Your Tax Dollars At Work:

I checked the mail today, hoping to get my hot little hands on my guard card. Just as I expected, it didn’t come. Fed up with all of the waiting, I decided to call the Dept of Consumer Affairs to see what they had to say. After waiting on hold for a good half hour, I explained to the representative that my card was issued on the 15th, but I still hadn’t received it. Guess what she had to tell me? The card was mailed on the 15th, and returned by the post office on the 23rd. So how is it that the post office returned it, if they had my correct address on file, and it never even made it to my house? That seems a little ridiculous to me. Someone had to have fucked up the address, or not paid their postage permit or something, there is nothing I did wrong, and now I have to wait for it to be re-issued. I’m going to stop paying taxes.

I also didn’t get my damn unemployment check, and all of this waiting is driving me mad. I’m not going to go into all of that again, it’s just annoying the shit out of me.

I played PC Doctor after all of the government bullshit. Herbie’s girlfriend Amee has a computer (shitty compaq) and apparently they had been having a lot of problems with it, so they asked me to take a look at it. They brought the system over and we hooked it up in my living room, and I started it up. Jesus Christ, I’ve never seen a computer so fucked up. It’s a 2.5 Ghz that was running like a 300 Mhz computer. All kinds of error messages kept popping up, etc. So I determined that they could either throw the computer off of a cliff (which received a veto) or reformat. Compaq, being a “user-friendly” corporation, makes partitions on their computer’s harddrives. One partition for the user, and the other for setup files (much like the “master disks” of computers past). So you just have to hit F10 while the computer is loading, and that enters a “recovery” mode, which we used to fix the problem. The thing I thought was funny is instead of calling the process “reformatting your computer” it’s called “destructive recovery process”. I’m thinking that any computer newb would think that that was a bad thing and no go through with it. But I knew what the fuck I was doing, and proceeded with the destruction process. After everything was done, we had a new factory shipped unit. Then I had to go on with setting up everything to her preferences, along with doing some things that she didn’t know about. I ended up setting up her computer the way I like it, and she didn’t complain, so everyone ended up happy. Her computer works, and I did my good deed for the day.

I also got one other terrible bit of info today. Turns out that last week, my roommate’s girlfriend (the one with the kids) had a run in with her ex (the baby daddy). He wouldn’t let her see them that week, and she was pissed and was going to take him to court for custody and all that shit. So last week there were no kids here and it was nice for a change. No noise, no bullshit. Then today, when I woke up, they were here. I figured it was just back to normal, and that wasn’t that big of a deal. But no, it’s not back to normal. He asked her to take them for a month, and she said she’ll take them forever. So there’s the possibility of kids being here, every day, for at least a month, and up to forever. I don’t have a problem with her, and I admire her for taking responsibility for her kids, but jesus christ, now I have to be around kids 24/7. That seals the deal. When I get my tax return, I’m outta here.

Last night I played EQ for about 5 hours, bringing my SK up to a level 15, and I got my second set of spells. It’s good shit. Me and my Dad grouped together, and went on to a new zone, on Luclin, which is “the moon” in the game. We got our asses kicked in the zone, but the experience was worth it. I plan to play again tonight, and that’s about all that’s going on for the moment. I updated my magelo so you can check that out if you like. Otherwise, life is boring.

I need to make some fucking lemonade, because life keeps giving me lemons. I took the spark plugs out of my car a couple of days ago to let the water in the cylinders evaporate. A couple of my friends suggested it, as it has been raining and I had splashed through a few puddles. The consensus was that I sucked water into the engine through the intake. Sounded feasible, so I did what they said. Today I put the spark plugs back in, and started up the beast. It started up with no hesitation, ran smoothly, and seemed fine. The check engine light had gone off and everything. So later I hopped in my car to go to the liquor store, and what do you know? The CE light was back on and the same problem occured again. Now everyone is pretty sure that my fuel pump is going out (or my fuel system needs to be cleaned) as when I rev the engine, it starts to hesitate as if it’s not getting enough gas. So now my unemployed ass needs to try and figure out a way to fix my car. To make matters worse, my god damn guard card still hasn’t arrived, and I can’t start work until I get my hands on it. They wanted me to start monday, and now I can’t. So, I have no job, and a fucked car. I can’t fix my car without job. Can’t get to job without car. Can’t start job with card. It’s fucked. So tomorrow I have to get ahold of someone and let them know that they need to get me my damn guard card. Then when I get it, things will start to come back together. Until then, I’m screwed.

My Unemployment check got released on Friday, so maybe I’ll get it tomorrow. That would be nice, though I won’t get much out of it. I owe my girlfriend around $120 and I have to pay my rent ($180). That leaves me with $0. I’ll probably just pay the rent and pay my girl a little, but this whole being endebted to your girl is ridiculous. I need to find me a rich older woman to take care of me. Except I’m not hugely fond of old people. Anyway, I’m going to be broke until I can start working. But enough of my whining.

I went bowling last night. First time in like 5 years or so. Howard and his girl were going with some of her friends so he invited me and my girl, and I invited Herbie and his girl. It was ok, but not all that great. I remember why I haven’t gone bowling in so long. My first game I bowled like a 65, which is pathetic. My second game went a little better, I got a 101. Third game was somewhere in between there. I don’t remember the score, because I was drunk by then. After we played, we came home and had a couple more beers, then everyone took off. I ended up staying up until 5 something again, playing EQ. My SK is now a level 13, and things are going pretty well. I need to update my magelo, but I don’t feel like it right now. I feel like actually playing the game.

So on the agenda for tomorrow is trying to find out the status of my guard card, then calling soboba and letting them know what’s going on, and then if I get my check I’ll be cashing that and whatnot. Until next time.

