Ok, so back when I had an overpaid dot.com job, I decided I wanted a new car. Normally, nobody buys a "new" car, you guy a 1 or 2 year old car for half the money. Silly me though, I figured I was making $52,000 a year and would likely get more at my next job, so I got a $30,000 eclipse.
That was four years ago. It's been, on the whole, a pretty reliable car. Very fast and responsive, looks nice (even though I never wash it), and even after four winters out in the snow, it's held up pretty well. Minor complaints, like the tires losing pressure every so often, or the sunroof not working as smoothly as it should.
Today, that changed. I drove off to lunch this morning, as I do almost every Saturday. My roommate has been using my car since it's reliable, and she drove to and from work this morning. After lunch, I headed to Best Buy and looked at stuff, then I drove down to the pet store to get cat food. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened.
15 minutes later, I put the cat food in the car, get in, and it won't start. The door light is flashing and beeping at me. My first though is, "Oh great. The stupid anti-theft thing in the store must have zapped my key somehow." After a little while, the dash lights come on dimly, but no engine turnover. Grrrrr...
I call my roommate and haver her (using her Mom's car) come rescue me. The car jump starts just fine, but all is not well. I notice the transmission slipping a bit when upshifting (it's an automatic), and as it's getting dark I flip the lights on. Bunches of dash lights come on, and the panel lighs dim and flicker. The brakes hiss (power breaks no longer power?), and I'm sure the car is about to die. I flick the lights back off and get the rest of the way home.
A friend suggested the battery might have a dead cell, which would account for it not turning over... but the other stuff is just too weird. I'm calling the dealer Monday (thankfully, I got the 5 year extended warrenty), but that is NOT how I wanted to spend the weekend before Christmas.
Oh yes, advent stuff.... todays' is yet to do, but
Yesterday: Coffee!
The 16th: Hot pink kiddie dough (smells a little more like play dough than the orange stuff)
17 December, 2005
14 December, 2005
Wheeeeeee
Advent Calendar for today: assorted hard candies, woot!
SoG is still down.... they still have no ETA.
Some bastards claim they've gotten to play, a few even for more than an hour! I choose to disbelieve them and assume they're being paid by NPCube to say there is a working product.
It's a shame, really. DnL sounded like the dream game, even knowing the graphics might be a bit dated. Well, the dream is turning into a nightmare of downtime, annoyed pre-order people, and worst of all -- an almost total lack of communication between the developers and the public. I think I've been spoiled by the detailed information CCP gives us about the status of EVE, and exactly what they're working on. NPCube follows mushroom management, and just says "We're workin' on it."
EVE is down today. The long awaited and planned expansion pack, Red Moon Rising, is being installed as I type. They expect a full 24 hours of downtime, and unlike the jokers at DnL, I fully expect them to either have it working by then... or post a reason for the delay and a new time estimate. I wonder if CCP is hiring junior programmers or content people.... I could move to Iceland to work with a company that cool.
SoG is still down.... they still have no ETA.
Some bastards claim they've gotten to play, a few even for more than an hour! I choose to disbelieve them and assume they're being paid by NPCube to say there is a working product.
It's a shame, really. DnL sounded like the dream game, even knowing the graphics might be a bit dated. Well, the dream is turning into a nightmare of downtime, annoyed pre-order people, and worst of all -- an almost total lack of communication between the developers and the public. I think I've been spoiled by the detailed information CCP gives us about the status of EVE, and exactly what they're working on. NPCube follows mushroom management, and just says "We're workin' on it."
EVE is down today. The long awaited and planned expansion pack, Red Moon Rising, is being installed as I type. They expect a full 24 hours of downtime, and unlike the jokers at DnL, I fully expect them to either have it working by then... or post a reason for the delay and a new time estimate. I wonder if CCP is hiring junior programmers or content people.... I could move to Iceland to work with a company that cool.
13 December, 2005
DnL sadness, EVE gladness
Well, SoG (the DnL prequel) is still struggling to get off the ground. I downloaded the client and was able to connect to the patcher yesterday and slowly upgrade to the current build. Today, I was able to verify that my account exists -- but the servers are crashing constantly so that nobody can actually play. I somehow think they may have tested the game with a dozen people in the office, and then let 50 beta testers on to verify that it would work. Thus, since it worked for around 100 people on their desktop machine, they assumed the big iron would just handle 20,000 users. Dunno... talking out of my ass here... but they seem totally unprepared and appear to be madly scrambling to find a way to get things working.
Note to self: When planning MMOG, write bots for clients and actually test the real hardware at full capacity BEFORE announcing to the public, and BEFORE giving out 20,000 keys.
On the other side of the world (literally), I played EVE-Online last night and it reminded me that I actually do like the game. It's a strange little game, in that there are large parts of it you can't really get into until you have the skills -- and those take real time to train. But, there are other parts that work just fine. In my case, I spent a few hours mining into secure cans with my little destroyer and punking the occasional rat that appeared. It should have been very boring, but was actually quite relaxing. Listening to EVE-Radio (or watching TV I suppose) helps quite a bit though.
