For the first time. Ever.

The Seattle Sounders FC have gone past the first round of the MLS playoffs… Sorry, Real Salt Lake, but the LA Galaxy seriously need a Tom Brady Well-Deserved Beating (at least somebody needs to beat the sock out of David Beckham’s shorts…), and it’s going to come in Rave Green….

Hail to the chief, 2012 edition….

If you haven’t noticed it yet, Barack Obama won another term. And unlike 2000 he did it without having to carry Florida (as of right now, Florida is still counting). Some people are rejoicing, some are in mourning, but the most have accepted it and are moving on. I’m encouraged by the fact that there are now calls from both sides of the aisle to compromise. This election was very close, and that indicates that America doesn’t need just one party’s idealogy, or the other party’s. America needs unity. We need to cooperate. When Obama leaves office in 2017, both democrats and republicans will have had equal time in the White House since 1961. If your party/candidate doesn’t have the White House/Capitol Hill today, don’t be discouraged. It will average out in the long run.

And Donald Trump is a right-wing birther nutjob. And it wouldn’t surprise me if he got some extra attention from law enforcement (namely, the Secret Service) for some of his tweets….

So I bought some music…..

Many years ago, I saw this video (I can’t even remember where. Could’ve been MTV, VH1, or PBS…). And very recently, I remembered it, and searched youtube for it. I like it so much I bought it from Spamazon. I don’t have an iPod (I like my Man-Card), and digital music from Soamazon isn’t drm’ed, so I can back it up locally, and copy it to my phone. BTW, this isn’t the first time I’ve bought music:

Ok, so I’m not getting rid of my tower

Apparently, only Flight Simulator 2004 and Flight Simulator X will play well in WIndows 7 64-bit (what my laptop runs). My tower normally runs Windows XP 32-bit, and everything runs fine in it, so I had to put it back together today. Which means I need to buy another SATA hard drive for my usb hard drive enclosure (which is really good for sneaker-netting backups)….'

In a moment of wrath late last night, I also wiped my laptop, so today, I was ‘moving in” into two different systems today (this post is being written from the laptop). This is a serious pain in the arse right now, but in the end printing will be easier, since I keep the printer on the tower, and I can network it (it’s a lot easier for me to turn the tower on and print through the lan than to fight the printer cable and plug it in…).

On a more political note, I noticed the address was off on my absentee ballot (to be precise, my apartment number was one letter off). Since last Monday was the last to register to vote in person at the county auditor’s office, I called to make sure, and I was told not to worry, my vote would still count. She even made a specific note about the address, and confirmed my correct address (which surprisingly was correctly listed on my voter registration card). So, I dropped my ballot off (there’s a drop box at the library), and they picked up my ballot last Wednesday. So you can stop campaigning now….

Goodbye, tower....

I was in Worst Buy today. I ended up buying a hard drive enclosure. So, I've pulled my terabyte hard drive from my tower, and I'm going to use it as a USB drive for my laptop. I spent the past couple of weeks trying thing out with the tower, but in the end, my laptop is faster and it's capable of doing anything my tower did (except for the two monitors & and the Tv tuner). I really don't need to crt monitors, and they now have USB Tv tuners (to be purchased later).

So, as I've already mentioned, my p4 tower has been retired. I'll give it one last wipe and reinstall WinXP. I've already found a home for it, and maybe I'll get paid for it…

That time of the year (or my positions on the issues)

Absentee ballot came in the mail today. Some of the issues involve a lot of controversy. Here’s my positions:

• Initiative 1185: Voted against it on principal for being a Tim Eyman initiative. He’s put similar measures on the ballot before, and they’ve all been defeated by the court. Tim Eyman is a dumbass. You can’t change the state constitution via the initiative process….
• Referendum 74: Voted for it. Mainly the opposition to this comes from the religious right. Religious doctrine ought not to have the force of law. And besides, from what I’ve seen same-sex couples are more faithful to their spouses than their foes are (think Newt Gingrich, anyone?)
• Initiative 502: Voted against  it. Marijuana reform should first take place on the federal level, where it’s still a crime. Once that takes place, then we can revisit it….
• Joint resolution 8223: Rejected. Public funds don’t belong in the stock market. I pay my taxes to fund them, and I don’t really feel like paying them again to recoup somebody’s losses on the the market. Aren’t we in the middle of a recession now because of somebodys’ irresponsibility in the market?
• Advisory votes 1 and 2: Voted for them. Neither of these would change the law either way. We voted the legislators in to office, with the implication of trust that they would know how to pass laws for the state. I prefer to let the do their job, and if I’m not satisfied with them, then that’s why we vote for their opponents in the next election….
• Pierce Transit Proposition 1: I voted against it. People would think that I would vote for it, beings as how I take the bus everywhere, but I’ve had my issues with Pierce Transit. And Pierce Transit has explicitly told me to go pound salt. If you’re going to cop an attitude with me then you don’t need a tax increase….

