Mainly because of my job, I decided to become more familiar with MMOs. To accomplish this great feat, I figured I should play some of them. To do that for any reasonable amount of time, I gotta buy and or pay a monthly fee. I let all my subscriptions expire last year, and new stuff came out recently.. so I bit the bullet and took the hit.

WoW: Burning Crusade. I made a blood elf warlock. Red hair, (a free) Nightmare mount, and a Succubus pet. What else could I ask for? I subscribed for 3 months. This should make Violet very happy. Playing WoW with her counts as a date night! If you have WoW but not burning crusade and want it, let me know. I'll email you a free 10 day trial code and if you subscribe to it, I get a free 30 days. hurray!

LOTRO: Would people please start calling this RO (Rings Online). The Lord of the Rings Online is too long a name. And an acronym. Its quite the "bargain" to sign up for lifetime membership for 199 (or pay 9.99 a month, or even less a month if paying for more than 1 month at a time). This is the "founders" fee which is anyone who pre-ordered the game. Nice deal, and some cool loot in game. Unlike WoW, Violet and I are sharing the one copy.

CoX: I'd like to reestablish my City of Heroes / Villains account. I really would. And play it. But with costs and time so limited, I can't justify it.

GW: I have Guild Wars (not the expansion though). I really like this game and should play it more. Especially since there's no monthly fee. I've been saying this for well over a year.

Warhammer Online: This highly anticipated MMO was just announced as being postponed. Awwww. Early 2008 now I guess. That's OK.. I can wait :)

Being addicted to Craigslist, I thought it would be a good idea to buy a trailer so I can haul stuff like free pool tables and shelves and crap. So I bought a nice 5x8 utility trailer from Lowe's. Note the link isn't the trailer I bought.. it just looks like that one. Lowe's has a link on their website that allows you to get an emailed coupon for 10% off. So I saved about 70 bucks. But umm, anyway, I had some problems:

The ball and extension I bought from UHaul to tow the rental trailer I rented during the move a month or two ago, I thought, was 1 and 7/8". Which is standard size for the class 2 trailer I rented. I think. Anyway...

The trailer I bought is 1 7/8" so no problems. Except the ball was 2", not 1 7/8". So I went back in and bought a 1 7/8" ball. But then the lowe's employee and I couldn't get the ball off the extension.. there was a HUGE nut on it and it was loc-tite'd. Lowe's couldn't even get the ball off the extension. They didn't have an extension that was the same shank width as the 1 7/8" ball I bought, so I ended up having to buy a combo extension with 3 balls on it (1 7/8", 2", and 2 1/8")
This took well over an hour, during which time Violet sat, very unhappily, in the car. And cost about as much as I had saved with the coupon.

The trailer is pretty nice, wasn't too expensive, and Lowes gave me the title to take to the DMV.
It now sits in my garage, waiting for use. and a license plate...

DMV Trip #1. Oh yes, I have to number these...
I went to a DMV "Select" location, which is a DMV with fewer services than a regular dmv. They needed the bill of sale, which I didn't have with me.

DMV trip #2: I went back the next day with the receipt. They couldn't help me because I didn't have a VA license (and selects don't do new licenses) nor a proof of residency. I had to goto a different DMV in the mall down the road from work.

DMV Trip #3: I goto the DMV at the mall again with a utility receipt as proof of residency. They can't help me because Lowe's didn't sign the title.

Lowes Trip #3 (I had already went there twice to look at trailers, and then a 2nd time to purchase one.. I didnt care for the trailers avail via Craigslist). They didn't know what I was talking about regarding signing a title for a trailer... they've never had to do that before. I said the dmv said they should be doing it, and showed them the pen park that the DMV wrote on the form. A manager eventually came out and signed it.

DMV trip# 4: I show up with all the paperwork, signed, sealed, etc. They charge me 97 bucks (Lowes doesn't charge sales tax for trailers, the DMV does that.. + 20 bucks for a permanent license plate). 30 mins after entering I leave.

I never waited too long at the DMV, since I sacrificed my lunch hour (or half hour) each time.. but that's a lotta wasted lunch times.

Well I heard that this movie wasn't so great, but that's never stopped me before.
It showed up in the mail via Netflix a few days ago and having just watched it last night, I liked it. so there. There were a few parts that were kinda.. well, done "wrong" IMO, and a few parts seemed to carry the cinematic camera vistas into boringville, but by and large I enjoyed the movie, most of the actors, and the dragon herself was great. Besides, I always enjoy a Joss Stone cameo. And who would have guessed that Sienna Guilory is the same Sienna Guillory that starred as Jill Valentine in Resident Evil:Apocalypse? Not me.

I'd give it a 75%

(Warning.. contains explicit language.. well.. for me.. )

So here's the deal: I have a credit card with Citibank. I stopped receiving paper statements and so didn't pay the bill for 2 months in a row. This is not good for my credit rating. They jacked the account interest to 35-sumthin % and flagged it for no more authorized charges. This is also not good for my credit rating. After some negotiating I was able to have them credit my late fee charges for non-payment, but they refused to honor my initial interest rate. So I paid the card off. I used Bill Pay so the amount was paid electronically online direct from my bank. No worry, no fuss.

