2014-12-11:

Fri:
Slightly longer day than I had anticipated, thanks to Intuit.

First one was fine. Got his Apple TV set up, answered some questions, and he gave me a cassette tape to digitize. I think I have a player around here someplace…

Then home to eat, and out for my 12:00. Cleaned it up. Somehow .msi packages wouldn't install, because windows sucks. Managed to get them working again, and went to the accountant guy at 2:00. He decided he needed the ancient ProSeries versions after all, so I had to get them all working across all their machines. Found where the .ini files were for the really old ones. The windows folder. Yes, the program is that bad, that it sprayed files all over the actual windows folder. Yeah.

I mean I wouldn't mind so much, but doing anything that with that piece of crap program takes forever. Just opening it take upwards of a minute, and that's on machines with SSD, gigabit ethernet, lots of RAM, etc.

Then it goes into that "HomeBase Reconciliation" crap which, let me tell you, is physically painful. What it's doing I have no idea. I looked at the folder it was working with, doing goddess knows what. The last machine I sat and stared at- half an hour for 6mb worth of flies. Yes, less information than I single high resolution picture, and it still hadn't finished. I couldn't stay there anymore. It's not hitting the CPU. It's not hitting the network. It's not really doing anything with the disk. So what IS it doing? That takes so… freaking… long? And it's not just one version, they're all like that. (Yes, intuit makes you buy a new version every year, so they have this program going back 10 years) Worst software ever. I looked it up, other people complain about it too. So I'm not alone.

Anyway, finally left about 5:00, so that was three hours of mind numbing boredom I didn't make a cent off of. I figure it's still the same "setup" job, even if I've been back twice for it.

Saw my father, gave him the copper heatsink and air and boxes and such.

Then came home to eat. We may do borderlands tonight. We tried last night but good old MS had to do an Xbox update, which was crawling along. The first part didn't go too badly, but after it rebooted and started the second part (oh, how I love everything MS) it just wasn't moving at all. I left it on and went to bed.

And we tried do to it, but apparently Xbox live is down because Windows allows millions of machines to be taken over and used in DOS attacks. Odd that the acronym for denial of service was also a "popular" microsoft product. Interesting, interesting. Oh well, good luck with that MS.

Sat
Managed to digitize that tape for the guy. Had to bust out an old PC as none of the Macs I have featured audio in ports. Thanks, Apple. I thought I had an adapter left over from my old machine, but I can't find one. Sigh. It worked out.

Cleaned up a bit. Called Ellen. Read some of the current Susan tale so I know what happened as I go forward with it.

Sun:
Wrote a chapter and a half of the Susan story, got her to be even more cheaty than ever before. Go me!

Started the True Vault Hunter Mode in Borderlands with my character. Mizzy was nice enough to buy me a very nice class mod, so I figured I should at least try it out. It's only good for single player though, as my main class mod helps everyone's shields, so I didn't want to give it up.

Mon:
Did the shopping as normal, got one gift for Heather, which once a few other things come, will finish my shopping for this year.

Made another attempt at oiling the heater, this time putting the oil where it should go, rather than where it should not. Huh, funny how that works much better.

Got the system in for the guy with the two little girls, got that ready. Odd, found it pulling out of the driveway to go to the stores. Did it come… Sunday? Early this morning? Packages never come that early though. Weird. Oh well.

Ate lunch, then went to deliver it. The two jobs are pretty close to each other, sorta. At least the same exit on the expressway, just in opposite directions.

The actual appointment was changing the router, one of the older linksys ones with the custom firmware that I like so much for a newer one. He hoped it would help the blueray player pick up the signal better. Nope. Wouldn't even see it before I powered it off and back on again. He kept it, so whatever. Now I just need to get my money from Staples so I can get another. Should come this Thursday.

Couple of calls today, I have two jobs for tomorrow. Checking a system over after one of those scummy "oh we're from Microsoft, nudge nudge wink wink give us money' scammers had access to a lady's system, and a setup. It's the lady who I sold memory to for her laptop, and then went back to do more for her later. Apparently she still wanted a new machine.

Looked into what I wanted Susan to do the next day of her adventure in Ireland. Came up with something interesting, I think. It involves a horse, a ghost, a set of rosary beads, a vengeful demon spirit and the owner of the horse. Should be interesting! The original book just timeskips over the day before the final battle. Lame. I mean seriously, they were going into combat. Why don't these wizards make weapons or prepare ANYTHING for what is going to be a very real and very deadly combat situation? Nope, just, "the next evening…" Sheesh.

