Although it isn’t ultra-common, once in a while we’ll get 1 user who sends in about 50 support tickets at once telling us their forum has been hacked, or their forum is under attack, or they’ve deleted their forum and need it recovered immediately. I always feel a little guilty when I run across one of these tickets, because there’s literally nothing that I or another member of the Support Team can do to fix the problem. We can offer our advice, but we do not have a magic button that restores a user’s board. I deleted my forum once and regretted it, so it’s not like I don’t understand why these users feel upset and are trying to seek a restoration. I never get upset for that reason. You know what I do get upset about though? I get upset when a user feels like they can send in a gross number of tickets asking the same thing over, and over again. How is that supposed to help? Are they thinking that perhaps if they submit an unignorable amount of tickets that they will be placed in a magic queue for an instant restoration? Anyway, all of this got me thinking about the actual people behind the computer screen.

Are we dealing with immature children? Are we receiving tickets from people who are simply lonely? Are they mentally retarded (and I mean that in the nicest way, medically)? Or are they people who haven’t gotten their way in the past and are now seeking revenge by purposely submitting tickets to annoy? Who are these people? These questions can’t be answered, because we often never figure out who these individuals are on a personal level. The more this happens the more I’m certain that the ticket system will evolve to let Support Staff ban individuals from using the system – and that’s not what we want to do. We want everyone to be able to enjoy the benefit of free support for their InvisionFree or Zetaboards forum, but it sure would be nice if people didn’t take advantage of us.

Now for a positive note: Of all the people who do submit support tickets, 95% of you have great questions that we all enjoy answering. Your postive attitudes and great feedback never go unnoticed, and we even have a discussion in the staff lounge specifically for compiling all of your terrific reactions. So… thanks.

A surprise came for me in the mail last week. It was strange lifting the heavy envelope my bank had sent me, mostly because my bank never sends me anything anymore now that I’ve subscribed to e-statements. I opened the envelope and discovered that my bank had sent me a credit card. Earlier this year I sent in an application, but with my current employment situation I was almost positive they wouldn’t grant me such a nifty tool. Although I didn’t believe it to be possible, one fatal error happened when I opened that envelope: I felt proud. Not proud that I could now spend $1,500 on anything of my choice, but proud because I actually had some sort of token of my adulthood. Not having a drivers licence, I cannot purchase lottery tickets or alcohol (or pornography, god forbid I see enough of that everywhere else), and I haven’t voted yet so it sort of feels like I haven’t done anything a person my age has the right to do. Of course, once you feel proud of something you feel the need to tell those around you about it. This is where the problem began.

Normally when you tell someone you’re proud of a particular item or event in your life they congratulate you. If this particular thing is a credit card however, forget it. All you get is a bombardment of warnings. “Be careful!”, “Don’t spend more than you have.”, “Stay out of debt.” It leaves me clawing at the heels of my friends and family, begging them to cease their useless and boring speeches about how one day I’ll be living on the streets because I bought a Mac and couldn’t pay it off. Okay, maybe, um, settle down, please, thanks? I get it. I’m not stupid. I understand how a credit card works.

Credit is not money. Credit is credit. If you purchase an item with credit and wait for the monthly statement to arrive it accumulates fees, such as interest. You must pay interest. Interest can (and will) accumulate and your fees will grow. You will end up paying more money for the item you thought was $1,500. I so very much appreciate the fact my friends and family are concerned about my well being, but a little “credit” for being moderately intelligent would be okay once in a while too. The only person who did actually congratulate me was my boss at work. Very happy to hear those words.

I was really surprised at the effectiveness of this games for the Nintendo Wii. This is the third Animal Crossing game I’ve purchased in my life time, and it’s even more effective now that it’s been brought into 2008. Animal Crossing: City Folk takes all of the elements that made the original and Wild World great and combines them into one jam packed disc of fun content!

The  basis of Animal Crossing stays the same between the 3 games; you move to a new town, get a new house and begin paying off your mortgage by doing little tasks such as selling fruit, catching fish & bugs or doing favours for your animal neighbors (just to name a few). While you’re doing this you can also donate money (called Bells) to your town in order to upgrade it with little perks, go shopping for cool items in the city or just chill and play with your friends with Nintendo WFC. The aim of the game really hits close to home for many different player types. If you enjoy relaxing, this game is for you. If you enjoy sim games. Get this game! If you’re into collecting things and meeting objectives, you’ll enjoy AC. There’s always something to do in the world of Animal Crossing, and because the clock ticks by in real time…stuff even happens while you don’t play!

I somehow managed to play for 6 hours today…which is abnormal for me. O_O

Damn.

Sorry that Stephen sent you to your early graves, that is. What Mr. Bauer and Mr. Bennet don’t know, is that Peter has the fortunate capability of stopping time, teleporting, regenerating, hurling fistfulls of lightning, flying, reading minds, freezing things, moving objects with his mind, exploding like a nuclear bomb, painting the future and growing perfect man stubble JUST TO NAME A FEW. How anyone could think two gun wielding maniacs could ever take such a reckoning force is beyond me.

Plus, even in the worst case scenario you DID somehow manage to even scratch Peter…would you really want the vengence of his mother to crush your like an ant? Think on it.

