Wednesday, July 14, 2010

*Bloop*

Got a TiVo Premiere over the weekend.  I would like to tell you about my experience with it but so far my cable company has been unable to provide a working CableCard.  I went through this with the Series 3 TiVo that I also have.   On Monday, when they tried to authorize the card, it didn't work.  So on Tuesday, I called them, and they verified the numbers, and tried it again.  This time they screwed up the authorization on my other two already working cards.  So today, they managed to fix what they broke, and I'm back to just the new card working.  Tomorrow, a cable guy is coming between 9 and 12 to to give me a new one.  Every single time I have to deal with this garbage with them.  I shouldn't know their customer service number off the top of my head, but I do.  I remember 3 numbers without my phone's contact list - my wife's cell, my parent's home phone number, and my cable company customer service line. 

That's just fucking ridiculous.  You better get it right tomorrow, Broadstripe.  Or, someone could buy my house so I could move to a new one that doesn't suck so bad.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Mind the dust

Yeah, I suppose I shouldn't just leave this place to rot.  I suggest those interested follow my Twitter for more likely updates.

Although, I may work up a post about Blizzard's recent Real ID dabbling, and why I think (and, well, I guess them too, now) it is the wrong approach.   Have to think about how to talk about that without leading people to believe I'm discussing Bungie policy, of course, so maybe not.  And then there is an interesting post someone made on bungie.net yesterday about how he was confused why people got to talk about evolution, but not religion.  He contended evolution was a kind of religion, and my opinion of public schooling dropped a bit after a bunch of people proceeded to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding as to what the scientific method is and why it, by definition, can't be in the same category as the concept of faith.  (For the record, truth can be found in both reason and faith, those blinded by either are doomed to never grasp true understanding).

For now, it is late.  Or early.  Whatever.   Perhaps we'll talk about that stuff later.  Your homework is to learn about St. Thomas Aquinas, my patron saint.  A little bit of a tight ass about certain aspects of morality (11th or 12th century Dominican Order priest probably means I can give him a pass on that), but the man was very good at describing how reason and faith are both sources of truth.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas, and good riddance to 2009

Merry Christmas all. I hope that this has been a good year for you. Unfortunately, 2009 has not really been a good year for a lot of people. Professionally, its been pretty good for me. Halo 3: ODST did really well, the Bungie Store is finally back, Reach is well underway, etc. Other events, however, have made this a generally a shitty year. First, my wife gets laid off from Expedia in some mass layoffs they did. This causes us to have to drop down to one car, which was at times irritating. Then we went through a series of Jarrah getting "almost hired" for various jobs, only to find out the company went with an internal person so they didn't have to add new headcount. Then one of our Great Danes becomes very ill, and after a harrowing night in the vet hospital, a few days of recovery, and a huge vet bill, he's okay. Of course, now he has a $150/month injection to keep him from getting sick again.

Things just sucked more after that - my paternal Grandfather died - and while he had been sick for a while, I wasn't able to get back east to the funeral, which really sucked. And then in October, my maternal Grandmother died - at least I was able to go to that funeral.

Finally in November things began looking up. Jarrah got hired at a great company, I got a new car. Jarrah just stabled her new horse that she got as a gift. After a nice end of year vacation, we'll hit 2010 ready for a good year. This will, with a bit of luck, include a new house for me and my family.

Hopefully everyone has a better year than 2009.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Support a Good Cause

My wife regularly volunteers with the Phoenix Rising Horse Sanctuary in my area. They're doing a big fundraiser dinner / charity auction this year, so if you're looking for a good cause, please contribute.

Of particular note is a few donated items to the auction that are Halo related, including a couple of ODST and Reach posters that have been signed by the team, and a few copies of ODST and some other games I had lying around.

So, check out the web site, and we thank you for anything you can give.

Friday, September 18, 2009

On a lighter note...

Prepare to drop, ODST is coming. I won't be at the EMP for the launch event, though. Have to be at the office watching things peak - if anything is going to go wrong, it would happen on launch day. Have to be prepared, and all that.

Hope you all have fun. Just as a warning to all of you - take mass transit to get there. There is a Pearl Jam concert that night at Key Arena - parking and traffic will suck in the vicinity of Seattle Center. Do yourself a favor and take a bus or a taxi or a monorail (lol) or light rail to get there.