Tuesday, December 28, 2010

krippy

Eyes like oceans. Face like the sun, ablaze from the fires that burn deep within. Smoke rises from the innermost cavernous regions to disperse through the atmosphere above. Time slows. Thoughts blur. Is it reality or something more? Heightened senses, amplified sounds. You can feel the temperature of each molecule of air that touches you. So in touch with all that's around you that you can physically feel the separation between yourself and the world you are in. The world you were in. Then abruptly you awake, to start it all again.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Christmas Card

A way for people to say things they don't mean without actually saying them in order to make themselves feel better for all that crap they did to you all year. yay, thanks, I think I'd have preferred socks.

Friday, December 17, 2010

TRON Wrapup (no spoilers so don't worry)

Greetings programs!

Well, I'm still groggy as I write this. Wore out from all the excitement and from getting home late last night.

So, where to begin... The movie was great. The grid is beautiful, but I knew that already from the game where you see a lot more of it, before CLU screws it up. Movie answered a lot of questions brought up by both the game and the first movie and left us with a lot more.

The specifics of the theater. We (me and 2 friends) went to see it at the AutoNation IMAX in Ft. Lauderdale at midnight last night or this morning depending on how you look at it. It was a sold out showing, so thank the user we got our tickets weeks ago. This facility boasts 300 seats, stadium seating, 15,000 watt sound system with 42 speakers in 6 channels, 15,000 watt xenon bulb, and a 5 story screen said to be the largest in either Florida or South Florida or some such thing. The screen does NOT look 5 stories when you're in there. The 3d glasses suck if you wear glasses. However, they could've been worse, I wasn't expecting comfort and style lol. The seats themselves however were the devil. VERY narrow, and very straight. If you have medical issues that cause you pain when sitting straight upright then this is seriously not the place to go. I tried to switch to the side and lean a bit about 10x during the movie to no avail. I left there with an amazing throbbing pain in my lower back and an ass so sore it was numb. But, enough of that lol.

The movie was amazing. Sure I wanted to know the story after 28 years although I knew a lot from having played and beaten the game. But more than that was the look. Not just saying it's all special effects and eye candy cause it's not. It has an emotionally driven father son story that's very cool and several little surprises for the old fans of the first movie. I won't ruin any of it in this post so gonna have to cut my comments short here for now. I may revisit this post in a month or so and write about the things I was like "oooh coool" in the movie and stuff after everyone's seen it and it's out of the theater.

I was the only person there out of 300 people that had dressed up to the extreme that I did. And I wasn't in a TRON costume. All I had was a TRON "inspired" dress by Hurley sporting goods clothing and then added a light disc on my back, and carried a light disc and had a light cycle launch baton stuck in my boot. It wasn't even a costume so to speak. I did see several people with TRON clothing from the Adidas, Reebok, Nike and Hurley TRON lines though. Just T's and hoodies mostly. We got there later than I would've liked cause my friend Pat was eating again, like non stop lol. He's so skinny and all I ever see him doing is eating, I don't get it! Anyhow, like I been saying from the beginning it didn't matter. There are no bad seats in there, especially for a 3d movie. Where we were, in row 2 nearly center was perfectly fine. And we were towards the far ass end of the regular non early seating crowd.

I had wanted to take a bunch of pictures, but I didn't really wanna risk doing it before the movie because I know they are not fans of pictures in there, especially flash photography and just didn't wanna risk any problems. After the movie I did manage to get my friend to snap 2 quick ones of me. My friends don't seem to like having their pics taken so don't have any of them. I of course couldn't give a crap what anyone says or thinks so I was like, here take my damn pic lol. I haven't looked at them yet so odds are they're awful since it was post movie and I had of course been all crying and shit though the movie from excitement and just my basic emotional self. Plus I just generally do not photograph well. I look too pale and my skin reflects too much amongst other things. There were no TRON posters outside of the theater for some reason so couldn't get one near a poster like I had wanted and wasn't about to ask to go back inside to do it cause that's just silly. Did manage to amass a small crowd of on lookers outside while taking those 2 pics, I can't imagine why, nor do I give a crap what any of those total strangers I'll never see again thought. I still need to switch the two pics from my camera to my pc so I can see them full size and really get an idea if they're any good at all. Pic or not I looked good if I do say so myself. I mean seriously, that dress looks good on me! Looked far better than my usual goth or ren garb or trek uniform. And it was amazingly comfortable. Not sure why a tight short dress, stockings and boots with a light disc on my back was more comfortable than jeans, a blouse and shoes but it was. Best thing about that dress, and reason I decided to actually get it is cause it's not over the top TRON. It's TRON "inspired" but not so much that it couldn't be worn on any other occasion just fine. I mean it didn't actually light up or anything. Not that that would matter to me! I'd still wear it wherever I felt even if it did light up. But that's just me, I do whatever the hell I feel like with no regard for the world around me. My friend Pat kept saying I was funny all night, I assume because I went dressed up and because I didn't give a crap that I was the only one. It's what I do! My nature to be that one outlandish person who does whatever they want. Would be stupid to not follow my nature. And besides, now I'll always remember how I was there opening night all dressed up and stuff. Think of all the pointless, harmless, stupid fun I would've missed out on if I didn't dress up in TRON stuff, Star Trek uniforms, Ren garb, goth, etc.

Not so sure what else to say that won't ruin the movie for others. I can say, get the game, play the game, beat the game, before you see the movie if you can. It's worth it for so many reasons. Including the fact that there are several flashbacks in the movie that are direct clips from cutscenes and stuff in the game.

I'll come back and attach a pic of me and maybe I'll scan my ticket stub or something later lol. Just now starting to fully wake up and realizing I'm really hungry!

End of line.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

ENCOM Announcement Interrupted (Sam Flynn)

ENCOM Announcement (Alan and Lora Bradley)

ENCOM Announcement (Tron Legacy)

My Official Review of All Things TRON

OK, so most of the TRON merchandise I've ordered has been received. So here's a basic rundown on what I think of the whole thing.

TRON: Legacy Mobile Phone Game
Better than expected. I've been let down by nearly every cel phone game I've ever purchased before that involved a platform style or console style game play. Reason being, most cel phones, and more specifically my cel phone, only allow for one input at a time. Meaning, speeding up while turning doesn't happen. Firing while jumping doesn't happen. This is why most games just have autofire and all you have to do is move. This game is on the light cycles. You keep moving forward at a constant rate. You can ease to the left or right with the cycle handles on the touch screen. Then you can fire your disc at baddies while riding. This is done by selecting which disc type then hitting the center fire button. Simple controls for touch screen. Graphics pretty decent, music not bad. Controls unusually responsive for a cel phone game. All-in-all it's decent. Keeping in mind that it is a $7 USD mobile game, don't expect too much. But what you get for the money isn't bad if you're a TRON fan.

