I'm back

[Rathskellar]

Okay, so I'm back online. Last Thursday I got satellite internet from the same ISP I've been using for 7 years, Earthlink. First, of the two gentlemen from Hughesnet that show up to install, one is brand new, and the owner of the the subcontracted company that is with him supposedly to train him to install, has his phone glued to his ear the entire time they are here (5 hours), because in addition to running an installation company, he is also a landlord, and he is having a dispute with his property manager over some tenants and how he handles things.

So, they leave my door open all afternoon because they are in and out and on my roof, and I am not liking the situation at all. You just know when somebody doesn't know what they are doing. So I keep asking questions, talking, watching, trying to keep them focused. The guy who owns the company you can tell is annoyed because I keep interrupting his very important phone calls. Meanwhile, its an unseasonably warm day and my house is filling up with flies. Then they open my window and take out my screen to feed the line in to my computer to check out that it is working before drilling holes in the house. The guy keeps telling me that for extra money they will put in a router to hook up my other comps, that it will cost extra money to drill into the corner of the house and go through my closet so the line isn't so obvious from outside etc. Meanwhile, the helper stops working every time his boss wanders off on his phone and just sits on the roof enjoying the view while the flies start working together to open my refrigerator door.

The boss manages to point the satellite dish while his phone is on his shoulder but for some reason can't seem to get it aligned to Earthlink's satellites correctly. He's up and down the ladder, in and out of my house, calling for satellite co-ordinates etc. He finally thinks he's got it, they cut the line, drill holes, and voila, he declares it a sucess. Except that before they leave I insist they wait while I try it out. Five minutes later, no pages are opening, nothing is downloading, no mail is coming through or going out. I ask whats wrong and he doesn't know. Then he looks at my ISP and says "oh no wonder, you're with Earthlink, I didn't set it up for Earthlink". Okay, honest mistake except that Earthlink sent them out and he asked me at least 8 times during the afternoon what my ISP and e-mail address are.

So the door gets propped open, the screen comes out, the flies bring in a band and a DJ and ask me for more ice, the ladder goes back up and we start over.

Another hour and this time we think we have it. I say "we" because I feel that I did at least half the work just suggesting obvious things since the boss is sitting at my computer with his face a millimeter from the screen because he's blind as a bat and keeps typing in the wrong azimuth numbers to align the dish whil he tries to calm hs property manager down on the phone after calling him every name in the book.

Just an aside, the reason I got satellite is because I've been on dial-up the last 10 years and even though I had a 56k modem, I never connected higher than 33k because of how far I live from the telephone company substation or so they tell me. I can't get cable or DSL where I live and I could no longer stand waiting 4 hours to get a 10 mb download.

So finally the gentlemen leave and I happily sit down to see what it feels like to load a webpage in less than 3 minutes. Glorious! Then I go to download a large file for a free online game that I could never do on dial up because it would take 4 days of uninterrupted downloading. Beautiful! It starts downloading at 120 kb per second which probably makes you bastard DSL users laugh, but for us dialup people its heaven. A half hour into the download, which has been flying along, I see the transfer rate slowly drop until its moving at .9 kb per second. So slow the server I am downloading from disconnects me. This is not good. I call Earthlink, they walk me through the process for poaching an egg the proper way, and I hang up happy that I will have a good breakfast but with my download speed slower than Drew Bledsoe scrambling out of the pocket. I go to bed despondent, but not yet suicidal.

The following days bring the same results. Finally my friend comes over on Sunday and we spend the afternoon trying our homemade solutions. We eventually break my comp to the point where it is completely useless and we run out of beer. Now borderline suicidal, I give up and settle in with the flies to watch the Colts destroy the most most annoying city in the world by beating their cheating sociopathic coach and non-condom-using quaterback and the rest of the New England Patriots. Nine minutes left to go and Tom "can I buy you a drink and father your child" Brady calmly leads the Patriots from 10 points down to a resonant victory. I begin to wonder how painful it would be to open my wrists with a plastic spoon. Luckily my friends the flies talk me down and ask me to go out for more chips.

Finally, I take my computer in to the Chinese gentlemen I use for computer repairs here in town. He is truly excellent, its just that I never know exactly what he is telling me. I just nod and say "go ahead". Luckily he has never steered me wrong though I often wonder if he is offering me hot and sour soup while I wait.

Yesterday I pick up my comp, apparently my friend and I or the satellite guys fried my factory memory, but everything is salvaged and my comp is restored to its original factory settings. I happily bring the little fella home, hook him all up, reinstall all my stuff, and the moment comes to connect to my satellite LAN. Perfect! Running at 100 mb, we download some porn, some Youtube videos, and then the true test, the big game file I have been trying to get for a week. Everything working great, downloading at a high speed, but Lo! Suddenly the same problem arises, we drop to 2.4 kb per second, which my trusty download manager estimates will take 184 hours to complete. So back on the phone and the helfpul Earthlink people listen to my problem, and very knowingly tell me that of course it slows down, there is a Fair Access Law that limits how many mb you can download in a 24 hour period on satellite connections. How foolish of me. Apparently if you download an assbyte more than 200 mb, your connection slows to near non-existence to allow military use of the satellites to analyze the fibers of shoufas worn by loose Mukbekistan women. I can't expect a busy company like Earthlink to disclose this information before I agree to purchase and install this system. Of course once I reach this limit, it takes at least 18 hours of not using the internet or e-mail to reset it to a reasonable speed.

