Linkstew

So I don't have much of a grudge with people advertising using the Millennium. I was thinking to myself that it'd be nice if they didn't, but then I realised that their millennial advertising is even more effective than I first thought. As I sit here thinking about it, I could name numerous places which have used the phrase Millennium in their advertising over the last several months, but I can name very few other ad's off the top of my head.

You see, every time the word "Millennium" is used, I stiffen, and it attracts my attention.

In other words, even though I wish it weren't, their advertising has been effective. And a year from now, when they use the word again, it'll be effective again.

And so as I was thinking about that, I thought to myself "bugger" and moped off with the dog down the street awhile. It was so dark, though, that I turned back, because I didn't really know where I was going.

Nope, not gonna happen. A New Year isn't a worthwhile time to make resolutions. It's the middle of my break. End of school year, for example, is a much more logical time to make resolutions. So I'm not making any now. I have no resolutions to make.

Okay, I'm less irritated than I was, but I'm still really ticked. I'm going to go hide somewhere and read. Away from the world, away from constant irritation.

Oh, and in the "funny as all hell" category, falls Zaphod's update about Q3A's Y2K compliance.

I beat Final Fantasy FFVIII the other night. It was absolutely fabulous! I loved it, and I'll be playing it again. What a great game, and I look forward to IX.

I also look forward to finally getting to play Chrono Cross next year, which is the sequel to the amazing Chrono Trigger. While at Player One in Bakersfield, I saw a Japanese copy of Chrono Cross, which made me envious. I also saw a copy of the psx-remake of Chrono Trigger, which includes a lot of Anime style cut scenes. This also made me envious, and I look forward to its American release.

I picked up Final Fantasy Anthology, and I started playing a little of V. Playing VI again will be great. These are a great pair of games.

I'm looking for a copy of Final Fantasy Tactics to play, because I never got to play it, and now it's no longer being published. I know a couple of people who have it, and if all else fails, I can resort to eBay.

And then there's FFVII... The game that I loathe. Thing is, I had a grudge against the game before I ever played it... I didn't like the fact that it was on the Playstation. I think I'm over this grudge, so I think I'm going to try giving FFVII another try... Not that I'm any happier with the playstation, mind you. The controller still sucks. I appreciate memory cards more than I used to, though. But I'm going to give FFVII another try. I'll try to like the characters, I'll try to get over the wishy-washy villain, and I'll try to understand just why so many people are so convinced that this game is better than VI. The graphics are better than VI, sure, but that by no means does a better game make.

And finally, the reason for all this rambling. I'm considering taking various sources of information all of the games listed above and putting it into a database and making a web page out of all of it. The ultimate easy reference for fans of Square Soft. I sure like them a lot, at least.

So we're approaching the end of the 90's as far as the gregorian calendar as concerned. Other calendars read a bit differently.

The above is not a mis-spelling. I decided some number of months ago that all the idiots misspelling millennium were the same idiots who were associating y2k with the beginning of the new millennium.

So y2k is really the beginning of the new millenium, while 2001 will be the beginning of the third millennium of the common era. That's the way I've been dealing with things.

Of course, there are 40 some odd other calendars in use in the world, so I'm not sure what the significance of our Christian associated calendar is. Bleh.

bleh bleh bleh.

A New Year is no big deal, considering it's just an arbitrary date on a calendar created by people. But then, all holidays are arbitrary dates on a calendar, and none of those dates hold any importance for me.

Why should I give a damn about going from three nines when I write a check to writing three zeroes when I write a check. No biggy.

Christmas has been commercialized to hell, Thanksgiving destroyed by repeated lessons in elementary school, Halloween turned into a bizarre costume party by fearful christians, the fourth of july an excuse to make noise, and so on. What happened to meaningful days that had a right to be meaningful, like Armistice Day?

So I'm not celebrating any more holidays.

My sister gave me a card to be hung on the refrigerator year round in honor of "Valeastergivingweenmas". Doesn't sound like a half bad idea to me, only full status to easter just doesn't bode well with me.

So instead, I'll celebrate Valeasticegivingweenmas when I feel like it. It'll be meaningful to me, which is what counts. I don't give a damn what is SUPPOSED to be meaningful to me. I don't need people telling me what I should be thankful for, or when I should blow stuff up, and so on. I'll do such things when it's meaningful to me.

Yes, I'm ranting/fuming. All the same, holidays are stupid ideas. Same as religion, telling a person what is to be important. I'll make my own decisions as to what is important to me. To ME!

Valeasticegivingweenmas cannot be associated with a date, because once I rule the world and get rid of all the other holidays, then an association with a date will be meaningless to so many other people. And an association with a date will just bread another merchandising monster. No good, no date. Celebrate Valeasticegivingweenmas when you have a reason to.

So throughout the house, all day, ABC News's Millennium 2000 coverage has been on. It's been a nightmare for me. It hurts.

