Blog Klank

I've played EQ and EQ2 for about 15 years and it has been one of my favorite series to collect for. I have always loved all the cool maps and things that would come in the boxes. The Keith Parkinson box art was always top notch. It was sad that he passed away so young. I never felt the covers were as good with any of the new artists.

There are still a fe...

We took full advantage of the GameStop 4 for 10 and ended up getting more than just the games I wanted off their promo list when I went searching. It is amazing how many of the older PS3 and Xbox360 games are around $2. I saw a whole bunch of other ones around $8 that I wanted to pick up but restrained myself till the next time a buy 1 get 1 or something...

In my last blog I bought a Kinect from Best Buy online with in store pick up. They ended up giving me the regular bundle rather than the bundle with Child of Eden. I went through a bunch of stuff to try to get the code and here is the continuation.

I ended up calling the store to find out if I could just get it exchanged and they said since it was throu...

This morning I picked up the Kinect bundle that was in the add that had Kinect Adventures and Child of Eden. I saw in the add that for Child of Eden said *internet connection required to download the game. So I figured alright it must be a download code.

I asked the girl at the register about it and she said ah yeah it must be in the box. So I went out to the car and checked in the box, no code. I went back in and talked to the girl at customer service she said she had no idea so she went and got someone from the games department. He told me that when I hook up the Kinect that it should prompt me to download the game and if that did not happen to call Xbox support.

So I went home and plugged it in and go figure nothing happened. Now since this is a deal through Best Buy, Microsoft is going to have no idea what I am talking about when I call them. So I called up the Best Buy support line.

I'm on my 4th transfer now each having been about a 20 min wait to get someone on the line and each time they say oh I think its this but I don't know let me get you over to someone else.

So just to recap I talked with 3 people in the store and 3 people on the phone and so far no one knows anything at all about what it is or how to get it.

Edit* Total call time 1hour 4 min. The hold music is just one short song on loop over and over.

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When I finally replaced my Radeon EAH4850 with a 5850 I did so with the intention of using the 4850 to replace the stock low end graphics card in my girlfriends computer. The EAH4850 always had a reputation of being a card that runs really hot. However the case that I have has really good airflow so even when it would heat up a bit it was never much of an issue. However my girlfriend has a store bought Gateway. Its not a bad computer but there is just not much airflow. It has a single fan in the back and no way to mount a front intake. The CPU has a shroud that vents the air out the side at least.

I installed the 4850 and found that it was running 80c idle and 98c+ under load. I was worried that the thing was just going to fry it self so I hopped online and picked up a Zalman VF1000.16910

Removing the old heatsink/fan was not really that hard. There were just a bunch of screws on the back then it just took a bit of twisting to get the old thermal paste to let go. I used some rubbing alcohol to remove the remainder of the thermal paste and tape from the processor and ram. 16911

The little kit that came with it had everything I needed to get it mounted on the card including new thermal paste which seemed to work out well. It even came with some ram sinks. You can see one on the finished picture its the little blue thing near the bottom of the card. It is larger and now takes up a 2nd slot in the computer but the lower temps are worth it. Now its running around 40c idle and 50c under load. thats a major improvement from the 90c+
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For the 4th of July weekend Sony turned on the 100% bonus XP in Everquest2. That on its own is not a huge amount of bonus XP. However if you combine it with a Refer a Friend account 200% bonus as well as the 100% bonus you get for vitality and any XP potions you happen to have laying around that leads to some very quick leveling with around a 500% bonus.

It was a good time and I manged to get 80-85 on my conjuror with about 30 more AA and another 20 or so AA on my 90 shadowknight. Now maybe I will stand a chance in battlegrounds.

Working retail sucks generally but every once in awhile it has it perks. One of these is the HP training events. I've been to about 5 of them so far and though I did not win anything till this last one though they have generally been a good time. They always have them at movie theaters around here so its like 40 min of hearing about the new stuff HP has out or is going to have out soon (the HP slate tablet PC looks hot!) then there is a raffle drawing and finally a movie. They pick one out of whatever is playing at the moment. In this case it was Kick Ass which was actually really good.

I ended up winning a PS3 in the raffle this time around. Thanks HP.
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Once again I have led the righteous fury of the Blood Ravens to victory. I have destroyed the corruption of the Chaos and the heresy committed by my brother Space Marines. FOR THE EMPEROR!

Seriously though the DoW II expansion has been a mixed bag. The missions are really well done but there are only about 13 of them. 2 of them are set in a really...

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Pazu was not the first character I ever created in EQ2 but he was the first one I ever actually leveled beyond the noobie zones. I made it all the way to 60 and even did some raiding before retiring him to level a Troubador. I played the Troub all through the next 2 expansion but then once my girlfriend started playing again I switched back over t...

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