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10.01.02 :: 19:16
I get to start off the new month with a stupid user story! Today I was speaking with a woman from the private school I went to when I was a kid. The school's T-1 had recently been changed over from another provider to us. (The transition happened yesterday). When that happened her mail stopped working. Well, that was expected, because you have to do some routing to get everything pointed back the way it should be. I asked her what the IP of her mail server was. She said she didn't know. When I asked if she could get it for me she said that she didn't know how to find a machine's IP. I asked if she had a net admin she could transfer me to. (I figured I was speaking to a front office / secretary person who noticed that her mail wasn't working and called to report it). "You're going to laugh, but I'm our net admin," she admitted. I laughed. I didn't mean to (or at the very least I would have hit the mute button on the phone first), but I didn't stop myself in time. Her being the admin was like me being the Pope, some things just aren't happening ^^;
Today went pretty well. I rolled up my sleeves and jumped into their call pool today. Man, there was quite a diverse mix of issues! I did everything from the basic configuring of email to helping a woman reinstall Win98 o.O; I was kept pretty busy all day. It didn't help that our phones were acting wonky all morning. About a half hour before lunch my phone gave up the ghost on me. It was like trying to talk through a balled up sock, no one could understand me. I guess one benefit of working in the internet division of a telephone company is that it doesn't take forever to get a technician out to fix our phones ;) (When I came back from lunch they'd gotten everything repaired).
I slept pretty well last night even though I think I woke up just about every hour on the hour ^^; I actually fell asleep around 9pm, which is way early for me ^^; I went to bed early 'cause I was cold. My bed is a lot warmer than sitting in front of the computer puttering around ^^; I may do it again tonight if I get too chilly. I bought the second DVD set of Silent Mobius. I can lay in bed and watch that and be warm ^_^
10.02.02 :: 20:31
I forgot what I was going to blog about. I opened Homesite to start writing my entry and then I had to tempban a member of #fanfics for fighting =/ Lemme see what I can remember that's mildly interesting...
The heater came on last night. I have it set to 60F and when I woke up this morning it was rattling. Stupid cold snap. I'm not ready for winter yet ^^; Brian says that it's going to be up in the 80F's again this weekend. There are some wild weather swings going on.
Work went well today. I'm learning more and more, which is good :) A new manager person is taking over the tech department (he was transferred over from Bend). He seems to be pretty business-like, which is what the department needs IMO. The couple days I've been there was enough time to see that we need someone to ride us about cleaning up our departmental act. The only thing he mentioned that I'm not exactly thrilled about is having a weekly morning tech meeting. That's fine for everyone who lives in GP, but that means I'd have to leave here an hour earlier than I do already. (And the sun isn't up when I leave the house as it is --; ) I guess ya do what ya gotta do, eh?
10.03.02 :: 21:11
If you went up to a tech and asked what sort of things could happen that would make for an absolutely rotten day at work; that's what happened today. When Brian, Lincoln, and I came in this morning the tech announcement board informed us that the CyberNet access server (which was still authenticating a couple thousand customers) was down. A circuit breaker had blown during the night and the surge toasted the server =/ They'd managed to repair the circuit by the time we'd come in, but it was going to take more time to get the server rebuilt. A team of admin/techs went to Medford to spearhead the efforts and the rest of us got to handle the customer fallout.
Really, it could have been worse than it was. I prayed before I dove into the phone pool for more patience than I usually have, and I got it :) The meanest person I spoke with while that crisis was going on was a gruff old man who had a wrong number :P I went to lunch at noon and was so hungry! I devoured the lunch I brought with me, then went down the street to Safeway and bought some bananas. I was going to need all the energy I could get for the second half of the day.
Around 1pm the new access server was brought online and it worked. (Yay, working the first time is always a good thing ^^; ) So that got most of the dial-up customers off our back, but that didn't stop other things from happening. One was the poor lady who (for a reason we're still investigating) all of a sudden started getting lots of porn email that is addressed to someone else. The person has the same username, but the domain name is different. An admin higher up in the foodchain than me is tracing the routing to see where the problem is.
Also, some frickin' virus managed to send itself to our entire members mailing list (around 2500 people give or take), not once but three times --; I found where the hole was and pointed it out the the Tech Supervisor so that it could be plugged (which it promptly was). But I can tell you already that a lot of tomorrow is going to be spent explaining / apologizing / etc. for it even happening in the first place. (*sigh* It's not my fault personally that a virus wormed it's way to the members list, but I still feel responsible and I know there are plenty out there who will blame the company for it).
And, as if that all wasn't enough, around 4:30pm a customer up north accused me of being a fairly worthless technician. I pointed out that a technician can only give guidance to those who actually want it; he had to listen to me if he expected results. Anyhow, I tried to transfer him to another tech and no one was available, so tough shit for him. Honestly, I ran through everything I could think of with him and for every suggestion I gave he gruffly said that he already did it. Well, if he's already done it all, checked every setting, done even the extreme repairs (formatting, replacing parts, etc). then I guess there really isn't much I can do for him. He'll just have to go to an Internet service that's more compatible with his machine.
When 5pm rolled around I was more than ready to get out of there... but was stuck on the phone with one of those "just one more question" and five questions later they're still going types. A customer also dragged me into a 20 minute discussion about the RIAA and web broadcaster's rights. I kept trying to steer the conversation back to actually working on her computer, but she wasn't easily led :P
There'll be no carpool with Lincoln or Brian tomorrow. They both are on the Saturday shift. That kind of bums me out. They're the only two people at work that I really feel comfortable with right now =| That and my cubby row will be pretty lonely, especially if Mark is sick again tomorrow. If he is, then I'll be the only one along the back wall. One of my bosses might be gone tomorrow as well. Last I heard he was going to go sit on the doorstep of AFN until they repaired their network like we've been nagging them to for the last week. Personally, I wouldn't want James on my doorstep, he's built like a linebacker ^^;
I discovered that Jim (one of the system admins) is a big anime fan. Well, he collects anime, watching it is another matter. I'm going to try to get him hooked on Noir... :)
October marks a year of blogging. Yay, at least I've gotten better about writing an entry every day ^^;
10.04.02 :: 18:16
Y'know it's going to be one of those days when you open up your work email and find 17 viruses ^^; And what a day it was, much along the same lines as yesterday with the calls and whatnot. In the morning I don't think I took a call that was under 20 minutes to resolve. I just kept landing long, thorny, issues =/
Around 11am my boss came back to my desk with a list of all the AFN customers. He wanted me to give them a call and do what I could to smooth things out with them since their email still wasn't working 100% of the time. Someone jimmied a system to make it kind of work. At least they'd be able to get it, which was an improvement on the situation. I used every ounce of charm I had when speaking with the people on the list. I don't think I did too bad, m'self.
At around 4pm I got an enthusiastic ICQ from Jim telling me that AFN had pulled its head out of its butt and fixed the router issue they denied having. (We all knew that something was wrong, they just refused to believe it was them and actually look into the matter). So that ongoing headache is finally resolved. There's still a lot of soothing to be done to make people happy again, but it's easy to do that when they can actually get their email.
If anything, I should be thankful for this job. I haven't slept as many restful nights in a row since I started in the GP office. I think I'm so tired by the end of the day that I get what I need to get done and then curl up and sleep soundly when 10pm rolls around. At the very least, I'm not bored there. I feel like I barely have enough time to get everything done that I need to.
