one.o.eight

March 23, 2008

Maybe Someday

I've loved the Nissan Skyline GT-R since I first came to know of it back in '97. They're simply lovely cars in all respects. But being unavailable in the USA (save via expensive private import), they've always been beyond affordable to me. Now Nissan is bringing a new GT-R to market, and this time that market includes the USA. Honestly, I doubt the 2009 GT-R will be any closer to a realm of affordable for me, but that fact doesn't detract from the car's appeal. "Maybe someday," I'll just keep telling myself that. It's worked my whole life so far. :/

Of course, I'd "settle" for an old R34 (or R33 or R32) any day of the week. <.<

Posted by Tacitus at 08:58 PM | Comments (3)

January 31, 2008

Maccy Goodness

It has arrived! My MacBook Pro is here. It arrived last week actually, but I've been so busy that I only now am getting to play with it. Two of the first things I ran into were: the lack of a BACKSPACE key (FWD-DELETE to some, and yeah, I've been on Windows for a few years now) and how to disable the CAPS LOCK key. Luckily a few Google searches turned up solutions.

I've been really good so far; only loading things I need for school. All right, I admit it, my World of Warcraft discs are in storage so I can't install it until I locate them. :P

Anyways, I'm looking into ways I can develop in C# and java on MacOS X. So I'm reading up on Mono for its .NETiness, and NetBeans and such for java. My system knowledge is by no means expert, and it's been forever since I've worked with anything *NIX-based (and even then I was at most an "intelligent" user), so I have some work ahead of me.

*sigh* If only I could find a free weekend between now and May to really dig into this stuff. Se la vie. At least I'm once again on a Mac!

Probably the biggest question is what to name her. And, yes, she is she. :P

Posted by Tacitus at 08:31 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 04, 2007

Void Conundrum

I'm buying a laptop; a Mac laptop; a MacBook Pro. Yay me!

But I have a decision to make. I've been waffling for days now. (1) Do I pay Apple US$200 to upgrade my laptop to a faster hard drive before before shipping, or (2) do I buy the same faster hard drive separately for approximately the same price, and install it myself. The latter option would leave me with an extra hard drive, and an external enclosure for it would run about US$30 extra.

On the surface option 2 might seem like a good route; however, if I replace the hard drive myself, I void the laptop's 1-year warranty. Were this a desktop unit, I wouldn't worry, but as this is a laptop an intact warranty seems like a good idea.

Decisions decisions.

Posted by Tacitus at 08:21 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 18, 2007

Beldar, I Am With Phone!

It arrived today; a box of phoney goodness. *giddy* Now comes the charging of the batteries! *waits* ... *impatiently*

Posted by Tacitus at 11:21 PM | Comments (0)

October 16, 2007

Phoney Baloney

How fucking hard can it be to get a goddamn phone?!

First it was Bell South. Order landline (Beats me why! Because it's what's done? :P). Wait for activation. Never happens. Receive bill for non-existent service. Call Bell South with old cellphones. Burn up all the fucking free minutes trying to find a human being with two damn brain cells to rub together. Still receiving billing statements from them; the last one just for the Federal Subscriber Line Charges for a non-existent landline!

Then decide just to localize cellphones. Go to Cingular AT&T store at local mall. (Big mistake!) Get issued crap phones. 29 days later, return. Me: "These phones suck." Mall store flunkies: "Yeah, we knew that." Cancel service. Under 30-day deadline thus avoiding early termination fees. (At least that went right!)

A few days later, try to get new service plan (with decent phones via an online vendor) again from AT&T. (The mall store and their crap phones blew; giving the network another try because I dislike Verizon more than AT&T.) But... AT&T tells vendor we owe them money. Call AT&T. Pay the $1 outstanding. (Yeah, one fucking buck!) Call online store. Ok, well send phones. 4 days later, still waiting on phones.

Call online store. AT&T still says we owe money! I took care of that already. Okay, we'll ask them again, and if everything's fine, we'll expedite new phones to you.

The wait goes on. This is bullshit.

If Bell South sends me another invoice I'll fucking explode.

