Both Twitter and Facebook are reportedly experiencing major issues. I have gotten network errors all day on Twitterberry. I went to the Twitter page and it loaded … eventually. Haven’t seen a tweet in over 8 hours. Facebook seems to be running fine for me through my phone.

This was a pretty fun past weekend. It was neither a weekend to get sleep nor a weekend to paint which is what I had planned and two things that I really needed to do. I guess I am going to take the full day off Wednesday to get sleep because I need as much sleep built up for the 6 day trip to Chicago, Grand Haven/Spring Lake, and Grand Rapids.

We mixed it up on Friday. I met some friends at D’s place in Soulard for some cheap drinks then followed it up with McGurks. We should have never left McGurks because Wash Ave was dead. Lucas Park had about 20 people in it, Side Bar was about the same, and Rue 13 had its normal crowd (which normally means no girls but I did dance with a good looking lady for a while with no results). Hoff did convince me to get pizza at the end of the night to continue breaking my “Michigan diet.”

Saturday, the day I was supposed to take easy was pretty fun. After driving around in constant circle between my house and the Soulard area, I went over to a friend’s to swim and have some beers. It was a lot of fun. There was a lot of good Rengelisms to be heard. We started the evening at my house with the boys for a BBQ and some good ole fashion video game playing plus some hot tub lounging while we were waiting for the food to cook. I make sirloin kabobs. They were delicious. We played NBA 2k9 and Left for Dead along with some Rock Band 2. The group loved killing zombies but I more enjoyed the NBA game. Enough to purchase it which is exactly how Matt Smith recently got it and had this whole idea about a video game party. We concluded the night at Harry followed up with more Rock Band. I do have to say that Harry’s is still by far the best place in St Louis to people watch and see a lot of good looking women.

I have been thinking alot about buying a waterproof digital camera. I have at least 3 different water vacations this some; not counting all the trips to the river. Plus, I had all kinds of adventures last summer where a “water” camera would have been helpful. I know Mike Hoff has one and he uses it as his regular camera but not sure what model it is.

I recently read this article on Engadget about the Canon Powershot D10. I was expecting this to be an awesome camera based on my initial reading but they ended the article saying it did not take good underwater pictures (or at least that is what I interpreted). I was expecting a lot more for a $300 camera knowing that you can buy an Olympus model for $160. With that said, that one might be waterproof but it is probably not shock proof and sand proof like the Canon. Olympus does have another 10 Megapixel that they are advertising as “tough” but it does not say in its description what makes me want to pay almost double for the same 10 megapixel. I’ve had bad experiences with Olympus and old good with my two Canon cameras. I wish I would have known 6 months ago that there was such a thing when I bought my new camera. I have brought along my old Canon the past two trips because I didn’t want to ruin the new one.

Does anyone have any suggestions or experiences? I would like to order one very soon for my trip to Spring Lake / Lake Michigan next Wednesday.

Bar Hopping in the Lou

Hoff and I did a lot of bar hopping on Friday. We started at Lumiere to meet some friends then went to Cielo Bar on top of the Four Seasons. It was empty but it is a cool place. Great place to bring a girl for a date. It was very relaxing with lounge chairs everywhere plus two pools and a great view of the city, the Arch, and the river. After that, we went from Dubliner to meet Dave to Lucas Park (which was more empty than I ever have seen it before) and then to Rue 13 since we knew the night was a wash. Not sure where everyone was at. People tell me it was because the Kumen race the following day. I’m not sure if I believe that.

“I’m on a Boat”

This was the first weekend of the year that I went on the river. Man was it a great time. Mike P, Dave, Jeff, and Catherine made the trek. It started out to a funny experience with Dave dropping his glasses into the 10ft deep brown water at the dock. Jeff thought we could pick it with a magnet but I knew that wouldn’t work. I rigged up a net and amazingly Dave was able to snag the classes out of the mud after about 10 minutes. Once we were on the water, I forgot about how dangerous Jeff’s boat seems but he is merchant engineer so I believe him when he tells me the boat is in sound shape.

We got to the main beech around 1 but it did not start to get packed until around 2. We tossed around the football, walked up and down the beach people watching, but mainly sat on the beach enjoying our beer (in which we drank all of). We avoided playing sand vball because it was mainly guys. We ended the afternoon with the boat stereo blaring to “I’m on a boat.” Amazingly enough, no one had played it the whole afternoon. The girls on the huge boat next to me said they forgot to download it and were glad we played it. On the way back, Mike was hilarious. We were listening to some old school rap and everyone was having fun until we got pulled over by water patrol. Don’t worry, it was really just our friend Tom. He gets to drive a pretty fancy boat. Earlier in the day we saw him on a waverunner doing some undercover work.

