Yeah, you read that right. I called the automated line to pay my bill and when that annoying computer bitch read me that total I nearly died of a hart attack.

Then I pull up my bill online and look at the charges: $1,300 worth of roaming, which is fucking bullshit for two reasons:
1) I live less than a mile from the Sprint store, and I make 99.99% of my calls there.
2) THERE'S NO ROAMING CHARGES FOR MY PLAN!

And then there was looking at another $640 dollars accrued in overages... So I pull up the call history for my other line, which is my girlfriend's and only used to make and receive calls to and from me. (She has her own other phone) The call history proves it. So then I start to see where the charges start accruing - and I look at the phone number the calls came to/from.... ME!

How the FUCK can I be charged for minutes when
1) It's a damn FAMILY PLAN where all calls are free to each other and
2) ALL CALLS TO OTHER SPRINT MOBILE NUMBERS ARE FREE ANYWAY


God, I hate Sprint.


I'm currently on hold with them.. and she's back. Apparently they have to create a case to get those charges taken off and to make sure they don't happen again. THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE, ASSHOLES.

Because it's damn near April and it's still snowing here. And it's supposed to snow more.


Will it ever end?

From this month's Game Informer:

"Scientists at NASA's John F. Kennedy Space center have revealed that theyare extremely close to accomplishing what experts once thought to be impossible: running EA;s PC shooter Crysis at maximum settings. Using a custom built Cray XT3 Opteron supercomputer, NASA's engineers, in partnership with a team of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claim to to have actually run the game at full capacity for 10 minutes before a total fatal system crash. "It's been hard," comments NASA project lead James Ferguson, "but challenges like this are why we do what we do. Hearing everyone applaud in the control room when we got the first level up and running was a feeling I'll never forget. This has been a real journey for the whole team...even a few months ago we weren't able to put the sliders up past half before it crippled the system. Now we're playing for five, ten minutes at a time at full resolution with no demonstrative frame lag."

Although progress has been good, time is of the essence, as recent rumors have speculated that a rival team in China will be attempting a gull run-through of the game within the next month. Still Ferguson remains confident. "I believe in America's know-hoe, and I guarantee we'll be the first country on Earth to run Crysis. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go sign off on a shipment of Red Bull. It's gonna be a long night"

And


That is all.

So it was my roommates birthday last night, and he wanted to go bar hopping. Sure thing. We start off at a sports bar and eat some dinner. From there he wanted to go to Club Texas - which is supposed to be the only country bar in the area. At least, you would think they played country. But no.

It was all complete and utter shit: Soulja boy, Sean Paul, Juvenile and other equally shitty music.

I hate rap, with a fucking firey passion that burns in the depth of my soul. There was a point in time where it was good and may have actually had a good message, but that time is long gone. After about half an hour of being there, I had almost snapped. I literally entertained the idea of ripping my own eyelids off. I seriously had them pinched in my fingers.
I'm gonna go ahead and show you some lyrics from these awesome and intelligent songs.
I guess all you need to sell an album is a good beat people can dance to. Fuck music that actually has lyrics that make sense.

But I couldn't help but laugh when they played Sean Paul. I just though of Fish hat the ewe from the storm, and it soothed me a bit.

Best offer. See review.

At least if your a PC gamer. I picked it up a few days ago, and two hours here, two hours there, and two hours here, and it's done. That was literal. Six hours.
This game in criminally short. Especially for the ungodly sum of $50 they charge you to buy it. It felt more like an expansion than anything else.

Yes, it was a fun game, if you like the constant non-stop shoot-em up types. The cover system is awesome, though. The camera work in the game is superb, the graphics are great, and yet didn't tax my system at all. The sound was awesome and the combat was very different with the cover system. You will die if you don't use it.

However, the game just throws you right into the action. I had no fucking idea what was going on. I'm done the game and I still don't. There's no story unless you wait at the start-up screen for the intro movie to play, and even then all you get is that humans were mining some liquid on some planet, and all the sudden these creatures popped up and started waging a war. They don't explain who they are, why they did it, what the liquid is, why it's valuable or why the fuck you're in jail.
And for a game that take place in the future, you would think they would have had some sort of advancement in weapons and aviation. Rifles and shotguns still use regular ammo, and helicopters are still, well, helicopters.

