Corey Gouker's Machine Inside the Mind

Was following a thread on a forum and someone posted the following.

Lance: Still got your Malibu?
Vincent Vega: Aw, man. You know what some fucker did the other day?
Lance: What?
Vincent Vega: Fucking keyed it.
Lance: Oh, man, that’s fucked up.
Vincent Vega: Tell me about it. I had it in storage for three years, it was out for five days and some dickless piece of shit fucked with it.
Lance: They should be fucking killed. No trial, no jury, straight to execution.
Vincent Vega: Boy, I wish I could’ve caught him doing it. I’d have given anything to catch that asshole doing it. It’d been worth him doing it just so I could’ve caught him doing it.
Lance: What a fucker!
Vincent Vega: What’s more chickenshit than fucking with a man’s automobile? I mean, don’t fuck with another man’s vehicle.
Lance: You don’t do it.
Vincent Vega: It’s just against the rules.

Pulp Fiction aside, it's mildly amusing, annoying, frustrating, whatever... that I get away scot-free from a near nasty accident during the first snow of Redmond after some guy nearly rear ends me. Only later, to have some buffoon key the hood and drivers side. I don't get why anyone would do that really. Unless they wanted to boost their ego in front of some drunken friends or whatever. Who knows. It's not like they saw the look on my face after the fact. In so many ways I wish Seattle and the US in general was CCTV'd up the arse like London is. I'd hope that there'd be the day where you could actually file a police report, give them the time the car was parked at the location then they'd just review the CCTV for those times and get a nice picture of the perp.

Of course with 20/20 hindsight I could say that we should've taken Julie's car. Who would really mess with a college student's a to b car, especially when it's a cute little Chevy Aveo with a bubble butt . We could've probably parked it in the same exact spot at the same time and the person would've left it alone. Or we could've not gone to the next pub after seeing her brother-in-law perform and been out of there before the incident happened. Who knows... It's only a car, sure, it is however for most the second most valuable investment behind a house.

Anyway, what can you do. It'll be a couple hundred bucks to fix, and hopefully won't affect the premium on the insurance despite them shelling out $2200-2700 to fix it. Oh and not to mention that it'll affect the trade-in value if I plan on selling the best car ever anytime soon but hey, it's the best car ever. Don't think that'll be happening for some time to come (like when the Tesla is about the same price).

It's been driving me nuts ever since I started using Vista but it's finally been fixed. Apparently not caused by Plus! Live for Messenger nor WLM 8.1 itself but some bad bits for the Microsoft wireless mouse I've got. The fix went up on Windows Update the other day and since then things have been fine. The KB article for the fix is amusing to me since it talks about the issue possibly being caused by CyberLink software. Cute since this is a clean install and nothing other than WLM and Office 2007 have been installed. Either way the "HID Non-User Input Data Filter" fixes the auto away status in Messenger. My power management for disabling the monitors after 15 minutes has worked fine and the update hasn't changed that. Jason Tsang also has a bit more information regarding the update.

So I've been talking to John tonight about a slew of random crud tonight. It's amazing sometimes how my brain can go from completely idle deadness to a buzz like flurry of random multi-tasking. As I'm writing this I'm making full use of the three (yes 3) Dell 2405FPW's I have at my disposal. I have WMP11 going playing my complete set of Gardiner's conduction of Beethoven's 9 Symphonies; The word-wheel is going to kick ass! I have uTorrent going, Outlook, Excel (creating my wish list for a later blog), a couple Ars articles I have to read, FileZilla uploading to Streamload, 12 MSN chats, and 42 Internet Explorer windows. Shame it's not running on Vista at the moment.

What have I been discussing with John? Well started out with me doing my anal-retentive comparison of my A/V receiver and speaker options. Basically, I've wanted a TV of late. No, I do not own a TV, something I'm actually rather proud of in a way. That being said I still watch content from various sources and have over a thousand DVD's and rent off Netflix so it'd be nice to watch something in the living room on a nice sized screen instead of sitting in my office watching by myself on one of the 24" Dell's. So of course to go with the TV which I'm totally undecided on at this point. I need a decent set of speakers. I was thinking of just moving my Klipsch 5.1 Ultra's and the Creative DDTS-100 to the living room since I'll only have the Vista Media Center PC and the Xbox 360 plugged in. I may still go this route as total cost is like $360 for a pretty darn amazing system. But of course, I start dreaming.

Having had a jaw dropping BostonAcoustics 5.1 set up at one point which was stolen I've always wanted to replace it. So I looked into Boston again. Sure enough, the one place that sells them is OneCall.com located in Spokane, WA. Highly ironic really considering the person that stole my original Bostons lives in Spokane now. Anyway I found this FatWallet forum thread about the Boston AVR-7120 receiver that is currently on sale for about a $1000 instead of the normal $3000. Fantastic really. I read this review about the receiver along with the one set of 5.1 speakers I was possibly interested in. They have those too. So I was tempted. Tempted not only into buying the receiver but the higher end line of VR-M speakers from Boston. I'm happy to report I'm not suffering from buyers' remorse at the moment, as I didn't drop the plastic. I'm glad I didn't either as it would've been a mistake.