And now some of the candidates:

• President: I voted for Barack Obama. He is the best qualified to lead the nation. Most of the economic problems he’s had to deal with he inherited from Dubya…. Mitt Romney just isn’t qualified to be president (and I’m concerned because he isn’t releasing his tax returns….).
• Senator: Maria Cantwell. She’s been senator since 2000, and she’s pretty good. No major scandals. Let’s keep it that way.
• Congress: Denny Heck. As a result of the last census, the state gained another congressman, and I’m in the new district that was created.
• Governor: Jay Inslee. I’m not thrilled with Rob McKenna as AG, and I don’t want him as governor…
• State Attorney General: Abstain. All I’ve seen from the candidates is them smearing each other, and negative advertising. I will not condone a negative campaign with my vote.
• Superintendent of Public Instruction: It’s Randy Dorn Time! Yes, he did a DUI, but he also admitted his responsibility.
• Insurance Commissioner: Mike Kreidler. An elected official who had deomstrated that he has a pair.

These aren’t all the issues I voted on this year, and they may not even be the most important. But my voice will be heard…..

This time of year, it doesn’t really matter how you lean pollitcally. What matters is that you vote….

Hello world, for yet another time.

My brother had a kindle. Then he upgraded to a kindle fire. And so he gave me his kindle. Which I used to download and read Aesop's Fables. And then it went into my drawer. He decided he wanted his kindle back (he said it was lighter). And so we traded. I tried to root it, but there were some issues with the adb drivers (namely I thought I downloaded them, when I didn't). But after unbricking it, I now have a kindle fire. And I'm impressed.

This won't be an ipad killer by any shot, but I have kindle on it (obviously), and have the overdrive media console. So I can read all my books on it (even from the library). Ive also got netflix on it, so I can catch a flick if I can get wi-fi. It's not going to replace my phone but it'll come in handy when I don't want to pull the laptop out.

They’ve choked it!

Ok, you get a fortuitous first and goal thanks to a near goal line apss interference call. Then you get a referee’s blunder in your favor, and you get a fourth time-out. And what do you do? You throw four incomplete passes in a row! But, it’s only the first game of the season, and a rookie quarterback. Just don’t fail me again, or I shall have to be complelled to call for you to be telekinetically strangled…

But on the bright side, Seattle’s other football team is doing pretty well, beating Chivas USA 2-1…

They're at4-0 now...

And now it counts. They shit-canned TO (imo they should've never signed him to begin with. They got rid of T-Jack, reading him to another team where he can warm the benches with pride.

And now it starts for real. The 'Hawks first opponent will be the Cardinals. They may be a good opponent, provided they wear their helmets and not their mitres...

To the Moon! And Beyond!

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE87O0B020120825?irpc=932

Neil Armstrong has passed away. He was an inspiration, even though his ground breaking trip happened before I was born. I may not have grown up to be an astronaut, but I could still dream...

3-0

So the Seahawks are 3-0 in the preseason. It looks good. But then again, 5 years ago, the Detroit Lions went 4-0 in the preseason, and then they went 0-17... But I'm impressed with our second stringers. I think the best football in the preseason comes from these people. The starters have there employment lined up fur the season, but these are people looking for work, and they're leaving it all on the field. And the fact they're administering a Tom Brady Well-Deserved Beating to other teams' starters says something.

TO is a washed-up man-diva. During the Broncos game, all we saw were drops. During tonights game, there was one good catch, but there were also too many drops. If he wants to stay, there better be the performance. I may be a little too hard on him for your tastes, but in previous years, his antics of the field have over shadowed his on the field performance. How many bridges has he burned in other teams?

T Jack is gone. The writing is in the wall. I've heard that if he's trade they'll get no more than a fifth round pick for him. I say cut him. Shit-can his ass. Send the message to the team that your job has to be earned, not handed to you....

And would somebody please sacrifice Tim Tebow fit crying out loud? The Ram's blood is going to spoil....

It was a sunny day today….

Rule of thumb, when you have to get up at the butt-crack of dawn (at 5:30, to be precise), perhaps a little bit earlier than 2:00 would be a good time to go to bed….

So I get up at bright and early in the morning. Because I had an eye appointment. So I get there, and find out I still have 20/20 vision (the eye doctor said that about my age is when bifocals start getting prescribed (I have a brother who already has them). In fact, I’m the last of my siblings who doesn’t need corrective lenses (I needed them growing up, as I was near-sighted in one eye, and far-sighted in the other eye)…

But that’s all a side track. This was mainly a diabetic eye exam. Which means I had to have my eyes dialated. On a very sunny day. Even with sun-glasses, it was an adventure at the very least trying to get back home….

