Blog
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Reconnected
After much hilarity (read: ineptitude) we’re back online, some 3 weeks after we officially went off… So what’s happened in those 3 weeks?
WEEK 1: We moved house, all by ourselves (kinda). Originally we were going to move the boxes and get movers to handle the heavy furniture, but on the Friday night (our moving day) Robyn was like “let’s get the mattress, I want to spend the night here and while we’re there let’s get the sofa too!” No small feat… On the Saturday Robyn’s parents rolled in and gave us a much needed extra couple of pairs of hands. Jason (our then current, but now old, next-door neighbour) also pitched in above and beyond and 95% of the stuff got moved in about 6 hours, many trips to and from the new house, but hey! we’re almost there. On the Sunday we got the rest and then I didn’t go the the Springsteen concert… During the week we sold the remaining two tickets for $350 meaning my quick thinking back in the day made us $650, not too shabby, but I really wanted to go.
WEEK 2: I tidied up around the old house, bringing loose items back when I went. On the Sunday John and Marchellina came down from Chapel Hill to help us unpack and move furniture from the garage to correct places. Big help and awesome job! Now we have a semi-decent looking home instead of a haven of boxes and un-made furniture.
WEEK 3: General unpacking of small items, I put the guest bed and the IKEA Expedit together myself (OK, with a little help from Robyn) and for some reason, the cable company played games with me…
Now we’ve had Comcast in Atlanta and Time Warner in Huntersville, so we know bad customer service… Windstream blows them away with sucky customer service. Firstly they no-showed on the install date, 5 phone calls tracked that down. Then they no-showed the next day when they promised they’d be there, then they postponed us by 2 (TWO!) weeks as apparently, they just didn’t want to connect us. No big deal usually, right? Well they have some weird deal with our development where the cable/internet/phone bill is included in the HOA fees. So we’re paying for it if we get it or not, and we’re stuck with them and only them.
Add to this they don’t have cablecards (despite advertising TiVo on their home page) so we’re stuck with basic cable, no free QAM HD channels and a pretty lousy lineup. I say this as they are missing the one channel I need most of all, Fox Soccer Channel. Even if we had digital cable, it’s not in the lineup, in fact the lineup is so screwy that they have ESPNHD but not ESPN2HD, what’s up with that??
So yeah, tomorrow (well, technically today) is the day of the UEFA Cup Final, a competition FSC cover. But I won’t miss it, I’ve found a sports bar in Mooresville that’s showing it, I’ll be there, alone, wishing and hoping for a Rangers win, drinking alone. Sounds like a good reason to liveblog my experience.
As for the rest of this week, Robyn’s parent are coming up Friday night was we have tickets for the NASCAR All-Star race again, my decent into NASCAR fandom continues unabated…
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RIP Super Deluxe
Turner is planning to close Super Deluxe. Sadly I heard about this from Super Deluxe employees via Twitter. So Robert and Brian, good luck with the future guys.
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Microsoft Give Up on Yahoo!
Microsoft says it is ending its bid for Yahoo! The breakdown occurred when Microsoft offered $33 a share, Yahoo! wanted $37 a share, this added $5 billion to the deal. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, and who for…
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Mission Accomplished?
You know, it’s been just over 5 years to the day that President Bush declared “Mission Accomplished”
How have you enjoyed the last 5 years of rich and bountiful peace? Just remember that when you’re gassing up on $3.50+ a gallon and prices of bread and milk skyrocket, it’s the rich and bountiful peace you’re paying for. Enjoy it while it lasts!
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Disconnected
Its almost sickening how much of a slave to the online world I’ve become. Its now been nearly a week without regular internet access and I’m literally fretting how out of control things have become.
Sure I have my iPhone but without a wi-fi connection I can only do so much, and even though we moved last Friday the cable company can’t hook us up until next week. Its really sad how utterly useless my home desktop is without that ethernet cable connecting it to everything and everyone, its basically a glorified paperweight right now. So job searching is harder than it needs to be. Luckily I can keep email under control, I hate to think how my Google reader is, easily a few thousand items and rising by the minute. I also have no idea what’s going on in the world outside of my little bubble world, see no cable also means no TV, its like living in the dark ages here!
So I challenge you to go a while week without any kind of internet access (I’ll allow your phone of course be it regular, Blackberry or iPhone), could you do it? Could you easily avoid it? Its become so ubiquitous with our way of living its nearly impossible…
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It’s Never Easy…
It wouldn’t be a life-changing move if it wasn’t easy would it?
We’re closing on our house on Friday, but all hells broken loose (as usual) and well, shit done hit the fan. Firstly Robyn’s aunt died, so she went off to Pennsylvania for the funeral while I packed, then I lost my job, then we couldn’t delay the closing and now we’re sweating proverbial bullets as I look for a job.
And I’ve had plenty of interviews since I left my job, but I had a potentially good one today that I blew as I couldn’t sell myself. Luckily they have given me a chance to regroup, find my sweet spot and try and sell myself once I’m ready, which is nice, in the meantime I needs to find something, anything fast.
The big downsides is we’ve had to postpone our UK trip as, let’s face it, even if I get a job, I’ll have no vacation to take at that time. And I’m resigned to selling the last of my Springsteen tickets, we’ve already sold 2 for $300 as Robyn’s parent wouldn’t be able to make it with her aunt dying, but now we need the cash from the others, and I’m pretty bummed about it, but somethings are more important…
So yeah, we’re still moving on Friday, we’re not fully packed, should be fun!
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Chip Caray: Consummate Professional
As TBS changed it’s baseball setup to go national, Braves games have been few and far between, more so since Atlanta’s local TBS changed to Peachtree TV. But here in Charlotte we need not fret anymore, as Time Warner Cable struck a deal to create a Braves specific channel that shows these games. And for some reason the “national” game against the Dodgers was blacked out on my TBS, so I switched to this channel and got more than I bargained for…
Firstly, no adverts. It was like a direct feed from the production truck, complete with Chip Caray pulling a face after handing back to the studio.
Then we were treated with some interesting chatter before and during the national anthem, like comments about Dodgers pitcher Hiroki Kuroda, saying how they shamed Turner Field for having the clock in the outfield 15 minutes slow, thoughts on the ending of Major League that was on TBS at the time, Chip saying that Steve Lyons loves “face time”, singing along to the anthem and eventually good places to eat BBQ in Philadelphia…
It was very strange, but interesting to see “behind the scenes” as it were.
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Trapped
A condensed look at Nicholas White’s forty-one-hour elevator ordeal, as captured by the McGraw-Hill building’s security cameras. I’ve been stuck in an elevator for 30 minutes before and that was scary enough. I couldn’t imagine 41 hours in such a confined space…
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Under Construction
We’re 10 days away from closing on our new home, and over the last few days I’ve noticed it’s finally popped up on the satellite imagery sites like Google and MSN. including MSN’s Bird’s Eye View…
So here our new house under construction, it’s the one in the middle…
Maybe I’ll keep an eye on this and save the different stages of bird’s eye view, see how different things look over time.
Originally uploaded by FLC.
