Linkstew

So the Xbox has now technically been released on the East Coast, but I don't have time to say anything, because I've got a midterm tomorrow. For now, I just wanted to quickly say two things about the Xbox commercials I've seen:

1. They contain such an incredible amount of gameplay that it blows my mind. Unfortunately, the Halo commercial made the game look really fake. Oh well.
2. The noise that X makes when it opens up really makes my skin crawl. ::shudder::

Also, I'm curious who the hell Nintendo is marketing the Gamecube towards, because I've only seen one Gamecube commercial (compared to 4 Xbox commercials). And worse, my roommate (who tutors a Berkeley High student) tells me that no one at Berkeley High School has even heard of the Gamecube, but that everyone is talking about the Xbox.

"Who's trying to open the door," I wondered when I heard a key jiggling in the front door. "Albert's in his room..." And then my other other other roommate Michael got home. "Oh yeah, Him."

Which was really convenient, because Saturday when I was cleaning up from dinner, I noticed a pot on the stove. "Hey, I wonder what's in that pot?" So I looked, and there I saw what was once pasta, along with a lot of what definitely was no longer pasta. *blink* *blink* I quickly put the lid back on the pan and decided I'd deal with it later. It'd been sitting there since Michael left, so I figured a few more days couldn't hurt it. But conveniently, he's back.

When he left? Oh yeah, he left on September 1st to visit the DC area, and then Missouri, and then New York. So that Pasta had been sitting there for at least two weeks. It's not a pretty sight.

*blink* *blink* New York?

Yeah, it's funny you should mention that. I got home on the evening of Thursday the 13th, and there was a phone message from one of those airlines saying "Your flight has been canceled." And I thought to myself "That's funny, I didn't have a flight... Oh yeah, Michael! Wait a second... Wasn't he supposed to be in... New York? Hmm..." So I mailed Keith (who Michael was visiting in Missouri) and got an update and Michael was safe and sound.

Which is good, because that means he can clean his pot of stuff formerly known as pasta.

So yes, it really is 7 am, and no, I haven't slept yet, and yes, I just worked 15 hours straight (I ate dinner while working), and yes, I just got home. The project is live, but it's only maybe 90% ready -- but we always constantly tweak things for a week or two after putting them live anyway. No, you don't have a clue what project I'm talking about, and no, I'm not in the mood to talk about it any more right now. I really want to sleep in a nice warm soft bed.

It's interesting that the more tired I get, the mroe cold gets to me. This morning, as I walked home in the chilly dawn air, I was shivering and my teeth were chattering and my body was shaking in all kinds of crazy ways. But now I'm inside, and the thought of bed just sounds so appealing...

Hopefully I don't have a repeat of the dream I had last night, because it was very disgusting. And count your blessings that I'm not going to tell you about all the slimy details of that dream that are now burned into my head.

I just spent about half an hour cleaning my shower. That I can now see through the plastic doors disturbs me, not for fear of someone seeing me through the door. Rather, it disturbs me because it leaves me wondering just how much disgusting who knows what had built up on the shower door to make it as opaque as it was.

Awhile back, I mentioned that my parent's ISP, which had been bought, had been bought by Earthlink. When Onemain bought Lightspeed, the transition was nice and smooth, without so much as a change of settings required.

But then Earthlink came along, and I am so less than impressed with the way this second transition is being handled. First of all, they emailed instructions about what the new PPP login would be. Um, it's a good thing my family checks their email often, I think.

But that's barely the ridiculous part that angers me: Under Lightspeed, and subsequently Onemain, my parents paid $24.95 a month, got unlimited dial up access, and got five email addresses (all five of which, I should note, are used regularly (me, mom, dad, brother, family)). Okay, fair enough.

So then onemain/earthlink/whoever sent out a transition email to their customers, informing us that the plan that best fit our needs was the "Earthlink Light" plan. Quick summary of the earthlink light plan: $6.95 a month for six hours of online time, plus $1 for every additional hour, and 1 email address.

Um.

A quick check reveals the "Earthlink Unlimited" plan, which clocks in at $21.95 a month for unlimited access and 8 email addresses. Lightspeed only ever offered that one plan, and hence, anyone who was ever a Lightspeed customer going through this transition should have been given the Unlimited plan by default, with an option to downgrade if so desired, instead of being autofuckingmatically downgraded. Heck, the Earthlink unlimited plan actually features more email addresses for $3 less a month.

Besides the fact that we clearly have five email addresses that the Light plan doesn't support, my brother is online more than I am. My parents probably would have paid more for online access for a month than they pay for rent.

I can't fathom what kind of moron planned this transition, unless it was some guy who was trying to figure out how to make the Onemain purchase pay for itself in a single month. And then when everyone bitched, they could just say "Oh, we emailed you what we were doing. But we'll fix it now. But you still have to pay, because you didn't get your account changed at the time."

I'm only tangentially involved in this, and it just makes me whistling mad. I can only imagine how all the old school Lightspeed customers feel. So much for support and service. Apparently it's all about "How can we fuck over our customers?"

And the worst worst part is that of the national ISP's (including AOL, MSN, Earthlink, et cetera), I by far like Earthlink the best.

I fear.

