Arrgh, I hate computers!!

Well I don’t really, I just hate it when computers don’t behave properly. My PC had some kind of meltdown yesterday and now won’t start up. This was after I spent a significant part of Saturday reinstalling the OS and patching it up the wazoo. Some of the windows files are corrupted and I suppose a reinstall or s repair is in order, oh joy. But I will get it working. Oh yes, I will get it working!

I was thinking about Wayne’s World the other night. Then I started thinking about The Wonder Years, that was a rocking show. Btw, Kevin’s brother’s name was Wayne. Also Fred Savage’s brother Ben played Cory in Boy Meets World. Ben Feldman, from Living With Fran is not Corey Feldman’s brother, although Corey’s mom was a Playboy Playmate.

YOU CAN’T TAKE THE SKY FROM ME


OK here’s the point where I rally all my readers together. If you didn’t know about it, it looks like an independent production company (read as a group of dedicated fans) is trying to revive Joss Whedon’s stalled space opera “Firefly”. Apparently they are looking at buying the rights and making the show available on a subscription basis. Now those of you who have taken into my confidence will know that last year when they too Star Trek off the silver screen I suggested a very similar method of keeping it alive. Needless to say I think it’s a great idea and totally has the potential to succeed. At the moment they’re gaining market intelligence by taking a survey, they promise that you won’t get any gorram spam. If you thought that this was the best show in the whole wide ‘verse then go fill in the survey.

The difference between this plan and my Star Trek plan is that with the original I was getting in on the ground floor and making millions, whereas here I hopefully get to see a few more episodes of Firefly with little or no effort. I can’t really decide which one actually works out better for me.

Go visit their site!

My Weekend

So, My ADSL is all up and working, I’m just having some teething problems with the wireless LAN getting through to my top floor. There’s about a foot of concrete separating the two levels and the signal probably has to travel through it at an angle. I thought radio waves were supposed to be reflected and refracted. I’m going to try a few things like building parabolic reflectors for the aerial or just getting a bigger, I’ll keep you updated.

I also had all I could eat sushi again on friday, pacing myself much better this time I was able to eat more than last time, by that I mean stuff that cost more. The service wasn't this great last week and I was only given three platters in the two and a half hours I was there, I could probably have eaten another two if they weren't closing. The good aspect was that because they were closing the chef practically tripled my final sashimi and nigiri allotment and I got about R200 worth right there. Rock! We also went out to a friends birthday celebration at Borusso’s, which for some reason I was sure was a steak house. Imagine my surprise when I found out it was actually a pizza place! Damn good pizza and very reasonable prices. Early evening entertainment was provided by people who were hanging around after the Met, what I initially thought was HLA actually turned out to be SDGA (Stupid Drunk Girl Action). Later it got quite boring and candle wax provided the entertainment for the rest of the evening. After that Zenstar and Moonflake joined Elisabeth and I for coffee at San Marco at the waterfront. It was cool.

In other good news the SNO now has a website up and running to give us a little information about them. Apparently consumer fixed line telephony and internet access will be available as of the last quarter of this year, that’s barely six months away. You can check out their site here.

As far as online poker goes, I was on fire last night. I played in four $3+.40 ten player SNGs and moneyed three times. Once third ($6) and twice second ($9) for a total profit of $10.40. The other game was just a semi bad decision, it was very early on, like the second hand, I was the BB and I got dealt A7d. Lots of people called the blind and I simply checked. The flop came As9d2d, I had top pair and a flush draw with about 36% chance of hitting so I made a small bet, everybody called and the SB raise slightly, I called and most others folded. The Turn came 6d, the nut flush! I bet large, not all in, but at least half my stack, I have the nuts, nothing can beat me. The SB Re raises me and of course I go all in. Cards are revealed and he had A9o, two pair! Who goes all in with two pair with a very obvious possible flush showing??!?? The next card is an A to fill his boat and my flush is swept away down the river. What a suck out. I wasn’t too disappointed I’d already won a lot for the evening so I said “wd” and went to bed thinking to myself “Just remember that there’s only an 8% chance of two pair turning into a full house on the river mate, the next nine times you’re gonna loose!”. That thought made me happy as drifted off to sleep.

