People are incomprehensible. I just got off the phone with someone who called up because they couldn't get connected to the internet. They had a specific error message (error 678) that comes from doing thing correctly to connect. I had them restart the computer and wanted them to try connecting again. We then had to spend 15 minutes helping her find the connect to icon, as well as internet explorer. I just want to scream "how the #&)@ did you get nearly connected the first time!". It's like the people that have a specific problem with their email, and you ask them to go into their email, and they have no clue. The forgetfullness demon strikes again! (It's like "who put this box here?" *silence "nobody then.. good to go").

(11:37:20) Squegie: so you're really lying.. you're not laughing out loud... are you !?!
(11:37:26) Martie : not usually
(11:37:37) Martie : i could put qlol
(11:38:01) Squegie: qlol... i like it

This was quite a weekend. Thursday started off like any other day.. get up, go to work, leave work. The change came when I got close to home and I decided on a whim to try and call up an old friend of mine (by old, I don't necessarily mean that she is older than me) and actually got ahold of her. We talked and caught up on news till I stopped in the local BPs for some Chester Fried Chicken... the bomb* (*not affiliated with BPs or Chester Fried), where we talked some more before I could even order my chicken, and I got invited out to a biscuit and pepsi party, which got me mightily excited, as you can imagine. So of course, I go. Now, I should point out that my friend's name is Alice, her sister (who is also a friend) is Sarah, and Sarah is dating a guy that shares my first name, so Alice occasionally uses that coincidence to play mischevious pranks upon Sarah.
In any event, I arrive at the B&P party and we begin the movie watching event. By and by, in walks... Sarah's boyfriend, and we are introduced (this being the first time we have met). We eye each other up for a minute, and simultaneously he says "Hoagie!" as I exclaim "Griffith!" and we slap each other on the back. Alice and Sarah are wide-eyed with disbelief and disillusion. At this point, I should explain that I occasionally go by the nickname "Hoagie", and this "Griffith" character is actually my twin brother, born in different cities, and... to different parents. I haven't seen him in 4 years... until now.

As you can imagine, there was much rejoicing... much quoting of Monty Python and Emporor's New Groove ("Now what are the odds of that happening?" "And there was much rejoicing... Yay! waves flag"), and much B&P consumption till we eventually decided around 3am to head our seperate ways.

We didn't do much on Friday due to the imminent return of "the parents", but on Saturday we went to watch The Passion, which is quite a good movie. This was my first viewing of The Passion, (the first for all of us), so that was worthwhile. Again, the group (we're forming a sort of scooby gang) remained together till about 2am before going our respective ways. Sunday was my day of rest, and now this morning I awoke at 6am, much to my dismay. Otherwise, a blissful weekend with relaxation being the key.

Scan the cafeteria for some good seating.
Found a spot by the cheerleaders eating.
The quarterback asked me if I'd like a beating.
I said that's one thing... I won't be needing.
And since I am so smart and cunning... I took off down the next hall running.
Relient K rocks

So I took a look at my phone bill today. The total came to $179.12, which is slightly more than I'm used to paying (~$54). Intrigued I check out page 6 where I find two charges from ESBI which stands for Enhanced Services Billing Inc. They were billing on behalf of WebXites and had two charges of 49.95 each, for a total of $99.90. On top of this was a federal tax of $3.00 along with a state tax of %5.99 which (for those of you that are too lazy to use a calculator) comes to $108.89. "Aha" you say "that explains everything." Not quite. I've never heard of esbi or webxites, and I have no clue why I am being charged a "webxites gold mo fee". They provided the number 1-800-300-3724 for me to call, but surprisingly, they are closed. Also, on page 7 I have a charge from OAN billing on behalf of Nationwide Connect, Inc (which is also closed today) for $6.25 in "Direct dial charge".

Sprint (my favorite local telco {think about that for a moment}) was open, and I did get these charges placed in dispute, meaning I don't have to pay them for 60 days, which further means that I have that many days to get the charging companies to credit my bill.

