This past weekend I went to southern Oklahoma (Temple, Walters and Lawton) for some business-related and family stuff.

One thing that hit me bigger than I thought it would was — wow, I went to Basic Training at Ft Sill, which is in Lawton — get this — *seventeen years* ago.. That’s almost 20 years by my calculations! I’ve been to Temple a few times for visiting family but not to Lawton since 1990 - and I felt pretty old. I keep imagining myself saying the phrase “twenty years ago” and it just seems so…. old.  I was in the “1st and 31st” but I went online and it doesn’t seem as though that platoon or division is still there.

The 77th Armored Division Band put up with me for a few months for my training after Basic (I was in the Army Band as my contribution to our military). I really loved doing music as a living. And a military band knows it’s stuff, lemme tell you. It’s not just marches or classics - you play everything in the Army band - contemporary, rock, jazz, Big Band, blues, pop, you name it. My fellow soldier band members just loved music and loved playing. Sprinkle in a deep love and devotion to your country, sautee in a thick broth of discipline and you have a tight music-playing unit who can deliver heart-tuggingly good pieces.

While we were driving back to Temple from Lawton, I noticed a huge casino. I didn’t know that Oklahoma had gambling, and I loves me some casino action now and again. I asked, and it turned out there were several in the area.  I went to one in Walters but was disappointed that it was just slot machines.  And all the slot machines were really bingo machines with slot machine front ends - I’m guessing it’s something to do with the law.

I went further down the street (ok, figuratively - I actually went half an hour down the freeway) to a place that actually had table games. I had me a blast, but there were two things “different” about this casino than normal casinos.

The first one was that it cost a dollar to gamble.  Yes, an extra dollar - EVERY TIME YOU BET.  So for example, if you sat down at blackjack to bet $5 or $10 or whatever, you also had to put $1 on the side as an entry fee for playing the game.  And this was for EVERY HAND, not just to sit down.

That gets old really fast.

So I went over to craps, because you only had to pay $1 every time the shooter set a point, which made the entry fee last a lot longer.  Had me a lot of fun there.

And that leads me to the second thing - I’m guessing there’s some law against dice.  Well, how do you have a craps game without dice?

WITH CARDS.

Yes, the craps table had no dice, but they had a deck of special cards, where each possible roll of the die was represented by a different card.  The “shooter” would cut the deck and the dealer would turn over the next card and that’s the roll.

Very weird if you haven’t seen it before.

I still like what I get, in general, from 1 & 1.  The prices are great, and the package is awesome (3TB/transfer per month, 300GB storage, 1000 email accounts, etc).  But sometimes they just plain suck.

They suck like a hoover.

First, back in December 2006 they caused me much grief.  Four days of grief.

Then, just this last month I actually got to guest post on an important person’s blog and I was down again - THE DAY OF THE GUEST POST.  This is the biggest day for a small-time blog like mine where people see the guest post, and if they like it, they visit the author’s blog.  Worst.  Timing.  Ever.

Yesterday, I was down (all my email, all my websites) from about midnight Monday morning until just a few hours ago today.

Here’s how it all went down:

• About a month ago, I get a notice that my credit card on file for billing is going to expire in October, so I should update it.
• I go online to do so, and Paypal is recommended.  I thought “whoa, they take paypal now?”  I’ve been a paypal user since, oh, 1999 or so, and I use it all the time.  I like how I can use multiple funding sources AFTER it uses up my paypal balance.
• I get a confirmation that the new payment method has gone through. 
• Midnight on Labor Day (yesterday as I write this), all my email and domains stop working.  I have 132 domains and 149 mailboxes.
• I call in and Tech Support says “your domain is locked due to a billing issue”.  I say “well then let me talk to billing - I had just made a change from my old credit card to Paypal, so something’s messed up”.  They say “Due to the holiday, the billing department is closed.”

WHAT?!?!?!?  They can take actions such as locking an account but they can’t fix their own mistakes?

After I complain and escalate for a while, the guy tells me that there is something they can do to “bounce” or “retry” the account and I should wait 3 hours.  I ask if I should put my billing back to a normal credit card instead of paypal because maybe their paypal processing system is down.  I just want my domains back on.

He keeps informing me that the Billing Dept is down and that there’s nothing Tech Support can do to unlock the account.  This is so incredibly frustrating.  It’s like 1 & 1’s tech support is taught to just delay, hold people off for a couple of hours, or stall.  Lie if you have to.

I trusted him for a while but I was still down last night so I just went online and changed my account to normal credit card and WHAMMO, 3 hours later everything starts working again.

I hate liars.

ooooh!  and today I get an email asking me to take a survey for my customer support experience!

I haven’t laughed this hard in a LONG time.

I love reading Dave’s Blogography.  I recently upgraded my Google Desktop, and it has an RSS plugin that kind of watches what you browse, and pulls different RSS feeds from places you visit (all in the background) and then just puts little updates and things over on the side, so if your eyes drift around you might see them.  It’s a little better than ACTIVELY browsing around, because who has time for that?

