Slacker

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Well, you know it's been too long between posts when my page layout starts to break. Well, let's see what's been going on: * My moving plans are pretty much solidified. Leaving the glorious state of Pennsylvania and the even more glorious city of Pittsburgh the last weekend of August. My "sister(my darling sister at xmas last year)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20031225_xmas/P1010026.jpg is going to come out and help me do the drive down, which is awesome. I've got the truck rental reservation, and I keep checking and the price keeps dropping, so I have them update my rental. Down $700 so far from what is was initially going to be. I nearly shit my pants the other day when it looked like it had dropped $2000, but then I realized I had typed in "Tucson, AZ 15221 (which is a Pittsburgh zip code)" and it thought I was doing a local move. Ooops. Gonna get a trailer for the "new car":http://edmunds.com/new/2004/subaru/impreza/100273633/researchlanding.html (which has been loads of fun, BTW), and load the cats in the car and let them yowl for all they're worth back where I can't hear them. The heat is a bit of a concern, but I'll try and get sunshades in all the windows, do as much of the driving at night as possible, and of course I'm sure I'll be pulling over every 5 seconds to check on them anyway.

* My "audit":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001139/ with Pittsburgh so far has been suprisingly easy. Called the city person on the phone, told her what was going on, and I'm just in the process of retrieving all my W-2s from my various employers from the last few years. Yes, I know I'm supposed to keep 7 years worth, but that's what former employers or payroll companies are for, right? Anyway, so far it looks like I was paying in the correct amount for every job besides this one, so I shouldn't get dinged too badly. I must say that for a city in the "middle of a fiscal crisis":http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/specialreports/pghincrisis/, they don't seem to be too eager to get their money.

* The plans for Tucson are already shaping up to be fantastic. "Paul and April(Paul and April at her birthday party)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20030331_aprils_birthday/P3312882.JPG are all excited for me to get out there, and we've got reservations at "Hueco":http://0friction.com/thumbz.php?area_id=45 pretty much every weekend of the winter. They keep telling me that it's better than Bishop, so I can't wait to check it out. There's some things I want to make sure I do while in AZ, like 1) Drink "more water":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000861/. 2) Make sure to take my "psyllium husk":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000793/ every day. 3) Convert my "cyclocross bike":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000012/ into a "single-speed":http://www.singlespeedsanonymous.com/ to make my daily rides more fun.

* Poker has been good. My play at limit raise has been horrible, both online and during the "weekly events":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/poker/ (which unfortunately have been less than weekly lately). I'm convinced that most of limit play is pure luck; you either get the cards or you don't. However, I've been kicking ass and taking names at the $10 SNG(Sit-n-Go) single table tournaments on PartyPoker. I've cashed in probably 75% of the tourneys I've been in, and even won a couple for $50. Certainly it's the most consistantly profitible playing I've done. I might even be able to make gas money out of it! Oh! I'm also playing in a $50 buy-in tourney next weekend a little north of the city. Should be a good time, and I'll try and remember more than the hand I bust out on to write it up.

Wacky wild, weekend-style

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Well, it was an insane weekend... not even sure where to begin. Lots of stuff happened on Friday, so I guess I should just lay everything out: * I'm getting audited by the City of Pittburgh. I looked back at my records and figured out that my current job wasn't taking out my 3% tax like my previous jobs were. I had never filed before, because I figured that since my 3% was getting paid there was no need. I had hoped that the city would just send me a bill, but apparently they think an audit would be more fun!

* Got a letter informing me that my car's lease is ending in 2 weeks. I had thought all this time that I had a 3-year, 3-month lease and in October I'd be car shopping, but apparently I was wrong. So, went car shopping Monday and bought a leftover "2004 WRX wagon":http://edmunds.com/new/2004/subaru/impreza/100273633/researchlanding.html. Got a really good deal; just a few hundred over invoice and a nice chunk taken off because it was a leftover. Should get it this week. The sad (good) thing is that the financing is only going to be about $40 more a month than my GTI's lease payment. Sheesh.

