First debate is in the books…

Sorry, I know it’s been a while since I’ve been here…

The first debate between Joe Biden and Cheetos-Face is in the books. And to be honest, I slept through it, so I’m watching CNN’s post debate coverage. Actually I did catch one scene of it. And I promptly switched to the Science channel. I wanted to see the candidates’ stands on the issues. Not personal insults and outright lies. Either give the moderator control over the candidates’ microphones, or just have Don King hype them.

The first debate is in the books. And Cheetos-Face is dangerously under-qualified for the Oval Office…

I bought it…

Since April of last year, I’ve used a Samsung Galaxy Note 9. It’s primary drawback is that I can’t root it (actually there is a confirmed root for it, but imho it’s too risky for me to try it. But still, props to all you developers out there). Anyway, I bought the phone on the Samsung for life plan (like Sprint’s iPhone for life), wherein you lease your phone and at the end of your lease, you can return your phone for an upgrade, or they give you the option to buy it. I’m sufficiently happy with my phone, that I decided to buy it outright. I was thinking about the Galaxy Note 20, but in the end this phone works perfectly ok, and it has a headphone jack. So I’ll stick with it.

I got so excited about the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, that I finally bought it. After 18 months…

It’s the middle of my weekend…

And I’m feeling so lazy that I don’t even want to put on my shoes to go to 7-11 (which is literally on the corner of my block) to get a diet coke…

Oh well, water is good…

Fun With The Cable Company

Comcast sucks. Comcast sucks hard. Case in point, last week, I decided to address a chronic issue that I’ve been having (namely whenever I downloaded something big, my TV pixelated and stalled). Basically because my main tower and my cable box were both wi-fi based. And because the cable box was wi-fi, the cable modem had to be on the same outlet as the DVR. Basically, I needed my wired cable box back. So I packed up the old box and took it to the Cable store in Federal Way (also called upon Mrs, Fields and did a bank run for the owner). This was the high point of the caper. My cable box return was accepted, and I received a wired box (and after previous misadventures, verified as X1 compatible). Get home, hook the box up to the outlet in my room. And unable to connect (same issue I had last fall). So I sent them a message on Facebook. And waited. And waited. And waited. And then I called them out on Twitter. And finally I got a response. To send them a DM (which I already had, since experience has taught me that it’s the same team that handles Facebook and Twitter). Finally I broke down and sent them another direct message, with the first paragraph already including all the information that they ask you (you know, like name address and phone number). And their initial reply after already telling them that was to ask me for my name and phone number. And I told them to stick it. Sorry, but if you’re not even going to bother reading my complaint, then don’t waste my time. At the time, I told Comcast to consider this to be their notification that I would be withholding payment until the matter was addressed. And then I sent out an Executive Email Carpet Bomb. It wasn’t until after over 12 hours from the time I sent my initial request for help that I got an answer. And I replied. And I didn’t get an answer for 2+hours later. (this all went down on my day off). I went to bed and got woken up by a phone call. Comcast corporate office (apparently they’re incapable of using the ‘reply’ key when they get an email). I let voicemail handle it.

While struggling to go to sleep, it occurred to me that I already had the solution. When we first moved in, I had a third cable box installed in my brother’s room, and the outlet that was being used was in my room. So I had the installer snake the cable all the around my room along the wall into my brother’s room. That didn’t last long, the box was returned, but the cable line stayed. It was out of the way, so why move it? So I go to work, still getting Facebook messages from Comcast wanting to reset my boxes and my modem. I finally told them that I was work, I’m no longer taking personal messages while at work, and they had plenty of time to address already (remember they didn’t answer my initial message for over 12 hours. Get home from work, pull the cable out, hook my box up. And everything works. Ended up moving the cable modem into my room. It has Wi-Fi 6 so my brother will still have internet access. Upshot of that is that my tower can now connect with a physical cable, and that is always faster than wi-fi. As for the cable’s routing, it had go across a hallway, and over a closet door, so a $7 bag of cable staples from Spamazon later, I had under control…

So back to that Executive Email Carpet Bomb. I sent them an email. And they tried calling me. I called them back (Sprint has a service to transcribe voicemail. I highly recommend it). And somehow I ended up being bounced back their regular phone tree. Comcast’s executives basically told me to go pound sand. Let that sink in.

