Mellow Drama

Welcome to the world, Reilly. Whatever else may come, you will always be loved.

I hate Internet Explorer, but my work laptop won't let me install anything better. One of the things I hate most about IE is how it decides when and where the focus should be. If it's taking a half hour to load a web page (My Google. firefox loads the same page in less than 2 seconds), then it'll prevent you from typing anything into the address bar during that time. If you change tasks to something else while it's loading, maaaaybe it'll deign to subordinate itself, but then it'll pop back up on top of your actuve task a couple of seconds later.

When I think it's ready, I start typing into the search bar. The letters won't show up right away, but a few seconds later, they'll catch up. Except maybe not hte first few, if it wasn't QUITE ready, or wants ot fuck with me some more.

Anyways, I thought it was a little amusing when it changed my query into "icky schroeder". Just thought I'd share that with all of you while I play a little poker.

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... I just watched an episode of 24, what can I say?

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So I saw a headline today: "Paul Wolfowitz resigns as head of the WB" and I thought to myself "huh.. maybe the new guy will stop making such crappy black sitcoms." And then I had some more scotch.

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I bought curtains today. For a guy, who has never had the money, space, or inclination to do any real decorating, I have to say this apartment starting to look pretty good. It still needs some major items, like a coffee table and a recliner, and some minor ones like art, dishes, and some shelf-fillers. But it's easily the nicest place I've ever lived.

EDIT: The video should be embedded above... it shows up on my browswer just fine. But here's a link for those of you who can't see it.

Got, and have been eating, the Red Wine Beef Jerky from ronsrants

My opinion of it: It's very flavorful, but this is the first time I've had red wine flavoured jerky, and it's probably not my favorite. It's also quite tough - seems like there's some connective tissue in it that didn't stay as tender as the meat did. All in all, I'm enjoying it - and it is unlike other jerkies I've had (not entirely in a bad way), but to me, it's not worth a premium price over off-the-shelf stuff.

Oh yeah... the proof from my driving test..

I'm buying jerky from ronsrants and you should, too.

I'm not sure why I didn't mention it before (probably because like 90% of people who keep a vanity blog, I'm too lazy to actually post on a regular basis) but:

My brother Zane and his wife Leah are going to have a baby! I'm going to be an Uncle, and I couldn't be happier.

Well, they could have gotten around to it BEFORE I left the country, but still... better late than never.

Just thought I'd record that for posterity. That, and make an unsubtle hint that I hope they start up something like babybabble (not to mention a flickr or picasa account) to chronicle it.

So why am I still awake?

I played 4 games (say, 6 hours ish) of ultimate today, in 34C heat. There was a time when that wouldn't have been excessive, but I'm not in that kind of shape at the moment, so I'm absolutely bagged, and have been since about 5:00.

But when I got home, there was some stuff to do, so I couldn't just go to sleep. I brought the laptop to bed around 11:00, sure I was just going to pass out by about 11:04. now it's 1:15, and I'm wide awake (and rapidly becoming aware of increasing soreness in my muscles).

I hate that.

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I am very very worried about August, if April is 34C.

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I have a couch! It's tough to explain why that's such a big deal to me, but if you knew a) how much of hassle it was to buy _this_ one, b)how many years I spent on my grandparents' hand-me-down hide-a-bed, and c)just how ugly said hide-a-bed was, you'd stand a fair chance of guessing.

Me: "It's NHL playoff season right now:
Him: "NHL?"
Me: "Ah, right. Hockey. I'm a prety big fan"
Him: "Oh... of course. Ice hockey, or regular hockey?"

yeah... I'm not in Canada anymore.

I passed my driver's test, with zero demerits. I am a perfect driver, and I have proof.

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Before the test started, I asked how long it would take.
"About 15 minutes."
"Faster if I speed, though, right?"
"Oh. Yes."
he laughed about that one for about 5 minutes. You'd think he'd have heard it before.

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The examiner actually wrote "Good Job!!" and drew a smily face on the scoresheet. I haven't had anyone write encouragement on one of my tests for, oh, say, 11 years.
I put it up on my fridge.

Grr.
For the last 10 years or so, I've had excellent credit. My bank routinely called me trying to offer me new credit products, or raise my credit limits. I once had the manager of a car dealership take one look at my credit report and walk away from another customer in mid sentence to deal with me.