After soaking up the sun and the fine AB products, we decided we needed some food. Mike had the amazing idea of going to the China King buffet only a mile away since we did not get the opportunity before Parties in the Park like planned. All I can say is that it was delicious and I can not believe we did not get kicked out. Somehow they must have known and sat us on the side of the restaurant that was totally empty and behind a corner. I got a text the next morning that perfectly described the event “The State Dept called, they said we were being extradited to China to stand trial for the war crimes committed at the buffet yesterday.”

I love sleep but love denying myself of its goodness

This weekend very much replicated last weeks sleep. I had very little sleep Friday night, went to bed around 9PM on Saturday, and stayed up past 1AM on Sunday night. Luckily there are no more NBA games to keep me up past midnight anymore.

The Lake Show

The Lakers won the NBA Finals on Sunday. I missed the first half because I thought the game started at 8 like every other game this playoffs. Supposedly the Magic came out strong but collapsed at the end allowing the Lakers to go on a huge run to end the half. In the end, the combination of Gasol, Ariza, Odom, and Kobe were way too much for Orlando. The series surprised me some what. I thought all the games we close except for the first one. I really expected it to go to 7 games; especially after the trouble that the Lakers had in the previous rounds but Orlando’s amazing 3 point shooting went cold.

I do think that both Ariza and Odom do need to come back next year. If I had to choose one, I would pick Ariza even though I am a huge Odom fan. Hopefully Bynum will pick up his game and be more of a force to ease the loss of Odom. The Lakers do need to pick up a more consistent shooter for the bench. The bench was their strongpoint at once and now it is their weak point.

I’m Addicted

I did start playing the new (I think it is a year old) iteration of Civilization 4. It is called Colonization. To all my Civ 4 friends, this game is very addicting and it is similar to the 3 versions of Civ 4 but it is also totally different. There are so many things you need to control so it is a bit overwhelming. You basically start a colony among Indians and 3 other nations. You can befriend the Indians and the other colonies or fight them. If you are nice to the Indians, they give you things but they also do not allow you to expand your empire without pissing them off. The game has like 20 different types of workers which makes it totally different than past Civ games. I’ve played it twice and I still do not know what I am doing. I think the goal is to build enough points so that you defect from your country like US did from Britain. I haven’t even come close before running out of turns.

No this is not a post about people and which phones they use but is more a rant about how they use their phones. I have a hard time understanding how some people I know do not answer their phones, check their voicemail or quickly respond to text (if even at all). There are two reasons that I don’t buy some of the responses I have received for their actions. (1) I wouldn’t get fired but it would definitely not help me out in my job status if I wasn’t always responsive to my phone. (2) I have heard a response that I haven’t looked at my phone in the past 12, 24, or even 36 hours. Isn’t anyone afraid of family emergencies? Speaking from experience, I know what its like to get a dreadful call in an emergency.

While I am on the subject I feel somewhat the same about emails. I think everyone should get Blackberrys so that I can then email everyone instead of leaving voicemails and texts. The world would be a better place. With that said, my friends would need to reply to the emails and hit “reply all” if it is a group email about plans. Something you can not do with a text. Also, if someone sends an email or a text asking about plans but you can not make it, be courteous and respond back that you can not attend.

First off, I had used Vista for work but not very much to really get a good use of it. I was running a 4 year old install of XP and my computer was running very slowly so a new install was needed. I was going to buy Vista but balked when I saw Windows 7 coming out. I also was running out of hard drive space so I bought a 1TB harddrive and decided to do a fresh Windows 7 install with the newly available version  (build 7100).

Things I like

• The complete install took less than 30 minutes and required no user intervention. I remember the days when an install took over an hour plus you had to always be making decisions. The other plus is that Windows installed all my drivers without any problems. Not sure XP even did that.
• All my games and apps (besides Nortons) work without any problem.
• The super fast boot time.
• I like the new paint. Wish I had it at work.

Problems so far

• I have some compatibility issues with my newly purchased Norton Internet Security 2009. I first had to put it in comparability mode to install it then kept getting a driver not compatible for a specific program within Nortons. It worked until I ran the updates so I had to uninstall it. Nortons knows there is a problem and has a beta version you can download but it only has a 7 day trial.

Things I am unsure of

• I am not a big fan of the the bottom task bar but I am getting use to it. I loved the quick start in XP. They seem to have the same thing but it floats. There is more of a quick start on the right. I imagine you can probably pin short cuts there but I have not figured it out yet.
• I don’t like how the wireless setup does not tell me the connection speed when I hover over it. This is a big deal considering I often have issues connecting to my wireless router because of distance. I do like the rumors about the ability to bridge between multiple wireless connections but unfortunately it does not work yet.
• Why it always prompt me for certain application that I run. There is no box that says always trust this app so not sure why I have to do it every time.
• It seems that every change that is an admin possible change has an icon next to it. That is fine if you were not an admin but I should not be getting prompt about admin rights when I am an admin login.