I’m under a contract with Comcast. Notwithstanding they have still raised my rates, and cut channels. Their customer service is abysmal. If you have a problem, even their executives don’t anything to do with you. They’ll gladly take your money, and the god forbid you should actually try and use the service you pay for (oh, they did offer me a $40 for my troubles, but I declined for ethical reasons. I didn’t have the heart to explicitly tell the executive team into which orifice they could stick it)…

Comcast, you suck. Go back to ignoring your customers.

Fall is upon us….

Last night at work, it was my turn to go out and clean up the parking lot. Usually when I go outside it rains. This was no exception. It was just a light misting, but still moisture was coming out of the sky, and I had to be out in it. Temperatures are cooling off to the point that my AC compressor is now cycling off (and in fact, I’m routinely turning it off). And in addition to the sh*t-load of pumpkin spice k-pods I got a couple of weeks ago, 3 liters of pumpkin spice coffeemate arrived today.

Fall must be here. Bring on the No Fun League.

So, my birthday was yesterday...

 It was my birthday yesterday. Got lots of well-wishes on Facebook (the high point of my birthday). Bought my own present (the new Flight Simulator. See the previous post). And my brother was going to make me a birthday dinner (or at least he said he was when I said I was ordering pizza). So I woke up last night (I sleep during the days because I work overnights), and was greeted by a stack of Domino's gift cards. You might have your opinion about them, but they deliver, and I hardly have a problem with them. More importantly, unlike grubhub, doordash, or uber eats, when they deliver, they know which driveway to go up. I can't tell you how many times I've had to go running after delivery drivers... And Domino's pizza is also cheaper than even McDonalds...

New Flight Stimulator is out...

 Finally. After over a decade, they released a new Flight Simulator yesterday. And it was my birthday. So I went over to Steam and bought it. And then spent three+ hours downloading it. So far there are issues with my joystick controller, but I'm impressed with the graphics. While troubleshooting the controller, I ended up messing the software installation up so much that I decided a rebuild was warranted. I know what's going to happen. I'm going to end up getting the new Airbus controller. But given that price, and the $132+ that I just shelled out, that's not going to happen for a while. And then there's the video card I've been eyeballing. The card I put in a year ago is now the bare minimum for FS 2020.

Yesterday was also the first day of the Caribbean Premier League. Hooray West Indies (which is also the cheer I give whenever Pakistan plays)...

OK, about last night…

It was most likely dehydration, caffeine withdrawal, and something I ate. Headache and nausea eventually went away on their own after a cup of tea. So, I’m going to cut back on my coffee (note: sleep is suitable substitute for caffeine, especially on a day off). And I should probably watch my overindulging…

Ugh…

Woke up with a headache. And nausea. Figuring caffeine withdrawal I fixed myself a cup of coffee and drank it. And 10 minutes later, it tried to come back up. I don’t need to be barfing on the bus to work, or while at work, so I called out (applying the mantra to stay home if you’re sick).

I actually wanted to go to work tonight, but I also don’t need to be tossing my lunch on the job either….

Ok, we can stop panicking now...

The power is back on. Now to turn the AC back on and go back to bed... 

A nice warm day....

It's going to be a nice warm day today. I was all set to chill in my air conditioned room. And the power just went out... 

So this past weekend…

I was at work this past weekend, and I got a text from the Mrs. Fields store owner. One of our early morning regulars passed away July 3. RIP Duane. You will be missed.

Yesterday’s experiment….

Ok, I just had to try Windows 7 again. I thought I’d have better results with an MBR boot drive than a GPT one. But with my other hard drives being GPT, I was having issues. So yesterday, I did a complete external back up. Then I booted off the Windows DVD and went straight to Diskpart, and used the ‘clean command to wipe everything completely. And I was able to initialize my ssd as a MBR drive and I installed. And then when I went to set up my other hard drives, I realized the problem. The windows installer had initialized one of my hard drives as MBR as well. Apparently Windows 7 doesn’t really want to recognize m.2 ssd’s. Learning my lessons from previous attempts, I went ahead and put the Windows 10 DVD back in, and it’s back to the drawing board….

