Y2kk Update: Well, my life is meaningless...

... my brother left for university a few days ago. He had to go early this year, to be a freshman frosh leader and everything. And good for him, I suppose... it's not much to put on a resume, but it's definitely something that your friends will smile upon when campfire stories inevitably seem to ensue...

... but what about me now?... I'm goddam stuck going to work for my parents all damn week long... alone... thanks to my brother being too busy with bloody hell high school students too young to drink... I'm all alone in this house again. Well, except for the parents at least... And I've got absolutely bloody hell nothing better to do, than just write a whole bunch of crap for my websites, fully knowing that I'll barely ever get a chance to write what I want when school finally starts up again...

... although that never stopped me in years before...

But yeah, I know... I know I say this each and every year, but I really mean it this time... or I really want to mean it this time...

I'm fucking sick and tired of failing at school. And this is my fourth and final year of classes. I don't want to fucking screw it up... I know I will though. That's what I do... Without my friends this time around, all I have is myself. And how the hell is that going to help me?... I'm not only taking fourth year courses that I have to excel at, otherwise I'll have no chance at getting a decent job. But I have to take the bloody hell third year courses that I failed last year all over again, fully knowing that I'm probably going to screw myself in the ass with them a second time around... and screw up my fourth year GPA in the bloody hell process... And with no friends around for study groups? With no people I can trust with labs and projects? With no brother around for moral support? And with obviously no girlfriend, considering I'm just as PAX pathetic as always?... then how exactly am I to survive? I only have myself. And that's just meaningless to me...

I personally think I have a ton of things to do before I go back to school next week though... besides helping my parents out with the workplace, at least... I still have Tweakui, Noname, and MSN updates that I want laid to rest from my mind. And I still have to scan all my third year school crap into my website, even though nobody on the face of the bloody hell planet will ever care...

And technically, I should have all the time in the world to do all the above. Except for one damn thing... Now that my parents have paid something in the thousands of wasted dollars for my car insurance, I've become their personal slave of a valet. I've been driving my mother around on all her errands, almost every single frickin' day, and the only pay I get is a bunch of wasted hours of complete tedium and boredom... Today, I sat around the bank for two bloody hours as my mom just kept chatting away with the manager over GIC interest rates. And believe it or not, those were two hours I actually would've preferred to be doing something else... believe it or not, without my brother around, the only thing I have going in my life are my webpages. As pathetic as they may sound, it's true...

... and now unfortunately for me, I have driving... and it's bloody hell killing me...

I hate my car. I hate the road. Found on road dead, I mean... And I hate the fact that no matter how small the mistakes I make may be, my fragile mind just won't let it go... Today, I got confused at a four way stop sign. I was sure that some other car had gotten to their end first, but neither of us would move. So the female driver signaled for me to go, and in my confusion, I went without thanking her with the hand... and you see? That's so damn minor of a thing - the lack of one damn gesture of a hand... And yet it's been fucking bugging me all day long, and I can't fucking get rid of it...

The other day, I was driving towards a busy intersection. And the light was still green, and I wasn't in any hurry, so I didn't accelerate to take the left turn I needed or any sort of crap like that... But before I noticed, the goddam light turned yellow. And I was the point of no return I think... If I was going to go straight, I would just continue at my leisurely pace and make it in no time. But I wasn't going to go straight - I needed to turn left, and that required me to slow down near the end... and that's the thing that still guts me somehow... I took my chances, and kept on going. And I crossed the stop line just a few milliseconds before the light turned red... And sure, of course I took the turn just fine, with the light being red and all. But it's bugging the hell out of me, because I didn't know what to do... I could've slowed down. I could've stopped in time. But nooo, I chose to take the chance with the red light. And if I was living in Toronto, a goddam red light camera could've caught me. My actions might've been legal, but just barely... and probably not according to a camera hidden in the right place... I really should've slowed down...

Now, every driver does stuff like this, often more than once or twice a week. But that doesn't seem to matter to my goddam messed up brain... Instead, I'm in maniac pain and panic mode over here! I just can't let go of the fact that simply put, I froze up... I didn't really have a clue what to do, and I froze up... I don't know why I can't let go all the little things in life like this. I just can't... especially on the road... not until the next time I royally screw up, at least...

And that's been my pathetic life for the past week or so. With my brother gone, I've had nothing to do but write... and with my brother gone, there's been no-one to drive my mom around but the little bit of me, preventing me from even having the time to write what I want on the bloody hell websites that nobody ever reads...