But what really ticks me off was when some guy from the "2MI" organization somehow made it onto the set, and tried to explain to the head honcho at ABC News (Peter Jennings or Tom Broke,aw, or one of them) that the 2001-01-01 was the first day of the new Millennium. In effect, the guy with ABC news laughed at the 2MI guy, and was told that if he could convince the majority of the people in Union Square, then he would believe him.

This really irritates me. A lot. Oh well. I could rant for way too long on this, so I won't.

Eh, hell if I know. There are a ton of scripts which automate things over here... Some of my date routines might go wacky. I've not given it much thought. If they do, oh well. I won't lose sleep over it, and I'm sure y'all won't, either.

I'll just find out when the time comes. Worst case scenario? I spend five minutes fixing some perl.

Whoop de doo.

First, the fucking idiots at buy.com. For a month, I asked them to cancel my order, and they told me that they couldn't, because it'd already been sent to processing. They told me they could only cancel it if it was back ordered.

Last night they emailed me and told me that not only had it been back ordered for the last month, but also that it was no longer available from the manufacturer. Idiots. I'm never ordering from buy.com ever again. Neither should you.

Second, the check from MA. I got it on December 27. It was postmarked December 7. 20 days in the mail! Unimagineable!

It seems like there was one other that was in the pipe, but I've forgotten it. Sorry. Have a nice another new day.

So with the parts in hand from 1st Look, I ripped out everything from Dorfl and tried to push in a motherboard with a Celeron 366 on a slocket converter... And it just didn't happen. So I got a new case, and pushed everything in, and it works great. The new case is a Min Maw, same as houses another. The board is an Abit BE6, and I got 128 megs of CAS PC100 RAM, and a Celeron 366 which I'm overclocking to 550. It plays Half-Life, and Freespace 2, and well, EVERYTHING, insanely great. It was worth it. And I'm selling all the old parts to Chris.

I finally got my parts from 1st Look through UPS. It took them 6 days for second day mail. They claimed they tried to deliver it on the second day, but they left no note. They didn't try to deliver it on the third day at all. The fourth and fifth day were weekend, and the sixth day they managed to get it here. And they won't give me a refund on my shipping. They said "Yes, the driver should have left a note on Thursday, but oh well. Yes, we should have tried to deliver it on Friday, but oh well. No refund, because nothing is guaranteed during the holidays except first day."

Bastards...

Then, there's the buy.com thing. In this case, I'm not too mad at UPS... On the 23rd of November, I ordered a nice IBM hard drive for a great price. The shipping address was mislabled, so it couldn't be delivered. I sent buy.com a request on the 1st of December asking them to send a replacement. They received my drive back from UPS on the third of December. I got a reply on the 4th of December saying a claim had been filed. On the 9th of December, my order was reinstated. On the night of the 9th, I called and asked when they thought my order was shipped. After waiting on hold for two hours, they told me they didn't know. They said I couldn't cancel my order or get the shipping address changed. I've "imailed" (they don't have email support, only this weird web based form in which you can only enter 1000 characters) them multiple times, and each time the reply takes several days.... Since the 9th, my order has had the status of "processing." I don't know what's going on. I've called them back, they won't let me cancel or get the shipping address changed... So it's going to get sent to Berkeley and then BACK to buy.com, and with the speed these guys go, I probably won't see it until February. Do NOT buy from buy.com.

Bastards...

And finally... A $1700 check was supposedly mailed from MA on the 8th, to pay me back for the 'book which didn't happen. I still haven't gotten that first check. On the 18th I mailed the guy again, asking him to stop payment on the first check and send a new check via priority mail. On the 20th, he said he would do so if the check didn't come that day, which it didn't. I assume he sent out a new check... There's going to be a certain point where flying to MA and wringing this guys neck will be cheaper than waiting for the stinking check.

Bastard...

The other two things weren't the fault of anyone in particular, and I blame them on the holidays in general. But the point is, everything I've ordered since November 23rd has somehow gotten Fubar'd.

And it's really starting to piss me off.

And it all makes me afraid of ordering the DVD player I've been looking at, and until I get that $1700 check I can't order it anyway. At any rate, I've been looking at the Pioneer DV 525 from Best Stop Digital. If you've heard anything bad or good about these guys, let me know, because I've gotten paranoid.

I got my Q3A finally when I got here, it installed without a hitch, and it runs great on Another... I played it for many long hours before I was distracted by FFVIII. I like it a lot. It's definitely a great deathmatch game... There are some great levels, and some really annoying levels.

But on the whole, I like the game. You should give it a whirl.

That night that Pi and Ben and Curtis and I were playing at Battlezone was a lot of fun. We got roped into a capture the flag game against a lot of little young punks, and we got reemed, mainly because there were five of them and four of us. So, tired of getting our asses kicked, we switched back to good old deathmatching... On the Longest Yard (the bouncy test map), Pi and I kicked their snot nosed little asses. Before my keyboard stopped working, I had 13, Pi 12, and then the next closest was around 2. That got them to stop bragging about how good they were. Little punks...