A few minutes ago I was sitting in my wife's office petting the kittens and I hear some noise from outside. It's a young kid clearly upset. Initially I blow it off as "kids yell at each other, it's what they do..." Then I hear him start to cry and I get up and look out the window.

There are 3 boys, roughly age 10, standing on the sidewalk and two of them look rather sheepish and one is on his cell and crying.I hear him say "my skateboard went down the sewer".

So I say to Carla, "I'm going to go see if I can help the kid get his board back" and head outside. By the time I get there his friends are there but the board owner is halfway down the street and hanging up his phone. I walk up and ask his friends which sewer, they point and are clearly confused by the old guy coming out and talking to them. I walk over, hop down to look if I can see the board and I find that the sewers in my area are designed to make it so that you can not see down into them and there is a sharp 90 degree turn downwards about 6 inches in past the lip of the opening. I look at this and say "well not getting my arm down there" and start looking for my options.

The top of the sewer is part of the sidewalk and has two square doors muck like manhole covers. In fact, they have the same system of opening them; A small hole you are supposed to put a pulling tool into. I tell the kids I might have something to open it with and that I would be right back. One of the two runs off down the street calling his friend to tell him what I am doing. I head into the garage and find nothing and then say to myself "my old boot pulls would be perfect if I can find them." I couldn't, but I did find an iron bar with a hook at either end we use to hang a lantern in our yurt from and an old army shovel.

With tools in hand I head back out and all three are there waiting. I find that the hook wont fit in the hole but that there is enough gap to get the edge of the shovel into so I lever it up and pop the bar in that way and then pull it up and out of the way. I then used the long hook to snag one of the wheels and viola one skateboard retrieved. The kid was extremely happy and thanked me a lot as did his friends. I put the cover back in place and went back inside.

I have no idea what made me go outside to help the kid but I'm glad I did

Apparently my intertubes love me today...
It gave me my download of the new Wolfmother CD 30 minutes earlier than it was supposed to.
It's a silly thing but I'll take it.

so in honor of the fact that Rock Band released an awesome Queen track pack I give you...




And because Guitar Hero 5 released a Billy Squire Track Pack I give you....




On a side note they are releasing Lego rock band in April next year.
Edit: http://www.queenonline.com/news/1486/ Oh that's just too funny

see now THAT'S how you play bass.

I could likely make a huge post about all the things that happened good and bad at the event but my wrist hurts far to much to type all of that.

Let it suffice to say that the event happened. From all the feedback I have gotten I would call it a success. The only complaints I had were all related to the hotel itself and were out of our hands. Most often they were in regard to the food service. The cafe was slow, poorly organized, at times out and out rude and the food itself was drastically inconsistent. The Bar prices were outrageous and wait times for room service were insane.

I know I myself went to the cafe on Friday night and my personal experience was FAR from good. We sat at our table a good 45 minutes before our orders were taken. The food then took another 45 to arrive. When we asked for the bills to be separated (which the waiter offered to do)We didn't see him again for an obscene amount of time and when he did come back the bills were wrong. When I pointed this out he mumbled something and wandered away with the bills. After another 10 minutes he came back, handed me a bill and it was THE EXACT SAME BILL HE HANDED ME IN THE FIRST PLACE!! At some point another waitress overheard me saying something to my meal mates about how inane this had become and came over to help and I asked for the manger. The person who came back was in fact the manager for food service for the entire hotel.

I informed her of everything that happened and was pretty clear that it wasn't very busy at all and if they were this overwhelmed now what would it be like on Saturday? She assured me that they would take steps to rectify the issue. She blatantly admitted they didn't take my estimates for attendees seriously and were understaffed.

All weekend complaints about the food service came to me from almost everyone.
Suffice it to say we (ok, Greenness is) are writing a rather scathing letter to the hotel about this.

On the plus sides of the event, Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. My staff deserves a huge round of thank yous for all their work. Troll ran smoothly and quickly. Teachers were wrangled appropriately. The outside fencing went well when the weather permitted it. The inside fencing was a little tight for space but seemed to be enjoyed and go without problems.