In short, if you're used to non-stop action and love shooting something every five seconds, this is the game for you. If you aren't an XBOX owner, wait until this game comes out with it's sequel (there will be one) and buy/download both at once.

Oh, and for some reason every soldier in it is inexplicably jacked - they all have 85" biceps. I guess 'roids are standard issue in the future.

The results for my town:
Fuckabee: 4
McPain: 8
Paul: 13
Rommel: 35

The nation will find out tonight what the results are in Maine.
It's a HUGE difference, but it's still second place. And I'm now a delegate for my town to the State Republican Convention, so I guess I need to brush up on what the hell it is I'm actually supposed to do.

Anyone got any tips?

Also, I was fucking appalled at the jackass that was running the pre-caucus meeting.

He afforded Tagg Romney 25 minutes to talk about sailing trips with his father, but as soon as our Ron Paul guy gave a five minute speech (he really sucked at it, and shouldn't have been up there) the chairman told him that he used enough time and he had to end it. WTF? No, that wasn't biased at all. Asshole.

Nah, just kidding. Not for Huckabee, anyway. But Maine's caucuses are this weekend, and Ron Paul is the only candidate that actually came here. And with him he brought a SHIT load of signs. I have about 40 standard ones in my car right now, and will get more tomorrow. They're giving them out by the case full. They also have 4'x6' signs for the taking, so I'm scouted a few prime places for such a thing and my roommate (Who is a Bushie, btw - I know, "uuggghhh") and I are gonna go around town tomorrow and put up as many as we can where ever we can. There maybe some photos to follow.

[edit]I went to the local campaign office to get a resupply of signs. I met the man there that runs it and he pointed to a pile of cell phones and said that if we wanted to come back tonight, that I can just pick one up and start calling people to encourage people to come to the caucus on Saturday, so I think I will.
[/edit]

Also, the town of Freeport had their vote today, with an absolutely disgusting turnout - but Ron Paul came in second. Read below for more information.

... more inside ...
Ron Paul FTW!

*WARNING* Disgusting and NSFW ahead. Click to see the ultimate in sleazy tattoos.
Why the hell would anyone want that on their chest?
... more inside ...Don't blame me if you puke.

An large car repair bills.

The following is an example of "When it rains it pours."

About two weeks ago, my rear wheels started making metal-on-metal grinding noises - like my brakes were locking up when they weren't supposed to be. But it only happened at temperatures 20ºF or colder. So when I took it to the garage, they couldn't find anything wrong with it both times because it was warmer, and the problem was non-existent. My ABS light even came on, but they just reset it and wrote it off as a faulty sensor.

So when I went to Boston on the 14th to pick up my girlfriend, all was well until the next morning when at the hotel (we stayed a night in Peabody) we tried to back out of the parking spot and my tire was locked up so bad that I had to spin my front tires (FWD) just to move the car. A few minutes down the road, and all is better after it warms up, as usual. So I called the garage and scheduled another appointment. At least my parents have a third vehicle (an old minivan) that I could use in the meantime. I get a call the day my car was looked at, and they inform me that I (my girlfriend) had ridden the car on a flat tire and destroyed it, so I had to get another. She thought it felt funny because of the problem I had. Not really a big deal, though, because I needed two new ones anyway. Then they tell me the source of my problem is a seized bearing in my hub, which will have to be replaced. Cheapest one they find is ~ $350. I called around and got one for $210. So I bought the hub over the phone, and picked it up the next day, and when I was driving to the garage, my girlfriend told me to look at the receipt. I did, and apparently they only charged me $21 instead of $210! Huzzah!

So the next day my car is all done and repaired (I love my garage, my car was in the shop for two days and they only charged me for one hour of labor) and I bring it back home. I missed my Volvo. That night we get a snow storm and the next day we went to go to Portland, and after I get my car brushed off, I see that my entire rear window has been destroyed from a rock kicked up by the plow. WHAT THE FUCK!?!?! No, not just a crack that can be repaired with a little resin, but totally destroyed!



AHHH! What kind of shitty ass luck do I have? Back to the minivan. It gets fixed today, and that's only another $500. The garage was 300 and the hub was supposed to be 210, but thankfully it's only 21.