One of my requirements is the ability to play back WMA Pro 5.1 content via analog or S/PDIF. I figured out that I could still do analog via the 8ch direct analog in which these high-end bad boys have. You need three 3.5mm to stereo RCA cables which then split into 6 inputs on the back of the receiver. The Boston didn't have HDMI, which I honestly don't care about but would like to have just in case. It apparently should sound true, neutral, and natural, something Boston speakers are known for. The other issue with the Boston is timing. I don't have the cash to drop now. So with WMA Pro 5.1, DTS Neo:6 music up-mixing, a couple optical and coax S/PDIF inputs with maybe WMA Pro 5.1 via the S/PDIF, I went searching for receivers under $2000

The options? From best I can tell Pioneer make the only receiver to report with confidence full playback of Windows Media Audio Pro 5.1 via S/PDIF. I've not heard how well this works but the option is definitely there in WMP10 and 11. The two, cough one, option is Denon and Marantz. Marantz are out instantly since they simply don't match Denon or Pioneer for features. So the two options I see at the moment are the Denon AVR-4306 and Pioneer VSX-74TXVi. The Pioneer is a wee bit cheaper, but does WMA Pro 5.1 via S/PDIF. The Denon has built in Windows Media Connect which means I don't need to have the TV on and don't need a Roku. It even can play back from USB Mass Storage devices. The Denon can also still do WMA Pro 5.1 via the 8ch direct analog that I mentioned. I believe the Denon to also be better than the Pioneer. At any rate I'll be reading more reviews and looking for more options. Know of any send them my way via the comments. As for the speakers I'm still thinking the Boston rig would be super nice, money will decide the VR vs. VR-M issue.

At the same time I was also discussing the last few bits and bobs I need to grab from the coldest place on earth, IKEA. Obviously need a TV stand but they don't really have anything that takes my fancy. I just want a simple modern stand with the components (receiver, pc, xbox) 100% hidden. The only thing I should see out is the TV. I checked out Dania Furniture as well but there wasn't anything that took my fancy for the right price either.

Next we got onto the topic of his recent blog post. He's giving up caffeine and all meat save fish for a little while. So I said I'd have to cook some Quorn dishes and have him over. Quorn has become a mainstay of my diet since discovering its availability here in the US. It's fantastic stuff. You can have it soak up more water and flavor than chicken making it super moist and tasty. The texture is quite nice as well, I almost prefer it over chicken. Yes Mom, I know, I should try eating fish more. I just can't stand seafood though.

From the Quorn recipe discussion we made a quick segue over to Clif bars. I was introduced to Clif bars when Ben Schiendelman (apparently he has more than one blog)let me try a couple bites from the one Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch bar he had in the lab at building 50. Damn it was good. Sure Ben, being the author of a many global warming alarmist, tree hugging, bike for peace, mass transit, train fetished, liberal democrat manifestos (available for iPod playback) did tout the fact that the nutritional protein bar I was eating was made from 70% renewable organic ingredients. So I guess me being just slightly left of center had to agree with him and since then I went to Costco and bought two boxes of assorted (3 flavors) 24 pack boxes of Clif bars. Cost per bar is about $.784, not bad compared to the Balance Bars I was having which aren't as good in every way.

So back to the convo with John. He suggested I do a power buy on them jokingly. Of course me being following Corey's Law think sure, why not. Plan tomorrow during lunch will be to call up Clif and ask how much of a discount I can get if I order a full years supply (2 bars a day for 365 days) for 3 people. Figuring I'll convince Ben to do it and John is already in. Maybe I can work it out and get them to comp some if I keep blogging about the entire thing. I wonder if I could live off Clif bars. They certainly have a large enough variety in flavors. I'm totally stoked and looking forward to the mint ones I just ordered.

Now that it's getting later the conversation is getting weirder and I won't get into the details of that.

Closing words for the night then... Well just one word. That would be wondrous I hate that bloody word with a passion. It's all because of the letter 'e'. Yes I believe wondrous should be spelled wonderous, no reason, I'm not a linguist, but it's like centre in that sense. Just one of the intricacies of the English language.

Going through Scoble's blog, CTRL+Q'ing the stuff that's duped or isn't so interesting I stumbled upon blogger comedy gold.

The brothers in RSS advocacy aren't in sync anymore. Scoble has unsubscribed from Pirillo.

Back about 8 months ago in March I talked to Chris about the lack of full text feeds on his blog. He did mention looking into getting them turned on. At the time though he also suggested I do the incredible and actually download the webpage (via Fetchlinks for NewsGator).

What the!? Combine this with all the dead blogs. And the dead readers.

Maybe the blubble has burst, dead blogs, dead readers, nothing radically new, major RSS advocates not even using RSS to the fullest. Tsk tsk... What is going on in the world?

Jon and I were both shocked this morning when we noticed that Dom actually updated his blog on MSDN. The shocking part was probably that one of the many Microsoft blogs that have made their way into our "Abandoned" folders actually got a new post. Dom's post gap? 10 months to the day, 304 days total! The shame. What's the point?

So I've got a question. How many blogs at Microsoft and other corporations and such have been like this? I ask why bother? I mean so many softies have blogs that are like this. They post 5 or 6 posts within the first 2 months. Then every so often (every 304 days) they post a random thing asking for opinions or feedback or about a meeting or something along those lines. Then expect to get some sort of response or readership.

