Zythrix

Ya, I imagine things will be a lot better after I return from my dad's place. I've already got some places scoped out to move into and I'm only moving in with my girlfriend (that's stress enough! jk). It would be nice to be settled agaian

Let me start off by saying, I hate stupid people.If you take offense to that, then you're stupid.Now, allow me to explain to you my situation. I currently live in a 3 bedroom apartment with 5 other people. We'll call them; Tom, Robin, Alex, Steven & Theresa. Tom, his girlfriend (we'll call her Meredith.. and she doesn't live here) & Theresa are the only ones in the apartment on the lease. Theresa, Tom & Meredith were fine with 4 of us being here who weren't on the lease.Now, Steven & Theresa were dating and sharing a room. Robin & I are dating and sharing a room. Alex has the 3rd room and Tom sleeps on the couch. A few days ago, Steven and Theresa broke up. At the moment Steven & Theresa are the only ones with jobs (But Alex, Tom, Robin & Myself all paid rent through July already). Theresa hasn't paid a single bill since she moved in, but expects everybody to bow down before her because her name is on the lease. She's been comfortably letting Steven pay for everything. Because they broke up, and Steven isn't on the lease and under no obligation to stay, Steven is leaving. As a result, Theresa says she's kicking out everyone else who isn't on the lease (even though we've paid through July already) and moving some other people in because Steven won't be here to pay her bills.How nice.Being that 4 of us aren't on the lease, we can't really contest the decision. However, I have already spoken with the other 2 on the lease and the other people Theresa plans to have move in.Tom and Meredith (the other two on the lease) are going to go to the office of the apartment complex and tell them that they refuse to live with Theresa anymore and to be signed off the lease. Now, Theresa can say no to that simply by not agreeing to release them from the lease. However, her life would be made hell by a lot of people if she tries to keep them on the lease.Also, the other people that Theresa wants to move in said, "There is no way in hell I'd live with her.. not with how she treats people".Now, though I take no small amount of pleasure in the knowledge that Theresa is going to get screwed on this as a result of screwing everyone else, it still leaves me with an issue.I have 2 weeks to find a job and a place to live in this town or I get to move to my dad's for a couple months. BUT.. he lives in the desert of Eastern Oregon (I know.. it's not the real desert but I'm used to a nice green cooler valley). I have to move there long enough to save up to get my own place back here.. which could take anywhere from 2-5 months.Allow me to give you a little bit more background on Theresa. Her and Steven had been dating for about 3 months. During the first month, there was some weird arrangement where both Steven and, the bass player for his band, Bob were sleeping with Theresa. During this time Theresa found out she was pregnant with Bob's child (she knew it was his because it was too far along to be Steven's). Bob wanted nothing to do with her or her condition and kicked her out of her apartment. So Theresa hooks up with Steven and moves in with us. Then, down the line we end up moving into this apartment. Theresa gets an abortion. And all of a sudden Bob comes back saying he's changed and he loves her and he regrets breaking up with her. Bob is a woman abuser. He literally beats them and berates them. The only one he's never struck or berated was my girlfriend when he dated her several years ago (which I would kill him for now). One of his ex's is still in therapy because of him and another won't allow Bob to see his child because he's such a piece of [expletive deleted]. Somebody doesn't just change, night to day, when they've been a certain way their whole life. Theresa honestly believes Bob a changed 'man'. But Steven summed it up well when he told her, "You've worked so hard to get this life that you wanted, you deserve everything you get as a result". She'll be crying herself to sleep with Bob any day.Which brings me back to my initial line.. I hate stupid people.As a result of her stupidity, a lot of people are getting screwed over.I hope she's happy. Now, time to go make sure she's unhappy.

HAHAHA, well half of us voted against him this last election. But he was appointed the position by a judge.. not awarded by votes.

You'd be suprised what people will do for power. See my previous post. It may not be able to be blamed solely on the president, but you can bet him and much of the rest of our government had a hand in things. There are too many facts to support otherwise.