Posted by Tacitus at 08:26 PM | Comments (0)

September 08, 2007

Cingularity

I got a new mobile plan and number today. I've indentured myself (again) for two years to Cingular AT&T. I used to be with Cingular back in VA, and was about as happy as one can be with a telecom. I switched to Verizon when I moved to NJ, because (1) Cingular in NJ wanted $20 more a month to localized my phone number (because I was just a teensy bit outside of my VA calling plan), and (2) my company had a deal with Verizon that made it seem worth trying. In a word, my Verizon experience blew. Basically they never listened to me. I'm so looking forward to calling them up and canceling my Verizon plan. Hey Verizon! Can you hear me now?! Bitches. Ah, but what'll they care? They got what they wanted; my money in their pocket. That's what they're really talking about when they say "America's most reliable network".

Posted by Tacitus at 10:42 PM | Comments (0)

July 17, 2007

Meeboohoo

My company blocked Meebo. They SUCK!

That is all.

Posted by Tacitus at 01:23 PM | Comments (0)

June 26, 2007

Mee Noo Bo

A long time ago--well, it seems like a long time ago--my company shut down all instant messaging chat with the outside world. I entertained myself for a time with attempts to tunnel out through all the blocked ports using HTTP Tunnel. Results were at best mixed. Then HTTP Tunnel shut down their free server for way too long, and all communications went dead. I've been living in darkness ever since... until now.

Meebo, I love you! *hugs Meebo* You are my new bestest friend! Until you fail me and/or something prettier comes along. :P Hey, just being honest.

All my chats (AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger) on the Internets! Ooo! Ahhh! Ohh! Who'd a thunk it!

Yes, I am a dork. :P

Posted by Tacitus at 04:12 PM | Comments (0)

January 25, 2007

It's a Snap

Found a cool feature on another blog today. So I stole it! Ok, I actually just added the same feature to my site too. :P Is it trite or derivative to do so? Possibly.

*grins*

Go ahead, roll over a link, any link. Okay, not a link to something on this site, but an external link. Wait for it... Neat huh?

[EDIT: And... the honeymoon is over. This thing is getting a little annoying. I've dialed it back to only work with links in my blogs and not all other the gdmf'in place.]

Posted by Tacitus at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

November 13, 2006

Tis the Season for Spamming

I have angered the SPAM gods, and for my sins am being pelted with tiny tins of preserved meat. Like a springtime garden my list of banned IP addresses blossoms with new growth. There's a haiku in there somewhere. :P

Posted by Tacitus at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)

November 07, 2006

You SPAM, I Ban!

Geez! What's wrong with you people? I go to my comments box to find that some fucktards have blown digital snot all over it. It's disgusting! Stop spamming me, you jerks!

There. I've put my foot down. Problem solved. (I'm delusional, I know.)

Posted by Tacitus at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)

October 30, 2006

Spamtastic

Banned 10 new shiny IP addresses today bringing my count of unwelcome guests to a whopping 23! If you listen very carefully you'll hear a tiny drop of justice splish into the vast ocean humanity's digital tears. But seeing as I get about 1000+ junk emails a week, this is small potatoes to be sure.

Posted by Tacitus at 07:17 PM | Comments (0)

September 29, 2006

Tin Lizzy

Some days getting Trillian to connect through HTTP-Tunnel to AIM, MSN, and YAHOO is like crank-starting a problematic Model T. You crank and crank and eventually it's up and running... sometimes. Today is one of those other times when things just aren't working.

[ TRIVIA: Estimated fuel economy of a stock Ford Model T was ~25 miles/gallon (~9.4 litres/100km). That's better than many cars today! And the engine could run on either gasoline or ethanol. Talk about one step forward, two steps back. ]

Posted by Tacitus at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)

August 22, 2006

Laptop Lazarus Redux

My laptop did it again. It died a nasty death. *grumbles* This is the second time my hard drive has failed in less than two years!

So here we are once again it and I staring blankly at one another; it already bogged down with all of the processor-robbing "enhancements" that come with a fresh Windows XP install, and I with a handful of CDs laden with the software I need to function.

I have lost practically everything; mostly personal stuff. Strangely my Yahoo! Messenger friends list appears to have vanished. Perhaps it is just a matter of coaxing the messenger to use HTTP-Tunnel again. I hope so. Now if only I could remember which password I used... Regardless, my friends lists for everything seem incomplete. So if you see me online and I don’t say hello it may be because you have gone missing from one of my lists and I could not remember your screen name. So please message me!

*inserts an install CD*

Okay, Lazarus, let's do this again...

Posted by Tacitus at 03:59 PM | Comments (0)

May 15, 2006

Banned!

IP 68.80.217.123 you are banned for spamming me, jerk!