... and so I wrote this download update... in ten minutes flat, no less... just so I could say I wrote something today...

... why is that important to me?... I really don't know... I really can't say...

... I just know that if I don't get my weekly dose of a download update down on virtual paper... well, my mind just won't let it go...

... no matter how meaningless my life may be...

... it just won't let things go...

Y2kk Update: It's getting close to that most wonderful time of the year again... the Business Depot time of year... and after four bloody hell months of doom, gloom, and vacational failure, you think I wouldn't care...

... but I do... not for the school reasons of it all, but of course the family obligations... or lack thereof...

My brother was supposed to come to a dinner this weekend, a celebration for one of my grandfather's birthdays. But my brother couldn't make it. Not for the day the dinner was originally slotted, since he had a rock concert to go to downtown instead... So I said, no biggie, right? We would have another family gathering, just one week later, for my other grandfather's birthday. The only problem was, my brother said he couldn't make it to that one either... Not because of a concert, or anything else set in stone. It's just that, he's a Frosh freshman leader at his university this year. And he wanted to spend that weekend, planning and preparing for the frosh week ahead... And sure, I guess that's important. Of course he wouldn't want to let his friends down, and screw up what possibly could be the most memorable week in a freshman's life... But wanting to miss the second weekend dinner really highlighted something... He didn't need to return to school that weekend. He didn't need to skip out on the dinner...

He chose this. He chose friends over family... and yet, I still didn't get angry with him...

... I mean, why should I? He should have fun. Frosh week is only one week a year, and he certainly doesn't want to let anyone down. Most especially himself...

... it's just that... of course I'm going to miss him... and like it does every year, it just bugs me how he never really shows that he's going to miss me...

I've been having to work by myself at the apartments and townhouses my family owns... My brother's been busy with his own work. So around three or four times in the past month, I've had to go painting and plastering and repairing walls myself. With no-one to talk to but myself, like one giant Y2kk Update each and every long damn day... But I never really minded, because my brother had work, right? He had his own job to take care of, outside of the family business. And it was good that he was getting outside experience. I just didn't really enjoy being left alone, that's all...

But now his summer job is over. And the thing that really irked me in the car the other night, was that even without his job? My brother didn't want to come with me to family work this coming week... Of course I understand why. It's his last week of freedom before university again, at least besides his Frosh week... He wanted to spend his last week of summer with his friends back in our hometown, since he probably wouldn't be able to see them for a month or so again... And I get it. I understand that he's going to miss his friends. And it was obvious, considering how blatantly he showed it...

... and yeah, I know... deep down inside, I know he'll miss me... but he just never shows it, you know?...

Because my brother ain't going anymore, I probably won't be shoved back into family labour work until Canadian Labour Day itself... but that's not really the point, is it? I just couldn't stand it the other night, when my brother in the car willingly chose his friends over his family... over spending a day with me... It would've been our last day of work together, you know? It may seem meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but it's the little things in life that count. It's the little, iddy biddy things in life you treasure... I just wanted him to show that he cared, you know? I may sound like a goddam, oversensitive woman right now or something... but family is family. And considering I already feel like I've lost a sister, why wouldn't I be afraid of losing my brother as well?...

... but that wasn't the only reason I was pissed off the other night...

... the thing is, I did a really stupid thing at dinner...

My brother was upset at the fact that his girlfriend had royally confused him over the phone that day. And to be honest? I tried to console him, but he just wouldn't be consoled. And after three or so hours of seeing him seethe from just one little phone call, I really just wanted some sort of solution to his influx of problems... We were all having dinner with my sister that night. A sister, might I add, who was acting distant and overly polite as always... as she always is with family these days...

The thing is, I thought my brother could use a woman's opinion on the whole phone thing that was pissing him off about his girlfriend... I thought that if I just brought up the topic in a nice, calm fashion at the dinner table, that my sister would overhear and maybe get my brother to open up things a bit...

The real thing was, I knew that there was a risk involved in my goddam fucked up plan... Yes, I wanted to help my brother, by forcing him to talk about his girlfriend problems with an actual woman who might help him... But the fucked up thing was, notice the key word, "force"? My brother obviously didn't want to talk about his issues. And he never, ever brings up his girlfriend problems to our sister for some odd reason... Is he afraid of being mocked? Is he terrified that my sister is going to beat the living shit out of his girlfriend or something? I really don't know... All I know, and all I remember, was that I knew my brother may beat me to a living pulp if I brought up his girlfriend around my sister at the dinner table. But you know what?...

