Gah >_<

Tomorrow evening, we will be moving out of the house to live at Nonna's for a while. The reason - our lovely new wooden floors are being polished. Pretty awesome. So we leave tomorrow after, according to dad, 1 hour of moving stuff, (more likely 5 hours) then we get back about 4 days later.

So it should be fun not having internet for that time...

I'll have to unpack the PS2...

*Mutters darkly*

Sigh.
I just spent the last 4 hours of my life wrestling with the PC.
It just woke up today and decided that booting was a generally bad idea, and thought that it might be nice to take a short vacation. So it happily changed (unbeknowns to me) a random registry setting and stopped booting.

The symptom: It would show the processor screen, and then verify that all the hard-drives were working, but then at the boot screen, it hung on the message: "Verifying DMS pool data...............update complete."
And it then decided to just sit there. There is no mouse imput at that screen, but keyboard input is accepted.

Early attempts at fixing this problem failed. The first thing I tried to do is restart the PC, attempting to open the boot-menu, allowing me to load the last configuration settings that worked. That was a failure. After that, I tried to turn off the PC at the wall and wait for a while, in hopes that some of the hardware would reset. (This works sometimes)

Failure. I then decided to take out the notebook and do some research. (Note that by this time I had called dad - an ex-pc engineer, but he was as stumped as I was.)
Of course, my sister had taken the laptop out of the house so she had something to do while mum was working at the pool.

It then occurred to me that we had another laptop...
Granted, the CD drive no longer opened and it was more than 10 years old, there was a chance that if I could get the internet working, I could do the necessary research and hopefully get the PC back.

I took it out of the bag. The network card was lying next to it, but I decided to use the USB one that is currently in the main PC, since it is faster.
The configuration tool for this USB network-card is, of course, on a CD, which I could not put into the laptop, on account of it being dropped some time ago.

Shuddering to myself, I placed the old network-card into the laptop. The lights started happily blinking, and then Windows played the "Hardware failed to disconnect" sound, and rejected the network card.

After letting out a world-weary sigh, I opened up the device manager for the notebook and noticed that that particular card had been disabled.
After enabling it, the lights started blinking merrily again, and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.

Hopping on the internet (with fluctuating signal strength, sometimes disconnecting for a second), I began my search for some answers. It seems that this is not a unique problem.
I looked in horror as it said that the problem can be caused by corrupt hard-drives, and that buying new ones could solve the problem.
That, by the way, is not cool, as it involves me losing EVERYTHING. Not an idea I was too keen on. I read on...

Apparently, this problem can also be generated by the PC attempting to boot from a floppy-disk or a CD/ROM.
"That must be the answer!" I thought triumphantly.

Parading into the DOS screen, (Which I, thankfully, could access), I looked up the setting which decides where Windows boots from. Sure enough, it had been, fruitlessly, attempting to boot from a CD. Now, last time I checked, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion does NOT come with the partition to boot Windows XP Professional Edition, so that would explain why the PC was not booting.

I changed this setting, saved and exited the registry, and re-booted the PC.
Voila, it worked!


So here I am, feeling a lovely warm-fuzzy glow knowing that I fixed this problem, and also feeling quite dark that it wasted so much of my time.


At least it was something to blog about...


*Looking back, this is quite a lot of text. I know I wouldn't read it, were I reading someone else's blog...save for maybe Alden's...since that is usually interesting. Or Yang's. Unless he posted one of those humungo philosophy things....so damn long...*

Fought it off for a while...but...

I'm bored again. I spent most of today and all of last night preparing for a glorious return to the BARPG...I made a character and everything...read through 800 posts, with an average wording of several-hundred words, and now I'm just waiting on Brian to pm me back with the OK that I can make another character, since I TECHNICALLY already have a character... >_<

I'll post it here anyway, because I'm bored.....because that makes sense... o_O;;

[App] (Kainashi Heisei) <13th>

Name:

Heisei, Kainashi (M)

[img] http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s11/moptophaha/Random/animecool.jpg[/img]

Kainashi Heisei

Age:

26 (At death), 509 (Soul Society age)

Personality:

Heisei is extremely introspective and insightful, often to the point of it becoming a downfall. He was never popular due to his inability to relate to anyone, and he soon became quite detached from what little friends he had. He mostly looks in on groups, never asking to join, and refusing any offers to. His personality has become quite self-destructive over the years, and he has come to know this. Being aware of his own personality flaws only serves to make Heisei more inwardly distraught. He spends most of his time meditating, seeking to cure the incurable wound from his past.