Sometimes, the only you’re going to learn is to go ahead and make the mistake. But that’s why we have backups…

Hooray West Indies!

West Indies won the match Sunday morning. Next match in the series starts Thursday morning. And I will be at work all 5 days…

Just finished reinstalling all my software yet again. Between Epic, Steam, Origin, Uplay, Gog, and Amazon, I have way too much crap installed on my computer. But all I seem to do is play Flight Simulator X. On August 18 (my birthday btw) , they will be releasing Flight Simulator 2020. I think I know what I’m getting for my birthday. And since it’s being initially released through the Microsoft store, it’ll be a good reason to keep Windows 10 installed for more that a week. Speaking of which, I had a hunch about why I kept getting bluescreeens in Windows 7, and looked it up. Though about trying it out again. But in the end, it was going to be the same thing, and I’d end up wiping everything and starting over for nothing. So I left it at that.

And the winner of the match is...

So last night/this morning I've been watching the first day of the West Indies/England Test match. Abs the winner of the match so far is the English weather. Start was delayed due to rain. Abs they've barely been able to get in 4 overs. They're now on their second rain delay.

Hooray West Indies... 

Ok, so it's official, again...

Tried Windows 7 again this morning. Abs it lasted all of 6 hours. After the first round of updates from Windows Update, it bluescreened on the first reboot. Lesson learned, back to Windows 10. At least I know it works... 

Happy Birthday, Sir Richard Starkey!

Ringo Starr is 80 today. No real reason due me to post this, I just wanted to post some good news in my blog for once. 

Ok so while I was dealing with other issues this morning....

(Note: see the last post).

So, while I was busy dealing with the mess I made of my tower this morning, I checked my phone and noticed 3 emails from Bealls Florida. Somebody had used my name and email address to order some shoes to be shipped to Ocala Florida. I did not recognize the credit card number in the order, so I gave them a call. A 35 minute phone call later, abs the order was canceled, my name and email were purged from their system, abs the store credit card that was used was flagged as fraudulent.

Not a way to start the morning.... 

Here we go again

Again I fell to temptation and put Windows 7 back on my tower. I thought I could get around my issues with bluescreens and reboots by making my ssd an mbr formatted drive. Turns out, that while Windows can work with it, you're SOL with Windows 7. But the damage has been done, so I'm going to give it another try. I figure I'll be back to windows 10 and square one within a week, most likely 12 hours.

And international cricket returns tonight, with the first Test match of West Indies at England. Hooray West Indies... 

I wanted some pizza a couple of weeks ago…

I came home from work, and I was hungry. So I pulled out my phone and ordered some Domino’s. Actually, I was on the bus, but I selected future delivery and I was home by the time the driver delivered. When I was ordering on the app, I noticed that there a was pay with PayPal option, so I tried it. I signed in, selected my checking account, and placed the order. Got a confirmation email indicating that I was paying with PayPal.

And then the driver came, and said that I still needed to pay. Apparently I was never charged. I didn’t have the cash on me, and I’m not going to take stuff that I didn’t pay for so I declined the order. And I then called the store back, and explained to the manager what happened and I then paid for my order with a credit card. Basically because my ethics and my conscience answer to a higher authority. And I did order it, so I’m obliged to pay for it.

So that was the end of that. No use in bitching out the store personnel since this was beyond their control. But I took it to Twitter. I messaged Dominos with all the details, and I just wanted to know why they’re not taking PayPal when they give it as an option to pay. And their response was to just ask me for more personal info that they don’t need. I also called out PayPal, but I’m not going to bother with their response as they’re just a ‘bot. Dominos just doesn’t know how to read…

So last Saturday I again ordered Dominos. This time, applying the lessons learned in previous weeks, I paid with a credit card. Driver showed with and extra order of cheesy bread and a Diet Coke, saying that his manager added these because of the problems with my last order….

Moral of this story: Never use PayPal for ordering takeout/delivery and always tip generously….