Random Mumblings

свети илияПравославни икониматрациNobody ever really reads this blog, I figure I’d ‘announce’ I think I’m going to remove wordpress and switch to joomla or drupal (haven’t decided which yet.) advice welcome.

I took my car in for it’s 60,000 mile check.
plus I needed an oil change really badly and had an emissions test coming up.
Anyways, I took it to the dealer because as awesome as Desert Sun is, it doesn’t usually keep up with recalls for every single car.

Apparently the headlights and some computer program that caused stalling were recalled and those were fixed for free, and then I paid the usual ludicrous amount for the usual worthless stuff.

The next week I drive up to foothills mall to do some shopping and also to change my drivers license to an Arizona one. First, I find out that Illinois is one of the places where your drivers license cannot be used as a primary form of identification to change to an Arizona license.

Then, on my drive back, suddenly the AC stops working. the fan starts blowing hot air.
I call the dealer back and my service technician says they can fit me in for emergency the next day. Before I take the car in I pop the hood just to take a look, and lo I have no coolant. Waaaay below the “low” mark.

I take the car in and the technician is VERY clear about how if they are not at fault I’ll have to pay the $100+ diagnostic fee. I was fairly clear about how I thought that it would be a fascinating coincidence that a catastrophic break happened the week after major servicing that would not be the fault of the maintenance. And I made sure to point out that I had no coolant. Upon which the technician looked at it and told me “there’s still some in there”… I suppose it is possible my impression that it ought to be filled to the “low” line at least was wrong.

Hours pass and I get a call back from the dealer, “we fixed your car”. Apparently for some reason fixing the computer required them to unbolt some fans, which were then not bolted back in as well as they had been in the past. i.e. some bolts blew off of a part under the hood of the car because the technician was being stupid. And as for the coolant. something about flushing the coolant blah blah blah… I think the take away message was. “we flushed it and then forgot to refill it”.

When I went to get the car, I was told “you don’t have to pay the diagnostic fee”… I refrained from saying what I really though which was, “can I sue you for malpractice?”

So I finally got around to getting my social security card reissued after it got stolen last fall.

Long wait, as usual and then I only had to meet with this person for like 5 minutes.

The best part was when she said “Your social security card will arrive in the mail in about 2 weeks. Try not to laminate it.”

Try?? I mean really…
Do or do not, there is no try?

Oh no I’m resisting the urge to laminate but I think I’m failing….

Another of my back up hard drives have died. So I’ve decided to give it up and buy a RAID. yes, I could just have lots and lots of backup drives but won’t this really just be easier in the end… Sick and tired of having to deal with this crap. Pieces should arrive next week.

Yay shiny electronics.

I was so tired I basically slept a lot. And then I turn up being sick so I slept most of Friday too.
Feeling better today.

So yeah, spent the night in Vegas, didn’t make any money but didn’t loose and money in the slot machines either. They gave me $30 in meal vouchers but nothing opened till 5:50, and my flight boarded at

I still managed to spend all of it, take that US airways! Then, we take off 20 minutes late so I’m like omg my connection in phoenix… well I get in just about when “boarding time” starts for that flight, and of course it’s across the terminal. So I book it to that flight which had also had a gate change between when they printed my boarding pass and then. I make it to the flight and there are still people deplaning from the previous flight. (note it didn’t say “delayed” anywhere on the electronic boards). and then lo and behold, the plane has mechanical problems. So we have to switch to a different plane. All told we probably left phoenix about an hour late.
So I get into Tucson and I’m like oh, well the crowning achievement would be if my luggage doesn’t come in. wait. wait wait. this guy that I talked to a bit in Vegas who was in the same boat as me gets one piece of luggage. well that’s promising right? wrong. luggage didn’t make it. Luggage didn’t come in till like 8pm.
/end adventures.

