So, couple of days to catch up on. There was friday, a tuneup, and then 2 machines, and grandma. Got that weeks quota of "they're so mean to me" and "the food isn't great" so that was fun. Made oatmeal cookies for the game. Two jobs saturday, a cleanout then over to see about the router, a five minute task. Then over to game with the gang, got our new invulnerable fox guy introduced, found out where the water went, so it went pretty well.

 

Sunday as I recall, more writing.

 

Monady, shopping as normal. Answered some questions first off, and resetting a router again in the afternoon. Tuesday nothing big in the morning, but over to the Radison in the afternoon for their weird problems then over to the mortgage company for a couple of things. 

 

Wednesday was the real menace day.  Five places to go, then over to my parent's house for Dad's birthday, which I just made at 6:00. First was the boss sauce place, norton was using 100% of his CPU out of nowhere, his backup seemed really odd, so hopefully I sorted that all out. The next machine I cleaned out a bit, but I didn't see what she was talking about. Then over to see My Buddy to get his ink cartridge replaced, because I'm a moron. Then wayyyyy the heck out 531W to a machine a man put SP3 on years ago, and it messed him up and he took it off. So now he decides he's going to try it again, and guess what? It messes him up! Gee, didn't see that coming. So I did a repair hoping against hope it would work out, and lo and behold it sort of works. It boots, and complains about "activation" like people 11 years later care about pirating XP and just sort of hangs up, the HD grinds away, grind grind grind grind but is there any actual progress? Nope! So I get to take that one home, did I mention it's like a half hour away? More, possibly? Then the last one, he complained about BSOD and slowness and everything, I checked it all over, didn't find anything, it was pressed up against the desk so the vents weren't, you know, venting? So I did some stuff and that was that. Dad got his shiny new iPod I hope he can figure out, and when I got home another 3 computers had magically appeared on my doorstep for me to work on! Yay!

 

So today I straightened a guy out I had reloaded a machine for previously, and found out infrarecorder either has a bug or doesn't like the guy's burner, as iTunes will burn a CD just fine, but try to copy one and it'll get 80% done and just kinda stop, but say it worked successfully. Right.  When I got home from that, another laptop had fallen out of the broken laptop delivery truck in the sky, so I tried making all these machines I had work. Finally finished the last thing just a little while ago. I hate all PCs and Windows. In SO. MANY. WAYS. In every way, really. There is not one way I do not have the hate on for everything PC. It's all right there, anyone can see it. The activation one I finally hacked around and it seemed to work, it comes "right" up now, and doesn't complain about not being activated, so I hope that holds. Stupid XP. Otherwise it was a smorgasbord of windows reloads, sleuthing, and punching out bad guys like 007. Yeah, that's the life of a computer repair guy. Oh, and there was one in the afternoon, the AVG expired so I gave them MSE, which is free, and just totally blew their minds by saying "How's $10" when they asked what they owed. I was only there, as I informed them, for ten minutes, and a dollar a minute is a pretty good wage. And they weren't far away, it wasn't a big deal. Not that I don't like money, I do, and need it always that my government may take it away from me as is their responsibility and duty, but an hour's wage for 1/6 that much work. Just makes me feel weird.

 

Needless to say, I have not written nearly as much as I wanted this week, makes Robert cranky. 72,000 words. Getting there, Dean almost has all the piece of the map! He's just had the narrator (that'd be me) play the "disaster strikes" card so he tells the demon with the next piece the wrong thing and loses out on the chance to take the treasure for himself. HAHA. You needed that 3xp more then limitless wealth anyway, Dean. And your friends don't hate you now, totally! Honest! They won't stand and let your fake parents stab you in the back and kill you, at least I think they- I mean… *whistling*

 

Squeaker is in and out of his litter box every couple of minutes this afternoon, have to watch him, if that continues it's vet time!

 

No info on game this week, sadface. There's cake to be had, people!

 

Tomorrow, take back the Long Drive system, bring back the mortgage place guy's system (and get another system from an employee) and go hear the same crap from Grandma I heard last week. Nothing for Saturday, maybe writing? Smileface. Changing oil? Neutralface.

 

Weather good. Of course the really nice day I was away the whole time so I couldn't change my oil, (we're talking 50s here people) so now it'll be in the 30s again, where it should be when one changes oil. 

 

Then we loop it around again. It's a whole new month people, I hope you're strapped in.

