I've had dsl service with qwest for some years. It works quite well, but every now and then I get a problem where, after I've had the computer shut down, the dsl won't connect.
I was impressed with their technical support those early times, who quickly and efficiently determined what the problem was and fixed it. I even learned the name for the procedure which always fixed the problem - "bouncing the connection".
(I later found out that this process has the unfortunate side effect of disconnecting other people with dsl service in the same area. Unfortunate, but not enough to justify me or anyone else having no dsl at all for an indefinate length of time. Besides, windows can automatically reconnect and most processes will be none the worse for wear.)
More recently, they've had more hoops to bounce through, and I've tried to be understanding about this. They always got to the part of the test that determined that, even when my computer was unplugged and disconnected, their system showed me as connected, and therefore they needed to do something about that.
Today, there were more hoops, but they never even got to that set. The troubleshooting process I was presented with seemed to be predicated on the assumption that I was on a dial-up connection, not DSL. I've even had times where the dsl worked where I had no dial tone, so having a dial tone is not really a meaningful indicator here.
I started gently suggesting that bouncing my connection, which had worked so often in the past, might be a thing to try.
Some more hoops. At this point, I was still trying to be understanding.
Then the next thing... well, I'm not certain exactly what she wanted me to do. It might have been switch the cables that were plugged into the modem in case they were reversed. Which is pointless, because no one has touched them in over a month, and if they were it would not have worked yesterday. It could also have been try connecting the modem to the jack through a different cable. Depending to the extent on which this was carried, this might either be possible but take a really long time, or just be impossible. (One of the cables involved here is over 30 feet long and was custom-assembled by my dad, and cannot be easily replaced.) In any case, I was still getting a dial tone and using that line to talk to her through all these cables, so I didn't see what this would accomplish.
I became more forceful about the idea of bouncing my connection. It may have been around this point that she went from consistently pronouncing my (very simple) name correctly to consistently mispronouncing it.
Finally, she came to the conclusion that my modem was old and I probably needed a new one. As it happens, I'd like a new one, but that's not a viable option at the moment for several reasons. I'd had enough of this, and asked that how about first they bounce my connection and see what happened.
Now, I'd been informed a bit earlier that she wasn't allowed to bounce my connection herself. Okay. So get me someone who can. She repeated that she wasn't allowed to bounce my connection.
THAT'S WHY I ASKED YOU TO GET SOMEONE WHO COULD.
After being on hold some more, she came back and said that she'd talked to someone who could bounce my connection. And lo and behold, it worked. Mind you, it wasn't really over until she got me to go to a particular website, since I don't seem to be capable of telling definitively that my internet connection is working, despite all the things that don't get cached I run.
All in all, I'd say it took about three times as long as the next lengthy call I'd had with them.
What happened to the nice people I talked to just a couple months ago, who helped me figure out a problem that actually *was* my own stupid mistake? And both before and since have fixed the problems that weren't?
Bleh.
-Morgan is going to post this to her lj too, since it's a good excuse to use a userpic that I haven't before. And since I spent a lot of time making it, it's about damn time."This continuity is now a Princess of Darkness crossover."
"... They're all going to die, aren't they?"
"Yep. Popcorn?"

Greetings, folks!
Well, I don't normally do things like this, but I had to...
After barreling through the Brickstown Safeguard mission recently and noting the presence of PPD psi-cops, I was inspired.
(Yes, *another* alt - keep quiet in the back there! =P )
Ahem. Anyhow, I created my own psi-cop character, and after some playing around, the final version is a Mind/Kinetics controller named Lt. Psychokinetix. (Bio and picture to be posted later)
Now originally I tried to get her into the Legendary, but we appear to be full up there. Inspiration struck again, and I've got my own cop-themed SG now:
P.S.I. - PPD Special Investigations
And yes, the title is a bit of a pun, and a bit of a homage to C.S.I. I had to do it, honest!
Anyhow, if anyone has a cop or related theme-type character and wants to sign up, let me know.
Later!
Bert V.V.
skyknight@sentex.net
(P.S. - Hey Bob! Wanna set up an alliance? )

I wish To add my 2 bits to the legendary pictures, but will freely admit I'm not so computer saavy..who am I kidding, you'd have better luck with a monkey at a typewriter than with me doing anything more than surfing the net and playing games *grins*
But to make a long story short, I don't know the first thing about putting images up on the board, I would appriciate advice on how to do so.