Hello World, Again….

OK, it’s been over a month. But I’m back for now…

Yesterday was my birthday. My brother celebrated with pizza. And then the Mariners, the Seahawks, and the Sounders FC won there respective games. All in all, a good day despite the fact that I had to work.

Felix Hernandez threw a perfect game. Those who follow The New World Order (Mind-Control Division) would know that the Mariners had a perfect game thrown against them earlier this year. And if you can take it, then by all means dish it out. Felix Hernandez is awesome. He told Chuck Norris, Red Foreman, and Sergeant Hartley to go fuck themselves, and thus homosexuality was invented….

I voted in the primary this year (usually I just abstain the primary election, and concern myself with the general election). To be honest, I don’t know who I’ll vote for this year for President. JP Patches passed away, and that was my usual write in candidate… I’m looking for a candiate who will promise to have the Tea Party deported to France, and (most importantly) have Arnold Schwarzenegger tarred and feathered… Although I am going to declare my endorsement for the state Superintendent of Public Instruction: Randy Dorn. Yes, I make fun of him on Facebook. A lot. Mainly because of his DUI. But he was responsible enough to own up to his actions. But as an elected official, he makes the bed, he has to sleep in it, and the ridicule is my right, my privilege, and my duty… Besides whenever I crack open an ice cold ‘Adult Beverage’, part of the experience is posting that it’s Randy Dorn time on Facebook.

Speaking of JP Patches, here’s what he did to Harry Wappler:

Newscasts are always better with a clown.

Kathi Goertzen also passed away. With her anchoring, Wayne Cody on sports, and Harry Wappler on weather, the afterlife now has a full news team.

So my cable bill just went up....

Went to the local Comcast kiosk today and asked about Xfinity Streampix. Basically, I was told that it was über-on-demand. Whereas normal on-demand on Comcast usually only has a few episodes from a given series, Streampix will allegedly carry the entire series (basically a cheap imitation of Netflix...)...

It was only about $5 a month. We'll see how it goes....

Ok, it happened a week ago, but...

This happened about a week ago, but I was busy (boss was out of town, and co-worker called out on me. Twice), and I still wanted to comment on it.

Jerry Sandusky was found guilty of 45 out of 48 counts against him. And while the jury was deliberating, his son came forward with further allegations. Penn State is probably going to get taken to the cleaners over this since civil lawsuits are much easier to win when there's a criminal conviction. But you can expect that when you try to cover it up.

Normally when a person is accused of something like this, I hold my tongue. They're only accused, and they have a right to a day in court (to this day, I'll hold the line that Michael Jackson was innocent because that's what the jury said). But in this case, they came back with a guilty verdict. He did it. Even with a minimum sentence, he'll probably spend the rest of his life locked up. In solitary. Some have said they hope his cellmate Bubba has certain issues that he can work out on him, but u call that cruel and unusual punishment. Why should Bubba, who's trying to turn his life around, have to spend any time at all with him. I'd say, out him in the general population, and let the other inmates handle the matter. Some people are probably calling for a (New Testament) Christian approach, and that is completely appropriate, too. Though I have no idea where one would find a millstone...

For the fourth time...

I'm now on Twitter again. My handle is @ogre1500. My three previous attempts all lasted about two hours. Together...

So for so good...

Everybody get a book!

And I think even LeVar Burton liked this version, too.

But the message is clear: get a book and read it…

So I went to the doctor last week….

I know I haven’t been posting as often as I used to. I mainly Facebook now, though I’ll still use this as my original soapbox in the Internet. With Facebook’s IPO royally tanking, and talk of Facebook’s eventual decline (a la MySpace), I may come back to this blog. I’m not abandoning it. I just may not be as active on it…

Having said that, I went to my doctor’s office last week. As a type I diabetic, every check-up comes with an A1C blood test. 10 years ago, when I was initially diagnosed, this test was done with a full blown blood draw (they did a finger-stick in the office to check my sugar at the time, too). Ususally, they also did a full work-up (ie cholesterol, liver, thryoid, etc), which is also how I was diagnosed 4 years ago with hypothyroidism (which runs in my mother’s family). Nowadays, they can do the A1C on a fingerstick, too. This was the first doctor’s visit in a while where I could get away with not getting bled. But I was told to lose weight….

Ice Cream Sandwich, Anyone?

