The Nets Edge

“You do what you have to to survive, so that you can enjoy doing what you don't have to and live.”

Thanks to grandma, tomorrow Lynn and I are going to Charleston for a 3 day weekend without the kids to celebrate our 13 year anniversary. It'll be the first time the two of us have gone on vacation alone in six years...and we're both sick.

Calista and Tristan are doing fine, Lynn's been fighting something for over a week now but finally starting to feel better (I think) and I've just come down with something over the last day or so.

We'll have fun if it kills us!

All of the pictures can be found here. Or just browse the gallery on the right hand side.

Life seems to work in trifectas. I heard a clip release on the news from Al Jazeera last week, Sunday night Al Jazeera is brought up in the Sopranos and today, well let me just ask you to think about what you would do if Al Jazeera called you up to fix a server problem. I guess it depends on whether you think they're just another CNN or FOX or have an ulterior agenda (well, ok, one that's much more negative than FOX or CNN)

There's a discussion going on, I can't say where, about cell phones and warranties. Many cell phone companies have “Point of Sale“ systems that will let them sell waranties for phones they don't actually provide warranties for. For instance, Cingular doesn't insure their more expensive phones yet their store fronts will gladly sell you one. You won't know unless there's actually a problem and find that the phone is out of warranty and the warranty you bought is useless.

Now, you'll likely get your money back on the useless warranty you bought...assuming you complain about it enough and to the right people, but think about the people that bought the warranty and never needed it...never finding out it was useless to begin with. How much money do you think they've made on that?

So where does the subject line above come from? A quote from a friend:

“All mobile phone companies (IMO) have dismal customer service and service quality…I mean really, when Cingular can’t come up with anything better to put on their billboards than ‘Fewest dropped calls’, that sort of tells you they’re in a ‘who sucks less?’ industry.

I'll let you guess the locations of one of the people in this conversation. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Abu [12:32 PM]:
I'm back from my dinner
Mr. Orange [12:32 PM]:
congratulations
Mr. Orange [12:33 PM]:
I ate mine at my desk
Abu [12:33 PM]:
we are not allowed these days
Mr. Orange [12:33 PM]:
you aren't allowed.........to eat at your desk ?
Mr. Orange [12:33 PM]:
they afraid you'll spill your drink on the keyboard or something ?
Abu [12:34 PM]:
nope .. they are doing this becoz of rats

:O

It's December 24th, here on the East Coast. Merry Christmas. The kids are in bed tucked in and ready for Santa.

One funny: This site is running a contest for a free copy of “Lost Planet: Extreme Condition” on XBOX 360. All you have to do is write in 25 words or less. If you were lost on a planet forever what would you take and why? Well, I don't know if I exactly covered why, except that forever is a long time, but here's my entry:

Lost on a planet

Forever is a long time

Take clean underwear

Someone at work posted they had a Playstation 3 console for sell “Just in time for Christmas”. Asking price $800.00. Hehe..you have to think if anyone still has $800 left to spend this close to Christmas then they're running a bit behind on their purchases.

Also, don't you hate it when people at work try to scam their fellow workmates for a few extra dollars? We had one fellow try to sell one for $1600 and that was without any games. That's a $1000 profit. You expect this on EBay but not at work. It certainly devalues my opinion of them...not that my opinion about them matters much.

So, Tristan went through a successful adenoidectomy yesterday and woke up this morning and got busy playing. You wouldn't know he had anything done by the looks of it. Calista and Dad on the other hand are both sick. I've had a sore throat for a few days (minor one) which has since gone away and been replaced with a stopped up head and cough. Calista said last night she wasn't feeling too well and started having some little coughs. This morning she sounded a lot worse. Hopefully she'll be good by Christmas.

Hopefully my rant won't offend too many people. Those it does offend, God help you.

Yeah...It's crap like this that pisses me off. Now fundamentally, you can't be a Christian and think everyone is going to be fine when the “End of Days” comes. But seriously when the “Left Behind Games' president, Jeffrey Frichner, says the game actually is pacifist because players lose "spirit points" every time they gun down nonbelievers rather than convert them. They can earn spirit points again by having their character pray. “ - Yeah right. Something tells me that mentality is what helped drive the bloodiest crusades in Christianity's past. “The enemy team includes fictional rock stars and folks with Muslim-sounding names, while the righteous include gospel singers, missionaries, healers and medics” something is wrong here folks. This isn't Grand Theft Auto whose premise isn't pined under some other guise, this is religious intolerance sold in a cellaphane wrapper to our kids.

In some sickly twisted fashion I understand what is driving the game and I could actually see the point that I hope it's creators were trying to make with it, but last I checked “rock stars and folks with Muslim-sounding names“ don't have a monopoly on being “nonbelievers“. If they wanted to portray without prejudice they should have thrown in the same sampling of names across the board and produced a single “tell tale“ sign for their “nonbelievers“. And what exactly is a “Muslim-sounding name“ anyway? Is that something like “John and Luke“ are “christian sounding“? No they're not, they're English anglo saxon names that were used in conversion of the new testament from Greek. Muslim is a religion, not a language, and it also happens to be the largest in the World. Crap burns, lets not keep fueling the fire with stuff like this folks.