So out of the two weeks that my girlfriend is here, I have my S60 for a grand total of four days.

I will now be accepting applications for videos to *promote and *save.
Every now and then I see and bookmark a video to promote, but my list is getting smaller by the day.

As for saves - I almost never know what to save.
So gimme a link to your videos and I'll see which ones I like.

Offer Expiration date: January 14, 2015

Alpha(my desktop, Bravo is my laptop) has gone sentient. Probably Sifty's doing.
I recently moved, and when I did, one of the first things that I did was hook up my computers. (What else would a Siftaholic do?) My laptop connected to the internet just fine, both wireless and via Ethernet. But when I got Alpha hooked up, I saw something was wrong. Did it have a blow out with Sifty? Were they no longer talking? Did Sifty insinuate that he was packing a measly GeForce 2? I don't know, but he refused to connect to the internet. Normally, not a big deal. Reset the modem, try again. Nope. ipconfig? Nope. Reset adapters? Nope.
I tried wireless via DSL modem, and wired via DSL and cable modem (we have to cancel the DSL, but all to no avail. I was getting pissed. There was no reason that I could think of for it to refuse three different connections.

So I looked into my IPv4 properties and I saw that since the move, Alpha had decided to switch itself from obtaining addresses automatically to using a manual address. WTF?

All I know is that Sifty and Alpha better Shake and make up, because Bravo isn't much good for gaming anymore.

Found this little guy out in the Mojave desert in California.

In light of the questions from my recent post, I will give a detailed explanation of how it all goes down, from start to finish, and will try to spare the boring stuff. Most details will be for the actual firing, as that's where my expertise is.

Field artillery is broken up in three sections: The forward observers(FO), the Fire direction center(FDC) and the gun line.
... more inside ...

I hope it went well for all of you! I know it sure did for me. Mmm. Pie. Piiiiieeeee.....
Anyway, everyone loves a feast. Especially my parent's dog. He will be your best friend if you have food- he jumps right in your lap when you sit down with food. As soon as you eat the last bite though, he's gone. Jerk.
"Ooohh! look at all the fooood!" - Yeah, he's a food whore.

Worst. Game release. EVER.

Words can not even begin to describe how much of a pile of shit this game is. I've looked forward to this game for months. It was supposed to change the way we see games. And for me it did. I will now never buy a game upon release for fear of being stuck with the world's biggest pile of shit.

AAhhh, Crysis... Worst fucking release ever. When it works, it works great. It's a masterpiece. But it never works.
Nothing but trouble ALL day. I've had to call Tech Support six times already.
The first time I started the game, it rendered my cursor 300 pixels right and 100 pixels down of where it was reading it - in other words, if I wanted to click a menu button, I had to move my cursor over two inches and down one.

Second: While playing the game, the performance suddenly drops to about 5 frames per second. Dropping my graphics to nil does nothing to solve. Restart the game, graphics to High, works fine again(for now).

Third: changing anti-aliasing automatically causes the game to crash. Every time.

Fourth: While playing, I turn around to find my arms floating in mid-air. It was as if I was staring at myself, only all I could see were my arms. I saved it and restarted the game.

Fifth: Upon loading the game again, it places me inside a tank. It was as if I had used no clip to walk through it's side, then turned clipping on again. I was stuck. Couldn't move at all. So I reloaded my save.

Sixth: Upon reloading, it places me about 100 feet in the air, and of course I fall to my death.

Seventh: I reload again to find myself on top of the tank. I jump off, go around a wall, and all the sudden I get strange colored triangles all over my screen. Nothing I do gets rid of them, so I close the game. Well, Crysis sucks so bad, it kept those triangles on my desktop. Here's a screen shot for you: http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f329/marinegunrock/Untitled.jpg.

Eighth: The game starts stuttering EVERY sound it produces. Even a restart doesn't solve it.

Ninth: I've now come to a part in the game where it starts to lag. Yes, a single player game is lagging. How the fuck is that even possible? I press the forward key only to find that when I move forward ten feet, I move back five, teleport forward 20, and end up in front of the business end of a North Korean rifle.