10.05.02 :: 00:04
I went to dinner with my dad tonight. We talked about a variety of things, mostly about my new work and his arm. He went to the dr. today and the dr. is pretty sure that he's torn his bicep in his right arm o.O; That sounds incredibly painful to me (which makes sense, he's been in a lot of pain ^^; ) and if the specialist confirms it, he'll probably have to have surgery on that arm to repair the damage =| The only 'good' thing about this is that it was his right arm and not his left. My dad's a southpaw ^^
After dinner I went down to my mom's shop and did some maintenance on her computer. (The BugBear virus is running rampant right now. I wanted to make sure her machine was protected). While I was doing that I looked up movie showing times. Dad and I discussed going to see The Tuxedo on Sunday. I also remembered that I'd wanted to go see Ballistic. I went down to the theatre and bought a ticket to Ballistic after I was done with the computer. Usually I don't go to movies by myself, but I didn't think I could convince anyone to go see this one with me. Besides, it was the last showing of the night and not many people that I know would still be up and willing to go out at that hour ^^;
I'm glad I went by myself, that way I don't have to apologize to anyone (again) for choosing a sucky movie to go see :P There was potential here for a passable story, but it didn't survive the transition from the script writer's brain to the page it was written on. Most of the story is disjointed and kind of 'eh' if you do manage to follow it.
The point of this movie is action, but it doesn't even pull that off very well =/ The first half of the movie consists of "bullet time" scenes of Severs (Lucy Liu) shooting at heavily armed Canucks. See, that was a mistake. We all know that the Canadians only have maple syrup and beavers to defend themselves with. How on earth did they end up more heavily armed than their gun-loving neighbors to the south? When the rocket launchers came out I had to refrain from laughing. I'm also pretty sure that as least 80% of the movie's budget went into the battle at the end of the movie. There were more explosions in it than all of the Terminator flicks combined I think :P
Y'know, if I were Lucy Liu, I'd be mad that I kept getting cast into 'cold-hearted bitch' roles. I'd really like to see her in a role as someone fun loving, caring, and especially non-bitchy. Jackie's bro had it right when he noted that she said about 7 lines in Ballistic. He must have been counting :P
[wuvs on Silent Mobius] I still have a few more episodes that I haven't watched yet. I'll do that tomorrow to make up for Ballistic :P
10.05.02 :: 18:01
I tried to be productive today and didn't accomplish much ^^; I ran around town looking for a lunchbox that I could use for work. (My lunches have been getting squished when I just toss them into my backpack). All the boxes I saw were for things like Mr. Spounge Pants (?), The Osbournes, etc. Not very beanish at all. I ended up ordering one from Anime Nation. (Hey, if I can't find it locally I'm going to get one I like!)
I took Pepper to the pet store like I promised her I would. I bought her a bag of treats and toy for ReRun. (One of those feather on a string-pole things). Hopefully he'll attack that instead of me!
I still haven't braved the clothes store. I also need to hit the grocery store and stop by Freddy's to buy some blank CDs. In short, I only accomplished about 25% of what I planned on getting done today ^^; Oh well. When I wasn't running around I was watching / reading Silent Mobius. I picked up the second book 'cause it has Lebia's chapter in it... And it's to be continued half way through --; Darn you Sean! You got me started on this! :P
My dad told me that my bro is going to visit during the last two weeks of December (if I remember correctly) :D It'll be good to see Nanki ^_^ He hasn't been home for the holidays for a couple years now. I'll have to get a room ready for him. Heh, that means the house will actually be decorated for Christmas. Left to my own devices I'll try to ignore the holiday, and I certainly won't go to the bother of putting up a tree or anything like that. With Nanki here (and his love of Christmas) there'll be a tree up before I can utter a single word of protest. It'll be good to see him :)
10.06.02 :: 23:00
I went to see The Tuxedo with my parents this afternoon. It was a lot better than Ballistic ^^; It's not the best Jackie Chan movie out there, but Jennifer Love Hewitt gave a solid performance IMO. It's a shame that it probably won't be recognized when it comes time to hand out the awards ^^; She did a great job of flipping between being a geeky scientist and a sarcastic sidekick ^^
10.07.02 :: 06:24
I've been forgetting a lot of dreams lately, so I've got to get this one down before it flies out of my head.
I dreamt that I was in the downtown area of a moderately sized city; bigger than Medford, but not too much so. There was a large cathedral with walls of stained glass. There was a lounge nearby with equally distinctive panes of smokey glass that obscured the wandering eyes of passersby along the sidewalk. You couldn't get into the lounge unless you were a member of the social elite, which I most definitely was not. Oh well, I didn't care.
Then one day while walking by I noticed a young woman who was also not in with the "in" crowd, only she was curious. There was a door off to the side of the main lounge's door that I hadn't noticed before. She wanted to know what was behind that door, but the security to get in was even tighter. She tried to charm her way past the guard with no avail. I rolled my eyes at her lame attempt and walked over there. Acting as though I belong there I brushed past the guard, opened the door, and went into the room he guarded. It was a brothel.
Stunned by my impudence, the guard rushed in after me to haul me out of the room. There were 'shelves' where people could do their business. Only a couple people were there currently because it was like 5am. The guard took my arm and I took his, then I drew myself closer to him and began licking his ear, nibbling it, seducing him. He immediately succumb to temptation and I smiled before stopping.
"It would be hypocritical of me if I continued," I whispered into his ear and then drew away. "You're here to stop me." He once again had a stupified look on his face, as if someone had hit the reset button on his brain. I went on, "You really should let the girl in here. It would serve your purposes nicely."
"How do you figure?" He grumbled.
"Let her in here and see if she enjoys the entertainment that she finds. After an outing or two she'll likely come to the conclusion that these men are swine, only here for the pleasure of the flesh. You could sweep in like a saviour, take her, and show her that there is someone out there who cares about more than this. It would be an easy thing for you to do after she's been robbed of her naivete."
I woke up shortly after that. It was more of a devious plan than I usually come up with, I think o.O;
PS @ 06:54 - I just saw something weird... an unmounted horse went trotting by my house. Wanna bet someone needs to repair their fence? ^^;
10.08.02 :: 20:08
I should work more on the SeeDfic. I haven't written a word since Sean got me hooked on Silent Mobius. (Not to say that SMo is taking up all my time, but I've been busy since then...) I want to get this turkey finished so that I can work on other things ;)
I was a bit frustrated at work today. There are two things I won't do when it comes to technical support. The first is lie / mislead / BS a customer unless I'm forced by the customer to do so. For example, if I screw something up, I'll own up to it. But sometimes customer demand to know why something is that way and they won't like the answer if you're honest. Like "Why didn't my password work the 10 times before that I tried it?" I try to hedge around answer that when the answer is "Because you type like a monkey." If they could see the server logs they'd see how they'd found 10 incorrect ways to type the password, but people rarely believe that they're capable of being so moronic (even if they are).
The other thing I won't do as a tech is purposefully do something that might *break* the customer's machine. I see it as the techie version of "do no harm". If doing no harm involves not removing the dial up networking until they can find their Windows CD, that's how it'll be. (That's the example that happens the most often. When, if I continued the repair without the CD and the computer needed it, they'd be screwed).
