Like I said before, there’s always something wrong. This time it’s Brian’s computer. To those of you who have messaged me or notified me about my cam being down, I know this. I know it’s down and it’s going to stay that way until the home network is fixed. I need a break from being on camera for your entertainment anyway. Consider this my leave of absence notice. Brian called me on his lunch break yesterday to ask if I had paid our power bill because our power was out. I told him it must be an outage because I always pay the bills as soon as I receive them. In fact, it’s always paid at least two weeks before the due date. There was no way we could be off for non payment. I asked Angie to check on my account because we had no power. She and Rush thought it would be funny so they proceed to pretend that my electric service was disconnected for non payment. They think I get riled up easily so they like to picking on me. I concede that I’m probably the most gullible person I know, so I can’t blame them. Besides that, I have been super busy and super stressed lately so I guess it’s possible that I could have missed the power bill and the disconnect notice and the courtesy collection call. I’m not perfect, I know this. I really believed and was totally ready to make a payment until they started laughing. Such mean people! It turns out, there was a power outage in the area and there were crew already onsite. I gave Brian the information and he seemed satisfied. I mean, he knows that I do a darn good job of keeping up with the bills despite my busy schedule. I do a better job of it now, than he did when he used to do it. So anyway, I think the power outage caused Brian’s computer to bite it. His computer is out of commission for a while until we can figure out what’s wrong with it. You can anticipate my cam to be off until Brian’s computer is fixed. Yes, I know my computer works and my cam has nothing to do with Brian’s computer but don’t bother arguing with me. The cam will stay off and that’s that. Who’s cam is it, anyway? Alright then. P.S. I overslept today so I’m not going to the gym. Brian set up the Bowflex for me though, so I’m going to use that today. We’ve had that thing for almost three years now and I’ve only used it a handful of times. Brian has never used it, I think. The cats have probably used it (as a cat tree) more than we have (actually exercising).
Brian and I went to see Serenity today with his dad and this kid named Alex. Before the movie started there was a preview of an upcoming movie Jarhead. The movie is like a huge Go Army commercial. I half-expected the slogan, “If we can turn Bubble Boy into a soldier you can be one too!” Seriously, what is the deal with advertising campaigns disguised as movies. There are more and more of them lately. I remember feeling like I just watched an anti-smoking documentary after the movie Constantine because of the stupid gum-chewing scene movie ending. I don’t smoke anyway and I think smoking is stupid so don’t waste my time by trying to convince me that smoking is bad. I know this! Which is why I don’t smoke. I paid to see a movie, not a freaking Truth commercial! The movie that we went to see, Serenity, was actually pretty good. It was better than I expected. They remained true to the TV series. Lots of funny scenes. I liked it more than I thought I would, considering I wasn’t as fond of the series Firefly (the TV show that the movie is based on) as Brian was. Anyway, Brian and I went to the mall after the movie. After a year of avoiding the mall altogether, I was forced to return because of a free panty coupon from Felicity’s. Felicity’s is this new lingerie store at the mall. The coupon was for a free panty or get a second free panty if you spend $20. Their lingerie items are pretty reasonably priced so Brian and I took the opportunity to buy some stuff. I really don’t need any more lingerie, but I got two free panties (actually, I ended up with three free ones because they were doing a buy three get one free deal on selected panties) out of it. Incidentally, they also carry men’s undergarments and cigars so Brian got something for himself. He bought a cigar. He doesn’t really do the whole underwear thing. While at the mall, we also took advantage of the opportunity to shop for gifts for Brian’s grandparents’ wedding anniversary, Brian’s grandfather’s birthday and mom’s birthday so our trip to the mall was actually pretty productive. It’s amazing how the mall looks so different now than it did on our last visit. Several stores have closed and opened since. I’m sure the next time we visit the mall, the place will look totally different than it did today. Hopefully we won’t wait another year to return. I miss shopping terribly. Although, I just can’t afford my old shopping habits any more.
File this under neat gadgets and gizmos. Who needs a laptop when you can browse the web using your PSP?
Brian is totally thrilled because now he can play Ogame anywhere he goes. If I have ever given the impression that I didn’t think PSPs were cool before, I hereby rescind my stance. The whole idea of the web on your PSP rocks! It will totally phase out magazine racks in bathrooms the world over!
