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So my father in law has been going on for years about how great Ameritech/ SBC/ AT&T’s new broadband service is gonna be once it was activated. I personally like the idea of having fiber to the curb, so I’ve been looking forward to it for a while.

A few months back they sent a rep out to let us know they were offering ‘U-verse’ in our area. I wasn’t home at the time, so Jackie got information and said I’d get back to them. I didn’t bother since we’re looking for a house. I figure I can look them up after we find a house.

Well, they came back Wednesday. They had already been by when I got home, and Jackie told them to come back later. I hadn’t been in the door more than 20 minutes when they knocked again. I then listened to them go through their spiel about how they were going to save me money by charging me more per month than I was paying already. ($30 phone+ $30 DSL + $15 static IP < $59 TV + $30 fiber)

I managed to get them to understand that I didn't want the TV or telephone service- just the internet connection. I also asked them one question that proved to be their undoing:

"How much will a static IP cost?"

I asked that question 10 minutes into the 2 hour conversation- most of the time was spent with the rep on hold with AT&T's customer support, who gave the following responses:

* What's an IP?
* What's a static IP?
* You mean dynamic IP?
* Yes, we have those, it's an extra $15/mo for DSL
* We don't have those.
* You can change the setting in your router so your computer has the same address.
* We don't have those in Michigan.

The first five we receive several times, the 6th I was told by one of their "technicians" who didn't get that I wanted the router's external ip to be static so I could host this site. Finally the rep called a friend of his who was a "technology director" and found out they didn't offer them in Michigan. I told them that was a dealbreaker and bid them farewell.

Two hours later, they came back- apparently he called someone else and was told that U-verse does in fact have static IPs, and they're $15/mo. That would bring the total price to $45/mo (once I cancelled the TV portion), where as now I'm paying $45/mo + $30/mo for a phoneline I don't use. Quite a deal, right? Sign me up. He tells me that the form he has doesn't cover the static IP and I'll have to call in the morning to have them append that to my order.

So the next day I call to have this set up- and guess what? After 3 hours standing outside talking and now 30 minutes on the phone, they decide they do not in fact have static IPs available for U-verse customers. I ask the phone lady to call the rep I talked to and figure out who's right. after another 5 minutes on hold, she says his source was mistaken, and he will correct whoever he talked to.

So I cancel the service I just signed up for because it didn't provide the only feature I requested. I'm not sure what's more disappointing:

• The fact that NO ONE seemed to know what a static IP was
• The sales rep was given the run around just like us customers
• They apparently don’t offer this very simple service
• The fact that most of the support people couldn’t find this information
• They charge $15/mo whereas Jasnet charged a one-time $15 fee
• That the sales rep probably misled me to get the sale so he could get a comission

So, if anyone knows of an ISP in Madison Heights, MI that offers a static IP, decent upload speed, no blocked ports all at a decent price, please let me know.

so I removed about 8 user accounts from this blog because I didn’t recognize the email address or the username. Apologies if any of those were valid.

Stupid spammers.

Can’t locate object method “seek” via package “File::Temp” at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/MIME/Parser.pm line 816.

The underlying problem is perl was updated and overwrote the “correct” version of File::Temp that you probably installed when setting up RT and forgot about. To fix this issue


cpan install File::Temp
/etc/init.d/httpd restart


MAKE SURE TO RESTART APACHE! I didn’t, and it cost me probably 2 hours of screwing around with it.

I’m posting this because
http://www.nabble.com/RT-3.6.5-and-Sendmail-error-and-looks-like-perl-error-td15989015.html
Didn’t really mention what the final working solution was.

So jackie and I were thinking, “when we do get a house, what will we need?” so we’re gonna make a list.

• 55 gallon outdoor garbage can
• shovel
• snow shovel
• rake
• lawnmower
• Drill
• office chair

So I’ve been quiet the last few weeks- mainly because I’ve been keeping busy. As a lot of you know, I have many little side projects that I never seem to get done. So here’s a quick update:

- Ruma has been put into stasis since the other devs don’t have the free time and neither do I. if anyone wants to take up development of it, I’ll be happy to give them access.

- opensourcecook.com got about halfway done and then I lost interest. I just couldn’t get into designing the input forms for jackie, and she wasn’t looking forward to having to manually re-enter her recipes.

- Ian now has a guitar so, I’m trying to teach him how to be gentle with it. It’s a $30 first act guitar, so not a huge loss if he destroys it.