Also, I have (or am supposed to have) a plan with sprint long distance for $0.06/minute but was actually getting charged $0.27/minute. This was actually easily resolved by calling sprint long distance up and making them see the errors of their ways. They had record of my original plan request (because I had record of it) and were able to issue credit for the price difference and switch my lines over the new plan. By this time, I had spent well over an hour with the various factions of Sprint. However, I had also been doing research on the internet and found that Nationwide Connect, Inc was basically a company that charges people for collect calls as soon as they answer the phone, and for the length of time you are on the phone (with silence playing on their end). This allows your answering machine to take the call for you. Brilliant. So, it's back on the phone to Sprint to ask about anyway of blocking these 3rd party billing people. Well, there isn't, at least not in my area. It seems it takes a state law in order to prevent from being charged for these "services". I think that a telephone
customer should have the option to prevent the local telco from billing them on behalf of 3rd party vendors. Basically, this affects local telephone service, and having over $100 in charges on your local telephone bill for things that have nothing to do with telephone service has the potential of being very damaging. Telco's allow for blocking of 900# service, why not this third party billing? The only third party that should be allowed to bill me via my local telco should be my official long distance provider, which in this case is currently sprint long distance. Previously, it was MCI (which actually billed me seperately from my local telco). However, the difference is that your local telco KNOWS who your long distance provider is because they route your calls through them. Everyone else is most likely a slightly unscrupulous company, and I would rather not do business with them. If I want web hosting or site design, I would like my hosting provider/site designer bill me with a regular invoice, and I will pay it with a check or credit card. Just don't mess with my telephone.

For anyone watching the news (as it relates to Iraq) recently, you may start to notice something. In previous months (ie, between August and now), you may have hear reports like "soldiers picked off by drive by shooters" or "car bomb kill 4 coalition forces." Well, my guys (I'm talking Marines here), went back into country this last month. The headlines now read "Marines are engaged in heavy fighting across the region" or "Marines get into firefight with rebels, destroy wall in the process." If you recall, when we were there the first time, we beat the enemy into submission on our way to Baghdad, in a massive display of "shock and awe". Then, we patrolled the streets as we waited for the other coalition forces to setup. When that was done, we showed them around and handed it over. Since then, things have fallen to pieces. Now, we're going back in and we're going to kick some serious ass. You're going to see a lot more of Marine instigated battles over the next few weeks, and a lot less opposition. We may not stop a 5,000 year old blood feud, but we can put down an uprising. The bad side of this is that we're seeing the Marine Corps being dragged into the role of being an occupational force, which isn't supposed to be our job. We are a first-strike force for "when it absolutely, positively, has to be destroyed overnight."

In other news, closer to home, I've shut down my business in preparation for my upcoming deployment in about two months time. I'm done with spending every waking minute working on one thing or another. I'm going to relax between now and then, and I will have a good time. I've met a few new people recently, there's Shelly who doesn't actually live too far from me and is pretty darn cool to talk to. A lot of people I meet are dull and uninteresting. Let's see. Also interesting is starburst, the surfer girl from Florida. Andie is pretty cool, currently working 3 jobs. And there was Katie (aka "Kitten"), but she got dissapointed when she said that I "don't look like my picture" as she compared one picture of me to another picture of me. Apparently, in one picture, I appear to be a buff Asian guy. She was dissapointed that I wasn't and I haven't really heard from her yet. Talking with other people, I discover I do have "an Asian thing" going on. So, I think that I should start telling people that I am, indeed, Asian, a refugee from the militaristic country of Myanmar and I could even go as far as making up a story about my journey to the us, how I joined the Marines so i could repay this country for the freedom it gave me. I could finish it up by creating an entire site devoted to my asian life, complete with those pics that portray me in an asian lite.

Oh, and I am now the owner of an '88 VW Fox. Next week I will be getting the lasik done, so I will get rid of the glasses. All in the name of self-improvement. Sometime between now and deployment in June, I need to acquire a laptop at a very cheap price (800+mhz, dvd-rom, and at least a 10GB hard drive) that I will setup as a dual-boot between linux and winxp pro. I will then load it up with all sorts of developemt and server software, and in between high-pitched firefights, I will attempt to create some programs in Iraq.

