*Sigh*

Well… I changed the forum from BBPress to PhpBB3. BBPress is so nice and light, but its a bit hard to use, and lacks some features. Modding it is a bit difficult.. So I decided it wasn’t too far along to scrap and start anew. 
Let’s hope the new Phpbb forum will withstand the test of time, it will definitely serve us well… 

Hey all,

I’ve decided to launch a forum attached to the Wordpress site. It runs BBPress and has quite the odd theme.. So you will find it very different then other forums…
Well, I’d appreciate it if everyone would make it a success, and I’m sure we could all have some fun on the forums!

You can access them by clicking here or the forum link at the top of the page.

So the other night I saw The Dark Knight at the midnight showing at my local theater, or as they should of called it, the Batman movie. In short, it was good, and I highly recommend you go see it. Two things that kind of annoyed me:

 • His Voice. When he is just Bruce, his voice is completely normal. However, when he is Batman, they made his voice INSANELY deep, and added SO much bass to it, to the point were it was hardly understandable. Just lowering it would of been sufficient.

 • Surprise ending? When - Spoilier: Click To Reveal - I seriously thought that was going to be the ending. It would of been a nice sad ending, but that was only halfway through the movie. After reading Wikipedia about some of the names I couldn’t remember, I noticed that - Spoilier: Click To Reveal - a detail that I missed in the theatre.

Other then those small issues I had with the movie, it was great! I still recommend you see it!

iPhoneOS 2.0 - 
Now that the new iPhone/iTouch operating system has been jailbroken, I’ve bought it and installed it, and taken a good look at it. Yes, bought - if you’re on an iPod Touch, it costs 9.95$ to upgrade to. For the original and 3G iphone, it is free. The App Store is incredible - there’s so much, and many of them are free, too! The infamous “Installer” (What jailbroken iPods used to get stuff) hasn’t been ported it, but there is Cydia, which is a GUI for apt-get. However, there aren’t many apps out yet for 2.0 - Of the GUI apps I had on my older system, NES.app is the only ported so far - keep in mind I’ve installed this a day after the Jailbreak for it was released, so many more are expected. From the App Store, I’ve tried out AOL Messenger, AOL Radio, Remote, Tap-Tap Revenge, and VNC. Here’s my opinions - 

 • AOL - Definitely much better then existing IM programs for the ipod. I couldn’t figure out how to log out, though. :( Recommended.
 •  AOL Radio - They have a WIDE variety of channels, at impressive audio quality, and it’s a fairly solid stream, too. Also recommended. 
 • Remote - This is a controller for iTunes (Control iTunes from your iPod). This is pretty cool too, and was extremely easy to set up.
 • Tap-Tap Revenge - This is like Guitar Hero, but you tab dots that come down lines… Kinda fun.
 • VNC -  This app is good too, but TouchPad is better. TouchPad is only for <= 1.1.4, though.

Screenshots! In order - Home Screen, Google Maps, AOL Radio, Remote, Remote, App Store, App Store, AOL Messenger. You can click them for a full-size image.

And don’t you forget it!

What?!?? How could one of the most hated countries in the world kick so much ass?

1: Our President is an Idiot. But, you know what that means? He can do what HE WANTS. The crazier he is, the more feared we are. Right now, any terrorist sons of bitches are QUAKING in their shoes, because Bush’s term is almost over. He can do anything he wants and not deal with the consequences! The next guy will! Crazy people are scary! 

2: Our President is Badass. Know what he did at the end of the G8 summit meeting? He said, Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter, and then, “punched the air while grinning widely“. This, at the end of a serious meeting? He is either an idiot, or bad-ass! But we know its both.

3: We Saved The World’s Ass. (Twice!). Any european who doesn’t also love America can SUCK IT. If it weren’t for us you all would be speaking german right now, or dead, and living under a dictator. Most of the european nations were getting their asses handed to them by the Nazi war machine until AMERICA came in the war and saved the day. In World War II, the Germans were literally at their doorstep, bombing them every day! America became involved, and over several years, pushed them, thousands of miles, all the way back to Germany and ended the war. Be grateful. 

