2009-10-10:

Gaffigan. Funny guy. Pale fellow. Funny though. But all things in their time. Before one goes to the end, one must begin... at the start. Which would be 9:30 on Friday. I was returning to a place I had left because after the time warner... and let's be kind to him... idiot, left, several things were then messed up. To begin, he runs an enormous wire from the basement, where the digital phone box was, up through a hole he drilled in the floor. When the computer fails to connect, he claims "not to know anything about computers" and leaves. Is this making sense to you, because I'm not following it. It's like I take my car in and the guy says, well, I don't know anything about cars. Your job was to hook these people up to RR. You failed. Why are you still employed? Then after that they can't even get their machine to turn on, and the phone next to the computer is having a really hard time of things. So I get called back. Their machine turns on, but shows a 3 4 code on the cute little LED troubleshooting lights on the front. Handy! Of course, I have no manual to tell me what that means, but they were a very soothing green color. So figuring he must have knocked something out while messing (up) around with this, I pop the lid, reseat all the connections, and give her another go. And by her I mean the computer, which is in fact genderless. But then, so are boats. And we call them "she", but I digress. Oh, and never anthropomorphize a computer. They hate that. It turns on. So I'm one for one so far. However, no light on the ethernet port to show it's plugged in, and no "link" light on the digital box in the basement. Calling time! So we ring-ring-ring-ring-bananna phone up some Tech Support, who says "He did it the which way now?" Apparently, they aren't supposed to do what he did? Gee, that's reassuring. So they schedule the time to come fix this mess for tomorrow morning, which would be this morning, and it must have gone okay because I didn't get another call in the afternoon. Whew. As for the phone thing- very scary. No dial tone. Well, it's worse then that, it says "not connected" to the base. Which is very odd because when I hit the "page handset" button, it beeps like a champ. So is it connected to the base, or not? It took messages, so it WAS connected to the wall just fine. So they had this other phone they couldn't get set up right (sigh) previous to the one they were using, so I properly set that up, and it was fine. Came back home. There is a gap of several hours before my next appointment. What did I do then? Oh right, you can't answer... and you probably don't know anyway. Shoot. Must have been pretty freaking important, let me tell ya. Anyway, onto my 2:30. Another low memory machine. Did the normal stuff, vacuumed it out because it was disgusting inside. (Protip: turn your machine off. Find out how to remove the side and front panel. Observe dust levels. If said levels are enough to choke a large dog, apply suction in the form of a vacuum hose. Replace front and side panels. Power back on. Smile- you earned it!) Stopped at mom's house, walked her dog as she was working at the ABC sale. Came home for a bit, then called someone I had been trying to reach that said they lost the internet after moving the machine. I led them through some stuff, seems their ethernet hardware is MIA. But LO! They are 8 minutes from Sean's, the very next place I wish to go. I grab a cooler from my garage (freshly cleaned if you'll recall) and some ice (which I now recall is still out in the car, whoops) BRB. And ice packs are back in the freezer. On with the tale. Ah, right, ice, cooler, directions, I'm off. To wegmans to buy a desert. Sean has promised me his world famous (it is, ask anyone) taco soup so I emailed back and asked if I could bring some complement to this repast, perhaps in the form of a desert. He later insists he did not receive this email. But I play it safe and get the yummy desert anyway. At my customers house I find their ethernet card had been shifted in the slot slightly, so it must not have been making very good contact. Thus, no intertubes. I "rock the corn right into the slot"... wait a minute, that sounds kind of dirty. Guess even a Chuck Berry song taken out of context... anyway... Took me longer to get their oddly warped side cover off and on then fix their problem. I'm gone. To Sean. We watch the third Bleach movie (which wasn't as washed out as I thought it was going to be. LOVE THAT JOKE) while eating tasty soup, thank you again Sean and go see Gaffigan! Tons of people around there, it's raining, we're walking through the rain from way over where we parked. We have to leave the umbrella? What, are you afraid it's a laser gun in disguise? Come ON. Wait a half hour, and there's the King of Pale himself. Very funny, lots of new material in the beginning. Trouble is, his old material? I can do that stuff by heart myself, so not quite as funny anymore. He picked on the poor interpreter too, jerk. I kid, it was all in good fun, and we all had a blast. Then they almost forgot the umbrella (without me those two would just fall apart) which was quite the challenge of the day because of all the people streaming past the exit door. But Michelle saved the day and snagged it back. We went back to his place, finished the movie, and it was midnight. Being the humble guest I am I made to leave. But my friends bade me stay a bit longer and have a further blast by playing some ODST. Well, I know when I'm wanted, so I agreed, and accidentally stayed there until 3:00 AM. Whoops, didn't realize it was THAT late. Good thing I have the "tireless" background. No, I don't own a hover car, I just... never mind. So with Stan and Other Sean running their own game, and Neil also out, the plan is to finish up MY game today, the Sprite World game we started about six months ago. So I get up at my normal time, 8:30, feeling strangely refreshed for only having gotten five hours sleep. Weird. No calls, so I work on finishing the rulebook that governs the gameplay I wrote, making changes to the text we found needed clarification, adding in the example characters, and that sort of thing. The last edits were in March. Course, that game only happens when it's just the three of us, which isn't often, but I really should have worked on it before now. I know, I'm a slacker. I admit it. Phone rings. It's Sean, he's not feeling well. Oh great, I just spent hours with this guy yesterday! But there's no help for it, I'm glad he told me so I'm at least warned. But probably no game tonight. Ah well. Then it rings again, it's my mother. "I'm bringing over that TV right now." Ah, okay. Wait, I thought you didn't watch TV, Robert? Hey, you're right! But there is this ancient set down in my basement that has some of my original video game systems hooked up to it. And by original, I mean my intellivision, atari, even a pong game. I collect video game systems, okay? So I kept it around (it was left here when I moved into the house) for that. Every once in a while I get a hankering to play an old game down there. But the TV is a bit tired, so I figured I could hook those old systems up to it, "it" being the cast off TV my parents no longer need as my customer gave them their old set when they got a new one. So now it's sitting on top of the old TV because it's too honking much effort to actually yank it out of there. Same with that 1950s stove that's down there. Useless thing, it'll turn to rust before it ever gets out of there. Got the work on Sprite World done, it's actually "finished" now. It needs a table of contents and an index, but I think the rules are finalized. Sent that off. Phone rings- Sean again. Feeling worse now! Oh, and because Stan and Other Sean's friends are all "dropping like flies" which I hope means getting sick and doesn't mean dying they are free now! Sorry guys, maybe next time. But maybe he'll be up to some ODST tonight. He'll see. It's almost 9:00 now so I guess not. Feel better soon my friend. And you actually made it to the end of that whole thing. I'm impressed. Let me guess, I'm the only one you know that can turn what should be one page in "Chapter 32" of "My life as Robert Ziefel" into its own chapter. Well, it's back to Dragon Ball Z, I guess, where I think something may soon actually happen! Current Mood: happy to have actually finished something today, but sad that my friend is ill and can not partake of the enjoyment we had planned.