Dom, I already know your argument for not posting so often. You want there to be some value for your reader and yet you can't talk about some things that are under NDA. Plus you don't want to mix personal life and work. Plus you don't want to drop your other commitments at work. Make up your bloody mind already. Keep the blog and post something or just kill it.

There is of course the exception. But generally I think the majority of softies that started a blog have probably just let them die.

So many personal blogs are like this as well so corporate blogs definitely aren't in the minority. I suppose I'm not one to talk either, if you look at my archive you can definitely see the gaps and low posting trends every so often.

My closing point may be that could it be a good time for corporate bloggers to change the way they go about blogging?

I honestly can't believe Jon's web app still isn't up on the World's Best App contest. He showed it to me before the contest was even started and continued to improve it till they opened up the submissions. With the admission that Jon isn't the only one having issues getting their app even added to the site wouldn't that lead someone to say, "hmm this contest isn't quite going right is it". Then just postpone the timeline till things are sorted. At the same time whoever is running the contest doesn't seem overly concerned with their rules as there's at least one non game app that totally ignores them. At any rate, you'd think even a simple contest could be pulled off without issue but I guess not. Maybe they should take a lesson from other MS contests that seem to be doing well...

UPDATE: After nearly a month, 29 days, since Jon submitted his app it's now live. So click here to check it out and vote for the world's best messenger app.

Sorry to say it Chris, but you won't be any happier with Cingular. Sadly I think the sentiment and frustration with mobile service providers and land line providers is growing more than ever. It's not just a feeling us geeks have either. When I was in England I absolutely loved the service I received there. With any of the providers you got all your incoming calls and texts for free. None of this minutes bull. Texts were on average 6-10p per message (cheaper if you had a good contract). Most average contracts include 300-500 texts per month with 100-500 minutes. As an example lets look at O2 (the provider I had in the UK), here's the plans they offer online. 200 minutes to any mobile and 500 texts for £30 on a year contract, so you might be thinking "that's not a lot of minutes". Well it doesn't have to be, you don't pay to receive calls. You might ask about the phones you can get. Well surprise, take one of the most popular phones out right now, the Moto V3, that's free, the Rokr, that's free too. So I'm not totally biased here. Personally I still felt as if I was being screwed for the service I received even while in the UK. I didn't think it was good value for money either. The main point I'm trying to make is that in the US we're being screwed on these huge 2 year contracts for phones that we've still got to pay $100+ for when in the UK they're getting them free on 1 year contracts and getting free upgrades every renewal period. I paid £25 for a Nokia 6610 (unlocked) when I first got to the UK on a 1 year contract with O2. When I came home, about 3 months later, I was disgusted when I saw the same phone just finally come available and be marketed as new and such, price, $249 on a 2 year contract. Please tell me why, how does that make sense?

I get this feeling that the US carriers are just happy and giddy that they've pulled off the most amazing trick. They've managed to make America forget about the rest of the world. I highly doubt the average person realizes that everywhere else people don't pay to receive incoming calls (or incoming texts [see T-Mobile US]). And in other countries they certainly don't pay an arm and a leg for 2 year contracts and new phones. Plus just look at how Sprint, Verizon, etc can manage to just not have phones that only work in the US. They've certainly managed to maintain the existing America is the world mentality. Sadly it's not like things are better in the north, Canada has it even worse, some there even pay for voicemail. How much is the V3 with Rogers in Canada? Currently $99 CAD on a 3!?!? year contract, $375 CAD on a 1 year contract!

Yet all of us in North America continue to pay. So many of us are just fed up and switch from one provider to another only to find they are all horrible thieves that continue to think we'll just love them for the same crappy service that's so behind the times.

I think secretly the reason why so many of us are dying for good data plans on mobile networks is so that we can just give the service providers the finger and start using VoIP. Heck I know I am. If I had my way, I'd use the data services while out and about to make VoIP calls and use Messenger. Then when near an open WiFi node, use that. How many of us would just die for a plan that provided unlimited data with say 100-300 minutes (just in case) for $20-40/mo. I know I would.

Don't get me started on landline providers. The idea of choice there is a joke. So many areas are still only served by one provider when it comes to the basic local line. It's horrible. I've been trying to get my Mom off of Verizon's land line service which costs her something like $70/mo for unlimited US and Canadian calls and onto Vonage purely because of the huge price difference. She's tied to it because Vonage doesn't currently let her keep the number she's had for over 5 years now. For those in reach of cable internet there's a huge opportunity there to just be rid of a land line completely. The service speeds and reliability are probably good enough to just get a good VoIP service (Vonage being one, Lingo not) and save a huge amount of money.

Please tell me when will things finally change for the better? Maybe I've become far too cynical or far too impatient, I have just about lost any faith that consumers have anything going for them anymore. That's another story though...

Can't remember the year exactly when we first got her. The man at the feed shop said that if we bought an extra bag of food for our first dog Mickey (also gone now) that we could pick another dog from outside for free. There were at least a dozen out there and I just picked the one in the corner that didn't really look like any of the others. Turns out she was a Coydog, so the father was a coyote and the mother a german shephard and chow mix.