Anyhow, I was put in a position today when I knew that if I continued the repair of the customer's machine there was a good chance that I would do harm, and that frustrated me. It also angered me that there were another tech available who knew how to do the prescribed repair and he wouldn't take the call from me =| I'm all for learning how to do it myself. You can teach me while we perform the repair together or I'll watch you as you do it, but for goodness sake don't leave me hanging on a limb to fumble my way through it on my own --;
I guess we're still learning how to be a team. [sighs] This is the most uncomfortable phase when building a solid tech crew. The time spent learning exactly what each tech does and doesn't know and then seeing how much of the knowledge will cross-pollinate.
10.09.02 :: 20:01
I finally succeeded in making dinner without screwing it up somehow! Oh, and what a yummy victory it was; tuna casserole :)~~~ I've been an absolute pig today. I ate 2 PB&J sandwiches, carrots, string cheese, and half of the casserole. You'd think I was a bear about to go into hibernation or something. I'm going to go curl up on the couch and digest now @.@
10.10.02 :: 21:09
Dad's been looking at my car again. He took it into the shop on Tuesday and thought something was wrong with the exhaust system. He then took it to a muffler shop that the auto shop he works for uses (since they don't repair exhaust systems). That muffler shop could duplicate the problems, but were unable to ferret out what was causing them. They didn't think it was an exhaust problem though. Now dad has my car again and is still trying to figure out what's wrong with it. I can understand having a problem and no solutions, that happens a lot in computer repair ^^;
I got some good news regarding my bro from my mom today. Nanki did an interview / audition / schmoozing session with the CBS casting people and they like him. He's gotten their okay for doing commercials this season, and will be invited to audition for roles in their sitcoms next season ^_^ Honestly, I'm too clear on what the whole process involves (except for a lot of butt kissing)... but he did kiss the right butts and doors have been opened, so I'm happy for him ^^ If he's on any programs that I know of I'll be sure to post about them here!
[Final Fantasy VIII spoilers]
On Final Fantasy Online we've been kind of discussing the effects of GFs and the whole Squall-tachi losing their memory thing. Personally, I think it's a cop out plot device. Others are more forgiving. I think the thing that irked me the most about the entire thing is that they didn't lay any hints about it (and it would have been easy to do so IMO). In fact, I've thought of a small scene that could have played out that would have giving just a touch of foreshadowing...
[Scene: Squall's dorm room. The Garden is somewhere over the ocean. Rinoa has been pestering the residents of the Garden and Cid has put Squall in charge of escorting her (whether Squall realizes it or not). (This happens in the game, BTW, Squall has to show Rinoa the Garden).]
[Rinoa enters the room uninvited and Squall wakes up from a nap (also canonical). While Squall is waking up, she begins looking over his few things. She looks at the gunblade case, a stack of books, and then notices a photo haphazardly tacked to the pinboard. It's a photo of a child Squall standing in front of a pillar, a sullen look on his face.]
Rinoa: "Who would have thought you were once so young and innocent?"
Squall: "... Whatever."
Rinoa: "How old are you in this?"
[Squall ignores her question and gets up from the bed]
Squall: "Did you want me to show you around the Garden or what?"
[Rinoa's face lights up and the photo is forgotten on Squall's desk.]
[While walking Squall reflects that he doesn't remember how old he was in that photo, nor where it was originally taken.]
See? That simple. In a few extra lines of dialogue we establish that there's something going on with Squall's memory. It could be easily dismissed, plenty of photos are forgotten, but it could (and is!) an event with a deeper meaning.
10.11.02 :: 15:37
Just going to blog some of the weird calls / questions / stupidities I've encountered today.
A man called needing to correct his mail settings in Outlook Express. Looking at the account information, the very first question is to give the account a name. He asked me what he should name it. I answered that he could name it anything. So he typed in A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G.net ^^;; (And I didn't tell him the .net, BTW :P )
A woman called to complain about the Klez virus. She didn't blame us for her getting it, nor did she need help getting off her computer. No, she called for the sole reason of bending someone's ear about the frustrations she's felt because of it. Um... Thanks.
Before lunch a woman called to complain about one of our customers harassing her. The user was allegedly posting her phone number and address on some hacker boards and she was going to have to change her phone number as a result. I don't usually scoff at such complaints, but this woman really wasn't helping herself out. She would only give me the user's email address. She *wouldn't* give me more than her name and email address (that includes her phone number or where these posts were taking place so that we could validate her claim). I would have pushed through her complaint myself if she hadn't been just as shady when she presented her complain... --; (If she was going to change the number, what did it hurt giving it to me for the day? And what was she doing on hacking boards to begin with?)
These are just a few of today's calls. They've *all* been weird. At least the phone systems guy thinks he's managed to fix my phone... ^^;
Weird link for the day. (Trust me, check this one out ^o^)
10.11.02 :: 21:15
Whoa, I had a busy evening. After work I ran over to Target to shop for one of dad's berfday gifts. I was going to pick dad up for dinner as soon as I was done at Target. Great idea, but I forgot that they'd changed how the intersection worked to get out of there and I ended up pointed towards leaving town. Then I got onto the wrong interchange and I really was on the freeway headed out of town --; I got off at Central Point and doubled back into Medford to pick up dad. Oops ^^;
I had a nice dinner with dad. We ended up a Red Robin, which is where I took mom for dinner last night. The bartender there probably thinks I'm a freak or something. I keep going in there with different middle aged adults :P (Which reminds me, I was carded when I bought a cheap copy of Devil May Cry at Target. The game is age restricted for 17 and younger :P ) Anyhow, we talked about his arm some and about my bro. Dad gave me the long version of the story that mom gave me the short version of earlier this week. It sounds like the door to opportunity is swinging open for Nanki, it really does. I hope he's able to slip through before it closes :)
After dinner I dropped dad off at mom's apartment and resumed shopping. Aunt Ginny's berfday is tomorrow and I'll probably be going to the 'girl's day out' that they're planning. (Though, I'll be somewhat uncomfortable because every other person there is likely to be at least twice my age...) I went to Barnes & Noble to find a book for her. I was thinking something Star Trek (she's a big trekkie) but decided on a copy of "The Dream Hunters". I think she'll like it :) I also discovered that B&N does free gift wrapping. I dislike wrapping with a passion. Wanna guess where many a Christmas gift is likely to come from this year? ^^;
10.12.02 :: 19:57
The day with the girls went well, though I learned that two of the women there were three times my age ^^; Aunt Ginny really liked the book. A lot of people gave her gift certificates because she's a hard person to shop for, but my gamble paid off :D I also learned that she's taken up carpentry as a hobby. (My aunt Ginny is an amazing woman. Nothing slows her down and she's always learning new things / trades!)
I was also reminded that I'd intended to build her a junker computer that she could play with. I'd put off doing it because I didn't have all of the parts I'd need. After getting back from the party I decided to scavenge around my parts closet and see if I had 'em. I did, but I had to dig *really* deep ^^;
Physically the machine could be described as Frankenstein. The face plates are mismatched (I was lucky to find enough face plates in the first place :P ) I stole the floppy drive from a 486 that also had a 5.25 floppy drive in it ^^; The hardest part in building the machine was getting the power switch in place (the switch that runs from the power supply to the switch on the front of the machine). I had to remove the face of the machine, then I had to take off the internal speaker. Doing that dislodged some of the diodes, but those are easy enough to pop into place. I scrounged up the right sized screws to secure the bracket that I was darn lucky to even have! (It's a little bent piece of metal. Do you know how easily something random like that could be lost forever in my house?!) Then was the hard part, securing the bracket to the case. I couldn't jam my fingers in there --; The space where the screw was to go was the size *of* a screw. That doesn't describe it well, but you'd understand the problem if you saw it. So, unable to get a screw in there to hold it into place it was time to use the duct tape. That held it nicely =D
I'm still loading software onto it. Nothing special; Windows, Office, a firewall, etc. The machine isn't good enough to do much media-wise, but she should be able to fire off emails no problem :)
While Windows was installing I played the Wild ARMs 3 demo. It's just like the other two games, which is a good thing if you like those games. I do, so I'm looking forward to playing WA3 :) Sly Cooper didn't do much for me. I tend to get aggrivated at games that lack a health meter. (One hit and you have to start the level over again). There wasn't much else on the OPM demo disc this month that interested me.