... I was fucking ass dumb...

... I brought it up...

... and my brother was mad at me the entire damn night... just great... go figure...

...

The thing is, I've said the wrong thing at the dinner table a million times in my life. Hell, I've said the wrong thing a dozen times in cemeteries alone... But the truth of the matter is, even though it makes very little difference in the grand scheme of things, whenever I said something wrong in the past... I said it all by accident...

I never meant the things I said. Or at least, not the way they came out... I would always just end up mentioning things before I thought them out. Or a slip of the tongue, only to have my taste buds hacked off the night after with a stern scolding... Every time in my past that I would make an ass of myself in voice, it would always be out of innocent ignorance. I never, ever intentionally meant the things I said. And while that excuse of mine will never, ever block out all those goddam painful childhood memories of mine because of me and my big fat mouth... at least deep down inside I know, that it really wasn't my fault...

... but not this time... and that's why I simply couldn't forgive myself this time around...

... now, obviously my brother leaving me and the family business for pleasure with his friends royally pissed me off that night. But I was already pissed at myself for just how damn fucked in the head I was, for ever willingly and knowingly bringing up my brother's girlfriend...

This was officially the first ever time that I absolutely knew the consequences of the thing I was going to say... this was the first time that I really did weigh the pros and cons of opening up a forum and a world of pain, and utter a line that I knew could cost me dear payback... This was officially the first goddam time, that I knew I would get my ass kicked for saying something, but I said it anyways... This was the first damn time, that I knew what I was doing. And I have no real damn excuse for doing it...

Sure, perhaps I should be proud for trying to help my brother... Sure, perhaps I should be all noble and stuff, for actually having the guts to speak my mind...

... but in truth? It's just in my nature. It's what I do, to feel absolutely mortifiably stupid for what I did... I made my brother hate me for a night. I made my sister know something was wrong with my brother's girlfriend. And all I ended up doing, was driving a wedge between my brother and I, probably out of subconscious fear that he was abandoning me anyways for his friends...

... I wasn't happy at the time that he was going back to university... I'm never happy about that... but I'm also damn shamed that I think it all influenced me, into saying the stupid ass question that I said...

...

My brother apologized to me later that night, for snapping at me at the dinner table... And normally, I would be able to take an apology. I would just shrug the whole ordeal off, and treat him like a true brother again. It's what I do...

But by the time he apologized, I wasn't mad at him anymore... I was just damn ashamed of myself... I mean, what excuse did I have, for being so damn stupid enough to actually bring up something that I knew my brother would yell at me for? How could I have been so dumb, to willingly and knowingly embarrass my brother at the dinner table like that?... I had weighed the pros, weighed the cons, thought that I had thought it out all logically, and realized after I said what I did... that like always, it was too damn late...

... I hate opening my goddam mouth... why else would I ever join computer engineering?...

... I know it's really dumb for me, for being so damn glum about me being dumb... and yeah, I know I'll get over it soon enough...

... But honestly? What was I thinking? I really don't know anymore...

... all I do know, is that at the time, I thought I was being smart...

... and if history has anything to show, arrogance isn't just my Achilles' Heel...

... hell, it's who I am... it's what I am... and I will never like it...

... I will miss my brother dearly...

... sounds like fun, now doesn't it?

... along with every damn else thing that comes out of my mouth...

... tongue, slip of... I should really look it up...

ATI: Well, the big news of the computing world was that Doom 3 was released. And just like with every other id Software game, the piss poor gameplay of the franchise is completely overlooked and ignored for the graphical wow component... Now, I'm sure Doom 3 will soon fade away like Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Call of Duty, and Farcry all have as PC FPS games. But Doom 3 will at least stick around for a very long time, ala Quake III, as the definitive mark for 3d benchmarking...

And if you're already into the whole Doom3 benchmarking scene, you might want to know that ATI released some new Catalyst drivers, specifically tailored into making the game run better. Catalyst release 4.8 supposedly can increase OpenGL performance in Doom3 by as much as 12%... So if you're bored with Doom 3 already (which I would expect, given that the game is all shock value and no real substance), then go ahead and benchmark your life away at: http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/winxp/radeonwdm-xp.html.

ATI: Saw over at Rage3d that ATI released some new Linux drivers a while back. Version 3.11 fixes some pallette issues with the VT terminal I so love to use at university... So go ahead and download stuff if you're in the mood at: http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/linux/radeon-linux.html.

