Sucks to be me.

If the Ivory Tower is the brain of the board, and the Transformers discussion is its heart, then General Discussions is the waste disposal pipe. Or kidney. Or something suitably pulpy and soft, like 4 week old bananas.

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Autobloke
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Sucks to be me.

Post by Autobloke » Sat Jun 04, 2005 4:24 pm

For those of you who care, I'm now back.
I've had the crappest few weeks of my life.
First my PC died. It was fixed four times, but is now in that repair shop in the sky (well, the local tip). I now have a new one, but that misbehaves too.
I still haven't had the operation to fix my knee, and I tripped and tore it up even worse. It's all strapped up and I can't drive until it's fixed.
The car I bought three months ago has been into the garage twice, but still has the same problem. The warrenty has now ran out, so I'll have to pay next time.
I've been SO ill.
I was suppose to have an operation last Friday (not the one to fix my knee), but I've been too ill, so it's been cancelled. I'm now on a chemist-load of tablets until I'm well enough to try again.
Because of all the medication, I've had to move back home to my mum's house in case I pass out or have a bad reaction to the tablets. I don't know how long this will be for 'cos I've got to wait four months to see if the pills make me well enough to try for the operation again.
I've been sent to the wrong hospital and consultant three times (annoying), which has wasted my time and nerves.
The stress has made my face break out in huge scabby sores.
The Sky box went 'pop!' and burnt out, and 'cos the warrenty has expired, it cost me £65 to get a bloke out to sort it.
My girlfriend has now left me for the git she was shagging behind my back - at least I never sold all my TFs like she wanted me to.
I bought two DVD boxsets - one had two 'disc twos', and the other had a disc that had been broken into four pieces.

How low can you go, eh?
This is why I've been AWOL.
But now I'm back - not as often as I used to be - at least until things improve for me, but I will be back from time to time, so don't think you've all escaped.
Now I think I shall celebrate my return by going to work on a new avatar and sig (coming soon).
Still, it's nice to be back in the comfy chair and slippers of the name 'Autobloke'.

Mamtharr...
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Shanti418
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Post by Shanti418 » Sat Jun 04, 2005 4:58 pm

Well then, let me be the first to say it's good to have you back.

We'll always be here for ya, even if you're a kneeless sod surfing from your cel phone with giant oozing blisters all over your face.

Seriously though, you've still got friends and family, and that's the most important thing, right? :)
Best First wrote:I thought we could just meander between making well thought out points, being needlessly immature, provocative and generalist, then veer into caring about constructive debate and make a few valid points, act civil for a bit, then lower the tone again, then act offended when we get called on it, then dictate what it is and isn't worth debating, reinterpret a few of my own posts through a less offensive lens, then jaunt down whatever other path our seemingly volatile mood took us in.

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Autobloke
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Post by Autobloke » Sat Jun 04, 2005 5:05 pm

I'll get back to you on that.
Man, there's so much I've missed in just a few weeks. Any chance of a cup of coffee so I can relax and read the posts? Oh wait, I can't have caffine with my tablets. Pass me the (sigh) water then.
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Predabot
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Post by Predabot » Sat Jun 04, 2005 5:10 pm

Wow. That's a lot of bad stuff. I hope you recover from whatever kind of sickness your having right now, so they can put you under the knife and fix you up.

I hope they've also given you some good salves/creams for the rashes. I know how much skin-conditions can suck, as I have gotten quite a lot of exema all over my bod since I moved from the country to the city last year. :(

Girls are evil. It's a well known fact. Stick to yer matey lads and to TF, that's what I do right now. :)

And you have a mum to take care of ya, that sounds pretty cool.

Take care now, and maybe you should do some little thing with your mom? I'm sure she'd like if you went out for a walk or something small like that. :) Englands got pretty nice fields doesn't it? Yeah.

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Autobloke
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Post by Autobloke » Sat Jun 04, 2005 5:28 pm

Mums are indeed cool. We're going swimming, but I have to put this nasty waterproof gel on my face and a rubber tube-thing on my bad knee. Yay for one-legged swimming!

It's so good to be back - I've been stuck in ther house for two weeks - my brother had to clear my flat and bring my stuff home. AND drive me to the docs/hospital.
Now, if only the damn internet didn't keep playing up and disconnecting me...
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spiderfrommars
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Post by spiderfrommars » Sat Jun 04, 2005 5:51 pm

Welcome back Autobloke. :)

That is a string of bad luck. Not sure what to say so let me paraphrase David Brent (paraphrasing Dolly Parton), "you can't have the rainbow without the rain first" or something. :(

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sprunkner
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Post by sprunkner » Sat Jun 04, 2005 11:05 pm

Man, I'm sorry to hear about all that crap.

My last night here is the 14th. I promise to personally do a fat-man dance for you if you make it out.
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Best First
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Post by Best First » Sat Jun 04, 2005 11:31 pm

Dude, thats a bad run.

Hope things pick up for you. Best wishes mate.
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Post by saysadie » Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:59 am

Definitely sounds rough.

Hope things improve... :uhh: :)
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Post by Kaylee » Sun Jun 05, 2005 9:40 am

That's some hard luck there... try not to let it get to you ^_^ Just be patient and things will pick up, and if it feels like all those things are bearing down on you, just try what I do and pretend to be a block of wood.

No, seriously.