10.13.02 :: 11:07
I had a dream this morning that was a lot more visual than meaningful. I'll try to put as much coherent into this as I can, but I might just end up describing what I saw. The dream was in a couple parts. The first part had me and dad as the managers of some buildings on a college campus. My dad ran the main dorm building. I maintained a multi-story, multi-use building. It was mostly administration with the upper floors having some apartments that I rented to students whom I trusted not to cause problems. Pisces6 was one of those students.
I'd been having problems with people parking in the lot that went with my building. (Like, dorm students would park their cars there and then the residence of my building would have no place to park). Dad and I decided to go beanyatch on anyone who parked there without the proper permit. We posted a large sign explaining the parking policy and then kept our eye on the lot. Soon enough someone decided to test us. Two buses full of high school kids pulled into the lot and took up a heck of a lot of spaces. I ran down there and started yelling at the bus drivers to get the hell outta my lot. One of the drivers hopped out and started getting in my face. He tried to give me some money to go away and I tossed it back into his face. If he wanted to park here I would sell him a permit, but he'd have to go through the proper channels the next day. (This fight took place late at night for some reason). The buses were over flowing with students (literally, they were coming out the windows) and it was like a high schooler infection or something. I know that Pisces was watching what was going on and dad came out to pull me off the driver. I rolled over before we resolved our differences.
Part two of the dream. Summer break is a couple days away and the dorms are in the disarray that is normal for that time of year. I'm working over there a lot to help dad out. Pisces came over to show me some things she'd found while cleaning out her apartment. The first was a comic with an accompanying article. The featured cactaurs. The article made mention of something called "sklat-puppies". I copied / clipped the article so that I could send it to Sklathill and ask him what a sklat-puppy was.
Talking with Pisces about the comic reveled that it was based on a fan-made video. I asked her if she had the video and she thought that she might. We went to the student lounge where there was a couch and a big screen tv. A couple other people (including dad) meandered into the lounge and sat down to watch this cactaur video. It was pretty funny, though I can't remember why.
The credits rolled on the video and we chatted, then something else came up. That wasn't unheard of, both the FFVIII and FFX endings have more footage after the credits roll. But what played wasn't more cactaur high jinks. It was Xu getting ready to go to a celebration. She looked gorgeous, seriously, not just my rampant bias speaking. (And this is where we get to the visual part of the dream). Of course my interest was immediately piqued and wanted to know why she was getting all dolled up. A red-haired, big bosomed woman who was supposed to be Michelle (in the story) came up behind Xu and asked her if she was ready. Xu said she wasn't. Michelle chuckled and made an off comment about it not being everyday someone gets married.
Part three of the dream was the people in the lounge watching the video. Or, more precisely, all the action in the dream was the video we were watching. The celebration was taking place in the large ballroom that the SeeD graduation ball took place in. No one present was in uniform. It looked like it was more of a carnival than a wedding. We paused the video and laughed at how a merchant had expensive watches on Spyro the Dragon plush displays. How silly was that? The video resumed and there was a rival watch merchant doing slight of hand tricks to attract attention. A round man was peddling 'miracle' pills that he could spin at high speeds on the tip of his huge finger.
The outfits worn by those people I knew to be SeeDs reminded me of something that would have come out of Mahou Tsukai Tai (Magic User's Club). At least the hats they wore did. Everyone who was a magic user had a small pointed hat on their head. Michelle was the first one from the earlier segment of video to show up again. She had a magic hat on her head. I was too focused on wanting to see Xu again than to wonder how / why Michelle had that cap. She had a cloak on that provided the most fabric on her body (under it was pretty skimpy).
Then Xu showed up and I double blinked. Where she'd had her hair up in the last segment of video and it looked GREAT, she'd let it back down again. It didn't look nearly as cool. Her hat was a smaller than what most everyone else was wearing. Over the top of the hat was a veil that covered the top half of her face (it stopped at her nose). She was dressed in dark colors, almost like she was going to a funeral instead of a wedding. Xu was much more confident by this time, to the point of verbally jesting with Michelle.
We in the lounge were quite thoroughly confused by all this. Was this a carnival or a wedding? Who's getting married? Why are all the SeeDs wearing silly outfits? We wouldn't get all of our answers before I woke up (doh!) The last thing we saw was Xu leading the way down a corridor with Michelle on her heels. From their discussion we could surmise that there *was* a wedding going on and that it was down that hall.
10.13.02 :: 22:00
Woot! Disney is airing Kiki's Delivery Service right now. It's been a few years at least since I've seen it. (The last time was probably when I was in college). Heh, I wish Pepper was as clever as Jeff is ;) He helped Jiji escape. Unlike Pepper, who's been causing me grief tonight.
I *knew* she was up to something. I just didn't figure it out until this evening when I finally got a good look at her backside and discovered that she'd been gnawing on herself --; When I pinned her down and flipped her over it was a lot worse than I thought. It was a weeping wound that needed to be cleaned out well and have ointment put on it. When I tried doing it by myself she (of course) resisted... to the point of nipping me twice --; I called dad and he came over to help me hold her down. I got her cleaned up and dad's already planning on coming over tomorrow to help me do it again.
10.14.02 :: 21:00
I should have chased Sean's tail earlier. I've written 13k since I did so last night ;) Woot! More fic written ba-bee =D
Grr, okay, really aggravating tech e-mail of the day. A customer back east who does his hosting with us sent an email complaining that he couldn't send outgoing mail via his hosted domain name (as the SMTP server), but it worked find when he used his local ISP's SMTP server. I sent a response explaining how it was common practice in the industry to not allow email across your SMTP server except to those customers who were currently connected to you. (It's a spam prevention measure). It doesn't hurt anything to have his outgoing email routed through his local ISP.
He sent an email in response telling me that I didn't know what I was talking about and to forward him to a technician who had a fucking clue. If there's one thing that pisses me off, it's calling into doubt my tech ability when I *KNOW* I'm right. Anyhow, I did forward his email to one of our administrators. He looked through the headers, did some traces, and guess what? I WAS RIGHT! --; The admin promised that either he or our lead technician would email the customer again and reiterate what I'd already told him.
That customer really put a kink in my tail for the rest of the day --; It's one of those times when I wish I could be blunt and speak my mind. Just because he didn't like the answer didn't mean it wasn't true. If he doesn't like it, please, PLEASE find another host. This guy has been a pain in the ass for as long as I've worked at CyberNet. I can't being to tell you all the hell he's raised and yet, for some unknown reason, he continues to host with us. If we were truly as incompetent as he says we are you'd figure he'd go elsewhere already.