 

Oh yeah, did I tell you about the customer who was telling me about this plumber, "Frank" that just left, and how he's a great guy, etc etc and I'm like, "Yeah, you don't need to tell me, the guy's my father?" And it was all *shock* and *amazement* like we didn't share a very obscure last name? That, I don't know, gives it kind of away that we're related? 

 

I know why the world is in such bad shape. Lady, you're the reason. You and all the people like you, that can't see a Robert Z and a Frank Z and wonder for one tiny second, "hey, I wonder if they're related?"

 

Don't get me wrong, I don't blame you, you're a product of your environment and whatever, but honestly, please, please, just think for a second, oaky? Please? 

Waiting to be killed.

 

I have to watch thumb wars again. Anyway, work has been done, allow me to write about it.

 

Yesterday the big one was the three at the end of the day, which I managed to take care of. Did writing, of course. More today, a half hour here with a guy who comes over every once in awhile, that went well. Then over to see Boris, who managed to add a blank page after 90% of his 178 pages of text, so I had to go reprint them all without the extra pages. Also set up his netbook. "Oh, it's half the cost of an iPad." Really? It's also half the machine the iPad is. A 1.2Ghz Atom processor with only 1GB of RAM trying to run Win7? Uh, no? That took forever. It wouldn't have been so bad if it had an SSD, but it didn't. Lame.

 

Then my last one with the cutest little girl, somehow she had told her firewall to block all traffic and then was amazed to find it had done as she asked! I'm sure it was an accident actually, I've not seen firewalls as part of anti-virus programs for quite some time. Windows has one, oh look your router has one, how many more do you need?

 

Book is going well. 66,445 words. Dean and the others are in the demon world, learning about what he has to do to get his parents back. Probably 5 more chapters? Hard to say, but I'm pleased. My first book, written very, very, very long ago now it seems, was only 46,545 words as I look at it right now. Wow, at least 13 years ago, probably more. This will (be as long as) a real book, maybe! Will it ever be a real book? You so funny.

 

Two for tomorrow, one canceled, and I have one for Saturday, plus the one I won't do tomorrow. Sean's saturday, at least I think, after the initial mail, nada. Grandma tomorrow, of course. Bet you ten bucks the theme will include "how mean they are to me" "the food is terrible" & "what day is it". 

 

Have a good weekend everyone.

 

After all:

 

 

Yes, indeed I have things to complain about, oh good, oh joy. It's been so long you know, I hope I remember how.

 

First one went fine, don't know how he got all those weird things in iPhoto but I managed to get them all out again. Then over to keyboard guy, which didn't work. Looks like the same keyboard, the ebay auction said it was for his model of machine. But no works. The numbers on the bottom are different, and while some ebay auctions list the "hp spare" number, the "replaces" number is also wrong. Cute! I sold him an external keyboard instead. Of course after I left he called and said he could type his password, but it wasn't take it, so he must have forgotten it or something? Wonderful.

 

Then to see about odd behavior, like sending emails without clicking send? I think he's just brushing the trackpad. I found a program that can guard against clicking the pad while typing (which I believe Macs can do automatically? Not sure, but I think I've seen that option) and typed up a whole bunch of nonsense (like this blog!) and it was fine, so hopefully that was just it.

 

Then a tuneup, wow your hard drive is 90% full, and running in PIO mode? How did you stand it? Went through and took off all the movies, music, zune crap, games, etc his kids (who are not living there now) put on there and now it's only 35% full. Go me.

 

Tomorrow, back to keyboard guy, then at 5:30 the 3x systems. Talked to My Buddy Bruce, who apparently left his stove or oven or something on and it triggered his CO2 alarm so he called the fire department and this set off this huge chain reaction and now he has to have his apartment clean to some kind of code or they're sending him to a nursing home or care facility. You mean like they were going to put you in an institution back in july of 2010? Heard it before Bruce, don't care. Stop lying.

 

Guess I'll do more writing now, must do the words on the screen that come from the brain, yes I do. 

So not a bad day of writing if I do say so myself. Get a chapter and a half finished. 

 

Of course it was a bad "making actual money" day as expected, my one job "I can't delete emails" turned out to be nothing at all. Sigh.

 

Otherwise, shopping today, bank, it was almost 50 so it was raining, weirdest winter ever. Did get several calls today though, thank you, so I have four appointments for tomorrow, a tuneup, changing a laptop keyboard, another laptop keyboard that may be busted, and Jim's iPhoto weirdness. So that may make up for it.