I'm going to teach you how to create a custom login screen for Ultima Online. Ok, to start, you need a program called MUL Patcher. Unzip that. Next what you will want to do is make backups of -Gumpart.mul -Gumpidx.mul To do that, simply browse to your Ultima Online program folder (generally something like c:\program files\ultima online 2d). I recommend just making a copy of each file and changing the file extension of the copy to .MOD. Next, you want to open Mulpatcher. On the settings tab (the one displayed by default), you need to tell it where the Gumpart.mul and Gumpidx.mul files are located. So browse to your UO directory and select the files. Then hit the load button. Now you're going to want to switch over to tab "Gump (nonAnim)". In the list box on the left you should see a bunch of values. Scroll down to 0x2329 (it may be different on yours but it'll be close to that at least). Right click on the number, and select save to bitmap. Now, I recommend you use Photoshop for the next part because I don't really know Paintshop's capabilities anymore. Open the saved bitmap image up in Photoshop. Create your login screen. Now, before you save it, do the following in Photoshop. - In the menu, click "Image". - Go to "Mode". - Select "Indexed Color". - Click OK on whatever pops up. Now, you've just reduced it to a decently sized, compressed bitmap. Now, to save it, go to "File>Save As..". Change the 'Format:' to BMP if necessary. Hit Save. Now, in BMP options, it should have 8-bit selected (if it doesn't then you didn't do the previous step) . Also, make sure "Compress (RLE)" is checked. Then hit OK. And it's saved. Now, to import it back into the client files. Go back to mulpatcher. On the "Gump (nonAnim)" tab again, scroll down to 0x2329 (or whatever yours was). Right click on it and select "Load from bitmap" (NOTE: NOT "Load from bitmap to verdata" !!!). If the new image is displayed, you were succesful. Click back over to the settings tab and save the Gumpart.mul and Gumpidx.mul files. Now, when you run it locally, it will have your artwork. If you want other people connecting to the server to see it, you have to send them your Gumpart.mul and Gumpidx.mul. Run through the motions on this a couple of times and you will be able to modify any in-game graphic you want! I hope this helps!

Update: We were still having issues and a representative said they'd send a tech out to put a signal booster on the line. Guess who comes out? The same tech that refused to do the job before. He refused again and was asked to leave again. This time he yelled obsceneties after the door was closed on him. There are a lot of children around, as this is an apartment complex. The language he used was unacceptable. We obviously reported him, and the representative assured us that he would not return to our house.

I have yet to have a bad experience with a dentist, but then again, I have near-perfect teeth heh. I've been to the dentist twice in my life and I could probably chew re-bar with these things. The first problem I've had with my teeth is just recently, my wisdom teeth are coming in. I thought 2 of them were coming in crooked but they straightened out. I'm glad to have been born with teeth darn-near made of marble heh. I've had bad hospital experiences though.

If I were to believe in a god, I certainly wouldn't choose any of the religions that there are. It's my understanding that you shouldn't need a priest or a church or a book to be a good person and believe in something. People aren't so ignorant that they need one of those three things to define right and wrong for them. To me, nobody that's a part of an organized religion has it right. But, then again, I don't believe in god so I'm sure one of you will tell me that I don't have a say in the matter or something. Religion is nothing more than an excuse and a security blanket. I used to attend a youth group when I was younger. Our "church" was my friend's back yard (his dad was the pastor). He didn't have any nice cars or money, because he didn't collect donations. Where does that money go in a normal church? Into some big ridiculous building and the pastor's pocket. Sometimes they donate it but not very often. He didn't claim any certain religion, just 'believers'. He used the bible as references not a rule book. I'd have to say of all of the "faithfuls" that I've seen in my life, those of that youth group had the strongest conviction and most convincing faith.I was turned away from a Catholic church because I wouldn't take part in there tithing, or whatever it's called. I simply didn't see a need for the church to have a percentage of my check every week. I think I need it more than them. If people would sit down.. and read every "guideline" in the bible and then look at how they are actually living (WITHOUT having their eyes closed like so many are) they would realize they are making a horrid mockery of what faith is. Faith is just that, faith. You believe or you don't. You don't need to start a cult to profess it.

Our speeds have still been pretty slow.. so we called Comcast back. They said they were going to send a tech out to put a signal booster on the line. Guess which tech comes out?!? The same one that wouldn't get under the table before. First thing he says when he gets in the room is "I see you still haven't moved your equipment." Yes, he refused to do the work, AGAIN, because the modem is under a table with plenty of clearance. That guy is about as useful as a boob on my elbow. So my roommate escorted him out and slammed the door on him.. and the tech has the nerve to yell "[F-word] OFF!!". So my roommate opens the door and says, "WHAT DID YOU SAY??", and the tech repeats himself. I ask the tech, "This is your idea of customer service??". The tech says, "Ya, [F-word] OFF!". Yelling it in my apartment complex. I spoke directly to that tech's immediate boss and the tech is already suspended and likely fired. Why would he do something like that? Does he think we're not going to call and complain? Seriously...

Thanks for the invite dontmaimyourself!! I'll probably write something up about it later.

