The ScooterBlog

I suppose I should write something in here about the move and my first week of work at the new job, but I saw this and wanted to make sure that I saved the link.

http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2005/12/28/how_to/

A pretty cool looking guide on how to turn an xbox into a Network Attached Storage device. Considering I have been looking for cheap configurable devices like this, using an XBox suddenly sounds extremely smart, especially because it’s a nice way to take some broken systems and make them work like a champ again (broken DVD drives, anyone?)

(Note: This link points to the second part of the article, but it gives a quick link to Part 1 too, so it’s somewhat handy that way.)

This must be a feature of the new falgnes cars, which sucks, cause mine’s busted.

Tomorrow, Bob Sumerel Tire, me with $400 less money, but a new Idle Air Control Valve in my car which means it will start correctly for a change. Sucks, yes, but I’ll get over it.

I’ve found a web site that tries to better automate the process of trading from one user to another, and I’m trying to decide if it’s cool or not. I’m also trying to decide if there’s any way I can use the site to get some pimp deals on games.

SwitchDiscs

Feel free and check if it’s cool or lame and tell me what you think. If you’re interested in signing up, you can help me out by at least signing up for an account. If you do, I get 2 free bucks to play with on the site (not real money but their trade money).

So tell me what you think, and if you can help a brother out, let me know, I’ll send you an invite.

Well, it’s good to see the occasional emulation site that has updates, even if it’s of the products of what appears to be slightly more then a single group.

I love Retrogames, even bought one of their t-shirts back in the day (which I would have worn to CinciClassic should I be able to attend), and Zophar’s Domain will always be an amazingly good repository of emulation related files. BUT, Retrogames doesn’t update unless my roommate pimps something pinball related, or MAME comes out, and Zophar has zero updates in 2006.

So in comes in a new sites I just discovered that is updating via good ‘ol Google: Emuxhaven. I’m happy to see it’s got some new news on RockNES, ZSNES, and some of the better well known and liked emulators that are stil getting work. Heck, it looks like ZSNES just got an update which allows it to record videos to xVid format, which is awesome!

UC got hosed, bad, and that’s coming from a UK fan (soon to be in OSU country, which will be interesting in and of itself!)

8-8 in large conferences used to be enough to get you in at least 70% of the time, especially with some of those wins coming against good opponents and on the road, and if we’re considering that Cincinnati’s Big East tournament loss is now to a #5 seed, not a bubble team, then that has to weigh heavily in the strength of schedule and quality of opponents.

That said, take Air Force out and add Cincinnati, and take Utah State out and add Missouri State (if for nothing else, for the sanctity of the RPI numbers, which now mean nothing if a #20 team can’t go), and you have a much better bracket that still rewards mid-major teams well.

I really liked watching Cincinnati this year and will miss Andy Kennedy not being the coach because of an AD who seems to not be willing to speak and back up this coach of program publicly, and a president who doesn’t seem to want athletics to be big-time (at least in outside image). He’s very well spoken, has great emotion and appears to be a great leader as a coach. He’ll be coaching a nice program next year into the NCAA Tournament, but I really do not think it will be Cincinnati.

Oh yeah, what do you think of Xavier as a #14 seed? Yeah, I know they were a surprise winner and were left for dead a week before, but do you think that’s a number or two low?

Well, I got my nice fast Internet pipe, but it wasn’t with who I thought it would be, however, upon hindsight, I’m not surprised.

Time Warner was supposed to get the business because they had an offer to have Roadrunner (5 megabit down / 512bit up) for $34.99 a month for a year. Danielle had a feeling it would not be that easy, and thus here comes the background:

I tried to do this switch in August, but Time Warner came out to see Danielle twice, told her prewiring needed to be done, and then they never schedule the prewiring, leading to an angry Scooter lashing out at their phone support over their inability to get the cable installed. So this time, I told the woman on the phone that I thought some prewiring may be needed. Apparently, she didn’t listen, and she didn’t seem to have on hindsight thinking back on it.

When the tech got here from Time Warner today, he went from thinking he could get it installed in five minutes to looking for prewiring. He said service had been cut off in December of 04 … which is funny, because this apartment had WOW from the moment Danielle moved in (October of 2004), so things weren’t marked right or something. Anyways, when I told him that he needed to get prewiring out today, the tech said it just couldn’t happen, didn’t make a phone call to try, even after telling him about the multiple times we’ve tried to get their service.

He even mentioned that he got $40 in commission for the hookup. I told him flat out, to make the call to get the prewiring out here today to earn that commission, the guy just didn’t care enough to do it. I work in a combination of sales and computer work, I know when someone doesn’t want the sale bad enough, and he didn’t. So, I told him to get his stuff and he left, Danielle did too.

15 minutes later, I called WOW, upgraded to their 6 megabit down / 1 megabit up, and I was surfing at 800kb/sec. So, Time Warner now officially is never getting that business back unless they can throw some ridiculous offer out there sometime down the line.

Oh yeah, 1 megabit of upstream is awful nice to have for future online gaming endeavours, not to mention it doesn’t look like the Time Warner upgrade to 7 or 8 megabit upgrade will be soon, so I am getting the fastest fairly affordable service in town.

WOW was awesome and nice on the phone too. Props to them, they’re gonna get business sent their way soon.

In the interest of making sure I hook up the readers with all the good information, there is a game manual site I just discovered and never knew about!

http://www.replacementdocs.com

Looks like it’s as big as the Game Manual Archive, and has a more active community too. The more, the merrier!

Well, it looks like I will have a Sidekick 2 tomorrow! It was delivered to my new place yesterday, but I (of course) wasn’t there to get it, so hopefully it will be left at the door today.

SCHWEET! Pretty bad if I’m missing a cell phone that much, but it is a pretty darn cool device, and T-Mobile is getting it back to me after having to send it back for breaking within a week, which is awesome.

Today, my brother would have been 36 years old. Even scarier, I’m now approaching the age that he was when he passed away. I can’t tell you how much I wish he was here to see my success, to see how happy I am with Danielle, and to see me flourish and prepare to enter a life of my very own, truly so for the very first time.

Sadly, there weren’t enough times when he was alive that he got to see those things when I was younger too.

For those who do not know, my brother Jeff died in May of 1997 as a result of his addiction to drugs. Those who know me better know the story in much more detail, but the long and short of it is that he was addicted for almost all of my life up until he passed away, and I never got to have the kind of close relationship with him that big brothers should have with their younger kin. I do miss that dearly.

So put me in the group of people that would never want nor wish for anyone to be addicted to drugs, because it’s an addiction that’s nearly impossible to break, and I’ve seen that way too close, and I hope for anyone reading that’s ever even thought about ingesting these horrible things, remember that sometimes it can hit close to home.

The second caravan to Columbus is going to be tonight now that I know Carmen, Danielle’s sister, is bringing her car down to assist in the efforts. That means I’ll be able to take three more carfuls of stuff up tonight. At this pace, there’s a decent chance that I could get to the point of “living out of a suitcase” within another week’s time, I’m very excited about that. My bedroom now actually looks somewhat tolerable too. Maybe I’ll move my stereo system up tonight as part of my hauling of stuff.

I may have an update tomorrow as to learning how to dance (yes, I said it, I’m taking dance lessons!). The first lesson that I went to with Danielle was a lot of fun and I was happy that I actually started to figure out what I was doing, so I’ll see if it continues.