Ooof. Thunder just set off a car alarm in the parking lot.
On the topic of my badly-behaving computer, as I mentioned I was going to do, I replaced the 10.3 GeForce driver with one from 10.2, but to no avail. Same behaviour — windows drag their outlines without their contents coming with them… or sometimes the outlines don’t move either. I have since discovered that running the Apple Developer tool Quartz Debug and choosing Tools -> Disable Quartz Extreme can alleviate the problem, though not completely — the windows redraw their content, but miss a bit here and there sometimes. And of course, without Quartz Extreme my computer is compositing the graphics, rather than my video card, so everything is a little slower. The Quartz Debug application is available on your computer at /Developer/Applications/Performance Tools/Quartz Debug if you’ve got the Developer tools installed, or, if you’re like me and have reinstalled your OS, have a look in /Previous Systems/Previous System 1/Developer/Applications/Performance Tools/Quartz Debug. If you don’t have the Developer (Xcode) Tools, you can download them (you’ll need an ADC account; if you haven’t got one, you can sign up for a free online one).
My most recent finding is that if I boot in Safe Mode, while the graphics on my system become pre-Quartz Extreme speed (and various other core functions, such as the audio on my computer, become disabled) — the redraw glitches are non-existent. My guess is that unlike disabling Quartz Extreme from within the Quartz Debug application, booting in Safe Mode really does disable Quartz Extreme, instead of just taking out its knees with a bat. Finally, over iChat today, Davin said he’d lend me his old GeForce2 MX when I got back — which should be identical to mine. If it works, I’ll know I have a problem with my card. Which would be just my luck, considering my 3-year AppleCare warranty coverage ran out at the end of July. Haha.
It’s about time I upgraded anyway 🙂

It’s a dark and stormy night tonight in Sarasota.
Just got back from Darren’s place, where Darren, Cam, Melissa and I watched Canada play the US in one of the first games at the World Cup of Hockey 2004. The game started off looking like Canada was going to really going to blowout the US by a wide margin (the scoring chances were something like 19-2 in favor of Canada after the opening 20), but the second period would see a reversal of momentum, and the Canada would go on to eek out a 2-1 victory.
In other news Apple released a new generation of their LCD displays today. These ones happen to have an invisible G5 processor attached and are called iMacs! Heh. See bahanclan.com for a more in-depth discussion of the iMac G5, with some prognostication thrown in for good measure.
I wanted to get some pictures up for you from the weekend, but with the troubles I’ve been having it’s been difficult to click on the menu bar, let alone download things from my camera. But before it slips too far into the distant past, I do want to say that the Savannah tournament I went to this past Saturday and Sunday — Toss in The Moss 15 — was the most fun I’ve had at a tournament in a long time. From the totally wacky parade and torch-lighting at the opening ceremonies, to playing your hardest against your opponents and having them come up to you afterwards and thank you for being an excellent opponent, to sipping Coronas in the shade, to the comraderie of playing with a team you know you’ll be seeing again, to the Saturday night party and watching first-class Women’s Ultimate (via the Huckaneers)… I really had a blast. Very glad I went.

Oh man, the video on my computer is so totally fux0red, I’m amazed I’m able to write this at all. I’m still havig those redraw-pause glitches I mentioned about a week back. More updates as info rolls in. I’ll try and do an update from work tomorrow, including a detailed list of what I’ve tried in case you reached here via Google and want to know what I’ve done.