Today has been a day for getting back to my roots, and using a computer for what they were first built for. In fact this is how happy I've been today

I did and now I'm in love

Oh deary me, got snowed in so I couldn't go to work today.

Good, now I got that out of the way, time for today's little bit....

Decided to benchmark the new PC, so a download of Directx9 and 3DMark 2003 were the order of the day. The new 3DMark is aroun 180MB so you really REALLY have to want it, to be bothered with it. After a considerable wait, interspersed with snow shovelling and car skidding, it was ready.

Forgot to try it BEFORE updating DirectX but no matter, as it didn't work anyway. Even with new graphics drivers it refuses to let me further than loading the first demo in and then quite unspectacularly crashing out. I say crashing, if you can call crashing simply exiting to the desktop with no hint of anything having previously been running.

So after finding I don't have a spare copy of 3DMark 2001SE lying around, another less hefty download (39MB) of that put me where I wanted (and hoped I would find myself)....with the default benchmarking FPS counter going into the hundreds and not the tens (if I was lucky) before...

A quick insertion of the new graphics drivers and my 3DMark score was worse. Overall it was an apparently measly 6697, where as before the new drivers it was 26 points higher..... oh well. According to the futuremark results I should be getting something around 10000, but then it always has been odd that somebody somewhere ALWAYS insists they can run it at ten times the resolution and 3 billion fps, on a casio digital watch, or some other piece of not-very-gaming-hardware. As far as I see it, it's just a benchmark with a soft, warm, pink, heart shaped edge to it.....ahhhh

Mind you if I had gotten 3DM2003 then I am sure I would have missed out on the chance to actually see how wonderful all this new hardware really is....now all I need to do is download the rest of the Unreal 2003 demo to make it do something worth while.

And here is a little of the snowiness...

Seems that the future has arrived at last. At the Demo conference for new tech, the companies are being asked to have some substance to their flashy demos, and expensive looking gadgets. Just think of it, stuff that looks cool AND is useful. Going to make the trip to Circuit City a lot more enjoyable, and maybe bring it more into line with going food shopping.

Well, ok maybe not as important as food shopping, but at least it will be more exciting than going to the local Home Depot to buy something.

Getting something to fix the house up with is a satisfying experience, from finding it on the shelf, right through to when you close the door behind the contractor you finally had to pay to do it properly. But if gadgets (and I mean the take batteries/recharge/plug into the TV, types) become USEFUL as well as nice to play with, an entire spiritual generation of guilt will magically dissolve.

No more waiting until some bit of boring household thing has decided to crumble into dust before you can legitimately park up next to a big electronics store and go in guilt free. Oh no, pure unadulterated USEFULNESS. No more stealing a few precious moments in the massive TV section, dreaming of what it's like to own one of these huge beasts, because now, you NEED to go there.

It's only luck that remote controls are designed to break very easily (or be suffering a spell in the other 'lost' dimension) so you can go and take a look in those places at all! I mean, if remotes lasted any length of time at all, those stores would be finished. THAT is why those all in one remote thingies for $210 a time, are so popular. It's similar technology to alien implants. You sell one to someone, and then they know that some time soon, they MUST return. Perhaps I am letting the secret out here, but if it wasn't for cheap shoddy plastic electronic components, then no man would ever make it back to the electronics stores. At least he might make it in, but of course would never be seen alive again, as the guilt would engulf him in a firery death. Cleverly disguised as an argument with his wife about wasting cash.

So this is why it is VERY important that gadgets become more useful..... did you follow me this far?

Well, after a ton of messing around, we FINALLY got the DSL back a few minutes ago. Not going to bother with any of the tiresome details except to say it is probably not over yet! Now I know how Scottie feels when after patching up the Enterprise with duct tape, he hears the captain ordering them back into the jaws of some starship-crushing space phenomenon.

I keep playing solitaire....it's verizons fault. If they had not messed up the DSL, I would be reformatting the other PC and re-downloading all the windows updates instead. But on the crummy dial up, there is no use....so until the DSL is back (keep praying) it's back to the cards.......even tried a quick blast on GTA3 but only wanted to get back to that green table topped nirvana after a couple of minutes....

Verizon managed to lose the entire phone line a couple of days ago. Their forcasted 24 hours, turned out to be an entire 8 hours through the work day.

Still no sign of the DSL, but that debate is not to begin raging until the 13th....then it's really anybodies guess as to if we will get the service back, or maybe (as the current trend suggests) there will be no knowledge what so ever, of us, the DSL account, or even the people we spoke to on the phone with, at Verizon. The second to last person we spoke to even refused to give us a full name! Now I don't mind doing business with people, but I stupidly always imagined that to work along the, 'you advertise it, and someone purchases said advertised service/product from you' sort of lines. Verizon seem to have hit on the novel approach of, no matter what you ask of the service/product, it's a "yes we can/it does" until it comes to delivering. Then it changes to the not inconsequential "No we don't/it doesn't" with an added, "Well that representative was misinformed". So don't say I didn't warn you :)

Anyway, at the rate they keep apologizing, and giving away free months of this and that for the inconvenience, they are going to have a pretty slim 2003!

I found this particular product at Pathmark, rather disconcerting. Three lighters with a packet of Tic Tacs in the same packet. Think about it for a moment......(shudder)

Oh dreamyness ensues...... this is coming to you from my newly fresh, still smells like plastic box innards, new PC.....ah.... a fresh clean desktop...acres of clear unspoilt hard drive.... you KNOW the feeling....

Except for the dial up, so the updates are going to have to wait until I can get back the civilization of DSL, so I am not in the 'broken roller skate' lane of the information super highway..

and perhaps I must mention this one has one of those see through sides WITH a light in! No, I'm not sure why either, but I think the idea is to make it look nice, and by golly, they seem to have had the right idea, although I'll let you know when I actually put the clear side on the tower, and fire up the light inside...