Verizon Stinks!!!!

You’d think it’d be easy...

We move from one side of town to the other. No more than a mile and a half. I promptly call Verizon on closing day, June 2nd, and ask “Can I just move my phone number and DSL service?” Of course!, No Problem! They say. We’ll turn in off at the one apartment one day, and turn it on at the house the next.

BUT…

All of a sudden, five days early, on the 15th instead of the 20th, DSL and the phone go dead at the apartment. They got uppity and transferred the number early. That’s fine, I think. I can wait a few days for phone and DSL, until after the move.

BUT…

All of a sudden, DSL has been moved to the 28th. Something about needing phone service at the house for two weeks before the DSL can be installed. Odd, since the last owners had DSL already. OK, That’s three weeks without email, internet, and World of Warcraft. Ouch… But I can manage it.

BUT…

On the 16th, the phone line goes dead at the new house. Someone went and turned off the new house instead of the apartment, according to a “provisioning department error”. Odd thing, since the phone at the apartment IS ALREADY OFF!!!

BUT…

They get the phone line on, inexplicitly, on the morning of the 20th, right after I call and complain, so I am somewhat happy about it. All seems to be well again.

BUT…

Finally, the 28th comes around…Hmm…that’s funny, no internet connection. Well, they said it may take until 6pm. I call DSL customer care, and they make me turn off and on the computer, turn off and on the modem, jump on one foot, and recite the pledge of allegiance, and nothing. They tell me to wait until after 6pm and call back to see if it is on.

So…

The DSL order got cancelled, because the address on the service department’s list has no phone service. Duh, that’s my old address, not the address I ordered DSL for! It’s not the address I called to confirm four times since I suspected this may happen, because of the phone service error earlier!!!

So…

I get to the cancellation department, and they assure me that it will be up in two to four business days. I tell them that this has been horrendous, and I am at the verge of canceling all Verizon services. I tell them they have until the 5th, If I have no service then, it’s all over…

On the World of Warcraft front, Chriasas sits on the outskirts of Andorral, doing nothing, since I’ve not been on since the 15th…

Wow, this is only slightly more exciting than watching our new paint dry…

Well, this week is about the worst week of the year. A sort of anti-Christmas that I dread for weeks and months on end. It is…Dance Recital Week…

A little background. My wife has been dancing since she was about two, so it’s been more or less…a long time. She’s been teaching dance for about ten fewer years. She’s never gotten around to quitting, more because the teacher needs her help than anything else. So, once a year, after paying huge piles of cash for shoes, costumes, and lessons, the Dance Chateau puts on its yearly Dance Recital. It’s a two night extravaganza, involving kids dancing, kids dancing, oh….and kids dancing. No, really, it’s as exciting as it sounds.

Somewhere not long after our first date. I was recruited by my wife to “help a bit”. Soon, I was putting up decorations, pulling curtains, dropping scenery, and lining kids up, all the while wearing a headset that makes me look a lot like Marvin the Martian. Two hours of purgatory, twice a year. I’m halfway through it. One more night and I’m home free…at least until next year.

What else is new? Well, I should finally be getting DSL today, so my WoW DTs should be going away by tomorrow. Add to that all the podcasts I’ve been missing, and I’m really going stir crazy. There’s a whole online world out there, and I’ve been missing it all! The house setting up is going fine, though we still need to get the carpeting installed on the 13th, though I may unexpectedly be out of the country when it’s installed(long story, don’t want to jinx it). The next home improvement project? A patio, just in time for Labor Day.

Underneath the Patch Day Tree..

I can still remember. The anticipation. The joy. The happiness. I also remember the constant waiting, the complaints afterwards, and the disappointment.

Christmas?

Nah, I’m talking about patch day.

It’s that once in a while refresh of our second lives that we know is coming, but don’t know when it is coming. I’ll admit, I was one of those crazy people that grew a smile on their face when I heard that WoW patch 1.11 was coming today. It’s ironic, though, since I’ll not be able to partake of it for at least 8 more days, with the DSL not yet installed in the new house.

I’m trying to recall my first Patch Day. I guess it’d have had to have been Ultima Online. Ah, UO, the first REAL MMORPG. Sure others proceeded it, but it was the first one to scale up into the hundreds of thousands of users. I remember upgrading my girlfriend’s(now wifes’s) computer from a Pentium 120 to a Pentium 200, and from 16mb RAM to 64mb RAM, just to play it. I was up with a character the first week it came out, and it was marvelous. The color, the size, other real people alongside you. Not long after that I remember learning what a PK is, and not to follow one into the woods. Probably the most significant patch I can remember in UO wasn’t a patch, but an expansion, opening a whole new land with the Second Age expansion. UO wasn’t really set up to patch much, I guess, just add expansions.

