Gerko's Weblog

Wednesday, December 31, 2003

A little under two hours of 2003 left. Hum.

Oh well ... other news : New shiny PC has arrived. On the 20th. AMD 3000+ Processor, 512 Megs RAM, 80 + 20 Gigs HD, 15" TFT screen, Geforce FX 5600.

WinXP Professional and Office XP gotten through brother's school for 20 bucks or so. Legally (!)

Shiny.

Not really 'my' PC, though. More like my siblings' and mom's PC. I get to supervise it during the weekends, and solve any problems that arise due to their computer illiteracy, but I don't get to take it with me. Not that I mind, I don't think I have pushed my own PC (1.6Ghz, 256 Mb RAM, GeForce2) to it's limits yet. Though it could use a clean up after two years.

My brother especially is happy with this new thing. He's been meaning to play new games for a while now, and he just went on a new game binge. He wants to play my copy of Temple of Elemental Evil, has been playing Morrowind that came for free with the graphics card. Also, a few days ago, he bought Half-Life. Why ? because he's excited about Half-Life 2 that's going to come out sometime next year. Let's completely skip over the fact that Half-Life would have worked perfectly on the old PC. But I don't mind at all, since I had never played it before, either. It's legendary, but I never played it. Playing it now, though, and it is pretty good. Also, about twice as far into the game as my brother. YES ! I am still the better gamer ! ha-ha. 0wn3d.

Rewind :

"[...]an ACC, a SACD, and a KV. [...]"
An Arthur C. Clarke, a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a Kurt Vonnegut.

Finished Timequake by Vonnegut, and it was good. Weird, it being half fiction and half real life anecdotes. But good. Very nice. I think I'll try and find some more stuff of this guy. Slaughterhouse Five is supposedly good, but I can only find the shortened version of it. And I despise shortened versions. Hah !

I've been trying to start on A Study in Scarlet, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The very first Sherlock Holmes novel. But there's an intoduction of 67 pages at the beginning, and an explaining text of about 80 pages at end. Together, that makes about 20 pages more than the actual story is worth. But no worries, I'll get started on it. Maybe tonight, even.

And then there's the Motherload. Coming in at 1100+ pages, is a collection of short stories by Arthur C. Clarke. Starting with his earliest published stories, and going on from there. Some of the earlier ones are an ... well ... how should I put this ... unpleasant read. It doesn't flow nicely, or is just too wild//chaotic. But it's getting better. Not that far into it yet, so I'd better go read some more of those stories, too.

I'll re-update the book counter as soon as I feel like it. And not a moment sooner.

Sinterklaas

Well, hum. Was nice enough, I think. Been a while ago already now, and nothing too extraordinary happened. Got a nice little game called The Temple of Elemental Evil, but I haven't been able to get past character creation because of creative difficulties. (Such a "Gerko" thing to do, really. Not playing the game because one can't decide with what kind of characters to play it with. Horrible. Hah !)

Sunday, December 28, 2003

For all bloody excuses I could write for not blogging earlier and skipping over oh-so many subjects (I do intedn to come back to 'em soon) ... here's a short little message :

Gerko's going swimming. I haven't been to a pool for years. I haven't swam for ages ! So remember, If I don't come back, I probably drowned.

Friday, December 05, 2003

So, I kinda wanted to blog some more stuff, but I'm not really sure what about.

PC at home-home is near-death. This weekend, it's going to be put out of it's misery and salvaged for useable parts. That means no internet for Gerko until sunday evening. Will he survive ? ... probably. I went to the library yesterday, and got my hands on an ACC, a SACD, and a KV.
(What are those ? Oh, hush. Just wait for the book counter when I update it after the weekend)

There's a Nanowrimo gathering in Utrecht next sunday, but I don't think I'll make it. Quite a bunch of people I've gotten to know a bit over MSN have said there weren't going either, and it's bloody expensive to take the train there and all. Also, long trip and ... *shrugs*

Hum. Heading for home-home now. "Sinterklaas" tomorrow. Well, actually today, but we celebrate it tomorrow since my sister won't be home-home till saturday. Will fill you in about all that, too, when I get back online next time.