Physical Appearance:

A picture of Heisei is included above. [Spoiler]I'm not sure which anime this character is from, but I like the look of him. This is the same look I used for my original BARPG character, but this character is completely different.[/spoiler] The only difference is that Heisei wears normal Shihakusho, not the clothing that he is wearing in the above picture.

Heisei stands at about 5"11, and almost always wears a blank, if slightly sad, expression on his face.

Division:

13th Division. (Unseated)

Zanpakuto:

Heisei's zanpakuto is roughly 140cm long, including the hilt, so he wears it across his back. It has an unusually long kissaki, about 10cm, and there is less curve to the pale blue-stained blade than is normal for a Jin Taichi. The tsuba is in the shape of the Yin-Yang, only with grossly exaggerated arms, that curve around almost to 180 degrees. (See image below)

[img]http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s11/moptophaha/Random/tsuba.jpg[/img]

Zanpakuto Tsuba

Biography:

When Heisei was a born in Kyoto. Hailed as a child prodigy, he started school at the age of 5 and was reading advanced literature by the time he was 7. Heisei completed high school at the age of 15, but neglected attending university. Heisei had always been able to sense things that other humans couldn’t sense. He would occasionally hear deathly screams echoing throughout the city. One day, in his 17th year, Heisei saw a man in a black robe fighting a massive monster, during a walk at midnight. The man had fought hard, but the monster was immensely powerful, and the man was eventually overwhelmed. Heisei had watched in horror as the man was devoured. The monster had then promptly vanished through a mysterious hole in the world, but Heisei could have sworn it had noticed him, and let out a quiet laugh.

The rest of Heisei's life was then consumed by a quest to find out what he had seen that night. He joined internet cults concerned with these mysterious figures, which he soon learned were called "shinigami". He spent all of his days inside, researching what he could, making contacts. He learned more about shinigami and hollows than any human had a right to know, and had soon established himself around the world simply as "The Seeker". The human with the most knowledge about anything paranormal. Shinigami's and Hollows were his prime interest.

But then, suddenly, people all around the world became alarmed, as the one known as "The Seeker" simply vanished. No-one knew where he went.

What had happened, in fact, was Heisei had found...someone. The first person he had ever known to take his interest away from the paranormal. Yes, Kainashi Heisei had fallen in love.

The name of this love is not known, but it is known that is the reason behind The Seeker's absence from the internet for almost two years.

Those two years were the happiest of Heisei's life. Not even the occasional screams of hollows were enough to shake his permanent deliria. Life passed in a happy blur for him. He went outside, he threw out his computer. All so he could spend more time with his love.

But then, one fateful day, when Heisei and his love were outside enjoying a late-night walk, they passed the area where Heisei had first seen a shinigami. He paid no attention to their location, just happy he could share another moment with his love. Suddenly, he heard a ripping noise. Wheeling around, he saw another hole in the world. The very same kind of hole the hollow had escaped through on that night, all those years ago.

To Heisei's horror, out of that hole came that hollow. Things seemed to move in slow motion as the hollow had charged at Heisei and his love. Heisei had attempted to push her out of the way, taking the hollow's charge instead, allowing her to escape. The hollow had simply ignored him and turned towards her. Heisei didn't even have time to scream before his love was torn apart by the claws of the hollow. He dropped to his knees, distraught.

The hollow had addressed him. He had paid it no heed.

Heisei had staggered home in a daze. Upon his arrival, he had brought out the notebook computer he had hidden in a safe, the notebook with all the information he had ever collected on Shinigami’s and hollows. He had spent nine hours uploading it all to a secure site, for someone, someday to find.

He had then logged in to the community where he discussed paranormal matters for one last time.

Ignoring the floods of greeting and welcome messages, Heisei posted one message online before closing his laptop for the last time.

The Seeker was never seen or heard from again.

Specialty:

• Hohou.
• Heisei prefers to avoid confrontations. He has no qualms about harmless sparring-matches, but he avoids aggressive situations whenever possible. If drawn into a fight, Heisei attempts to end it as quickly as possible. For this reason, he trained single-mindedly for many, many years on improving his Shun-Po and footwork.