Dad came by the house tonight and helped me clean Pepper up again. The wounds are looking a lot better today, they're not bloody or weeping. Then we had dinner with mom. After that I went to DQ and ordered dad an ice cream berfday cake. I don't think we've ever done that for him before. It's something different :)
10.15.02 :: 14:25
I came across an interesting link today. This article talks about how a brain is a community of neurons and that the neurons need to be stimulated or you go stupid. (haha) Actually, it kind of reminded me of a Sims game. "Keep your neurons happy and watch your life improve! Starve them of stimuli and you'll become a reject!"
10.15.02 :: 22:21
Woot! It's been a good day! My Yuna lunchbox arrived today =D I went mom's office to pick up the package (where I had it shipped). She'd taken it up to her apartment with her after work. I went up there and saw that the landlord was cleaning out a recently vacated apartment. There were several pieces of furniture on the landing that the former tenant had left behind.
I talked with mom for a bit and then he came over (he'd been waiting for me o.O) Mom had told him that I could use a new couch and he said I could take the one on the landing if I hauled it away tonight. Hmm.. let me consider this.. old ratty couch that currently had a slip sheet over it because Pepper had torn the crap out of it over the years or a couch that didn't have any tears in the fabric and lacked any unusual scents.. I'll go find someone to help me move it!! *_*
I'm grateful that Justin was willing to help me move the couches around ^_^ I didn't think dad would be able to help much because of his arm. Justin and I moved the old couch out into the yard and then went to mom's apartment to borrow her van and get the other couch. Dad helped us get it loaded then came out to house with us to help get it in the house.
After that was done dad asked Justin if he'd carry dad's tv out to the van and get it up the apartment for him. Justin had no problems with that and hauled the tv around like it weighed nothing o.O; (The sucker was a 25" tv, I couldn't push it along the floor I don't think o.o; ) Justin got the tv up onto the entertainment center and I hooked everything up to it. A dvd I put in there to test it looked great =D Now dad can really enjoy (or attempt to enjoy ;) his berfday present =D
Another neat thing that happened today amidst all the tech support fires that had to be put out. Our sys admin wrote an email response to the customer I blogged about yesterday and CC:ed the response to me. It was beautiful =~) The first line of the email read "Amanda was correct in what she said." The two pages that followed that was a detailed and *VERY* technical explanation of why what I said was true. The technobabble was so thick that I had to stop and think about it when reading through the example logs he'd posted into the email. Knowing the customer this will probably only anger him, but oh well ^^; He should have accepted what I said (because I put it in simpler terms). Sometimes it doesn't pay to probe further ^^;
Oh! One other thing (though hopefully no one will even notice / care), but Centra Garden will be down from 10:30pm (Pacific time) Wednesday night until 4am Thursday morning. (I was the one who wrote up the announcement of server maintenance that was sent out to our customers today ^^;v )
10.16.02 :: 18:20
Didn't do much today except sleep. Bought some scent-based deterrent sprays to try to get Pepper to *not* hop up on the new couch and to *stop* gnawing on herself. It was unnerving when the lady at the pet store said that the anti-gnaw spray works on most dogs except those weird ones who like the taste. I can see it being my luck that Pepper is one of those dogs. I'll have to wait and see how it does.
10.17.02 :: 19:13
Today wasn't the best by any stretch. I was up at an unholy hour (5am), feeling pretty ill during work, and it was a stressful day. A pair of co-workers got into an argument behind me while I was sitting at my desk trying to help a customer. They were arguing about something *really* trivial and didn't stop until I motioned one of them to come over to my desk and read a log file I'd pulled up. It proved the point the other co-worker was making and sent him skittering to repair a server --;
I get off an hour early tomorrow. Yay. I wish I had more energy to enjoy it ^^; I'm planning on going to bed as soon as my hair is dry enough to not be a puffball when I wake up in the morning.
The anti-gnaw spray didn't work for Pepper. I checked her when I got home from work and she'd bloodied herself again. I'd applied the spray before I left for work. This was a long day today, but I think I'm gone for too long during the week days to be able to fully curb her =/
There's a bit more new info on FFX2. Mostly that it's not going to be two games (as originally announced), but one. I can dig that. I've updated the side link to the latest article about it.
10.18.02 :: 22:05
Here's the site of the day before I get into ranting about work. It's the Wild ARMs 3 official website. Yeah, yeah, I'm not linking it just because it's the game I'm currently playing. I'm linking it because it has a nifty 'demo' of the game that's a mini RPG made with Flash. Nothing in the demo reflects the actual game play, but the monster graphics are 'real'. I liked how you could find 'treasures' like AIM icons and wallpapers while exploring :) Very creative!
Okay, ranting time! I had two very difficult / frustrating calls back to back. The first was from a woman whose first words out of her mouth were "fix the mail server!" Okay, so I started probing to see what she thought the problem was. She could send email. She could receive email from all but three email addresses. Alright, I asked her how high she had her spam filter settings. She said that she wasn't using our "pay for" spam filter (we offer a spam filter for $2 a month), but the other one. I asked her what other one she meant? The *other* one, God, could she speak with a tech who knew what she was talking about? ... Unfazed I asked her how she accesses this other 'filter'. Via her web based mail. Ah, okay, so she was using the rules that were meant for sorting mail to create a spam filter. Ineffective at best, but whatever floats her boat.
I asked her if she had any of the bounced emails from the people so that I could read the headers. She said no. I asked her if she'd mind sending an email to them asking for a reply to see if we could get one with a bounced header in it. She said no. I asked if I could at least have the email addresses in question so that I could ask for the emails myself. She said HELL NO. I wasn't getting very far, as you can see. What made it worse was between every question I ask she demanded that I stop fooling around and fix the server already. Um, fix *what* on the server? You send and receive and you won't help me trace the problem emails. There isn't a helluva lot I could do for her at that point.
I told her that we were at an impasse unless she was willing to work with me here. She said that her clients were busy people who should have to waste time fixing our server problem. I finally said, "The server doesn't work the way you think it does." That ruffled her feathers some, but at least she was an ounce more co-operative after that. She gave me the domain names that the email addresses were at --; "Okay, I'll take what you've given me to the system admins, but I'll tell you now how it's going to play. They'll say "Okay, there's a complaint, let's look into it!" and ask for the email addresses. When I tell them that I only have domain names they're going to laugh at me and tell me to go away."
With her reiterated demand to just fix the damn server ringing in my ears I went back to the system admins. Both of them immediately hopped to, ready to help me track her problem down. I said I only had domain names. They didn't laugh, but they did say that they couldn't help me. [sigh] After a bit of brain storming one of them thought to look through the server logs for any messages that have come in from one of the domains in the last couple days. It took a bit of searching, but he found one record.
Wanna guess what the problem was? The customer's home-cooked, half-assed, penny-pinching, non-working "spam filters" were catching the messages. The sorting feature wasn't designed for what she wanted and this was the reason why. She had it set to delete the messages right off the server. So, I went in and rewrote her filters to send the messages to a folder I created and she can sort through 'em. Maybe she'll cough up the $2 for something that actually works, but I doubt it.
Conclusion: Stupid woman was blaming the ISP for shoddy email filters that *SHE* wrote. Time wasted on the call: 30+ minutes.