At no point did my head actually implode while dealing with the errors the hotel kept tossing at me. All of which seemed to boil down to poor communication on the hotels part with it's own staff.

I think my curved sword class went well enough but I did learn that it isn't a 1 hour class. When I was less than half way through my intended topics JP came in and told me I was running over and he needed the room for his class... And here I thought I wouldn't have enough for an entire hour. I never got the the full on practical part of the class even after I took those student who were interested outside and continued for a second hour.

So all in all the event didn't suck; no one was killed; no heads imploded and the only problem I walked away with was a messed up wrist (from teaching curved sword right handed for two hours)

I deem this a success!

EDIT: I occurs to me after I post this that I think my personal "Bad Restaurant Karma " hit the entire event.

to quote Liam "I am boosting the signal"

Aion goes live next week and myself and some others, (some SCA friends and gaming friends are all going to start on Elyos side on the Lumiel server.
We are not trying to build some uberguild but the more the merrier.
ALso we will likely put our asmodians on the Ziel server but i doubt that will be as active.

It's a rated R trailer so play at own risk

My new iPhone arrived today!!!
A full week before I expected it.
SQUEE!!!!
Ok so first lets start with the hell that is AT&T....
So I decide to upgrade to the 3Gs from my old school 2G iPhone for various reasons...
I call the apple store to make sure they have them in stock cause why drive all the way out there and wait to be told "Sorry, sold out of the one you want" While on the phone the guy says they have "hundreds" (this is important remember this), and that I should go to the apple store and work out the upgrade there and that way my time in store will be much faster. He was very polite about it and I said I would do that. I hung up. Went to the site. Went through the process and wham... brick wall... "you have a business number we can't do this on the site... ooooooookay....
So I call the store back and luckily got the same person. "Hi I just spoke to you a few minutes ago and you asked me to go to the website and I did and it told me it couldn't help me because I'm on a business account." There is a pause and an audible sigh and then "I'm sorry to tell you this but if you are on a business account you will have to get your upgrade from AT&T and not from us directly." Pause " And none of the AT&T stores in the Pa metro area have any."
Long pause and then I speak...
"Wait,, seriously? But I got the phone I have now directly from an apple store."
"You have an original 2g don't you?"

"uhm... yeah"

"Yeah AT&T decided when they 3G went out that they wanted to keep all the business sales for themselves. So we can't sell them or upgrade them because we can't sell it to you without turning it on and we can't access business accounts."

after some flustered wtf commentary from me I get out...
"So basically AT&T is screwing me in the ass?"

"Pretty much yeah. And thats one of many reasons we all hope they lose the contract next year."

"Well, that sucks but thanks for the help. I do not look forward to dealing with an AT&T store."

And he actually says... wait for it

Wait for it...

"Try not to kill anyone. It will be tempting I assure you."

Ok so I get off the phone and rant for a bit about AT&T and their dumbassery....
and I call my local AT&T store. To be told that they do not have them. They only got a handful of them and they were gone in under 3 hours and he has no idea when they will get more. I ask him about this business plan measure AT&T put in place and he says that it was Apple that insisted on it. oh really??? Apple said no thank you we do not want to sell phones? REALLY?

Do the guy at the store tells me that I have to come in to put in a "pre-order" for a phone that is already out and I might get in in about 2 weeks, but not to hold my breath. I ask if I can put the order in over the phone and he says no he needs the CC in hand to run it. I ask if he is kidding because telephone CC ordering has been around since oh the stone age. He says they can't take CC's over the phone on Business accounts because it would cut into the business of their "premier site". I ask what he is talking about and he explains there is a website for business accounts to buy stuff remotely.
I say ok thank you and hang up....

