The Horror, Oh How Horrible

My PC might be the quirkiest in the entire world.

Lately, I've been troubled by the random processes, admin services, and slow boot-ups on my PC. It eventually got to the point (after installing Adobe CS3) that IE7 failed to connect and I couldn't do anything about it. So I decided it was time to do a full reinstall.

Now, for some reason, my DVD-RW burns perfectly, but it can't read a boot disc to save its life. It might be because its on SATA or something, I'm not sure, but it doesn't work. My other DVD drive boots, but it only boots off of DVDs. Every single CD that I put in there failed to boot...strangely enough. I threw in two version of Windows XP, a copy of Ubuntu that I installed on my laptop, finally reverting to my old Windows XP DVD and a DVD Fedora 5. Only the DVDs worked. What now?

I ended up burning the CD images of my new Windows XP onto DVD's, which ended up working quite well, but for some reason, I felt like I should try to set up my RAID. It's been the bane of my PC since I built it. I could never quite get a slipstreamed XP install to work with NVRAID and I'd always spend hours trying before giving up and installing in two separate partitions. So, instead of being smart, I rush things and wipe my hard disks and set up a RAID0 array with them. Of course, by this point, my floppy drive was fubar and I couldn't make a RAID driver disk to set up my raid (like I was hoping to...) so I'm stuck again trying to get my floppy working to make an NVRAID disk before reinstalling Windows with RAID. Unfortunately, my floppy was just messed up. Nothing I could do about but give up again...

But, thanks to new technology and savvy computer programmers around the world, someone devised a program that lets you add slipstreamed drivers. I downloaded nLite on my laptop, extracted the windows image file, added the RAID drivers to the disk, set up the slipstream...and VOILA. I'm half way through my installation and it's working! By golly-gee! It's working!

I feel like Marlow when he finally reaches his destination to see Kurtz. It's finally come together like I've always wanted...yippee.

Btw, does anyone want to join a 8-12 man keeper fantasy football league this year? I think I want to run one in perpetua. And should I think about buying Settlers of Catan for myself, just so I don't have to rely on other people to have it around in order to play? Just a thought. Shoot me a line.

My Day With The CSR

The CSR.

The ubiquitous customer service representative. What a day.

I ended up talking to three different customer service reps today and it just amazes me at the level of courtesy that some of these companies demonstrate.

This morning I found out that Comcast in Georgia was having a promotion on high-speed internet for existing customers, so I called in to see if that same promotion extended to Northern California. Unfortunately, because Comcast doesn't actually do nationwide promotions (technically), they couldn't offer it to me. Still, this lady on the phone was upfront and nice enough to initiate the conversation about the promotion while still telling me that they couldn't do anything for me at their branch, but to check in with the national service number and transfer to my local office.

Following her lead, I called the national toll-free number and get redirected to another CSR. I lead in and start something about hearing about some promotions for existing high-speed internet customers and whether those promotions were available in the area. She says no. We don't offer promotions from existing customers. Then she asks me what cable service I have. I respond by saying that I have digital cable. She then looks in my account to see if she can offer an upgrade or anything and the best she can do is give me the Triple Play if I upgrade to Comcast Home Phone service. Of course, reading other forums, I thought I might be able to get the Triple Play (@33.95/month) without getting the phone service, so I ask. She responds with a very snippy, "Sir, we aren't a promotions company" followed by "and it says you don't even have digital cable" (which I don't, I thought I did, but apparently I only have standard cable). Now, I'm sitting there thinking "WTF?". You're a service provider, which is competing against other service providers. If I wanted to switch services, and said so, I'm sure you've got instructions to give me whatever deal I want just so that you don't lose my business. And this CSR accosts me for a simple consumerist question and mistake? At that point, I basically say thank you and hang up, since I obviously wasn't going to get through to her and get any sort of deal.

Now, I now it's a bit selfish to want a better deal on my cable service, but at $100/month for internet and cable, I'd like to get some sort of discount that everyone else gets. I really want to switch to Verizon FiOS, but they don't offer it here...

Then, later in the day, I had to call Logitech support about my refurb MX Revolution. that couldn't sync and wouldn't work. I ask about my receiver and they don't even ask if I've tried anything to fix it. They just asked what it was, where I got it from, then told me to deal with woot to get an exchange, since they didn't "deal with refurbished items". Of course, I know I've heard of people getting sent exchange items from logitech for broken items before, so I know that some of that is bull. Especially since if it's under 30 days, it should be more of a concern than after 30 days when their end kicks in. I guess they just wanted to shirk responsibility. Anyways, they tell me that they can exchange my receiever dongle, out of courtesy, then as they're trying to get my RMA#, they tell me that they don't have any more in stock and they won't know when they'll get some. Sucks. They tell me that if I want one, to call back later to see if they're in stock, otherwise deal with the seller. Nice cop out.

So I check woot to see if anyone else has a problem with these refurbs and lo and behold, everyone does. Apparently, no one thought to sync the dongles with the mouse, so you can install everything and it won't connect. I'm forced to install SetPoint 4.0, then sync it with this long and awkward reconnect process (hold left click, turn off, then on, right click five times, then let go of the left click). After doing that once, I get a response, but my mouse does this quirky thing where it only goes left and right. I try and try, but it doesn't go up or down. I try it in two different ports, then I unplug my other mouse to see if there's interference, but when I reboot, I get an IRQ conflict. Great (lesson #1 don't install setpoint over another version of setpoint, it sucks). So I go back and reconfigure everything to they way it was before and try it again, this time with the receiver in my PC USB slot. Same thing. Left-right, but no up-down. I'm starting to get frustrated, so I check the mouse in my laptop. It works. Wow. I uninstall setpoint again. Re-plug in the USB dongle into another port. It works...hmm...ok...I install SetPoint. Boom. There it is again. Left, right; but no up or down. SetPoint is screwing up my drivers to the point where I can't use it. I check on the Logitech forums and everyone is complaining about the 4.0 version of the software and most people can't get it to work the way it should. I take their advice and end up uninstalling SetPoint, deleting all instances in my registry, then install SetPoint 3.30. Gold. My new mouse works, I didn't need to return it, and I get to be happy for a day. Gold.