* Since my move to Boulder never happened, I've continued to have a little bit of a fire under my butt about moving. Seemed a shame to waste all that packing and stuff I did, right? So, the tentative plan is a move to Tucson. I have climbing friends that live out there now, and love it! They've been cool enough to offer me their guest house, so the plan sounds something like this:

# Pack all my shit up and move to Tucson. # Look at houses in Tucson, Phoenix and Vegas baby, Vegas.

I have been keen on moving to the southwest ever since my first trip to Bishop a few years back. The desert sky is huge, the humidity is nothing like the east coast, and snow? What's snow?

It's the right time for me to make the move, I think. I don't own a house. I'm single. There's tons of stuff nearby; all kinds of rock climbing in the immediate area ("Hueco":http://rockclimbing.com/photos.php?AreaID=53&Period=ALL is 5 hours away). Biking, hiking... all the fun stuff I like to do. More updates as I decide just what the heck I'm going to do.

Howard Stern back on in Pittsburgh

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Just got done listening to the press conference, but the upshot is that "Howard":http://www.howardstern.com/ is back on after "getting yanked":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000900/ a few months back. He "ranted about the FCC(Federal Communications Commission) and bush":http://www.gawker.com/topic/fcc-chairman-michael-powell-out-howard-stern-in-017026.php, and talked about the 5 markets he's back on in, as well as 4 new ones. Most all of them are in battleground states (Florida, Pennsylvania), so it'll be interesting to see how much of an effect, if any, he'll have in November. I'm not really a huge fan of Stern's. I think he got very dull after his movie came out. I was briefly interested again when his divorce happened, and he spoke very openly about it, but the show content got pretty predictable again. Now with the FCC(Federal Communications Commission) crackdown, he seems to be revitalized; a man recharged. While I still probably won't listen very often, I think it's really important for free speech that he's back on, and I'm hoping he can at least avoid fines until after the election.

Return of the King of All Media

Cable -vs- Satellite: This Time It's Personal

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Got home from work yesterday, and was settling down to do a little bit of work on the computer, so I flipped on the television to catch some Simpsons. Hm... "Station not available", ok... go up a channel, and then down a channel. Still nothing. Alright, no problem, I've had issues with my DirecTV reciever before from time to time... just turn it off, unplug it, pull the "access card":http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2004/04/directv_hacking.html, wait a few minutes and then plug everything back in. That's odd... that didn't fix it, and I'm not even getting the time set on my receiver. Maybe my cats finally chewed through the sat line coming out of the wall. The one cat loooves to chew on things, and the nice soft rubber coating around the speaker wires seems to suit his fancy. Move the TV away from the wall... doesn't look any worse than from before. Lemme look on "TiVo":http://feralboy.com/matt/tivo/ to see when it died. Ok, recorded Conan at noon, that worked ok. X-Files at 4? Nope. So, that means whatever happened happened between noon and 4. The storms last night didn't start until after I got home, so that wasn't it. Last thing, I went to go look down in the basement at the wiring junction box.

A little bit of background. About 3 years ago, right after I had moved into my current building, I wanted to get a dish on the roof. I had had one at the house I was at before, and I liked having NYC local news, a) because it reminded me more of home, and b) because Pittsburgh local news is crap! I checked with the building owner, and he said no problem.

The guys from the "home theatre shop":http://www.dvpgh.com/dvsite/ where I had bought all my stuff came out to help me install my new "HD-capable receiver":http://www.audioreview.com/PRD_126691_2720crx.aspx. They got the dish and the OTA(Over The Air) antenna installed on the roof just fine, but the issue came where they tried to figure out how to run the lines into my apartment. My building is an old converted schoolhouse, with stone walls that are about a foot thick, and not very good for drilling through. Luckily, all the apartments were pre-wired for cable. There is a junction box in the basement, where the main cable feed comes in from the street, and then there are two lines which run off to each apartment, which is clearly labeled with the apartment number. I called the cable company (I forget who it was at the time, but they were bought by "Comcast":http://www.comcast.com/ about a year or so ago, but we'll get to that), and they told me that althought it was all their wiring, their responsibility for it ended at the street, so if the building owner was ok with it, I could do anything I wanted in the box.