This is where all the trouble I went through to get s-off on my phone paid off (you may read that tale here. Hmmm, I think it’s been awhile since I posted here…). Anyway, Sprint pulled the HTC EVO 3D from its online line-up a while back. And there’s a reason for that. It’s going to Virgin Mobile (don't believe me? You can pre-order it from Radio Shack here). But on Virgin Mobile, it’s going to have Ice Cream Sandwich. With Sense 3.6. And somebody leaked the ROM update. Which a bunch of idiots when and promptly flashed, and they’re idiots because it included a firmware upgrade specific for Virgin Mobile and it’s network (while it does use essentially the Sprint network, there are enough differences that you can be seriously fückered up and not have a way of getting out). So I waited. And the developers at XDA Developers did their magic, and Sprint specific ICS sandwich ROMs have now appeared. And I’m running one now. Right now, I’m running MikVirgin. And I’m sufficiently impressed with this phone that I’m using it as my daily driver. I’m sure that it’ll only get better when a Sprint specific version is leaked/released. Maybe the Energy treatment could be possible?

Hello World, Once Again!

Ok, so Sunday was Mother’s Day. My boss bought his wife a shiny new MacBook Pro (actually I work at 2 locations, and at 1 I work for the husband, and I work for the wife at the other location). Anyway the husband bought a brand new MacBook Pro for his wife, which meant their ca. 1 year old laptop was on the market. I was at Worst Buy when the husband bought the laptop, and I was impressed with it (it's spec’ed to be a desktop replacement). A few months later, my WinXP tower started having issues, and I bought my own laptop as a hedge against it dying. It never did (just some dust that I took care of). SO I put my laptop on the market, and I found a buyer, and my boss offered me terms that I could afford for his ‘old’ laptop. And now it’s mine. With the really big display and hard drive, it will become my new default computer. My windows XP tower, with it’s 1 Tb drive, will become my storage & and backup server. And there will probably be some games on it that won’t get installed on the laptop (there are just some games that Windows 7 won’t take…).

I’m still here….

Boss had a baby boy about three weeks ago, and I’ve been working a lot. In and of itself, that’s wouldn’t be a problem, but I’m the one who gets the calls from my co-workers whenever something goes wrong, and that gets old real fast. I guess that’s what I get for being there for so long. But that also means less posting here. Though to be honest, I’m more into Facebook…

• I saw some of the Stanley Cup playoffs last week. There was a lot of extra-curricular activity, though I think Raffi Torres’ 25 game suspension will tone that down. You’re going to be an example. You can either set the example, or we can make an example of you. The choice is yours. Although some of games I’ve seen would indicate the officials need to grow a pair, too.
• Wiped my tower. A month ago. And I’m still restoring it. I think my next purchase at Worst Buy will be a another Tb sized drive. While I do most of my web surfing & video streaming on my laptop, the tower still has plenty of oomph in it, and all my games work on it.
• My brother got a kindle fire. He had the original kindle before. Now I have it. The first book I ‘bought’ for it was Aesop’s fables. I hear the Pierce County Library now supports the kindle, so I suppose I should check out more books.
• I finally got the cable bill paid off. What happened was I fell behind one month, and I was just paying the past due amount every month. But I finally paid it off, and my bill is now current. T-Mobile was also paid off, once and for all, and I will never go back to them again. They have an ok network, and some good phones. But the employees are ass-holes and incompetent clods… Besides, my Sprint bill is less than T-Mobile for the same service, and they haven’t pulled a bait-and-switch on me…

Ok, that was only because I wanted to post a video. To be honest, I never heard this song when it first came out (IIRC Love and Rockets was originally an alternative band, and they weren’t on the radio stations that I was listening too. The very first Love and Rockets song i heard was So Alive, and at the time I hated it….

Not for the faint of heart

(I'm on my phone, I'll post the web-links later). I have an HTC EVO 3D. I love it. The Sprint 4G may be a bit spotty in some places, but it does the job with ease. My previous phone, the Sensation, I unlocked it with the Revolutionary tool. Then I installed recovery and went from there. That wasn't the case with my EVO. When I got it, it had hboot 1.5, which was locked. To unlock it, I had to use the HTC Dev tool. Which unlocked it so I could flash a recovery and install a custom ROM. But because the bootloader was locked, I couldn't flash a new kernel from recovery (most if the custom ROMs use different kernels), so I have to pull out the laptop and use the fastboot command to do it.

But there was an xda developer who wag just as annoyed by it as I was. And he figured out how to revert the hboot from 1.5 to 1.4. It's not for the faint of heart. I'd you don't know what you're doing, you'll end up with a $600 battery charger/paperweight. Long story short, I had to relock my phone, reflash a stock ROM, and then intentionally brick it. Then I had to boot into Linux, and run a special downgrade tool. Then I had to flash another stock ROM, and then run the Revolutionary tool.