- I’ve been working on an rpg battle engine in ruby and tinkering with gosu a bit. I doubt it’ll go anywhere, but usually once every 6 months I debate creating it. I’m about to burn out on that as well.

The big news is jackie and I have been looking for a house for about 2 months now and we put an offer in on a house that’s about 10 minutes from work. The people have accepted our offer, but since it’s for less than what they owe, they have to get the bank to agree to a short sale. If they don’t want to take the loss, we’re sorta screwed and may end up looking elsewhere.

Since it’s our first house, we’re getting a FHA loan to help us get the best deal. The big issue here is they can demand things be fixed (like a leaky roof) before they give the go-ahead. Since it’s a short sale, the bank may not be willing to take more of a loss on the cost to have the repairs made.

I’m fairly optimistic about this house- it’ll require very little work to give it livable (from what we see) and hopefully nothing will be wrong with it. I’d almost like to hear that the roof has another 5 years left on it since that’s our biggest concern. If it needs to be replaced the sellers may do it themselves to save costs and do a shoddy job.

The best part about this particular house is it has an unfinished basement, and I’ll be able to build a large office to house all my hobbies. That’ll make jackie happy since they usually are messy or take up a lot of space. The bigger the office, the longer it’ll take for the hobbies to spill into the rest of the house

Regardless of the outcome, a house in in the plans, so I added a new house category.

So I had the following dream last night right before I woke up. It’s still pretty vivid in my head.

Jackie’s friend PJ lives in the area and is sort of an SCA nut. For some reason, in the dream, she owned a small hole-in-the-wall cafe, and ran a wiccan group out of there (she’s not wiccan in reality). One day she was throwing a party and her wiccan friends were there. One of them looked familiar and I knew she was a model- So I looked up her name on the coven’s website and saw it said ‘Heidi’. I then knew it was Heidi Klum.

So we start casually talking and I get this idea. I sorta grin and ask her, “How warped are you?” She asks why, and I explain my idea. She agrees with my plan because she agrees it would be funny.

24 hours later I have a picture of Ian sleeping in his crib with Heidi Klum staring through the bars with a focused/hungry/disturbed look on her face, and I caption it “Heidi Klum is watching you sleep.”

I put the picture in Ian’s baby book and everyone is looking at me like I’m insane. My reasoning is this: when he’s 20 and in college, he’ll wanna show that to all his friends because GODDAMN that’s cool.

So Heidi, if you happen to stumble across this and would like to help me, I still want to do this, because, damn, it would be cool. Self-mockery is a way of showing people you do have a sense of humor.

And honestly, if any supermodels are reading this, it doesn’t have to be Heidi Klum- it could be any other hot, well known supermodel.

I do my best to avoid politics on this site because it’ll always piss someone off. I don’t like the bible-thumping direction the republican party has taken over the past decade or two, and I can’t stand the democrats demands that we give up personal freedoms to save the children.

I’m gonna talk about politics today because I’ve noticed something happening that’s so surreal I had to say something. I’ll use the names Candidate A, B, etc to represent the players in this little scenario.

After watching how the Michigan and Florida democratic primaries went down, I started to wonder if maybe there was an underlying conspiracy to guarantee those delegates to a certain candidate. Imagine the following scenario:

1. Candidate A has supporters in a position of power that helps move the state’s primary forward on the primary schedule against party rules.
2. Candidate A has connections in The Party that disqualifies the state and have it’s delegates stripped in punishment.
3. Candidates make a pact not to campaign in the state. All act ashamed of the State’s behavior.
4. Candidates B,C,D, and E remove themselves from the ballot in deference to party rules, while Candidate A leaves their name on the ballot.
5. Candidate A gets the lion share of votes in the state since they’re not only the only one on the ballot, but any votes for names not on the ballot (B,C,D,E) are thrown out.
6. After everything is said and done, Candidate A petitions for the state’s delegates to be reinstated, essentially saying “the citizens shouldn’t be punished for the actions of their leadership”.
7. Candidate A’s connections in The Party change their minds and decide to reinstate the delegates, essentially handing over the delegates to Candidate A with no competition.
8. The delegates handed over to Candidate A is enough to give them enough to get the nomination for the party.

We’ve seen everything except the last two steps. The sane thing would be for the democratic party to have a “redo” on their election and make it fair for all candidates. Anything less will be bad news.

I am curious to see how this turns out- I think that if this does play out like I’ve outlined and the American public figures it out, there’s a good chance the resulting disillusionment will result in a republican president.