My new mutt.

At some point we took her to a friends place and noticed she had ticks. Probably why the guy wanted to get rid of them as quickly as possible. So one by one we removed them all. Next few days she got more energy and such. I think that was 8-10 years ago now.

Sadly this morning while still in Manchester, I got the following messages from my Mom:

Session Start: Wednesday, September 14, 2005

[07:30:40 PM] Gale Obler: Corey I have some very sad news that I wish I did not have to say. But Bear passed away about a hour ago. I think she had a heart attack. She was in the kitchen. We just finished burying her. The sun was going down in a really pretty sunset and the moon was rising. I smudged her and said some prayers. We buried her by this little Joshua Tree on the west side of the yard, the side the pine tree is on.

[07:33:08 PM] Gale Obler: I think she has not been her self since about the same time Aunt Lillie died. When I was in Virginia, Al said she had barfed. Then since then she has thrown up a couple of times. I thought it was the canned dog food. But she had not been wanting to eat most food.

[07:36:29 PM] Gale Obler: She had been out side with me while I was working. I just came in side and was giving her fresh water. She laid down in the kitchen floor near the door. Then she started breathing very heavy and weird. I still am in denial about it. I kept on thinking she was breathing. But she was not.

[07:37:04 PM] Gale Obler: I love you and I really wish you would respond back if you are there, please.

[07:58:07 PM] Gale Obler: I am sorry guess it is 4am there. You are probably asleep.

It's a shame I wasn't there but I guess that couldn't be helped. Think I'll wait a bit before I get a new dog. Was hoping though that when my Mom moved up to Washington later this year or early next that she could've brought Bear with her. Thanks Bear for being a great dog.

A while back I started toying with playing back DVR-MS files from Media Center on Server 2003. For no particular reason really. Just thought it might be fun. I didn't bother going all the way through it since I didn't really see the point. Plus I was able to do it just fine with GraphEdit on Server if I really wanted. At any rate Jon (not TReKiE) decided that he wanted to be able to watch the files in Media Player on Server so with a little help from myself and Mark Salloway he's got a working Server install playing back his recordings. Here's the basic details:

"First, copy the following 3 files from the \Windows\System32 folder on your Windows XP machine to the \Windows\System32 folder on your Windows Server 2003 machine:
encdec.dll 6.05.2600.2180 sbe.dll 6.05.2600.2180 sbeio.dll 9.00.00.3165

Now run the following two commands from Start -> Run...:
regsvr32 encdec.dll regsvr32 sbe.dll

Next, load Windows Media Player (or any other media player, I presume), a .dvr-ms file, and enjoy!
Note: Like a regular Windows XP Home/Pro machine, in order to play .dvr-ms files, you will need a DVD decoder installed."

Here's a link to the actual posting from Jon.

After a short down time with Canon Repair, I finally got my 20D back yesterday. Really have missed it which is kind of odd. Think this weekend will be good for some more photography, been craving a nice relaxing weekend doing nothing but that. Annoyingly FedEx had this weird do not release thing going on with the package so I had to shift lunch a bit, get home right at one then get back to 50 by 1:25 so I could catch a meeting at 1:30 which ended up being cancelled. Still didn't feel like I could eat so I just sat outside a bit to relax and examine the camera a bit to check all the functionality again. Managed to grab some nice shallow DoF photos of some of the random plants around the building before the hour for lunch was up. I think I got lucky once again, they replaced a couple of the parts that I knocked out while cleaning the camera with new ones, cleaned the sensor and the entire camera. Then even replaced the battery grip with a brand new one. Got both in the same package and definitely wasn't expecting that. Especially when the entire repair only cost me the $4.90 to get it to them in the first place. Am hoping Dom will write that 30 lines of code I need so I can copy over his gallery software and start making it public. Of course then I might actually have to start filtering some of the crap photos I take.

So pretty much since I started hosting my server locally on my home Internet connection I've had a trusty Intel CS430 webcam (now CS431 as well) connected to the world. I've always used ConquerCam set up as a service and it's just worked.

For the longest time I honestly lived my entire life 24/7 on the net totally exposed. Hence the reason why the page is called the Naked Truth of... And it's honestly got nothing to do with the fact that on numerous occasions I forgot it was on after I walked out of the shower naked. Believe me when I say I immediately checked the IIS logs to make sure no one actually grabbed the blackmail worthy JPG's. It's also been the topic of many Messenger chat's as well. One resulted in this little site where Matt Coy just started saving random images and giving them ridiculous captions. And yes most of them I posed for, and all are totally innocent. I really didn't have any hang ups about just sitting in front of the stupid thing not even bothering to notice the camera on 24/7 even whilst I slept, even while I was sitting around in boxer briefs.

After searching eBay I purchased 4 Intel CS431's for about $40. I gave one to Sam just because it had a built in mic, and for the rare video chat. I had planned to use the other for my main system for Messenger use if needed. Then I had been dying to do a 3 webcam set up for my website. One would show me. One would show the room. One would show outside my window. Sadly it didn't quite work because ConquerCam couldn't recognize the 3 devices separately in the way I use it as a service. So anyway while I'm still working that out I figured I'd post up the most recent idea which is the 24/7 Money Tree cam. Now anytime day or night you too can watch money grow on trees . Enjoy.