But it's worth it. I'm now s-off on hboot 1.4 running my custom ROM.

Spring is finally here

Well, yesterday was the Godless Pagan Holiday (Spring). I would've offered the customary human sacrifice for it were it not for the fact the ram's blood is so expensive (and there's the whole it being illegal part, too...). But the  rain is gone for now, and our extraterrestrial overlords are now flying that big yellow UFO in the sky (it is more likely for for us to get invaded by aliens than to have sunny weather in western Washington...). This marks the first day this year that I can put the heavy coat away and go with a sweatshirt...

My boss had been pregnant for about the last nine months or so. Emphasis on the past tense. Thursday night/Friday morning, she had a baby boy. I don't know too many of the particulars, I just saw the pictures on Facebook, and they're not answering the phones (and I'm not calling them, either).

A political post:

First, the first political ad officially posted on my blog:

I really try to stay out of political issues. Yes, I have my opinions, and you have yours. Just because they’re not the same doesn’t mean that either of us are equal. I grew up conservative, but gradually turned towards the liberal side of the spectrum. But not all the answers are going to come from either the left or the right. They’re going to come from both sides. But neither the democrats or republicans can seem to work together. And we’re going to lose because of it. The government almost went into default last summer because they couldn’t work together, and that would’ve royally fucked the country. Maybe the politicos should put aside the Party Dogma, and start talking to the person across the aisle. A house divided against itself  cannot stand. And partison politics in DC is in essence dividing the house against itself…

Payton gets the hammer dropped

Well, the No Fun League has dropped the hammer on Sean Payton. Suspended for the entire 2012 season. And Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams have gotten even worse, with an indefinite suspension. Meaning, at season’s end, he still may not have a job. The Saints also lost some draft choices, and were fined 500k. I completely disagree with Roger Godell’s handling of this. He was way too lenient. They both should’ve been shit-canned outright, and they Saints should’ve forfeited games (basically suspending all the players).

In the NHL, they can call ‘attempting to injure’. It results in an automatic ejection from the game and the offending player has to have a long and awkward conversation with the league prior to returning to the game. Perhaps the NFL should consider this rule as well. Or another angle the officials in the NFL could try  is a page from MLS’s book. A yellow card means your first, last, and only warning from the official. A red card would mean you wouldn’t have to worry about your choice of soap in the shower.  Yes Football is in and of itself a violent sport, but there is no place for deliberately attempting to injure your opponent. I guarantee you that if you’re not pulling a 7-8 figure salary, you’d have your ass thrown in jail for assault if you pulled this shit off anywhere else.

In other news, Tim Tebow was traded to the New York Jets. As Jay Leno put it tonight, perhaps we have thrown a Christian to the Lions. I am disappointed. I know have to return the Ram’s blood and tear down the altar. Though I think Denver is taking too big a risk in signing Payton Manning. He’s missed an entire season due to neck problems/surgery, and I’m not sure he’ll be able to perform again. And what if he reinjures his neck?

The Clipboard Jesus is back in San Diego. The Seahawks signed Matt Flynn, formerly the backup to the Green Bay Packers. You may remember the previous Packers backup we signed, Matt Hasselbeck…..

On my way home from work

I get off work, and head to the bus stop, which is on a major arterial. While I'm waiting, a car stops, and asks me for help (I'm thinking they want directions), but no, they're panhandling me. *From* their car. Sorry guys, bit of you can afford a car, then you should be able to afford gas. If you can't, then don't panhandle the pedestrians. Join them and walk...

I saw this over 20 years ago….

I just realized that there is one villian that James T. Kirk couldn’t defeat: Damon Wayans…

Yes, it is dated. In Living Color ran this sketch years before George Takei came out of the closet…

Spring is around the corner…

Ok, the calendar says spring is eminent. But the weather that we’ve been having of late has been more reminiscent of January/February/Winter. I got off work on Sunday, and on the way to the bus stop, saw snow coming down. It wasn’t sticking, but it was snowing. Tuesday, on my way to work I noticed that it had snowed, and it stuck until afternoon. Owing to Pierce Transit being run by a bunch of incompetent clods, when I work late, I have to walk an extended distance to catch a bus home. Fortunately, one of my co-workers has a car and she’s been more than generous in giving me a ride home when the weather turns ugly.

My boss is due almost anytime know.

So my already erratic schedule is shot to hell. But, you can only be pregnant so many times, so I’m not going to complain….

