A pit with sides that crumble as you try to climb out. You find each morning that you have fallen a little deeper, and realize that only a miracle will get you out, and that really, there are no miracles.... Sorry for the downer - now move on....

EQ Emu

Was it really this hard? And this ugly??? Nonetheless, this is the game that hooked me years ago, reborn, and free to play. Actually, I liked the struggle to survive, and the challenge to get your gear back after death. And, as a barbarian, I really liked those bearskin caps! Tradeskills mean something again, and the starting zones are no longer ghost towns.

It was easy enough to set up using my copy of Shadows of Faydwer.

I'll be back.

http://www.eqemulator.org/

Safe Journeys.

Drug Trade in Afghanistan

I know it isn't the complete answer, but with our troops in Afghanistan I hope we can do something to stem the flow of drugs from that country. If nothing else, drive up prices so that the drug is no longer a cheap alternative to just about any other drug (including alcohol and marijuana). They say that targeting the farmer is not the answer, but moving up the ladder to stopping the Taliban and al Qaeda traffickers.

Just maybe our military involvement may do some good...

Let's See

Obama Says He Intends to 'Finish the Job' in Afghanistan

I voted for him. I hoped for a change in the direction our country was heading. Yes, change is what I got.

More support than ever for big business in the form of bail-outs and hand-outs. More money yet thrown to the masses only to appease them, not to really accomplish any sort of real improvement in jobs or the economy.

An of course, the change in the war focus. We are now nation building in Afghanistan. Fighting a war with no real 'win'. Finish the job indeed. How exactly do we know when that job has been accomplished?

I guess we did such a great job in Iraq. that he wanted more. So what if Russia tried and failed miserably. We are America! We obviously have nothing going at home that needs our attention and resources so we can spare the billions of dollars. We all know war is good for business. And heck, the military will provide jobs.

I'm sad. I worry for our children's future. I was misled. (And no, I do not hold Bush to blame for being 'mislead' any more than all the politicians who fell in line behind him.) I will however not be supporting this paper president we have now any longer, and only hope we have someone who is honest, logical and unafraid to really speak and act for America in the next election.

Update to Previous PC Problems

Just thought I would add what the fixes were for the 2 PCs mentioned in the previous post.

The Dell XPS had some bad RAM causing the errors.

The laptop that could not open programs had a stuck key (I think it was the alt key).
This one took quite a while to fix as it was not at all obvious. Even after taking the keyboard off, it took a good look to find a tiny spot of something gooey causing the key to stick.

Still on the Job / Dell support

Nearly two months at my new job, and I haven't quit or been fired. I"m still learning, and getting comfortable, and still making mistakes now and then. But I am moving into the tech area more and more now.

Today I spoke with two customers with Dell computers still under warranty. One was a laptop that had some strange random problems with icons and programs, another was a brand new state-of-the-art Dell XPS that had yet to boot up cleanly into Windows.

Both pc's were under warranty, and both customers had given up on Dell support, citing language barriers, the fact that the tech support people did not seem to listen to them, and did not go beyond a set of canned suggestions for them to try, all to no avail...

The Dell support was free, but they were ready to pay us up front to diagnose the computers for them.

I had at first thought the problem with the laptop was a virus, but as I looked into it, I am beginning to think it is hardware related: hard drive or ram being faulty. I have not finished with this yet.

The XPS starts up in Safe Mode. I suggested he go into msconfig and see what turning off some or all of the startup programs might do for him, or maybe checking for faulty RAM (he has 24G!) I am just a newbie, and off hand don't know of any issues Windows or hardware may be running into with the DDR3 ram, or the 3 hard drives, etc. the customer may be seeing, but I would hope that Dell knew what they were doing in configuring this pc and making it stable. He is going to try a few more things, and then again, may bring it in for us to test.

A coworker also had a call today from a Dell customer who needed help with his computer still under warranty...

I have heard some good things about Dell computers lately as far as price and performance. But the chance it seems you take, is that if there is a problem, there is very little help from Dell for you....