Now I live in the US, and have a shiny new Social Security Number. It's less than 2 weeks old, so when DishNetwork or Cingular or anyone else does a credit check on me, they get nada. It took me 3 tries, and over 4 hours of explaining to various Cingular customer support and sales staff that I do have a credit history, they just have to check with my Canadian SIN. When I finally got that concept through to them, they put me on hold for all of 3 minutes to make a phone call to equifax, and then approved me at their highest rate. Three Minutes. After 4 hours of convincing, about a very obvious concept.

Yesterday, I spent an hour on the phone with CS at DishNetwork, trying to convince them of the same thing:
( irritating transcript )
So now I had the brilliant idea that maybe I could get ahold of equifax, or experian, or transunion, and combine my two credit files, so that my credit history would actually show up one a search using my SSN.

Brilliant, right? Only it's not possible to actually speak with a person at any of those companies. I just spent 45 minutes on the phone: Equifax's automated system has no option to let you speak with a person, and certainly doesn't have "If you have two credit files and want to combine them, press 7 now" anywhere in the menu. And '0' doesn't skip anything - the menu just keeps on talking. If you never select an option, it hangs up on you.

On my 2nd call, I thought I'd just press some bogus selections until I got a person, and then maybe I could explain it and get transferred to the right department. Nope. I think I ended up ordering a copy of my credit score.

Experian was no better... in fact, I think they're going to bill me $8 for the credit report. Oh, and my first male child will be named "Experian." It's amazing what they can do with those automated voice menu things.... except for providing access to a real, live person.

Transunion was a little different... I got put on hold for their customer support department almost right away, and informed that "based on call volume" I could expect to wait "1 to 3 minutes." Oh KAY!
( Progress! )

Seriously... Canada's just the 51st state anyways - it's not like we're a separate country or anything. Why is this so hard?

Talking with one of my oldest friends today, we were reminiscing about comic books, and how very very good some of them are, or at least were, back when we still collected. The conversation was brought up by this . Not so much because of the character, (who I always thought was kinda cheesy, even if they did write some good plots for him) but because of the "civil war" premise, and how many good stories they could make out of that, if handled well.

I'd really like to get about a hundred back issues of some series (say, x-men) along with assorted tie-ins from other series, and maybe a graphic novel or two, and just dig in and catch up with the plot. Then I wondered what that would cost, and how easy it would be to do. Then I wondered if there was anythign on the internet that could help.

Then I wondered why there isn't anything on the internet of comparable quality to the better comic books. Then I wondered IF there was anything on the internet of comparable quality to the better comic books. Then I thought I'd post it here and see if anyone tells me.

I just got a social security number! This means I can finally get things like a phone and TV, which require a credit check. My apartment and insurance required credit checks as well, but I was able to convince the people at those organizations to run a Canadian credit check.

That's just like an American Credit check, except when you call Equifax, you tell them to use a Canadian SIN instead of an American SSN. That's the only difference, but you'd be surprised how many people behind counters or on the other end of phone calls cannot be made to understand that. "I'm sorry sir, they're asking for your Social. Looks like we can't do it."

To make matters even more interesting, apparently someone has the SSN that is the same digits as my SIN, and they have very very bad credit. You can imagine the hilarity.

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Inspired by evwhore, and made possible by the fact that I now have a real job, the first installment in an ongoing series: Typos in Work Emails, or: Tales of Amusing Grammar

Hi xxxxx,

I have to run some errant today, so I'll be OOP this afternoon.

Thanks,
yyyyy

Ooops, indeed.

For all you american types...

I just filled out a W4... it's my first time. They let me make up some number for my deductions, and put it in the little box, and apparently that affects how much I get to keep of my money each month.

So... my question is: If I put in a really big number there (bigger than would otherwise be reasonable for a person in my situation), will I get to keep more money? Is there anything stopping me from putting the $$ difference into a short-term GIC and earning interest on it, rather than lending it to Uncle Sam for free?

Lastly, is that legal, or am I required to be accurate when filling that box out?

In two weeks, my keychain will have zero keys on it. That's a weird feeling.

I just sold my motorbike and my car - now I'm a pedestrian. On the 14th, I'll turn in my apartment keys and be homeless. Everything I own will fit inside a (small) moving van.

This should be scary, but I'm just trudging through it methodically, and none of it seems to be a big deal. Step 1: quit your job. Step 2: sell off the majority of your possessions. Step 3: Say goodbye to (almost) everyone you know. Step 4: Leave the apartment, city, and country you've lived in for so long.