And right on into contestant #2. A woman called up and wanted to know the status of her trouble ticket. Since I wasn't the tech assigned it, I told her that I'd find the tech who was and get her to him. I ran off and found that he was working on a few trouble tickets at once with one of the admins (her's was in the batch, but, like, the third one down). He told me that he would give her a call as soon as they were finished with her ticket to confirm that it was done. So far, so good.
I scurried back to my desk and relayed the message to the woman. Her trouble ticket was in the batch, but it was a couple down in the pile. The tech would give her a call as soon as he was finished with it. Then I made the mistake of asking "That okay?"
"NO, THAT'S NOT OKAY!" she yelled into the phone. "My website's been down for days and it's ALL YOUR FAULT!" See, I don't like general accusations like that. I hadn't even heard of her or her website 3 minutes ago. I'm hardly at fault for it being down. (I'll explain this in more detail further down).
I reiterated that it was being worked on, it was in the batch, and she would get a follow up call when it was finished. It wasn't going to be within the next 5 minutes because there were a couple tickets ahead of hers. She asked me if we didn't prioritize our calls. No, we take them in the order they come in. (The only thing that is over-ridingly important is if one of *our* systems is down because that means *everyone* is being affected). Her website was more important than anyone else's problem (in her opinion) and should be fixed immediately. I pointed out that I'm sure our other customers thought that their issues were important as well. No, her's was more important. So I asked her what I should tell our other customers who are put off so that she could be the first in the queue?
She didn't like that question and demanded to speak with another tech. I said that I'd be happy to transfer her to another tech, but that wasn't going to change the answer. Her ticket will be addressed when it was her turn. She gave up on trying to find another tech and demanded to speak with the owner instead. (Keep in mind that not even I have spoken with the company's owners. I don't even recall their names ^^; ) I agreed and gave her the 800 number for the main office and the name of the #3 guy in the company. After wishing me a very unpleasant day, she hung up.
Shortly thereafter the admin who was working with the tech came by my desk for something else. I asked him where the woman was in the queue. He hadn't gotten to her yet and then rolled his eyes. The problem was that he'd send her an email a while ago telling her that she needed to do some things regarding her domain registrar information. She *hadn't* and now everything was all fuxored up. (We're not supposed to do any registrar stuff. The customer registers their own domains and we provide the name servers for them to be pointed at).
Conclusion: Self-centered woman was pissed because she couldn't have her way. Fucked up her own website and it was our fault (in her mind). Time wasted on the call: 7 minutes.
By the time the second lady was done with me I was pissed. Thankfully it was my lunch time and so I ate and went for a walk. The second lady especially ticked me off. She was so selfish in her insistence that *she* was more important than everyone else. And they *both* ticked me off for not living up to their own mistakes. When the second lady asked for the phone number and name of the uber-boss I was immediate in providing it. If she wants to talk him into slamming me down, so be it. I'll accept my reprimand whether I think I deserve it or not. There is such a total lack of personal responsibility nowadays that it makes me sick --;
I could rant on that for a while, but I'll save it for another night. There was other interesting call I got today. A customer called saying that he'd been receiving death threats via email. I asked what I should do about it and my boss said to tell the customer to contact the police. I think the company's policy on illegal net activity is along the lines of "Contact the police. If they have a court order dictating some action, we will perform it otherwise go whine to someone else." I can understand that stance (since ISPs do *NOT* want to be in the position of policing the Internet), but it still seems insensitive at times ^^;
10.19.02 :: 22:14
Um... Not much happened today. I wrote two more pages to the SeeDfic. And Sean suggested giving Xu a dog. I'm really considering the idea. I won't work it into the SeeDfic, but I do have ideas bouncing around for other stories and a dog could work well in those. [shrugs] We'll see when I get there ^^;
I took Pepper for a walk today. Actually, I dragged Pepper along for a walk today. She wanted to sniff every stone between here and the end of the road :P Other than Pepper and writing, I've done little else today ^^; Go me.
10.20.02 :: 17:58
I watched the Chargers vs. Raiders game with dad this afternoon. Usually mom doesn't let dad watch football, but we cut a deal with her today. Dad and I would work on a job for the print shop while watching the game. Mom had 400 (originally 5000) door hangers that needed to be cut. When they were originally printed the pressman hadn't noticed (or, actually, he had, he just didn't do a damn thing about it) that the die wasn't cutting all the way through the paper. So, that meant the little round hole part was hanging on and the straight cut for slipping them around door knobs hadn't been made. Dad sat there and made the rounded cut with a knife while I took a pair of scissors and made the straight cut.
Anyhow, onto the interesting part, the game. Wow, it was a real nail biter! The Raiders aren't an easy team to knock off (unless you're the 0-5 Rams :P ) Dad and I were anxious the entire time, afraid that the Chargers would choke. The first half was especially frustrating 'cause the Chargers were drawing a lot of penalties and the Raiders weren't getting squat. (Why wasn't that guy charged for interference when he had a handful of the Charger's receiver's jersey?) It went into overtime and, in my mind at least, it all depended on who won the coin toss. (Both teams have kickers who can get it between the uprights from ~45-50 yards, despite the Raider's kicker missing twice already). When the Chargers won the coin toss I knew that they had the game in the bag as long they weren't intercepted or anything stupid like that.
They won. Dad and I cheered. Mom kind of rolled her eyes at us and told us to come to dinner ^^; Yum, baked chicken :)~ After dinner dad and I finished up the 400 door hangers. Mom also gave me a halloween basket ^^ It had some bandaids, vitamins, PMS medicine, M&M's, and come cute lollipops in it ^^ The basket itself is really cute; made of fabric and plush.
Elf's making plans to visit next weekend. Woot! Now I need to get the house ready ^^; I've been quite a slob lately. I have computer parts laying all over the living room for one thing ^^;
10.21.02 :: 06:35
I didn't get nearly enough sleep x.X; I went to bed around 8:30pm and was up again around 9:30pm because of cramps. The Midol I took didn't have them kicked down to the point that I could sleep again until around midnight. (Ah well, that wasn't a total waste. I used the time to edit the SeeDfic that I wrote this weekend.) I slept until 3am, when I snapped wide awake for some reason. Didn't fall asleep again until 4am, then my alarm went off at 6am. Oi oi, this isn't the way to start a Monday ^^;
10.21.02 :: 18:34
I may be an arrogant computer technician, but it's only because people have force me to be. They force me to be firm when they won't *follow directions*. If I must sting their pride ("You don't see Display huh? They're in alphabetical order. No go? Okay read me every icon you see starting in the upper left, uh huh, uh huh, THERE! Double click on Display.") to achieve my ends, I will. Any yet, some still manage to foolishly cut off their nose to spite their face. Not once, but twice I was told by a customer that they would cancel their account to "resolve" their computer issue. I'm sorry, but changing ISPs is not going to fix a printer. If they want to believe that, then please go. I won't have to waste any more time.
I cracked 100 viruses today and there are still 10 days left in the month. Think I'll pass 120 before it's over?