Posted by Tacitus at 01:33 PM | Comments (0)

March 29, 2006

Set It and Forget It

Wonder what product Ron Popeil would invent for this? (Ignore scary researcher guy.)

Posted by Tacitus at 02:52 PM | Comments (1)

March 07, 2006

Eleven Days

My site is graciously hosted by a dear friend of mine. Thanks, J! ^_^ *big hugs* Eleven days ago, the ISP hosting this site went bye-bye, and in the migration to a new home, things went KABLOOEY! Posts got out of sync with indexes and permissions got scrambled, not to mention DNS pointy things pointing to everywhere but here. But everything is fine now... We're all fine here. Everything's fine... How are you?

Posted by Tacitus at 04:59 PM | Comments (1)

February 24, 2006

Comments, Spam and Capital Punishment

Comments (as few as there are) are now being screened before being published. This is to filter out the crap that has been finding its way onto my pages as of late.

And yes, I am in favour of capital punishment for spammers.

Posted by Tacitus at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)

January 18, 2006

Pork: The Other Glow-In-The-Dark Meat

Don't like green eggs and ham? Better get over it, because breakfast may never be the same. ;)
 
 
 

Posted by Tacitus at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2005

The Name is Mud

It's official; has been for a week now actually. Macromedia, the makers of Director (and Flash), the authoring software with which I make my living has been bought by Adobe. I hope in the inevitable shuffle, combining, and trimming of product lines that Director makes the cut, or my name is mud!

*nervous laugh*

Posted by Tacitus at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

October 25, 2005

And Now for Something Completely Superficial

Figures! I finally break down and buy an iPod, and Apple has to go and make the next generation one in black! Bastards! Grr!

*grumbles*

Posted by Tacitus at 03:59 PM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2005

Beware the Ides of October

Firstly, happy birthday to my love! <3

It had been raining here for eight days and nights. I do not exaggerate. From torrential downpour to light drizzle and back again, water had been falling from the sky for over a week without pause. There was major flooding north of here, but not us; the sandy soil letting the water run almost straight down rather than stand were we live.

Then this morning we were awoken early by none other than sunshine streaming through our bedroom window. My love's birthday arrives and we get sunshine! The clouds had parted in the early morning hours and the sun was shining through.

Ugh!

*stuff head into pillow*

So... despite the blasted sunshine our day started as they almost always do on a Saturday; late. Then off for a semi-spontaneous (i.e., unprepared) adventure to Barney, the Barnegat Bay Lighthouse, on Long Beach Island, New Jersey. I would have pics but the stupid camera decided it had just enough power to perform all of its available functions save recording images to memory.

Hulk smash! Well not exactly; though believe me I wanted to do just that!

Stupid camera.

It did capture two images though... of the inside of the lighthouse. Ooo wow! Look at...

what is that?

I'm not sure... um...

*shrug*

Stupid camera.

So up the lighthouse stair (217 steps, 172 feet up) we climbed; thirty-eight pounds of three-year-old held in one arm... OMFG am I ever out of shape!

There was a time I could launched myself over the heads of full-grown adults and land safely on the other side; tucking and rolling of course, but not now. All this time sitting at a desk has taken its toll. :( I'm not fat, but I've lost a lot of muscle mass... but still weigh the same. ;_;

Anyways, after experiencing the fierce winds atop the lighthouse, and the only slightly less exhausting decent of the lighthouse stair, we strolled leisurely along the nearby jetty enjoying the spectacle of the sea, sand, and nearby salt marshes. Jet skiers where zipping about in the inlet launching themselves off the tops of cresting waves; mildly entertaining for a time, but eventually becoming annoying as the buzz of their engines was unceasing.

Then it was back to the car for the return trip home and possibly a nice celebratory dinner... but then things went horribly wrong.

Horribly? Well maybe not horribly? But they could have been horrible, had we not had the fortune of finding our way to the Manahawkin Shell Station.

As we arrived on the mainland over the bridge from Long Beach Island, the instrument panel in the car went dead... (suddenly we were hurtling along at 0 mph but keeping apace of 50+ mph traffic) ...then the transmission started trying to shift (automatic) without the benefit of computer guidance. Very scary feeling. Imagine riding along at 50-ish mph and having the drive train feel like it's going to lock up and rip itself out from under you. An exaggerated sensation no doubt, but still. Scary!

Like a golden beacon in the distance peeking up through the trees stood the Shell Oil sign. We made it into their parking area as the car died.

3:30 pm on a Saturday.