So my little brute Type C found a set of these, but I really don't want'em. So I thought Id offer them up to you guys, preferably for a set of Tech Wings, Piston Boots, or Rocket Boots...

This is probably only going to be truly appreciated by us old fogeys. If you went to High School in the early to mid 80s, like me, then the Arcade was possibly the heaviest draw on your free cash other than going to the movies. This guy has done a stunningly done tribute to those days.
Take the time to load the quicktime movie at the bottom that he's made. It's really like taking a walk through an arcade of the times. This is some truly cheesy goodness!
-Logan
-----------------
"Wake up! Time for SCIENCE!"
-Adam Savage
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Video here.
There are obvious cuts, though, so don't consider this a "perfect" run. It's still pretty cool, though.

-- Bob
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The Internet Is For Norns.

Mirror Moon has finally released it's english patch for the Fate route of the Fate/Stay Night game, complete with non-ero version. Of course, you have to somehow 'aquire' the game...
It's good timing too, I just finished Tsukihime (so many sad and/or creepy endings). Oh, and although the link I gave is safe, it's not impossible you'd find something midly NSFW if you bounce around the site.--
La Krueze: I just want everyone in the universe to suffer. Is that so wrong?
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all. 

a schoolgirl is returning home from 'study session' at her friend's when a gang from her school begin hassling her. they are interrupted by a large young man of obvious mixed heritage who pushes roughly through the gang and out the other side. it isn't until he's past them that they realise that the girl is gone. when they run after him, the youth dissolves into smoke
a few streets away, the young man drops from a rooftop to the ground and puts the girl down. he looks at her, frowns and almost says something, then shakes his head and walks away while she's still gathering her wits.
the next day at school the girl tells one of her friends about the experience, only to be interrupted by two of the gang who demand to know where they can find her 'boyfriend' so they can get their revenge on him. she tells them that she doesn't know and they threaten her. when she repeats her refusal, they grab her and her friend, taking them away from the school
it's after dark and the girls are tied up in an empty lot while the gang throw a party, although it's obvious that they're expecting the mystery youth to arrive so that they can ambush him. the leader, a girl, goes over to the girls and tells them that she can't 'restrain' her boys long, so they'd better tell her everything they know right now. the friend tells her that she knows where he is. the leader agrees to release her if she tells them where to find him and release her friend once they see him. the girl tells her that he's behind her. startled, the leader turns and sees the youth standing impassively in the middle of the party. he almost casually yanks the leader away from the girls and then comes under attack by the gang, but not by their hidden reserves. an old man dressed as a priest sneaks up to the girls and blows dust in their face, sending them to sleep
the girls wake up on a futon in an archaic building. they overhear someone ranting and look through a crack in the sliding door to see the young man being berated by the priest for intervening to because he's endangered the girls by doing so. the argument is going on in the central chamber of what is evidently a shrine. the youth says nothing but although subdued does not seem repentant. disgusted, the priests sends him to tidy his room and the girls barely manage to duck back so that they aren't seen through the door.
the boy's room is windowless with stone walls. the furnishings are a mixture of modern and archaic: racks of scrolls and antique chests amid a collection of gunplas and tankouban. it's quite a mess and while the youth starts picking things up, the faces of the girls can be seen looking though the open doorway. the youth turns suddenly and sees them, then smiles and gestures for them to come in. he does not say anything to their questions however, looking frustrated, and hands them a scroll to read. the priest arrives to try to reason with his great-nephew and catches the two girls. frustrated, he tells them to leave, but doesn't realise that they have the scroll.
the girls go home and the next day, for some reason, the gang pays no attention to them. they read the scroll and discover that it is the history of a samurai family, one so old that it's history is based in myth.
centuries before, two demons had been struggling for dominance. the youngest son of a family that had been wiped out by the battle offered to combine his strength with the weaker of the demons, giving it the power to slay it's enemy and end the devestation being caused. by the terms of their pact, the demon would be bound inside the youngest son of the family until he died or until the next word he spoke. after his triumph, the son realised that the demon's freedom would simply liberate it to cause more havoc, so he decided never to speak again until he found a way to banish it. however, when his firstborn son was born the demon moved to the new youngest son, which killed the father. the mother, a priestess, laid a ward upon her child so that he would not speak and took him to a family of demon hunters who decided to hide the ongoing lineage
the continuity lasted for sixty generations, with handpicked brides bearing sons to each demon container as he began to grow old in the shelter of these caves. however, during the meiji restoration the demon hunters were all but wiped out and had no choice to ask the demon container to risk himself in battle fighting the by now rare demons. during the second world war, the demon hunters were wiped in hiroshima and the demon container was so injured that he barely lived long enough for his wife to give birth to twin sons, the younger of who is the priest seen. the elder son carried the demon and hunted other demons, in time marrying and siring a successor. however, that successor proved rebellious and ultimately sired his own heir upon an american woman during a one night stand. the priest barely managed to find and bind the child - the youth - before the demon broke loose. as it was, the child's birth cry (although not a word) loosed the demon enough for it to kill the mother. since then, the demon container has grown up in isolation, inside the caves behind the shrine, venturing out only at night to hunt demons
obviously, the youth is the current 'youngest son' of the family and therefore bound not to speak. the girl who first met him is of the opinion that there is something uncanny about him so perhaps the legend is true. her friend does not believe this, and she wants to 'free' him from the obviously fictional restriction.
back in the shrine, the barechested youth sits crosslegged on top of a seal carved into bare stone, either asleep or meditating. the view pulls back until it can be seen that this image is projected somehow in a crystal amulet being held up to the moonlight by a teenage girl wearing traditional samurai armour sitting on a motorcycle by the side of a road. she frowns and tries to remove the amulet, but the cord isn't quite long enough and she gives up and mounts her motorcycle, riding off into the night.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