10.21.02 :: 23:26
Dad came by tonight to watch the last half of the football game and help me clean up Pepper. She's *really* been going at herself lately =/ Dad says that he'll take her to the vet next week if he has it off. (Which is better than me not being able to take her at all, I simply can't this week..) She was sleeping on my bed this evening while I was playing Wild ARMs 3, then I heard a *thunk* and she'd fallen to the floor. The stupid mutt kept right on sleeping :P
I've teamed up with BlackMage for a FFO writing challenge / contest. It's sort of a member outreach for the 'oldbies' to get to know the 'newbies' better. (And for experienced writers to help the newer ones develop skills). In this case, I'm the newbie with BM as my oldbie partner. I'm glad that he decided to team up with me :)
10.22.02 :: 19:44
Today, for the first time in my beanie life, I was selected to take part in a beta (in this case, XBox Live). I'm torn between w00ting uncontrollably and being dubious. I've been a long standing opponent of online console gaming, but on the other hand, I get to beta something... Okay, so I forked over the $50 for the equipment and games for the beta. I'm a sucker dammit. (And with my luck I'll never get to beta anything ever again ;_; )
I actually can think of one instance of online gaming that I would be 110% for; Dynasty Warriors 3. My imagination tingles with thoughts of how *COOL* that game would be if you could get, like, 4 people on the map talking and slicing and dicing their way to the enemy general. You'd be playing with multiple people and wouldn't have half the screen. That should eliminate that nasty 'game-pausing' that happens when the person you're playing with Musous.
The kit should be here around this weekend I figure. It has the stuff I need for hooking it up and comes with 3 games: NFL Fever 2003, Whacked!, and MotoGP (the last two only have a few levels on them I think). They're also the ones I'm most likely to play. I like watching football, I have a fairly solid grasp of the rules, but when it comes to strategy I suck ^^; I'm thinking of inviting my dad over to see if he wants to call plays for me :P
Higher up on the w00t scale than Xbox Live is Silent Mobius. The third DVD set came out today and I got my grubby paws on it. Now I just have to find the time to watch it ^^; Elf's gonna be here this weekend. I wonder if he wants to watch anime? [laughs]
10.23.02 :: 20:55
When I sat down just now to blog I wondered what I'd actually write about. It was kinda odd since I almost always have my entries thought out before I sit down to write them ^^; I guess if I were to describe the week so far it would be as "busy". Y'know that's true if I'm also just sitting down to eat dinner.
After I got off work I came home and started cleaning. Things weren't dirty so much as disorganized. I had a few loads of laundry that I'd been meaning to do and so I'm doing it tonight, that sort of thing. My room has once again hit that state where I have too many books laying around and not enough shelf space. I hate having to pack my books away in boxes because then I forget about them (and where they're stored) =/ B'sides, books are happier when they're out for anyone to take them off the shelf and flip through!
The uber-boss is at our office tomorrow and Friday. He showed up at the end of my shift today and I was takin' a bit aback. I hadn't been doing anything :P But it's a long trip and we weren't expecting him. Anyhow, so he's going to be there tomorrow. I'm torn on how this might go. Half of me says to be paranoid tomorrow. The other half (more realistically) notes that he'll be too busy to give a flying cow about what I'm doing in the back corner of the tech room. I might see him in passing, but I probably won't exchange more than a few words with him.
10.24.02 :: 20:19
As you'll notice in the right side bar, I am now in possession of the coolest wallpaper on the web =D =D XD [massive hugs go to Helen for making it]. Yuna *_*
Ben got me with this tonight (beware of pop-ups). I picked up the second Hellsing DVD the other day too. It came with patch. I wish I had a (not ratty) backpack I could sew it to. That'd be cool =]
The weird customer call for the day award had a couple of contenders, but the winner was a person who called up to complain. The first words out of his mouth were "your server is down". I asked him what brought him to that conclusion, then pointed out that if they were down then the phones would be ringing off the hook. He ranted for a bit before I asked him point blank if he wanted to actually try troubleshooting his connectivity issue. His answer? "No" [click]. Uh, okay, from my technician's point of view, that was a complete waste of time. Thanks a lot, buddy ^^;
10.24.02 :: 22:15
Notice the time; 10:15pm. I just had a person call here wanting to conduct a SURVEY! WTF?! She says it's not illegal to call after 9pm if you're not selling something. Just because it's not illegal doesn't mean you should do it! [tells them to never call her back and hangs up.] And here I thought it might have been Elf because of the late hour --;
10.26.02 :: 08:30
Elf and Jeffy arrived safely yesterday. As soon as I got home from work we went to dinner and the fun began. I don't think I've laughed so much in quite a while ^o^ Elf is of the opinion that Yuna's new look is dubious. He's also dubious of Silent Mobius, especially when I started flipping through the manga and found scantily clad ladies within a few pages. (These were volumes I hadn't bought yet, like 7 & 8). He said he's stick with Princess Nine (even though he doesn't know baseball) over my Silent Mobius and Jeffy's Excel Saga. (Blasted perverts that we are :P ) So much fun ^^
When we got home the guys tried to get a temporary network set up so that they'd have net access, but something just isn't working =/ It could be the second network card in my machine, or the cables, or I dunno, something. If I knew it'd be fixed already ^^; We're hoping that the router I ordered comes in today (it should). Then we'll build the network the right way.
10.27.02 :: 00:29
We have discovered that Jeffy is far more leet at Jak & Dexter than I am. We have also discovered that Elf is far more leet at Dynasty Tactics than I am. ^^; At least neither of them have tried Wild ARMs 3 yet, so I can still claim to be leet at that game :P
Silent Mobius TV Spoiler Warning
I finished watching it today. I can except that the ending really isn't much of an ending (Nemesis is still out there, Tokyo is in shambles, etc.) What I have trouble swallowing is that somehow Katsumi is pregnant by a man who has been dead for over six months now. Uh, excuse me? Unless spirits can procreate (which would be a neat trick), she's been missing her period for six months and not noticing it :P Now, I do admit that when a woman is under a lot of stress things go haywire, but this is a bit much :P
Since neither Elf nor Jeffy have any interest in watching Silent Mobius, I blabbered at them about the ending. Elf was dubious of the who pregnancy thing. From the four episodes or so that he saw he wasn't surprised by how things turned out with Kiddy and her body. I lamented about Lebia and her losing Hewey, Dewey, Louey, and Donald and they were much more sympathetic to that. (Heh, computer geeks ^^; A woman losing all of her computers, it's a tragedy!) I must admit that if someone came and destroyed my computer systems, I'd probably break down in tears as well ^^;;;
That led us to discuss the whole network I'm trying to build. The parts didn't come in today --; I am so not impressed with UPS's 3-day delivery right now. Heh, but I also realized that all three of us have our own sort of networking ambitions. Elf is all about wireless. Jeffy's all about his PDAs and nifty cool gadgets. I'm all about getting my game systems networked and online ^^; (When I'm finished I'll have Yggy online as well as the Xbox, PS2, and DC. Not because I care about online gaming, but because I can!)
10.27.02 :: 17:21
BlackMage sent me a couple neat Persona 2: Innocent Sin website links that other day and I thought I'd share. Allegory of Whatever goes to an insane amount of detail when it comes to explaining the in's and out's of the story, mythology, psychology, etc behind P2:IS. Oracle of Maiya is the translated script to P2:IS *_* Now all I need is the game itself. It's on my "I really want it but I probably won't get it anytime soon" list (along with a PDA and a Japanese PS2). Hmmm... My bro said to email him what I wanted for Christmas... [Finds an online site that sells the game and fires the link off to her bro.] Hey, it's worth a shot, right? ^^;v
The Raiders lost today. [dances] The Chargers are in a tough division, and if the Raiders keep getting squished the Charger'll stand a better chance of making the playoffs ^o^ (Plus it's fun to cheer against the Raiders ;)
10.28.02 :: 20:22
It was one hell of a day today, no other way to describe it. Mondays is the busiest day of the week for us (as is true for most people) and Fridays are the slowest. So, as a consequence of scheduling snafus, illness, and alien abductions we ended up with 5 techs on Monday and (in theory) will have 9 techs covering this Friday. Would someone *please* explain the logic of this to me?
