Sunday, September 17, 2000
Unreal
We decided to try something different at the weekly Quakefest my friend Greg hosts (at his company, shhhhh). He had upgraded the video system on several of the PCs and they could run Unreal Tournament.
Wow. The graphics are gorgeous and the gameplay is much nicer than Quake. Or rather, it's a bit more realistic. I will miss the Cataclysm Device though.
But wouldn't you know it, just when I get comfortable with a game, it's off to a new one.
Life goes on.
I don't do windows
There is a downside to using computers—people expect you to know everything about them, especially the ones they use.
The knock on the door proved to me one of my neighbors, a woman in her late 40s/early 50s taking care of her elderly mother. She wanted to know if I had a copy of Windows 98 she could borrow (shhhh). I don't but my roommate Rob does. He was currently using the CD but he would lend it to her once he was finished.
About an hour later he was finished. We were on our way to Shane's house for a bit of Half-Life and I decided to drop off the CD to my neighbor. I would meet up with them later.
I had intended to drop off the CD.
I ended up being stuck for an hour trying to troubleshoot a Windows problem and not wanting to install Windows 98 on a 16M 486 that was barely running Windows 95.
“Should I install Windows 98?” she would ask.
“It's really up to you,” I said. “If you really want to, it's up to you.”
“Funny,” she said. “Everybody I talked to said the same thing.” She peered closer. “Nobody wants the responsibility if it fails, right?”
“Yup. And I don't even use Windows.” Not that she believed me for a minute. I use computers. I have computers. Therefore I know Windows.
Sigh.
I never did end up at Shane's house.
Is there anybody in there?
I knew I wouldn't be making it to Shane's so I decided to call to let them know.
“Hello?”
“Is this Shane?” I said.
“No, this is Glen. Who is this?”
“This is Sean. Tell Shane I can't make it.”
“Hold on, I'll get him,” Glen said, and put the phone down. I heard him walk into another room and mention to someone that I was on the phone. A minute goes by. I can hear several people over there talking and moving about. Another minute.
“Hey!” I yell. “Pick up the phone!” I can still hear several people talking. “Yo! Hey! Shane?” I hear shouting over there, seems like they're deep into Half-Life. After a few minutes I simply hang up, figuring they'll figure it out.
The Watcher
I ended up seeing “The Watcher” with Mark, Kelly and JeffK. Interesting premise, and refreshing to see Keanu Reeves play a bad guy for a change, but overall, I didn't really care all that much for the film—it was your standard Hollywood fare.