Except the payment was "too high" and so Citibank didn't honor it! WTF?!?!?! They want me to give them my bank account number and routing information "for verification". Hell No!! The bank paid it electronically! There's a authorization number! Frickin accept the payment and be done! Noooo they want to talk to my bank directly, even though my citibank account has already been credited with the payment! WTF?!?!?! So while I'm busy at work Citibank wants me to call them and conference in my bank so the three of us can "verify" whatever. Its crap. My balance is ZERO. I paid off the credit card because I want to close the account. Screw Citibank. Too bad suckers! The payment's been made. Deal with it. Move on. I ain't giving out my account info to you, or anyone else that asks. Not even my own bank. Forget it. I'm sorry you can't handle "large payments" (we're talking like, 4k, not exactly a really HUGE amount...). Citibank Procedure can bite my ass. Verify THIS!

Not much to post lately. I've been working a lot. I can't talk to much about it, I'm afraid.

I'm also in negotiations with several people to start up a role playing game. Several people from work have indicated interest in my Evil Rises campaign. I can't decide if I want to start the campaign from scratch and have the players go through the same things my last players did (Act I: Finding the first Shadow Gem) or start at a higher level and continue the campaign from where the last game left off (begin Act II: Finding the 2nd Shadow Gem). There's pros and cons to both.

Also, gas is too expensive.

I don't talk about my job much. Most of the stuff I do is protected by an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) anyway, so there isn't too much I can say about work. I also like to try and stay a little more anonymous to the general internet world.

Friday my team (which is large) did so well with our last milestone that the company took us all out bowling Friday afternoon(We reserved the entire building). Free bowling for 3 hours plus free food and drink. (The pizza was pretty damn good). We also each got a cool T-shirt. With my right hand I bowled 138. With my left hand I bowled 98. I got lucky the first time. These scores reflect my typical range of bowling scores.

Add the fact that the entire company gets free doughnuts every Wed, and you would be safe to assume that I'm liking my fairly new (Ive been there 4 weeks now) job a lot.

Hydrogen Peroxide? Really? And no by-products... it runs on steam? How safe is that thing?
Sign me up!! I want a jet pack too!

http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=A49E6E18-0101-4EEA-A7C6-53D1D137F9F5&t=c156&f=06/64&p=hotvideo_viralvideos&fg=&GT1=9246

I setup a blog for the baby. I've backtracked it to conception but I hope to add more posts to catch up to the present. Well worth the read, IMO.

http://whowillibecome.blogspot.com/

Today is no normal day. Today Violet and I celebrate our 5th year wedding anniversary.

The traditional gift for the 5th anniversary is something crafted from wood. The modern gift is silver, especially silverware. I find the material used for the different specially numbered anniversaries interesting, from cotton to diamond.

Back near our first anniversary, I promised her a 3 gemstone ring by our 5th. This was a perfectly reasonable request. After all, our wedding bands and the engagement rings were inexpensive, and Violet has spent nearly nothing jewelry related since then. I'm lucky her preferred gifts are $13.00 CDs and $10.00 books instead of pieces of jewelry costing hundreds of dollars. But even so, due to financial issues these past several years (losing my job twice, moving 3 times, going back to school for 18 months, huge credit card bills, and being unable to sell our houses quickly enough) we just can't do it. Also, being pregnant, the ring won't fit on her finger in a few months anyway. So once again I will have to delay the delivering of my promises. They may be late, but I'll make good on them as soon as we are able. At least 2 of my promises have been fulfilled: A good home and a baby (which is on the way). And those are more important anyway. One day I hope to buy her everything she wants. But today is not that day. I got her a card. From Wal-mart. Happy Anniversary Violet Twilight. These have been the best 5 years of my life.

We've been in this house for about 3 weeks now so there's a nice layer of black fur all over the carpet. So we just picked up the Dyson DC-07 vacuum. It works really well, even on all the pet fur. The model line up is a little confusing at first but basically there's the base model, and then as you ADD attachments that come with it the model# and price go up. And the color of the plastic changes. Funky. They're horribly expensive, but thanks to Craigslist (I've been addicted to this for the last month or two) I got a used one (about a year old or so, with manual and all accessories, excellent condition, for only $160. I saw another one for 120 but that was sold so fast I didn't have time to respond to it. Anyway, these things retail for $399.00 new so 160 is still a great bargain, and only slightly higher than a mid-grade vacuum. The "wand" (Hand held hose tool attachment) is a little awkward to wield sometimes, but pushing and operating the Dyson is very easy otherwise. If you can find it cheap, I highly recommend it, having only used the thing once. I believe mine came with a 2 yr warranty but the newer, higher end models come with a 5-year warranty. Of course, they also cost 499+ and come with crazy attachments and cleaning solutions. Happy cleaning!