The Importance of Being Idle

The Joys Of (Installing) (Half) Life (2)

Friday was pretty good: not only did we learn more about pensions, but we actually did something useful! Admittedly it was just record a few hangups (the notes that go on the system at the end of a call), but at least we contributed in some way. I still can't escape the feeling of being a fraud though; they're paying me more money than I've ever earned before, and for far less work than I've ever done. Clearly, my 'career' up until this point was badly misdirected!
I attempted to install Half-Life 2 yesterday. I say attempted, 'cos... well you'll see. First I should make my position on Half-Life known: I played the first one at the time it came out, and couldn't see what the fuss was, really couldn't. I am not now, nor have I ever been majorly excited about playing HL2, but Stu loaned me his copy and (after having it about six months) I figured what the hell. So, first up I stick the DVD in and away we go. Up pops the STEAM installer, and I decide somewhat experimentally to tell it that I don't want to install STEAM on my system, 'cos, well, I don't. I just want to play the game, I don't give a shit about Valves online content delivery system, I'm not going to purchase anything from it, nor am I gonna play online 'cos HL2 is (hello!) a single player only game. Sadly, none of these things matter to STEAM so it exits and that's that. Fine, okay, I'll have STEAM then, and it installs, then asks me if I want to install the new version of Counter-Strike. Again, played it when it came out, didn't see the fuss, don't want it taking up a gig of my hard-drive. STEAM proceeds to merrily install for about five minutes before crashing. FINE, okay I'll have STEAM and Counter-Strike then, just fucking install! It takes ten, fifteen minutes to install, and I think we're getting somewhere. It runs updates on itself, makes me register for an account I don't want just so I can play a game I'm only slightly interested in, and then finally, after what must be nearly an hour, it asks for the serial number that came with the game. Which it promptly rejects, 'cos this is my bro's copy of the game, and it's registered to HIS STEAM account! I think it was at that point that the blood vessel in my brain popped, and I decided that if I ever meet Gabe Newell I must make a point of kicking him repeatedly in the crotch. Until he passes out. Needless to say the whole lot has been uninstalled and will almost certainly never darken my PC's hard-drive again. I might get the Xbox version though, 'cos I know that'll run without any of this mucking about...

posted by BadMonkey @ 11:00 AM