Mississippi is #1 in another category. We are the top state in terms of corruption among public officials. Does that mean we have that many more corrupt officials or that we do a better job in prosecuting these officials? When I was growing up in Jackson, I remember hearing about officials being investigated and some were even convicted.
I bought a wireless router a couple of months ago. Since I didn’t think I would get much use out of my old wired router, I decided to sell it on eBay. A few days after I sent the router to the guy that won the auction, an email correspondence began.
Him: I just got the router you sold me and it doesn’t work. Can you help?
What I’m thinking: Well that’s not much to go on. I know it works because I tested it before I sent it to him. I better not get a bad rating because this guy can’t follow instructions.
What I tell him: I tell him that I’m not sure what kind of problem he’s having. I guide him through the process of resetting the router and logging onto it. I tell him that then he must configure the router. I point out the instruction manual and setup disk that both guide you through the process of setting up the router. I also give him a link the website which also has instructions.
Him: I plug in the router and can’t access the internet. I already tried to reset it. What else can I do?
What I’m thinking: Is he just plugging it in and expecting it to automatically work? Did he even read my last email? I wonder what kind of connection he has.
What I tell him: I ask him if he has cable or DSL. I ask him if he can log on to the router. I ask him he has another computer he can try to connect with.
Him: I have DSL. Is there something specific I have to do before I can connect to the router?
What I’m thinking: Has he not been paying attention to what I’ve been saying?
What I tell him: I tell him that he can’t just plug it in and expect him to work. I say that he has to log into the router and configure it to work with his DSL connection. I told him that I could probably do it in less than 5 minutes if it was in front of me, but I can’t remember what the screens and menus look like. I once again give him instructions and point him and remind him of the instruction manual.
Him: I think I got it to work. Thanks for the help. It was good doing business with you.
What I’m thinking: It’s about time.
What I tell him: I tell him that I’m glad he got it to work and that I hope he enjoys using the router.
I guess I’m too hard on people that aren’t good with technology. You would think that he would realize that since he has to log into his DSL connection he would realize that he can’t just connect the computer to the router and expect it to work. Maybe he doesn’t have to log into his DSL. Maybe he does log into it and doesn’t realize it. And you would think that he would be able to follow simple instructions designed for people that aren’t technology oriented.
I finally settled on a new RSS reader. I am now using Bloglines. I didn’t want to use an online system because it’s dependent upon being able to access the website. So far I haven’t had any problems with this site being down. And I like the fact that I can access my feeds from anywhere.
I still have some organizing to do, but you can view my subscriptions here.
I told myself I wouldn’t start anymore incomplete series, and so far I’m sticking to it. I was doing some research on my current favorite series and this is what I found. Yes, I was bored.
Harry Potter
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is being released on July 16, 2005. This is book 6 of a 7 book series.
The Wheel of Time
Knife of Dreams is book 11 in a 12 book series. The publication date is currently listed as October 11, 2005. They recently released an image of the cover. That looks like Perrin and some other characters I can’t remember because the series has way too many freaking characters.
A Song of Ice and Fire
A Feast for Crows appears to finally be done. It is book 4 in a 6 or 7 book series. It could be out this fall. I think it’s been about 4.5 years since the last book, so he is very late with this book. The book was becoming very, very long and he still had material left to write. Instead of cutting parts of the story out, he decided to break it into two books. He decided to take half the characters out of this book instead of giving us incomplete stories for all the characters. So some of the storylines will be advanced in the upcoming book, but the rest will have to wait until the following book. He finally gets to release a book and can finish working on his incomplete chapters. I’m not sure I like his solution, but at least he’s finally releasing something. The good news coming from this solution is that book 5, A Dance with Dragons, is about halfway done.
Sword of Truth
Chainfire was release in January 2005, so it’ll probably be another year or more from now before the next book. The next one will be book 10 of an 11 book series. It will be the second part of the series ending Chainfire Trilogy.
I’m still working on The Dark Tower. I’m having trouble staying focused on book 4. I don’t think this will be my favorite one in the series. I may take a break and read The Chronicles of Narnia before the new movie comes out this December.
This has been a weekend from hell. Time to move on. Time to get back to work on getting out of here.
One good thing is that the Bulldogs beat Ole Miss for the SEC Baseball Championship yesterday.
I came across this link on Wil Wheaton’s website. It’s an article about the end of the Golden Era of Geek. With Star Trek going off the air and the release of the last Star Wars movie, what do we have now? I thought it was interesting. Check it out.
The big Electronic Entertainment Expo is this week and all the major next generation consoles have been unveiled. Aren’t they cool looking?
Xbox 360: Microsoft needs to fire the guys that name their products.
PlayStation 3: Unoriginal name, but it works.