Tues:
Morning one was fine, only took a half hour, it didn't seem like anything was amiss. And the lady was a widow, so she wasn't a Miss.

I know, I crack me up.

Worked on the current chapter, getting the ghost introduced. Then back out at 1:40.

That too worked out as it went smoothy. Sold her the old remote control I bought long ago for Ellen, as she had lost the remote to one TV and her source had changed, so she couldn't change it back. Her cable box remote wouldn't bring it up, it had no button for that. She gave me her old laptop and the pieces of her old system. That I tore apart, the laptop I'm not sure what I'll do with. It seems decent, it's a Celeron M, but the wireless is busted on it. Probably get more for the RAM, taking that out and selling it again, then for the whole thing. I'll think about it.

Looks like, to quote an old song, "We're in for nasty weather." This is the season for it.

Just one job for tomorrow, which is probably a blessing. Not sure how many I want to do, after having my latest filling out. Should be super fun!

Did more writing in the evening. Thought this might be a one chapter thing, nope. It's going to be three chapters. I just got her to open the safe, the second ghost and the combat are about to make an appearance. Woohoo.

Wed:
When I awoke… okay the first time was at 6:45 some guy calling me telling me some sob story about not being there but his wife was. Uh, dude, our appointment is for tomorrow. Thanks for waking me up.

When I awoke the second time it didn't seem too bad out. "It isn't too bad out," I thought to myself. "Out there, it isn't bad."

It got worse.

Anyway, went to get oral…

… surgery. Got the temp tooth bit in there, the real one will be in on the 31st. Well, it could be in earlier but that's when I'm going back. He found decay on the tooth behind the one he was working on, so he patched that up too. At least everything was out of the way, so it only took a few minutes. Ugh, I take good care of my teeth, how does this happen? After all, there are only three causes of tooth decay:

#1 Poor diet
#2 Improper brushing
#3 BAD FAIRIES

Looks like I need to have a talk with my local fairies.

Two injection sites for novocain, so that'll take a while to clear. (It's 1:25 right now)
Had some hot cocoa and soup for lunch. Pretty sure I burned myself, because I am dumb.

Got the LCD panel in, so I put that in for the guy. Can't tell if it works, the battery is dead. It should though.

Did the driveway, it's just light stuff, didn't take 20 minutes. Works much better now with the replacement parts in. So a big thank you to my father for doing that.

Went at 3:30 to set up the new PC. Was actually let into the house at 4:15 when they arrived. AARG.
It went fine, just moving stuff around. Took a while though. Got home about 7:30 (ugh) and ate dinner. Just one call, a guy who somehow got his printer on LPT port mode instead of USB mode. Oh windows, you cheeky devil. No other calls?

May do some Borderlands, but not too long as I need to get up early tomorrow. Snow continues, roads are pretty bad. One 9:30 tomorrow after dropping off Tinker, 20 minutes away. Will it have stopped by then? Another new setup.

Oh, and my fund is down $122 just today. Yippie, I'm $50 worse off than if I had just done nothing with that money. What happened to the markets today? AARG.

Thurs:
The snow stopped! Yay! Had to do the driveway again to get out, it had snowed quite a bit overnight.
Of course, getting up at 6:50 was an abomination unto the lord.

I don't always take pictures of the snow, but when I do… It's all from the same system.

[[image file="2014-12/snow12-14.jpg" alt="Snow on thing" ]]

Got Tinker in just before 8:00, and my 9:30 postponed until Monday. It couldn't have been, like, later today? Oh well. At least I have NOTHING TO DO NOW. Oh, this is the person that called me at 6:45 on the wrong day? Yeah, that guy. It's Monday now. Aarg.

So I did the fight with the ghost chapter. It worked out pretty well. She didn't get to one shot the ghost, and had to actually work for the win. Plus, The Darkness got some ideas on fighting Susan in the future. Hehehe.

Got Tinker back at 3:30. Got before and after pictures, a CD with dcm images on it (how anyone "normal" would even know how to open them is beyond me) He had to have two teeth removed. Still, the pictures were a nice touch, the old owners didn't do that.

And $500 later, hopefully there's no more big expenses until next year. In three weeks. Yeah.

Got a few calls today, that should help right?

Oh, and welcome to exactly two weeks until christmas. Are you prepared?

Are you?

Four places to go tomorrow, but two of them are right in Webster. Hopefully #3 goes well so I can get to #4 on time, then get over to see my parents.

Nothing for Saturday, no news of any game either. Will I have to make a special trip out there to leave their gifts? We'll see.

My fund recovered slightly so I guess the week ends in a positive note? I'm still down total money, by the way.

See you only one week until Christmas.