a day in the life

Put a fork in them

// September 30th, 2004 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Two consective losses in 12 innings to a team they should have swept pretty much sums up the Cubs season… an effort of futility.

Relievers can’t hold the lead, batters can’t drive in a run with the bases loaded, the big slugger stikes out swinging, another 1-run loss… the list goes on but the result is the same:

Cubs, 1 game out of the Wild Card with 3 to play.

Put a fork in them folks, they’re done.

No joy in Simsville

// September 20th, 2004 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Last weekend, like any good lemming, I bought my shiny new copy of The Sims 2 (OK, maybe it wasn’t that shiny). Anyway, I get home, install the 3.5GB of program and wait for the Finish dialog to appear with the options to read the Readme.txt, and launch the program.

So, naturally, I select to run the program after installing (and playing a few rounds of the tile-matching game that appears while installing). That’s when I got smacked right in the face with what would prove to be my nemesis: the message “Please insert the correct DVD-ROM”.

So like any good trouble- shooter, I insert the other disk, thinking that’s that one the program wants instead.

“Please insert the correct DVD-ROM.”

So I re-insert the install/play DVD.

“Please insert the correct DVD-ROM.”

At this point I’m out of ideas so I go to the EA support site. Apparently (according to the KB article), the issue is with the DRM encription on the DVD and I’m directed to a link on another site to install an update for the DRM protection. The link doesn’t work.

After I finally find the file I’m looking for, I install it and try to run the game.

“Please insert the correct DVD-ROM.”

So I figure the system must need to be restarted so I do that.

“Please insert the correct DVD-ROM.”

So I go the message boards; I’m not alone! Others are having the same problems. Some suggest adding a DVD-ROM-only drive, other suggest removing this program or that progam, and disabling others. Even the EA article suggests to remove all CD-burning software. For some, these ‘fixes’ worked; for others, they didn’t.

The one and only drive on my PC is a combo DVD burner and some suspect that the copy-protection software intentionally doesn’t work with those types of drives since, in theory, they can be used to make backups of the software. You see, that even though I bought the game with my own money and have abolutely no intention of copying or distributing the game in any fashion, I can’t play it.

The company I work for makes the encryption software that’s protecting the DVD and yet I don’t really believe they’re the ones to blame. Doom 3, which I also have, uses the same copy-protection technology and I can play that game with absolutely no problems (plus it uses DemoShield for it’s browser ). I suspect that this is a flub of epic proportions by the company who’s insisting that others are to blame. That company is Electronic Arts.

So what to do? Do I wait for Electronic Arts to fess-up about the problem and wait even longer for a patch? Or, do I bring the game back and demand a refund?

I’m opting for the later.