UPDATE: Just had another idea... Jon, could you make a quick mod to that webcam app of yours and have it capture my webcam say, every 15 minutes (I think that's a good amount, but you might have a more logical idea about it). Since it'll be capturing once every 5 - 30 minutes I'll grab all those images after, I don't know, 3 months and then turn it into a fancy little time lapsed WMV . Anyway, bed time now...

Not having read the books, partly because I can't remember where I placed the eBook versions... I'd give the film an 8.8/10. Could've used more Zooey really. Quite liked Bill Nighy's character. At any rate go see the film it's worth watching. At the same time, I suggest you look for a couple snogging in front of you during the previews. This specific couple was most entertaining, they honestly could've booked a private room and private viewing or something, they most definitely could've used a pause button. Half-way through the previews before the film starts they're just going at it. So much so you can hear them over the trailers. So what do you know the music kicks in for Episode III and they both just stop and turn and watch the trailer. Dom, Mike, and I just most definitely all started laughing our asses off internally at this point. I point it out to Mike who I'm sure already noticed anyway. The trailer ends, then no more than 10 seconds later the guy is brushing his face against hers and they start going at it again. Just as the movie is starting they get up, walk passed everyone in the packed aisle, then as soon as they hit the stairs they make a mad dash to the nearest dark corner for what I'm sure was probably a most entertaining movie, well for them at least. Sigh, I just don't understand why anyone would pay $18 to see a film then walk out after 3 minutes.

Oh and I almost forgot. There's one scene with Marvin all alone on the ice and there's the nice scene in the background, I'd kill to have a flawless screenshot of that at 1920x1200. That would make one hell of a background.

It's doubtful this is the 333rd dream I've had that I've been driven to turn into a reality, but it's appropriate. As I slept last night I had a very weird dream:

I recently came into another Ferris Bueller like moment of luck when the second half of a recent order gets shipped without being charged and ever noticed. This is the type of thing that has happened before of course. Just in the past year, I've won the lottery (along with a number of others) and had not one but two orders messed up in my favor. All for a total of close to $10,000. The only difference this time is that the mistake in my favor turns out to be closer to $25,000.

So after coming into this extra cash what do I do...? What any sensible guy would do of course, paid off a student loan which is a couple grand less. Not being happy with getting nothing for my money I end up deciding that a celebration is in order. I sell my 2004 Honda Accord 2dr with about 8000 miles for a cool $19,000 which goes perfectly well and is sold in the same week I put it on the market. Next thing you know, Dom's driving me to various dealerships for random test drives. One of the best is held for last of course, after driving a WRX, Lexus, Infiniti, Nissan, Mercedes, we come to the BMW dealer. They've got the new generation of M3's. Don't need a test drive, I already know. Leather, sat nav, plenty of horses, nice and small... Dom's eyes roll as I say "I'll take it". He's in total disbelief and horror that I've just bought a $55,000 car without even a test drive. I get a little remark along the lines of "well since I've driven you everywhere for all these test drives you better let me drive it". Oh my dear Dom, I'll do one better.

Not being happy with just getting a new toy, I figure I'll probably only get one chance to do it, and I'll probably only ever be crazy enough to do it once. I sign up for European Delivery of my new car. Knowing I've not got a second person in the immediate vicinity in terms of family that would find this sort of trip interesting, I invite the only person that makes sense.

After so many days of Corey's Law counteracting Dom's Law there's just one thing that can be done.

Time circuits on...
So a couple weeks later the flight is caught. Corey left for the airport 45 minutes before flight time, doesn't wait in line for check in, and doesn't get an anal cavity search by Homeland Security. Dom decided in favor of his Law and left 2 hours and 15 minutes before the scheduled flight time, he got caught in traffic for an extra 25 minutes. After checking in without any issues, other than a long line, Dom removes his laptop, shoes, change, wallet, and empties anything else in his pockets. Of course just as he steps through the line the metal detector goes off and they have him step aside. Being British and all they decide he could be a terrorist and proceed to pat him down. After collecting his things he makes his way to the Starbucks where Corey is already enjoying a nice mocha and just getting his SmartPhone out to send Dom an SMS.

The flight is long but okay since Corey forces Dom to actually use his laptop to play some random game over WiFi during the flight.

Hotel is nice as well. Corey's Law strikes again and they mistakingly give us two full size rooms instead of a room with two beds.

The tour is sweet, the car is sweeter, drives wonderfully. Dom gets behind the wheel and agrees, says that it may be time to sell the RSX. Everything goes well, flight home is fine, car gets delivered without any issues, it's fantastic, yadda yadda. The end.

Currently taking bets as to the likelihood of this dream becoming reality...

I made the supposedly easy upgrade to dasBlog 1.7 take ages. At least it seemed that way, a lot longer than it could've been really. All is well now.

In the process I started arguing with Kyle. Then I told him I love him in that geek way and all is well there now too. Or so it seems.

