Bonesnap - Part 2

Travesty

Posted by Ironspike on Oct 25, 2011 in General | 0 comments

For years I traveled doing consultant work. I really didn’t get to stay at any one job location long enough to hang out with co-workers and bond by sharing teenage tales and childhood antics.

However, a few years ago I landed a local gig. Now I have the luxury of driving to and from work, paying tolls, and sitting in a cubical. And yes, I’m actually making some friends and sharing those tales that make all of us unique.

That’s when I realized… sometimes – real life experiences can be more entertaining and more fucked up than any fiction.

I call this post “A Travesty”.

Years ago when I was young – mom and dad helped out a family friend by letting him move in with us. “John” was a good guy who was down on his luck and really didn’t have anyone to turn too. He stayed with us for years. We never had any ‘real’ issues with him either. He wasn’t blood but he was close enough to it.

John wasn’t a saint – like all folks he had his share of issues from time to time. There is one story where he was camping out and rolled over into a camp fire while stoned – which is pure greatness. I’ll post it later.

Any way

I have an older female cousin – I’ll call her “Dee”. Dee was home schooled out of state and had not an ounce of respect for me or my sister – you know us being ignorant country folk and all. Seems Dee was going to move in with my granny.

My Granny lived right next to us.

Seems our community had a cheap nursing school or something that she was interested in. Either way, it wasn’t long before John set his sights on Dee. She was skinny and not bad looking and of course from out of town and didn’t know him.

Dee was stuck at granny’s with very little to choose from in the way of guys – she set her sights on John. She played the “hard to get card” but we all seen through that. It wasn’t long before they moved out, got married and moved on.

Fast forward a few years.

I graduate HS and moved to the city to attend college. My living arrangements all fall through and mom lands me a room at John and Dee’s place. It didn’t take me long to realize these two folks had a very volatile relationship. They fought – and fought bad.

I spent every minute I could either at school at work or at the $1 movies down the street. It all came to a head one night and John told me they were on the verge of a divorce. Then the next day he told me they decided to have a baby.

Here I am, thinking “what the fuck…. that makes no sense what so ever.”

Dee gets pregnant and has little boy that I shall call “Travesty”.

The fighting didn’t stop (duh) and then shit hit the fan.

Dee decides to enter little Travesty into a prettiest baby contest. How the winner is chosen is simple – each baby who is entered in to the contest gets raffle tickets (chances) that represent them. Each ticket was worth a buck I think. So, Dee would sell these tickets to folks and each one she sold was a ‘vote’ for little Travesty.

I thought this was a pretty stupid way to try and determine if your baby is the cutest or not.

Then the night came to turn in the tickets and from my understanding – little Travesty was behind in the polls. So Dee hedged her baby’s odds – by buying all the unsold chances for Travesty.

I’m not privy to the amount of money she blew. But I know this; I was at the house that night when she told John. John blew a fuse. John started yelling and when he walked off she drilled him in the back with the trophy that Dee just bought – I mean Travesty just won. Which then he retaliated with his strong pimp hand.

Now, momma only raised one fool and she still lives at home. I had already been making plans to move back home when this college semester was up. I already had plans to go to a different school and shack with a HS buddy of mine.

I had my exit strategy planned and I only had a few days left before blowing this Popsicle stand.

Semester finished and I was gone.

I saw John and Dee from time to time over the years. Then not at all – I moved out of state and didn’t see anyone except at funerals. Mom kept me informed of the status of folks and John and Dee stayed together.

Roughly about 4 years ago I get a call from my sister. She is all giddy and excited and informs me that John is there and wanted to talk to me.

The conversation goes something like this:

Me, “Hey man! Been a while.”

John, “Yeah it has.”

Me, “Sis said you wanted to talk to me.”

John, “Yeah, you know when you lived with us years ago? Well, did you ever mess around with Dee?”

Me, “Huh?”

John, “You know – fool around.”

Me, “God no. She’s my cousin.”

John, “Well she said ya’ll might have.”

Me, “No, I did not.”

John, “Ok. Here’s your sister.”

Sister, “Oh my god. I didn’t know he was gonna ask that.”

Me, *click*.

Usually, I’m quick with a comeback. This time, not so much. I had no clue where this was coming from and I was left speechless. To ask me if I messed around with my own cousin – absurd.

I guess what hurt the most was I considered John more blood kin than my own cousin, yet he asked me something like this.

I called mom and she informs me that John and Dee are going through a bitter divorce. And since Dee is a very vindictive bitch she led John to believe that little Travesty wasn’t his but instead it could have been mine.

Let’s just say my wife didn’t find this very amusing.

I blow it off and move on with my life. I knew that I’d never talk to either of these numbskulls again.

Fast forward years ahead to a few weeks ago.

The family (my family) go and visit my mom.

In the middle of the conversations going on between my mom, my sister, and her kid I hear that little Travesty was going away for 30 years.

Me, “Whoa.. back up what?”

Mom, “I didn’t tell you?”

Me, “No. What’s going on?”

Mom, “Little Travesty got sentences to 30 years for rape and forcible sodomy.”

Me, “omg.”

Sister, “Yeah, he’s 22 and had been dating a 12 year old girl. They started seeing each other when she was 11.”

Me, “You got to be kidding me.”

Wife, “Oh, that’s your other kid isn’t it?”

