I was messing around a bit on Amazon.com and came across this review for the Nintendo Wii:
I think it will be good for the casual gamer, like myself, who plays games only about 25 hours a week…the controller intriges me, especially with FPS shooters. – Doug L. Clement “guitar player”
WAA? I can’t even find time to play 5 hours a week.
I’m not one to complain about things (okay, I do it all the time), but I at least don’t usually post the complaints on my blog (I’m too lazy). But this one warrants a post.
To make it simple, the service at the 42nd St. Papa Johns in Des Moines sucks. I mean, really sucks, as in, if it sucked any more they could quite possibly create their own black hole. The all began last week when I decided to order a pizza online when I first go to work at 8:15pm. The email confirmation came back and said it would be 30-45 minutes. That’s cool, I could eat it at 9 before the news started. 9:00 came and went… so did 9:45, and with the passage of that mark so did my patience. I called them on the phone asking about where my pizza was, and they told me that it should be there any minute. Apparently our definitions of “any minute” vary greatly. The pizza guy finally arrived at 10:27, which is no good as I was in the middle of a newscast. We eventually figured out how to get me my pizza and 2-liter of pop. But wait! There’s no pop and I think the pizza even had a little frost forming around it.
I called up PJ’s and told them about it… and they credited my account for a pop. Oooh, boy… a pop that was already free the first time. Fine, I’m hungry and cranky, so I decided to hang up before I got upset at whoever I was talking about. I knew it wasn’t his fault. Honestly, I think the delivery guy got all the way back to the 42nd St. location and realized he forgot to deliver my pizza. Which is interesting… since his job is to – DELIVER PIZZAS!
Anyway, tonight I decided to give them another chance. Maybe it was just a new and/or retarded driver. I called them this time rather than placing the order online. First I was told to hold and was hung up on. This just gave me a bad feeling and I should have backed out… but I had a free pop coming, damnit! Then I tried calling back for the next 15 minutes as I was constantly getting a busy signal. Now, seriously, I’m completely fine with them being busy. That’s cool… it’s called business. When I got through, I ordered the same thing as last time, except this time it was for two 2-liters. 45-60 minutes for delivery… that’s fine, I know they’re busy and this time I have until 4am to get my pizza.
The delivery came and was actually near the beginning of the predicted ETA. I paid for the pizza–warm this time!–and collected the pop. Now, I really never had any intentions of drinking the pop, so I didn’t think to see what I got. About 2am, I decided I was thirsty and needed a shot of caffeine to keep me awake through our crappy programming. What do I find in my bag? Two bottles of Caffeine Free Diet Coke! That would be great if that was what I actually wanted! It was supposed to be Coke. Just Coke, that’s all you have to do. It’s probably the shortest named pop in the place, so how could you not figure it out.
So, that’s it. I’m officially done with PJ’s. You’re dead to me PJ’s… you hear that? DEAD. I’m going to take my business to your big brother’s Papa Murphy’s.
No, not the one that lives in Radcliffe. This is the one who lives in the UK. I figured as long as Dustin gets to admin his guilty summer pleasure, then I get to admit mine. Personally, I can’t stand the CBS version of Big Brother. There’s just something about how it’s put together that annoys me. On the other hand, the UK version almost allows the viewer exclusively to form an opinion about the house guests. While the 13 episodes that air a week may seem overboard, you definitely don’t have to watch every single episode. I also like how on Big Brother’s Little Brother they bring on guests to talk about what has happened in the Big Brother house. For example, the first episode of BBLB brought on an expert in Tourette’s Syndrome. Yes, one of the guests this season has Tourette’s.
The whole show is interesting to watch, even if I hate the American version. Of course, I suppose the difference could be that I’m forced to watch the CBS one while I choose to watch the BBC’s version.
I’m all about free stuff, so here’s a link to receive a free subscription to Electronic Gaming Monthly. Hurry, offer ends Friday. By the way, you do not have to register with World Cyber Games USA after you’ve signed up for the free subscription.
I guess I never realized there was another article links from the Gizmodo story I posted earlier. They were basically pointing readers to a HotelChatter.com story that also contained the image and did give me credit. That’s pretty sweet. Apologies for the confusion. :/
I’ve had USB storage devices ever since college. Only recently have I had some that were large enough to store both documents I use frequently, and programs that I can run remotely. Right now on my drive, I have an instant messaging client, web browser, RSS reader, FTP client, and an image editor installed that can be run no matter what computer I’m on.
If you plan on doing the same, it’s really quite simple. The easiest way to start out is to head over to PortableApps.com. They have links to several applications that can run off a USB drive. If you frequent a public library or any other place with public computer terminals, this is also a good use. Also note that this will work in a corporate environment, but still won’t mask anything you do on the internet… Unless, of course, your IT department doesn’t know how to check traffic logs on the routers.
After a few hiccups, I got the APRS tracker working. So, for the curious, you can now see my current location by clicking here or see where I’ve been over the past 72 hours by clicking here.
Well, my picture is anyway. And even then, no one has any idea where it came from. Anyway, it’s still cool. Gizmodo posted a story about HDTVs coming to hotels. In it, you’ll see a photo of an LCD monitor much like what I just got. Wait a second… that picture also has a kitty condo in the background. And it’s angled the same way as the picture I took a couple weekends ago. 
Yeah… that’s my picture.
What actually makes this a bit funnier, is that I’ve only recently subscribed to Gizmodo’s RSS feeds and have otherwise hardly read the site. I’m sure they just found the picture by searching for the HDTV flag, but I’m still please they found the picture good enough to include on their site.
Some of my longtime visitors may remember the feature I used to have on my website that allowed you to stalk track me in my car. The reason it went away was my GPS died and I never took the time to find another one. Well, I’ve taken the time and now have a new receiver. This one doesn’t have a display screen, but that’s okay. All it really needs to do is send the data to my radio. I haven’t hooked it up to the readio yet, as I need a gender changer for the serial cord, but hopefully I’ll get that before the weekend.
So, in preparation, here is the future link on how to track me. (The applet that it says it needs to install is safe. It is just there so that your computer can display a map and move it as I move.)
I’ve been a little remiss in updating the site this past week. The reason? I got a new toy this weekend. A new HDTV in fact. I’m working on sending it through it’s paces and also writing a review of it. For now, I’ve posted pictures of it on my flickr page. Unfortunately, I’m only home during primetime stuff one night a week. But at least it’s a Monday, so I at least get to enjoy 24, Prison Break, and CSI: Miami in HD. Oh, and NASCAR on the weekends.