Kyle's being cheated by AGUK. I'm pretty sure the meaning of clearance is the same in the US as it is in the UK. While I can't blame the company for wanting to keep that extra 50%, it seems a bit steep. Especially if they want to keep a good customer who provides them business and sends business their way. If it was only, say $10 or $40 I'd say let it pass, big deal, but he paid $348 on the 29th then on the 1st he finds out they've slashed it to $174. Kyle's started up a thread on this forum and hopefully should see it resolved successfully. On the other hand it doesn't seem much different from the people I know who paid $250+ for the Audiovox SMT5600 only to find out later they could've bought the same thing from Amazon for better than free after mail-in rebates.

Why must companies be like this though? Sure it's good to make a profit, but is it really worth it when you piss off otherwise loyal customers? Or is the "life isn't fair" rule apply here?

So after a nightmarish search for a moving company and every one of them saying that I'm nuts for trying to get a mover to do 775 pounds worth of stuff I've been given a solution!

Dom has *cough* graciously *cough* offered to have me fly him from SEA to SJC. He can then drive my car back up to Washington so that I can drive the 10' U-Haul up, trailing him by half the distance.

Dom you're not a doormat, you're brilliant, and I owe you big time!
Thanks a million.

Well Dom now knows and I saved one long rant about how big of a twat I am for trying to surprise him only to end up pissing him off.

So before I left for Vegas after much discussion with Dom, who gave pretty good advice, I decided on Archstone Redmond Campus for their last 1 bedroom apartment which was on the top floor. I called up the girl, Tracy, and gave her my details and gave her my email address to send me the PDF's so I could FedEx the paperwork over before I had to try and get some sleep that night (I even printed the label). Waited till 5 minutes before 6 and still no email, called again and spelled out my email once more and she confirmed that she had it right and that she'd send it straight away. Still nothing. Called back 10 minutes later and they were now closed so I left a message.

Left at about 5AM the next morning for Vegas in the pouring rain. It didn't stop raining once while I was driving. At one point when Alex's Belkin GPS software running on his PPC Phone said we were off road we were driving through snow at about 75mph. That was fun. Alex and Sam fell asleep on and off and I having only slept about 30 minutes since waking up the day before at about 11AM was still going strong. At some point along the I5 we stopped at Starbucks and had Alex's famous quad espresso. Still going strong. Went through hundreds of tumbleweeds then at some point finally decided to switch with Alex and let him drive my 2 door Accord. I don't really remember falling asleep but I'd guess I got about an hours rest.

We get in, condo is great, nice, better than my dinky 1 bedroom apartment in San Jose. After having a quick break and changing we hit the show floor with the exhibitor passes that MS graciously provided MVP's. Tony Hynes was there which was slightly unexpected but awesome. Susan Leiter, who I'd met a number of times before at previous events was also there. Sam was worried the entire time about whether or not she'd get in and whether she'd also get to be another brilliant exhibitor . All was fine as usual when you're in the hands of the MVP peeps.

DMD MVP shindig and I'm exhausted. I don't remember anything at all except that Zeb and Matt were bugging me about only having 1 drink even though I was driving us back to the condo and still had had very little to eat that day and even less sleep.

Bright and early on Saturday (?) had a semi decent brunch buffet at can't remember where then back to the show floor. Parking was crap. Tram was crap (the bloody thing ran on wheels) and it cost $3 each trip with a day pass being $10, RIP OFF! Felt sick the entire time on the show floor from the excess amounts of caffine from the previous day. Candice Pederson and Susan saved us again with water and some Aleve. What a difference that made, we were actually able to walk around now. Starbucks queue was ridiculous so we passed. Didn't see ANY other MVP's on the show floor which was odd. That night the MVP meet up was nice at the foundation room of the House of Blues. Chris Hassler was there from Idaho, forgot he was going. Got to meet with Amir Majidmehr and argue briefly with Pirillo about whether or not it was really likely some person would download a random WMA/V with the “DRM exploit”, etc. Not to mention some other WMP annoyances like the lack of quick access to any track via a Jump hot key. Went for food after with Joel, Kasey, Matt, Zeb, Alex, Chris, and Ponzi, and “her/she” aka Sam. Sam and I sat with Chris and Ponzi and had a nice chat about the entire woman vs. beast type thing. I decided geeks really can get laid. Went home, fell asleep, don't remember anything after that (obviously because I wasn't awake).

Left condo at 10AM, had breakfast at Bellagio (?). Better than the day before, but still bad. Alex was working on a Home Screen plugin for the SMT5600 for some WA based company and needed it finished like 2 days ago so went to work on it in the car to send it out via the SmartPhone... All that just to convince Attgular to keep offering the SMT5600. Oh well, what he was doing seemed cool and hopefully Cingular will like it. Started the drive back which ended up being like 2 iirc. Yet more rain. At some point before the I5 I switch with Alex and the rain just stops! WTH!? Stop at Starbucks and grab a Subway at the same time. We sit at this small table and Sam places her bag under the table without me noticing, so when we leave I never think to ask her if she grabbed it. We were all extremely tired. Alex gets us back at some point before midnight and takes off in his Jeep. Then Sam's Dad calls to tell her that a guy from Starbucks called him on her mobile to say that she's left the bag. Sam freaks, I laugh, and say oh well, don't worry about it. Immediately I figure it's too far to drive. Like 8 hours, an entire day lost, ~$30 worth of gas. Cuddle her to say it's okay and not to worry because her geek boyfriend will take care of it without even leaving the house. Call up FedEx give them my account number and say that I need a purse picked up from Starbucks in Buttonwillow. So that's all taken care of. Call up Starbucks at 12:45AM and tell them to expect FedEx and to make sure the bag is safe along with a note explaining to whoever will be working there later.