TRON: Evolution PC Game
AWESOME. Beat the game in a day and a half, about 12-14 hours gameplay on normal difficulty. The story is good. It answers several questions about what happened after the first TRON movie and why things are the way they are in TRON: Legacy. Of course it brings up several more questions that can only be answered in the movie, mostly surrounding Quorra. Game features disc combat, tank combat, and of course light cycles from the TRON: Evolution generation, the next gen ones from TRON: Legacy AND the classic bikes from the original TRON all unlockable as you progress through story mode. The graphics are amazingly beautiful. The world is big, detailed, and runs smooth and seamless without lag or slowdowns. It features music and voice talents from TRON: Legacy with one notable exception that Kevin Flynn & CLU are NOT voiced by Jeff Bridges (but it does sound like him). While playing through the story mode you encounter disc stations where you can upgrade your character, stats, disc, and vehicles as well as being able to access the grid. The gaming grid is an online mode competition. If accessed from within story mode it will either toss you into an already formed match or create a new one using npc's for the other characters. If a real player joins the npc's are replaced by the real player so the game continues without interruption as real players come and go. From the multiplayer mode selected at the main menu screen you can either jump right into a random match or search by specific criteria for one to join. Or you can create your own match. There's disintegration, team disintegration, bit runner, power monger game play styles. Some maps allow for you to jump right on a light cycle or jump off for disc combat whenever you want while other maps are strictly disc combat. There's 3 game difficulties, casual, normal, and insane. And there's 41 badges you can unlock through the various modes. Character levels are referred to as your current version. I beat the game at version 21 but 50 is the max version level. Your character's stats, version, and upgrades carry over to online gameplay and if you choose to replay at a different difficulty level your character progress carries over but you lose story progress obviously. Game controls are simple, uses keyboard & mouse or Xbox controller for Windows. If you have a logitech gamepad you can easily map it to match the Xbox controller set up with more options than the actual Xbox controller. Probably the biggest issue with the game is that you MUST have and be logged into a Windows LIVE / Xbox LIVE game account and have a gamertag set up. I had lost my old account due to changing from EarthLink to AT&T I couldn't recover the info and the auto recovery process was not working. I had to make an entirely new account. I find this both annoying and ridiculous. IF you are NOT signed into a Windows LIVE account you can not gain achievements or even save your game or options! Microsoft really needs to get off their high horse and stop trying to control every aspect of people's online lives. But, anyhow, the game is amazing and definitely worth getting.

TRON: Legacy Original Soundtrack by Daft Punk
OK, I must admit, I had never even heard of Daft Punk before all the TRON hype. And I was surprised that most of the regular people I had seen interviewed were mostly excited about Daft Punk being in the movie and doing the music. I was wondering why for awhile. The soundtrack came out the other day and I managed to download it. It's pretty awesome. Some of the songs are really, really cool. There are a couple that are kinda bleh. And the rest are so so. A lot of them sound alike. But overall it's pretty awesome sounding.

Hurley TRON: Legacy Inspired Women's Long Sleeve Dress
Pretty, fits nice. My one big nag is that the blue "piping" is not UV sensitive. I was hoping that the TRON like lines would appear illuminated under a blacklight but that is not the case. The lines are modeled not after Quorra but after the Daft Punk suits from the movie. Although their suits were white on white because they're ISOs and this is blue on black because it's based off the BASCIS loyal to The User. It's a bit short but that's not always a bad thing. Definitely advise wearing this with boots. And should be able to mount the frisbee version of the identity disc to your back with black thread fairly easily if you're going for a costume look. Also, it's not so over the top TRON that it can't be worn again on a regular occasion making it worth the money just to have something that fits in my case lol.

Spin Master - Identity Disc: Sam Flynn
What can I say, it's a frisbee. It does nothing. It's made of a softer pvc plastic so it won't crack if you throw it at something. It looks nice, a bit bigger than the normal sized disc. Good item to mount on your back if you're doing a costume thing. The blue lines are a bit lighther than they really should be but all-in-all it's not expensive so it's worth what you pay.

Spin Master - Deluxe Identity Disc: Sam Flynn
Nice. If you buy one collectible this should probably be it. It has 2 light up modes, one that just lights on with sounds for a second or two just as a quick display and one that goes through a programmed series of lights and sounds. My big disappointment with this though was that there is no constant on mode. You can't just light it up like in the game and movie and keep it lit. It does the power on sequence, then does a flickering malfunction sequence for a bit and flashes then eventually does the power down sequence. You can press and hold the on button to keep the inner ring lit but that also causes it to spam repeat the power on sound which gets annoying fast. And while the button is easily located and accessed it's not very easy to keep it depressed for more than a second. It has a really lame display stand as well, stand mostly pointless as this clearly needs to be hung on the wall for display.

Spin Master - Light Cycle Launch Baton
OK, first off, this thing is not easy to get. It was a Target limited time exclusive that is long since sold out at all Targets. You can get it second hand from comic and sci-fi collectors and resellers for more than it was. It was $15 USD at target. Most online shops are selling it for around $30 USD. Some are around $28. I found one site though, Entertainment Earth (Google it if you're interested). They had it for $17 with shipping and tax it came to $25 total. As for the item itself. It's the Light Cycle Launch Baton, the staff that they wear on their hips that turns into their light cycles. Quorra is said to be an expert at baton combat using it as a weapon. It's pretty, it extends and has nice design and buttons. My surprise was the fact that not only is it a roleplay style item but it does in fact launch a small replica of Sam Flynn on his light cycle out of the end of the baton! There's a button that releases a hatch at the end and out pops Sam on his cycle hehe. I didn't even know it did that when I ordered it.

Disney TRON: Legacy Screensaver, Avatar Icons, Wallpapers, Posters
Available from the official Disney TRON site. The Screensaver isn't bad. Mixture of both animated and still shots. It loads up fast unlike some screensavers and it has sound. The avatar icons, very small, very poor quality imgaes. Wallpapers, several of the links on the site for these are broken. The first 4 or 5 wallpaper links don't work at all, the rest do though. They have various size wallpapers including iphone and ipad ones. Posters, nice pics, worth getting I guess though I don't know what you'd do with them.

Disney TRON Online Games
There have been several online flash type games released. First off is the classic arcade game. What they don't tell you is that the one they have up is the second version of the game. I know this because I played the first version of the arcade game almost every day at the drugstore that was half a block from my house for about 8 or 9 years they had the arcade machine. In both version you are presented with 4 directions to go, it's initially unmarked as to which direction is which game. You have 10 seconds to choose. The four possible games you get are the light cycle race (derezz all your opponents), the tank battle (derezz all enemy tanks), the grid bugs (make it past the bugs to the I/O beam tower), and the breakout clone (destroy the bricks to get your disc and you into the heart of the MCP). In version one you just played the games beat all 4 games and got new round with 4 tougher versions until eventually it became too hard and you die. This second version they have up adds a dark mode to one of the four games starting at level 2. Meaning, 1 of the 4 games looks different, is harder, and everything is dark, I don't know why exactly lol. None the less it's classic arcade goodness! Also available are replicas of the games written by Kevin Flynn. There's Space Paranoids, the game he's seen playing at the beginning of the first TRON where you're in a light tank blasting recognizers in an old school first person shooter format. Then there's Light Cycles, a 3D ish version of the classic light cycle game.

