People Are Ignorant: Cable Companies.

Saw this posted up in the comments section for a story about a man who was illegally installing cable for hundreds of people.

And people wonder why cable rates are so much higher than other services. GEE, I wonder why. It's because of assholes who "look the other way" while the service is being stolen. The same thing goes for software. Microsoft charges an assload of money for software because the percentage of people who actually pay for the software are making up for the loss in piracy. Same thing with hospital bills. Assholes go to the hospital, knowing they can't afford the bill, and never pay anything back for the services rendered. Thats why an emergency room VISIT costs close to $500. Think about what you're saying, as it applies to more than the "greedy cable company". Oh well, that America for ya. If you're broke, then I can understand why you'd steal something, but it don't mean that you're not obligated to pay for it later.

If you really think that, you are completely oblivious to the way things work in the real world. You've been completely duped by the media and the companies spreading this utter bullshit.

Cable rates are so high because cable companies want more profits. End of story. I worked for Time Warner, and they even try to spin this crap to the employees, but if you take a closer look, you find out pretty quickly that it's false. Cable companies lose basically nothing when people pirate. They call it a loss because they dream of those people paying the current rates, but it's not a loss. It's really a lack of a gain for them. It's like saying I lost $2 million because the bank vault was closed when I tried to rob it. I didn't lose it, it was never mine to begin with.

The same thing applies to Microsoft. They can claim software piracy drives up the price as much as they want, but in the end they are just raping the consumer to drive their bottom line.

The bottom line is, there is always going to be people that steal, but if companies charged reasonable rates instead of screwing people, there would be far less people stealing.

Moving Servers in World of Warcraft

My wife and I switched from our old server, Mannoroth, to a newer server, Ravenholdt, that just opened up for transfers a couple of months ago. The process was painless, except for the $25 that my wife had to pony-up, and the $50 I got charged. And the $50 more dollars I will get charged when I need to move my other two alts.

We moved basically because Mannoroth is such an old, established server that it is impossible to find groups for lower level dungeons. I've been on that server since I started playing WoW years ago, but I never spent the amount of times my friends did playing, so I missed out on a lot. I want to experience it with my wife, so we felt the best option was to move to a younger server.

Also, my guild used to be composed of people that I played Counter-Strike with years ago. We had our own gaming severs, since one of us worked for Time Warner and had permission to set up a gaming group. (STNY Gaming) We moved on to Star Wars Galaxies, picked up a bunch of great people, and then hit WoW. After a while, it seemed like all of the people I knew either quit playing completely or just left the STNY guild. So when I had been playing recently, there was nobody left that I used to play with. It was all kids that acted like every other WoW dingus on the planet.

All in all, my wife and I are pretty happy on our new server. The latency is a little higher, but we will deal with it in exchange for running instances when we want to. As a bonus, it's a Role Playing PvP server, so the dingus population is just about half that of a normal PvP server. You see more thoughtful fantasy names and less "Istabsyou" and "Seksyelfchik" names.

Contractors

Just received a phone call from our contractors. Basically the guy in charge made up a bunch of stupid excuses, but never really explained why no one could pick up a damn phone and quickly explain to us why they weren't here. He also implied that his secretary had never given him the messages, a situation I truly doubt the validity of.

But the best thing he said was "Well, the tone of your email was kind of negative."

Really? You got that did you? Fucking genius.

Windows Vista: Official Performance and Compatibility Packs Released

Microsoft released some patches for Vista today that should help with performance.

1st Update

2nd Update

That second one is important if you play games, and especially if you play games on an NVidia 8800 video card. It is supposed to stop the annoying lockups while playing, and the blank screen that occurs when you update video drivers.

Edit: After the second update, Vista requires you to reboot. When your computer comes back up, reboot again. If you do not do this second update, gaming will really, really suck. Trust me.

How to write a nasty letter

My wife was attempting a stern letter to our contractors that was not so stern.
I decided I would write them a nice letter instead.

Hello,

This is Mr. Star. I was informed by Mr. ****** yesterday (08/06/07) that work would be completed either yesterday or today.
I understand things come up and oftentimes it is necessary to reschedule due to emergencies or whatnot. I can accept that.
I cannot accept a total lack of communication. Phone calls not being returned. Days wasted waiting for workers we were told would show up who never did. That is a ridiculous way to run a business.

On top of that, my wife was informed when we had our estimate done that the refuse would be loaded on to a dump truck or dumpster and carted away. Nobody mentioned leaving a stinking pile of garbage on our front porch for days.

Also, the attic was cleaned and new insulation was put in place, but no work was done to insure that squirrels would no longer enter the premises. Essentially what we have done up to this point is provide the squirrels with fresh bedding and a clean environment to defecate in. Had this been my intention, I would have purchased hay for them and saved myself thousands of dollars.

List of things that remain to be done:
Scrap wood removed from access hole in to the soffit area.
HVAC hose from bathroom vent run to soffit area.
Replacement/repair of damaged soffit area.
Replacement/repair of dormer area.
Strengthening of entire soffit perimeter
Strengthening of entire dormer perimeter

List of questions we have:
Water damage mentioned in conversation between employees - does water damage exist?
Can the hole that the vent-pipe runs out through the ceiling be water-proofed?


Obviously, I am not a happy customer. We would like to have this done and over with so that we can move on to other things that require our attention.

Thank you,

Mr. Star

It remains to be seen if they will even respond to this. I figure we don't have much to lose, since we never signed a contract (they keep putting that off), they never took a deposit, and they don't return phone calls.