Nintendo Revolution: My favorite name of the 3. I wonder if it’ll be any good.
I don’t know much about that specs of the systems. I just know that I want them. Now I need to get out of school and start making real money.
What have I been doing lately?
For one I’ve been working my ass off. My Advanced Computer Graphics class has taken up a lot more time than I expected. I’m working on generating an animation for my final assignment right now. Now I can concentrate fully on getting out of here.
I don’t play video games much anymore. I finally cancelled my Everquest II account earlier today. I don’t see the need to pay for something that I don’t use. Maybe I’ll get the urge to play again in a couple of months and reactivate my account.
I got Jade Empire for the Xbox. It’s made by the same people that made Knights of the Old Republic. I haven’t had a chance to play it much it seems like a really good game so far.
I’ve been watching tons of DVD’s lately. I’m not sure many of them are worth a recommendation. I’m watching one right now in which they are arguing over who would win in a fight between Wolverine and Batman. I say Wolverine. I haven’t been to the movie theater much, but I did see Sin City. If you haven’t seen it, go see it. Now!
I hate job hunting. So far I’ve only had one company show any interest and that was earlier this week. It was from a place in Richmond, Virginia. I have a phone interview scheduled and hopefully it will go well. I’m hoping some other places will also show interest.
In case I didn’t mention it here, my ear problems went away after about a month. It’s nice to be able to hear again.
Once every few months I use eBay to sell stuff that I don’t want. It’s probably never more than 5 or 6 items at any time. I use the money to help pay for more junk that I don’t need.
One of the items I decided to sell recently was an old 40 GB hard drive. The auction was set to end on Sunday, March 20. A couple of days before the auction ended, one bidder asked if it would be ok to send payment on Monday, April 4, because they wouldn’t have the money until Friday, April 1. Being the nice guy that I am, I said ok because I didn’t see the harm in waiting a couple of weeks. I personally don’t think you should bid on an item if you don’t already have the money, but that’s just me. I was hoping that bidder wouldn’t win, but he/she did. The following is a summary of what happened later that I created using the emails that have gone back and forth. I will refer to the winner as a he because I am not really sure
March 20 (Sunday): The auction ends. The winner sends an email saying he will get the money on April 1 and asks for the grand total and a mailing address to send the payment to. I use eBay’s invoice feature because it sends the winner an email and automatically inserts the grand total (cost of item + shipping) and mailing address that I have on record.
March 29 (Tuesday): I get an email from the winner saying that he would send the payment on Sunday, April 3, and gave me the address that I should send the item to.
April 12 (Tuesday): After not hearing anything, I sent an email asking the winner if he had sent the payment or if he was no longer interested in the item. The winner replies saying that he sent payment on March 30. He wants to know what is going on.
April 13 (Wednesday): I reply saying that I never received payment. I ask what form the payment was in and ask him to attempt to trace the payment.
April 21 (Thursday): After hearing nothing, I once again ask the winner if he is still interested in the item. I inform him that I intend to put the item back up for sell in a few days. He replies by saying that he sent a money order and that it was cashed. He wants to know what is going on. He really needed the item and thinks he is going to get screwed.
April 22 (Friday): I reply saying that I never received a money order. I ask him what he wants to do. He replies saying that he is very upset. He wants me to tell him what to do. He really needed the item and is upset that he won’t get it because someone stole his money.
I don’t think I’ve even seen a money order in years. I do not intend to send him the hard drive without getting anything. I’m starting to get more suspicious of people, so I wonder if this is some kind of scam to get items without paying for them. There have been some inconsistencies from him, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s intentionally being deceitful. I guess that from now I will only accept payments by Paypal. I try to be nice and give people different methods of payment, but I think there is less room for error if I only use Paypal. This is the first time that a buyer has used a method other than Paypal to buy something from me in years. It could be that this person is just a new eBay user (he had no feedback) and just doesn’t know how people usually do things. I just hope he doesn’t think that I’m trying to screw him out of money. This could be a situation that doesn’t turn out well for either of us.
Update: 4/24/2005
I checked the winner’s feedback. He won an auction for a power supply around the same time as he won my auction. He never paid for that either.
According to my web stats, people are reading coming here, and it’s not just adbots. So, I’m going to throw out a question.
Does anybody out there use Xfire or Xbox live? I’m just looking for people to game with sometime. My username on both is longklaw. Just send me an invite.
My Xbox Live games are: Halo 2, Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow, and Burnout 3: Takedown, and Ninja Gaiden. I will have Doom 3 and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory next week. They both have co-op modes that I want to try out.
You can view my Xfire profile to see what kind of PC games I play these days. Just click the image below.
I hope to see some of you on. I promise I will be on this weekend while I am avoiding my homework 🙂 Thanks.
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