Spin Master TRON: Legacy Action Figures
These come in 2 basic styles with a 3rd style for one or two of the charactes. First there's the 3 to 4 inch little basic action figures. These don't do much besides look cool. And as opposed to Hasbro or other large toy companies Spin Master has their stuff reasonably priced! Then there's the 6 inch ones. These come in several styles based on which character it is. Some are basic 6 inch figures, that don't so much, but look very nice. Some are what are called "impulse projection" figures. These are really nice. First off, they don't have the usual crappy plastic face replica of the actor. These all have the light cycle helms on but when activated their suits light up just like in the movie and a 3D lit up projection of the actual actor's face is projected inside the helmet. This is such a simple yet ingenious idea. I can't imagine why no one ever thought to do that before. No plastic wannabe faces, but the actual actor's face in 3D light inside their helmet! Then there's at least one figure that talks. CLU, the program written by Kevin Flynn that took over TRON City and The Grid. And, not only is it an impulse projection figure but it speaks in the REAL Jeff Bridges voice. It is in fact real clips of Jeff Bridges speaking taken directly from the movie. Not like those 1998 1999 Star Wars voice chips which were voice actor impersonations.

Spin Master TRON: Legacy Vehicles
Lots of these too. I like the little die cast 3ish inch ones myself. But there's larger ones for the 3 inch figures and even bigger collector deluxe ones. All pretty cheap compared to other toys and collectibles. The list includes the usual, light cycles, Kevin Flynn's retro civilian white enclosed style cycle seen in both the movie and ridden briefly (before you trash it lol) in the game. There's the standard movie version cycles in blue for Sam and yellow for CLU. There's a recognizer playset for the bit stuff and die cast mini for the little stuff. There's also in the die cast set CLU's command ship seen in both the game and movie. And of course, Quorra's Light Runner car / buggy.

Spin Master TRON: Legacy Zero G Light Cycle
OK, I don't have this one yet and what I've read about it makes little sense. First off it's remote control. So, naturally it's inproportionate due to real world physics it's wider so as to not topple and such. All the reviews and ratings I've seen are pretty bad on this item. What gets me though is the description. It "claims" that this thing can run up your walls and upside down across your ceiling... yeah I'm like huh? Last time I checked the human race had not yet figured out anti-gravity. Part of me wants to buy it just to see what the heck it does but the reviews and ratings are all so bad that I'm torn what to believe.

TRON: Legacy Electronics
Several of these, not sure I'm qualified to judge as I love my logitech stuff. However, there are keyboards, mice, gamepads, xbox and ps3 controllers, wii remotes, ipad docks, light cycle usb drives, speakers, even gaming chairs and more made by Razor and Monster and others.

TRON: Legacy Clothing and TRON Inspired Clothing
There's a lot, too much to mention. Naturally Disney has a line of t-shirts, jackets, hats, hoodies and such. But Hurley, Adidas, Reebok and Nike all have sporting clothes lines inspired by TRON from shorts to shoes to dresses. And there is, coming soon, officially licensed, street legal motorcycle suits based off Sam's and Quorra's cycle suits including jacket, pants, removable skirt, boots, etc. And there's even costume replicas if you have $1000 to spend.

Other Random TRON Stuff
Well, there's an online app that makes a video of you riding a light cycle by projecting an image of your face into the helmet and then manipulating it so it looks like you're talking and stuff. It's kinda goofy. There's also some that make pics of you in a disc battle and other stuff.

I think that's about everything worth mentioning. One week until the release of the movie, can't wait! I'm going to add links to stuff after I post this so if anyone is interested in finding out more about any of this or where to get it I'll direct you in the right place. It may take a bit to get all the links up though so check back if you don't see a link to what you're looking for. Not that anyone but me even reads this! lol I think I'm just talking to myself anyhow...



MUST Check Out Links for TRON Fans
Flynn Lives (hint...click on everything)
Hello Flynn? I'm not sure what this is yet but check it out! Login and enter the following codes: 139378391318, 675469546194, 356343532556, 273143722135, 329363554862, 485926738343, and most importantly - 698478232862.
ENCOM
Flynn Frontier
PopTech75 (weird)
Hydecker Designs (more weird stuff lol)
Wellminster Academy
Amazon Capoeira
Dumont Shipping
McClaskey Airstrip
Perfect Parachutes

Official Links
Official Disney TRON Site
Create a Program
Ride a Light Cycle
Posters, Wallpapers, Buddy Icons, Screensaver
Soundtrack by Daft Punk
Official Facebook Page

Toys and Collectibles
Spin Master Website
Entertainment Earth Online Store

Video
TRON YouTube Channel

Game Links
Classic TRON Arcade Game Online
Classic Discs of TRON Arcade Game Online
TRON: Legacy Light Cycle Online
TRON: Legacy Disc Battle Online
TRON: Legacy Digital DJ Online
Space Paranoids Online

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Holidays, hmmph, Don't Get Me Started... TOO LATE!

I really don't care for most, if not all, holidays.

My parents have already started in with this Thanksgiving crap again. Cause neither of them, nor my aunt that seems to end up stuck with us every year (poor woman), can ever decide what to do, where to go, what to eat. Then it comes to me. At some point they decide to leave it up to me where we're going. That is so totally the WRONG thing to do. First off, I hate this stupid holiday. Why? Cause of what it really stands for, which I'll get to in a minute. Second, and probably far more significant, is the fact that I don't care for turkey, and flat out despise, squash, cranberry sauce, and most other "traditional" Thanksgiving foods.

Holidays, yeah, whatever. Christians are so quick to tell you how Christmas is not about Santa Claus and Easter is not about a giant creepy bunny that lays eggs for whatever reason. But, when it comes to Thanksgiving they're as quick to believe the lie as everyone else. This holiday is not about giving thanks for those you love yatta yatta. That's what people have come to believe yeah sure, like Santa and that damn bunny. It started by Europeans coming to the new world, conquering the natives, raping their women, murdering their children, torturing and enslaving the men, taking over their land, and causing the complete genocide of entire tribes of native americans. Yay, let's celebrate that! NOT! This is wrong, just wrong, and it annoys me how quick people are to shoot down the myths of what Christian holidays are about and yet believe the lie that is Thanksgiving. You wanna give thanks, do it on another day in my opinion. This holiday is bogus.