Y2kk Update: You know what's really depressing?... the fact that the girl I still have an obsession with, manages to somehow outwit and outwrite me at every damn last turn...

I mean, honestly! You'd think after how many goddam months and years of writing no-name updates on these stupid ass websites of mine, that I would finally manage to figure out how to actually write cohesively and anti-mumbo-jumbly or some crap like that. And yet of course the girl I still happen to like, just manages to magically write with perfect and absolutely stylus grammatical flows and salaciously symmetric sentence structures all over the goddam smorges board of her goddam web blog... I mean, sure I could force myself to actually use proper paragraphing for once. And sure, maybe I can get rid of all those goddam annoying IvanFianisms of mine, like whatever kind of bloody hell crap I tend to add on like run on sentences, to the end of my goddam repetitive run-on sentences... But this girl I'm still obsessed with? It drives me completely insane that even without trying, she's a better and more natural writer now than I will ever bloody be in my entire goddam existence of Y2kk Updates. Her writing is just as goddam perfect as the goddam fantasy image of her I still have lingering in my goddam head...

Hell, I don't just have an inferior complex. I honestly am inferior...

... which is why I have nothing to write about this week, mind you... except the usual suspects and the usual complaints, of course...

I finally got a chance to pick the courses I wanted for my fourth year of university. The only problem was, considering it's goddam computer engineering I was in, there sure as hell wasn't a lot of choice to pick heads and tails from... I mean, I could either pick a huge ass workload with Computer Graphics, or go for the easier crap like Distributed Systems. So what the hell do you think I picked?...

I've learned my lessons the hard way. I went to the University of Toronto for engineering, and I'm paying for it, with my bloody hell soul no less. So obviously I'd try to pick the easiest route from here on in... It's only natural that I'd want to end my goddam university degree with some decent marks or some sort of crap out there... alas, it's only human...

But then another problem sort of roared and reared its ugly ass head at me... Because you see, I woke up around 9am to pick my courses. And I figured that would be okay, considering all the courses only became available to access on the internet just a couple hours earlier... And for the most part, I was right. I could pick any damn course in first year that I wanted, with almost every single lecture spot or tutorial time table available for me to pick from (and yet I still couldn't manage to get Mondays and Fridays completely, bloody hell off...)... for first term, at least...

... but second term? WTF was wrong with second term? Literally every single fucking course I wanted to take in second term, was goddam alien abducted taken by the time I finished rearranging my first term shit at 10am in the morning... I mean, WTF? Are class sizes in second term really that damn midget sized at best? Are there budget cuts coming around Christmas time, like presents or some crap like that (just like every single year... they love us undergraduates down here...)? Did everyone on the bloody hell net finish their goddam first term schedules one damn minute before me, and got to pick their second term crap one damn minute before I did?... or is it simply because there wasn't any other good courses to pick from in the first place?...

... God, even when you think you finally have a choice in life... you get goddam screwed in the ass...

... and the only choice you've got left... is the choice, that you have no choice but to royally fuck yourself...

Now I'm still hoping and waiting for some openings to... you know... open, in the actual courses I want in second term. I can't afford to get bad marks this fourth year, not just because of job interviews, but because I'll be fucking kicked out of school after how badly I did in third year... But will openings actually come up online? I seriously doubt it at this point. I mean, we engineers can be notoriously stubborn for refusing to drop classes we know other goddam students want...

It's not about what you have. It's about what others have and don't have that counts...

And that's been my week, basically. I wasn't even going to write a download update for quite a while, until I realized I might be getting guests from Vancouver any day now, and I figured that one download update out of a million lost opportunities wasn't exactly the worst way to waste yet another Saturday of mine... as sad as that is to say...

... and you see? That was yet another run-on sentence... I think... wasn't it, goddammit?...

... I blame her, for me writing bad... and for me, not analyzing my writing so good...

... and yeah, I know... I must really be damn bored if this was the only thing I could come up to write about... but that's really besides the bloody hell point... I hope...

... here's hoping... though only a fool's hope, but let us never speak of The Matrix again...

Y2kk Update: I always feel so damn guilty after getting a phone call...

... no wonder she took back her number... but that's a story for a Y2kk Update, long time ago...

It's just that... last night, a close friend called me. And once again, I blabbed my mouth off to him. I never stop talking. I never stop yammering...

... I'm a yam... yam with ham... I'm a goddam yam sham... a shame of a sham...