Problem was, there was a padlock on the wiring box. The cable company rep said they couldn't get anyone out there to open it for at least a week, which did me no good since the guys from the home theatre shop were there right then. So, they snipped the metal ring which the padlock was locked into, bent the right _just_ enough to get the lock out, and we were in. The wiring was fairly complex, as there were only two lines running to each apartment's wiring plate, and I had 2 lines coming from the dish, and one coming from the OTA(Over The Air) antenna. I'm not quite sure about all the ins and outs, but a bunch of line splitters and new connects later, and a splitter in my apartment, and we were up and running. I had two sat lines; one for the "dedicated" sat receiver (which has since died), and one for the newer receiver, so I could watch something other than what TiVo was recording, and the antenna line for the local channel HD(High Definition) broadcasts. And Matt saw that it was good.

Back to last night. I go downstairs, and in the basement I find that all my carefully spliced and split and joined coaxial cables are sitting in a bag on the floor next to the junction box! Plus, the line going to my apartment has been pulled outside the junction box, and there's a new single splice in there! What the fuck? I look inside the box, and there's new little plastic "Comcast" tags on all the apt. lines in there. So, my guess was that someone was having line problems (in this day and age of digital cable, when you want HBO, you don't have to send someone out to pull the little CO2 cartridge-shaped line filter off of your line (like my old roomate Tom did when he stole cable back in college), you just type some keys in the central office, so it makes sense that nobody had been physically there all that time), and the tech came, saw my splices and figured I was stealing cable and cut everything.

Oh, I was hot. Not just because it was hot in my apartment and I had been messing around over even hotter electronics equipment, but because I was _pissed_. I got on the phone to Comcast's customer service (it's interesting to try and talk to someone and explain to them you don't have an account with them, but they still need to help you), talked to one guy, tried to find out if they knew of anyone actually _being_ at my building that day, asked for his supervisor, and finally got to a nice guy, also named Matt. He apologized profusely, and said that when a field tech runs into something like that, they're supposed to call a supervisor and follow this whole procedure, which I guess they didn't.

Bottom line is the local supervisor is supposed to call me today so we can figure out what happened. Then, either Comcast is going to send someone over to try and rewire everything, or if they can't I can get my original installers to come out and do it, and they can bill Comcast directly for the work. I'm hoping this will be relatively painless, but I have a feeling it won't, especially when I send Comcast a bill for a prorated amount of my DirecTV service that I lose until somebody fixes it. I'll keep you posted.

*Update #1:* Hey, how about that? I actually got a call from the tech; they're heading over to my building now to put it back on how it was. I can't leave work to go test it in my apt. after they're done, but if it doesn't work, they'll come back out again when I can actually test it.

*Update #2:* Wow, they fixed it! I have to say I'm impressed with how quickly and professionally they handled it.

MS150

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Well, this past weekend was the MS150 ride, from Cranberry to Lake Erie in Ohio. 150 miles over 2 days; 80 the first day (I skipped the 100-mile "century" option) and 70 the 2nd day. I think I was more worried about the planning for the trip, and remembering to bring all the right things than I was about the actual ride. "David":http://bigbrit.blogspot.com/ was very helpful and sent a list of what to bring, what to eat, what to drink, etc. I got to the start point Saturday morning, and it was insane! I have a bit of a problem with large crowds of people, or anything feeling a little too "feel good":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000244/, so I was really close to hopping right back in my car and heading home, but I didn't. Found Lauren, who at the last second decided she could do the ride, dropped off our luggage at the truck that would bring it to Allegheny College, and we were off!