Oh, and I bought new shoes. Almost got a TV, but I backed out of it after thinking some more. And I made $120 in an hour of poker. Gold.

RSS Feeds

I added a new RSS of Interest widget on the sidebar so I can share some of the more compelling articles I read throughout the day. Enjoy them.

Majority Of Republicans Are Idiots

Sigh. Do you know what's wrong with this world? It's run by a bunch of half-moronic apes that can't figure out the difference between their ass and their head.

New Gallup poll suggests that the majority of Republicans favor creationist and intelligent design models over evolution.

The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. This suggests that when three Republican presidential candidates at a May debate stated they did not believe in evolution, they were generally in sync with the bulk of the rank-and-file Republicans whose nomination they are seeking to obtain.

You can read the rest here...http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=27847

I Just Worked A Long Time...

I worked about 7 hours today. I'm tired. Of course an hour and a half was listening to a lab meeting presentation, but hey, that's what I'm paid to do. I was productive though. I ended up designing a new E-Prime task with user input for a working memory span test. I have to debug and fix typos tomorrow, but the mechanism works, and it records the data that I want, so I'm happy.

I've got a longer post coming up later, whenever I figure I want to write it. It'll be interesting though. I promise. I hope. What's it going to be about? Let's just say, I'm going to try to resolve the staggering issues that restrict Strip Poker and make it a viable game.

Can it be done?

I dunno, but it'll be fun to try it in my head. I'm gonna sit across Jessica Alba and see if I can win.

I Guess I Need To Relish The Moment And Ketchup On Videos

I've been out the last few days celebrating Maggie's birthday in SF, then going to FC to hang out with people, especially Mike before he leaves for Coast Guard boot camp (to drill).

I was hoping to have some pictures, but since I left my camera at Maggie's house, I'll have to be briefer in my update.

On Thursday, I took Maggie shopping in SF. We went around Union Square to find all the bigger stores. At one point, we hit up the Apple store and overheard people trying to pre-order the iPhone. I guess that means people want iPhones, and are willing to pay through the nose for it...

I got to stop into the Giorgio Armani store, though. They have a lot of discounted suits, so I might end up there to pick one up later. I enjoyed trying some stuff on. I think Maggie tried on a jacket and made some comment that suggested she'd never be happy wearing another suit again. I'll share those sentiments. It was cool. Impressive little cafe too.

Later that night, we went to Cheesecake to eat dinner. It was pretty good. I still have leftovers that I need to tackle tomorrow, but I was happy with the service and the food. Unlike the last few times where we were left hanging on our food, the pastas came quick and our cheesecake to go didn't end up missing a corner.

Anyways, I went back to FC on Friday, kind of on a whim, since I was planning to stay in Berkeley, and I ended up eating dinner with Maggie's family and then seeing Ocean's Thirteen with a bunch of people. Magically, it was enjoyable, even if it was a bit shallow. A lot of things happened, and even though you knew they couldn't fail, it was fun watching how they did it. The Oprah bit is probably the most comedically touching moment in the film, so if you go see it, keep an eye out for it. Otherwise, the movie was charming, fanciful, tasteful, and not bloated like every other movie I've seen this week.

Saturday I ended up waking up ridiculously early to go see Andy on his first day back from Japan. I took the 6:30 Millbrae BART to Dublin/Pleasanton to meet up with him before heading down to San Jose (in the most roundabout way) to play in Magic Regionals with a borrowed deck and no preparation. Needless to say. I lost pretty badly. But so did Andy, and he tried harder than I did. So I guess I'm ok. I had planned to go back to Berkeley afterwards, but I ended up going back to FC and hung out with people again. We ended up watching The Prestige (which I had seen before) and then burned time with 20 questions. Nothing special, but it was nice just hanging out.

Today, I slept a lot, trying to make up for my early mornings and late nights. At any rate, I didn't do anything all day except watch Mythbusters and Law and Order: SVU with Maggie. Apparently, you can't die from your own flatulence...and you can die if you rape a frat pledge...who knew? Tyler, Mike, Yuan, Maggie, and I then went to BJ's for dinner (after Yuan and Mike had already eaten dinner), watched the Cavs suck some more, then hit up the local pool hall. We played 8-ball and 9-ball, and some ridiculous variants. Trying to speed up the game, we played speed 9-ball where people had to hit the ball in three seconds before the last ball stopped moving from the last hit. It was ridiculous watching Yuan run around the table trying to get to the ball before it stopped, then missing wildly, scratching anyways. Awesome. Too bad I still suck at pool, cause I missed way too many easy shots, but oh well. I'm not worried about getting hustled anytime soon, so it shouldn't matter how awful I might be.

Oh, and just so you don't miss out on a video. We watched an SNL re-run, which I thought was hilarious...and appropriate given that he just lost his title a few weeks ago.



This was actually really hard to find, since NBC Universal likes being copyright nazi's on YouTube...but it's there.