First let me say, the people at Manahawkin Shell on Route 72 are freakin' awesome!

They were busy as hell, but they still had time to inspect our car and determine the alternator had died. Which came strangely as no surprise to me. Telltale signs had been manifesting over the course of the past few months... signs that in hindsight foretold the impending doom of the alternator.

4:00 pm on a Saturday.

Then came the unexpected...

"If we can get the part today, we can have you out by 5:00 pm."

*blink*

Cool!

4:57 pm we were back on the road and heading home.

I wish I lived closer to these guys. If I did, they'd get all my automotive business from here on out. I highly recommend them.

Anywho... a trip to the Outback Steakhouse for dinner on the way home and then a little gaming and sex (not at the Outback, mind you) to round out the evening and our day was complete!

So a very happy birthday to you and yours whenever that may be, but beware the Ides of October for they are rife with hardships for all devices electrical in nature, be they cameras or cars.

Posted by Tacitus at 11:45 PM | Comments (0)

October 10, 2005

Welcome to Johnny-Cab

"Please state your destination."

"The DARPA 2005 Grand Challenge and step on it!"

The DARPA Grand Challenge is (or now "was" since someone collected the prize this year) a U.S. government–sponsored competition aimed at accelerating research and development in fully autonomous vehicles. A $2 million prize was offered to the first autonomous robotic vehicle capable of completing on an under-300 mile, off-road course in the Mojave Desert (located in the southwestern United States).

Last year the best distance traversed by one of the robot vehicles was 7.36 miles. This year five robot vehicles completed the 132-mile course! And four of those within the allotted 10 hours! Simply... wow!

Hat's off to Stanley: winner of the 2005 Grand Challenge!

Posted by Tacitus at 11:39 AM | Comments (0)

July 11, 2005

Here I Go Again

Once again chat has become unreliable. When I launched HTTP-Tunnel this morning, a message box popped up requiring me to download a newer version of the software (the current "old" version was less than a week old). Apparently my outdated version had a feature enabled that actually allowed the software to work!

Now it doesn't work for shit! Up. Down. Up. Down. All damn day.

Maybe it's just me, but if you're going to offer software and free service, the least you could do is make sure your shit works! I'm only trying to use it for chat people. It's not like I'm downloading scores of porn! Jeez!

*checks the fine print for the free service sucks clause*

Posted by Tacitus at 06:15 PM | Comments (0)

July 06, 2005

All Your Chat Are Belong to Me!

Hot dog! All chat is back! I just downloaded the latest version of HTTP-Tunnel and AIM, MSN and Yahoo! Messengers are all happily connected (via Trillian).

:D

Now I can pester and be pestered all day long at work by everyone on my friends lists. Pester away me hearties!

...

/poke

Hey! I'm talking to you!

*giddy*

Posted by Tacitus at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)

June 14, 2005

I See Assholes... and Monkeys... but Mostly Assholes

What kind of message does a company send when it blacklists all IM software; appending this new article of conformity to its Computer Ethics Policy? Are they implying that chat software is inherently unethical or just the use of chat software?

Guess this was the only way IT could deal with the virus issues they were having -- what with idiots accepting unsolicited files through chat and all. Rather than take steps to stem idiotic behaviour, they just ban all chat software. [Translation: the idiot(s) involved must be too high up the food chain to warrant behavioural modification. (Ever notice how idiots always seem to fail upwards? -- they and assholes, but I'm getting ahead of myself.)]

Any organizational structure can be likened to a tree full of monkeys, and this secret volcanic lair is no exception. When the leaders (at the top of the tree) look down at the masses, they see nothing but smiling faces looking up at them. The rest of the monkeys (at the lower end of the tree) however, look up and see nothing but assholes.

So here I stand (or sit rather -- or is it cling?) in blatant disregard (Ooo! Aren't I naughty!) of company policy. I shall not remove these apps form my work computer. They are my sanity links. They connect me to my friends, family, and peers. I use them to gossip, share knowledge, and ask questions. They are as much tools of my trade as the authoring environments in which I code. [Warning: Total geek alert!]

So, Management, you can have my IM when you pry my mouse from my cold, dead fingers! <^>

Posted by Tacitus at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)

May 25, 2005

Are the Walls Closing In or Is It Just Me?

Perhaps my previous elation was premature. The tunnel seems unstable. Harry, er I mean, MSN Messenger, is now a coin-toss connection too. Perhaps the walls of the tunnel need more shoring up… or perhaps I should consider switching to the pay service. *grumble*

Posted by Tacitus at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)

Light at the End of the Tunnel?

