Minor update that has continuity with the last few posts. Here is my speed test for the damn near 90 buck a month charter internet I’m paying for:

Just for comparison this is the Charter internet I’m paying for below.

Charter High-Speed® Internet Max

1. Get the fastest speeds available – Get speeds up to 20Mbps to surf 13X as fast as 1.5Mbps DSL!
2. Automatic detection from viruses, hackers and spam – Charter Security Suite™ has the fastest response to new virus threats and best virus detection††.
3. Download in seconds, not minutes – plus a reliable always-on, always-fast connection.
4. 10 e-mail accounts – enough for the whole family plus 20MB of Web space.
5. Exclusive content on charter.net – get your local news, weather, movie listings and more!

Plan price: 79.99/mo

©2009 Charter Communications. Offer valid to new residential customers only who have not subscribed to Charter High Speed Internet within the previous 30 days and have no outstanding obligation to Charter. Standard rates apply after promotional period ends. Installation, taxes, fees and surcharges are extra. Certain equipment may be required at installation and charges may apply. ††Defined as fastest response times to new threats and overall detection rates. Source: AVTest.org, Q1-08 world renowned 3rd party testing company. Defined as best detection against new virus threats. Source: AVTest.org, Q1-08 world renowned 3rd party testing company. Charter reserves the right to determine the level of service to which this offer applies. Valid service address required. Credit approval, prepayment or major credit card may be required. All services provided are subject to the subscriber agreement which is subject to change. Visit charter.com/30day for full details on 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee. Services not available in all areas. Other restrictions may apply. Call for full details.

The Charter repair guy fixed my net. It turns out the actual cable was bad and dude had to replace it. You can’t imagine how happy I am right now. I can surf for porn and torrents again.

So my internet at home went out sometime late yesterday night. When I got home in the morning I called the Charter help line. Some chick in india walked me through unplugging my modem and waiting a minute before plugging it back in. It did not work. She then tried getting in to the modem. That failed as well. Me and india support lady decided the modem was dead. Before letting me go the india support lady tries to sell me Charter cable tv. I tried to explain to her that I had high speed internet and I did not need Charter cable. But she would have none of it and followed her script. I followed my script and hung on the support lady from india.

I then drive to the Charter home base in my area and get a new modem. I shutdown my pc. I plugin in the new modem. I hook it all up to the pc and reboot my computer. I did not hook it up to my router. When Windows boots to my surprise the internet is still no where to be found. I call Charter again and get another lady from india. We go through the same shit. Unplug and plug back in. She tries to access the modem on her end and fails. So she arranges for someone to come to my today between one and five. Hopefully it’s not someone from india.

To top off my irritation the this second support lady tries to sell me Charter tv. I again explain that I don’t need their tv I have high speed internet. This one tries to out do the first india support lady and when selling me tv fails she trys to sell me the Charter phone service. I look at the cell phone I’m talking into and ask the india support lady how is I’m communicating with her right now. At this point I’m kinda getting pissed off. I say to her I’m pretty sure we are communicating not by telegraph, morse code, or smoke signals but by phone already. I decline her offer. She of course continues to follow her script. Which at this point I give up and just hang up on the support lady from india. I hate people from india almost as much as I hate Charter’s stupid automated answering machine robot. I always end up cursing before I find the right keyword to get a real person to talk to. Agent is the magic word.

So I’m writing this at work. I hope to be back on the net shortly after the times between one and five.

So four years ago today I quit smoking. I’m still quit. I have no desire to start again. I’m lucky I quit when I did. And I’m not talking about health reasons. You can hardly smoke any where. Smokes are six bucks a pack now. Granted I’m glad that I feel better because of quitting smoking. It’s just there is no way I could have survived with this no smoking in bars we have around here. Another thing of course is the money I’ve saved (well money now wasted on other bad habits) since I quit. Gawain brought that up. I never really thought about the money I’m saving by not buying smokes. Also thank god I don’t smell like those stinky fucking smokers anymore. Jesus you smokers smell like ass. So I’m glad about that. So heres to another year of being smoke free.

Me and the Newb celebrated out birthday yesterday by going to a micro brewery pup type place. Some of his old Mernards buddies came out to celebrate. One of them asked about the old Holiday Inn brochure that features the Newb on the front. Here is a scan of that brochure:

This brochure is from a different time and place that does not exist anymore in the hollow shell that is the worst hotel ever.

So my first step into the world of Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition was pretty successful. Spending the money on the books and all the accessories was well worth it. The group I ended with was a perfect example of how easy it is to start playing Dungeon and Dragons. The players were:

My Niece (age 9) played a Cleric
My Nephew (age 8) played a Fighter
The Newb (age 35) played a Paladin
The old Bellman (age unknown) played a Wizard
The Bellman’s kid (age 14) played a Rogue

Other than me and the Newb none of the players have ever played any pen and paper RPGs. The kids have dabbled in some of the MMOs I’ve played so some of the concepts were not to alien to them.

I was the Dungeon Master and I sucked. Running combat was fine. But anything were I had to try to convey a story of any sort using NPCs just was horrible. I felt like a dork trying to speak as if I’m the NPCs. I ended up awkwardly reading the text out of the adventure book. We made it through two encounters and the one awkward bit with npc interaction. Total time spent playing was around five hours or so.

A little after the first encounter was finished the Teacher came over. The Teacher lives next door to the Newb. He’s played DnD and has been a Dungeon Master before. I was hoping he would show up as we played. In the back of my head I was hoping I would be able to pawn off the DM duties to him. By the end of the session it was decided he would borrow the books and read up on the new stuff in 4E. With any luck I will have some people to play Dungeon and Dragons with. I want to play. I don’t want to be the DM. I do think I’ll continue to abuse the kids and run a kids game for them. I’ll try to practice getting over my feeling like a putz when speaking for NPCs.

So I’ve been listening to these DnD podcasts were the Penny Arcade guys play the new Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition. The first episode is here and the rest you can find at the D&D podcast page. There is two series now of these guys playing the 4th Edition and it sounds like they are having a lot of fun. Slowly over the time I’ve listened to them all the desire to play 4E DnD has slowly been building up.

I’ve ended up blowing a hundred bucks or so on the 3 core books the Player’s Handbook, the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and the Monster Manual last saturday. Since then I’ve also picked up a Dungeon Master’s Screen and a Level 1-3 adventure called Keep on the Shadowfell. I have dice from the last time I bought some DnD stuff when the 3rd Edition came out. Of course you can’t do anything with all of this without people to play with.

So I of course started to talk it up to my 8 year old nephew. Who seemed to take a liking to how combat is played using the dice. His sister will play because she like doing stuff with us. I’m using the angle that she can be a Elf Princess or something to hook her in. Then it’s just having to convince the Newb to play. I had seemed to have him in up until the point I explained all the at will powers. The Newb played the old stuff back in high school and some of these new rules are hard for him to accept. I think it makes the game fun. I hope.

Saturday I will unleash it all on them. After getting a few more suckers to volunteer. It all seems fitting for us all to play on saturday since it is the official Worldwide D&D Game Day saturday. It’s celebrating the release of the Player’s Handbook 2. This is going to be my first time running a game so I’m a little nervous. With any luck everyone will have a good time.

Minor edit to add the new poll to the post:

Do you play pen and paper role playing games?

• Yes
• No

View Results

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