Never Ending Weekends (in the bad sense)

I have been having problems with my home PC lately. Infact the problems have been there since the day of the build (November 2007); I attributed that to software configuration as past history with me has always shown Windows can be fussy over certain drivers (or rather the 3rd party drivers are fussy with being incorporated into Windows). So roll on the start of July 2008 and after months of head scratching I asked for some help and someone suggested to start hardware fault diagnostic. sure enough, the first tests showed I have bad RAM. As the parts are still under purchase warranty from the vendor, I routed it back. Initially it tested "No Fault Found"; the vendor could get the parts to install Vista 64 Ultimate Edition, run Prime95 for a few hours successfully and had no problems along the way. Being the very nice vendor they are, I asked them to perform a specific RAM testing utility called "Memtest86+". They tested and found the motherboard to be faulty and they replaced it free of charge. I recieved it back and slaved the parts together. I ran the RAM testing utility and low and behold...it failed. Once more I routed the parts back to the vendor, this time only the motherboard and RAM. The vendor ran the same memory testing utlity and it passed.

Again, being the nice vendor they are they extended the returns/testing to now include the CPU, which I shipped on the 8th August. I hope they recieve it today and test sometime soon. If this passes with No Fault Found then I have no idea WHAT is causing the memory errors at home.

For someone like me who "lives" on the internet, 6 weekends WITHOUT a PC is driving me crazy. Each weekend seems to be a never ending story of boredom. I have occupied myself with a few DVDs, Mangas and figurines but it only goes so far. I miss playing my games, miss chatting to people online (it doesn't cost a penny (with exception to the ISP monthly charges) to talk to friends versus calling them) and I miss being able to fiddle with the PC.

Time without a PC has made me dig through some old boxes and found a few DVDs. This was after I spent hours watching Transformers Season 3 and Season 4 and Transformers Godmasters series. In the old box I found The Hole, Donnie Darko and Irresponsible Captain Tylor. I've not re-watched the two movies yet but I have started watching Tylor again. I love that series; probably because the Captain is a fair representation of me, ie I want the easy life. The centre of why I really like Irresponsible Captain Tylor is that you initially wonder if he is a complete idiot or military genious and if the former...what amazing dumb luck he has! As I re-watch the series, you can also take it that what Tylor does and gets in return is almost Karma like. He treats people (even the human's AI systems and the enemy Raalgon commanders/assassins etc.) the same nice way, even if it is not protocol or following regulations.Best of all, he is true to himself, so yes, he can be quite lecherous which adds to the comedy factor; after all he is a Captain of a Destroyer class ship, the Soyokaze.

Tylor won't suit to everyone's taste, it is light hearted and cheesey and those looking for some scf-fi drama won't find it here (aka Macross / Gundam).

Anyhow, that won't resolve the issue of no internet at home.

I've managed to finish the 8 volumes I purchased of School Rumble. That has only spurred me to want to re-watch the series (but I can't without the PC!!!;_;). What I am disappointed in is that Amazon sold me a couple of American books and not the official UK books. I'll have to dig around to see if I can find the officual UK books. I'm not too fussed about keeping the US books, I can use them for travel/lending and can get beat up. The other Manga I have been reading is "Negima!". Not fantastic reading but I enjoy it although the huge character list can get confusing when trying to discern who is who (30+ main characters...a few who look similar!). That and with a few large story arcs, it's not quite something you can drop and pick up unless you have quite a good memory. I still got another 4 volumes of that to go (books 11 to 14 I think) so that'll entertain me for one solid night or several if I space it out.

Where does that leave me now? At current rate, the laptop I purchased won't be delivered for upto 2 weeks, so that is another 2 weekends of boredom. What will happen with my parts at vendor under returns testing, I hope they can emulate the problem I have. If not...I'll keep the discussion open however I may have to resign to the fact I am doing something wrong at home.

More boring weekends, here we come.

;_; Boo Hoo ;_;