Monday morning and I check for my email from Archstone and nothing. Call up and find out that she didn't send the email and that they've leased the place to someone who actually came in on Saturday or Sunday. Now looking for another place in Redmond or Bellevue, tired, annoyed, and totally out of it. Then later I notice a SMS from Jon and he's said that he was feeling ill last night and is now on the way to the hospital. The, uh, oh crap, moment happens, tell Dom, call Jon's cell, of course it's off being in a hospital and all (stupid stupid stupid rules). Send him a SMS from Messenger. Call his home number and talk to his Mom who's said she's in the “emerg” with his Dad and that it's probably appendicitis. So I guess we'll find out how that and my apartment end up tomorrow morning.

Obviously by writing this I'm letting him know something is up. Of course he doesn't have a clue. Sadly that also means I can't write anything here yet till I make up my mind, luckily this won't affect the outcome of Dom's shock one way or another. What to do... Whatever I decide I've got to do it in the next day so I can decide by the 20th 

Well not exactly free, but $4.99 a month for an unlimited number of calls is quite incredible. How am I managing this exactly? Well it’s not some magical telepathy; it’s thanks to the most popular VoIP service out there, Vonage. Yes, that wonderfully unknown and never seen company, the one without a single advert anywhere.

So my stint with Vonage started back in August when I moved to San Jose for yet more college and decided that I just couldn’t stand old telecoms. I decided that I was going to do without them. I signed up two days early for SpeakEasy’s OneLink service, a whopping 6000/768K service that takes $115 worth of agony out of me every month and doesn't require an existing phone line. Oh and wow, they're the best ISP ever!!! The day after that I signed up with Vonage on their Premium Unlimited service which cost $29.99 at the time. The modem was free (well free if you count the fact that they should give you back the $29.99 activation fee should you cancel). So in that first month it was $73.23, not bad considering that SBC wanted $36 out of me to activate plus $76 a month for the same unlimited calling to the US and Canada. I really couldn’t justify that cost and having to deal with the phone company.

The modem came a few days later while I was still on my DSL Extreme (also a pretty good ISP, but nothing compared to SpeakEasy) account in Joshua Tree. Initial impressions were quite good, quality was good, and I had no complains. Luckily I timed the SpeakEasy service just right so that it was activated the morning after I got up here. I had the Motorola modem Vonage provided plugged in and had my 408 number up and working again (without a handset though ). The service with the extra bandwidth seemed even better with literally no realization that it was going through the net. My comms set up basically has the DSL modem, then the Linksys router, the Moto VoIP modem plugged into the router along with the GigE hub and other PC’s. So I’m not relying on what I’ve been told is crappy Moto routing in the VoIP modem.

I won’t really get into the back end stuff that Vonage has in terms of extra features, needless to say CID works great, along with the little message waiting light I have on the Vtech phone, call waiting, the works. Only real minor issue that sometimes crops up is with three way call disconnects; once had a third party still on after switching. I haven’t had any hidden fees or anything to complain about, I don’t consider the $1.80 and $1.50 crap tax to be anything major, expected really.

The real test I had with Vonage was when I was up on Slashdot, not only did my DSL service and server survive, I was able to test out the VoIP service as well. Amazingly I made and held a good quality conversion with Jon in Canada and even managed a three way call with the UK (which btw only costs like $.03 a minute, or $.28 for a mobile). It never disconnected and only garbled once or twice, pretty sweet.

I’m not too sure when they added these UK virtual phone numbers but I just noticed them the other day. Which is what these free calls from the UK are all about. Basically since all these VoIP services allow you to be anywhere with that has an Internet connection, you can pretty much choose a phone number in any area code they have allocated. I can have a number in 760, 408, 425, 310, whatever, all ring here, all would be local calls for anyone in that area code. In addition they’ve got these virtual numbers in addition to the primary, which is basically the same but is receiving only and costs $4.99 a month more. I added a London virtual number to my account and now because I’ve got unlimited calls and it rings me here basically I can have anyone in the UK call me for free. At least on my end. At the other end of course it’s the cost of a call from wherever in England to London. For BT and NTL lines it’s usually 1p - 3p a minute, on mobiles it’s usually included for free with the inclusive minutes on various plans. It’s actually rather scary. I still can’t figure out how Vonage is able to make money on this. And it’s definitely free, I’ve had 4 people in random UK locations call me.

Last but not least, you can have Vonage ring a second number at the same time as your primary home phone before it sends the call to voicemail. I’ve got it going to my mobile. So in a way I’ve kind of got a incoming UK mobile. Very scary indeed. But damn, why did Americans ever allow themselves to be screwed by the providers here and let themselves be charged for incoming calls on mobiles!? Probably that 51% that figured it was okay because it was “air time”. Bastards!