Things that surprised me

• No Windows Mail? I had to download it as an accessory.
• That I am not totally shocked by its new features. I really do not see major application difference between Vista. Maybe I just don’t know what they are. I have owned a Blackberry for 6 months and I just realized that I can “Alt Tab” like in Windows to view all my programs without going to the home screen. I also learned the “page up” and “go to the top” commands on top of changing my signal strength from a bar to the actual decibel level.

Overall, I think this is a pretty poor job at doing a review but I am very happy with Windows 7. The big decision will be if I actually buy it. I am hoping I can still possibly buy it through Wash U for $30 like I can with Vista now.

I got the new Moxi series 2 through Charter. Supposedly St. Louis is a test market for the device. I was super psyched about getting this thing but not really impressed with it like I was expecting.

Advantages

• It has the ability to add an external HD but it has to be an eSATA drive so that means my current external will not work. I will get one at some point but will probably wait.
• Th online scheduling for the DVR is pretty easy. You basically just log into your charter.net account and select record on the guide. You can choose a new recording and review what you have scheduled to record.
• It is more ascetically pleasing. The silver on black finish makes it look  more high end.

Disadvantages

• It is much slower than the Motorola device I previously had. The guide is at least twice as slow as my old DVR.
• I miss my “list” button that automatically took me to my recordings.
• There is no way to put a shortcut in my fancy Harmony 890 remote to go straight to the HD guide.
• It does not show the %full in the main DVR screen. You have to go into the About Moxi screen to look at how full you are.

All in all, I am sorta regretting making the change all though the bigger DVR space is a huge plus. I guess I was expecting a different interface from the original Moxi box I had. Digeo’s website shows a different interface so I guess Charter does not have that update. I am also disappointed that I can not use my USB 2.0 external HD that worked perfectly on my old Moxi and was purchased specifically for it. I did like having a bunch of saved HD movies on my external so I am sure this will make the difference once I splurge on a new HD. I guess it would be a lot different if my old HD worked. It is hard to say old since I bought it less than 6 months ago solely for my Moxi box.

Below are a list of technologies and services that I love. They are not in any order. On a side note, I wrote this in early November but never posted it for some reason.

• DVR – This a big one. It has changed how I watched TV in the past 5 years. I use to plan my schedule around TV shows that I liked (which was very few since I did not have the time to dedicate to them and I am rarely home during prime time hours). Now, I can record whatever I watch and view them in my spare time. The addition of a 500 GB harddrive to my DVR made even more difference. Now I can record whatever I want in HD without worrying about filling my recorder. (Note: I lost this function but will be getting it back)
• HD – I use to laugh at my friends when they told me they only watched HD programming. I now do the same. The picture is amazing and it is impossible for me to go back. If only I could have some other service than Charter.
• Flickr – Not only can I share my photos with my friends but it also serves as a backup storage device for all my photos. It also allows me to post pictures on my blog without using a lot of download capacity.
• Netflix – I have been using this for the past 5 years. It is so convenient. I am not too impressed with the streaming ability with the 360 though.
• My Blackberry – All I know is that I rarely go to my PC at my house anymore so it has made a major change in my life.
• My car – I love to go fast and ride in style. It will be very hard for me to get something that does not have the performance my current car has. I am a person that can never downgrade.
• Ipod – I never thought I would say this but I love the thing. I like it even more now that I figured out how to put my mass collection of DIVX on it. I loved watching my collection of Ducktales on the plane ride home from Vegas.
• Internet – I get everything from it. News, emails, storage. Not sure how life would be without it.
• My blog – I love being able to put down what ever I am feeling. It is like my own personal diary.
• PC – I couldn’t do most of the things above without it.
• Planes – I love to travel and wouldn’t be able to quickly go overseas without them. Maybe one day we will have teleporting technology so I could go to the beach for the day without any trouble.

I have been a Charter customer ever since I moved back to St Louis since 2004. I have experienced more problems than I ever imagined I would have experienced. I can only imagine why the company continually loses money and it’s customer base hand over fist.

Below is condensed list of some of my problems

1. Could not get Digital Cable to work for over 4 months in a new residence while they continued to bill me. They explained that the condo building was using older MediaComm lines that were smaller than the normal Charter lines so it was not providing enough signal boost to work the DVR. They finally resolved the problem and I had to fight extremely hard to get reimbursed for my lost time.
2. Got continually billed for two locations after I moved from my last apartment to my condo. They would fix the problem and then it would come back the next month compounded. I was getting bills for over $500. This went on for over 4 months until I finally wrote them a letter in which I had someone call me and get it resolved.
3. Various outages all the time at all 4 of my residences.
4. Their pricing is all over the board. My internet and cable bill was $200 last month. I just stripped it down to the lowest internet and got rid of a bunch of channels and it is still $165 even though I priced in online for $125. They said I am not eligible for promotions not will I ever be anymore.