If its at all Possible could I rejoin the supergroup even tho I Just had my toon removed for inactivity? What Can I say I was bit by the hero bug and got my computer patched up so it'll run things semi normaly again. But it still doesn't like me being in groups heh.

NFS: Carbon is the latest in the interminable graphics-engine-and-player-lineup-updates from EA.
EA is a company well known for holding a franchise down and pummeling every last bit of tasty money out of the twitching agonized pulp left after the first couple 'sequels'.
NFS: Carbon is no different. On the Wii side, we have a piece of shovelware that _might_ have been able to be done properly on the Wii, given a very experienced programming team dedicated to wringing every pixel possible out of the Wii.
This team, however, was busy working for someone else, so they shoe-horned a game that can give a good workout to anything except a GeForce 8800 series card into the poor, poor Wii. The lag and spotty framerates resulting are not surprising.
However, the various control interfaces available on the Wii do make full use of the Wiimote/Nunchuk, and the variety allows the user to play very intuitively and easily.
The UI is intrusive, requiring far too many acknowledgements and confirmations for simple acts, and having too many layers and levels for a console-based game.
On the PC Side Of The Farce, EA has taken the sheer power inherent in the modern PC Gaming platform, and ignored it in favor of excessive motion blur, a poor UI, and shoddy controls (no porportional brakes, WTF?). Playing with a keyboard is nigh-impossible, which is understandable.
Playing with a gamepad is also difficult, given the absolutely horrible farce-feedback (keyed off the horizontal position of the driving axis, NOT off of in-game status) and the binary brakes (full lock or nothing).
The sheer joy of slotting a perfectly driven powerslid, tires screaming, scenery sliding, engine howling corner, however, remains. Just be careful with the brakes..
On a new (~3 months old) Windows XP install with good drivers and good DirectX, making a working game should be easy, and EA manages to fail this - NFS Carbon is known for fail-starts and random crashes to desktop under many, many configs, and I have experienced multiple random crashes to desktop, without any sort of error message, log, windows event, or anything to indicate _why_ the crash occured.
If you're a racing game fanatic and need something else to bleed of a little adrenaline, pick this game up used. Failing that, go buy Flatout 2 instead, or pick up Midnight Club Dub Edition Remix for 15 bux for the Xbox - it may lag, but it's shiny, fast, and _works_.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979