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.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Thursday, January 26, 2006
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
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
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
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
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
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
Saturday, January 21, 2006
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.
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.
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