Wow, more content! I actually did the things I said I would do, and you should be impressed. To my left, you should see two new links in the “site content” section. First, “My desktop” which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a picture of my desktop you retards. And before you ask, the car pictures is a Peugeot Silhouette. Second, “My Magelo” is my Everquest Character’s profile. If you play EQ, you might be interested in seeing the shit I have. If you don’t, you probably don’t care, but you can look at it anyway if you like. If you play EQ, and own a website and are interested in creating your own “out of game profile”, then go to magelo. So check it out bitches! By the way, my profile looks like shit right now, but I plan to make it look a lot better in the future. Plus magelo has its problems, and I couldn’t get certain parts to work. But it will be updated regularly. Also, in other EQ related news, I might be starting up a clan. I’ll have more news about that later.

Last night I had a bit of a session on EQ. Me and my dad played, and started off together, and ended up with a pretty large group. We played into the wee hours of the morning, and I went from a level 3 to 9. I got my first set of spells, and my SK is becoming quite formidable. But then again, I was twinked like a mofo, so that could have something to do with the easiness of the game thus far. Anyway, so I’ll probably be playing again tonight. That’s really all I did after my last update, and nothing much has happened today, so I guess this will have to be a short post.

I’ve watched a few movies the last couple of days. The night when I finally got to play EQ, I watched “Saw”. I thought it was a very good one. I am a big fan of scary (physically, or psychologically) movies, or thought provoking movies in general. I can’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but trust me, it’s worth a watch. It jumps around a bit, and makes you think the bad guy is one character, then it turns out to be another. But if you pay attention, you’ll catch on. Today, I watched two more movies. First, “The Forgotten”. Another mind-tripping movie. This one didn’t revolve around a serial killer like the last, but it still fucked with your head enough to not know what was going to happen next. Definitely not predictable, at all. Again, I don’t want to spoil anything, but another good flick. The last movie I watched, was “The Grudge”. This one I wasn’t as fond of. It wasn’t a bad movie, but what I’ve noticed with Japanese based horror (think “the ring”), is that there is no such thing as closure. Of course, if you’ve seen “Saw”, you’ll know that the movie ended without closure, but it was done is such a way that you didn’t feel disappointed. The Japanese have yet (judging by the movies I’ve seen) to discover how to not disappoint the viewer with endings like this. Overall, it was a pretty decent movie, and it had the potential to scare the bejebus out of you, but at the end it just seemed like the whole movie was pointless. It also jumped around too much to keep the average t.v. junkie’s attention. So basically I’m saying it’s worth a watch, but don’t blame me when you have no idea what’s going on, nor what to think of the whole experience once it’s over.

I had my “telephone interview” with the EDD today. They wanted to know what sort of training I had received, and I told them accordingly. So they said that they would release my check. So I should get that sometime early next week (I hope). After this, hopefully I will be able to get one more check out of them so that I won’t be strapped until my first check from Soboba. Unfortunately, I would already be on my way to working there, starting monday, but my fucking physical guard card hasn’t come in the mail. My roommate got his 3 or 4 days ago, I have still yet to recieve mine. I know I cleared, everything is good, it’s just not here yet. Soboba called me yesterday and told me that I could sign up for their orientation on Monday provided that I had my guard card (I had passed their background process). But it’s not here, and it needed to get here today so that I could start the process on Monday. So now I’m just waiting on that, and I can start. This shit is really pissing me off, but what can I do really? If the government (government agencies) would actually do what they’re supposed to do, tax paying legal citizens like me would get their unemployment and/or training proof on time. This shit has just happened in such rapid succession that it’s pissing me right the hell off.

Other than that, there isn’t much going on. Last night I got drunk. My girl had a friend over, and we (along with the other regulars) drank and hung out. It was ok. Today my girl came home from work sick, and has been lounging around most of the day. I’m pretty much over the cold that I started getting a couple days ago. I recovered pretty fast, and for that I’m glad. In site news, I didn’t do the magelo thing, and I’m going to try to figure that out soon. I didn’t do the desktop thing either, but I’m getting to it. But I did notice an increase in hits today, and apparently megalo gave me a plug today (not actually a plug, but a permanent link), which is pretty cool. Thanks for that. Jasinner also added our site to his profile on a forum he frequents, and that brought in quite a few hits. Search engine hits have been happening on a regular basis also. So I’m happy that the site is getting some much needed attention. Now I just need content to keep the people coming. Don’t hold your breath on that one.

I hate to admit it, but I’m getting sick. Or, I should say, I’ve been sick for a couple of days. It started out with the typical scratchy throat, which migrated to my chest, for a nice deep cough. I felt achy all over today, but I found some medicine, and I’m doing better now.

Everquest finally finished downloading all of it’s shit, and I got to play for a couple of hours. I actually just turned it off. Surprisingly it runs really smooth, despite my slow connection, and for that, I’m grateful. Unfortunately, my connection is so bad that I went link dead about 4 times in a couple of hours. Luckily I was just playing the tutorial, and not doing anything important that would have caused issues. My dad created a new character to play with me, and we went through the tutorial, and I played for about 20 minutes in the real game. Just long enough to see my guildmaster and all that jazz. So far so good, it’s going smoothly, and it’s been fun. Tomorrow I’m going to get Magelo so that I can display my character on the page. I also think I’m going to add a little desktop screenshot thing because the car I have on my desktop should be seen by all (btw, it’s via Desktop Machines).

Otherwise my goal for the day (whenever I decide to get up) is to check out what’s up with my car (which the consensus is a fuel pump problem), possibly fix it, and then sit around a do nothing, until later in the evening when I either actually do something, or just play more EQ. That’s really all I have to say for now.