Yes, I know have’ve been slacking off in posting. But other things are coming up that need my attention. And I’ve got Facebook, too. But I’m not going to give on my internet soapbox. Then again, there’s so much I want to say, but I hold my tongue because this is a public blog, and it’ll come back to haunt me. I’m no fool. I’ve seen what’s happened to Rush Limbaugh (although I will say that I didn’t need to see the current controversy to know he’s a drug-addicted, misogynistic bigot)….

And now about my new phone…

With my last post about T-Mobile, I said I went to Sprint. When I left the T-Mobile store Saturday after returning my HTC Sensation, I walked right across the mall concourse to the Sprint Store and started asking question. I knew Phil wanted an iPhone, and I had an idea about what kink of phone I wanted. The clerk ran my credit, set my account up, and said that I was pre-approved for up to 5 lines without a security deposit (a needless redundancy since I only need two). anyway, I didn’t get them then since I had to settle a few affairs. After being told how much the phones were and that I was preapproved, my brother texted back that he could pay for them himself.

So next Wednesday, we were in the Sprint store in the South Hill Mall in Pukeallup, picking out phones. I was going to get an EVO 4G, mainly because of it’s similarity to my HD2 (I knew that there were Energy ROMs being for it, and that there was a2sd support for it). But they didn’t have any in stock (it’s actually been discontinued/in the process of being discoe’ed). So I went with the EVO 3D. I’m glad I did. With the announced release of HTC’s ‘One’ series, it may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer anymore, but it’s still got what counts. When it comes to internal phone memory and processor, it’s essentially a Sensation, so there’s no real surprise there. Even though it had a gB available to the user, I can still run out of space really quick, but liberal use of apps2sd attenuates that problem. Compared to what I was running, it just zips along. Even a reboot after wiping the Dalvik cache take less time than it did for my HD2 to do a normal reboot (reboot after wiping the Dalvik cache took over 30 minutes on my HD2). Add that to the one gigabyte of RAM, and it has more power than my first computer (which was capable of running windows XP).

So I get my phone, and I find I have to do the official HTC unlocking in order to root it (what’s the point in getting Android if I can’t root it?). It took a few tries (ended up having to download the RUU and reinstalling it in order to get it to unlock). For about 3 days, I just ran the stock ROM. Out of the box, it runs Gingerbread on Sense 3.0 (just like the Sensation). Saturday, I discovered that the stock ROM is compatible with UOT kitchen, so I can change the icon sets (mainly I wanted to change the battery indicator). Sunday night, I finally worked up the courage to wipe it and flash a custom ROM (a difference from when I had the Sensation. With that phone, I had the custom ROM downloaded, tweaked and ready to flash before I bought it). I finally found a Sense 3.5 ROM and downloaded it Sunday. It wasn’t an Energy ROM (he doesn’t cook for the EVO 3D), but I gave it try. Installed all of my apps and moved into it Monday, and it crashed and burned on me Tuesday on my way to work. So Tuesday when I came home from work, I decided to try my hand at a Frankenstein ROM. So this time, I took a few elements from the Energy ROMs that I’ve downloaded from my phones and cooked them into my ROM. And I’m pretty impressed with it.

But there was drawback: space. My memory card had a second, hidden partition for a2sd (which I used on my HD2). None of the a2sd scripts I used would work on this phone. Then I saw one the on of the xda fora someone mention link2sd. It’s free and available on the market. Installed it, and it recognized my ext4 partition. So I can install all my 300+ apps on a phone that has the horsepower to run them. The main drawback to having your apps installed on your sd card is that you just pull your sd card (with windows mobile, the sd card was hot pluggable). But the again, I have to pull the battery out to get to the memory card on this phone.

All in all, I think I’m going to enjoy this phone. And there’s a forthcoming upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich due shortly, too (there are a few ice cream sandwich builds out there, but I’ll wait for the official HTC one first). Did I mention that my brother paid for this? And he willingly surrendered his man-card?

So what all happened with my new phone, and a few other things…

Ok, so I had my nice shiny new HTC Sensation 4g, and all was well, as I had posted previously. I got the phone on Saturday, and I was told that T-Mobile’s system was down, and my sale/contract renewal was done with an ‘off-line’ sale. The clerk went over all of the terms with me, I thought, and my boss was there to provide his credit card (the promotion at the time was that the phones were free after rebate, and my boss would simply get the rebate). I took the phones and then left the T-Mobile store.

The first red flag should’ve been raised the following Sunday. I got a call from the T-Mobile store saying they had charged my boss’s credit card the wrong amount, and would actually be charging it for $20 more than what was supposed to be the charge, I thought. But due to my erratic work schedule, I wasn’t able to get back to the store till the ensuing Wednesday. I get there and the manager pulls out my paperwork and hands it to me. I then saw that not only was I on a two year contract, but I was also on an equipment installment plan, which no one had said anything to me before! So, not only was on a contract, but I was going to pay full price anyway. The next Saturday, I returned my phones. I had my HTC Sensation 4g for only one week. When I returned my phones, I was told that I had to pay a $50 restocking fee per phone. I simply told the clerk that I would eat the loss.

