Light at the End of the Tunnel

So I finally did it. I finally have in order a brand spanking new Verizon iPhone 5.

I've been using a twenty dollar Samsung flip phone for basic telephoning since September. What I thought would only be a few weeks turned into four months. Sometime soon I'll describe what it was like to survive without an always connected device.

As it wasn't bad enough having to deal with the fact that I had technology from 1997, the past week I haven't had cell service at work. AT&T has some kind of problem in that area where one particular tower thinks it is great and has a strong reliable connection, but the actual tower is not connected to the rest of the network. What's worse, it's not telling your phone to stay away, but rather prevents your phone from getting signal from other towers. Unless you're incredibly rich, then you understand that being without any phone service at all for 8 hours at a full time job is terrible. To make matters more complicated, no one knows what tower this is. AT&T doesn't have it on record per say, and I know the problem isn't with my phone. Now, sadly enough, when I tried troubleshooting this problem with AT&T tech support, they immediately thought it was my phone's SIM card. Because why would a whole tower be down? Unthinkable right? Well I knew that wasn't the problem because I was able to make a call immediately after getting away from the area. Troubleshooting 101, when you remove all of the likely possibilities, all that is left is the implausible.

The upside? I don't have to care anymore about whether or not I can make a phone call in an area. Verizon is covered. The downside? Porting my number means that there is a box somewhere en route that is ringing in anticipation. Literally.

First world problems. See you all next time.

Resurrection

Sadly enough, as I quickly slipped into an incomprehensible depression, I started to blog for therapy.


I always wanted to create something. Something people would care about. Love. Argue.

And for awhile, it worked.

As soon as I started really getting into it, I wanted to branch out and see if I could make it more of a thing. More of something interesting for a specific audience. I wanted to be a tech blogger. Now, I'm not really giving up on that, but if I'm also deciding to re-find myself in writing something that I find fun. I also will probably put more of myself on here than I have before.

Now I'll have to deal with one thing I fear and hate: Hearing someone say "Oh you gonna write about this on your blog now?" This caused me to self-censor myself or second guess what I was interested and wanting to share. Well after reading a particular friend's (anonymous)-ish blog, I realized I don't care anymore. Time to write.


I really hope that I write about stuff you all will want to comment on and conversate about.
Happy New Year everyone.

Perpetuating the Cycle of Hate

I'm watching the show Hard Time right now.

It opens the world of a Georgia Correction Facility like a documentary on wild animals. Talking about the structure, discipline, and control the warden and his officers have over Georgia's toughest. I personally found it easy to say out of jail, but then again I'm really lucky. The most interesting case is this inmate named Jackson who is nothing but a failed burglar. Now he is in prison, understandably, where they have in escrow inmates who they do not know security risks. Ranging from murderers to petty thieves are thrown in the same prison, the same dorm block, the same jail cell. From lifers to people just passing through, the gamut of ppsychosis and behavior problems are as diverse as the prisoners themselves.

Jackson, with an 8 year old daughter, has only five years of time to do. He mentions on air that he just wants out of there and see his daughter again. So when he goes to the prison store (store? yeah from outside given money they can buy treats) he gets confronted by a fellow who gave him two options.

1. Give in and let the prisoner his shwag (And be known as a doormat).
2. Wait for the prisoner to come back with his buds to take by force (And greatly extend his stay).

He did the worst choice (apparently) and that was go to the guards, marking him to ALL of the inmates.



I guess what I don't understand is that is our system intrinsically designed for these people to fail and stay longer? If the answer is yes, then it's costing us taxpayers and we should probably ask for something else. Are these people doing it to themselves? Oh yeah. I've watched enough of these kind of documentaries to get the feeling that they prefer to gnaw on each other like animals then to reform. But what about the ones who really don't want to be in a dog eat dog scenario?

CITGO says GO, I say boycott

I was browsing the tubes when I came across this:




I wondered why in the world would a major corporation advertise about being in business in Florida, if it was pretty aparent they were there already. I mean, we see CITGO stations everywhere, why let us know who owns them in a Google add?

CITGO Boycott - http://citgoboycott.org/


So CITGO is owned by Hugo Chavez, kinda makes me wanna head to BP and support the Brits.

The Web and What's Coming Up

Just wanted you all to know that Burn Notice is coming back to showing this Winter 2009. Sorry I haven't been blogging. Sometimes when all of the sudden you think no one is listening, trying to say something isn't so interesting anymore.

I do know, however, that it let me release emotionally - which is always important. Since I can't talk too much about my job, it kinda seemed a moot point. Also nothing seemed to be going on that is that interesting to report.

Wrath has descended upon WoW and been keeping up with that. Well, at least I do pretty good DPS, you're welcome to check it out yourself. I also have been updating my comic regularly sometimes.

Oh, and I got an iPhone. And yes I have AT&T. I don't know why people complain about their service so much. Time and again when I'm next to other people with other carriers I'm the one with signal. That said, their customer service isn't to shine for.

And I'm gonna end on that. Look for more updates. Comment if you want to know anything in particular.

Tis the Season

...to want ridiculously overpriced items that you have no business owning.

Mine is a Nikon DSLR 90.

Not really sure why I do this to myself, because in all honesty I couldn't bring up a hobby of photography seriously. A.) It's really expensive. B.) I don't go to enough places to warrant anyone interested in seeing (really want that to change). and C.) The money could be better spent. D.) A lesser object would serve my purposes better. Like a subcompact, something for the web, and something with a large LCD screen.

A girl can dream, though.

Bandwagon

Everyone loves a winner.

This is, truthfully, the reason why I think the bandwagon phenomenon exists. There seems like a simple answer to how it comes about, but with the Rays winning, getting there has been complicated. For awhile now I have never been interested in baseball; at least watching it on television. But that has changed as of late and been excited in seeing the Rays go to the World Series for the first time.

My roommate is pissed at the sheer number of people writing in the Bulletin portion of Myspace talking about how excited they are about the Rays' win. And I admit, I've watched almost every game of the Red Sox series myself and right there with everyone excited to see history in the making. I saw a total of one entire Rays season game. And I think the part of her point is valid (or maybe my interpretation of it) is that the people excited now who didn't care about baseball don't understand the struggle it was for the Rays to achieve what they did, yet they go to Dick's Sporting Goods and get championship shirts and other shwag. The part that gets me though is that its very generalizing. I don't have to watch 180 games or even understand the minutiae of the sport to be proud.

The cool thing is, vindication for long sports fans of the team, like my best friend Jay, loves/loved the Rays since he was a teenager ever since they first opened the franchise and I'm kind of excited for him because he finally feels like what I've felt with the Colts ever since they were Super Bowl Champs.

When your home team wins, its a kind of pride that's always good to feel. 9 = 8

Calm Before the Storm

This is pretty much how it is before any expansion, really, because everyone is sick of running Kara and PvP is as unbalanced as Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight. The good news is that MMO Champion has all the juicy new details of the beta in case you sold your key, and even better the 3.0 is coming out in mid-October so we'll be in the fun soon enough.

I just hope that feral druids are as awesome as they were when the first expansion came out.

For Dummies

No Bad Press

I think Penny Arcade pretty much sums it up right here. The link to the picture is the news post for the comic on Penny-Arcade's website.

And if you're late to the game:



then