In one of my calls to them, just to let them know how fucked up the game is, I had a guy tell me he found my problem. "Great!" I said to myself. "What is it?"
And here's how it went down. (This is about to get all Verizon .002cents =.002 dollars)
TS: "Well, after looking at the minimum requirements for this game, I've found that your processor doesn't meet them.
MG: "Ummm... what?"
TS: "Well, the minimum requirement is a 3.6GHz processor and your's is only 2.4GHz"
MG: "Yes, I have a Core 2 Duo at 2.4GHz, which far surpasses the requirements."
TS: "No, sir, you need a 3.6GHz"
MG: "Sir, that 3.6 is for the older generation of Intel processors, the Pentium 4s. What you're telling me is that I need a 3.6GHz processor with two cores, which would cost thousands of dollars."
TS: "Well, you need a better processor."
MG: "What you're telling me is wrong. Please connect me to your supervisor."


So after some startled stuttering, he did. When I got a hold of him, I told him what I had just discussed and that he needs to "school his techs in what the differences of generations of processors are."
Then he told me to send in my DxDiag information, which I had already done several times. I then asked for his work email address so I could send it straight to him. And more lovely dialog occurred.

TS: "Well, sir, we don't have a personal email account from work."
MG: "I find that hard to believe. You mean to tell me that employees at your company don't have individual email accounts? Especially supervisors? It would have been one thing for you to say that you're not allowed to give it out, but to say you don't have one is hard to believe."
TS: "...Well, we can't give it out."
MG: "So you DID lie to me? That's unacceptable. Please connect me to your supervisor."
TS: "Err, umm, uhh, they probably won't be there."
MG: "I don't care. Try it."

From there, I talked to his supervisor and told him what happened with the last two people, and what my problems are. Of course, there's still no solution to my problems.
Even dropping ALL options to minimum doesn't resolve them.
And since you don't know, here are my system specs (the ones that matter):
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz processor
4GB RAM
GeForce 8800GTS TDH with 640MB of RAM
So I should be MORE than able to play this game.

In short, don't buy this fucking game.
How the hell did this game make it out of beta?

My area is very concentrated with veterans - so there's always a bunch of stuff going on. This morning there was a free breakfast for us at the high school put on by the culinary arts class. Good food, but I was the only vet under 35 there. People were staring at me like "What the hell is that kid doing here?"
Then the Veteran's day parade - always nice.
Then there was a chili cook-off put on by the local fire departments at the American Legion. I had me some damn good chili, but again people were staring at me like "What the hell is that kid doing here?" It's kinda the same thing when I get out of my car. People see my "Veteran" plates and figure it's my dad's car or something. Move along, jerk.
It was funny though, because a lot of these people were drinking (yes, beer) on a Sunday morning. Gotta love all these drunken Frenchies.
Needless to say I felt like an idiot. I figured that I would at least see some people that I went to high school with. I mean, there were a few people that I knew that went into the military, and with the attrition rate being less than 20%, I thought that chances were one of those people woulda been there. Nope.

I guess you have to be wrinkly to be a proper vet.

Being a Gunrock isn't always hard work or bad living conditions. Sometimes you have all the comforts of home, except home.

Being a Marine Gunrock means that you will be away from your family. A lot. That means you will be away from home for Christmas, sometimes for years in a row. It means that your entire family is together, all with smiles, and the best thing you can do is spend Christmas morning with them via webcam.



But when a Marine is away from home because he's deployed, he usually gets drunk to forget about the misery. At least he still has his friends.


Friends he will remember until he dies.

And then does something stupid, just for a laugh.


Friends are the most important thing a Gunrock has. Without them, he really has nothing. The bond that develops between fellow Marines is unlike any other friendship in the world.
Maybe simply working together has made you the best of friends.

It may stem from sharing a wooden shack that is no more than 36 square feet with another Marine for 7 months.



Being a Gunrock means always taking advantage of downtime.
Whether it's to play a game of cards...



Or catching some sleep because the back of the truck for 4 hours last night at 25 degrees wasn't enough.

If you've played Command an Conquer: Red Alert, you know that the most fearsome thing in that game is the Tesla coil. That thing could wipe out an advancing army faster than a nuke. I know I always wanted one. We all have. Well, someone made one for himself!
OMFG I WANT IT!