What happened here was fundamentally wrong on a few points.

• The amount charged to the credit card was changed ex post facto. This was my boss’s credit card, and he sure wasn’t happy when he found out about this.
• I had to sign a contract without actually seeing it, let alone the fine print. IIRC this is illegal, and I should probably report this to the state Attorney General’s office. This is a real sticking point, because:
• The terms were either changed ex post facto, or the clerk failed to tell me about it (in fact, the clerk who handled my return said that it appeared that this was most likely). It doesn’t matter to me. I see no between malice and incompetence.

So, being a reader of The Consumerist, I knew what had to happen. I deployed an Executive Email Carpet Bomb (something I’ve had to do before, with Pierce Transit). A couple of days later, I got a call from Christopher Lowe at T-Mobile. Basically, he said T-Mobile was right, I was wrong, but he was going to offer to credit my account for the restocking fee in question. I declined. I don’t need to fucking freebie if you’re going to talk down to me. Having checked my account online prior to the call, I also saw that my phone line was still under contract, even though I had already returned the phones. I made sure that he set my account as not under contract. I hung up, and I thought I might still give T-Mobile a chance.

While all this was happening, I talked to my brother about switching to Sprint. The day after I got off the phone with Christopher Lowe, Philip and I were in Puyallup to celebrate our parents’ birthdays when we came by a Sprint store. We went in, and picked our phones out, and at this time Philip told me that when I talked to T-Mobile executive care, his data service was cut off. That was enough for me. I dumped T-mobile. My brother got an iPhone 4s, and I got an HTC EVO 3D. Basically, a Sensation but with a different radio, and 3-D camera.

T-Mobile is a royal cluster-fuck when it comes to customer service. There were at least two (possibly three) occasions where T-Mobile could’ve kept my business. All they had to do was not be total incompetent clods. I’m now starting to get collection calls from T-Mobile about my last balance. I’ll probably pay it. But I think a complaint to the FTC and the state attorney general’s office is in order, too…

Hello World!

Ok. So I renewed my phone contract yesterday. T-Mobile had a sale, where any smartphone they had was free after rebate. And my boss was willing to lend me the money. So I went top the local corporate store and got the HTC Sensation. It was unrooted with the stock ROM. And that lasted all of abøøt an hour and a half once I got off work. To be honest, by the time l bought the phone, I had already downloaded and tweaked the latest ENERGY ROM for. It is essentially the same as the one for the HD2. So I have good comparison for the hardware.

And all I have to say is that it's lightning fast. I guess a 1.2 GHz dual-core will do that. And the Ram (768 mB), meaning I don't have to mess with a swap file or zRam (both are more trouble than they're worth on the HD2). I guess running Android on a phone that's designed for it (with proper drivers) makes a difference (remember the HD2 original came with WinMo 6.5, putting Android in it is kind of like putting a Corvette engine in a Mustang: you'll very the performance, but there will always be issues).

There are a couple of drawbacks to it. While all the literature I saw about it advertises that it has 4 gB of internal storage, only 1 gB is available to the user. Ok, I thought. But I soon realized that no one had implemented A2SD for the Sensation. And currently there is no way to repartition the NAND. So I'm making very liberal use of the move to SD. If I don't need a particular app for a widget, it'll get moved to the sd card...

But overall, I'm impressed. Right now, I'm running Gingerbread. But they have Ice Cream Sandwich coming right around the corner....

And did I mention that in the 10th and Commerce test, I can pull about 5 megs? Not too shabby. A short while ago that passed for broadband speed....

Stood up….

Saturday, I was at work, and when I got off, I noticed one of the employees at the business right next us had an HD2 like me. He told me he wanted to Netflix on his phone, and the only way to do that is either put windows phone 7 or Android on it. He still needs WinMO, so i told there was a way to run Android off the sd card (which I did for a while), and he said he’d be back so I could (I have all the necessary files on my laptop).

So I show up. At my work on my day off. And the id10t stands me up….

Ok people, if I’m willing to fix your techie items, then you need to show up when I say meet me. I didn’t buy a bus pass this month, and I have to eat the loss for the round trip bus fare. Fortunately, A co-worker called out, and I can make some use of my time here. But still, this is something to consider when you decide to no-show….

And he totally deserves it!