As the last bit of digital turf is cut away (from below), moonlight faintly lights the tunnel entrance… friends lists crackle to life as online states update… a whispered, "Eureka!"

[Que: Theme music to The Great Escape… or Hogan's Heroes if you prefer.]

The tunnels Tom, Dick, and Harry (or more aptly: Yahoo Messenger, AIM, and MSN Messenger) have been dug. The shovel: HTTP-Tunnel NG. The results are mixed at best, but I'm using the free service so I can't complain too much. Well, I can, but… *shrug*

MSN is up!
AIM is a coin toss: up… down… up… down… I swear!
Yahoo refuses to proxy to localhost… Ass!

1 out of 3 isn't bad. It's an infinite improvement over 0! (And I'm not one given to finding comfort in silver linings.)

Yay! Chat is back!

…until they find the tunnels at least… but let them just try and close port 1080 for even a second! MWAHAHAHA!

I feel so emboldened by my little victory, I think I'll go build a castle on a swamp!

Posted by Tacitus at 10:24 AM | Comments (1)

May 09, 2005

I'm Not Ignoring You

All chat ports on the servers here at work (a secret volcanic lair of a world dominating organization no less!) have been shut down for the past week. Yahoo! Messenger was the final holdout; falling to the IT ninjas last Wednesday if I recall. So I've been effectively rendered incommunicado to the waking world. :(

I'm sure they would say this was for our protection (against a deadly virus or an intruder or something), and one can't help wonder if 007 or xXx hasn't in fact infiltrated the premises. There's an office pool going for exactly when the master plan will be foiled and our lovely base destroyed. Personally, I'm putting in for vacation.

Ok, so let's review: chat down, not ignoring you all, secret volcanic lair = bad place to be when secret agents with a pension for buggery… er, I mean… sabotage… are on the premises.

Buggery?! Who said anything about buggery? Not I! Who said that?! Oh, I did not and you know it! *gives the evil eye* What? The voices in my head you say?

…

Have they been bothering you too?

Posted by Tacitus at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2005

Laptop Lazarus

Now that's service! My laptop is back in the land of the living. It really pays to have an in with the IT department. The down side is that nothing returned from the dead with it. It sits here staring at me: innocent, unspoiled; waiting for me to heap upon it all the crap that will tax its processes to a feeble crawl. Well after installing Firefox and bookmarking my site, it'll be all down hill from here, baby!

Posted by Tacitus at 02:30 PM | Comments (4)

April 11, 2005

Bestiality Killed My Laptop

My laptop is dead, tot, caput. No matter how you define death, my laptop is the very embodiment of your prefered spectre. And bestiality killed it. Well that or Violent Femmes, I can't be sure. Perhaps there was some collusion there. Anything's possible but I for one lean towards bestiality as the perpetrator of its demise.

So I am chatting with my dear friend The Spectacled Pixie when one of those tangental threads of thought that invariably weave their way into a conversation manifests: and the word "bestiality" pops into the chat window... at which point Trillian immediately alerts me that Windows is in the process of crashing and that it is shutting down to protect itself from being destroyed: a rather ominous omen to say the least. Did it foresee something I did not? It did, and in the instant that it took me to realize this, it was over.

Windows had died.

The only thing new to the hard drive that day had been a passel of Violent Femmes tracks, and of course, the use of the word "bestiality" in a chat window. Other than that it had been a typical day of deleting unread email, surfing pictures of perverse cat carriers, professions of our mutual, undying love for Cream of Wheat (I really must try it with chocolate chips sometime), and discussions of online game forums.

Come to think of it, there was also mention of some 5000 flatulant dragons baking the Earth. Perhaps they were the true culprits here. I mean, even a dragon could get nervous when the word "bestiality" pops up in a chat window, couldn't it?

Posted by Tacitus at 06:09 PM | Comments (0)

April 06, 2005

Welcome to the World Wide WTF?!

I have broadband now. I suppose I should be estatic. The City of Heroes update took all of 9 minutes to download, but... *grumbles* Why is it that it has to take three tries before you finally get connected with someone who knows wtf they're talking about? It's like plane crashes or something. It's uncanny. I've always considered three to be a magical number, but must the magic hold true even when dealing with cable companies?