This morning absolutely *sucked*. Usually we'd have 5 people morning shift (what I'm on) and instead we had 2. TWO! Brian and myself, that was it! And there was only 1 front office person (instead of two), and no admins or management (they were in a meeting all day) [and weren't included in the original 9 person count to begin with]. So Brian and I held down the fort for 3 hours with most of the lines ringing the entire time. I was stressed. I became *more* stressed with Hollie (in the Medford office) kept ICQing me phone messages from Medford customers who couldn't get through on the tech line. I finally asked her (yes, I actually was more polite than I was feeling) to leave me alone. Then was not the time to be throwing more crap at me...
Noon finally rolled around and the evening shift people came in (likewise short-handed o.O) and Brian and I got to eat lunch. I wolfed it down and went for a walk. Needed to work off some energy x.x The afternoon didn't go much better even though there were technically 5 people on the phones. In reality it was an average of 3 because people kept having to go off to do things. It was as hectic as the morning had been --; I had a pounding headache all day and it left me feeling very drained by the time Brian and I returned to Medford.
I had dinner with my folks tonight. While talking with my 'rents I mentioned how the Xbox Live beta kit I ordered came in today. Dad fixed me with a *nasty* glare and eyetwitch. "Damn it, not again! You already have an Xbox?" He growled. Oops ^^; I ruined yet another Christmas present he'd planned on getting me. He was going to get me a lunch box and then an Xbox ^^; I told him that I didn't have a GameCube yet :P He said he'd buy me clothes from now on. I told him to buy me pants and gave him my size :P (That would save me a lot of trouble if they did the clothes shopping for me, actually. Then I won't have to sulk around the store looking for something that's around my size and trying to hide from sales associates ^^; )
Mom gave me copies of my brother's latest headshots. I laughed at them ^^; He was going for the 'geek' look and pulls it off remarkably well in a stereotypical way. (Hollywood would never put a "real" geek on screen, at least, no real geek that I've met ^^; ) Anyhow, one of the pictures reminded me a lot of Shriek from "Saved by the Bell". Nanki doesn't have the tight perm thing going for him, but the expression is a near match ^^;
10.28.02 :: 20:22
First impression thoughts of Xbox Live: The hardest part about it was getting the microphone attached the headset piece. The headset itself is really comfortable, I barely noticed that I was wearing it (and this is from a woman who wears a headset for a living). I wish we had ones like these at work =| It doesn't hurt my sensitive ear at all, nor feel awkward with my glasses. (I doubt I'm the only one who has her glasses fight with the phone headpiece for clinging space over her ear). I had to whap the cable modem into acknowledging the Xbox. (I really want the router I ordered to be here nowish, then I won't have to play with power cycling).
The only thing I *didn't* like was having to provide a credit card to activate the account. Keep in mind that you have to shell out $50 for the kit and 1 year subscription to begin with, and not everyone has a CC. Their licensing agreement gives them the OK to start billing against the card after the 1 year is up. Uh, that's what you think bubba. [Provides a card that will be expired in less than a year.] If they want one that's valid we can discuss it when the time comes...
I played a couple rounds of an online game that's very much like Cel Damage with some people back east (Chicago and Tennessee). I'm not very good at the run around and whack things sort of game, but it's amusing in short stints :) It's definitely more fun if you're playing with others.
10.29.02 :: 21:50
Well, blech, my PS2 half-died tonight --; (It could play PS2 games but not PSX games). I went to the game store to ask them what my options were. They said that it wasn't uncommon for the lenses in Sony products to go bad and that it was just a matter of time before my PS2 gave up the ghost. Vera said that Sony will repair the lens for free, but I'm not sure they will on mine. (I sort of took it apart a year ago 'cause I wanted to see what the insides looked like ^^; I'm pretty sure that's voided the warranty..)
I bought another PS2 and trotted home with it (and got the extended warranty and I'll keep my grubby lil paws out of this one, promise! Though I'm sure my fiddling didn't cause the problem that made my old one half-die.) Anyhow, I'm giving the old one to Jeffy. He already has a PSX, so he can play those games and this one still plays PS2 games. If / when it dies on him, he's lost nothing. If he can wring a few more hours of life out of the console, more power to him.
Pepper's going to the vet tomorrow and I don't think anyone's going to be happy by the time this is through. Pepper, of course, is going to be poked and prodded at. (Though she's always taken going to the vet's with good grace). Dad says he's going to tear into the vet. He's tired of me having to take Pepper in every other month because of skin rashes or ear infections. I gently reminded him that Pepper wasn't a computer or a car, you couldn't just replace broken parts. She's always had a tendancy towards those two ailments, even when she was a pup.
Anyhow... The nice part for me is he's going to pay for the visit this time ^^; When I moved back here I acquired a dog I didn't want and I've been paying for it ever since :P Don't get me wrong, I do care for her and I want to give her everything she needs... but I don't think it was very fair for me to be landed with the responsibility (financial and otherwise) of a pet I didn't want to begin with...
10.30.02 :: 13:35
A lot's happened today and the day is only half over. First, I had a dream this morning. It was one of those dreams that's as much feelings as it is about what I see. The gist of the dream was that I was engaged to someone, but I didn't know who (nor did anyone else, apparently). I was trying to figure out who on earth would want to marry me, but woke up before I did. It was one of those dreams that left me feeling empty and achy when I woke up. Oh well.
I went into work today to find a mess. A spammer had hacked the mail server and sent out a bunch of spam and viruses off of it --; I've gotten countless calls today from people complaining about the 40 some odd messages they received from this moron. It's nothing compared to the 2,148 complaints, viruses, and bounced emails I've received thus far today. (I'm not counting the viruses I get today on my monthly count because it would have easily doubled it...) --; I flippin' hate spammers, really. It's a strong word to use, but their actions are *SO* selfish. For their personal gain they cause me problems. Yes, ME, personally, the person who has to answer for their actions! I won't rant, but grr. GRRR!!
I called dad at lunch to see how things went with Pepper and the vet. The visited ended up costing him $177 and he was not pleased ^^; I get the feeling that the vet jerked dad around much the same way he's jerked me around. First he told me that Pepper was allergic to the carpet in the house. I'm not tearing up the carpet, so the mutt would have to deal with it. Then he said that she was allergic to her food bowl. All right, I went out and bought her new bowls. This time the vet told dad that she was allergic to her food. (Is there anything Pepper *isn't* allergic to?) Dad bought her new food, a different brand of medicated shampoo (I was already using medicated shampoo), and enough medication to open a doggie pharmacy. I don't see Pepper being very happy about all the pills, ointments, etc. that I've been told to give her over the next week ^^;
10.31.02 :: 20:25
No long or weird stories today (I'm tired and don't feel like writing them down ^^; ) I did go trick o' treating around to the neighbors like I do every year. Only two of them answered their door =/ The one who was looking out for me let me in and we chatted for a bit. The other one was an old lady who doesn't quite see the humor in a designated trick o' treater (so that you can claim you had at least one!) She gave me a candy cane o.O; I wonder if they're really selling them this early or if she's off-loading last year's supply...
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