Quite honestly, all holidays are bogus. You should celebrate Thanksgiving (not the holiday but the idea it has become) every day. If you're Christian you "should" be treating every day like Christmas and/or Easter. And if you're pagan then make every day Samhain. Why we put everything into these holidays and then blow off the rest of the year. Why we believe the idiotic lies about these holidays. Why the world is like it is is beyond me. I truly don't get it.

Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, St. Valentine's Day, I'd bet less than 10% of the world even know what these holidays are really about, how or when they started, or what they're really celebrating. And hence it's all become a joke. People celebrate lies that have been fed to them for generations. People believe the commercials and shows on TV that depict everything wrong and help to reinforce people's beliefs that holidays are celbrating things which don't really have anything to do with the holiday itself.

I always get infuriated around this time of year. I get depressed on Halloween because, well, amongst other things I've been engaged twice on Halloween neither of which worked out. Then we come into Thanksgiving where my parents pretty much kill what's left of my patience and tolerance. Then after all that we're hit with Christmas, I won't even comment specifically on that one as it will likely piss off a few dozen people.

Anyhow, yeah, I'm venting rage, anger, and frustration again. What can I say? I'm a Gemini and I'm not just Italian; but Sicilian. We should all just be lucky that no one was injured in the making of this post lol.

Happy Holidays, or whatever, pfft

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Krysta's Top 13 Songs for Samhain (Halloween)

Krysta's Top 13 Songs for Samhain (Halloween)
Goth, Rock, Metal, Industrial, Trance, Dance, Dark, Emo


13 - Ministy - Every Day is Halloween



12 - Lords of Acid - VooDoo-U



11 - Type O Negative - Christian Woman



10 - Gossamer - Run



9 - Samael - The Cross



8 - The Electric Hellfire Club - Bela Lugosi's Dead



7 - London After Midnight - Where Good Girls Go to Die



6 - Rob Zombie - Dragula



5 - My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - The Velvet Edge



4 - Rob Zombie - Living Dead Girl



3 - Rasputina - Transylvanian Concubine



2 - Evanescence - Bring Me to Life



1 - Lacuna Coil - Falling Again



Not every song actually had a video. Some appear to have been either too old or too obscure or possibly both. I tried to find the ones with the best sound.

Friday, October 1, 2010

DSL Working Again (Final Recap)

It's now past 8pm est and my DSL is still connected.  I think it's safe to say that it is in fact now working again.  FINALLY!

Let's go back over the situation one last time.  Approximately five months ago my DSL started to randomly disconnect.  It only happened a couple times a week at first so it wasn't bad enough to be bothered worrying about yet.  It got progressively worse.

After about two months it had gotten to the point where it was becoming unbearable.  And so came the first of many calls to EarthLink.  At this time I had EarthLink DSL which had worked flawlessly for about 10 years, and had EarthLink dial-up for about 3 years prior to that.  I never had any real problems.  Had a few modems break that they promptly replaced.  Not much else.  This was the first serious problem which I had to contact them about.  Well, I was asked to do all the usual.  Clear my web cache, reset modem, reboot pc.  Nothing changed.

After several calls and many weeks I had tried everything imaginable.  They had sent me a new modem, I checked for anything that could be interfering with the signal, redid wires inside house, tried my modem with and without PC connected at all the wall jacks and phone box and got the same issue no matter what I did.

By this point it was happening frequently enough that I was able to notice a VERY distinct pattern.  At 8pm est every night my DSL would disconnect.  The internet light would go out and the DSL light would flash red for about 2 seconds then flash green for 2 more second before going solid.  The internet light would then flash green for 2 to 5 seconds before going solid and I'd be reconnected.  Exactly five minutes later that exact same thing would happen again.  And again every 5 mins repeatedly until 7am est.  This was happening every night like clockwork.

EarthLink finally sent an AT&T tech out to check the lines, but it was during the day!  When they worked fine!  Naturally everything tested out perfect.

Every time I called I got someone that didn't understand what I was saying.  All their customer service is outsourced.  And that in its self is not bad.  Except that the people they had answering their calls were idiots and clearly did not speak English or understand me or the problem.  I am the least racist, sexist, biased, etc. person you'll ever meet.  It wasn't their nationality or language that bothered me.  I just speak English and when I call for help on a product or service that I use I expect to get someone that also speaks English... fluently, AND understands the technical part of what I need help with.  If I spoke Hungarian and called for help on a cosmetic product I'd expect to get someone that spoke Hungarian and wore make up to help me.  If I spoke Chinese and had an issue with my car I'd expect to call and get someone that spoke Chinese and was a mechanic on Japanese cars.  Is that too much to expect?  Ok, I guess so, but that's still what I "needed".

Four months, 15+ phone calls to EarthLink, still no help.  My final call I was told that there was nothing left for them to do and that they refused to open another trouble ticket since it would simply automatically close itself since there was nothing left they could do.  They had planned to simply leave me with DSL that worked 50% of the time and continue to charge me far too much for it.

It was at this point I finally gave in and decided to change to AT&T.  I figured if I have a problem outside somewhere with the lines the best company to have would be AT&T since they own those lines.  I have AT&T home phone and Cel phone so it made sense despite the hassle of changing email addresses for 13 years of internet, shopping, and gaming sites and programs.  So Sept. 2nd I put in an order for AT&T Highspeed DSL Xtreme 6.0.  THREE weeks later I finally got the setup pack with equipment, modem, filters, dvd, so forth.  I set it up, logged in, that night, SAME THING.

So, I called AT&T, late, got outsourced, however they were smart.  But they couldn't do anything since they were just the late night phone help.  I did not know that at first.  They tried to help, but failed.  I was told they'd call back the next day when the tech department was open, they did not.  I called back the day after that and tried again, it was late, they tried to help, and failed again.  I was told to call back the next day myself.  I did, coincidently that day they had an outage in my area and said they couldn't pinpoint my problem until that was fixed.  Two days later I called back, late but not as late as prior calls.  Again they tried to help and failed but told me someone would call me the next day.  This time around they did, and they tried to help but failed as well.  They said call back in a day or two after they had time to run tests.

A week or so had gone by at this point.  I called in the evening this time and got someone here, in the USA, New Orleans to be specific.  They understood what I was saying and had theories right off.  They talked to the tech and tech talked to me.  It was believed at this point to be either the very old, but not working, street light behind my house, the wiring in the walls, or something called a dslam box in my neighborhood.  I was told however that the dslam box has been having problems for "many months" but that the equipment was expensive and it was not known when or if it would be fixed any time soon.  That was what we all had assumed was the main issue.  However, to cover all my tracks I called FPL (Florida Power & Light) and put in a request to have that light fixed and/or repaired.  And I had them send a tech to test the line anyhow.

