Was behind on work. Missed three days of work for Anime Overdose. AOD made me tired. Have to call mom. Full update to follow. Back to work. End of entry.
So much work to do, and so much sleep deprivation so I can’t concentrate on the work.
The fact that I’m going to be out of the office for Thursday, Friday and Monday this and next week (for Anime Overdose) isn’t helping, either.
You look like Bruce Timm threw up in a knife factory.
I love Checkerboard Nightmare.
A good day for FFXI
Yay, three FFXI posts in a row.
This morning I decided to blow my second Red Mage Testimony and try defeating Maat again.
Followup to FFXI griping
I feel poorer. But I’m actually richer, because I bought it off of the group for a discount, and I might actually get a bit more back than what I paid out. But even if I don’t, my opportunity cost is still in my benefit. And I now know Erase, which I only have to do once.
The BCNM went well: one Erase scoll (which I bought from the group), two Utsusemi: Ni scrolls, three Spirit Torques, and a handful of other 10k-ish items. The strategy was a success, even though our first attempt failed the other 5 went mostly flawlessly, and we’re going to try again on Sunday.
Last night, as I was getting out of the shower, I glanced over just as one of my lego starwars models fell off the top of my shelf. It totally freaked me out.
Math and music
I did the math. I went back into my amazon.com history and checked to see how much I had spent on shipping in the calendar year of 2004. When I got to April and I had already spent more than $79.95, I knew that Amazon Prime was for me. I also paid for it with my new Amazon Visa, so I got an effective 2% off. I was already getting 1% back in the form of Yahoo! Points on my previous Visa, which I always converted to Amazon.com gift certificates anyway. The Amazon Visa gives 3% back on purchases made on Amazon, so now I can buy anything on Amazon at “3% off and free shipping.”
I finally got my copy of Dai Gassou! Band Brothers in the mail. The only FAQ on gamefaqs.com is pitifully incomplete, it just lists the songs and instruments, and it’s obvious that the guy hadn’t even played it, because there are a few things he doesn’t know about. I managed to “beat” the game, (I got to “Pro” mode) but there’s still the Pro difficulty, which is actually quite challenging. I’m very tempted to actually write a more complete FAQ, but the fact that I only understand a fraction of the Japanese text that’s flying by might make my effort only three-quarters-assed instead of half-assed.
In FFXI, I’ve made it to level 68…. 1/3 of the way to 69. I’m getting close to the fight with Maat, which is something I’ve been dreading ever since I found out about it. I also got invited into an HNMLS, which will mean nothing to most of you, and it’s hard to explain. I haven’t done anything with them yet, I’m still focusing on trying to get to at least level 70.
I’m so considering buying this t-shirt, but I don’t know where I’d be able to wear it for maximum effect.
Just got the HDTV DVR cable box from Comcast, didn’t have too much time to play with it on my lunch break, though… and I think I need some different cables to connect them to the TV. I’m going to try using the DVI->HDMI cable for the fully-digital experience. Supposedly, I can use IEEE 1394 to connect it to the TV, but when I plugged it in, the TV didn’t detect the DVR. I think I’ll have to play with it a bit.
I also forgot to mention that when I first hooked up the TV, I was browsing around on cable for stuff to watch, and I ended up watching the last 3/4 of The Butterfly Effect, and I thought it was pretty cool, I need to catch the first 30 minutes, now, though.
Pain and debt
I am in pain.
Luke got the last of his stuff out of the house this weekend, and that included the TV, which I helped him load into his car. It was obviously more of a strain than I thought, because I woke up this morning with a pain in my right arm and chest… and a bit in my legs as well. And a headache, which may or may not be related.
So, now that there was a hole in the living room where there once was a TV (a rather clean patch of carpet surrounded by some very dusty carpet), I needed to put the TV shopping into high gear. I went to the last major retailer I had yet to hit, The Good Guys. They actually had the model in stock, and was cheaper than I’d seen it in any physical storefront. (I’ve seen it for cheaper online, but then you’re paying quite a bit on shipping a 130 pound box…) So I made a salesclerk very happy. All he had to do was say “can I help you with anything?” and he had his sale. And it was delivered later that day.
So the empty space has been filled. Now I have a corresponding chunk of debt on my credit card. I need to go to Fry’s tonight and pick up a few other cables and a power conditioner, though.
On another note, Dom mentioned my name in his MT rant last week. Today I’ve had three different people (as well as one on Friday) IM me saying “Who is this?” The first one confused the heck out of me, I responded with “What do you mean, who is this, you IMed me!” Well, the second one was so proud of themselves because they thought of actually putting “Hamusutaa” into an AIM window and seeing who responded and mentioned this to me when I realized what was going on.
MegaTokyo fans… *shudder*
How not to run a customer service website.
For the last four or five years, I’ve had an eFax Plus account. This is a fax number of my very own, local to me, that you can send faxes to and it shows up as an email attachment in my email. This was very useful when I was working on the Fanime con dealer’s room, as a lot of faxing was going on between me and the dealers. As time went on, though the only thing I’ve used it for is the occasional received fax from my financial advisor… which, if need be, could have been sent to my work fax, as it’s just down the hallway. For this privilege, I’ve been charged $13 a month. Today, I finally got around to canceling this account, but it turned out to be less simple than that.
I forgot the actual number, as it’s been so long and I only have it written down in my Palm Pilot (which is dead). So I had to have an email sent from them telling me my number when I put in my email address. That got caught by my spam filter, and I had to fish it out. Then, I had to request my PIN from them after entering the fax number. That took 30 minutes to go through, and was also caught by the spam filter.
After logging in, I tried to find the cancel account button. Now, there was something odd here that I’m not really going to bother looking in to, but still is unsettling. They were still charging the $13 a month to my Visa, even though the expiration date had passed, and I was on a new expiration date. (This was an issue a few months ago when a bunch of automatic charges failed and had to be re-setup.) But anyway, searching through the online help eventually told me that I need to do one of those stupid online chat things with a customer service representative to actually cancel my account.
The guy would not let me go. The general gist of the conversation went like this, although many things were repeated back and forth multiple times: “You want to cancel? We’ll give you two free months, and see how you feel after that.” I haven’t used it in three years, two months isn’t going to make a difference. I’ll just forget to contact you in two months (which is what you’re banking on) and we’ll be back where we started. “I can set it up so that it automatically cancels after the two months.” The website says that it’s not considered canceled until confirmed by a customer service rep. “Okay, it’s canceled.”
Only it took 15 minutes to do so. Why couldn’t there just be a button on the website? No, they don’t want to make it that easy. They want your money.
Well, they don’t have mine anymore. I wish I had the money of mine back they already have.