 

So yeah…. was scheduled on a flight leaving Chicago at 9:10 pm. Well we boarded at 8:50 pm so you see how that started out. Only had a 45 minute connection in Vegas so was a little nervous but not too concerned. Well, then 10 minutes into the flight they’re already looking for a doctor or nurse on board. Not a good sign. 2 Hours into the flight we have to make an emergency landing in Albuquerque, NM to let this woman off the plane and stuff. So we get into Vegas something like 50 minutes after we were supposed to land. Well ok, they said they were *maybe* holding some of the planes for us. But to add to all this it turns out some of the taxi-ing areas in Vegas airport are under construction so we end up sitting on the runway for another 10 minutes. Good bye airplane. So there we are 88 people with connecting flights and no one made their connection. They sent all of us down to the ticketing people to get tickets reissued and now I’m on a flight at 6:10 am to Phoenix, and then a connection there to Tucson. So the upshot of that is that I need to spend 5 hours on my ass in Vegas airport which, I guess has slot machines… but more importantly free internet. yay internet. how would I possibly manage to stay awake another 4 hours without internet. hazzah. maybe I should pull a movie or something up.
Possibly the single most awesome thing about las vegas airport right now is that I can not get anything to drink except water from the fountain due to the lack of open stores. But I can buy an iPod complete with headphones, travel adapters and a digital camera…

So, went to vegas over christmas.

Got engaged.

Lost $300 in slots, and then won $250 in some awesome poker gaming.
Won most of it off this one jackass who was sooooo annoying the whole night. Before doing ANYTHING he’d play with his chips for like 2 minutes. So I had 3, 9 of diamonds obviously I wouldn’t play this hand normally but I was big blind, what can I say. It limps around to me and so I check it. 3 people in the pot.
And then what falls but a 5, 4, 8 of diamonds. I’m like holy shit I just made a flush. So I bet $10 into a pot of $7 both other people call me. Next card down was an ace of spades. I checked, next guy checked, and then super annoying guy bets $60. So I called him, the other guy folds. The next card is a 2 of clubs. I’m all duuuu is a straight higher than a flush??? I was feeling a little bit underconfident so I checked it. (In retrospect I should have bet, not that it mattered). And then, after playing with his chips for another 10 minutes, the guy pushes all in for another $75. So yeah… what to do what to do… But this guy was way annoying. And I felt like if he’d made the flush, he’d have raised me on the flop. So he might at best have a flush draw, which didn’t hit him or he paired his ace. But arg so much money…. So I called him. and he had 8 of clubs, 7 of diamonds.. so a pair of 8s… really? a pair of 8s? jeez…
And there I was with all his money. w00t.

Wow I’m so awesome at keeping up a blog…This must be why when Japanese school made us keep diaries over the summer (back in the day), like 60% of the entries were made up on the day before class.Yup. 2 months since my last entry. and we’ve totally played D&D in that time, and I totally went to japan and stuff…. /sigh.I also had my dissertation committee meeting but failed to get a quarum so have to do that crap again. /sigh 

Some bastard broke into my appartment and stole my stuffs yesterday afternoon (goes to show you going to a coffeeshop to do work is a dumb idea and you should just stay home all the time).although the monetary loss is annoying, the pain in the ass of getting a new pasport and local currency again a few weeks before a trip is really the worst. In addition to having to secure stuff down for identity theft and what not. I mean really, at this point given the amount of security on my SS number, I don’t even know if I can open a new account or buy something expensive…and I guess having to replace my duffle bag is annoying too.

Meet, Captain Simmons, a “drowned”. Radiating an aura of “drowning”.
Artemis drowns on the first round, and basically Sereven and Dos kill the captain while most of the rest of the party start drowning. Daud Dimension doors the dying members out of the way. Artemis is at negative one and the rest of the dying members stop at 0 hit points.
(Dying is 0 hit points -> -1 hit points -> dead).
As he died the captain said: “dread the autumn of man”.

100 gp of miscellaneous items and a spy glass (1000gp) in the Captain’s quarters and a treasure chest.
Inside the chest:
Stack of Gold – 1100
Green Emerald – 900
Ring – Scene of a shattered ship and waves, ring of floating = float on liquid and cannot swim below, if you’re underwater raise at a speed of 30ft/sec.
Wax Sealed Tube w/Scroll – Arcane Scroll of Sending.
Journal – Capitan’s Log

Meet an Ogre Patrolling the Area.
There were tracks leading East from the boat a few weeks back.
upon returning to the Orcish Village we learn that the tracks appear to lead to the Valley of the Titans. Where there are gentle giants and fierce guardians.