First person I spoke to said latest a tech in my area works is 5pm.  Second person said 6pm I said ok fine let me set up an appointment then.  When I actually got to the person to set the appointment time though they said they have someone that can come between 5pm and 8pm.  I was like WHAT!  Cause all this time I had been told no techs could be sent during or near the time my problems have been happening.  So, I set it up and had him not to come as late as possible.  He did, he came at exactly 8pm.  He swore he saw the problem in the box immediately and started to redo some wiring.  I stood there watching him and trying to help with flashlight and stuff till nearly 9pm.  He finished, I was so excited and hopeful.  I came inside, SAME PROBLEM.  Nothing was fixed.  I told the man and we both felt bad and made sad faces and gave up basically.  He left, I came in depressed and sat here thinking what the heck am I going to do next.

For about two hours I watched the DSL modem disconnect every five mins. same as it had been for 5+ months now.  I did a little bit of what one might call praying, keeping in mind that I'm not Christian and I'd rather not get into the details involved in what I did here in this blog.  Then I got caught up watching NCIS and House.  Around 11:15pm I noticed that I hadn't seen the modem go off in some time.  I also realized that I hadn't really been paying THAT much attention to it due to TV shows.  But at that point I started to watch it more closely.

Somewhere around 4am or 5am I passed out but at that point it was still working and had not disconnected.  It has also now been a complete hour since I started writing this post and I am also still connected.

I may never know what really happened that made it start working anymore than I will ever know what made it stop working right in the first place.  What I do know is that it IS now working.  After five months I can resume my facebook posts, my EverQuest raids, my gaming, my chatting, and everything else I have been unable to do for half the day, every day this whole time.

I'm happy, which in itself is an odd an unusual feeling for me.  It'll pass...

Thursday, September 2, 2010

EarthLink, AT&T, & the Murphy Brown Connection (or is that DISconnection?)

So, I've had it with EarthLink. Limit of my patience reached, no going back for them, they've pushed me that little bit too far.

Thirteen or so years ago I needed to get an internet connection. I didn't know who to choose, where to begin, or anything else about it at the time. EarthLink however had a cool sounding pagan ish like name and it was owned by Sprint. At that time Sprint's spokesperson was Candace Bergen and I LOVED Murphy Brown. Seemed like as good a reason as any to choose them.

For over a decade I enjoyed a reliable, decent connection at decent speeds for a decent price. I had no complaints, it worked fine.

Then, I had my first and last problem. Four months, 15 phone calls, and the last thing they said was that there was nothing else they could do and that they wouldn't even open a new trouble ticket.

The problem according to the AT&T tech that was here is the wires in the wall being nearly 70 years old. While I don't think switching to AT&T is going to resolve the issue, I can't deal with EarthLink for another second. Regardless of what happens after I switch; EarthLink must go!

I don't know what I'm going to do about the fact that I need those emails to retrieve my pw's and login info and registration for dozens of websites, games, services, etc. I don't know what I'm going to do about the fact that my mom uses one of the 8 emails that EarthLink gave me. I don't know what I'm going to do about the 80gigs of webspace I'll be losing where my current website, and bits of 3 other old sites remain. I'll figure it out though.

Trying to stay focused I know only one thing for certain... I HATE EarthLink! HATE THEM!

. . . T R A N S M I S S I O N E N D S . . .

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Guildless Again!

Well, I couldn't get online for a couple days.  I arrive at my dad's house and finally get online to discover I no longer have a guild in EverQuest AGAIN!  This is getting old.  With my current internet problems I'm tempted to cancel all game accounts and just say goodbye to the internet entirely.  But, since the world itself just won't let that happen I'm stuck.  By the time I get my internet connection issues worked out everyone from my guild will have found new guilds and I'm gonna likely have a rough time ending up anywhere.  This doesn't make for much of a blog post but I'm pissed as hell and it's the only place that I can ramble on without character limits or language restrictions.  Damn games, damn internet, damn people, so sick of it all.

Ever see that one episode of um, well I don't remember what, some sci-fi show where the world is attacked by aliens and everything electrical stops working.  What was that?  Not ID4 or War of the Worlds, was that an episode of Twilight Zone or something?  Well anyhow, why can't that happen?  I could live without it if no one had it!  Internet and technology that is.

Bah, I'm tired and annoyed.  I'm going to go sit out behind my dad's house by the lake with some Madonna, a glass of wine, and watch the stars, he has starts here!  I mean he doesn't personally have stars but the sky above his house has stars that are actually visible to the naked eye!  You can't see that from my house.  My house you see a greyish yellow haze in every direction of the sky at night.  Only star you can see from my house is the Sun.  And it's quiet here, something else that I'm not use to, kinda freaky.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Feeling Weirder Than Usual

Just feel weird.  Can't determine if it's being caused by mental, emotional, or physical issues.  Just feel strange inside.

Seem to have lost all interest in everything I had interest in.  Haven't been playing games, posting on facebook, logging on online, chatting, nothing.  Not been listening to music or watching much of anything anywhere, movies, tv, online, nothing.

Been mostly sleeping and staring at nothing.  Staring at my monitor desktop or the wall or ceiling.  Just doing nothing.

Just seem to have lost what was left of my motivation.  Not sure of the cause, not sure if it'll pass.  May be caused by any number of things from the full moon to being on Humira this last month, could be medical interaction, could just be boredom, or any combination of any of that or more.

Kinda reminds me of the feeling you get after having been drunk or high for a very long time and then having nothing.  After the withdrawals pass I mean.  That blank empty pointless feeling.  Except there's no real reason for me to feel like this right now.

Anyhow, next week I get 3 days of cat sitting for my dad while he goes on a Disney cruise.  Hopefully the change of scenery and quiet there will help.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

EverQuest Expansion 17

More space!  That's about the most important thing I have to say right there.  FINALLY, more space!  Increased inventory!  I don't know if they're adding more inventory slots on toon or in bank or bigger bags finally or what exactly but there will be more space!  If you had 5 ten slot bags full of LoN familiars on you for the last 2+ years you'd be excited too!

Other features worth mentioning, level cap going from 85 to 90.  =(  Boo, I hate, hate, hate level cap increases.

And finally, EverQuest joins every other MMORPG in existence by adding... drum roll...  dun dun duh...  Player Housing!

Yes there's other stuff, new zones, new aa's, new spells, blah blah.  But seriously, those are the only 3 that matter, more space, level cap increase, and player housing.

I believe it's slated for November of this year, don't quote me.  No idea of name or anything else yet.  Who cares?  MORE INVENTORY SPACE!!!  /happy dance


New Cel Phone

Unlike most things I post here and elsewhere, this post is not interesting, informative, or funny.  Ok, well maybe a little funny.  I just wanted to tell some friends without repeating myself ten times and without the 420 character restriction of evil facebook.

