Just when I think I've got a handle on things it breaks off in my hand.

I have spent the last eight months building my new tower. You know; a piece here, a piece there as I could afford them. Finally got it all hooked up and triple checked the connections and made sure it was good in every way...and then turned on the power. Nothing. Blank screen. Oh wait...words...that say, "No Signal." Bugger. Diagnostic with a different graphics card shows the new one to be faulty.

Yes, I bought it from a reputable place. Yes, it was during a going out of business sale (but there is another store across town). The receipt said, "All Sales Final." I was so ready to fight about that one if the returns clerk at the other store gave me any crap about it. I did my stint in retail. I know that you guys will exchange it for me for the identical product off the shelf IF the one sold by your sister store is faulty. Small argument later I have replacement graphics card.

Get it home, drop it in to the eagerly awaiting PCI-E slot and hit the power. Yeah!! We have a picture. Loaded OS and drivers for the motherboard and encountered the second problem.

I can't get the bloody thing to update. I can do an XP install (and have redone it at least ten times) and then every time I try to update from on-line it freezes. Hard restart frozen. Whaaaat? I have about had it. I am going to take it to the repair shop and find out what is going on. I want my games in higher resolution and to not lag during every fight sequence. I want to not have to share PC time with the wife. The old tower is perfectly fine for her on-line stuff. It chokes on the Oblivion and Neverwinter Nights stuff.

The repair store better not give me lip about my OS disk either.After having a shop once lose my Win98 OS disk I never give repair or tech people my originals anymore. They get a copied OS and a handwritten product key that they can compare to the original I will bring only for proof of ownership. I did eventually geta Win98 disk out of that one shop. I pestered them for almost a week for its return, and they just gave me a replacement instead. I kind of wonder what happened to the one I gave them.

I got my Tagger King badge this last Friday.  Slightly past 800 tags so far and I don't intend to stop now.  I find myself wondering if a badge higher than King will be created.  Tagger Emperor, or Tagger God for 2000 or more tags or something.  What is the point of continuing to list and tag if extreme numbers don't receive recognition.  I have read in the forums that the King badge is supposed to be extremely difficult to earn and over 1000 unique tags are needed, but I have found neither to be completely true.  The most tags I have seen in another's profile exceeded 1500.  It is so easy to do and the Tagger badges are cool in the graffiti kind of way. 

Logging on today showed a new badge for me.  I now have the Tagger Leader icon.  Well past 600 tags to get it but I won't stop tagging until I get the Tagger King badge.  When I first started using the tags I didn't get it at all.  Then I progressed for a year or so only by using four catagory names that I felt most of the games I was interested in qualified as: City Life, History, Fantasy, and Space.  When I figured out that the world existed in more than four catagories I got started.  Wouldn't you like to be a tagger too?

What keeps happening to my "PC Aficionado" badge?  One day it is there and the next it is gone.  Page refreshing does nothing that I can see.  The last time this happened I shrugged it off and then the badge reappeared the next time I added a game to my collection.  Screwy.

I've given some thought to this blogging thing and I still haven't reached any conclusions.  At least none that I am satisfied with.  I used to write ina journal most every day and put my thoughts and impressions in it.  Why I stopped and what I did with it is a story for me alone however.  That is part of what I think, but also the need sometimes just to type to myself (assuming that folks have better things to do than read this drivel).  It helps me to organize my mind and my tasks without having to explicitly share them.  It seems a tenuous media form, this blogging.  I am sure my paper journals will last my lifetime, more or less, but what is this but a collections of microscopic spots of magnetic information on a hard drive who knows where?  So I wait, and I type, and out of it comes a collection of dark spots on a white background.  Captured however briefly by the monitor in front of me.  Subject to my whims even more so than something created with pen and paper.  Who is here to even witness my wandering brain?  Likely none, but I care not.  I seldom care about the opinions of others.  But hey, if you read this and if you care enough to respond go ahead and leave me a message and I'll read it.  After all you've taken the time to read this rubbish.  Funnily enough I started this to type about my new computer that I'm building.  Just a bit off track I guess.

Well that explains so much about my previous posts.  Most of my GS time is spent surfing at work during lunch.  I have almost no time to spend while a home so I also have little time to search carefully for answers.  I finally happened to have enough time during the New Year holiday to do some careful research as to my poor leveling progress.  It turns out Soulreaver had the answer in the FAQ forum all along.  If you are gifted with a full rank jump somewhere between 16th and 19th level be ready to spend some time on 20th level.  Here is why.  Thank you and bless you Soulreaver for the handy explanation for the rank glitch I was having.  I'll have to bookmark that FAQ for future use.