Well, that pretty much covers this update, I'm sure more will come (they always do).

Re: unresolved bugs? (Score:5, Interesting)
by hafree (307412) on Thursday March 25, @03:35PM (#8671643)
(http://www.smoothbeats.com/)
Back in 1995, Microsoft Word had a problem with auto-page numbering in
the footer of documents that affected the page numbers as well as the
font used if changed from the default 12pt Times Roman. 9 years later,
this exact same bug remains.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Re: unresolved bugs? (Score:5, Funny)
by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 25, @03:44PM (#8671785)
See, now, whereas some may call this a bug, isn't it far more
positive to characterize it as a commitment to tradition?
It's you humorless types that give /. such a negative reputation...

Hi GateCourier, I'm SmarterChild!

I'm your new robot friend. I bring you the info you want faster and easier than ever! Click here to see my privacy policy.

I can't wait to show you what I can do, but first I'd like get to know you a little.

May I ask you a few general questions? (To do this later, type "skip." You can also skip any question.)

(00:51:52) Squegie: it's depressing cold, and i like to wallow in self-pity
(00:52:58) Squegie: as i sit here alone, bathed in the soft glow of a computer screen, slowly eating my leftover macaroni and cheese dinner and reflecting on past failures...
(00:53:40) Squegie: i realize that i need a soda.
(00:55:45) Squegie: so, i walk back, back to my fridge and pause. my fridge was technically a loan from my previous employer, and comes up to my waist. the fridge is small, but free. it fits in as yet another piece in a chronic pattern on settling for less because i can't get better. atop my fridge is a used microwave, purchased off of a friend who would have just thrown it out. it also is small.

(00:59:13) Squegie: the carpet that i stand upon is pink, but not by choice. my sister burned a hole in it and had it replaced by the insurance company. i have the carpet, complete with the burned in hole. i cover the hole with a throw rug from dollar general. covered i call it, like the flaws in my so called life. hidden behind a mask of perception, i shrink from daylight.

(14:29:11) Gilformen: i'm not a dork elf!!
(14:29:17) Gilformen: error: dark
(14:29:28) Squegie: rofl

Ok, the first bot is back online. For those of you who don't know, SQBNet stands for Squegie Bot Net because of the fact we ran a bot net. With the collapse of the ircnet social structure, the botnet went away, but I continued on with the site. Now, I am getting back into bots, which are one of my favorite things on the internet. A bot is like a robot, but cooler. Some places call them user-agents, but basically a bot is a program that interacts with humans and can be designed to do things automatically. I'l explain more about bots later to the unitiated, but I just built one that you can use, right NOW.

Her name is GateCourier and she is my first AIM bot. If you use aim, add "GateCourier" to your buddy list. Send the word "help" to her and she'll explain what she can do. Currently, she can send messages to other aim users for you, and send email.

send screename your witty message here. (This will cause gc to send a message to someone else on aim. This is pretty much useless, and mostly done as proof of concept. The next one is much more interesting.)
email [email protected] your witty message here. (This will send your witty message to the email address you entered.) If you're on aim, you can now send email to people. No registration, no 20 steps, just send an email.

I'm working on more features for GC, starting with error checking. I'm also going to implement a "watch" and "seen" set that allows you to make gatecourier watch for a buddy to come online. I would like to have gc alert you when that buddy is online or offline,if desired. Also, for any buddy that gc watches, you should be able to ask "seen buddy" and gc will tell you when she last saw that person.
Also, I'm working on having gc forward email to a screenname. Sending an email to [email protected] with the screen name as the first line of the message should cause gc to im that person.
I also want to create queues and error checking, so if a buddy is offline, the message will get queued and delivered later. Ultimately, I want gatecourier to be an entire message center with messages waiting for you, an outbox, etc. (I will also have sqbnet specific hooks like view rant and post rant available).