Me, “….”

The end of an era – no more Window’s Gadgets

Posted by Ironspike on Oct 4, 2011 in General | 0 comments

The end of an era – no more Window’s Gadgets.

Years ago when I first got Window’s Vista – I fell in love with the sidebar gadgets. Sure, they took up a lot of memory and they didn’t do anything spectacular. However, they did one specific function and did it pretty well.

You could have a clock that showed when a video game was coming out or a quote from the bible. They were easy to install and uninstall.

I was soon developing my first and most complex sidebar gadget. It was a Texas Hold’em gadget that provided statistical information to the user. I uploaded it to the Window’s Live Gallery and it was accepted into their program.

I was so excited!

It was downloaded about 1500 times and I felt like I actually created something useful. My next gadget was the Norrism Gadget. This little guy would load a list of Chuck Norris jokes from a remote web server and the user could cycle through them. It had funny little graphics and sound.

This gadget was download more the 40000 times. The interesting part was when I searched for it last night on Google I found other sites that were hosting it also. Some sites, took credit for it too which was a little disturbing.

I really couldn’t top the Norrism gadget. At that time I was really excited about Modern Warfare 2 coming out so I made a little count down timer. I used the same architecture as I did when I created the Norrism gadget. The gadget would contact a remote server and download an xml file. The file contained release dates and new version information. This way, if a release date changed (like they always do) I could make a change to one file on the my server and all the folks who downloaded the gadget didn’t have to do anything. It would automatically update.

My MW2 gadget was downloaded over 15000 times. It was interesting to see folks liked these count time timers. I created a C++ program that would created these gadgets automatically and all I had to do was provide the graphics.

Not sure exactly how many of these gadgets I made but they all were downloaded no less than 12000 times.

I had created some custom landing pages on my blog for each gadget and provided various game updates.

Last year I decided to update my blog and in the process I blew away those custom pages. I didn’t get around to fixing them until a few days ago. Let me tell you, trying to remember what you did a year ago in a php page is not an easy thing to do.

I finally fixed my site downloads and game information pages work right (sorta).

Over the past two weeks my server was getting pounded. I created a Gears of War 3 gadget and the dates got shifted. I changed the dates on my server and folks were updating (hence the pounding). Once the release date is passed I go to the Windows Live Gallery and disable the download of the game gadget.

That’s when I found out – as of October 3^rd the Window’s Live Gallery was retired.

No more gadgets.

I don’t even have access to my account any more.

From my understanding Microsoft is going to focus on it’s Metro Applications development. Is this a gadget replacement? I’m not sure.

Will there still be folks who want countdown timers and the such? I’m not sure of that either.

All I know is – I have a lot of clean up work to do now.

Video Game Disc Replacement (Activision)

Posted by Ironspike on Sep 30, 2011 in General | 0 comments

Video Game Disc Replacement

Ever break a game disc?

Pissed you have to go buy a new one?

Read this before you go blow your money on a new copy.

I have a XBOX360 and when Modern Warfare 2 came out – I was playing that game night and day. However, when I wasn’t around my kids would play other games. After about three months of ejecting, loading, inserting the CD – it became unreadable.

I went to the store to looking for a used copy. A gently used copy was $10 bucks cheaper than a brand new copy (around $55 bucks!). Almost two years later a used copy of MW2 is still running almost $30 bucks.

I did some digging around and found out that Activision has a disc replacement program.

However, it’s not widely advertised and just a little cryptic.

Here’s the scoop for an Activision Disc Replacement:

Call 1800-225-6588 (Activision support line between 7:00am and 7:00pm (Pacific Time)

You will need to request a RMA (incident number). They will quiz you to figure out if it’s really the disc or the console. I’m under the impression that any child past the age of five can determine that. So, pretty much you already know the answer when you call the number.

If your disc is messed up with-in 90 days of purchase

You’ll have to have the RMA #, receipt, and explain why the disc isn’t working. If it has scratches or anything like that on it – then it will be treated like the “After 90 Day warranty period”.

After 90 Day Warranty Period

No receipt is needed. You will still need an RMA # and send a brief description of why the disc isn’t working – plus check depending on the game type. For the XBOX 360 it’s $20 bucks.

Here’s the list:

Game replacement prices are as follows:
$10.00 USD – PC/MAC CD ROM game ($10.00 per disc replacement)
$15.00 USD – PC/DVD ROM game ($15.00 per disc replacement)
$20.00 USD – Sony PlayStation 2 /PlayStation 3
$20.00 USD – Sony PSP
$20.00 USD – Microsoft XBox 360
$20.00 USD – Nintendo Wii
$15.00 USD – Nintendo DS

Systems no longer supported:
Microsoft XBox
Nintendo GameCube
Nintendo Game Boy Color
Nintendo Game Boy Advance
Nintendo 64
Sony PlayStation (PS One)
Sega Dreamcast

When you call and get the RMA you will get an email with a link to a form to fill out.

Here’s an example form.

Activision Disc Replacement Program

Mail the form, the disc, and (since the instructions are little ambiguous) a note with your name, address, and brief explanation of why you’re mailing all this in the first place to the address below:

ATTN: Replacements

100 N. Sepulveda Blvd. Suite 900

El Segundo, CA 90245

Microsoft has a Disc replacement program also. I’ll post it on here in the next few days.