 

That's it, really. See everyone tomorrow. 

I've been doing a lot of work on the book, which has a working title at the moment: The Unveiled World. Better then just "Dean's Story".

Started making an glossary for it, and put together an indesign file so I could see what it looks like in "book" form. Also switched over to using an older version of Ulysses, which is kind of a neat little wordsmithing program. 53,498 words. The PDF Version is 126 pages with 5 pages of definitions already. It would be so nice to actually publish it and make some money from writing, you know that?

 

Work has been "eh". More of the same, a couple of setups, some cleanouts. Odd that it's once again dropped off so much now that it's a new year. As far as next week goes, I got a bunch of calls, mostly today, but they were just piddly little things I handled over the phone in ten minutes each. No love there. I have one job I'm sure will be five minutes of work tomorrow, one job tuesday morning and one 3 machine cleanout on wednesday. Oh right, a keyboard replacement on friday got moved to tuesday. Saturday was an odd one, two fan blades actually broke off inside her power supply! Never saw that happen before. Didn't have any of the right sized fans, so I had to sell her a whole new one. Didn't charge her any labor, she lives like 40 minutes away so I said "bring it to me and I'll do it free". But I didn't expect that, so she paid for the part, at least. 

 

Game was good saturday, we all actually got to do something, I got to drive the car and dodge missiles! But we got two mechs out of the deal.  Didn't think my "driving" skill would be put to the test so much, went down from 200 to 160 energy at 4 apiece. Some dude tried to carjack us but I just sucked his energy out so I'm feeling refreshed again. 

 

Last week I got the latest seasons of Psych and Supernatural, so I was watching them all week too. Finished up season 5 (the saddest one) of Buffy just today. Also straightened out the basement a bit, and just got finished playing some Firefight with Sean and Mizzy.

 

Some snow has stayed around, and it's been pretty cold.  

 

Grandma was fine, got to hear her complain about the help, again. She thought it was Thursday and Mom was coming, that she hadn't come the day before. She had. Silly grammy.

 

The person that bought the other receipt printer never paid, so I finally closed that case and made a second chance offer to the next highest bidder. Would really like to get paid for it so the guy can have his money. 

 

Had that bunch of crappy old PCs cluttering up the basement too, so this week those got taken apart. I'll take one a week to be disposed of.

 

 Shopping as normal tomorrow. Hopefully can get a bunch of writing done too. Oh yes, must make with the writing. 

Not that I am stupid enough to believe that it would in the 40-50s the rest of the winter, but a man has to have hope. If he doesn't have hope, what does he have? He has not hope, that's what. You don't want to know what's in that stuff.

 

So what have I been doing with myself these past few days? Let me rephrase: What has myself been doing these past few days? That can't be right… anyway, friday, two jobs, who knows? I did reload the system that I tried to "repair" which got stuck on "please wait" while booting into windows (for about two hours) so at least that got done. Got to listen to grandma complain about how awful the help is. Oh, she's just so mean. Mean, mean, mean.

 

Saturday morning, Vista machine that was just thrashing and thrashing the drive, I turned off superfetch, indexing, couple of other things, and it kind of stopped, but it's vista, right? So I did what I could and hooked up his router, so that was a success at least. Then dropped off both systems I had worked on here. Of course the 10:30 one ran long so I was late to both of them, meaning I was late getting back here, so I ate lunch at 2:00 and left at 2:30 for Sean's. Arrived just as Stan/Sean arrived, so there was that. Game went great, got to finally finish the combat we started like a month ago, and made my magical items! Got our phoenix back, created a "portal" spell which is exactly what it sounds like, and learned "creation" meaning I can just make stuff out of thin air. Oh magic, is there anything you can't do? And did it all in the house of the dead Hag my magic helped kill. 

I put a note on her and left the body in an alley: "I tried to kill the black unicorn". *giggles madly* That'll teach wizards who want my horn to be careful. Of course the imbuing rules changed yet again, and then again this morning, along with a host of other changes/fixes, so I was pretty pleased. Any game where Sean says "Well, we've got to change how that works now." is a win for me, because it's a win for him, because it makes his game better. Yeah. Didn't actually get to the plot of the evening, we were discussing what to do with our robot army and Neil decided his character was going to stay there with them, so he is making a new character. But it still went well. 