So Techboy shows up (save cape and spandex -- thankfully) to inspect the line from the curb all the way up into the house and to the modem, walks up in the "office" (ie. the place where the computers live alongside all the crap we can't find room for elsewhere: you know, the "guest room."), takes one look at our setup and declares, "There's your problem. Your modem is incompatible with our network."

"Since when?"

"For a while now. We don't support this make and model."

"So you mean to tell me that I've been offline for seven weeks waiting for the cable in my front yard to be upgraded and it's the fucking modem?!"

"Yep." *Tech swaps modem with company provided one and walks out*

*sniff* *sniffle* T_T

So now I have High Speed Internet Access... that suffers some kind of connection issue every few hours! But, hey, at least the problem is on a fast connection, right? *Searching fruitlessly for a silver lining to this all*

Posted by Tacitus at 03:01 PM | Comments (0)

April 04, 2005

Internet Access and the Jersey Devil: Episode II

Living life dangling by the thread of a dialup connection is maddening. City of Heroes is demanding a 373MB update (EDLT: 22+ hours on a 48k connection), so I won't be back in Paragon City for the immediate future. Cable Co. -- Hey! Why protect the identity of these Idiots? I'll spill it: Comcast! Comcast, whose business slogan must be: Hey, At least we're not Adelphia! So, Comcast came out and dropped a new line from the curbside box to the house back on March 25th, then denied that they had done any work at all and told us that we would have to wait until the 30th for the work to be done.

"But the work's already been done!"

"No it hasn't, sir."

"I hate you."

"I'm sorry, sir."

Well, the 30th has come and gone and the cable light on my modem is still cold and lifeless. So… I pick up the phone and call the friendly, but ineffectual people at customer service. They're sending out an Internet Technician to confirm what I already know (and told them), that the wire *from* the newly dropped line *to* the splitter in my garage (a mere 15 feet away) is comprised of the same shit that they had to rip out of the ground**. "If" -- and they did say "If" -- the line is bad, then the Internet Tech will put in a special work order request to have a Line Technician come out and replace the 15 feet of line.

"How long will that take?"

"That all depends on the Internet Tech's findings."

"But if they had to put in the special order, how long would that take?"

"I don't have that information, sir."

Did I mention I've been trying to get Internet Access from these asspipes since late February? And guess what I got in the mail last week? A bill for my first month of Internet service. *Screams, rips bill into itsy bitsy pieces and casts them skyward* …fuckers.

They're in for it now. I had Krys strap on her bitch boots and pointed her in their direction. Nuts will crack if she don't get results. *wicked, wicked grin*

** Technically they don't rip old cable out of the ground, they merely press another presumably better cable into the dirt and leave the other one there to rot.

Posted by Tacitus at 03:53 PM | Comments (0)

March 13, 2005

Internet Access and the Jersey Devil

Ok, let me explain. Wait, there is no time. Let me sum up.

We're on dialup here for the time being. First we tried for cable access. Turns out (and these were the exact words the tech used to describe the problem) that "the wire running into [our] house is too small for both TV and Internet to fit in it." Now I know what he meant, that there was too much resistance on the line for a data signal to get through, but for a moment I felt like I'd just taken my car in for service and was being told that my tire batteries need recharging, and the headlight fluid was low. So now we wait in the queue for the cable company to come out and rip up our yard to run an upgraded line: one "big enough" for TV and Internet to fit in it.

Plan B: DSL. After several days of trying to get through to the phone company... Have you ever noticed that of all the businesses out there that can't handle its call-in traffic, it's the phone company? What do you mean "all lines are busy?!" You're the fucking phone company! But I digress. DSL we're told is not an option because, well, it's so popular in our area that there are no available ports.

"Do you have plans to expand the number of ports in the future?" asks I.

"Oh yes," says they.

"Any idea when that might be happening?" asks I.

"Oh no," says they.

Thanks a bunch. *click*

Good thing we didn't pull ourselves from the queue to have the yard excavated.

So we're on dialup. It only took two weeks to get a phone hookup in the house. Apparently, phone service don't git turned on in these parts but on every other Wednesday. *turn and spit*

My love had been starting to eye the paint chipped walls hungrily having been driven near insane without an Internet connection. Glad my old Mac had a modem. Now we have two PC's and two Macs sharing one 48k connection!

Good news on the World of Warcraft front though: two computers can share a single 48k line while both running WoW with minimal/acceptable latency.

So much for summing up.

Posted by Tacitus at 09:33 PM | Comments (0)