I find it does help- a block of wood doesn't get hurt, it doesn't get stressed or annoyed... just sit down quietly when things get rough, shut your eyes and breath calmly and tell yourself exactly that. You're just a block of wood and these things won't hurt you.

You might find it calms you a great deal so when you're finished the problems are the same but theyre not so bad to deal with ^_^

As for your PC- what are the symptoms?

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Autobloke
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Post by Autobloke » Sun Jun 05, 2005 2:10 pm

I am a block of wood. Nothing can hurt me...
Argh! Fire!
Argh! Damp!
Argh! Damp fire!
Karl Lynch wrote:As for your PC- what are the symptoms?
It's dead. It ran too slowly. Then it restarted every few minutes. Then it wouldn't start at all. Then it would. Then it buzzed like a vibrator. Then it made a 'grindy' sound. Then I killed it (by kicking it down the stairs. True - I'm pretty angry these days - I threw the lawnmower across the road in front of our house 'cos the damn handle kept coming off). unless you mean the new PC - that keeps telling me I have a LAN cable disconnected. It also keeps disconnecting me from the internet, and is slow to upload my replies here, then says 'can't find server'.
The suckyness continues...
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Best First
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Post by Best First » Sun Jun 05, 2005 4:00 pm

might be worth getting some counselling for the anger dude.
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Kaylee
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Post by Kaylee » Sun Jun 05, 2005 4:38 pm

Autobloke wrote:I am a block of wood. Nothing can hurt me...
Argh! Fire!
Argh! Damp!
Argh! Damp fire!
Karl Lynch wrote:As for your PC- what are the symptoms?
It's dead. It ran too slowly. Then it restarted every few minutes. Then it wouldn't start at all. Then it would. Then it buzzed like a vibrator. Then it made a 'grindy' sound. Then I killed it (by kicking it down the stairs. True - I'm pretty angry these days - I threw the lawnmower across the road in front of our house 'cos the damn handle kept coming off). unless you mean the new PC - that keeps telling me I have a LAN cable disconnected. It also keeps disconnecting me from the internet, and is slow to upload my replies here, then says 'can't find server'.
The suckyness continues...
Now computer-

click START > CONECT TO > ALL CONNECTIONS

That will open up a window, within which will be your local area network connection. Right click it and choose DISABLE. (I'm assuming you dont have a lan and are using XP).

Regarding internet slowness I can talk you through some standard proceedures to fix that if you'd like. I'm studying to be a Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician this summer so it's the sort of thing I handle ^_^

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Autobloke
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Post by Autobloke » Sun Jun 05, 2005 4:43 pm

It's just when I try to post replys here. If it's a long one (ooer) I have to paste a copy of it to Word or something in case it loses the server, otherwise I have to rewrite the whole thing. That said, sometimes it doesn't go wrong and posts fine. Opening pages just to read stuff is silky-smooth though.
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Kaylee
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Post by Kaylee » Sun Jun 05, 2005 5:23 pm

I'm assuming you have a decent working antivirus program which is up to date.

Okay we can try obvious things first:

Lets make sure you have the most uptodate driver for your modem.

click START > CONTROL PANEL > SYSTEM > HARDWARE (tab) > DEVICE MANAGER > MODEMS (in a tree)

Right click your modem, and choose UPDATE DRIVER. If you have a fully registered and activated copy of Windows XP it should check on the Internet at the MS website for a newer driver. If you see any messages about "Do you want to look online?" Choose yes.

Also make a note of what it says your modem is called (i.e. ROCKWELL v.92 or something) and it might be worth having a nice over at www.driverguide.com. Log in as user: drivers password: all. Do a quick search for your driver and see if anything comes up, if it does and looks like it might be very recent (theyre usually dated) download it and istall it, if its a setup file, if not let me know and I'll talk you through that.

That will ensure we are using the most current modem software.

Now, same operation (click START > CONTROL PANEL > SYSTEM > HARDWARE (tab) > DEVICE MANAGER > MODEMS (in a tree)) this time double click your modem, and it will bring up a set of properties.

re the modems speed, using the Modem tab try altering the maximum speed. You might want to play with this, too high and the connection can become unstable and kick you off and too low and your browsing becomes tedious.

A sensible speed would be something like 57600 maybe, or perhaps a little low.

Okay those changes and close device manager. Return to control panel and open the Network Connections panel. Right click on your internet connection (whichever one it dials to access the net).

Go to Options and have a look at your 'idle time' setting, thats how long you do nothing before the connection automatically disconnects. Set this to whatever you like, about 20 minutes is average. If you take longer writing posts or what have you then set it higher.

And the general tab, click CONFIGURE.

Do the same trick here with the modems speed. It won't run about 56kbps anyway (57344 bits per second) so there's little point setting it somewhere up in 921600 or something mad. Somewhere around 57000 would be sensible.

Try your connection.

If you continue to have difficulties let me know and we can try a couple of tinkerings that might affect it.

Also if you have a noisy telephone line (one with much interference) or your modem cables are unshielded and lurk near power cables you might have problems there.

Also if you're on free dialup, theyre notorious for intentionally giving you awful service to make you switch to a paid product.

^_^

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Autobloke
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Post by Autobloke » Sun Jun 05, 2005 5:38 pm

At the moment it's all behaving, so I'll leave things alone. But I've pasted your post to Word so I can refer to it at a later point if it goes all wrong. Appreciate the info 'cos I suck at the technical stuff.
Ta matey.
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