BAH RAM YOU

I'm not entirely sure what I'm dealing with here. I'm out of my element... Apple maintenance is not something I'm particularly experienced with, as no Apple computer I've ever dealt with has needed a significant amount of it.

I'm perplexed. Purchasing 4GBs of RAM for my Macbook was a wonderful experience. The price was right, and the specs matched up perfectly with what I needed. The reviews revealed no critical flaws with the product, and I eagerly anticipated their arrival. The day they got here, I ripped the package open and--after tracking down an impossibly small screwdriver--installed the RAM with all of the technical precision attained through my PC maintenance days.

All seemed to go well. The Macbook booted happily, more quickly now, and loaded all of my desktop with speed I'd never seen before. It was wonderful, nearly religious. But then...the world went black--or, green checkered. The whole screen locked-up, green bars checkering the once humming desktop, and shooting through me with a shock. What could the problem be? The RAM was properly seated, and I made sure to minimize my chances of electrostatic discharge. This problem had never happened before. My Macbook was infailible, but troubleshoot as I might I've yet to find a solution to my problem. Removing the battery while on AC power seemed to work until I left it on overnight. Downgrading to just one 2GB stick and one 512MB stick seemed to work too, until just a few minutes ago.

I've got nowhere to turn. Search as I might, nobody on the vast interwebs seems to have experienced this problem at all. Downgrading has slowed the issue and reduced the frequency, but not quenched it entirely. I'm using SMC Fan Control to keep the temperature down and maybe beat back the beast, but I fear I'm only delaying another inevitable lock-up. I may go back to 4GBs and simply enjoy the power while accepting the problems. It beats the hell out of going back to 1GB, at any rate.

-D Haines

A Handheld Love Affair

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I'm a huge Nintendo guy, it's just a simple fact. My love of Nintendo is so great that it's permanently entered itself into any description of myself.

"Derek Haines is a 19 year-old USAF Air Traffic Controller. He enjoys time with his wife, punk music, and Nintendo..."


It would be rather fair to say that much of the fun I had as a child was at least in part due to Nintendo, and I owe them a great deal for producing the games and systems that have given me a lifelong hobby, if a rather lighter wallet. For my part, I've spent a good deal of the past few years online debating in favor of Nintendo products, mainly the DS. I'm a huge fan of it, always have been, and I think it has one of the finest game libraries of any system.

So why in world am I so damn addicted to the PSP?

Maybe it's just the newness of it. I've had a DS since it came out in 2004, so I've been around the block a few times with it. And while good games continue to come out for it, the novelty of the system has long since worn off. With the PSP, on the other hand, I find myself completely engrossed in simply browsing through options and seeing what it'll do. I've already started putting full length novels onto it using a couple of clever programs. It won't be long until I try my hand at ripping movies to it, even though it never leaves my dorm--I want to try just to have tried. Just goofing around with the little things it does often leaves me with a sense of wonder at what it's capable of.

Perhaps it's just the games. One of the biggest complaints I've heard about the PSP over the years is that it really lacks AAA titles, and in my research I've found that to be absolutely true. But it doesn't lack at all those C+ and B- games that I seem to like so very much. Just in the few weeks I've had the system I've bought enough JRPGs to keep me occupied for a long time. And with the DS limited in what it can do in 3D, I find myself amazed when playing games like Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters. It feels like holding a home console in the palm of your hand, a feeling precious few DS games have given me. And, to be truthful, with the system towards the end of it's lifespan I have an entire library of relatively cheap games to choose from, which has caused me to amass a 15 game collection in just a few weeks. Amazon will bankrupt me before this is over...

And yes, it does have it's problems. It can be uncomfortable to hold for extended periods of time. The disk drive can be obnoxious at times and dammit if I still can't get over the idea of loading times in a handheld. But these are all small blemishes on the face of a much prettier overall picture.

All in all I've just fallen for the system. The power, the novelty, and the pure gaming entertainment that I've found in the PSP has caused my DS to aquire a significant layer of dust--the first in a long time--and while I've got plenty to play on both systems, I can't imagine putting the PSP down for quite a while.

...Well, maybe just for a little while. But just until my hands stop hurting.

Where to begin?

I suppose this will end up being a bit of a restart for the blog. Not necessarily a new direction, just a renewed purpose. I'm still devoting it mainly to video games and to a somewhat lesser extent the day-to-day machinations of my life, but I'm going to be updating more and more frequently as I pursue a future in journalism. I really, truly believe that this is what I want to do for the rest of my days, and I figure the sooner I start getting my name out there the better.

Derek Haines: Freelance Neo-Journalist

I can totally dig the sound of that. Now, at the moment I'm working with eventualities. Currently I'm enrolled for a 6-year term in the United States Air Force, and despite some moral reservations about military action, I absolutely intend to serve those years in full. When I get out of the service, however, I will need something to do with my life, so I guess I'll just start now.

Contained within these posts will be issues I feel like discussing concerning video games and video game culture, with a little bit of everything else thrown in for good measure. I like to mix things up, so it's going to be a frickin' blender 'round these parts most of the time.

It should be a good time.

October 20th, 2008

That's the last time I made a post here. It's difficult to even begin to comprehend how much different my life is now than it was then. I'm not at all sure where I was when I wrote that last post--odds are, it was on my parent's living room couch in their home outside of Phoenix, AZ. I was probably wearing a band t-shirt and an old pair of jeans, sporting my trademark beard and pondering over something or other ultimately trivial but of infinite worth at that moment in time. As I sit here now, writing this post almost 4 months later, I'm in my dorm room in the 334th Military Training Squadron on Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, MS, wearing a pair of ABUs and a wedding ring. In the time since that last post, I've been married, gone through Air Force Basic Military Training and entered into tech school to become an air traffic controller.

In terms of big changes, that's one of the bigger ones.

Still, things remain the same. My Macbook has followed me out here and soon will my longtime girlfriend and now wife, Tiffany. I still have the same affinity for video games, comics, and neat technology. Despite the direction my life will be taking me in for the next 6 years (Afghanistan here I come, likely), I've now set my sites on a career in in journalism (video game journalism FTW). I certainly have to get up alot earlier than I used to--4:05? No thanks--I'm now required to be clean shaven, and I can actually legitmately run a mile and a half.

Besides making much better money than I did at Starbucks, very little has changed otherwise, and normality will return even more once I get to move in with Tifno. I've experienced very little of Air Force life so far, but what I've seen I can definitely deal with.