 

Then today I watched a bit of Psych season 5, cleaning, discussed some things with Sean about rules. Going to play some firefight tonight, haven't done that in ages.

 

Figured out my subwoofer too. There was an amazing deal on woot on a speaker set with powered subwoofer. Like, half the price I would pay for a decent subwoofer alone. But I have one, it's a complete system with a left and right speaker built into it. But I could never get it to work, so I thought my port might be busted or something. Well, I took another look at it, and there's two actual power switches on the thing! One on the woofer, and one on the right speaker. So I plugged the right speaker in and that activated it, saving me that money. Score. So now there is much base about the place.

 

Almost at 50,000 words for the Dean's Story book. So that's coming along nicely.

 

Talked to, sorry, listened to My Buddy Bruce talk for twenty minutes, didn't believe a word he said. As Normal. Well, I did believe one thing: "Since you cleaned out the computer it's been running fine." That- I believe. 

 

Then talked to actual people I could get actual currency from, very busy day tomorrow, with the shopping (bank closed) and then 4 appointments after that.

 

Should hopefully be a bit warmer too, that would be nice.  

 

That's all for now, you're halfway through January, don't stop now! 

First, in 2011 I paid $500 in interest for the privilege of borrowing money to buy my car. 

 

Second, my mutual fund has not risen since 2008.

 

Something is wrong with this picture. I looked to see what kind of penalty was assessed when withdrawing money early (10%) but even with that I don't have enough to pay the rest of the car off ($6000) so I guess it can just stay there and do nothing. 

 

Finished all the professors in the book and came up with an idea on how an Artificer could make a bag of holding. Approved by Sean! Then I mailed him again because he said the portal was tied to the bag rather then the person (as with the "pocket dimension" spell) to say "I guess he better not lose it then! HAHA" and his mail bounced with an error "unrouteable address". I guess he just hates me now? Nope, he mailed and said other people mailed him after that, so it was just one of those mysteries of the universe.

 

Saw Boris this morning, got his next CD made with his 180 pdf files. *shakes head*

 

Also moved some data between laptops for the mortgage company.

 

Lastly worked out that ink cartridges don't work too good if you don't take the tape off them and answered some other questions for a lady. Made phone calls, more bizarreness there. How do I go hours and hours with no calls, then in less then 10 minutes get 4, then only 1 the rest of the day? Does that make sense to you, because it doesn't to me. So I have three for tomorrow and two for friday. Can't complain there.

 

Well, getting ready for tomorrow now, then maybe I'll think up some more crazy ward/talisman combos. 

Or does the world move me?

 

Here's some highlights from days past that I have not written about as of yet. For reasons.

 

Finally got a chance to write another chapter of the Dean story. More work on the Database, added the ability to create skill groups. Worked on Mom's co-op book program which was unhappy with the move to 10.6 apparently. Pretty nice weather out, no snow. Half of season 5 of Buffy watched. Must learn to pace myself. Haven't played x-box in ages, sadface. Did make huge chart detailing all powers for all archetypes in Demongate High and their requirements so I didn't have to keep looking them up. 

 

Some work has been done, the most today, Scoops to oil his fans. Then to tell a guy his hard drive was busted, again, after only a year. Cleaning up a machine, and he for some reason had a perfectly good antivirus program but put on Norton. Why? Even he didn't know. Super. And lastly some wireless issues. Saturday reseated some RAM. Before that, worked for the hotel, so might see that money in three months. And a cleanout. Guess it's back to being a bit slow. Nothing to show for tomorrow but Boris wants another disk so that'll take me about a minute, and the mortgage place needs something done, so I'll go over there in the afternoon. Also trying to reach someone I guess gave me a number she's not at in the nighttime. Oh, and I have some RAM to sell a guy, so I'll probably call him during the day too. So much to do, no one to talk to so I can actually do it. Humph.

 

My front door handle won't turn anymore. Opened the door to bring in my christmas lights, closed it. Tried to go back out again, nothing. Won't turn from either side. Sigh.

 

Called the car place about my recall, apparently the soonest he can see me is March 19th. Huh. Guess my annual March 13th inspection is being held off until then too. Curse you tradition breaking car! I guess it must be nice to be so busy the next three months are already booked solid, and you're getting paid by the car company to do the work, so no worrying about checks bouncing and all that. Wow.

