I wish, Comcast phone and chat support people, would understand that refresh signals to the boxes at my condo complex take longer than most residential customers, and not jump to the conclusion that a technician needs to be sent out. I think a lot of the Comcast people I see at my complex are because of this. The refresh signals sometimes take 20-30 minutes longer than they expect, so if they send them, and nothing happens, that is why. I’ve had this happen many times, with my own box and my grandmother’s box. Either they need to understand this, or they need to do something to resolve this, for their own sake and the customers, so no one’s time is wasted.

I will happily make it public, how incompetent Prosper.com support people are.

Prosper is an interesting concept, it’s a p2p loan service, making it easier for people to get loans when they need them, from people willing to loan their own money, it’s very well set up.

In the last year, I have made about 6 attempts to get my bank account information updated with Prosper.com.  Each time, they tell me to either fax it or scan it, because my driver’s license isn’t light enough. A Florida driver’s license is made so that it is next to imposible to make perfect copies of, it was done to cut down on counterfeit licenses. The people at Prosper many times have sent me the same form emails, telling me that it was not light enough. At one point they even asked that I call them, which was also of no help at all, they said they saw I faxed it I should try to scan it. That was the 4th try, the 5th try was today, the 6th try, which was faxed, and exactly the same as what I sent for the 5th try.

They are so incompetent, that they don’t pay attention to the fact I’ve had the same issue multiple times, they have even given me at least five, case numbers. A new case number each time I try, that alone shows that they are not smart enough to be paying attention to my issue, or they are just ignoring everything previous, either way that is horrible customer service.

So I am late to the game to discover that Impulse was sold to GameStop, what an awful idea. GameStop SUCKS. People hate GameStop for a reason, for some, they go because the used games, or in some cases it’s their only option, the way they have treated PC gamers over the years, it shocks me that someone would sell a PC game retail business to them. They absolutely could give a rat’s butt about PC gamers. GameStop is the worst possible option.

Apparently Brad Wardell decided he’d rather Stardock not be a retailer, excuse me, If you don’t want to be a retailer, don’t start a retail business, plain and simple common sense. As much as I have loved Stardock, I am seriously considering giving up on Impulse and I am not the only one. Very, very bad move.

Who cares, it’s nobody’s business how Donald Trump and Sarah Palin eat a slice of pizza. Not only that, but to whine about it, is a complete waste of time, I am shocked at the whiners that called into K-LOVE about it the other day. WHO CARES!

A coworker told me, when she was 18 visiting new york, she was chastised for NOT eating it with a fork.

I heard a DJ play the great Luke Ski’s YODA (YMCA parody) but it was credited to “Weird Al Yankovich” really? NO. Are people that tag MP3s REALLY that stupid to think that EVERY song parody is Weird Al? This person didn’t even spell Al’s name right! IDIOT, it’s not Yankovich, it’s Yankovic, NOT Yankovich no ch! EVER. I won’t tell you what Luke Ski said he would do if you pronounced Al’s name that way.

The guy in the AT&T commercial, making dinner reservations on his phone, while on his phone, for his anniversary…

When there’s probably a computer, AND another phone close by, would be so much EASIER.

So, I’ve been given an opportunity, I’ve had this for a while, but somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice is telling me to make up my mind. You see, in Second Life I have an opportunity, for experience I’ve not exactly had before. See, I have the chance at a girlfriend in the virtual world. She’s willing to go with whatever I chose, see, but being the indecisive guy in the real world, and always afraid of missed chances, do I take this one?

I have other female friends, that I enjoy spending time with, one of them, who occasionally is still around, will always have a place in my heart. We spent a lot of time together, as good friends, until she found herself a boyfriend and I ran. The funny thing is, this one lives just over the state line, and I still have hopes we could meet someday, no expectations, just wanting to see a friend. This one I’ve even spoken to on the phone, yeah, and she’s not the only one.  One I met on IMVU from Texas I did the same, and another on Second Life offered, shocker huh, Mr shy guy that doesn’t like the phone. Then there’s the cheeky Aussie I met recently that likes to dance, she and the one I first spoke of (the one that gave me the option) crossed paths recently, it was all good, they both were willing to share.

I don’t know, see I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings if I take this leap, even if it is ONLY SL and can’t lead to anything but friendship in the meatspace. She says it is entirely up to me, I am leaning in that direction, and there’s always a way out if neccessary, but I don’t know, knowing of recent events other people have dealt with, a broken heart, however virtually caused, is still a broken heart.