Okay, I just have to get this off my chest because this incident makes me proud to be a woman. Guys are just stupid, stupid, stupid. They would be smart if they just learned to follow instructions. Anyway, so the router dies and I’m mad because this means we have to spend money to buy a replacement. I send Brian to the store to buy a router. I tell him specifically, I want a Linksys router. I want the exact same one that we have. I know I’m being too specific, but I’m familiar with setting up this one (as far as port forwarding for the live cam goes and I don’t want to mess with learning how to set it up on a different router). It will be far more convenient for me if he gets the same one, so that is why I asked for it specifically. He said he could get it from Wal-Mart. It was late, around midnight, and I figured that it’s a pretty simple task so I left it up to him. Fast forward to this morning. I wake up a little before nine o’clock. I go, “How did it go last night?” He goes, “I just went to bed, I can’t get it to work. We’ll call dad later.” This baffles me because this shit is plug and play. It’s so simple, Logan could do it! So since he wants to get some more sleep I go, “Is the shit plugged in? If so, I’m going to go work on it.” So I go to office and start checking it out. Guess what. He bought a hub. I sent him to the store to get a router and he comes home with a freaking hub! Okay, so granted he got the Linksys part right, but it’s a freaking hub! I said I wanted a router dammit! I return to the bedroom fuming. I’m thinking no wonder he spent several hours trying to get it to work and still couldn’t. “What possessed you to buy a hub? You need to go back to the store and exchange it for a router!” I demanded. “Okay, but I just got to bed. I’ve only had three hours of sleep. Wake me up in a little bit.” I’m upset, but there is no point arguing with someone who isn’t even awake so I let him be. Deep down, though, I’m thinking it’s not my fault you spent all night trying to get the stupid hub to work. It wasn’t my idea to buy a hub. Had you bought a router, the shit would’ve worked and you wouldn’t have had to stay up. It’s not my fault you didn’t get any sleep. I felt that he should go to the store get the stupid hub exchanged pronto, but the guy is asleep. What can you do? So I went to the family room, blogged through my phone (which I love by the way) and masturbated. Yeah, sexual gratification is my solution to everything. I’m so glad I’m not a drug addict. I’d be so cracked out all the time. At least if you’re high on orgasms it doesn’t show up on urine or blood tests. It’s all natural. But I digress… Shall we continue? Around noon I returned to the bedroom to wake Brian up. “Okay, time to go to the store,” I tell him. Still disoriented he goes, “What? What’s happening?” I tell him again what he needs to do and he replies, “Okay, give me a minute to wake up.” A few minutes later, after much pouting and whining from me, he reluctantly gets dressed. Fast forward to him returning from the store with a router. It looks identical to the one we had before. So far so good. I read the box for confirmation, “Cable/DSL Router.” Eureka! We’re in business! We go to the office, plug the shit in. Immediately it starts working. Beautiful! He’s got internet. I’ve got internet. He tried accessing the Excel checkbook register which is on my computer and he was able to open it without any problems. Home network is back. Everything seemed to be working again. There was only one last thing: the live cam. Went to the port forwarding section. I found my bookmark no longer worked, it’s now forwarding.htm instead of forwarding.html, but everything else still pretty much looked or warked the same way. See, this is why it’s important to stick with the things that you are familiar with. Who wants to waste their time configuring shit? Anyway, the live cam didn’t work right away. I actually had to go to the Dynamic DNS website to modify my IP address because it had changed in the interim. Our high-speed internet provider doesn’t assign static IP addresses unless you’ve got a business account. I don’t really need a business account as long as I’ve got Dynamic DNS. After that, everything worked. All of that took about five minutes. No one had to stay up late. No one had to call tech support. No one had to spend five hours jacking with the stupid equipment. So let this be a lesson learned to all you men out there: Just follow the god damn instructions!
Just when I decide to quit playing Ogame, I find other players on Flickr. Mostly foreign folks. I don’t know of anyone else that plays Ogame locally other than the guys at Cable Mafia, the alliance I first started out with. They took really good care of me when I was first starting out.
I left the alliance before I hit 60000 points but I was quickly rising in the ranks. I started out a henchman, then became a hitman and then Attila promoted me to snitch. It was fun to watch others advance within the alliance and also in the game. The camaraderie was out of this world. I thought so, anyway.
Brian thought otherwise and decided to split. He formed his own alliance, Mercenenary Inc, which I joined within hours of its formation. You gotta support your husband, you know?
At first it was a fledgling alliance that just consisted of Brian, his dad and myself. Soon others joined. We had a total of 14 people when I left.
Anyway, I was Brian’s biggest hitter at around 60000 plus points. He was next with half the points I had. I think what devastated him most about my decision to quit playing Ogame is now the alliance has dropped significantly in the rankings.
Brian is convinced that I will eventually return to the game. I’m prety sure I’m done, though. I’m ready to move on to the next thing.
The only sad thing is now I’m finding other players on Flickr, who I had no idea existed until now. We could’ve started an Ogame Flickr group or something. Granted most of them are not American but diversity is what it’s all about. You have to allign yourself with other alliances (though, surprisingly, there are lots of people in the top ten that are not members of any alliance). You have to team up to succeed. It could’ve been really huge!
It’s too late now, though. I’ve already declared my resignation. Bummer, huh?
P.S. I just found out that there are lots of bloggers playing Ogame, also. Thanks to the new Blogger search feature. I haven’t tried Technorati yet, but I’m sure there are many other players out there in the blogosphere.