The Giants won a football game yesterday. You may know of it, but I won’t mention it because the No Fun League are total assholes when it comes to anything even remotely close to it…

Yes Eli Manning deserves the MVP and the obvious Ring that goes with it. At least until Frodo decides to throw it into a volcano…. But the title if this is about Tom Brady. He got a Well-Deserved Beating yesterday. And if there is anyone in Football who deserves a Tom Brady Well-Deserved Beating, it’s Tom Brady. His wife was asking everyone to pray for him and the Patriots during the game.during the game. There are many things that I may pray for. For one team during a professional sports event is not one of them. If I were to invoke a religious ritual for an NFL game, there is but one option: sacrificing Tim Tebow…..

So I just nuked my laptop..

And my tower is next. I thought I addressed the issue of my laptop freezing when I nuked Firefox, but they persisted. So I took the nuke from orbit approach and wiped it. I wasn't looking forward to it, but it was necessary. With my laptop almost literally going everywhere I go, I decided this approach would deal with any malware, if it was the cause. If it's a hardware issue, them I'm fückered...

While I'm doing this, I also backed up my tower for a wipe and reinstall. I think it's time for that, too. I had to turn off the automatic updates when the last round of updates caused my computer to stop being able to make new folders.... And while is safe for now behind a NAT router, It's something I should probably address...

In a semi-related story, I've discovered I like FS 2004 better than FSX. I don't have the fastest of computers, and I probably will never be able to afford one, and FS 2004 runs pretty decent on what I have....

So Google is updating there privacy policy....

And apparently its: All your base are belong to us. And there's no way to opt out. A lot of people have a problem with. I'm one of them. The only way to not have all of your information tracked everywhere across the Internet, is to delete your Google account. I don't think it'll be that bad really. To be honest, I don't even think it'll survive the extra-special attention the State Attorney General's office will inevitably give it. Nor will I think the FTC give them a free pass over this.

Also I should add that I don't see any personalized ads in the future. Something about all my computers and even my Android Powered HD2 all having a HOSTS file...

Paula Deen and I have something in common….

Paula Deen and I have something in common. We’re both diabetic. Yes, I know there is a fundamental difference between what I have (type I) and what she has (type II). But as she says, it’s not a death sentence. I’m coming up on 10 years of insulin shots (and needles still scare me) this year, and I’m not dead yet. I can’t go ape-shit on sugar anymore, and I should watch what I eat, but the world still goes around.

People are sure to rise in condemnation about this, especially given the food that she is known for cooking. but I won’t. The responsibility doesn’t lie with the chef who cooked your meal and put it on your plate. The responsibility lies with you. You ordered it. You’re eating it. And you should know better….

Taking a look outside

I think I now know the secret ingredient in Frosted Flakes: dynamite. That’s how I’m explaining the white stuff I see on the ground. Or is it raining cocaine? The roads haven’t been all that bad today (I live along Pacific Avenue in Pierce County, and that’s usually one the first roads to get de-iced/sanded when it rains cocaine). I take the bus to work, so that leaves me no excuse to call out. However, certain shifts I work fall outside of Pierce Transit’s operating hours, and I’m not too particular about walking upto 4 1/2 miles home in the snow. But I’ll discuss that with the boss… According to the weatherman, the worst of it will hit on Wednesday which is fine with me. I’m off that day….

So my neighbor at work…

There’s a portrait studio next to work. And I’ve become acquainted with the manager (it’s a small business). I noticed he had two computers on the front counter: one for actual production , and he had a second one with internet access that he just used to watch youtube. Last week, he did something stupid and downladed a ‘screensaver’. He then asked me to clean up after his misadventures on the internet. Even booting into ‘safe mode’ wouldn’t work. I thought I could try to fix it, but I’ve come to the conclusion that we need to ‘nuke it form orbit’. There is no virus that can survive the ‘format c:’ command. Maybe the next time I go up there (I’m off for the next couple of days), I’ll give it another crack, but I’m just waiting for the owner to bring in his windows disk. I burned a live cd (OpenSuSE KDE), but it didn’t work.

There was another business who wanted me to look at a computer, saying that they needed a cpu or a motherboard replaced (evidently I was a second opinion). I advised them to just replace the whole computer (with the way hardware is evolving, that’s probably the best bet)…

And on to my house: my tower (the WinXP box suddenly wouldn’t let me rename folders). I fixed it temporarily by using to system restore to go back to last week’s windows updates. When I’m not as busy, I have a feeling that a wipe/rebuild is in order. Ugh. I used to do it on a weekly basis when I had my pIII (running both WinME, WinXP, and SuSE). Now it’s just a PITA just to do one.

My laptop has had some issues of late freezing. Going on a wild guess, I unistalled/reinstalled Firefox, deleting all the user data (the only thing I kept were the bookmarks). I then reinstalled my extensions. No issues, so far….