... and the saddest part of it all, is that I had really nothing to say. Nothing of interest, anyhew... And if I was talking to anyone else? I wouldn't even had anything to say. I would just be dead silent, acting as the silent cartographer or the best listener in the world, or some crap like that...

But the tables seem to turn whenever I talk to him. He always listen to me, and not the other way around. So obviously, I'm the one who feels guilty when it's all said and done. Because it's never a good feeling, knowing you're the guy who dominants the conversation, when you're supposed to be a nice guy and all... And I feel bad about it each and every single time we chat. I mean, I enjoy our conversations. Hell, I even find them to be fine point, focal points in life... but I just feel so damn bad after each conversation we have, half out of guilt and half out of self loathing, that I just can't help but think it's ironic that I almost fear, that I almost dread the next conversation that I'll have with this close friend of mine...

But he never really gives a hint that I never ever stop yammering. That's why he's still a good friend, afterall these years... That's why I keep talking to him. That's why I keep yammering...

... now... if I only I could manage the same with all those other guys out there, who I still claim to be my friends...

... but I don't know... it's not like this friend and I talked about anything important about my life over the phone. It's just that...

... after three bloody hell, bleeding months on the sidelines, not knowing where I was going in school... not knowing how the hell I'm going to be able to find a job for myself next year... After three bloody hell months of this, I've finally started to stutter and shudder, and maybe shut the hell up, that simply put...

... well...

... I feel useless...

...

... back to the whole "useless, useless" crap of those Ulysses days of mine, now aren't I? But truth be told, I guess three months of sitting on your ass, not even writing writhing Y2kk reports, will eventually get to anyone's brain... And simply put, bold be bold, I'm starting to really wish I was making so-called "progress" in life. And I'm really starting to hate the fact that I'm becoming one of those goddam losers who only want to have some damn progress in their lives...

But what is progress?

Sadly, for me... I just want a job, not for social security, but for my own insecurity... I just want a girlfriend, you know? One that doesn't take back my phone number when I'm bloody hell trying to make a point to her, that her phone number is the only one I ever kept... And of course I want friends. Even knowing that the more people you know, the less people you feel you know, I still don't seem to care right now... I'm tired of being lonely. And I'm tired of always feeling alone, at the bottom of the goddam barrel of fish.

I want bragging rights, goddammit...

... welcome to the world...

It's just that... of course, I've got nothing... I'm moving onto my fourth and final year of university, and it's finally hitting me now... That where am I to go? Sure, I always originally wanted just a quaint little job in the suburbs, doing network administration or something that I can do with a degree and the simple push of a button... But what good is that in the end, you know? What is this of mine? A midlife crisis? Already?...

... again?...

What good is a job, what good is material happiness, if you have no-one and nowhere to share it with, right?... My friend over the phone reminded me, simply by being there for me, why I've been avoiding my university friends in the first place...

... because I miss them... and because I'm scared of them...

It's a double edged sword, of course. A fucking trenchant, if you will... And it's not something I feel I can dive headfirst in... I already sent quite a few of my friends e-mails in the past few days. And have I received any responses?... not yet, I'm afraid... not yet, at least... and I'm afraid that I won't. Not for quite a long time, at least... I mean, I was afraid that they're busy. But now not only are they busy with their new lives, but they're probably a bit afraid of me as well. That's what time and distance will always do to a guy... Proximity is the only thing that seems to matter in existence. By chance, perchance to dream... Only the eye of the beholder seems to count.

So what? What now? Get new friends? Cling onto the old ones like saran wrap, or however the hell you spell that kind of crap?... Progress is progress, and none of that is progress. That's called life... But progress? What the fuck is progress?

No-one can ever define it, without making someone else raise their hand in disgust... The thing is, I hate progress. I've always hated progress. Because it's never liked me... Have I ever made progress? As a person. Honestly. Have I ever made progress?

What is bloody hell progress?... Getting a girlfriend that will ditch me, as the first one, as the only one, as they will always end up doing?... What the hell is progress? Getting a six figure job, as if somehow having no time to yourself and all the support of the meaningless world hierarchy, could somehow equate to progress in the world?... crazy little world we live in...

The problem that I'm having is... Sure, I want to make progress... But in my eyes, wanting progress is a step backwards in progress... Wanting to be someone who wants to be someone, is just not what I call progress... I rather just call that me... I rather just call that the human condition... And what good is wanting progress then, if I don't really want it? I'm fucked up in the brain, right?...