Yesterdays' Advent Calendar item was..... SOAP!
Let's see what today's is!
Today's item is Latte mix! That is, you add it to coffee and it makes it taste like latte.
Note to self: When planning MMOG, write bots for clients and actually test the real hardware at full capacity BEFORE announcing to the public, and BEFORE giving out 20,000 keys.
On the other side of the world (literally), I played EVE-Online last night and it reminded me that I actually do like the game. It's a strange little game, in that there are large parts of it you can't really get into until you have the skills -- and those take real time to train. But, there are other parts that work just fine. In my case, I spent a few hours mining into secure cans with my little destroyer and punking the occasional rat that appeared. It should have been very boring, but was actually quite relaxing. Listening to EVE-Radio (or watching TV I suppose) helps quite a bit though.
Yesterdays' Advent Calendar item was..... SOAP!
Let's see what today's is!
Today's item is Latte mix! That is, you add it to coffee and it makes it taste like latte.
11 December, 2005
Heh, ok.
Well, to follow up on the SoG phenomenon... I finally did get my verification email. I was one of the lucky 10,000 who snagged a free key during the 80 second giveaway on the 8th. After much pain and confusion, I also managed to get the client downloaded on the 9th. Supposedly, it's installed and ready to go -- although I can't know for sure until the servers come up on the 12th. I get to play on the 13th, but hopefully the update servers will let me patch early anyways.
I missed a couple days, so let me fill in the advent calander entries:
Dec 9th was small bits of chocolate day.
Dec 10th was Arabian coffee day.
Dec 11th was Kiddie Dough day.
I have to expand on the Kiddie Dough thing. It comes in a small tub, about the size of a double shot glass. The outside says it's made in China and packaged in Hong Kong. It also says it's NON-TOXIC. That's good. The ingredients list is simply 56g of modeling clay. It's also good that this clarification is there.
I would eat this stuff.
When you open the container, you find a blob of dark orange goo, that's about the colour of overcooked carrots, or perhaps pumpkin pie filling. The texture is about as soft as overcooked carrots, but spongy so it can be molded and hold the shape you give it for a while. It's a little softer than the kind of clay I'm used to, and perhaps a tiny bit softer than Play Dough.
The second thing you notice though, is the smell. It smells like a mounds bar. Mostly coconut, I suspect coconut oil is the main ingredient besides dirt (or whatever they use for the clay part). It's not a machine smell, nor the kind of pseudo-rubber smell that I remember Play Dough having. This stuff really does smell tasty.
I'm imagining there will be very confused pre-school and kindergarden kids in Hong Kong, if this stuff is used widely. As a teacher, you'd give this to your kids and tell them to play with it, but not eat it. But it smells very good, and trying to keep them from eating it will probably be difficult. Later, you'd give them food that might well look and smell similar, and have to tell them to eat it but not play with it. Confusion seems unavoidable.
On the WoW front, My druid is level 16 and I've moved him to the undead n00b area to run though all the low level quests. No experience (worth mentioning), but I want my standings with them improved at least to friendly so I don't accidentally kill myself.
I missed a couple days, so let me fill in the advent calander entries:
Dec 9th was small bits of chocolate day.
Dec 10th was Arabian coffee day.
Dec 11th was Kiddie Dough day.
I have to expand on the Kiddie Dough thing. It comes in a small tub, about the size of a double shot glass. The outside says it's made in China and packaged in Hong Kong. It also says it's NON-TOXIC. That's good. The ingredients list is simply 56g of modeling clay. It's also good that this clarification is there.
I would eat this stuff.
When you open the container, you find a blob of dark orange goo, that's about the colour of overcooked carrots, or perhaps pumpkin pie filling. The texture is about as soft as overcooked carrots, but spongy so it can be molded and hold the shape you give it for a while. It's a little softer than the kind of clay I'm used to, and perhaps a tiny bit softer than Play Dough.
The second thing you notice though, is the smell. It smells like a mounds bar. Mostly coconut, I suspect coconut oil is the main ingredient besides dirt (or whatever they use for the clay part). It's not a machine smell, nor the kind of pseudo-rubber smell that I remember Play Dough having. This stuff really does smell tasty.
I'm imagining there will be very confused pre-school and kindergarden kids in Hong Kong, if this stuff is used widely. As a teacher, you'd give this to your kids and tell them to play with it, but not eat it. But it smells very good, and trying to keep them from eating it will probably be difficult. Later, you'd give them food that might well look and smell similar, and have to tell them to eat it but not play with it. Confusion seems unavoidable.
On the WoW front, My druid is level 16 and I've moved him to the undead n00b area to run though all the low level quests. No experience (worth mentioning), but I want my standings with them improved at least to friendly so I don't accidentally kill myself.
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