Then there’s the thing my mom brought up, are they really female? Well, to answer this question, I’ve spoken to two of them, and one wants to, but hasn’t gotten it to work yet., and they do not sound like fakers, if you know what  I mean.

Ultimately though, I still hope in my heart, for the special person in the real world, I know that, the one I have wished for probably isn’t real.

Ah, the choices, these moments in my life I am stuck….at a virtual, or real….crossroads.

Recently on New World Notes (a blog I’ve been following for a while)  Hamlet posted an article titled “For Virtual Worlds to Grow, Avatars Must Become More Like Halloween Costumes Where Faces Can Still Be Seen” phew, long title, the post can be found  here. It was not specifically about Second Life, but I will respond from that perspective.

To summarize, the post is about Halloween costumes, and the fact that some people who wear costumes that also cover their face don’t seem to get the same kind of responses or attention as people who do not have their faces covered. I understand this completely from personal experience, you see, I don’t like clowns, because their faces are covered in makeup, and their attitudes are fake, and I have an aversion to people who are fake, though, SL is warming me up to role playing, but that is another post for another day.

Besides clowns, I also have an issue with people in full costume, once I went to the grand opening of a Parisian store at a mall here that at the time was fairly new, for some reason there were people there, that had these really freaky and out of place costumes, like they were monsters, and some of them were even carrying their own monster heads, this had nothing at all to do with the store, and it majorly freaked me out, and I could not at all stay in the store that long, I had to leave, I begged to leave.

However, when it comes to virtual worlds like Second Life, I do not have that aversion, in fact, in some situations I am much more comfortable than in my everyday real life. You’d think maybe it’s because I wind up in virtual “places” where there is common ground, such as the wonderful club called Fire Escape.  I did consider that as I was thinking about how to word this post, but then it hit me, if that was the case, then I would not be shy in the same situations in real life, but I still am.

When having a discussion about this idea with a coworker, she said maybe it’s because there are still human representations of people in Second Life, I would go more along the lines of human-ish or humanoid, because a cute human-sized faerie with hair that reminds me of Sailor Moon, still isn’t human, even if the person behind the avatar is.

I’m not saying I am completely comfortable in Second Life, no, I still get shy, just ask that faerie Suki Paulino sometime, Giant Maelstrom has a little trouble expressing his feelings. Though I’d say I warm up a little faster maybe than in reality, maybe it’s because of that separation, which is an issue in real life, or maybe it is because I am sitting on my couch, in front of my Toshiba, watching the Late Late show with Craig Fergusen on the DVR out of the side of my eye laughing at Geoff Peterson, where I AM comfortable, so the social interactions are easier. Maybe it’s because  a lot of the discussions are in text, where I’ve always found it easy to express myself, or maybe it’s because I’ve warmed up to virtual worlds, having had plenty of time to experience these things, from as far back as the predecessor to Active Worlds, World’s Chat, or even beta tested There, I miss There .  Maybe all these things are right, maybe none of them are, maybe it’s a deeper psychological thing that I won’t be able to figure out.

Maybe, I should just shut up and enjoy it.

This week appears to be one of those weeks that my brain isn’t quite functioning properly. Maybe it’s nerves of things upcomming, or the fact I gave up two things that have been a big deal lately for Lent, and am jumpy because of it. Today I thought I missplaced $20 that my grandmother gave me to go get her car washed and get lunch but I actually didn’t, though I did lose one of her magnet signs and ruined the other one, because I forgot to take them off of the car. I told her I had a “brain fart” after I discovered that I just wasn’t looking in the correct pockets for the money, she got frustrated with me and said “don’t say that!”. Really it’s completely harmless, but then, I was once bothered when I heard Amy Grant say “screw that”. Words change in meaning over time, and even we become desensitized to them sometimes. “Brain fart” just means I forgot, but to my grandmother, she still sees the word “fart” as meaning what it does when you say it by itself, and that apparently makes it a bad thing.

Looks like when I had a Wi Fi hiccup ScribeFire wound up posting the last post three times..yikes

Looks like I found just the thing to not only find the missing album art, and also fill in the gaps in my meta data. That would be TuneUp it seems to be finding most of my albums and identifying them correctly, my favorite part about it is I can chose which data to fill in or replace, which is nice, since it corrects the funkyness like a Beach Boys album I have that Jaikoz retitled “Made in the U.S.a”. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not replacing Jaikoz, nothing will. Now to get my copy of Funduc Duplicate File Deleter installed so I can clean out the many duplicate files in my iTunes Media folder from restoring my library when it got corrupted the other day. I hate when that happens, thanks Apple for the XML file, it helps.