Well, I've been gone for a week - I missed yah guys. Here I tell my tale.

I am currently having some eye problems. My glasses are rather abraded due to the fact that the cloth, the special cloth used for cleaning glasses, had something wrong with it, and it scratched my glasses badly when it should not have. It probably got something spilled on it. Thus, wearing my glasses meant I'd get rather bad headaches. I found and am using my contacts now, and they are better than nothing, but I need to go and renew my prescription. For the last week I've basically been letting my eyes get used to wearing contacts again. Woot!

I would also like to rant against Windows Vista. I decided I would go and downgrade from Vista to XP, what with Microsoft offering free downgrades. Well, guess what! The free downgrade is a clever ploy to gain money, as this free downgrade is in fact only free for Vista Business or Vista Ultimate, and the majority of people using Vista have something like Vista Basic or Premium. In essence, most Vista users cannot use the free downgrade, and if they want XP, they have to re-buy it.

Now, why do I so badly want to downgrade to XP, aside from the usual reasons? As it turns out, Windows Vista does not natively support OpenGL - and thus many games which I love cannot be played on Vista. There are ways to run OpenGL on Vista, but it involves some nicely annoying things, wrapping OpenGL onto DirectX, and the end result is basically a lobotomized version of OpenGL - it runs much slower than it should.

What does the lack of OpenGL mean? Basically, anyone making a graphically heavy program that can run on Vista is forced to use DirectX. These programs are everything from CAD programs, to 3D modelers, to games. It is an attempt to create a program monopoly monopoly.

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Anyways, after a week-ish of not being here, I'm back, and my Stargate craze is still in full blast. The end of Fall Trimester is near, and it is almost November. I hope it snows soon.

I'll set up the polls for the badge set voting tomorrow (or today, since it is 2AM) - sorry 'bout being gone.