Cape Town's Burning

Well, the mountain is anyway. About a quarter of Table Mountain is aflame, a pall of thick brown smoke covers the Mother City. Fire fighting efforts include those of six water dropping helicopters. It's a dark day for the residents of the fairest cape, and that's just because the smoke is blocking the sun!

Speaking of dark days, Nice Guy Eddie is dead. Chris Penn was found dead in is home apparently having died two day before. Investigations into his death are pending.

Oh, and Telkom finally connected my ADSL today at about 16:30, they phoned ad everything.

Trouble with Tribbles, um Telcoms

Well guess what, the Telkom guy actually arrived semi on time at 9:10 this morning, but I’m still as frustrated with Telkom as James Tiberius Kirk was with those pesky furry critters.

I had already gotten up at 6:30 (I'm excited in case you can't tell) and managed to setup the wireless network and then completely screw it up applying some measure of security. Then recover and decide that one day without security until I've got time to investigate how it's done won't be the end of the world. Speaking of security, I installed the wireless access card in my pc first and was very surprised to find no less than three unsecured wireless networks available to me. I suspect that they all stem from the Old Mutual buildings across the road. There I was questioning why I'd even bothered getting ADSL when a wireless network card would have done the trick. Unfortunately I was unable to get net access because that required a username and password, but I could freely browse the networks. I decided to avoid doing anything else illegal and told my pc to ignore these networks.

So back to the telkom guy. Well before he arrived I'd already tried syncing my modem with the DSLAM, but with no response. When he got there he pulled out his swanky HP laptop and did the same thing with his modem and again no response. Things were looking bad. He made some calls and discovered that the exchange technician had not yet connected my line to the DSLAM, arse bunglers, and places a call to set that in motion. It took him all of ten minutes to do this, it only took me two but I didn't have to unpack and pack up my laptop, which was nothing really and for that I'm going to be charges R400.

The two things that struck me as really silly were that they sent a guy out without doing the prep properly and that this guy had a 15K+ laptop to check it there was a connection, when a R1K- ADSL router would be just as good and more convenient to lug around. Hopefully the exchange dude will get his act together and make the connection today, chances?

No word from Granadilla Juice Guy today, loll.

My good friend Moonflake is running an interesting statistical study on Astrology for her blog. On the odd chance that you don't read her blog (really you should, it's much better than mine) go over there and take part in this scientamariffic study.

Do you swim on both sides of the Jacuzzi?

Because I haven’t linked in ages here are some funnies.

Zimbabwe has just released a Z$50 000 banknote. It's worth about R3.15 and with inflation expected to be between 700 and 800 percent in the next two months it'll be valued at about 50c. And that's the biggest they got.

Chinese migrant workers, who will be travelling home for Lunar New Year, are in for a 24 hour train ride that is so crowded that some of them have decided to wear adult diapers because it's impossible to get to the toilet.

While we're on the subject of crazy Asians, South Korea is going to give financial aid to rural farmers to help them pay for mail order brides. I kid you not!

Well it's 16:45 and I haven't heard a word from Telkom, who promised to contact me as soon as everything was properly connected. I'm fantasising that they're just being their usual slack selves about follow-up calls, but in reality I know that they're just being their usual slack selves about doing their damn jobs.

cheers
schpat

Bullshit Baffles Brainless

Every now and then I'm truly amazed by how gullible and dumb some people can be. It makes me want to start some kind of scam where I claim that through sniffing african buffalo dung I can cure bad luck. Case in point: Yesterday I was re-entering my work building when I encountered moron of the week. Now the building in question has access control that works off a credit card sized transponder bearing the employee's name, staff number and a photo. This access card must be passed over a reader point to activate the turnstiles, I'm sure you've all seen these kind of systems before. At the time of my brush with idiocy I happened to have a bottle of granadilla juice in the same hand as my access when I swiped it at the turnstile. Lo and behold somebody who also works in the building asked me how I'd gotten in with the juice. I calmly held up the bottle, the card still in my hand and told them that it was the RFID tag on the juice that let me in. They asked what RFID was and I "explained" that a tiny transponder was "printed" onto the label that allowed stores to track their goods, I pointed at an imagined bulge in the label, again right next to my access card, and said: "can you see it there". "Oh, yeah," said the moron. I told them that it was "just a weird coincidence" that the RFID tag on the juice happened to let you into the building, "strange huh?".

