| WoW No More |
[Aug. 6th, 2009|09:38 pm] |
Well... Assuming this guy isn't going to try to dick me over with a chargeback or similar dispute... I just sold my WoW account for $750. Within 15 minutes of listing it on a few sites... Which, if I learned anything playing that character on the auction house -- I severely cut my potential profit. Probably nearly in half. But, y'know... 750 dollars for for the time I actually played it -- (Somewhere in the range of 5000+ hours) works out to be nearly 15 cents an hour. Man -- you could retire on that.
But -- if you look at it another way: I entertained myself for about 2 years and I paid 360 dollars in subscription fees and 60 bucks for an expansion... Then I sold it for nearly double what I spent... Getting paid any amount for what you do for fun in your free time is pretty sweet.
My estimate on how fast I sold it weighted against the price as to how much I could have got: $1,200. But, y'know; I'm pretty happy either way. Full asking price in 20 minutes is a pretty good deal. |
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| Nyarlathotep |
[Aug. 1st, 2009|08:56 pm] |
I no longer hate my desktop computer. I've been using my "backup" beast of a monitor that I've owned, for pretty close to literally, my entire computer history... It's a little 15" 640x480 VGA monitor. It has survived longer than every viewer that I've ever had. It will likely continue to travel with me. Thank Jeebus that my video card software allows me to force windows into a lower-than-standard resolution or I wouldn't have been using it at all.
So anyway... Walmart* has some pretty decent 22" (wide) monitors for 170 bucks. I had priced good 19" flatscreens for 150, so I figured why not "splurge" and drop the extra 20 for a lot more monitor. After I hooked it up I texted Cheyenne the following:
Oh. My. God. It's like a vast sea of IMAGE spread out before me. 22 glorious inches of beautiful pixels assaulting my cornea and irises.
And that actually made me want to do the math on the viewable area compared to what I'd gotten used to. It's triple. I almost want to re-up my WoW subscription just so the bitter taste in my mouth can go away from what I'd been experiencing... And the night is relatively young, honestly.
Combining that with literal shock at what I should do on a desktop that doesn't honestly force me to using my laptop as a main machine (because 640x480 is honestly an unsupported resolution... Which means my video card was just doing the math on converting the 800x600 image... Which obviously means a blurry bad image because of some sort of compression) it makes for a convincing argument.
For those that care: I'd dropped WoW a couple weeks ago just because it didn't seem like a great use of time. I'm glad to report I really don't have any ties to it -- it's just a better pastime than half of what I do on the internet. So I'll probably be dropping it all together when I get to Pittsburgh, because it'll make even less sense.
Here's the numbers on the math involved, btw:
New Thing
22" wide (25.94" diagonal)
16:10 (Yeah -- that's a little odd... But the native resolution is 1680x1050. *shrug*)
22x13.75
302.5 sq in.
Indestructible Old One from R'lyeh
15" diagonal
1.414=sqrt(2)
10.6x10.6
112.36 sq in. |
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| Unemployment. Again. Again. |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|02:58 pm] |
Ok, well... it's a few days after it happened -- but Amber asked that I give the full rundown on why I decided to quit my job.
*Cue the flashback*
It all started with a phone call from Micah. You may remember this entry about him from when I was being trained at Influent. Well... It turns out Micah is a pathological liar. Most of what he says is not able to be taken for what it's worth -- but he's really good at it... So this works out for his career often.
So -- Micah ended up being in charge of pretty much the whole shebang in this new company setting up an insurance agency. Micah was licensed as an agent somewhear near the end of when I was working at Influent... So... Somewhere near the end of last year. Which means he's gone from getting licensed to being in charge of a whole agency in about 9 months. Like I said; He's good at getting where he wants to be. Enough on the background, though.
So Micah personally calls me because he knows I'm licensed in a couple dozen states and that's exactly what they need to get a telemarketing insurance thing rolling. I'm working for the census at the time, and that works to my benefit, as I was able to negotiate a better pay rate because they wanted to take me away from that job. What I was told I was getting: $11/hr and incentives. I got a flat $11/hr, period. Sure, annoying -- but this comes from Micah being a liar; not from a negotiation with a lack of good will. And I liked the people I was working with. This was a great improvement over many other jobs I've had.
