thanks to the suggestion and case's super mega fast internet, DNS is now much faster. Oddly, you can't add dns to my router if its on automatic, so I had to do it manually on each computer. I figure if some guy parks out front and steals wireless, at least his dns will be slow.

umm, its friday. Its exciting. I think that's about it. I need to go to work.

So due to scheduling, there's very little good tv shows left on the DVR to watch. And very little on tonight that's interesting. No problem, its a perfect night to see what free movies are available in the video on demand section of cable land. Well, much as this occured a few days ago, trying to use the on demand (in demand, whatever the hell its called) feature produces a nice error, which says call your cable company. A few days ago, with the same error, I tried unplugging the DVR and seeing if that worked when it rebooted. This time, I figured it couldn't hurt to call them. After going through 4 levels of menus, but only waiting on hold for a minute, I get to someone. She says 'unplug the box' I say ok, and do it, and while waiting for it to reboot, ask her if she's doing anything special, since I tried that. Semi-irritated, she says she is sending it 'a signal' I say, should I unplug the other box downstairs - i don't know if it has the same problem. She says well if it does then later I can reboot it as well. I'm not sure how the logic says I need to do it for one, so she can send 'a signal' but not for the other one. Regardless, I ask her if this is a problem that is common, or what may have caused it. She asks if I turn off the box at night. I say no, I just turn off the tv. She says I should turn it off. I say something to the effect of umm, I don't turn off my phone at night, why do I need to turn this off - she says well, its just like when you turn off the tv, turn off the box. I give up (but seem to have accidently pissed her off in the process). The box reboots fine, and I try on demand again, and get the same error. Unsurprised, she then says ok we'll schedule a service call. I say screw that, can I drop off the box. She says yes that's fine, I ask if I can drop it off by work, since then I could go at lunch. She says no, that's a separate city. I think I'll drop it off on my way home from work tomorrow, hopefully they don't close at 5 or I'll be pissed. I forgot to ask what their hours were.

Anyway, so to add insult to lack of tv to watch, the interest is acting stupid, and through my experience at the world's worst internet provider, its something with name severs, and so I'm just ignoring it, after rebooting various parts of the network pile under my desk. So no good tv, and the internet takes 5 minutes to find any websites, brilliant.

Oh well. about it from my end, hopefully this will turn out positive. I plan to see if I can get the better remote when I trade in the DVR tomorrow, one with the buttons actually big for the DVR functions that you use all the time. Of course then they're in a different place, so maybe a new remote isn't the best plan because then it will involve learning button positions again. Oy.

So usually, since I am not Irish, Catholic, or feel the need to eat corned beef and beer in mid-march, I don't do anything for the day. But it seemed that I had 3 shirts clean, one blue, one green and yellow striped, and one just green. I figured I might as well try the green. So I'll report back (in my usual delayed method) how wearing green goes. I do like the occasional green bagel, but I think that relates to my liking of bagels in general, but there aren't usually any around here. I also like corned beef, but on sandwiches, not with cabbage, since we're sharing.

So here's the dilemma of the moment, sam's club has organic sugar for like $3.50 a 5 lb bag. Do you buy the organic because its nice and happy and probably isn't as gross to produce as normal sugar (watch the dirty jobs episode on sugar production if you want to see) or do you not want to support super mega walmart, so you don't shop at sams club. Dilemma. Oh well.

Pittsburgh was good, (I went on Tuesday if you don't recall) I got a sleep number bed. I think I like 70. However, unlike in the stores where the numbers change all the time to activate, it takes like 5 seconds to adjust a number up or down, and makes a huge racket when the fan is inflating the bed. Oy. Nothing like expectation changing. I don't think I'd buy one, but staying in a hotel that has one was kinda nice - but also because hotel beds can tend to be just wrong, whereas I like and picked out my bed at home.

So I turn 26 today. Aparently there's some confusion about my age - see I have the theory that I was saved by not being born under the Reagan administration. But that doesn't mean I was born in '79. The 1980 Election was in November, Reagan started his presidency in 1981. So I'm happily in the Carter administration.