"Do you want everything on your sandwich?"

"No mayonnaise, please."

No mayonnaise. No mayonnaise. Since when does wanting no mayonnaise imply that I want twice as much mustard? And how come three different sandwich shops I frequent do that to me? And how I come I never remember to tell them not to plaster both sides of my sandwich with mustard?

So here I am, with a mustard soaked sandwich which is destroying the structural integrity of the bread -- bread soaks up mustard much faster than it soaks up mayonnaise, apparently. I might as well call it a "mustard italian sandwich," because the mustard is so overpoweringly strong that I can't taste anything else but the pickles.

Last week I was returning to Berkeley on the train, and on the way we got a little delayed. It didn't concern me too much -- Sure, I had a meeting I was supposed to be at, but what was I going to do about it? I understand that Amtrak doesn't own the tracks, and that delays might happen as scheduling gets goof-balled, and that taking the train is more efficient than driving, and more. Heck, I actually like riding the train a lot. Even if I could fly directly home (There are no direct flights to Bakersfield from the Bay Area) in an hour, and it cost as cheap as the train, I'd prefer taking the train to flying, and I certainly prefer the train to the bus or driving myself.

But, on the train last week, there was a young couple (Sophomores in High School) who were heading up to Oakland to see the Mariner's play the A's. It was their first time on the train, and they were having fits about the delay. "I checked the schedule and I told him we'd be there at 4:05! It's already 4:20!" I wanted to ask him why he expected we'd be precisely on time, and I was also vaguely curious why he didn't ask one of the eight people around him who had cell phones if he could borrow one and call ahead and warn the guy who was supposed to pick them up. I don't even know why they were stressing -- the game didn't start until 7, I believe I heard him say. What did they think they were going to do in Oakland for three hours anyway?

I would much prefer to spend the time on the train than at the stadium, for example. The train is air conditioned, the seats are comfortable, we happened to have a nice view of the bay, and I was actually pretty content sitting there waiting for the train to get moving again.

I was content, but this guy was stressing (and his girlfriend agreeing with him). When we "finally" started moving again, he told her "Next time we're driving!" Fine, you go right ahead and drive from Fresno to Oakland (or Anaheim, maybe -- it's the same either way) for a baseball game, and it's going to cost you the same, and you're going to be less comfortable, and most of the time you'll get there in the same amount of time, and you'll be much more likely to crash, and in general, I would far prefer to deal with a delay now and then than drive if I could at all avoid it.

But it wasn't the conclusion that "we should drive" that really irritated me, though it is a wasteful decision. No, what irritated me is that those kids rejected Amtrak based on one bad experience -- They were not at all willing to give it a second chance, despite the fact that the delay had been caused by a grass fire, which could have just as easily blocked the 5 as it did some tracks. What irritates me is that they didn't realize how illogical they were being, and instead decided that "This sucks, we can do it better ourselves."

No, sorry, wrong answer. C'mon people, think!

There I was, preparing a Tuna Sandwich for dinner, when I realized I had no real idea what the hell Mayonnaise is made out of. So, I glanced at the label on my Best Foods Mayonnaise, and I saw that it looks like it was mostly made of eggs. A quick visit it to The World Of Mayonnaise Homepage confirmed that it is possible to whip up some Mayonnaise with little more than egg yolks, white wine vinegar, salt, and olive oil. Well, that answers that question.

So, while I've been writing entry, my sandwich has been sitting there untouched. Well, that's not entirely true. I took one bite and found what had the texture of bone in my mouth. There's nothing quite like bone in the tuna to destroy one's appetite. Another thing that's helped to destroy my appetite tonight was my discovery of the The Worldwide I Hate Mayonnaise Club, which features a quote on their front page reminding readers that the French invented mayonnaise to cover up the flaver of stale vegetables and rotten flesh (including, of course, fish). Boy oh boy.

A few more tentative bites into a now partially stale (bread) sandwich haven't revealed any more bone texture, so I guess I'll keep eating. But from now on, I'll be sure to do my research on foods after I've eaten dinner.

After Ever After, I headed out to watch Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation. After a brief false start, because I went to the wrong theater (the theater where I saw the festival LAST year), I made it to the correct theater and entered.

I think it says something when one of the most amusing parts of the evening was before the show started when they unleashed a lot of large balloons on an unsuspecting audience. The balloons were fun. A lot of the mindless violence/grossness that followed wasn't.

Sick and Twisted should have some funny associated with it. It's not like I wasn't expecting sick and/or twisted... I guess I was just expecting more. Hmm... High points were Spike shooting some pokemon (as opposed to the teletubbies he blasted last year), Rejected by Bitter Films, and umm... Did I already mention the balloons? In short, it's probably not worth $8... Oh well. So it went.

So for Halloween, Pi and I went and saw Spike & Mike's Sick and Twisted Animation Festival. It was... Sick. And Twisted. And sick and twisted. Some of it was just off the deep-end, though, and were just things I never needed to see, and could have died happy without seeing. I enjoyed it on the whole, though, and I'll probably go back next year.

The three high points, off the top of my head, were the malevolent balloons, the fwoomp-ing rodent, and the teletubbie destruction. Fun stuff.