I seriously think that I have spent over 100 hours on the phone with Charter in the past 4 years which is purely ridiculous. Why are they still in business? I am not sure why people use their crappy services when they have other options.

I really want to leave but have little options. I can not get U-Verse which is the option I want. I can not get Direct TV or Dish since my building does not have a HD Satellite on it nor can I run multiple lines into my place to have a fully functional dual tuner. Maybe I just need to move.

Update #1 – I had a Eric Ketzer from the Charter’s UMatter2Charter team. He was able to get me in at a lower rate which was very helpful through a 2 year high speed internet contract (as long as I live in St Louis), removing a $10 music service which I did not even know I had, and signing me up for a new 1 year promotion package. The best thing about the deal is that I am getting a new series 2 Moxi box on Saturday that Charter has been beta testing here in St Louis. I am not getting my hopes up but it looks to have a much bigger HD (not sure if it is 160 of 500GB), can add an external HD (which is huge), and can do online scheduling (which is something I have never tried but seems like a pretty big feature to me). I will let you know how I like it once I get it this weekend. I am still not satisfied with Charter’s pricing on cable. It seems to me that they have a $20 to $25 premium on their pricing compared to Dish on the same services and channels but I do appreciate Eric’s teams initiative to seek me out and try to make me a happier customer.

• Whats up with pushing back the digital television transition again? This is just ridiculous.
• The idea of femotcells is very interesting. What is the range for these things? It could be a great move for the phone carriers. They are basically having their customers improve the carriers network coverage at their own expense. Could one AT&T device in my building provide better coverage for the whole building (especially me)?
• I think it is a good idea to cut mail back to 5 days. Why do we need to get mail 6 days a week? You could always send it another way if it is that important. Why not knock it down to 4 days? They could make the mail business more profitable if they cut down the days since other people could compete for those off days (even the USPS).
• Not happy with one of the first Obama decisions. This stimulus plan better not distribute checks again. I would really like to see evidence proving that method helps.
• I having been cutting my food intake by half but my weight has not changed. I have also been doing cardio and weight lifting every day. It seems like I am stuck at my current weight no matter what I do.
• The new Gears of War 2 update seems like it make some differences in online play. The third update to the title is supposed to really address the issue with lag. I like how they finally made each round of Horde count as a game played for the 1999 achievement. I could play a 3 hour Horde match and only get one game played while other could play 20 or 30 games in that time period in non Horde matches.
• I am loving my new laptop setup with a dual screen setup and dock at work. I think it is going to cut my printing down by half. Now I have no need to print something just so I can use it on something else I am working on.
• I despise my new Charter DVR. The firmware has serious problems when it comes to recording. Here is my short list: (1) it records all HBO and Showtime series every time they are on if I have deleted them from my DVR. I had to delete the series recording because it was so frustrating. (2) It sucks at recording two things at the same time. I haven’t had it work right. It is almost like one of my tuners is out. (3) no external HD (4) the search function does not show the HD version of network channels. Makes it really hard to find programs in HD without paging through multiple days. When will Uverse come to my area?
• I never had problems like I did yesterday in the snow. My car almost got stuck leaving my garage and definitely did get stuck trying to get to it on my side street. All the other cars just zipped right through but I would spin in 1st gear and couldn’t keep the car alive in 2nd gear starts. I am so happy I was finally able to get moving.
• I am not very excited about the Superbowl. Why does everyone in St Louis think they have a stake in this one since the Cardinals played in St Louis at one point and so did Warner? The Cardinals were in Chicago for 60 years. Are Chicago fans cheering for the Big Red?
• 107 days till graduation. 35 days till Jamaica.
• I am probably going to get my scuba diving license. I do not think I can get it locally in such a short time plus I don’t want to pay extra to have my open dive in a cold cave. I will probably just do it in Jamaica.
• I think I have been doing my taxes wrong since I started Wash U. It looks like I could have been deducting my entire $25k tuition instead of doing the ~$4k Lifetime Learning credit. The articles I read make it sound like an MBA is some kind of special case when you can do this. Hopefully I will get a big chunk of change back when I refile.
• Last but not least, I forgot to mention something about ratings for Lost. Everyone is wondering why ratings are down. I think you will know this if you are a Lost fan. These past episodes are not made for the new watcher or even the every once in a while watcher. These episodes rely on the fact that you understand what has happened in the past 4 seasons. This is what makes the show so great but what also makes it unappealing to new users.