Bad Day

First, the contractors didn't show up this morning. Again. There's a stinking pile of garbage and squirrel waste on our front porch smelling up our neighborhood. They also didn't return any of our phone calls, but did send us a brief email late in the day. Needless to say, they got a nice, detailed email in return letting them know exactly how I feel.

Then, I went to some local music shops to look at band and musicians ads (still looking for people *sigh* ). While we were out, we stopped at Wendy's for lunch. Lo and behold, to complete my day, there was a plastic nose piece from someones glasses in my granola.

I guess I am lucky that way, since this one time, in Charlotte, I crunched in to a large beetle in a tub of Kozy Shack tapioca pudding. It still makes me gag just thinking about it.

Within Temptation

I keep hearing people complaining that there aren't any other bands out there playing the style of music Evanescence is famous for. Personally, I liked their first album, but this new album does nothing for me. (Probably due to the parting of ways with songwriter Ben Moody.)

However, there are always alternatives, you just have to leave the safe comfort of American Radio Land and enter the land of the truly free: International music.

For instance, the band Within Temptation - from Holland - is a gothic metal band, like Evanescence. Unlike Evanescence, they have more than one good album under their belts. Hell, they even have an American release now. (The newest album, The Heart of Everything.)

Check them out!

Also, a brief plug for my favorite music shop: The Laser's Edge. Ken has almost everything you could want in terms of metal and progressive music, and he's cheap, too!

Early, Early Early

I actually had to get up at 7 am this morning, as we have contractors here today fixing our attic and squirrel issues. I don't think I have seen 7 am in years.

I also feel like I am about to vomit. Continuously. That's most likely due to the fact that I had to get up early all weekend for work, and then the day that I usually spend catching up on sleep is being used to deprive me of more sleep.

Oh, and the fact that some jackass customer in Germany called and left a wrong number with my answering service, so I had to try to call them back just to tell them they have no warranty and can therefore take a flying leap off a cliff for all we care. Oh, and the other idiot customer from Portugal who called overnight that also left a wrong number, and can also go attempt to propagate the species with herself.

But I hit level 45 with my shaman this morning, so at least some good came of this. I think it's my shaman. It's hard to tell, everything is really blurry....

Email from Abroad

I received an email from Karim, a reader from Egypt, today. He was reading my review of the game Guild Wars: Nightfall on MMORPG.com, and felt compelled to write and tell me that he liked the review.

Mirroring his compulsion, I felt the need to mention his email. I've never received an email from someone in Egypt before, barring the soon to be deposed Prince Abu who wanted me to transfer millions of dollars to my bank account to help him run from his government, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't really from an Egyptian. Thanks for reading, Karim.

Oh, and if you really do have a Prince Abu who is about to be deposed, please tell him that I'm sorry for the cursing, and that he can send me millions of dollars anytime.

A Teacher Grows Disillusioned After a ‘Fail’ Becomes a ‘Pass’

This is why Americans are so gosh-darn smart!
School learns us good, thanks to Mr. Bush!

NY Times: A Teacher Grows Disillusioned After a ‘Fail’ Becomes a ‘Pass’

And the mother of this dope thinks the teacher needs to "grow up and be a man." Hmm, I'm guessing the apple just about splatted right on the roots in this family. Mother-daughter strippers for the win!

Kevin Smith vs Man-Tits!

A hysterical video of Kevin Smith blasting some poor douche-bag who tried to be witty but failed. Comic-Con 2007.

Check it out.

World of Warcraft: The Movie

Confirmed at Blizzcon this weekend, with a projected 2009 release date.

The movie is supposed to be set one year before the start of the World of Warcraft timeline, and is described as a fantasy war movie, told from the perspective of the Alliance.

More info here.

Complaining about the WoW expansion already...

My wife and I are moving our characters in World of Warcraft. The server I started on years ago, Mannoroth, consists of mostly post-level 60 characters, and it's incredibly hard to ind people with lower level characters to do any Azeroth instances with. Evereyone, it seems, is in Outland.

So, we are moving to a newer server, where not everyone is tired of the old instances, and where we hope to make a new home. Hell, this server hasn't even unlocked An'Quiraj yet, so we're looking forward to helping with that again. (Our old server was the second server in the world to unlock it, and the first PVP server to do so.)

Anyway, choosing which server to move to prompted me to visit the WoW forums to find out about our choices. I almost never visit those forums, because they exhibit very little intelligent debate, if any. Unsurprisingly, there is now a ton of unintelligent bitching going on about the new expansion.

It seems the main complaint is that with a new expansion, the stuff from The Burning Crusade will be obsolete. Also, people are complaining that there will now be another 10 levels to go through. I've got news for you people, if you don't like collecting new gear and leveling up, you're playing the wrong genre of games. Come on, did you really think that there would never be more stuff to do or more things to collect? Wouldn't the game get really boring after a while if you reached the highest point, had all the best stuff, and there was nothing new to aspire to?

Also, you people need to stop pretending to be surprised by this news. Blizzard announced early this year that they intended to keep doing expansions, and that they wanted to do two a year starting in 2008. Have we forgotten this already? Have you ever heard of Everquest? Do you know how many expansions that game has? Why would you think that WoW would go a different route?

For those of you threatening to quit over an expansion that is at least four months away: Please do. At the very least it will raise the mean IQ score of the remaining population.