So, last week my mom's phone broke.  No clue how or why.  She started complaining and naturally came to me to fix it (like I can fix anything lmao not).  The 3g emblem kept flashing from 3g to 3g+ to 3 to E to 3g again.  And the signal strength was grayed out.  Being the electronic genius I am I knew exactly what to do, I called AT&T and asked them what it meant!  lol  They had me run some tests and check some stuff on the phone, most of which I think was just to make me feel like they were actually doing something.  The end result was the phone was broke.

Anyhow, regardless of whatever had happened to the old phone they let us know that we were both eligible for new phone upgrades (since we're on a family plan together with land line and cels and stuff cause it's cheaper).  So, at this point I was thinking oh wow and oh no at the same time.  My mom and I had the exact same phones, Samsung a707.  Apparently these were like the original 3g phones from Samsung.  Have had them about three and a half years.  They weren't smart phones, more like retarded phones.  Nothing could be put on standby or suspended.  If you got a call you would have to quit and loose all info connected to whatever you were doing if you wanted to answer it.  They only had a number pad where you have to hit the "1" key like 8x to get an "@" symbol.  Yeah, old, point made.

So, part of me got excited cause I was eligible for a new phone.  I was thinking, "ooh new electronics" and the techno geek in my was all giddy.  However, I had 58 games at $5-$7 each on the phone...  Sure I get to keep them on THAT phone, which I wouldn't be carrying with me making the whole point of having them pointless.  That's like $290-$406 plus over a dozen wallpapers and about a dozen ringtones and a couple apps.  I figure that's about $500 worth of crap I was gonna loose.  Well, AT&T said they would credit some back after we got new phones though, so I figured best to go for it and see what happens.

So began the three day nightmare of trying to find and choose new phones.  My mom who refuses to buy such things online decided we were going to go "shopping".  More like a treasure hunt or something.  In three days we went to Best Buy, 10 AT&T stores between Dade and Broward Counties, 6 or 7 Radio Shacks, 3 Walmarts, and 1 Target (they suck).  Finally ended up making purchase at the AT&T store in the Pembroke Lakes Mall.  If you've been keeping up with my status on facebook you know this is where the guy informed me that he, "liked my choice of widgets" lmao I'm still rofl about that one.

Final deal basically amounted to this, for $50 I got the Samsung Mythic a897 with ac adapter, free car adapter, free screen protectors, free case, my mom got the Samsung Impression a877 with ac adapter, free car adapter, free screen protectors, free case, and they credited the AT&T account $129 towards replacing games and apps and stuff and of course still got to keep old phone with all the games and crap anyhow.  So basically they paid us $79 to take these 2 expensive phones and all these accessories.  I'm still not sure how this deal ended up that good.  I guess maybe cause my mom has had that AT&T account since 1960 something.

Sadly, most, in fact nearly all games, apps, wallpapers, and ringtones I had seem to not be available anymore or are not compatible with this phone to redownload.  However I got some new ones, starting of course with the 3 classics, my personal favorites which I own about a dozen versions of each, Risk, Monopoly, and Scrabble, the 3 games no one ever beats me at, ever, never ever ever!  I will pwn anyone who's up to the challenge in any of those 3 games anytime anyplace!  Ok, enough of that, moving on...

Have spent the last week now trying to fix address book, calendar, etc.  Stupid SIM card really only copies names and like two phone numbers and 1 email address.  No land addresses, notes, bdays, etc. were saved.  And it stuck everyone's names, first middle last nickname all into the first name field.  So lotta work there between my phone and my mom's since she can't do crap on her own.

Trying to help my mom pick out and understand cel phones is a lot like trying to teach a turtle how to plot space shuttle trajectories and calculate launch windows.

And finally, here it is, the phone I got...

Samsung Mythic a897

Big features imo would be it has 3 main screens you can switch between by sliding left and right instead of the usual one screen.  It's camera has a flash (if I didn't already have an uber Konica Minolta digital camera this would matter more).  It has mobile tv and 4 stations are free (abc, cbs, nbc, & fox).  It has voice dialing (that refuses to dial who I tell it to! lol).  It has a nifty social media app that logs you into facebook, twitter, and myspace all at once and puts the streams from all 3 into one which is kinda cute, of course who still uses myspace...  It has touch screen and motion detection and vibration.  So you can turn it sideways and it switches from portrait to landscape mode automatically.  It has full QWERTY keyboard on touch screen.  It has a higher resolution screen than most other cel phones on the market right now.  It has an absurd amount of features and apps (most of which I'll likely never use).  The menu alone has 5 pages with 12 items on each page and that's not even everything it can can do.  And it doesn't seem to eat the battery like my old phone did.  Had this on standby now for over 4 days, plus used it a few times and watched 3 episodes of Bones and 2 episodes of NCIS and some Letterman and it still shows full charge.  My old phone ate batteries like Pac-Man on dots.

Ok, done rambling, just wanted to mention somewhere that I got nifty new phone.  Yay me!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

I Got New Glasses

I got new glasses to see I thought...
See what I forgot,
see what I've seen not.
I got new glasses to see I thought...
Wrinkles I've now got,
grey hair I had not.
I got new glasses to see I thought...
Scars through the years,
bums drinking beers.
I got new glasses to see I thought...
Dirt, dust and decay,
it won't go away.
I got new glasses to see I thought...
And now that I can see,
I see the things I wish were naught.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Eleanor Rigby- The Beatles

Cool Dream I Had Last Night.

I often wonder where the crazy things that happen in my dreams come from, especially when I have one that I wish I hadn't woke up from.

This dream started pretty strange like most of my dreams that I can remember.  I was working in a grocery store.  Not one of the big chain stores like we have today but one of those old small neighborhood grocery stores that I don't think even exist anymore.  There were only about 4 isles in the store, maybe 8 employees.  My job seemed to be walking around.  I didn't seem to serve any real purpose, wasn't stocking anything or doing inventory, wasn't a cashier or anything far as I could tell.  I was just walking around.  It was my first day there.  Most of the employees looked like they popped right out of a facebook game.  They were nerdy, thick glasses, freckles, pig tails, it was bad.  Except for one old man, looked like Mr. Wipple (the "please don't squeeze the Charmin" guy).  All he was doing was mopping the floor.  Well not so much the floor as mopping the same spot over and over all day.

Apparently the store manager was that fat slimey guy that owns or is editor in chief or something for Penthouse magazine I think it is.  He's been in the news since before I was born, forget his name.  No clue why he was the store manager but apparently he was.  At closing time he comes over and puts his hand on my shoulder and says, "the best part of working here is night time."  I was thinking, like um, ok, cause day time has sucked so far.