So, yeah... Two things between my hiring and "current" time that are important to all this equation... At several points during this whole process Micah made a weird statement that noone really understood -- but that wasn't unusual. "It's ok, as you're all working under my umbrella." This is something I think we mostly took to mean "I'm in charge." I'm worried that this had a much more sinister meaning of "If you're not licensed in a particular state it's actually being written under my name." This could just be paranoia on my part about what had happened, though. Secondly -- when Micah was discussing with me the process of getting me licensed in the states I was missing Florida came up specifically... AND that Florida requires fingerprinting as part of their process. Half a dozen states do -- I had to do a whole batch of like 4 or 5 before. It was quite the invasion of personal space to have a policeman manipulating my hand like that. But -- I never got fingerprinted for Florida; That's my point.
Well -- lo and behold I start seeing Florida come across my screen one day. Well -- that night I do a search on Florida's state insurance commission website, as well as a few others. Louisiana is the only other one that came up as not being licensed in that I specifically remembered writing business in that day. (Had a conversation with a guy about his neighborhood in New Orleans.)
So -- I wait to the next day, Wednesday, I think -- and tell my direct boss Nathan that I'm pretty sure I wasn't licensed in those two states, and I called the insurance commissions of those states to double check. Nope. Not licensed in either. Turns out I'm only licensed in about half of the states, and as far as I can recall I've been doing business in all 48 after multiple confirmations from Micah that I was licensed everywhere but AK and HI.
So, yeah -- I called a lawyer while I was sitting there, and he gave me a short consultation over the phone. Said my best course of action was the draft a letter of resignation and leave immediately. Which brings us to my current state of unemployment.
I liked that job, too. Bastards. |
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| Society, and all... |
[Jul. 2nd, 2009|12:14 pm] |
So -- watching "Waking the Dead" and it occurs to me that during the Vietnam War (at least the reality I can understand via mass media) it wasn't all that uncommon to see hippies and military personnel standing side by side...
This brings me to a question:
Is our society broken because we never see that now? Or is it merely that we were SO broken during that time that it was easy for all sides to recognize it? |
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| Error of Comedies... |
[Jul. 1st, 2009|10:31 pm] |
Keenan... Or maybe Kel. I can't remember which is which. In fact -- I'm pretty sure the one of them didn't make it past Nickelodeon. Either way: The fat one is on Saturday Night Live, now. I found this out while ultra-bored and browsing around on Hulu for something to occupy me.
So now the humor that I hated on All That because of this guy seems to be the main mode of humor on SNL. That snake eating it's tail thing... That thing can go to hell and bring me back Akroyd and Belushi.
Oh! New zombie movie coming out called Zombieland. That might be properly spelled "Zombieland!", though. Looks fun.
Double Oh! The Nissan Cube is stupid looking. I've seen two on the highway now, and it's worse than the Scion xB. You'll notice that the new Scion models look much more like normal cars. |
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| Wow... |
[Jun. 19th, 2009|06:54 pm] |
Stuff doesn't translate from television well... But here's the best sales pitch I can make for Arrested Development:
Upon finding out that a Christian outing could get her out of a day of school one of the characters, Maebe has this short exchange with her uncle Michael:
Ma: Where can I get one of those gold chains with a T on it?
Mi: That's a cross.
Ma: Across from where?
(Michael closes the door.)
Also... If you like Michael Cera -- this was his first role of substance. He's pretty good in it. Oh, and David Cross. He's pretty good, too. |
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| Oh Cultural Insensitivity, How I Love Thee! |
[May. 25th, 2009|07:56 pm] |
You know what made me feel like a total dick today?
Attending my family's "Luau"... And then finding out I have extended family who are from Hawaii who have just showed up...
Isn't that practically on par with the Christian "Seder" meals that some Rabbis thought were in horridly poor taste?
Can I haz Pittsburgh nao? |
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| All Hail Carpet Owl |
[May. 2nd, 2009|05:16 pm] |
It has a tiny bit more glory and charm in person -- but this gives you a really good idea what he's all about. First shot is for scale, second for detail.
I did the editing on these shots on an in-browser picture editor, so I couldn't adjust the levels for black and whites, but I did what I could to give you the most "real" shot I could in the second.
Enjoy!
As you can see in this "close-up" -- much of the black pipe cleaner border needs replaced, and he needs a whole new left claw. Luckily, they're pretty easy to get your hands on. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 15th, 2009|10:01 pm] |
I pooped here today. See those tiny white spots at the center of the screen? Those are campers in a campsite. They have the fanciest outhouse I've ever seen. Had a door and siding, and insulation and a small heater inside and everything.
So -- if you haven't heard; I'm working for the census for the summer. In our current phase of work we're updating maps, and logging every possible "living quarters". There was a "road" there, and I could see campers. I nearly got my car stuck trying to drive down it... I think a less level headed driver WOULD have gotten stuck -- it was pretty damned muddy after having rained for 3 days straight. So I parked and walked it after I was able to wiggle my way back onto the gravel.
