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

Humpty Dumpty

As more banks are failing, I'm becoming more and more disenchanted with the Republican stance on commercial or economic success, or better put how to go about it.

Free markets are a nice thing to have. And as general of a statement that was, it's subvertly saying 'When it works, it works wonderfully.'

Myth #1: Companies want to give you low prices because they want to obtain business.
Fact: Companies get large enough or create enough partners to become a oligopoly or cartel, they don't need to worry about your business because they'll get it one way or another.

See Wal-Mart, OPEC, Time-Warner/Comcast


Myth #2: Giving tax breaks to the wealthy helps the poor by the upper class creating more jobs for the proletariat.

Fact: People with tons of money will put it where they think they get the most reward vs. risk, whether that be business, commodity, housing, or even other financial institutions. Economic downturn is a correction on high prices of a given object, unless artificially inflated and sustained.


Myth #3: An elected President is the one who drives the economy one way or another through policy.

Fact: While having sway over the national party, the President doesn't make the financial calls, Congress does. You want more fiscally responsible government? Then worry about the chuckleheads in your local district on Capital Hill. The problem is they are too busy listening to lobbyists then to their own constiuency, but your email will get read on their Blackberry while they're waiting on their steak paid for by Pfizer, right? Wrong.


Call me a pessimist but there seems to be a lot more work to be done then just to say you're a maverick who votes with the party 90% of the time, or someone who has pretty Change! posters but not enough plan to enact on.

BTW Republicans: Not even your own pundits like Palin.

The War of Attention

Getting software to work for you, the way you want it to.

That's really the goal of anyone who uses software or computers. And to be quite honest, when it comes down to it it's a question of what works for you. I still seem to be at this crossroads with my software solutions, not because of not having enough good choices, but having far too many.

Microsoft, Apple, and now Google all have great applications that beg for your use and attention. Microsoft, bringing functionality to the table, comes feature packed and allows you to do what you will, as long as it's all Microsoft. Same for Apple but the emphasis is not only features but user experience, at the cost of flexibility. And finally Google, where it has no real presence anywhere finds presence everywhere with it's incredibly amazing Email and Calendar services along with anything on the web one would need.

Microsoft's options are the least familiar to me, only because they don't matter much anymore to me. I hated Outlook for Email and Calendar and I have no idea what web services they offer to allow over the air syncing with calendars and contacts.

Apple, having inherited a niche following with high expectations and a panache for excellence in marrying user experience to computing do almost everything you'd want it's services to do. And swear up and down everything it can't are trivialities until they incorporate it into design. For me, I want my Email, Contacts, Calendars, and Documents to sync. When I make a change to one, I want a change to all on any device, connected or not. Apple's solution is an outstanding one called MobileMe. It does the sync of the first three, leaving my documents to the iDisk function where it acts like an open FTP server. (And not to forget web galleries for pictures)

Where it comes short is where Google steps in. Nothing tops Google Docs. Sure both iWork and even Office have amazing templates to do what you need and much more beautifully, but Google Docs, being online, is backed up - to the second - every 3 seconds. And not only to your computer but on their server. Same goes for email, photos, calendar. The downside is you have to be online (with Google Gears picking up the slack in offline mode). Also Google's RSS reader runs circles around Mail.app or Safari and works anywhere I log in. I also really hate Mail applications probably. I've always used webmail, and with Gmail being the best, there isn't really a contest there.

I can't decide. I guess that's the price I pay for wanting my cake and eat it too.

Married and Gaming

(Pictured are Tiffany and Jacob Sanders)

Can't Buy Good Help These Days

Another aide spoke out of turn again today. I guess its what happens when you have a slow news day, you find anything to talk about. But it's what the aide said and the NYT reaction to it.

If you didn't follow the link the synopsis is this: "Charlie Black, a senior adviser to Senator John McCain, was quoted in a magazine interview saying that another terrorist attack in the United States would "be a big advantage" for Mr. McCain in the upcoming election".

Now, of course McCain said 'NoWai' and the Obama side said 'LOL' but what's more important here is that NYT is dead wrong. Another terrorist attack would be the *worst* thing for Republicans now because it would prove that A.) No Administration would be able to prevent everything, and only highlight Bush's failures, and B.) What more can you do as a President to fight terrorism if you already nearly run as a police state and have your own personal gulag (we haven't forgotten about you Guantanimo).

To me it'd just prove that a little 'inexperience' may be a good thing right about now.

I Fell Down This

(And hit the side on the jagged concrete.)
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Projects and Circles

My Dad rencently told me he has ADHD or some varient thereof. This
extremly personal tidbit of information can only be followed by more
personal information about myself where I disclose the fact that I too
believe I have this. I constantly stop and start projects as I'm sure
people who read (or don't read) know too well.

I figured out how to mobile blog by (phone) email. This should be
effective as normally my best ideas aren't in front of a computer, but
this also means my ideas become more disjointed.

In the spirit of more projects, I want to make a graphic narrative
using wow and comic life. More on that later.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

From the Mothership

For the first time, I watched from start to finish the WWDC '08 Keynote presentation. It feels like back to the Transformer watching days of my youth. Watching it just makes me want an iPhone. The truly sad things I don't want to afford it because there's a lot of better things to take care of first...like food and rent. I just realized that Kenyans can get the iPhone now. The gods must me crazy!? And here is the kicker, China isn't listed in the 70 countries Apple is supporting.

Anyway, the most exciting thing I found that I already own is the MobileMe. Granted, it won't work with my Blackberry but I'm excited that Apple is stepping up the bar against the free services that are a little less integrated.

Here's to the next step.

Copywrong

So, I've been perusing YouTube and came across a superfan YouTube page and they had as a featured video *was* the Kanye West/Daft Punk Stronger Grammys Performance in 08. Pretty much the video got pulled because of copyright issues but what I don't get is this. Its a live performance, the people getting paid got paid. Where is the harm? Are the grammys or the music industry in general so butthurt about piracy that they'd rather pull a video promoting the grammys and the artists in them rather then let it flourish?

The answer is yes, and this is why the RIAA (and MPAA) are obsolete.

The Goings on of Lightninghoof Today

This is basically how the day turned out. Most of everyone decided to jump on top of the new badge loot vendor on the Isle causing chaos and pandemonium. It even warrented some GM interest, though he just seemed to be running around, shown in this video I captured today:



What you don't see is near the end the brief conversation I had with the GM. Who knew GM's were people to? =P

Of course I did being a former Magic Online Adept I already know the answer, but coming from that background I'd definitely not go and try to be a WoW GM.

Teens for Obama Turning Parents

Seems that kids in my generation are not only bucking for Obama but turning their parents as well. I find it mildly interesting seeing as how I had the political talk with my own Dad and his two cents, learning that McCain was his choice.

What it came down for me was, who was the best for change. And considering the miserable failures this administration has suffered through, is experience really something we want? And of course having experience is the best thing, but there are different kinds. Not a single person who gets elected to office has experience as President (unless of course you were operating directly under the Big Cheese). Frankly I feel like being Secretary of State is the closest you're going to get to have true experience as a world leader. Does being a Senator really give you the tactical expertise needed to stem invasions or barter treaties?

In the end I feel like the best course of action is to put someone into office an accomplished renaissance person who not only is very intelligent but willing to learn.