4: We Are Stopping Terrorists All Over The World. What? You think WWII is old history? Guess what, we’re still fighting to make this a better place, every day. If it wasn’t for us, terrorists would have SO much more funding to carry out attacks on YOU. WE took out Afghanistan and Iraq, two major funders and safehouses for terrorist activity. 

What does America want? We’re bailing everyone out from trouble they don’t have the resources or balls to deal with. We don’t have the resources to keep doing this forever, and the least we demand is a little respect.

OM NOM NOM NOM…. Oh hey! It’s 2 am, and although I don’t consider it the 15th, it is, and that means it is my birthday, and I turn 18! Can I get a Woot woot? 

Heh, this is a good break from my long-winded ranting.

I’m sure most people reading this have seen their ads on television and other places, and sure yeah, they look good. LOOK GOOD. That’s about it. First off, an example. This is totally worth the watch.

(Video - 4:56 - 9.4mb).

If you’re too lazy to watch it, here’s a summary - the news guy bought a BRAND NEW dell, and unplugged one small cable inside it, disabling CD audio. Then, they took it to two local shops, both of which correctly diagnosed and repaired the problem for less then 70$. Next, they broke it again, took it best buy’s Geek Squad. THEY diagnosed it (JUST DIAGNOSED, NOT FIXED) as having spyware/adware and driver issues! WHAT! Not only that, it cost 70$! To actually FIX it, it would been another 130$!. They confronted the the manager, who, basically avoided answering, then went and asked the actual technician who diagnosed the computer. Neither could produce an answer, and neither gave an explanation.

Now, here’s my experiences. After reading how crappy they are, I decided it would be better not to deal with paid services. So, I contacted them with their live chat thing, which, is another epic fail - you have to download it EVERY time you want to yell at them - and it’s not just a simple web interface, it’s an entire application you download. Any idiot who knows a decent web language could make a web interface for this for free. 

So anyways, I finally got in contact with them, and talked to an “Agent Salisbury”. (Mmmm… Salisbury…) I described the wifi driver error I’ve been having on my dell laptop (NO problems on my mac, TYVM), and he said….

[2:53 PM] Agent Salisbury says: This is a Software error that Could mean almost anything, You would need to bring this into the store so we can look in the Event Viewer and Determine the problem

So there’s an app that can be used to diagnose stuff? Cool I bet I could do it.

[2:57 PM] Agent Salisbury says: I apologize, i cannot give technical information, However if you check Google for Event Viewer, This will Give you steps on how to bring this up

[12:30 PM] Agent John says: Our in home service is $299.99 plus tax, which of course is a flat rate. It  comes with our 30 day in-home guarantee, meaning if the same problem reoccurs after we have left, we will come back to fix it in your home at no additional cost to you. 

Towards the end of my shift, I was called over to help install a security and customization package on a newly purchased computer. For those who do not understand, a security package is the ability for a customer to wait an extra 30 to 45 minutes for their computer, plus pay an additional fee on top of the cost of software they could have installed themselves. Customization is the word we used rather than, “We are going to uninstall all of the useless garbage that computer manufacturers pre-install on your computer.”

However, the situation almost immediately graduated from frustrating to infuriating. One of the three folders I had marked on the form was the “My Documents” folder. The icon for this folder on the hard drive indicated that the file size was 1 KB. The technicians at Best Buy had NOT backed up the “My Documents” folder, as I had requested: they had backed up only the shortcut. None of the files within the folder had actually been transferred.

 I was finally told that if my iPod did not come in the next day that I would be getting a brand new one. It came the next day.

….

A new iPod! I was very excited. In one week I got an iPod in the mail. The box said it was a refurbished 4th generation. Not exactly new. Oh well. Then I opened the box.

….

Well, I tried to turn it on, and the hard drive was also dead. Not just dead, but you could feel all of the parts inside shaking around!

….

I pointed at the box with a “Quality Tested” sticker printed on it (twice), and he just laughed