I had needed to poop for a while -- and there's nowhere convenient to do this when you're driving out in the middle of nowhere. So -- saw this outhouse and decided I'd take advantage while I had a chance.
Also -- take note of the road overlay on the satellite image, here... See how it comes off the "main" road through some guy's front lawn? I don't know who fucking mapped this thing back in the day -- but after 20 yards that road shows no signs of having existed in the last 40 years. Just some guy's front lawn after it's not his driveway any more. Thanks to me; the census' version of this map will be accurate after it's processed by their computers. It's "driveable" out to about where the elbow is, when it turns off to the east. I wouldn't take anything less than a truck or jeep out that far though. Hell -- given the trouble I had in my car; I wouldn't drive on that road, period, without a huge redneck truck.
That's really all. I just wanted to share with everyone the crazy adventure which is my current gainful employment. It's kinda fun in a kooky sort of way. I'm getting to make a huge impact in mapping my little region of the world. You might be shocked how inaccurate these things are.
Remind me to find out if I can purchase a new and old map after the process is done. I think it'd be cool to frame them side-by-side and say "That's my contribution to mankind. That road exists because I said it did." |
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| Love... |
[Jan. 23rd, 2009|07:00 am] |
Inspired by a couple of different things today;
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kdsorceress' post on love (and much of the ensuing conversation) over here.
little__one's request that I post more often...
Sleeplessness and a general energy about me for no discernible reason...
I just, really, want to pose a question:
Why is it considered so wrong and distasteful and objectionable that I do not qualify love? I do not separate love into the classic eros/philos/agape that seems to be the popular notion of what is right. I consider it all the same feeling that is only "acceptably" expressed in certain ways. |
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| NPH |
[Dec. 4th, 2008|01:12 pm] |
Neil Patrick Harris can heal any wound in the flesh of our great country!
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| Riddle me this... |
[Aug. 15th, 2008|06:43 pm] |
Looks like they've just decided to reboot the franchise?
 |
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| Do Not Want |
[Aug. 14th, 2008|01:47 am] |
Ok, so... This is the only thing I've ever thought the word "chilling" was accurate to describe:
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| A question: |
[Aug. 7th, 2008|05:47 am] |
Ok, yeah -- I know... I don't update here often. There's a simple reason: My life is pretty boring right now. I hope to spice it up soon.
On to the show.
Over the last month or two I've seen a whole lot of car commercials touting "amazing fuel efficiency" and "great mileage" on vehicles that get between 24-30 miles to the gallon.
I've owned and driven cars from the mid 80s that get mileage like that. How is this a fucking achievement? How is this a selling point? "Our cars don't suck any more than they used to" and "Oh, look -- cupholders!" I mean, seriously? What the good god-damn?
I love marketing, I really do... But this is just some spin I can't respect. You can't talk about how astounding something is unless it's actually, you know... CHANGED in the last couple decades.
Am I wrong?
No, Walter.
Am I wrong?
No.
Am I wrong?
No, Walter, you're just an asshole! |
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| A pillar of free speech... |
[Jun. 23rd, 2008|02:02 am] |
Goddamnit!
George Carlin died 5 hours ago. Seems his heart gave out on him...
I might just wear a black armband tomorrow. He's my favorite comic. I've grown up listening to his stuff... At least he doesn't have to see how bad shit's gonna get in Amerika. |
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| Shown on a daily basis |
[Jun. 21st, 2008|12:20 am] |
So -- I don't "blog" that often because not that much happens in my life, lately... So, really it's just when stuff happens that I think is worth mentioning.
Who caught Wednesday's Daily Show with Steve Carell? (If you didn't I suggest blocking aside a little less than half an hour and clicking there.)
Stewart and Carell were dynamite. I actually laughed out loud at least three times while watching this by myself. Just wow. |
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| It's about time... |
[Jun. 10th, 2008|10:28 am] |
I think this is about 2-3 years late... The trial wouldn't even be done by the end of his term, would it? As Cheech Marin once said in Ghostbusters II, though: Better late than never.
(For those of you that don't want to watch this whole thing, though: Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment against our illustrious President yesterday in the late afternoon. |
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| I like quizes written by college grads: |
[Jun. 9th, 2008|01:15 pm] |
This is an IQ test broken down into 4 different parts: Social, Math, Spatial and Verbal.
I'm far more spatial than I am anything else. I know this already, but I didn't realize I was that far ahead of the rest of the population.
IQ TEST
I'm above average. Duh. |
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