many more local and regional chains are out there. KFC - the classic.. Recently revived Colonel Sander's from the dead. Zombie Colonel Sanders isn't very funny - even tho he thinks he is. Popeye's - Louisiana style spicy chicken - Good stuff... A tad expensive. but worth it. Church's Chicken - Mostly found in minority areas... Supposed to be really good chicken.. Chik-Fil-A - made a name for themselves recently as being anti-gay. Some people had an epic cow over that - and Chik-Fil-A made a ton of money. And 110 calories for 1 oz of sauce - that's actually not THAT bad. The salt level isn't through the roof either. Check out Lee Kum Kee's offering - 1060 mg of salt in 2 Tbs.. Instant sodium overdose..

Does the calorie count really matter? My arteries are hardening every time I just look at that leaning tower of coronary clogging cholesterol...!

Not quite sure who it was - but clearly they lost their marbles.. They're a few fry's short of a Happy Meal.. A few sandwiches short of a picnic... After all, they created THIS monstrosity...

OK.. Time to blow everyone's collective minds.. I bring you, the founders of a brand new branch of the metal scene... Something that may leave you scarred for life.. I bring you the founders and KINGS of DRIVE THRU METAL! Yes, that's Ronald Osbourne, Slayer McCheese, the Catburglar and Grimalice - better known as Mac Sabbath!

This was actually on the Mcd's local menu here for a while, made with maple syrup! gogo OK.. So lemme get this straight. Fries covered in brown gravy and cheese curds, topped with bacon bits AND maple syrup:) Suddenly that doesn't sound all that appealing after all. Stop at the bacon and it might be OK.. But maple syrup on top of brown gravy? BLEAH! Oh. and it's one of McPuke's creations. Yeah.. I'll pass..

Thanks guys.. Hmm.. Bacon covered poutine.. That actually sounds kinda interesting.. The bacon covered cake, OTOH, just sounds wrong...

XP Mode is NOT an option. XP Mode creates a rather basic virtual machine that has utter crap for graphics. The primary purpose for XP Mode is for business apps that won't run on Vista or beyond.

Found another interesting marker... This one is from Thundercats! The marker is in the Gloomoore cemetary.. It simply says "Snarf"

I had a look at that version and it is the new HD version, which has rubbish reviews and is absolutely basic with none of the expansion packs. It would be like playing Sacred2 with only the initial elf lands available and none of the rest of the map. Oh well my wife may have to settle for less interesting games then. Well. True.. I did say the expansion pack source code was lost. On the other hand... If there's enough demand for them, maybe Ubisoft could get off their collective duffs and make (or remake) those expansion packs. They do have the original code, they've also got enough understanding of said code to upgrade the original software AND port it to iOS and Android. The BIG challenge, IMO, is understanding the logic used by the original programmers. If you can tackle the basics, you can do expansion projects as well. The key, tho, is demand. One other note.. If you haven't already done so - consider getting the Amazon store app... They have some different apps and games than the stuff on Google Play and they have a daily free app/game thing... Might be worth a look.