I just feel like I'm swimming in circles right now, that's all... Three months into a dreary new existence, and only now have I opened suddenly my eyes wide shut to finally realize, that my school girl days are almost over... I only have one more year of university left. Can you believe that?... Barring an MBA or whatever else kind of hell I might go back to school for... and God forbid, knock on wood, I fail fourth year some bloody hell how... Barring any goddam circumstances that royally screwed me over in third year... then this truly will be my fourth and final year of university... In just one more year, it will my first time in my entire conscious existence... that I will be free... that I will have absolutely nothing to look forward to, nothing concrete at least, if only for a moment...

... free... for a moment... Is that progress? Or is that nothing?...

... it's normal... that's all I know...

And fear of the unknown... fear of the unicorn... It never really hit me near the end of high school, because I always knew that there would be more school. More focus. More irrelevence, you know?... And technically now, I know that I'm just going to have work after school, so there's really no difference between the two, right?... and yet, there definitely feels like a difference, more so than any failure last year lest remind me of this year... It definitely feels like I'm headed into uncharted waters, and black hearted territories that I simply don't know whether I actually want to explore or not...

Because you know, I've never really gone fishing without a net before...

And it's hitting me now... that in a sense... in a bit of sense and sensitivity... I already am on that goddam fishing trip crap vacation of mine, for the rest of my life at least... that's not so long, right?...

Because I've already seemingly lost my friends. My university friends at least... Sure, they'll eventually contact me back after those e-mails I sent. And sure, maybe some of these days, we'll get together and all have a laugh over their Pakistani pizzas... But truth be told, life is moving on. Progress is going on, whether I know it or not... The thing is, I am going on to my fourth and final year of university. And guess what? They're not... They're working... they're leaving... And still, of course, I'm jealous that they're working... jealous that they're making progress... progress that can be measured, at least... like a tin man cup...

... but what I finally realized while talking to my old high school friend on the phone the other night... what I finally realized I feared... was that in essence, university is over. For my university friends and I, together at least... I'm going onto fourth year. They're not. I may never be able to school with them again... I may never really become close friends with them again. Proximity is a bitch, you know...

... It's hard to believe I never saw it before... the Great Schism, I mean... of course, I saw it coming in high school... Who wouldn't envision and brace themselves for it a mile away, with graduation looming so close to the goddam deer leftover in the headlights?...

... but I never exactly saw this coming... that the second coming of the Great Schism already happened... that my friends will never really be close again, because literally, they will never be close again... We will never share notes again. We will never study in the same libraries together again. And they'll never beat my ass down in ping pong ever again... not until I force us to... and definitely not if the progress of having a job, changes them into the very people that I've always been afraid progress would do to me...

... progress is progress... progress is change...

... If change is progress, would it be progress to change the very meaning of progress?...

... please?...

... progress... What the bloody hell is progress anyways?...

... to me, it's simply the polar opposite of nostalgia...

... and I am Mr. No-Name nostalgia...

... and in this case? In this ceasefire? I don't know if opposites really attract or not...

... but I have been lately thinking of progress a lot...

... guess there's really nothing better to do, three months into a dreary summer vacation, you know...

ATI: Saw over at Rage3d that new Catalyst drivers were released for Windows ME and 98... I would say that version 4.7 would be a good omen for Doom 3, except it seems that without a mod, Doom 3 won't work on Windows 98 or ME kernels. Which kind of sucks, considering only ten geeks out there would ever bother trying to run a game like that on a rig with anything less than Windows 2000... But hey, a guy can dream can he? And a guy can be a hardcore geek at: http://mirror.ati.com/support/drivers/winme/radeonwdm-me.html.

ATI: Well, with Doom 3 just around the shop around the corner, I'm pretty sure that Far Cry (the only decent FPS since Call of Duty) will basically be scrapped to the benchmarking sidelines. But for now, with FarCry 1.2 being released, Firingsquad has fired away with more benchmarks, in preparation of everyone spending $500 US to get a $50 US game to work... Go Doom 3... And go Firingsquad at: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/far_cry_ps2.0b/default.asp.

ATI: Well, don't know what they talk about. But Anandtech has some new details up about the upcoming ATI RS400 chipset... I wish I cared about video cards still, but with no job? Hey, I'll stick to just buying dirt cheap consoles in comparison, not at: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2134.

ATI: Well, if you care for the up and coming Broca or Brocolli Divide between PCI Express and old skool AGP slots, then you might want to check out the comparison over at Tweaktown. Don't know what they say, but once I get a job, I suppose a look at a new mobo might be in order at: http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=article&dId=675.