Ancient Technology: 1 Jeff: 0

I am sad to report that my initial blog entry must be one filled with disappointment and woe. I have been recently frustrated by my dealings with old software - a roadblock which we have discussed as a point of interest in class. Kevin, Kristin and I, after having been beaten to the proverbial punch in our desire to focus on Zelda for our playgroup, decided instead to turn our attention to a classic PC game: Blizzard's Diablo II. Now, I was pretty thrilled about this suggestion from Kevin, having been quite the fan of the Diablo series in my younger days. Smiting demons is something I think we can all appreciate. I purchased the Battle Chest of Diablo II at Target on Saturday, and that's about the last piece of positive news I have on the subject. After returning home I installed the game and tried to fire it up immediately after installation was complete. Immediately an error message appeared on my screen: "Please insure the Diablo II PlayDisc is in the drive, and press Retry." I humbly acquiesced with the request, and verified that the PlayDisc was, indeed, in the drive. I pressed Retry. Again the message appeared. I became perplexed. After a moment of thought I realized my blunder. "Aha! This game is thousands and thousands of years old, there must have been an absurd number of patches created since its release date; I'll go acquire the latest and get to gaming," I thought to myself. I quickly found my way to Blizzard's tech support page, and found that my trouble was indeed a common problem that could be fixed by the latest patch. One short download later, I was at it again, eager to battle the evil forces that would enslave humanity. Once again I was kindly asked to verify the existence of the PlayDisc in my CD drive. Fire and brimstone issued forth from my angry gaze, nearly destroying my monitor. I referred again to Blizzard's tech support page which includes an array of possible fixes for the problem. I tried several. Each failed. I ran a google search for "Diablo II tech support" and "Diablo II troubleshoot." These searches yielded several sites, each featuring angry users who were experiencing problems similar to mine. After quite a bit of time attempting to get around this problem, I simply gave up. I have not yet tried again, although likely will do so tonight. I believe this little problem of mine clearly demonstrates the important relationship between programmed code and execution through platform.

Reliving this experience through writing this entry has left me angry and sour, and I shall therefore retire for now. Soon, however, expect a happier and perhaps more interesting post on the following topic: I recently attended a poetry reading by Joshua Marie Wilkinson, an up and coming young American poet, and candidate for professorship here at Loyola. He spoke after his reading of the influence of other artistic media on his own work, and I believe it may have possible implications for the influence of video games on other multimedia and artistic creations. Stay tuned.