The riding was easy, and went through lots of pretty countryside on 2-lane roads. We did our best to stay away from packs of people, as a lot of them didn't know how to ride well (there was this one woman we called "Dizzy" that we kept seeing who would swerve all over the place. When I saw her at the end of the day, I half expected her to be completely cross-eyed, but she wasn't). There were rest stops set up every 10-15 miles with water, snacks, porta-potties, bike maintenance and medical attention, if you needed it. I actually needed to stop at the first rest stop and get some band-aids to cover my one nipple. Ever since I've had them pierced (going on 10 years now) my one has always been a little more sensitive than the other, and my shirt flapping in the wind against it was making the jewelry move, and was going to make it really really unhappy. A bit of tape to hold it down solved that problem nicely.

By the end of the first day, I was feeling pretty good. No muscle fatigue, but my knees were singing. I have bad knees anyway, and after all the riding going from bent to straight was really uncomfortable. A whole bunch of "Vitamin I" helped out with that, and sleeping wasn't bad Saturday night.

Sunday I was a little stiff, but some more ibuprofen and a leisurely breakfast got me going. The riding this day was even easier; more flat, less hills and decent road surface. There was one interesting thing that happened; midway through the ride Lauren and this fellow Bob that we had met were riding about 20 feet or so ahead of me, and a guy had pulled off to the side of the road (but not on to the shoulder) ahead of them. He was repeating something like "go around" or "go left" or something as riders came up on him, but Lauren didn't move around him until the last 5-10 feet or so. As she passed by, I heard him say "Crazy bitch!" as _I_ was passing by, so I turned around and started screaming at him: "Excuse me?! You don't fucking talk to my friend like that!" He had some Canadian flag stuck in his helmet, and I wish I had the quick wit to say something like "Take your universal healthcare, bacon and Celine Dion and shove it up your ass, eh?!", but I always think of these things 30 seconds too late.

The last half of Sunday I was alone, and just pounded out the miles. I wish my commute was more like that, but I guess the hills are fun in their own way. At the finish line there were some people with MS applauding the riders as they crossed the finish line, so that was pretty cool.

Thanks to everyone who wished me well, and especially to everyone who sponsored me.

Email crap

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Seems that email going to my domain account today isn't getting through. So, if you sent me an email, I don't think I got it. That's not to say that I'll never get it, or I got it and I don't love you and am just ignoring you, I'm just having tech difficulties. So, either just be patient, or if it's a barn-burning issue try sending to my "gmail":http://gmail.com/ account, with "mattcomroe" as the username.

*Update:* Hey, I heard back from my tech support folks, and they quoth thusly:

bq.. We are currently clearing a mail backup issue which is probably the cause of you not receiving email at this time.

We are estimating the issue to be resolved shortly.

p. So, that's good stuff.

*Update #2:* Well, it's sort of working, but not really. All my email seems to be coming through on like a 3-4 hour delay. I hope they'll have it fully back and working by tomorrow so I can get some coordination done in case we have poker night.

*Update #3:* Ugh, this just gets more annoying. Just got this from support:

bq.. A recent virus/worm outbreak has hit one of our mail servers very hard. This has affected a large number of our clients.

In response to this event we have implemented a new anti-virus device that is stopping the viruses and is protecting the mail server from being overwhelmed. Unfortunately, the vendors claims of the amount of emails/day that this device would handle fell far short of what it is actually capable of.

The result is that while mail is being delivered and viruses are being filtered, the filtering device is introducing considerable delays in the processing of email, on the order of one to two hours at peak times.

We have expedited the delivery of additional anti-virus devices that will be able to handle the volume of email required and which will eliminate the delays in email delivery. We anticipate that we have the new devices on Friday June 18 or perhaps Monday June 21.

Due to the volume of worm and virus-laden emails being received we must filter them out. If we do not filter these worms/viruses out they will overwhelm the mail server which would result in a total loss of email service for clients on this server.

Until such time as we receive our next anti-virus device we have no choice but to live with the delays in email delivery. At this point it is a choice between slow email and no email.

We are working around the clock on this problem and we have allocated substantial resources to the resolution of this problem.

We understand and appreciate the value you place on your email functionality and we are working as hard as we can to resolve this issue as fast as possible.

Your patience and understanding during this difficult time are appreciated. Please rest assured that everything that can be done is being done.

p. So I'm going to have worthless email for a few more days. Keep it coming to gmail, I suppose.

