Well, now it appears that _some_ ads are still skippable, while some are not. Earlier I don't recall seeing unskippable ads at all in Youtube, only lately I've been wondering "Hey, where's my Skip Ad-button, huh?"

So are they now gradually introducing them, or have they been there always, I just haven't seen them before? Do unskippable ads cost more to advertisers, or what?

^ That's one of the major reasons why I just download YouTube videos that I enjoy watching. I've never been a fan of streaming to begin with though, so that's just me.

Colds. Colds suck. I haven't been sick in about 2 years, but somehow just came down with some nasty seasonal cold bug. It sucks. Being sick is like being drunk... only without all the fun parts.

I have heard teas work great but Im not a tea person so I cant say for sure. I just got over being really sick and I used sudafed congestion and it worked pretty good for me. I hope you feel better soon.

http://www.sudafed.com/products/adult/sinus-congestion/sudafed-congestion

I think I killed my trusty Athlon XP/ATI Radeon X800 retro-gaming PC on weekend. :( I knew I shouldn't touch it, yet I decided finally to expand its RAM from 768MB to one gigabyte, just because it was running Linux too. It's been awhile since I've done PC maintenance like that, so I tried to force the DIMMs into the slots the wrong way. After that the PC just makes warning beeps after power up, even if I put the original DIMMs back. I apparently broke something on the motherboard. I have no one else to blame but me.

That was my main retro-gaming PC, for those old Windows 9x games which have problems running on newer PCs (it had both Win98SE and XP installed). Luckily I still have a second retro-PC, an IBM ThinkPad T41 laptop which also has both 98SE and XP, it is the system where I played through e.g. Heavy Gear.

Just to be safe though, I already closed a deal in an auction today, someone was selling his old PC with pretty much similar specs (single-core 64bit AMD CPU (mine was 32bit, but I don't think it matters for compatibility...), ATI Radeon which is apparently one generation newer than my old X800, 1GB RAM...), costing 20€. Better still buy one when there are working ones available.

I'm still wishing Win98SE and XP virtualization and emulation for retro-gaming purposes becoming more viable than what it is now. At the moment I'm putting my hopes to these:

http://wiki.qemu.org/Main_Page

http://virgil3d.github.io/

Especially the latter one which I'm hoping to become reality, a virtual Direct3D-compatible graphics card that would allow also backwards-compatibility, even if the host GPU or its drivers don't have that anymore.

I wish to be able at some point being able to run my old Win9x games as well as DOSBox runs old DOS games, or WinUAE runs Amiga games. The caveat is that I'm not sure if such a virtualized environment can run the original Win9x retail games, with copy protection and such (e.g. Wheel of Time had to be cracked with a noCD crack before it would even load on a virtualized XP system on VMWare Player).


Another thing. How come US gets so nice cover of snow, and I am still waiting for a proper winter here in north? There's no snow yet here, hopefully there will be over weekend (I'm going to change winter tires to my car tomorrow, just in case). I think I should move to Buffalo US, it sounds like a lovely place with lots of snow.

come to germany ! we have every form of weather! anytime! it is a freaking weather lightshow here.

OCD symptoms worse than usual today. I spent 20 straight minutes washing my hands :(

On the flip side, my depression has been much better recently.

You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have...The Facts of Life.
(I deserve a good punch in the face for that one.)

the relativity of time is depressing me...

Feeling a bit better now, thanks. Have had to work being sick, but sticking to the old remedy of lots of sleep and lots of water. Works wonders.

Tired of being wary every time I pick up the phone that it's another overseas scam call. And if I hang up too quickly, the lingering feeling that this one could have been legitimate.

Tell them you run Linux. And to get a proper job.

[Edit: Sorry, a bit flippant. I, too, am sick of them. If it's a Microsoft, I tell them it's a scam, I tell them not to call again, and I tell them it's a Linux household.
All the others, I repeatedly say, "No, thank you", and ask them to take my number off their list. If they call again, then I tell them they're directly breaking the law by calling me again when I told them to take my number off, and ask them for their name and number. They usually hang up then.]

Tried several different tactics but always back eventually, even if you say you don't have a computer or "i don't need my windows washing thanks". Died off for a while but back with slightly new variations. It's the guardedness of picking up the phone and expecting them that's the problem - it's affecting my attitude to legitimate calls.

Edit: Trouble is most are overseas with hidden numbers so you can't do anything legally. I think they call back to try and get someone more gullible. I do know of a few people who have been scammed at least part way, but had the sense not to send money so they must get some who fall for it.

40C today. argh!!!

If I don't know the number then I go to the fax machine and press the 'receive' button. The caller gets an earful of "DEEEEE-DEEDLEELEEEDEEE!" and they mark it off as a fax line.

Snow!

Actually, that's not too bad. But snow!