Well it would be vaguely amusing had that been the end of it, but today the idiot approached me and told me that the granadilla juice trick had not worked when he tried to show it to some friends. I stifled my laughter and said, "yeah, it only works if you use the juice to exit the building first." I just can't wait for the next episode.

In other news, Telkom actually phoned me today and they want to install my ADSL tomorrow, woot. Hopefully I'm picking up the equipment today. r0><><0r

There've been quite a few entrants in the Lonely Finger Challenge. The latest challenger, def, went as far as finding out who the site was registered to and getting hold of the developers, but they wouldn't tell him anything. Spoilsports. And yes def, I am _actually_ giving away a prize, I've done it before and I'll probably do it again.

schpat

It's the weekend

Well, it’s 09:300 on Saturday and I’m at work. The power outage in the city yesterday afternoon meant that some incredibly important work couldn’t be fininshed and now I’m busy bugging standby DBAs to get their act together and run some damn scripts so that I can get busy.

Other than that I decided to take Elisabeth out last night, we went to Benkei for all you can eat sushi, stuffed myself to just before vomiting, really uncomfortable. I was quite surprised that the first four items I ordered totally made up for the entire cost of the buffet, so I did that twice and then had to eat half of Elisabeth’s second portion and didn’t have enough room for my third sashimi portion, them’s the breaks.

If I ever get out of the office poker is gonna be a blast, I might not always win, but I have a great time playing. I know that some of the regular players have been reading up on tips and strategy, it might be fun to play against some better informed opponents, I just hope it doesn’t make them think too much. It’s like tekken, when you first start you take Christy and button mash your way to glory, then you think you’re great and start trying to time things and make combos, then you just start sucking. I think the best idea is to mash, and mash, and when the rare opportunity presents itself make that play that wins you a big pot. Don’t think about it too much, play from instinct and as you play more your instincts will get better.

Anyway, good luck to all ya all.

Schpat

Damn DBA just screwed up, again.

Ghosts of Christmas Past

I was confronted by my second year accounts lecturer today. As I was leaving my building he spotted me from across the street and shouted out a comment. The fact that he recognised me is quite telling, it's not because I was a good student.

I would tell you what it was he shouted out to me, but in the interests of not incriminating myself I plead DA FIFF!!!!

When of when will telkom connect my ADSL? Any bets people?

I'm going to buy some more memory for my PC today. Java Bean really is the cheapest place around. Here comes 512MB for my old dinosaur.

Saw this funny pictue on a poker blog today



I got an email from Lonely Finger here it is:

Dear Lonely person,

I tried to read the mail you sent me. But I don't have another finger friend to hold down the 'alt' key to open my mailbox.
I'll just stand here alone.
Waiting.

Sadly, finger.

I went back to the site to see if any new content was added. Nothing. I browsed the site a bit more and discovered some interesting looking links, this can't be what the whole thing is about can it? Really it can't?

Don't forget the Lonely Finger challenge, check the sidebar for more details. No one has said anything yet so if one person attempts they will automatically be the closest and the funniest.

cheers
schpat

Lonely Finger Challenge

Well trust mr. completely unreliable, that's you James, not to arrive for role-playing last night. But it was ok because mr. somewhat unreliable, that's me, left his character sheet at home. I tried to get a game of something going but alas it was to no avail. We had a good time anyway just talking shit, isn't it always the case. We watched The Most Amazing Show starring Corne and Twakkie last night. All I have to say is that a chakra is like a starburst of energy in your poophol! Who says SACB isn’t educational?