When I moved into Secchia Hall back in the fall of 2001, my mom took me to Sams to buy my first real piece of furniture- a Desk chair. The dorm room was unfurnished, so I ended up getting a futon and a desk as well. The desk was cheaply made and only survived one move. The futon was horribly uncomfortable, and given to Jackie’s dad shortly thereafter. The only thing that followed me was the chair.

It wasn’t a great chair. A simple office chair with a padded fake-leather seat and backing, held together at a 90 degree angle by rectangular tube arms. Over the years the fake leather ripped and peeled, cracked and absorbed sweat.

The chair followed me from Secchia to Brookmeadow; it came with us when we moved to Kentwood to be closer to my new job. I sat in that chair through unemployment, and brought it with me to DC. The chair came back to Michigan and into Ramblewood, where it saw me through a hellish job, a layoff and an eventual rehiring. It came to Rochester where I’ve been for over a year.

Today I left the chair up by the dumpster. It’s just a stupid chair. I’d thought of getting rid of it over the past 3 years, but never could. Since I’m always on the laptop these days and never in the office, there’s no need to have 2 chairs. When I dropped it off, it flashed through my head how it’s always been there.

Goodbye chair. I will miss you.

I’m claiming the win on this one… remember that the tinyURL that this bot messages is in fact a link to tubgirl.

15:14 -!- Pats-Sox [~no@fw.mdchomes.com] has joined #asp
15:18 < @lanshark> we dont want any chowda heads in here
15:25 < Pats-Sox> “chowda head”…I don’t know why that just caused a really really bad “yo momma”
         joke to pop in my head
15:28 < Pats-Sox> I just googled “chowda head” for the heck of it.  This site is pretty funny…
         http://www.boston-online.com/glossary/
15:28 < Pats-Sox> Chowdahead
15:32 < myles_> !search Chowdahead
15:32 < Crusher_> myles_ > Your search returned 12 results. Press alt + z to receive a link to them.
15:33 -!- edmundo [~bla@78-0-185-182.adsl.net.t-com.hr] has joined #asp
15:33 -!- myles_ is now known as myles
15:33 < myles> !search Chowdahead
15:33 < Crusher_> myles > Your search returned 12 results. Press alt + z to receive a link to them.
15:35 -!- edmundo [~bla@78-0-185-182.adsl.net.t-com.hr] has left #asp []
15:36 < Pats-Sox> !search chowdahead
15:36 < Crusher_> Pats-Sox > Your search returned 12 results. Press alt + z to receive a link to them.
15:38 < Pats-Sox> it can’t be a coincidence that edmundo left immediately after the post to press alt
         + z….twice
15:39 < Pats-Sox> once is funny, twice is HILARIOUS
15:39 < Pats-Sox> nevermind, one was a join.  jokes on me
15:39 < @morgajel> Pats-Sox: you think it’s funny, but you didn’t even see what happens AFTERwards
15:39 < @morgajel> the bot does send a link.
15:39 < Pats-Sox> do I dare ask to what?
15:40 < @morgajel> only one way to find out.
15:40 < unEZ> lol
15:41 < Pats-Sox> Don’t take it personally, but I’m not trusting you right now
15:42 < unEZ> what? after you’ve known me for 15 years? wait, thats someone else. I see your point
15:42 < Pats-Sox> I’m thinking that a bot can’t process the key combo because the key combo is
        processed by the irc client, therefore exiting the channel before the bot can catch the key press
15:43 < @morgajel> worst case scenario, I’m wrong, you pop out, pop back in, and I laugh like a retard.
15:44 < @morgajel> if I’m right, the bot messages you and gives you the blue pill.
15:44 < Pats-Sox> A normal key, z, could not possible work as well alt-F4.  It just can’t.
15:46 < myles> pornocracy
15:47 < @morgajel> Pats-Sox: only one way to find out
15:48 < @morgajel> my do-not-push-the-red-button sign, let me show you it.
15:48 < Pats-Sox> alright, I’ll take one for the team….
15:48 -!- Pats-Sox [~no@fw.mdchomes.com] has left #asp []
15:48 -!- Pats-Sox [~no@fw.mdchomes.com] has joined #asp
15:49 < Pats-Sox> …and my technical analysis of the situation was absolutely incorrect….
15:49 < Pats-Sox> and the IS THE SINGLE MOST REPULSIVE THING I have ever seen in my life
15:49 < Pats-Sox> and I am a farely demented individual

So jackie wants to take her recipes and build an open cookbook sorta thing. I’m not sure how all of this is gonna play out, but I’ve set up the dev environment for it. I’ll try to make notes about it when I can.