Then, I remember standing in the games section at CompUSA, holding both Asheron’s Call and Everquest in my hand, trying to decide which one to get. Of course, I rationalized that AC was Microsoft, and of course they’d have the better game. Many of you may laugh, but I think I may still have been right in many ways. EQ went on to be the juggernaut, but I don’t regret a minute I spent in AC. It was a unique setting, with beautiful vistas(for the time). It had a tight, if small community, and was perfect for my playing style, which is more solo oriented. I can’t remember a big AC patch, but I do remember that they were the first ones that I noticed doing a monthly “event” patch. It often times also had a World Event attached to it, such as an invasion, weather, or holidays.

Then, the saddest point of my MMORPG life, the release of Asheron’s Call 2. I so wanted this game to work. I upgraded RAM, Processor, and graphics just to get ready for this game. I went out the day it was released and bought it. I hurried to install it, and then logged in. Wow, awesome graphics, good character models, good skill system. But, where is everybody? Very few people even played the game. Combine that with the fact that there were no in game vendors(you could convert stuff to gold by yourself) and the game was the most lonely MMORPG ever. One cool thing about it though, was patch day. Every patch was a monthly event, and, when you downloaded it. It had a CGI movie attached to it that played when you logged in. That was an awesome idea, and one World of Warcraft should really consider, as they have the best cutscenes in the industry.

After AC2 I took a break from MMORPGs, my confidence shattered. Then, again, I stood in the games aisle holding two games in my hands. World of Warcraft and Everquest2. Of course, I remembered my error last time and, of course, picked up EQ2. LOL. Now don’t get me wrong. EQ2 is a great game, it just isn’t WoW. I played EQ2 for almost a year, until they super nerfed my Guardian(logic states that a big guy in the best in-game armor should be able to tank, right? Nope, EQ2 found it logical that the naked monk can tank better). That nerf was in a patch. Also in a subsequent patch was a graphical error that would crash my ATI card to desktop for no particular reason. Sony said it was ATI’s fault, ATI said is was Sony’s fault. It didn’t really matter whose fault it was, it just made me quit the game after three months of frustration with the whole thing.

Which brings me to World of Warcraft. So far so good, I would say. I’ve been playing since October, and I love it. The patches are not monthly, they are very, very important. They fix things, add things, and generally make Azeroth a better place to live. So, in a lot of ways they are like little Christmases. I little joy, a little sorrow, and a lot to look forward to…

What’s underneath your Patch tree today, Shamans and Mages?

Gloom, Dispair, and Agony are me...

Well.... T minus 24 hours till we officially change residence to our new house. Currently, in our apartment we are living in the 1950s. No cable, phone, or DSL currently. We have only cell phones and a rabbit eared TV to use. We actually resorting to ACK! Reading and talking to each other! As a by-product of the move, We will be without DSL service until the 28th. So, whether I like it or not, I'll be going cold turkey on WoW till then. There's a possibility that I may find an open wireless connection at the new place, but odds are not good. I'll most likely miss the world event too, if the patch comes out on Tuesday. I'll still have access to email and the forums from work, so I'll still be around, just not in-game. Hopefully, the world event is stretched out for a month or so, so I can get into things come the 28th.

The Pain of Home Ownership

This month has rapidly become a jumble of prices and patterns and colors and dates. A few things that have become apparent to me.

As a homeowner looking for home improvements, or looking for utilities, you are on the estimator’s schedule, he’s not on yours, even though you are paying him.

It only takes a few extra minutes to do something right, as opposed to getting something done. Odds are that the previous homeowner did not do this.

It’s never clean enough for your wife, so you should probably just paint it anyways.

You’re never going to get everything done before you move in, get over it.

We’ve been trying to get carpeting for about two weeks, and after looking at all of the local and national scam artists we’ve found that most of them work the same way, none can install within a week, and the prices end up being about the same. There was one exception here in the northeast, who will claim to do it the next day. But, they could not, with us at least, be able to actually show up for the appointment. (twice, once with a phone call excuse, and the other without notice or explanation). I recommend that anyone be wary of carpeting from the Empire State.

So, we have trim in the bathroom to do, and the office walls will need a coat also. We might actually have the painting done this week. We’ve purchased some living room furniture, and we plan on buying a new computer desk and filing cabinet. The moving men are scheduled for the 20th, and we’ll have another ten days or so to clean the old apartment afterwards. I am really, really, really ready to just move in and get it over with.
Wow, on the World of Warcraft front, I have really been neglecting my toons. My 60 Undead Warlock is now officially broke and will continue to be for the near term, as I bought the Robe of the Void pattern. My 22 Tauren Warrior is sitting in the Barrens lonely and wondering where I am, and my 10 Human Paladin is looking for spooky children in Goldshire. I played a total of only 4 hours this week, the bulk of that on Friday night in the ZG raid, and the rest on Sunday night when I went on The Pod People raid. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay awake, and had to bail early. The warlock is still sitting in Elwynn Forest as I type here on a Tuesday. Given the move and the DSL transfer to the house, I have no idea if I’ll even be online by the weekend. I guess I’ll be playing House Moving Tycoon anyways…

Brother can you spare a dime? Or some time?