Oh ya, I know all about the routes you guys got.. pretty lame deal unless your pay was good.Ya, we are always nice to the techs when they come out and perform a satisfactory job.. I'll even force tips on em sometimes =P .. but the one we had come here was just a moron.The birthday, right on! Mine's in 5 days heh.

Right on.. I was a dispatcher for DirecTV and Dish Network installers. It's like they think an apartment full of tech nerds aren't going to notice a problem with the connection and expect it fixed.

I have been a Comcast faithful ever since they came to Oregon. Until now, I've had no complaints. Sure, there's been downtimes and a lag spike every now and then. But that's all nothing compared to what we're dealing with now.We got in on a special and ordered an 8mbit broadband connection from Comcast. Since the install date, about 2 weeks ago, we've received less than half of that 8mbit. I understand the concept of cable internet and sharing with the neighbors and they can't guarantee the maximum speeds. If we were paying for the 4mbit I would accept a 3-3.5 mbit connection. But we are paying for 8mbit. This is unacceptable. And that's just the speed.Along with the blazing, turtle-like speeds, our connection is dropping a lot. Cable's draw was supposed to speed and stability. We're getting neither. Our connection drops, completely, once or twice a day. That's in addition to the hardcore lag spikes, crippling our connection down to around 300 kbps for spans of up to 20 minutes at a time, multiple times a day. Now, let's get into customer service.Three times now we've requested techs come look at our system. The first one, never showed. The second one came over and refused to do the job because the modem was on the floor under a card table with the cisco switch and the vonage router. He told his supervisor that there were a bunch of 16-18 yr old kids getting drunk and high and that he was asked to leave. The reality, 4 people (aside from the technician) were in the house, all over 22 (aside from me but I will be 22 in 6 days) and MAYBE 3 of us had a beer in-hand. Hardly seems like a raging party full of minors. And yes, he was asked to leave. But it was after he said he refused to get down and work on the modem under the table with the rest of the hardware and we called him worthless and told him to go and we'd call for a better tech. The third tech that showed up was quite helpful and polite, but was unable to fix the issue completely. Now we come to the web-based chat support agents. What a worthless lot. We've probably spoken to 10 chat support representatives in the last 2 weeks and not one of them could give us a straight answer as to why our connection was so bad. They all just kept giving us the same "line speed is not guaranteed" speech and then some random excuse as to why it's not working. We've saved every conversation log.Hopefully we can endure this for the next month or two before we switch to Verizon FIOS (Fiber-optic to the premesis =] .. lines will be provisioned within 1-2 months). I have to say I am very disappointed with Comcast. They were my first non-dialup connection and I've enjoyed the service every bit until now.

I've been having some issues as of late with our internet service provider, Comcast. We're paying for an 8mbit connection and only getting about 3.5mbit. I know they say speeds aren't guaranteed but they should NOT be at all times HALF what you're paying for. Not to mention we lose connection completely at least once a day for more than 10 minutes. Now. We called for a week to get a technician out here (since the day they hooked it up) because when they hooked it up, they disabled the free extended basic cable television we get through our apartment complex. So, one comes out a week later and says we have to pay for our FREE cable (???!!!!????). So the roommate says, "Fine, whatever, just get it turned back on".Then the next day we start to notice the slow speeds. Out of 4 computers in the house and 8 or 9 different websites used, none of our bandwidth speed tests exceeded 4mbit. So, we call up Comcast again and they send a technician out. Now, the cable modem is in a bedroom underneath a card table sitting directly on top of the big cisco switch, next to the vonage router. This [multiple expletives deleted] guy won't kneel down and reach under the table to get the modem. Four feet of clearance and he refuses to do the work. So we proceed to call him worthless and tell him to just leave and we'll call for a better tech. He tells Comcast that it was an apartment full of like 16-18 yr olds drinking and getting high and we told him to leave the party. What? There was like 4 of us standing around, and maybe 3 of us had a beer in hand. Not to mention, everybody here is 22+ (except me but I'll be 22 in 6 days). What?So, we call Comcast again, they send out a better tech. He comes and checks out the modem and messes with something outside. We got the connection dropping resolved but it's still slow and he wasn't sure about it . So, we're STILL waiting on Comcast, like 2 weeks later, to get our service right. Oooh man if only FIOS was available here.I just did a bandwidth test, 3784.8 kbps. Lame.

I hope everyone had a good easter! So much ham and deviled eggs left in the fridge! Oh man I can't wait til lunch time heh . The girlfriend and her brother's girlfriend dyed eggs for a drunken egghunt but that never happened. All-in-all it was a decent enough Easter... aside from the girlfriend's family being there hehe (they hate me) =)