I really don't have much else to discuss. I was thinking of bringing donuts to work (I think cupcakes while more typical would freak people out, unless I just bought some at the grocery store) unfortunattely, one of the newer people in my group is on a birthday kick, and if she knows its my birthday, then we'll have to go to lunch somewhere where they sing. Which is the main rule of my birthday, not stupid singing meals. (Hence we like Dinosaur BBQ, where they clearly state they don't sing). Anyway, so I think everyone at work will need to fend for their breakfast sugar some other time. Maybe I'll randomly bring in donuts at the end of the month and tell her we can't go out because its 2 weeks too late.

Anyway, time to get moving.

Aparently yet again I have spread a cold. As I mentioned after the bad sleeping I really was feeling pretty stuffed up, so now Jen is all stuffed up. Oh well. I really didn't mean to do that, I need to work on not getting sick and not spreading. I can have some weird birthday resolution or something to do that, I think that's the best plan.

Phones are reasonably continuing to work. Had some issues in buildings again, but generally service is good. I ordered accessories (charger and data cables and such) from eforcity, whose prices are great and they sell OEM stuff in sketchy plastic bags. However, going for the cheap shipping option may not have been best., After ordering on feb 26th (a week from last sunday) they shipped last thursday via us mail. Oy. They've not arrived yet, and I'm thinking I'll be lucky if they arrive by this friday. That makes the whole deal a 2 week activity. Talk about advanced planning to save a few $. I don't understand how a company that likes to pride itself on working through rain and snow and even saturdays takes so long to get anything done. And its not like their prices are dramatically cheaper for anything that you can't send in a 1st class envelope. Aparently the package weighs 1.25 lbs or something, I can't really see it costing $30 to send it fedex ground or UPS that would actually get it in here in 3 or 4 days. Eh, enough complaining, I just want my car charger, mostly so when i forget to charge it overnight i can charge it on the way to work.

About it for interesting stuff on this end, I think its time to get more sleep and attempt to get rid of the last bits of this cold that I have.

Oh, I'm going to Pittsburgh for a 1 day conference on the 14th. It starts at 8:30, so I'm staying the night before. Nothing really interesting since I don't think anyone I know will be around at the time, I'll probably just go to Ikea to check up on fun to assemble furniture and ligonberries. I'm not sure what is needed, but I prefer it to be more of an adventure in the large yellow box, followed shortly by fitting all the purchased crap in the smallish blue car.

I'm not intentionally awake and showered and ready to go at 7:30 on a saturday, there's a special occasion. I seem to have acquired a cold, so for the past 2 nights I had been sleeping with the aid of nyquil and taking mucinex D during the day. I thought I'd be smart and just use mucinex at night too. Well, I spent the entire night tossing and turning, and finally just gave up and woke up at about 7. Oh well.

In other news, I didn't realize that I never finished the old Rusty Story. Sorry - people should tell me this more often, and then I'll be less of a slacker. I ended up making the quick decision on Tuesday (the day after president's day when the e-check place was closed) that there was little time for me to come home from work, warm up the van and drive it to the test place by 6 pm. So I did some last minute car moving and took the van to work. Fortunately I checked first to see if the gas door has un frozen, since my first stop was for gas. In any event, after driving to work uneventfully, except for not bothing to change the radio station so listening to the oldies morning talk show I parked. I conviniently didn't mention anything when passers by asked each other whose van that was in the parking lot. After more denial of ownership I drove directly from work to the test, and passed just fine. The test people check what vehicle you have when they come to give you your paperwork and they were amused at the condition of said 1990 van when handing me its pass papers. I pointed out the engine was just fine even if the body needed some work, she seemed to agree.

I think that's about it, hopefully I won't be awake tomorrow doing this again, yech.

Oh one more thing, the new phones are cool, and I managed to scratch the screen of mine in 5 days before the screen protectors I ordered came in. Go figure. I guess it either proves I'm destructive or that I really really needed the screen protector. Jen's of course is fine.