After recently visiting Dave’s truly addictive site, I noticed in the little RSS bar that there was a new comment on a recent blog entry I read of his called “Assist“.  That particular blog entry is just a lone captionless picture of a monkey pulling a cartoon version of dave in a little red wagon, in what seems to be the second in a series of cryptic graphics where Dave might be trying to tell some sort of story of despair, apathy, unfairness in a world overrun by it’s own wagon-less redflyeritude, yet appeal to only the compassionate masses by cleverly encasing his powerful message in a puzzle of sorts.  Or maybe he’s just lazy and didn’t feel like writing anything.

So anyway, the comment that I read on that blog entry is what was so funny

Have I mentioned how much I love Blogography? :)  The comments are almost as funny as the entries themselves!

So I guess from this an assistant is either someone who assists, or is an ant who discriminates based on people’s rear ends.  I now feel sorry for people who have Administrative, Assist Ants working for them.  Bigoted Assists! 

This is an interesting article, if for nothing else than slightly comedic value.  I kind of want to look at it like you look at a car accident - it’s horrific, but your sense of curiosity just gets the better of you.

The effect of bloatware: A 1986 Mac Plus beats a 2007 AMD dual-core PC

On a different note, we’re off to Las Vegas for a few days, and I’m going to try very hard not to get the laptop out.  I may post from my Blackberry 8700c if we end up winning millions (or maybe I won’t? ) but I’ll try to take a break.

Over the weekend, very early Sunday morning, it will be

     2:03:04 on 5/6/07

I received this in email a while back; thought I would post it. 

At last a guy has taken the time to write this all down.  Finally , the guys’ side of the story.  We always hear “the rules” From the female side.

Now here are the rules from the male side.  These are our rules! 

Please note… these are all numbered “1″ ON PURPOSE! 

1. Men are NOT mind readers.

1. Learn to work the toilet seat.  You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down.  We need it up, you need it down.  You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

1 Sunday sports. It’s like the full moon or the changing of the tides.  Let it be.

1. Shopping is NOT a sport.  And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want. 
Let us be clear on this one:
Subtle hints do not work!
Strong hints do not work!
Obvious hints do not work!
Just say it!

1. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.

1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That’s what we do.  Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

1. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a Problem.  See a doctor.

1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument.  In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 Days.

1. If you won’t dress like the Victoria’s Secret girls, don’t expect us to act like soap opera guys. 

1. If you think you’re fat, you probably are.  Don’t ask us.

1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of them makes you sad or angry, then we meant the other one.

1. You can either ask us to do something Or tell us how you want it done.  Not both.  If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself

1. Whenever possible, Please say whatever you have to say during commercials.

1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.

1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings.  Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is. 

1. If it itches, it will be scratched.  We do that.

1. If we ask what is wrong and you say “nothing,” We will act like nothing’s wrong.  We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle, besides we know you will bring it up again later. 

1. If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to, Expect an answer you don’t want to hear.

1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine… Really .

1. Don’t ask us what we’re thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball, the shotgun formation, or golf.

1. You have enough clothes.

1. You have too many shoes.

1. I am in shape.   Round IS a shape!

1. Thank you for reading this. 

Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight; but did you know men really don’t mind that? It’s like camping.

Sci-fi’s Battlestar Galactica is my absolute favorite show. It has surpassed, in my mind, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Numb3rs, The Simpsons and all other shows I try to make a point to watch.

I missed out on the first few weeks of Season Three of BSG, so instead of joining in halfway through, I avoided every episode until now. And now I’m catching up with the whole season.

What a great show. I just finished Episode 5 recently. I’m gonna love the next couple of weeks as I catch up with all the episodes.

Head over to Michelle’s Absudist at Large blog and read the funny lawyer transcripts.  Many I had seen before, but some of these were new to me. 

My fave’s include

ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that
morning?
WITNESS: He said, “Where am I, Cathy?”
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan.

ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Would you repeat the question?

ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Uh….

Go and read more…

I’m going to upgrade from 2.0.4 to 2.1.1 of Wordpress, the blogging software I use to run this site.  It should be mostly easy, and hopefully all you folks who watch my blog every single hour just to watch for updates won’t be disappointed

EDIT:

Oh great, now 2.1.1 has been declared dangerous. 

Long story short: If you downloaded WordPress 2.1.1 within the past 3-4 days, your files may include a security exploit that was added by a cracker, and you should upgrade all of your files to 2.1.2 immediately.

July 20, 1969 , as commander of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon.
 
His first words after stepping on the moon, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” were televised to earth and heard by millions.

But just before he reentered the lander, he made the enigmatic remark: “Good luck, Mr. Gorsky.”

Many people at NASA though it was a casual remark concerning some rival Soviet cosmonaut. However, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or American space program over the years many people questioned Armstrong as to what the “Good luck, Mr. Gorsky… statement meant, but Armstrong always just smiled. 

On July 5, 1995 , in Tampa Bay, Florida, while answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26-year-old question to Armstrong. This time he finally responded.

Mr. Gorsky had died, so Neil Armstrong felt he could answer the question.

In 1938 when he was a kid in a small midwest town, he was playing baseball with a friend in the backyard.  His friend hit the ball, which landed in his neighbor’s yard by the bedroom windows. 

His neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. Gorsky. as he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at Mr. Gorsky, 

“Sex!  You want sex?!  You’ll get sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!”