 

Got a $20.00 "gift certificate" to Omaha Steaks (who, despite being on the blacklist and thus being told the number doesn't exist when they call) because they were worried my order arrived "too early" when I had paid the $3.00 "delayed shipping charge." Do they sell anything for less then $20? Because free meat is the bestest tasting of them all.

 

Looks like Saturday's a go for the Pyre game perhaps finally time to resume that combat that's been on the whiteboard so long it's probably stuck there now. 

 

Sold two receipt printers on ebay, only been paid for one. Give me money darn it. 

 

This Friday is "make your dreams come true day" which I think is kinda dangerous, actually. You would not believe how many dreams I've had where I'm… anyway, forget it.

 

That's the highlights, hope everybody's January is proceeding according to expected parameters. 

So I thought I would celebrate.

 

Anyway, what tidbits make the cut today? My favorite salad dressing is back in stores, gonna eat it up so much. Got a check from the hotel people that was dated November of last year, thanks for getting it out so quickly guys. Season 4 of Buffy has been consumed.  I think at least two more teachers made since I last wrote, one or two, with another one tonight perhaps? Totally stuck in FF113, stupid game. Paperwork has been done and tided up from last year. The official numbers say I'm still down about $3000 from last year. Oh well, that puts me in a lower tax bracket, meaning all that money I sent them two years ago might tide them over a little longer still. I really enjoyed not paying them anything this year. Spent $8000+ on my car, between gas, payments, repairs, oil changes, etc. Huh, I don't even owe that much on it now. Freaky. Also it just passed the 75000 miles mark. Have to call them about that recall too, keep forgetting about that. If only Seri would remind me.

If only Seri.

 

Pretty typical week, just two jobs today, the spice place with a new backup system to install and over to Rebath, oh, today it's printing just fine. Uh huh.

 

Yesterday: saved a machine with a faulty power supply, usually when they die from being plugged in again it's bye time, but this time it was hero time. Weird too, unplugged the little LED inside usually goes off in a couple of seconds. This one was lit for way longer then that, it was like, how much power is this thing storing up, anyway? Cleanout, and setting up a new laptop.

 

Three places to go tomorrow, but I did get a bunch of calls which I helped people through some stuff. Let's see, take out Norton for Avast first, then a cleanout, then a lady who changed lnk files to open in iTunes. There's an "easy" fix I just have to look it up.

 

Oh yeah, shopping newegg as I often do, I have seen the "free two day shipping" all over the place so I looked into it. Sort of a secret club you join for $80 a year and a whole bunch of sites give you free shipping. So I sat and added up all my shipping fees for the last year and it was much more then that, leading me to believe I would save some money signing up. Whoops, they don't accept debit cards for some bizarre reason, so they lost my business, as I am the proud owner of exactly 0 actual credit cards. Smooth move mr free shipping company.

 

So for Trivia Day: What room number did Buffy live in Freshman year at UC Sunnydale?

 

National Bird Day tomorrow, show your screamers some love! And then the inside of a sheet. With love.

Oh, you were? So, what's been going on these past few days? There was Saturday of course. Got my morning job done, the PC delivered and then out to my parent's to set up Mom's new machine. Done just in time to leave there and arrive at 4:00 to Sean's where we watched Dresden, played some fighting games, won Gears3 and had a yummy dinner by Mizzy, not in that order. Oh, and tried the new Halo 3 maps, every one of which had a rocket launcher, thanks.

 

Sunday, just did stuff around here, I know I made another Demongate character, played more FF13, the usual. Watched the Dark Knight movie and Avatar, both of which I backed up or something for someone while working on their machine, so I took them. Oh yeah, his HD was dying, it was making a clicking noise so I was getting off it what I could. 

 

This morning I installed the SSD for the guy not too far from me, then over to take out a fake antivirus for Stewart, then back here. Cleaned. Made another character. Just now had a system dropped off with UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME which I took care of easily with chkdsk.

 

Tomorrow is shopping day, as most things were closed today. Then two jobs, a cleanout and one that she plugged in after being away and now it won't start. Most of the time when that happens, it's dead forever. Lost one of my systems like that if you recall. You don't? Oh. Well I did.

 

Quite cold out here and a bit of the hateful snow is falling. Supposed to get a little more then a bit, no thank you.

 

So that's the first two days of 2012 huh? I'm not impressed.