Then BAM, everyone was gone and where there were isles with shelves of food there was now rows of arcade games.  Giant arcade cabinets with PC's built into them linked via LAN with 4 player co-op games going on and regular arcade games and classics from the 80's.  Instead of the scummy neighborhood the store was in, suddenly we were in London, I also do not know why.  It was dark and lit like a club, music going, everyone had British accents now.  It seemed like everyone kept saying something about this being a "meet and greet" and I was like what the heck does that mean?  I figured it must be some kind of English thing.  Then some woman, in black leather, with the red and black haircut from the Nightclub City game comes up to me and is like, "ya know this is a meet and greet?  so like greetings" then she jumped me.  I figured she must be bi or gay or something apparently.  Then I woke up.

Ok, I'm not sure what it is about that dream that I liked so much.  All I know is I woke up feeling like it had really happened and wished I hadn't woke up yet.  But, here's the thing.  Since I was a little kid whenever one of my dreams has gone on really long it always ends up morphing into one of two endings.  I know that sounds strange, but I remember growing up every really intense dream I had whether good or bad, if it lasted long enough, would just somehow change and end up in one of two endings.

Most often, everyone on the planet would turn into an alligator and chase me up one of those old fashion outdoor television antennas.  Then I'd wake up.

Or, I'd grab my magical inflatable Donald Duck life raft, inflate it, put it around my waist and suddenly have the ability to fly.  However, I then quickly discover that I do not have the ability to land and wake up about the time I begin to burn up in the atmosphere.

So, maybe it's a good thing I woke up when I did?  LOL  Who knows!

I think I have issues yes?

Friday, July 30, 2010

Time Flies... FAST... Like Transwarp Drive Fast!

I hate thinking about time.  The past, the future.  It always leaves me depressed for a million reasons.  That which should've been, that which should be.

This time it was my modem that got me thinking about time.  The last couple EarthLink people I had on the phone had both asked about or commented on the fact that my modem was really old.  I was like yeah, it's old.  I didn't think it was THAT old.  I mean I remember having 2 or 3 that already broke before this one.  The new model modem arrived today.  As soon as I set eyes on it I realized, my modem must be older than I had initially thought.  I grabbed the tape measure just to be sure.  Old modem measures 12" x 8" x 2" with 6 lights, a huge heavy plug, and ran hot enough to melt the bottom 1/2" of the pillar candle I had on top of it.  My new modem measures 4" x 4" x 1" (that's 1/12 the size!) with 4 lights all labeled completely different things, plug is small and light as a feather and it runs completely cool at room temperature.  I'm like huh, wow, guess it has been awhile since I got that last one.

This of course inevitably led me to thinking about the past, friends, family, my health and life.  Things I really don't care to think about most of the time.

First thing that popped into my mind is the recent discovery of something my family on my dad's side were apparently hiding and keeping secret.  My dad let it slip about a week ago.  I found it both disturbing and annoying and frankly disgusting to a certain degree.  One of my cousins, she's like 3 years older than me with 4 kids, has a son.  Well, I found out that my cousins 15 or 16 year old son has a 1 year old kid!  I was totally aghast.  First off, he's as wide as he is tall, he weighs over 250 lbs easily.  He has 3 chins, massive acne, a god awful buzz cut mess of hair on top of his egg shaped head.  He's like the human Humpty Dumpty.  And he has a 1 year old kid?  I mean how does this happen?!?  I don't mean to be mean but seriously, I don't get this.  And here I am, halfway decent looking, genius wit, dry but lovable humor, generally nice person, and my last boyfriend was 1997 and my last girlfriend was 1994.  What's wrong with this picture?  This has me all bent.  Not that I have the time, money, health, strength, or patience to deal with another person but still, this seems messed up in so many ways.

Then I look at my best friend's kids.  When last I saw them they were little, very little, running around all hyper terrorizing our Star Trek, Starfleet International Fan Club meetings.  Now they're old!  I mean they're like 15 - 16 or something and look like they're 20 something.  I'm like wow it wasn't THAT long ago!  But I guess it was...

My kitties, Storm and Tux, I love them so much hehe!  Anyhow, wasn't that long ago I saved them from an awful storm where their mother had abandoned them in a corner in the rain.  I got them, took them in, dried them off, fed them.  They're mom refused to take care of them after than when I put them back outside.  So I kept them.  Fed them warmed kitten milk in a dropper ever few hours for days, then kitten food and baby food mixed, and canned cat food.  Posted pics of them all over, most of my friends both real life and from EverQuest will likely remember me going on and on about them at the time.  They turn 3 years old next week.  THREE years!

For over a decade I've played EverQuest.  I'm still friends with many of the people I began the game with, having become very good friends with a couple of them.  I've seen people meet their spouses, have kids, some got divorced and remarried, some have moved time and time again.  So much has happened.

My 20th high school reunion is next year.  Friended a lot of the old class on facebook.  Most are married, lots have kids, some made it fairly successful far as I can tell, others did not.  And here I am, what have I to show for myself when the reunion arrives?  Single, no kids, broke as a joke, disabled with nearly a dozen medical conditions, a whole slew of medical horror story to share, yeah I'm a bundle of sunshine to add to any party, not!  I've been code blue 3x, I've had a dozen operations, been on hundreds of medications, am on first name basis with doctors and nurses in the emergency rooms of four different hospitals.

So, what if I have a genius level I.Q. and a generally awesome sense of humor, amazing wit, and am the coolest person I know?  My life is still a long craptastic tale of sadness, drugs, misery, loneliness, poverty, and medical nightmares.

I think I'm going to change my avatar from the Moonwolf to a cover of the box for the game of Life with a giant red circle and line through it.


Friday, July 23, 2010

John Lennon - Imagine

Memories, like most things, are often best left alone before you end up ruining them.

This has happened to me several times just this year and it sucks.

Starts out when someone or something reminds you of a television show, or song, or band, cartoon, or movie from your childhood, youth or teen years.  Of course at that point you start thinking "dang I really wish I could see / hear / watch that again."  This in turn leads to Google which almost always leads to either Wikipedia or Youtube.

So at this point you're all excited cause you found it.  But, when you finally do watch and or listen to whatever it is that you remember as being a highlight of your past, you sort of go blank.  You want to get all giddy and be all excited.  But you're not.  Instead you just sit there staring blankly.  When it's over you end up wondering what the heck it was you ever liked about that.  It totally ruins what was once a happy memory.  Granted this doesn't happen all the time.  More often than not you do enjoy watching, listening, experiencing this memory from the past.  But, there are those few annoying times when you just kill part of your childhood without even trying.

Here's a good example.  Earlier this year I was trying to remember this cartoon that I loved when I was really young.  It wasn't a full cartoon.  It was one of those little 5 min. cartoons that was part of a half hour cartoon.  There were a lot of those back then, Warner Bros. had Looney Toons, there was Tom and Jerry, The Pink Panther, lots of cartoons were in that format at the time.  All I could remember was that it was this messed up shark and his sidekick was a catfish.  My best friend who can find anything online managed to locate an episode of Misterjaw and Catfish from the Pink Panther cartoon.  I was excited.  Then I watched it.  I kinda forced out a chuckle midway, as if trying to make myself like it again.  But it sucked lol.  Animation was bad, humor was awful, and it had that annoying 70's fake audience laughing every few seconds.  I couldn't believe what a let down it was.  I remember being so excited when this would come on tv.  Clearly a memory that should have been left as a memory.