Another interesting thing we saw last night was an advert for a website. The ad was about a finger (complete with animated face drawn in ball point) who was so lonely he couldn’t get people to come to his party even when he offered free beer and strippers. I just had to check the website out today to see what it was all about, I left no more enlightened than when I got there. Go check out the site and if you can work out what it is let me know, otherwise post your speculations here as comments and I’ll give a prize for the person who is right, if no one is right I’ll give a prize to the most interesting idea. www.lonelyfinger.com

I can't say what it is about this week but it seems as if everybody is just going through the motions and waiting for it to end, that's what you get in four day weeks I suppose.

I'm still in the cooling off period before I go out and order ADSL but it's looking more and more attractive all the time. In case you're interested here's the financial breakdown:

ADSL 192 circuit line rental (god telscum sucks!) R270
ISP 3 Gig cap R100
Total R370

The next best connectivity option is callmore with a capped charge per call.

Callmore monthly R90
20 Dial-ups* R170
ISP R70
Total R320

That means it'll cost me only R50 extra to be permanently connected even in peak periods and never worry about internet call costs, that's R50 for piece of mind and convenience.

*I've used 20 dial-ups because on average I spend about 1.5 - 3 hrs online at a time and so 20 dial-ups is the break even point where the extra R90 for Callmore is paid off. I do realise that these figures are rough with many variables, but I think they are good enough for decision making.

Also today I realised that about 80% of my call charges are Elisabeth phoning me at work. If we can communicate via email it would save money. If we could manage only half of our communications this way it's going to save about R80, that means a saving of R30 per month, instant value!

Of course amortising the initial setup costs (R1500, ADSL wireless router with ethernet and wireless cards for my pc and Elisabeth's laptop) at R30 per month will take about four years. I could have gotten a modem for free and run cables, but ultimately R1500 is a small price to pay for not having the hassles of running wires in odd places or having them running across my lounge floor and being able to use the laptop anywhere in the flat.

Bottom line: I've been waiting and I'm still keen to do it. It's not a rash decision and I'm going to go for it.

After all that I'm going to leave you with a joke forwarded to me by the creator of Leisure Suit Larry, Al Lowe.

"Some girl on the street outside the bar just asked me if I was saved yet."
"Yeah? What did you say?"
"I told her 'I saved at the checkpoint a couple of minutes back and I can reload from there if I die.' She looked confused."

lol, geek anti evangelism humour, gotta love it!

schpat

Schpat Poker Invitational

I'd like to thank everyone who came to the Schpat Poker Invitation, I had a lot of fun and it wouldn't have been possible without you. For those of you who couldn't make it here's how it went down.

Fourteen people started at about 17:00, I say fourteen, but only thirteen were actually there. Due to an unfortunate scheduling issue Garrick couldn't join us until later. Everyone put R25 into the pot and was given 1500 chips. The people who played were
Chelle, Alex, Garrick, Roo, Mike, Beth, Al, Paul, Nick, Hila, Dave, Waynne, Graham and me. Roo took a big early lead with his patented ultra aggressive style and by the time we got to the final table he needed one of the chip cases to transport his stack.

The final table was Mike, Graham, Chelle, Waynne and Roo with a rather impressive chip stack. Chelle and Graham didn't last very long after joining the final table rather short stacked. Mike went out next but managed to hold in there to witnessed Roo losing his chip lead to Waynne and Dave, he walked away with R50. The aggressive play that brought Roo to the final table with an enormous lead just couldn't carry him any further and he was taken out by Waynne and Dave, waking away with R75. Waynne and Dave played heads up for awhile trading small pots until Dave went all in on an A4o and won. Waynne earned himself R100 and Dave R125 for the evening. The tournament finished at about 01:00

After than Al, Garrick, Roo and I decided to play a little five card Draw for a R10 stake. That game went on until 07:30 the next morning going through various silly stages where I did things like playing indian poker, playing blind and playing with my draw open for everyone else to see. During these silly phases I made most of my gains. By the end of the evening the cards were so manky that they wouldn't fit back into their boxes. Thanks to these late partiers for taking the night to a whole other level and a really big thanks to them for helping me clean up.

Well I'm still tired, but looking forward to the next time we do it.