Ok, seriously...

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There should be a fucking competency exam for the self-checkout line at the grocery store. If you're trying to scan your "Coinstar":http://coinstar.com/ reciept as a "coupon", and the clear female voice is telling you that it's invalid and you should press the cashier button and pay up front, that means you should push the cashier button and pay up front instead of trying to scan it 3 more times with the same dumb bovine expression on your stupid fucking cow face. </rant>

The red badge of geekiness

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Thanks to "David":http://bigbrit.blogspot.com/, I now have a "GMail":http://gmail.com/ account! Now I can stop making random posts to our "defunct climbing co-op page":http://pittwall.blogspot.com/ in the hopes that being a more active "Blogger":http://blogger.com/ user would get me an invite. So far it seems pretty cool. I like the way that email threads are shown as "conversations", and I can't get over the 1GB of storage. Anyway, as I get some invites (and based on "this Wired story":http://wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,63786,00.html they're being handed out much more freely these days), I'll be passing them along to whoever. "Joshua":http://firepile.com/log/ totally gets one, because he's a big nerd like me, but if anyone else wants one, just let me know.

Oh, and my address is mattcomroe (and you can figure out the rest).

MPT Week #6

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Last night was the first night of poker in "David's":http://bigbrit.blogspot.com/ new house. Most people couldn't make it for various and sundry reasons, but we had 4 people, so that was enough for a few hours of limit raise. Casey even made "poker chip cookies":http://moblg.net/view.php?id=10907 for us to munch on! From the first hand on, it was pretty clear that I wasn't getting the same sort of cards that I had "the week before":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001107/. With play being only 4-handed, I loosened up my starting requirements somewhat, but just wasn't catching cards. I was getting whittled away slowly, with David and Jason building up their stacks nicely, and Joshua going out pretty early.

Towards the very end of the night I started to come back. I drew a flush on the river which got me a nice pot from David, and then I played the Best. Hand. Ever.

I was in the big blind, and got dealt the mother of all hands, the one that "Iggy":http://guinnessandpoker.blogspot.com/ and I like to call "The Hammer", statistically the worst possible starting hand, 2-7 offsuit. I raised pre-flop, David folded, and Jason called. Flop came out with low cards, including a 2, so now I was paired up. Jason checked, signifying that he hadn't paired anything on the board, so I raised. He called, and the next card came. Now the board paired, so I was looking at 2 pair. Throwing caution to the wind, and determined to bring "The Hammer", I raised again. Jason called once more, and then the river came. Another 2. With the board already paired, that meant that I had a full house. From 2-7o. Unbelievable. Jay checked, I raised, he called, and I pulled in a monster pot. Back from the dead, again.

Next hand was going to be the last hand of the night. I look down at 8-3 offsuit, which is probably the 2nd worst starting hand, declare it "The Mini-Hammer", and start betting away. It was nearly a mirror image of the previous hand. I kept betting, and Jason kept calling. An 8 came on the flop, the board paired on the turn, and the miracle 3rd 8 came on the river, giving me 2 full houses. In a row. From absolutely horrible starting hands.

So, by the end of the night I was only down $7, and as David put it "that's a whole lot of entertainment for $7". David made about $6-7 himself, and Jason was the big winner, coming out $30 over what he came in with, or "a can of paint", as there was much discussion of home improvement last night.

When I got home I went on partypoker.com for a few minutes, and on about the fourth hand I drew to a flush and put some joker all-in, and wound up taking the pot, and making about $20 in five minutes, thereby wiping out any losses from earlier in the evening.

Some other highlights of the evening: * David had pocket aces. THREE TIMES. * Funniest hand of the night saw the board come up with a straight, 10-to-A, so the pot was split between Jason and David. The kicker? They were holding Q-Q and A-A, respectively. * "The cookies":http://moblg.net/view.php?id=10907. Definitely the cookies.

This morning, Pat wondered how I had all this money to be playing poker, and I have to say it's because I'm outsourcing critical help desk support for feralboy.com overseas:

Feralboy.com's Bangalore offices