I got my memory Thursday and now I've got the computer working... except the floppy drive died unexpectedly. No worries, I'll just pick one up from somewhere.

I'm back to playing Doom 3. A friend said he got to the Hell levels and I thought to myself... maybe hell isn't so damned *DARK*... I mean, there's flames everywhere!

With my luck, I'm wrong, and I'll be wandering though the darkest corners of Hell with my stupid flashlight. Oh well.

Game Addiction: Doom 3

Please, oh please, oh PLEASE let that memory come in today.

My roomate just kicked the *crap* out of me in SoulCaliber 2. Man, I suck at that game.

Game addiction: SC2, despite the fact that I suck at it.

...because of my stupid mistakes.

Ok, so a few weeks ago I decided to help out my fiance's family and install Win2k on all their computers.

Mistake 1: didn't back up future mother-in-law's email. She got kinda upset, and I felt *really* bad about it, but I think she still loves me.

Also, one of their computers died during the whole round, so I decided to give them my christmas present early and build them a new computer.

So I order the parts... motherboard, cpu, power supply, memory, cpu cooling...

Mistake 2: Trying to fit new parts in a Dell case

I get everything in and realize 2 things: 1) cable for the front switch panel doesn't fit into the motherboard, and 2) the motherboard back panel (peice of aluminum that goes around the ports in the back) doesn't fit.

Mistake 3: modifying the switch (with a drill) to fit the motherboard properly. Don't get me wrong, this actually turned out ok and the switch worked... and if all else failed I had a few extra (Dell) switch panels, but I wouldn't recommend doing this.

It's at this point that I realize the motherboard doesn't have a built-in speaker, though it does have a place to plug in a speaker... the Dell motherboard had a cute little button speaker actually mounted onto the motherboard.

Make that Mistake 4: no internal speaker. I figured... why would I need a speaker? it's all going to work out because I'm a *genious* and it'll all come together. In the back of my mind I thought to myself "hey, if Dell can do that, maybe a fine mb company like... uh... PCChips can make one so small I can't even see it. HA!

So I put everything together and plug it in and hit the button. Fans whir, leds flash, but there is no screen output, and no beep. So much for my "super small internal speaker" theory.

I worry with it for a week, with the same thing every time. Eventually I break down and buy a case, which arrives shortly before I'm off to visit my fiance in atlanta. So I get home monday and move everything to the new case (minus the aluminum peice for the motherboard, which I have "modified" out of shape...

Mistake 5: "Modifying" the aluminum plate that came with the motherboard to try and make it fit on a dell case. Actually, this should go before #3, but whatever.

The new parts fit in just fine... the switch fits perfectly, and it even came with a speaker to plug in.

So I move the stuff over, plug it all in, and hit the switch. Fans whirr, leds work (except the HD and activity leds were switched... an easy fix), no output to the screen, but this time I get beeps! beeeeeep (pause) beeeeeeep (pause) beeeeeeep (pause)... So I look on the 'net about "Award Bios POST codes". I notice that all the other bios's have several codes, nice and descriptive, but Award has only 2 codes, one of which is: "Any other beeps: RAM problem".

Nice. Brand new RAM and it's bad. So, on a hunch, I go to newegg.com and check the info on the parts I ordered. The motherboard supports up to DDR266, which I knew... then I look at the ram and one thing hits me right away: "DDR333".

Crap. I'm an idiot.

So that's why I'm bashing my skull into the computer screen right now... but hey! Live and learn (and then get Luvs... wait, what???). Next time I'm sure I'll do much better.

Game Addiction: Any game I can play on this new system when I get it up and running. I deserve that at least before I pass it off to my fiance's family.

Well, I just thought I'm getting more in-depth into the "slashdot junkie" scene, so here I am writing in my journal.

Cool news: In the past week, I've had 2 forum posts that were modded up to 5 -- my second "funny" and my first "informative". Isn't that cool? It seems that my posts are usually hit or miss -- most of them are left alone and unread, but every now and then someone will pay attention to me and mod me up. It's nice to be recognised.

I also bought a subscription for a friend of mine, but I've not recieved so much as a "thank you" note... and I don't believe he even has me down as a friend. That's ok though, his posts are fun to read and informative (mostly because he knows his shit), and I guess I owe him for having faith in me when no one else did... and I can never forsake a fellow linux/unix geek.

Game Addiction: Legends, though there aren't many people that play it right now...