How was YOUR weekend?

[Eraedan]

I saw porn in there, so it must have been an okay weekend!

Jus' kiddin'. Sounds like a crap time, but now it's set up! Woooo! At least the flies kept ya company.

I moved last Friday, and spent the weekend unpacking and building as much furniture as I could before my girlfriend came over on Sunday. I'm still waiting on the fridge to be replaced, my back door to get fixed, and a few other odds and ends. Things so far with the new place have been great, though having this week off (unpaid) has been relatively sucky. Remembrance Day being this Sunday, the Senate took the whole week off. (How typical of the federal government is that?) At least I've had time to get stuff done around the new place... including rediscovering Prince of Persia: Two Thrones and Star Wars: Jedi Academy.

Just got internet set up today (sorry, Rath... it was as easy as just plugging it in). However, because the only phone jack that works is in the kitchen... by the back door... I only have wireless up. I refuse to run 40' of cables from my kitchen, down the hallway and into my computer room. There are three other phone jacks in this place, but none of them work. Will need to sort that out tomorrow or this weekend so I can re-jig where my DSL modem is so I can cable my desktop(s).

It feels fucking awesome to have my own place again. And it's right downtown: a 4-minute walk from Parliament Hill, an 8-minute walk from where I work, and about 10 minutes from my girlfriend. The best thing... I have my cat back after almost a year and a half. She's curled up against me at the moment, as I watch the second DVD of Family Guy season three. She's such an affectionate yet mouthy old bitch. She talks all the time.

I also spent a total of 9 hours putting together various IKEA furniture thingers. It's strangely satisfying. Unfortunately, when I moved my stuff from storage at my parents, I/we forgot to get all the stuff I got in China: my scrolls, masks, paintings... so the decor is pretty barren presently.

[Melodius]

Wow, I had no clue about the cap on DL'in for Satellite internet. That may actually hamper your MMO playing. Since you're constantly downloading/uploading while you play. Atleast you made a bunch of new friends

Glad to hear you've got a new place Eraedan. How's the job going?

Me, I've been burning the midnight oil with Call of Duty 4. Amazing Game! Kids are keeping me up so long I'm starting to fell sleep deprivated haha! 4 hours of sleep a night is really getting to me, not to mention the 2 hours a night since I got Hellgate London and Call of Duty 4!

We've taken the kids to the doctor to look for some non-habit forming sleep aids. Since Autistic people take to drugs differently, it's been rough. Now that we have something that works, I hope it takes only a week or two to adjust sleep schedules for the household.

[Eraedan]

Glad to hear you've got a new place Eraedan. How's the job going?

Job's great! My boss is quite a character. Has a very understated sense of humour, and the girls I work with are great. It's almost like a Star Wars movie... you've got the older, mentor type (Obi-Wan); the funny, quirky side-kick type (3P0); and my boss is the semi-jaded, sarcastic type (Han Solo). I guess that makes me Luke. Fun people, and the work is fast-paced, so 10 hours flies by pretty quick. It's kind of funny, though. As far as other scopists go, I'm the only guy, and the youngest person there by about 5-8 years.

We've taken the kids to the doctor to look for some non-habit forming sleep aids. Since Autistic people take to drugs differently, it's been rough. Now that we have something that works, I hope it takes only a week or two to adjust sleep schedules for the household.

Glad to hear that you've found something that works!!

Is Hellgate: London any good? It seemed neat, but I'm saving my energies for Assassin's Creed and The Force Unleashed. Only problem is that I'll have to buy an Xbox360 for The Force Unleashed since it isn't coming out on PC. Damn consoles!!

And WAR has been pushed back to Q2 '08... BOOOO! Kind of hoping it comes out at the end of June or early July, though. That's when I'm off for 2 months.

[Rathskellar]

So does it now look like Conan will be out before WAR?

[Eraedan]

So does it now look like Conan will be out before WAR?

Probably, but dunno... I haven't been following AoC in the last two months or so. Not sure if it's been pushed back again or not.

[Melodius]

It's a mix of Diablo II and an FPS. Great game with awesome weapons, skills, armor, crafting system, etc...

I typed out a whole post on this (20 minutes long), but teh Warlord ate it

Bottom line, grab the demo. The demo isn't that great. Lots of textures missing and the like, but if you like the demo... you'll LOVE the retail version!

[Kelh]

What server are you on Mel?

[Melodius]

There's only 1 US server I can select, Shulgoroth I believe. Shal and I haven't gotten the time to spend on it yet. She's ramping up for management and I'm not getting any sleep

Are you on the Euro server? The US one is a little sporratic at the moment. Going from 54ms-900+ms pings.

[Kelh]

old habits die hard - on Us server - Shulgoroth - Kelh - 16 Marksman.

[Eraedan]

She's ramping up for management and I'm not getting any sleep

That's a bedroom dominance euphemism, isn't it?!

[Rathskellar]

That's a bedroom dominance euphemism, isn't it?!

Why do you have to use such big words? I have a feeling sex is involved somehow but I will have to wait to see what Bill O'Reilly says about it before I decide.