I immediately use my google-fu and find said site and go through the process of using that...
I will save you the drama of how much of a horrorshow that was but suffice it to say I eventually just called their help desk. Was told again that this was all Apples fault because AT&T had nothing to gain by not letting apple sell me the phone... to which I said something to the effect of "You mean other than the sale?" They didn't get it... I moved on.
While doing the upgrade I decided I should up my minutes seeing I was getting very close on a regular basis and went over big time this month. This started a whole new series of problems.
This made me notice that the new data plan was more money and had less service than what I had currently. I pointed this out. They said well sir the 3G data plan costs more. To which I said well yes I believe that was my complaint. Why should this data plan cost more and come with less? They asked what I meant and I explained that my current plan is 20 dollars for unlimited data and 200 texts... this plan is 30 dollars for "unlimited data" but not really and no texts.
they said but sir the 3G costs more.... long sigh.... deep breath... Yes no shit! WHY?
"Why would I pay you money to upgrade to less service? That really isn't an upgrade now is it?"

"Well sir the new plans are set up this way I have no way of altering them.."

"Really? Even if I tell you that this gives me a pretty solid reason to change all 10 lines on this plan over to the Pre... which you don't sell?"

"Oh well sir I don't think we need to go that route Let me see what I can do please hold..."

2 min later...
"Sorry sir I can't change the plan but what I can do is credit the account the amount that you would be billed for the text plan and give you an additional 500 rollover minutes each year."

I move along


After two days on the phone with AT&T to order the phone, Get our premier account set up correctly and get my account updated correctly (which looking a the site while I type this STILL isn't right... GRRRRR), I am told that the order is placed and it will take two weeks to get the phone......

wait... But Apple told me they have hundreds sitting there... HUNDREDS!
Sooo being a business account means I get less service at higher fees with more roadblocks between me and what I want/need?

Uhg... And its the newspaper industries that are going under? The mind boggles.

Ok so today I go downstairs to find a box... It's addressed to my company not me... odd I think.
I open the box and viola spiffy new iPhone for me in only a matter of days.

There were some set up difficulties but nothing that I couldn't work around (iTunes was being persnikety)and now I have a new 32 gig 3Gs iPhone with the coolest feature EVAR!! Voice control!!

YAY...

the moral?

AT&T is the devil but a fast devil they be!

There was a new show this last year called Legend of the Seeker...
This show appears to be based on a series of books by Terry Goodkind called the Sword of Truth.

Has anyone one been watching it?
Is it any good?
Will I be grossly disappointed?

Your results:
You are Will Riker

Will Riker 80% Worf 70% James T. Kirk (Captain) 65% Deanna Troi 60% Mr. Sulu 55% Jean-Luc Picard 50% Spock 49% Geordi LaForge 45% Chekov 40% Uhura 40% Data 38% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 35% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 35% Mr. Scott 30% Beverly Crusher 5%

At times you are self-centered but you have many friends. You love many women, but the right woman could get you to settle down.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz

So my computer has been having issues with games of late.
Randomly locking up in the middle of games to the point where I have to hard boot the thing.
Suffice to say I am less than thrilled with this...

I'm not even playing super high end graphic intensive games. The two Primary culprits are WoW and an FPS called Combat Arms.

All I can think of at this point is that the Vid card is going bad.
It might be something else, but who can tell...
Other small symptoms that may or may not be related.
Occasionally now certain open IM windows will fall off my task bar but act like they are open. So I can't open them again but I can't access them either. I have to close Trillian and reopen it to fix it.

I see a flicker in my monitor from time to time in certain things... the most often is my ventrilo window when I am not connected. Also if I hit Ctrl alt Del the info there seems to flicker as well.

So....
Any thoughts as to what to try and do?

I have updated all my drivers.... scanned the thing 8 ways from sunday for viruses and Malware..
updated Windows XP and run some memory tests that seem to come out fine.

I am thinking of ust getting a new vid card and seeing if that does it.

If I do I am considering the new NVidia 295 GTX and if anyone has any good advice ont hat card or what company to go with I'd love to hear that as well.
My last card was an XFX my current is an EVGA and I have had a BFG in the past. I am comfortable with any of these brands and open to new ones.

The Sex Pistols dear.