• Zanjutsu.
• While always wishing to avoid confrontation, Heisei is also very much concerned with strength coming from technique. He much prefers so outclass a combatant in skill than in simple brute-force. For this reason, Heisei has gradually honed his skills with the blade to near-perfection. He is capable of outclassing almost any opponent with the blade, save for his former master, an old hermit living in the outskirts of Rukongai.

Sample mission:

*This mission is from when Heisei was still known as The Seeker. It is based around his meeting with a contact.*

He's late...., Heisei mused.

He sat in an armchair; his legs pulled towards his chest, in the corner of a dark hotel room, his back to a window. He always met with contacts in hotel rooms. It was much safer. It meant that he couldn't be tracked. He had become quite paranoid in recent years...

The hotel room was small and cheap. Very unassuming. It had nothing but a single-bed against one wall, an armchair in the corner and a coffee-table in the center of the room. He was brought out of his reverie by a quiet, but urgent, knocking on the door. He looked up.

"Come in."

The door opened silently, and the shadowy figure walked in, closing the door carefully behind him.

Heisei regarded him as he walked into the moonlight. The man was tall...taller than Heisei, but he hunched over. It made him seem small and ignorant. Heisei knew far better. He had dark, shoulder length hair and a very slight build. He wore navy-blue tracksuit pants and a black jacket. Heisei knew him well, but this was the first time he had met the man in person, so he was understandably wary.

"You said you needed to meet with me?" Heisei inquired coldly.

"Yes. I have something that I think you may like to see."

The man reached inside his jacket and pulled out something. Upon seeing what it was, Heisei leaned in, suddenly interested.

"Where did you get this?" He demanded.

The man chuckled.

"I thought it might interest you. I can tell you already know what this is. I found it in the remnants of what was obviously a battle between a shinigami and a hollow. The hollow was defeated, but for some reason, the mask stayed in the real world. It was quite badly fragmented almost to the point where it was dust, but I managed to find a piece large enough to be worth showing to you."

True enough, the man held, in his hand, a fragment of a hollow's mask.

"And why are you showing this to me?"

"I wish for you to study it for me. There has to be something you can discern about hollows by studying this thing. I think everyone would be most interested to know whatever you can find out."

He held out the white, bone-like fragment towards Heisei. Heisei took it with a gloved hand, placing it in a plastic zip-lock bag.

"I thank you. I will try to find out what I can. Is there anything else?"

The man shook his head, rising.

Heisei did not rise, but nodded.

"Very well. Good night, and thank you again, Infinitum."

The man turned to leave. Heisei watched him go. Once the door was closed, he stood, tucking the bag securely into one of his many pockets, and left to check out of the hotel.

*Sigh*

I'm....bored.
School holidays start today, and I really don't have anything to do.
I really don't feel like foruming any more, I've made all the recruit's sigs, no-one's on msn, I can't play any online games because of the renovations, and I don't really feel like playing Oblivion...
No more bleach to watch, nor death note. The PS2 and the Wii are packed away...

There's not much to do...
I spent the last half an hour making the kanji for death in ASCII.
That's how bored I am.

How depressing...

*PS, thought I might add the ASCII, so you can see how crappy it is. (I suck at ASCII AND kanji.)


















I actually took quite a bit of time to try and put the text into the post, but it didn't work...so I then invested about 5 mins in taking a screenshot and making it a jpeg.

Sigh.

Wii Connection Tour...

Yes, it was that time of year again (even though this is the first one I went to...), the Nintendo Wii Connection Tour came to Southland. This year's theme was "Big Games for Big Brains", focusing on a new game called Big Brain Academy, sort of a brain-trainer for the Wii. I. Freaken'. Pwnd. It was kind of pathetic how easy it was... I scored two cool key-chains and two drink bottles. I also met up with a few of the guys I saw last time, at the DS connection Tour, Excessum, Mario, Westy, Admeister, Dekar and Freswood. We played many games and sung much karaoke... (In the middle of southland... o_O) Anyway, they also had a preview of Metroid Prime 3: Corruptions to play. I played A LOT of that, and it is freaken' awesome. The control system is so much better than Red Steel, and I can't wait until it comes out. I think I'll play the first two games before that one, though.

On a different topic. I WANT TO PLAY .HACK GU!!!!!
I can't find it anywhere. Alden lent his copy to nick, and I'm 90% sure that he is not playing it, so I want to get it off him. I called him and called him, and he still hasn't called back.

I WANT TO PLAY IT REALLY BAAAAAAD!!!
*Sobs pathetically*

Camp camp camp......

