svashtar, posts by tag: rant - LiveJournal

The Internet Saga is a long tearjerking mehfest, but here it is:

I moved to a fairly inexpensive apartment.  Since the Internet is Important and Srs business, I called Uverse to transfer as soon as possible.  They said, "No can do-oh till January 15."

Unacceptable.  Need it nao, or I will be sad.  So I called the next day and asked if they had a cancellation.  They did.  I got a guy out here two days later.  An hour into his visit he informs me that the phone line has been cut from the building.  Nobody in this building has a landline.  Not even to call 911.  That isn't the horrifying part.  The horrifying part is the fact that I've apparently got a bunch of neighbors who aren't on the Internet!  He couldn't fix the issue.  I seethed.  I made him call the Uverse office and cancel my service, and dammit no way was I paying the $100 fee for that guy to come out and not give me what I needed done.

I called Comcast while the AT&T guy was still here and got them to commit to coming out the next day to set up broadband Internet.

The guy came out and LO!  No cable jack is wired to the place.  Apparently not having a phone line or a cable jack is illegal.  I called the landlord early Sunday morning to inform him of this fact.  Meanwhile I had the apartment manager (Omar the Supe) come out and tell the Comcast dude that it was okay to drill holes in the wall on the second floor so I could have my Internet.  Luckily, this guy saw my plight as something worse than death, so he pounded a cable into the wall two stories up, and drilled a hole straight into the computer area.

I had Internet two hours later.  It would have been sooner, but hammering nails into concrete walls is apparently very difficult.

The night before I got Comcast set up, I had an online DJ gig to play.  I have a little Myfi widget from Verizon, but you know, wireless is really suck for DJing on Second Life.

I did manage to do a couple of hours, with only a couple of annoying stream skips.  The music's all over the place, but it all worked together pretty well.  The only issue I had was choosing the instrumental version of 30th Century Man by mistake, but I think I got away with it.

Because of the stream skips I didn't bother to podcast this one.  However, here's the play list: 

Garbage - Not Your Kind of People
***Request*** Motley Crue - Home Sweet Home
The Cult - Big Neon Glitter
Frank the Baptist - Eskimos and Butterflies
Blacklist - Poison for Tomorrow
Darkest of the Hillside Thicket - Burrow Your Way Into My Heart
Red & Stimpy - Happy Happy Joy Joy
Berlinskibeat - Kakwa Moma
David Bowie - Port of Amsterdam
Schelmish - Ring of Fire
Wall of Voodoo - Far Side of Crazy
Billy Squier - My Kind of Lover
Scott Walker - 30th Century Man
Iggy Pop - Nightclubbing
Sisters of Mercy - Vision Thing
***Request*** Carlos Santana - Black Magic Woman (Rudy Retro Dynamic Cool Remix)
***Request*** Cliff Richard (DJN Remix)
The Puppini Sisters - Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend
Andrew Sisters - Rum and Coca Cola (Jojo Effect Remix)
Max Raabe and his Palaster Orchestra - Around the World (Dance Remix)
***Request*** Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo - Pico and Sepulveda
Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer - How Many Brilliant Minds are Lost to Work!
Parov Stelar - Nosferatu
Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo - Witch's Egg
The Wombats - Let's Dance to Joy Division
Lindsey Buckingham - Bang the Drum
The Pierces - Secret
Altered Images - See Those Eyes
Rockpile - Teacher Teacher
My Chemical Romance - Teenagers
The Velvet Underground - Venus in Furs
Florence + the Machine - Kiss with a Fist
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising
Adam and the Ants - Viva le Rock
Shriekback - Nemesis
Pop Will Eat Itself - Bulletproof
Public Image Ltd. - World Destruction
***Request*** Renegade Soundwave - Probably a Robbery
***Request*** Einsturzende Neubauten - Youme & Meyou
Erasure - The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

I'm really behind on LJ and other stuff.  I have a good excuse, what with losing the condo and scrambling for another place and all.

Took a breather from real life yesterday long enough to attempt to keep Krampus from running into things and falling off stuff.  I was running security for Krampus at SantaCon (aka Santarchy); keeping people from using the Krampus basket as a trash can, and making sure that after the first bottle of water in that basket was stolen that the second would be kept safe at all cost. 

Folks, I know you're drunk as balls at SantaCon, but seriously, if you see a guy in a giant fuzzy costume, and he has two bottles of water in his basket, chances are he's going to need both of those bottles to survive.  To the semi-naked tardnugget who stole the water in exchange for the empty DVD case of Eat Drink Man Woman, I hope some of your prized body parts fall off randomly next week.

To those who have never seen Santarchy, this is it:



To say I'm not really in the holiday spirit would be an understatement.  I'm not depressed, or anything, and probably won't head to the nearest shopping mall to open fire, but dammit, I'm broke.  I'm broke, semi-homeless, and scared to death.  Let me tell you how scared I am:  I spent the better part of three hours last night looking up earthquake predictions on the web to make myself feel better.  Then I accidentally learned that the city where I plan to live soon is on a 140 year cycle for huge nasty 7.0+ earthquakes, and this is year 139.  No, I am NOT kidding.  Every 140 years.  Like clockwork.

The last quake to hit the Hayward fault was in 1868 and it completely destroyed Hayward, and left Union City, Fremont, San Francisco, and a lot of points in all directions completely devastated.  This was The Great Quake of California until 1906 when San Francisco upstaged Hayward by a few points, and relegated Hayward's seismic event to obscurity.



Jimmy, who played Walden the Reindeer (we lost him in the crowd roughly 2.8 seconds after we got there), really sums things up nicely:



Merry freakin' Christmas, folks.

There was a SOPA protest on the Interwebz today.  Just in case you missed it, about 700 sites went black in protest over a piece of legislation that is Bad for all kinds of reasons.  Wikipedia, being the largest of the blacked out sites today, was sorely missed by a number of students, many of whom bitched about the lack of Wiki, and claimed they would now flunk (insert course here) because of this "useless" protest.  Waaaa, it's all Wikipedia's fault.

Okay, kiddies, it's crunch time.  Back in the good ole days before Internet (yes, such a time existed as far back as 1994 for some folks even!) we did really weird things to finish term papers, do our homework, and study for exams.  Do you want to know the secret?  It's called a "Library".  Yep, those things with the cardboard covers and the leafy, papery things with ink marks all over them are called "Books".  Perhaps you've heard of them.  There are also things called "Encyclopedias", "Microfiches", "Periodicals", and oh. . .I dunno . . .The Notes You Were Supposed To Be Taking In Class instead of writing obscenities on your shoes or giving yourself a fake tattoo with your bestie's Sharpie.

Stop bitching and get a clue, you stupid fucks.  Wikipedia, while very useful for those times people are disputing facts and stuff, is not the end-all be-all font of knowledge.  There are other sources for information.  Heck, Google's not blacked out.  Try doing a search without clicking on a wiki link.  Hell, the Library's probably open till 9pm in most major metropolitan areas.  Check your local listings.  Go on, I dare you.

And the next time something this important causes Wiki to black out, quit your whining, because I have no sympathy for you little self-entitled fucks who can't be bothered to crack open an actual book to study.

KTHXBAI.