Another example that's happened repeatedly is music.  In particular, Motley Crue.  In the late 80's and early 90's I was like their biggest fan.  I had all their albums, posters, t-shirts, magazines.  I LOVED them.  Many times over the past few years I have tried to listen to them.  Something will come along and make me remember them.  I can barely get through one song before I change it.  I still love them...  But...  I just don't know.  And there's at least a dozen other bands that fall in this same category.

Television, this is a big one.  There are a lot of regular (non cartoon) shows that I use to love and have seen online and just couldn't believe how amazingly awful they were.  The list here is far too long to even start.

I think the next time I remember something that I use to love, I'm just gonna try to think of something else and let it stay as a "memory of something that I loved" and not become a "why the heck did I ever like that."

Tropical Storm Bonnie (...pfft...)

So, like I'm laying here looking at radar and stuff of this tropical storm.  Got to thinking, I wonder how many hurricanes I've actually been through in my life.  I can remember most of the big ones, but I know there's been dozens of smaller ones and tropical storms that have come and gone and weren't even interesting enough to leave a memory.

Won't even count tropical depressions because the count would be insane.  Heck I've been having a tropical "depression" most of my life!

So let's think back a sec and remember some of my most miserable moments.

First to come to mind would be Katrina.  Hurricane Katrina, 2005.  This was also probably the worst for me just due to my health at the time and the fact that this house, as I've mentioned many times in many places, is old, very, very old.  Not old enough to have been built out of coral rock or something that would stand the test of time like some houses in SoFlo and not new enough to have had to endure the Florida hurricane building zoning codes they added after Andrew in '92.  So, it doesn't take much to screw it up.  Katrina is a prime example.  Knocked out our power, phone, water, everything.  The first week I was living out of the car(s) with my mom, her dog and cats, and my cat at the time (he died since /cry).  Florida Power & Light had people in from all over Florida and out of state to help restore power and get lines off the roads.  One of these random people was sent to my block to restore power.  Well, they did, without checking the lines to the houses first.  They started a huge fire in our power box that led to us not having power for a second week.  After this happened FPL refused to come out to fix it because they said they don't handle the electric at the house only up to the pole.  Even though THEY started the fire and could've burnt the whole house down.  This led to us contacting the news and papers.  Which led to all kinds of chaos I don't want to get into because I don't want to remember how much it sucked.  At the time I had just been out of the hospital.  Had an colostomy bag then and couldn't even shower cause no hot water, no water, no electric, nothing.  It was a nightmare.  I think I'm permanently scarred from that one.  Ever since then I have bought several emergency weather radios, solar and hand cranked rechargeable flashlights, radios, fans, and things to charge other things like mp3 player, phone.  I think I own about 20 small battery powered fans now.  Pretty sure that's mental damage from trauma...

Hurricane Andrew, 1992.  Another lovely story this is.  Me and my ex living in the single worst possible place during the entire hurricane which was one of the worst in history.  Yes, we were in a trailer.  A non-anchored, towable type, 40 foot mobile home trailer.  Amazing that we survived.  Funny part is, everything around us got totaled pretty much.  Houses missing roof tops, massive, ancient trees ripped out of the ground and tossed down the block, my mom's tool shed behind her house vanished entirely, we never even found any of the parts to it, yet everything that was inside was still there in a pile on the concrete slab.  Funny the way these storms treat things.  Afterwards we were a national disaster area for months and months.  No power anywhere in most of SoFlo for weeks to months.  Entire city of Homestead basically wiped out.  People STILL to this very day have blue tarps over their houses from roof damage they couldn't afford to have fixed 18 years ago.  Meanwhile, while the world around us was in ruins, like curfews, national guard, like a war zone it was and in the middle of it me and my ex in a mobile home that had maybe 3 dents, windows were fine, we had power from gas, water, TV, we were in there playing Nintendo (yes the original 8bit NES with the box like controllers, the little hatch for the huge cartridge that you had to blow on to get it to work lol).  And I happened to be on crutches at the time as well.  Due to an on the job accident I had while working with the City of North Miami briefly.

Hurricane David, sometime in the '80's.  I was young, it seemed exciting to me, everyone was in a frenzy, got to go shopping all over for supplies.  And most importantly there was no school!  I don't remember this as being as bad as it was.  Seemed like the really rainy bad part went on forever though but I don't remember anything being damaged significantly.  Oddly this sticks in my head as the first one I really remember going through.

Hmm, can only remember 3.  I know I've been through a LOT more.  But those are the 3 that stuck with me.  Would really take an earth shattering storm to top or even compare to those though.

This storm, Bonnie, it won't be remembered by anyone.  Despite all the news and hubbub going on both on TV and radio right now.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Weight Loss Ring... Or Something...

So, I had thought that my first official blog post was gonna be more important, or significant, or something that this most certainly is not.  However, this is what's happening right now.

Well, my mom apparently bought us both one of these Chinese weight loss rings.  They were like 7 bucks.  It's basically a large silver spring with a ball on both ends.  The concept is the balls hit acupressure points that lead to weight loss.  Ok, I can accept that up to that point.  It then goes on to say each finger represents a different area, so to lose weight in your hips put it on index finger, to lose weight in your butt wear it on your middle finger, for a flatter stomach place it on ring finger, and for your thighs place it on your pinky.  Alright sure, why not?  I'm far from fat but I would cetainly still like a flatter stomach right?

Well, first off it's one size fits all, fully adjustable...  So I'm thinking, it's a spring design so loosening or tightening it will cause the ends to no longer be lined up.  So, then how is it supposed to hit the proper acupressure points?

After nearly an hour of trying to loosen it, which turned out to be amazingly difficult, I finally got it on.  The middle part of the ring has two sections of spiral that are so big now that they don't even touch my finger.  The balls on the ends however are still rather tight.  From loosening it the balls are now a good half an inch out of alignment so they're most likely both missing the intended pressure points.  And it's not even nice looking.

Now, here's the punchline.  While I have lost the little bit of faith I had in this thing possibly working, it is in fact doing something.  I don't think it's hitting the points that I had hoped for but it's hitting something.  I am getting the most bizarre feeling up and down my forearm.  Almost painful but not quite.  More like the feeling you get when you hit your funny bone, only much less intense and kinda traveling back and forth from my finger to my elbow.  It's such a strange feeling and so similar to the "funny bone" feeling you get that I actually found myself laughing hysterically for a good 5 minutes.

It'll be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of this ring.  I may end up just having to take it off if this feeling doesn't lighten up soon.