Hmm...
For most of the 7 hour bus-ride home, I was thinking about how best to word my experiences on camp in my blog.

To be honest, I can't really think of any way to word it. I thought about a day-by-day tracker sort of thing, but soon decided that that was a bad idea. I won't say any stories about camp, I won't say what happened, or my thoughts on it. I'm just glad that I'm home right now, but at the same time, I wouldn't be upset if I were still at camp.

I guess I'm....Ambivalent.

I should be posting this tomorrow, but what the hell.

This is going to be my last post before I go on camp...I should be doing this tomorrow, but I'm impatient, and I may not have time tomorrow.

Several things have happened over the last several days.
We got our reports, mine was ok...


English: B (My English mark is falling because I FREAKIN' HATE MR VERNON!!! He is incompedent... I have no idea why he is teaching at all. He should be at home, trying to get fit or something...)

Maths: B+ (Mr Barr says I just missed out on an A. >.<)

Commerce: A (Talked a little in class, but commerce is pathetically easy... The only reason I got an A is because of some REDICULOUS test results. I said an answer, he marked it wrong, THE BOOK SAID I WAS RIGHT. THE ACTUAL QUOTE. FFS!!! Oh well, this isn't VCE, so it doesn't really matter....)

IT Multimedia: A+ (The fact that we are beginning flash, and I have been using it for 3 years may have something to do with it. :P)

IT Programming: A+ (I. Love. Programming. :D :D :D)

Science - Biology: B (VCE courcework... >_< hard stuff..... I have NO idea why I'm doing Biol 3/4 next year... oh well.)

Science - Physics: A (I loved physics. I can't wait until VCE Physics next year. :D)



Mr Jackson said: "Lachlan's passion for INformation Technology is obvious from this report."
To which my thoughts replied: "lol...yeeeeah." :P


Anyway...camp on Monday, off to climb some rocks, then jump off them wearing safety equipment. Whee.

Today my sister was in the finals for netball, and thanks to her team's crazy shwank, they won. Which is nice.


Anyway, that's about all....
See you (Probably Alden, I don't think anyone else reads this.....) next week!

Work Work... (In warcraft 3 peon voice, I'm such a gamer. :P)

Off to get my lazy ass a job today...I need...money for:

1. Buy new PC
2. Go visit Alden (Second only because this PC can't really play games anymore, and I am dying)
3. Get some games
4. Get some stuff.

Interestingly, the job I'm trying to get happens to be the same one as Nick....so if it comes down to me and Nick, I'm going to let him have the job, but if it's between me and Bob, then Bob can go to hell xD.

And if I don't get this one, then I'm off to coles or something...
Of maybe that gift shop that's like 10 minutes walk from my house.....

I dunno....I just need.....money and xp....

Hmm...

Last day of term today...since we all go on camp next week.
We got to choose between about 10 different camps, in a (futile) attempt to get everyone engaged.

The one I liked best (The one I decided I wouldn't break my arm on purpose rather than go to) was the abseiling one...so that'll be the one for me.

Nick, Matt, Mel and most of the other people that I actually LIKE are going on it, so it shouldn't be too bad.


And I'm taking my hexi-stove, and when I get hungry, I'm cookin' ramen. XD

Haha

I just realised that I seem to have picked the same template as Alden.
Hehe...damn. I'd better change something. :3

EDIT: Looked around, couldn't find anything TO change.
Sucks to be me :P

Tagged by Alden...

Tagged by Alden Cheng.

RULES:
1. The tag victim has to come up with 8 different points about his/her perfect lover.
2. Have to mention the gender of his/her perfect lover.
3. Tag eight other victims to join this game and leave a comment on their blog.
4. If you are tagged the second time, there is NO need to do this again.
5. Lastly, and most importantly, HAVE FUN DOING IT. (-____-)

my perfect lover will be :-
1) Intelligent. (Not smart, just......not an idiot.)
2) Understanding
3) Cheerful
4) Accepting
5) Calm
6) Faithful
7) Kind
8) Peaceful

(Female)

I tag...
Everyone on my friends list... (I only have 5...*sobs*)

Screw that...

I.....don't really know.
I ditched the non-spaces (double negative). I still want them...but I don't at the same time.
I wanted to keep my old blog..but I didn't like it anymore.

I....

Bah. Anyway, here is my lovely new blog. It is quite lovely.
I suppose this is going to be pretty much the same as my other blog...I just wanted to start fresh.

I wonder if I can do that...