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it was the good times?

I haven't been into updating this horrible blog for a little while, so I'll just give a quick snippit at what's been happening and what's going to happen in short lines of boring looking text.

Countless hours have been poured into Civilization IV over the past month.

Half Life series is slowly being played through and I'll eventually finish it.

New computer is treating me well to some Age of Conan, which I'm happily enjoying.

Old computer worked at my house but decided to crap out when it arrived at Blain's.

After replacing every part, nothing has fixed the PC. We're tired of dealing with it -- Off to terrible services such as Geek Squad.

I'm highly anticipating Civilization Revolution and can't wait to check out the demo later today.

Warhammer Online (Paul Barnett is still my hero) is still my #1 long awaited game and just thinking about it makes my gamer self quiver with unsteady chills.

360 pooped out. Clean it up with some towels and made it all better.

Ordered some Samurai and can't wait for ...

June 18th, where there will be many Rock Bandings, sushi eating, board gaming (Vegas Showdown!), and general goofing off in Colorado Springs.

I'm Everquest's Fippy Darkpaw, James is Kenny G., and Tyler is Tum Craise in the linked picture above.

The word Hell looks weird is Mircosoft Wingdings. - Especially in pink.

Ahhh, Civ IV.

I woke up this morning with a goal to clean out my computer. The PC has been having issues lately when regarding to cooling mostly because the amount of dust build up in it. The fans would kick up even when just typing in Word--yeah, it was that bad. Anyway, I began to take everything off and for the first time ever, I decided to remove the CPU. After about an hour worth of Q-tipping and old ragging the dirt away, I was finally finished and began to piece back the computer.

Having no experience with a CPU before, I was having issues putting it back on. Eventually I realized that I could safely twist it off of the cooling that it was stuck to, making it approximately four hundred times easier. Everything is put back together now, but when I go to turn it on it just sits there on a black screen, unable to give a visual on anything. Signs of that may say that the graphics card could be faulty, but this is not the case. After replacing it with a new GPU, the same exact problem occured. This isn't as if Windows boots up, then all of a sudden I'm missing a file or something, I mean it sits there, never even gets to that point or shows me anything with my monitor flashing, "No Video Input Detected" in my face.

After having so much initial trouble with the CPU, I was thinking maybe it still wasn't placed on there correctly. So I tried a few times and checked for any bent pins. There were a few extremely minor bends, but they were easily fixed and I don't think they would have made a difference either way. Not to mention I grabbed an entirely new CPU from an old PC lying around in the attic and still experience the same dreaded black screen upon turning my system on.

What's weird is that the system won't even turn off if I hold hold down the power button, which makes me have to turn off the PSU. However, if I switch the little red voltage switch over it allows me to turn it off correctly, despite it still doesn't fix the problem. Now I was thinking it was my PSU that went up or something, but I yet again tried an entirely different power supply and I'd run into the same problem again. I also switched to my other harddrive with no luck either.

So, what the heck is the problem? Well, I'm pretty sure it's squared on the motherboard now. Perhaps when I was blowing dust away I slobbered all over a part or something, but either way I believe it's the problem causing piece. Most people know I'll be having a new PC arrive in two weeks, so what's the big deal if I can't use this one? Well, it's going to be Blain's (read: blog below) new computer since he was scammed of the only opportunity of purchasing one, so it means a lot to me to get this thing running correctly again, even if that means buying a new mobo. So when does this crap stop happening to me? It just won't stop as even while I was climbing the ladder earlier to the attic, the fifteen pound door decided to fall on my head, making me fall down a step and my jaw meet metal.

As an update with the account issue, Blain returned all of the payment back to me, so I'm no longer in debt to Paypal. We're still working on getting back the account, so I'll try to keep you guys somewhat updated.

Edit: I should probably add that the problem isn't like I can hear everything on my speakers like it does boot up and I just can't see. The PC gets stuck instantly with all of the lights on the front of the case practically frozen, no blinking at all. May I also say that I've probably inhaled a pound of dust today and accidentally eaten too much thermalpaste.

$338.46

Yesterday I sold a gaming account and was successfully scammed via Paypal due to no protection or information given to or for the seller (me). I understand that this kind of stuff happens all the time, and it's just unfortunate that it happened to me. There was almost no way around this and I've learned my lesson to execute any transactions over Paypal regarding to any account. May I add that I've sold quite a few accounts before this and have had nothing but smooth transactions. Where did all the scammers come from and why doesn't Paypal address the issue with a little more security to all users? Fix the hole in your system, Paypal.

Here is an audio recording of me fully explaining everything that's happened thus far, and then calling Paypal fraud services. You can skip to about the fifteen minute mark to hear the phone call.

Here is said video I mentioned in the recording.

Nothing more I can do.

Congrats on having the side of your face in a picture from a Kotaku article!

Brian pulled some strings, obviously.

I'm currently playing through Viking: Battle of Asgard for my review (I'm a day behind). The game has had a pretty positive side thus far, despite some issues with the camera. I won't give any say on how else I feel, so instead this video will be here to show you some of the crazy action that takes place in the game. Beware of very minor spoilers. Also, the beginning may look a little overwhelming, but it clears up as it goes on.

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And here's a random extra I made during some downtime.

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To those tagging/asking me: I shall always remain mysterious.

I'm excited to play Warhammer Online because Paul Barnett wants me to be.

Paul Barnett, Design Manager

"To mangle a famous quote: 'Fudge the game for the Intellectual Property, fund the Intellectual Property for the game and always make tasty fudge.' "

I becomes before e, but it should never be included in your review.