Ever see the movie “The Money Pit”? It’s a movie with Tom Hanks and Shelly Long as a young couple that buys a house that needs a little work. Well…a lot of work. Eventually it strains their finances, their marriage, and their sanity to the breaking point. Now I’m not in a similar situation, but I am beginning to see exactly how it feels to be a “Home-Ower”. Little things, like, scuffs on the walls, mysterious fingerprints, and the like slowly start to be seen. The warts slowly start to appear. Why is there a piece of moulding missing? What is that stain? Why did they paint OVER the cable line? It’s odd, some of the rooms are near perfect. And, some of the rooms look as if they had a good idea, but got bored really, really quickly. There’s nothing to make me really regret our purchase, but I realize that this is a marathon, and not a sprint. On the short list of repairs we have: painting about seven rooms, of which two are done, replacing carpeting in at least 5 rooms, and having the rest cleaned, buy a lawn mower, and replacing ceiling fans that could do a decent job of decapitation, as they are too low. On the longer list we have: Replace all windows, rerun phone and cable lines, and build a deck in the nice spacious back yard. The short list really needs to be done by Monday, the day the movers show up…

/sigh.
Wow. So little time to relax this week, with the house renovations, work, the Pastor Nominating Committee meeting, the Session meeting, a wife’s Manufacturing Association’s baseball outing, and needing to purchase furniture. I think the only time I’ve had the computer on is at work. So, I’ve not even logged onto World of Warcraft this week. I signed up as an alternate/summons monkey for Zul’Gurub on Friday night, and that may be the only WoW I play this weekend, or next. With the plan to move on Monday, and DSL and cable not being installed till Saturday, I will be internet-less and TV-less for almost a full week! I think I plan on drinking heavily to stop of addiction pangs…

Paint, and those that hate it…

Well, house closing was Friday, and the $800 I had mentioned earlier DID turn out to be an error, so all is well again in the household. After going over to the new house after closing, it became so apparent that we have a lot of work ahead of us. But, in order to get the house we want we are willing to put in a little work. After about 3 hours of introspection as to the general temperatures of colors (Ask a man if he knows what a warm and cool color is. If he knows, he’s a metrosexual) at Home Depot, we decided on two colors, and have started painting.

Painting normally proceeded by the long tedious task of making anything you don’t want painted look like a large abnormally shaped roll of masking tape. Once you finish moving the tape from the rolls in your hand to the rolls on the wall, you can begin painting. Painting is a long slow process consisting generally of rolling a paint soaked roller on the wall, and having your wife complain about missing spots afterwards. This does not include the part where paint magically flies across the room from the brush to that very piece of trim that you do not want colored. After the paint is rolled, you generally take smaller rolls of paint, as well as brushes of paint, and repaint small sections of the wall that have magically been stained white by act or God fiat of the Devil, not sure who likes taunting me more. Actually, it is turning out well, and since we are replacing the carpeting in these rooms, we do not have to me as careful as we would normally, so all is getting done slowly but surely. We are hoping for a mid-month move-in.

On the World of Warcraft front, I think The Pod People are generally where we were about 6 weeks ago. Despite the chaos of the last few months, We seem to have absorbed the losses, and have replaced those losses in raid situations. We did Zul’Gurub on Friday, as is the norm on Friday for TPP. We took down Venoxis without a wipe. We struggled early with Jeklik, but, after I think 4 wipes, managed to off her. Then there was the Bloodlord. I think he may be the hardest early raid boss in the game right now. We tried at least 6 times to down him, using at least 3 strategies, but could not manage it. Afterwards, I found no less than 5 strategies on defeating him by googling Bloodlord. Most cannot even agree on how long his berserk lasts. I’ve read anywhere from “a few seconds” to 90 seconds. I guess we have some home work in front of us, or we could try some other bosses, as he is technically an optional boss. Needless to say for those of us that are strategy oriented it’s fun. But when we flow into 2qm eastern time, it makes for potential wife aggro, as well as a long and tired Saturday morning. I do not know how dedicated raiding guilds do it tree or four times a week. God Bless them. As a personal note of accomplishment, I managed the second part of the Dreadmist to Deathmist upgrade questline, and now have nice new Bracers, Wraps, and Belt. Now If I can get a good Robe and Mantle, I'll be happy.

Thank God for Free Time...

First Entry!!!

You know, it's nice to be able to log onto WoW, join a raid, laugh my butt off at TPP cameraderie, and forget about things for a while. I bet most of us play WoW for similar reasons. Yesterday was a rather stressful day. A full day of work, stuck in traffic because of a work zone and scared drivers, then a walk-through with the house we are closing on today. Couple that with the fact that the house is closing for $800 more than we had estimated, and of course, all heck breaks with the wife. We have the cash(not alot more, though) so all is not lost, but it's way more than we thought, and, conveniently, we can't get ahold of the mortgage officer for an explaination.

So, after a day such as this, it was nice to go home, in a somewhat humid apartment, crack open a LaBatts, and get into a Pod People Raid. First time all the way through LBRS(wow it's big). Of course, all cloth and leather wearers, and nothing but Hunter and Warrior stuff dropped. But, we had fun, and, I've seen it all now. And, three hours that were better than anything on television...