[02:04:14 AM] Corey: brb, have to blow my nose again (it's getting
              worse; maybe a good sign that my cold is almost over),
              oh and gargle with water and hydrogen peroxide to clear
              the phlegm (which has just started up now that the cold
              is waning )
[02:04:40 AM] Jonathan Kay: lol
[02:04:44 AM] Jonathan Kay: get better
[02:12:23 AM] Corey: wow
[02:12:27 AM] Corey: that was disgusting
[02:12:29 AM] Corey: although
[02:12:44 AM] Corey: I think I just found a sure-fire way to self
              induce vomiting
[02:12:50 AM] Jonathan Kay: lol
[02:12:52 AM] Jonathan Kay: thanks for that
[02:12:59 AM] Corey: seriously
[02:13:14 AM] Corey: mix 1:1 water and hydrogen peroxide
[02:13:35 AM] Corey: gargle 1/3 of it at a time till it's gone
[02:13:48 AM] Corey: gargling until you just have to spit it out
[02:13:58 AM] Corey: by the 3rd time you'll feel like vomiting
[02:14:01 AM] Corey: I nearly did
[02:14:14 AM] Corey: close enough to lift the toilet seat in fact
[02:14:39 AM] Corey: yes I know TMI
[02:14:45 AM] Jonathan Kay: lol
[02:14:46 AM] Jonathan Kay:
[02:15:09 AM] Corey: but it might come in handy for any person that
              wants to become another Kate Moss
[02:16:21 AM] * Corey has changed his/her name to Corey  Da
              Vinci's Notebook - Ally McBeal (minute long clip here)
[02:16:23 AM] Corey: or
[02:16:24 AM] Corey:
[02:16:51 AM] Corey: what was her name...
[02:17:13 AM] Corey: Calisto
[02:17:19 AM] Corey: err duh Calista
[02:17:21 AM] Corey: Flockhart
[02:17:28 AM] Corey: right... new blog entry
[02:18:19 AM] Corey: wow the song even mentions "like a Kate
              Moss clone. without no muscle tone. like a skeleton."

Bah, second day of classes were slow and boring. Music in the Park is going on tonight, “eek a mouse”, should be good. Think I'll grab a starbucks and enjoy as it finally starts cooling down. Part 2 of the PMC blog to follow soon. I've got details on battery life, encoding times, fun with getting DVD's, XviD, DivX onto the device and more.

Provides nice visuals along with an additional explanation of the syncing and such, definitely check it out .

Guess he wasn't happy with that previous, it's coming... so here's a pic and a promise that i'll be up before before hell freezes, complete with plenty of photos, and at least two videos.

I should explain how that entire McDonald's thing came about... It started off with this link that Jon sent me. Normally it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but with all the recent crap about iTunes and Pepsi, and McDonald's pondering WiFi access, etc etc... It all just got to be a bit much.

While I enjoy the idea of sitting down in a Starbucks with my laptop chatting with Dom and Jon on Messenger about how sexy the G5 case design might be, taking all the time in the world sipping my delicious mocha. I can't stand the idea of McDonald's doing WiFi, especially when doing it with all those kids yelling and screaming, playing with their happy meal twenty minute toys and the throwing of plastic balls in the Ronald McDonald play area is even worse.

Then there is this entire Adult Happy Meal with the stepometer. That's just sad. Hmm I'm McDonald's marketing, “oh we're sorry we got you super fat with our Big Mac's, how about a bacon ranch salad instead? we'll throw in this stepometer too... just to remind you to take that extra step to burn off the calories and fat from that Big Mac you'll just have to give in to because the salad wasn't enough”.

So after all that... now get a free music downloads with your meal!? WTH is going on with these nuts!?

Oh and while browsing their site... yet another example. I-Am-Asian.com. Now I'm not Asian, which you can mostly likely gather from my webcam, but is this not offensive? I'm not even Asian yet I find this to be somewhat offensive, and no, I'm really not the type to be easily offended or sickened. But geez, could it get any worse, “sipping green tea or enjoying a Big Mac sandwich, we're helping make the magic mix called America become even richer”. If that Big Mac didn't make me puke, their marketing sure will. What in the world is with the AIMesque teeny messages in the background? Subliminal messages to go to McDonald's?

Is it just me or does it seem like a lot of marketing departments are as in touch with their targeted demographic about as much as Bush is with the American and global population?

The year is 2004, the great empire of iTunes and Napster are delivery more and more <finger-quotes>legal</finger-quotes> music, the house of Starbucks has had a lasting trade agreement with T-Mobile to delivery weapons through the air for quite some time now. But the evil Borg still rule the Delta quadrant. The last hope for the Alpha quadrant is the Federation of McDonald's, they alone hold the key to resisting and destroying that which previously seemed impossible. Giving people hope and dreams that their prior attempts weren't totally futile. By slowly and infectiously planting a command in the Borg collective they believe they can overcome that which was unstoppable. By reducing the Borg to their primal needs, the need to feed! And with the knowledge that the Borg's vast supply of caffeine in the form of Mt. Dew, Coke, Vanilla Coke, and for the weak of heart assorted flavors of fruit juice, is dwindling and could soon meet its end. The Federation of McDonald's has taken the offensive. Witness the evidence for yourself! Love it!