Cav's Place

Wanted to wait a few more days and only write a single post about all these things, but I think I need to split the story into two parts. Actually, it’s not a story, I’ll just babble a little about the last few days.

My dad’s computer finally decided to die a few days ago. I’m actually surprised that it lasted this long, considering that it’s been overheating for about two years. I could never figure out what was wrong with it and therefore assumed that it was a temperature reporting error, because otherwise I thought it’d have died rather quickly. But a couple of months ago he took it to a shop because of another problem and those people noticed a small crack in the CPU cooler, which caused serious airflow problems, meaning that it had really been overheating. Why did it decide to only burn out after it stopped overheating is not quite clear, but the fact is that it did.
Since you can’t find socket 478 CPUs anymore, and it wouldn’t have been worth repairing anyway, I was asked to order the required parts and build him a new computer as cheaply as possible. He also wanted me to reuse as many parts from the old one as I could and didn’t exactly like it when I said there’s hardly anything I could use… Was particularly disappointed that he couldn’t keep the RAM, since he had just bought some more for it. Hey, I told him it’s not worth spending anything on that piece of junk anymore, it’s not my problem he didn’t listen!
Either way, I got the parts yesterday and built it. Now I still need my new video card, which I plan to order tomorrow, to be able to put the one I have now on his new computer. I’m still discussing ordering a SATA HDD tomorrow as well, because until last night he insisted to keep using the IDE one from his old computer, despite the problems this causes. I might also persuade him to legally purchase the operating system…

Since I mentioned ordering a new video card for myself, I have to say that it seems I’ll need to sacrifice reliability for performance. After I saw the reviews which said that GeForce GTS 250 uses significantly less power than GeForce 9800 GTX+ despite the fact that it’s the exact same card as far as performance is concerned, I said I finally have something to buy. I had my eyes on one from BFG, but apparently only a few of those have been produced and sent to reviewers, as the model doesn’t seem to be available for purchase anywhere, not even abroad. MSI seems to have done the same thing with their overclocked 1 Gb version of the GTS 250, as they have even removed it from their own site recently.
Since I still want one with 1 Gb of memory, despite knowing that it doesn’t really matter if it has 512 Mb or 1 Gb, and want it at least somewhat overlocked from the start, I find myself required to accept only a two-year warranty, because the manufacturers which offer more don’t seem to have any such models available. I think I’ll get one from EVGA, which would probably be a little faster than the one from BFG I initially had in mind anyway. They have an even better one available, but it doesn’t seem to be sold in Romania…

On another note, met someone I’ve been talking to on-line for the past several months. This means I have now actually met three people after initially talking to them on-line, the first two being Andra and Jen. It wasn’t as scary as I thought, but I still was quite uneasy about the prospect. Actually, the previous times it went rather well as well, but that doesn’t mean the idea of meeting someone like that won’t still be just as scary from now on.
The difference between now and back when I met Andra or Jen was that now we just went for a walk, so all of it was in a public place, we didn’t get in and talk in my room (or in our room, since I met Jen when I was living with Andra). I’m not sure if that made it easier or harder… Being out makes me quite uneasy in itself, but at the same time it’d probably be a little weird to be in the same room with someone I don’t already have a connection with at a quite different level. Still, the fact that she found things to talk about for most of the time we spent together certainly made things easier, because if I’d have had to say much it’d have been very awkward for both of us.

Moving on, as if I didn’t feel embarrassed enough as it was, dad made me make a fool of myself yesterday morning… The guy who was supposed to deliver the parts for dad’s new computer called me to ask if I was at home and say that he’s in front of the building and is about to ring to be allowed in. I wondered why did he have to call and tell me that, but I went out of my room to wait for him. Parents asked if the order was about to arrive, I said yes and then was left to wander around for a few minutes, wondering why wasn’t that guy ringing yet.
I eventually looked and noticed that he couldn’t, because dad hadn’t turned the damn thing back on when he woke up, so that’s when I realized why he called. I assume that while I kept pacing and wondering why wasn’t he ringing, he kept ringing and wondering why I wasn’t answering.
Asked dad why was it off as soon as I noticed and he just shrugged, despite knowing that it should have been on and even saying the night before that he’ll remember to turn it on… Great, making a fool of myself when it’s not even my fault…

Since I had to wake up rather early to make sure the delivery guy won’t catch me still sleeping, I only slept about three and a half hours yesterday morning. So I got in bed after finishing what I had to do with the new computer and eating a bit… That didn’t go quite well, because it seems something didn’t want me to sleep then…
A few minutes after getting in bed, I get an SMS from dad, saying they’re coming back from the dentist. I roll over and try to get back to sleep, only to hear the really loud alarm clock from the living room ringing. I sigh, roll my eyes and try once again to fall asleep. Just then, they come in and start making noise… As soon as I thought I might get used to that, dad knocked on my door to ask how’s it going with his new computer, so we talked about that for a while. That left me thinking about too many things to be able to fall asleep just then, so I paced around the room for several minutes. Eventually I got back in bed, but things still didn’t go quite as planned.
Just as I was falling asleep once again, I felt the bed shake. Since I was partially asleep and things are quite different in my dreams, at first I assumed someone was shaking the bed. But I was still awake enough to remember that I’m sleeping alone a moment later, which made me wonder what’s going on. At first I felt around behind me, to make sure I was alone, then I really woke up and looked around in confusion. Eventually I figured out that there had probably been a small earthquake, but I wasn’t certain until I saw an e-mail with the news in my inbox right after I woke up.
I did manage to finally fall asleep after that and slept for about one hour and a half, but the problems weren’t quite over, as waking up was quite scary. I thought I was already awake, but still felt too tired to get up, so I waited a bit longer in bed. Then I felt this incredibly powerful blow to my face, followed by going completely numb. It made me think that a truck had somehow slammed into my face… My first thought was “and now I die”. A few seconds later, after realizing that’s not the case, the train of thought went to “apparently not, but I doubt there’s much left of me, so if I still have arms I have to reach under my bed, grab my cell phone, call 112 and then, if I also still have a mouth, say something, because I have no idea what just happened but it was really bad”. Luckily I actually woke up when I started moving towards my phone.
I was still seeing a lot of letters, numbers and pictures in all sorts of colors swimming in front of my eyes for a few minutes after I woke up and my brain felt rattled for about one hour after that. At first I checked for blood, then for bruises and lumps, but I didn’t find anything. And my head was pretty much below the pillow when I woke up, far away from anything I could have hit myself with, so I still have no idea what happened. Could have just been one of those nightmares you have when you’re very tired, in which you dream that you wake up, are convinced that you’re awake, and then something terrible happens.

So what about Finnish? Not much, just that I was noticing that my Finnish “vocabulary” went from two to about ten words over the past week and yet none of them is a curse word. I need to ask Alina for some soon, because that’s quite weird. Those are usually the first things you learn in another language, after all!