Baby steps...

Civ 4 is fun. Why didn't anyone tell me this before?

I'm trying to get a feel for the current job market. Everywhere, really, but since I'm looking at chip design, processor design, and ASICs (I've got a M.A.Sc in electrical engineering - embedded processor architecture), any job hunting I do will naturally bias towards southern California, so inside information in that area is particularly useful.

I've got a fair idea of what to expect in BC, in terms of competition for jobs, and salary/compensation, but not much info on other parts of the country/continent/world. Anyone have any insight?

I've been trying to sign up for a rakeback program at ultimatebet, (courtesy scottro) and kinda fucked it up. I created a new account, but when I went to make my first cash deposit, my credit card was denied. What follows is an email conversation with support, and my comments in bold

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Customer Information
Account Name : pfold
Real Name : J Pfrimmer
Comments : why is my visa deposit being denied?

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Dear Sir/Madam ,

We are receiving an "Authorization Refused" error message on your deposit
attempts. This is a common error message returned by the transaction processor,
but it originates from the bank, stating that your transaction was declined.

This message is received for one of the following reasons:

•The credit card has insufficient funds.

•There is a bank policy regarding online transactions. For example, some banks
regard Internet transactions as “high risk” and may have a policy against them.

•There is a bank security policy that has declined the transaction based on a
preset anti-fraud algorithm.

Due to one or more of the causes mentioned above, your transactions were
declined. This is not an error or failure on the part of Ultimate Bet, but
rather a bank policy issue.

We accept payments through sfpay, Neteller, Firepay, Citadel, Delta, Visa
Electron, bank draft or check.
We do not charge fees for any of our deposit methods. Please note that your bank
or the processor you use may charge a fee to use their service.


If you should require additional assistance, please do not hesitate to contact
us back.

Sincerely,

Paul

Accounts Department

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ok.. easy enough. CIBC Visa loves me; a phone call should sort this out in no time....

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To: cashier@ultimatebet.com
Subject: RE:Cashier Support Form Submission [#3895474]


Wrong. I just phoned my credit card service provider (CIBC Visa) and spoke to a representative, who said that there have been no attempts at transactions on my account in the last 2 days. During that time, I have attempted to make a deposit on your site (using that credit card) at least 4 times. The error is on your end.

JP

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Dear Sir/Madam ,

Your credit card is listed in our negative database. Which means you cannot use
it on our site.
If you should require additional assistance, please do not hesitate to contact
us back.

Sincerely,

Paul

Accounts Department

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bwuh? ok... so that's probably a card I used with my other account. But they're STORING MY CREDIT CARD INFO? I gotta find out more about this...

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To: cashier@ultimatebet.com
Subject: RE:Cashier Support Form Submission [#3895474]


a) then why did you tell me my transaction was refused? Get your act together.

b) Why is my card in your negative database? In fact, this pisses me off for two reasons.

- why are you storing my credit card number?

- what's wrong with my card?

JP

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Dear Sir/Madam ,

When you attempt to use a credit card anywhere there are codes attached to it.
These codes are read by the processors. These codes could contain information
from your bank stating if the card is stolen or what restrictions it has. Your
card has a clause that it cannot be used for Online Gambling.
If you should require additional assistance, please do not hesitate to contact
us back.

Sincerely,

Paul

Accounts Department

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To: cashier@ultimatebet.com
Subject: RE:Cashier Support Form Submission [#3895474]


I'm not sure I believe this explanation. If this were the case, why would you keep my card on your "negative database" ?

Remove my credit card number from your database immediately. This is not negotiable. You will not store my credit information on your systems.

Now, to resolve the matter of my depositing. I simply wish to become an ultimatebet customer; if we work together, we will both be satisfied. I will contact my credit service provider and determine whether it has been denied for online gambling.

However, since a) I spoke to them earlier today and they indicated that no transaction REQUESTS had been made from your end so far, and

b) I have previously used that exact card at other online gambling sites (BC lottery corporation, Party Poker, PokerStars)

I think you're lying to me for the THIRD time today. Get your shit in a pile and either have the balls to refuse me service outright, or the integrity to resolve this matter in a straightforward fashion. Pokerstars would have sorted this out by now.

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I'm spending all day today in airports and airplanes, so this'll have to be put on hold for now. What a hassle...