You have until October 28th to surrender your Empire and all it’s riches.

After a crazy old man in a dress told me that I couldn’t pass, I had no other choice but to head back to the base and figure out where things stood from there. It was then, in this moment that I decided it was time to relocate my troops to another area of the battle field, and call in the most helpful person on the planet.

Attack, PETER! Explode Stephen and his army.

I am officially launching an attack on Planet Stephen. Your Empire will fall! >:)

It started off as a chilly day, but I didn’t think it would get colder as the day went on. Boy was I wrong…when I went outside to catch the after school bus I could see my breath! I heard we might actually have a chance of seeing a few snowflakes tonight which would be pretty cool. I’ve never disliked the snow, but I do grumble occasionally when I need to wait outside in the morning to catch the bus to school. Nothing sucks more than having to wake up from your warm bed to stand outside in nature’s “coolest” weather. The temperature is supposed to drop down to -2 degrees celsious (about 24 fahrenheit) tonight which is probably the coldest it’s been yet where I live. Just a few more words on this: Brr! Brr! Brr!

I had a pretty lazy day at school today. I couldn’t find my box of contact lenses so I was quite blind today. Film studies was fun because I couldn’t really see the movie and whenever my teacher was talking to me I thought for sure they were looking at other “Ryans” in the room. It was pretty brutal. I could have worn my glasses I suppose, but I’ve never liked wearing them. I think it’s the frames…I’ve had the same frames since grade 7 so I’m pretty sure all I need to do is pick out a new style. In many ways I don’t like wearing my contact lenses because they irritate me to the point of no return and they seem to dry out far too quickly for someone like me. I’m always on the computer, so this is to be expected I guess. Glasses have always been more practical and it’s definitely my first choice if I’m just going to be staying around the house. Frames are a bit expensive from my doctor’s office though, so I guess I’ve just been putting it off for the obvious reason. I just received a pretty nice pay cheque though so I should probably invest a bit of time into looking for a new look. I wonder if I could pull off the HRG look? haha

Ah! Speaking of Heroes, I think they did a pretty good job last night of pulling the storyline back just a little bit. Last night’s episode didn’t seem to be all about the flash. I also like how they wrapped up Hiro’s little ordeal with Ando. I won’t post any spoilers here, but I will in the Community Chat topic so be sure to check it out!

I don’t know how I managed to spend most of this weekend just laying in my bed. I think it’s all of this “darkness” that’s setting in. When the days start to get shorter I start to sleep more altogether, and by the time winter hits I’m even less energetic than I usually am. I should be going to school right about now, but I just spent an awful night on the couch fighting a headache and watching a few old episodes of House. A sore throat was also here to greet me as I sat up this morning from the rather warm impression I left on the sofa. How could I possibly handle school after something like that? I’ll probably spend the rest of today wishing I had some pain killers or some more honey to put into my tea. Actually, I may still have some left somewhere in the upper atmosphere of my kitchen cupboard.

After doing a bit of post-secondary research, it seems that I have quite a journey over the next 6 years of my life. In order to get the education that I want, I’ll be required to do 3 years of college and then 3 years of university to become a computer programmer analyst. That’s a nifty title, if I do say so myself. I’d be happy to bring that up in any conversation, especially since I look like anything but a programmer. I’ve been sort of worried as to what direction I’d like to take my life in, but I think I’m fairly comfortable with this decision. I had considered doing theatre and musical theatre in post-secondary but a few things didn’t seem right to me. The cloud of concern that was troubling me most was the money. A university education is not free, and even worse it’s not cheap. I feel that if you can act, you can act. There isn’t a piece of paper in the world that can make you more talented as an actor. You’ll either have what it takes, or you won’t have it what it takes. I don’t think I’d be able to spend thousands of dollars on a Bachelor of Arts and be able to sleep soundly at night. Some of my friends and family are really upset that I’m not going into school for it, too. It gets worse when I tell them I’m going to be pursuing a career in computer programmer instead. I’ve gotten a lot of mixed reactions over it, because apparently the two don’t seem to mix very well. I’ve hardly seen it as a “milk and water” case though.

I hate to stereotype people, but it’s fairly common to see someone who’s excellent with computers lack in human to human interaction. This is where I think I’ll have an advantage if I choose to follow through with being a “Computer Programmer Analyst”. The film studies teacher at my high school has a brother who is more successful with his programming business because he has also had a lot of experience interacting with people. This ability to be more “personable” is a great aid to his programming skills because he can often clearly convey problems or get his point across to people he may be working with or for. It makes sense to me!

My post-secondary plans are most definitely not set in stone as of this point, so I guess anything is possible. Maybe I should skip all the hard work and win the lottery or something…

I’m an actor and I’m a computer guy. I am not compatible with yard work. Yesterday I was doing my homework and my Dad asked me if I could help him with the yard. I sort of whined and said “Do I have to?” He said “It would be very much appreciated.” I took that for “Yes, you have to.” Anyway, I did all the weed whacking stuff for him. It was pretty hard because I have little upper body strength and the machine isn’t exactly feather light. Plus when you consider I live out in the country and I have about half the globe to trim down it doesn’t make it easy work. Nonetheless, I slapped on some protective eye-wear, threw on my ball cap and started working. I was holding this machine for about an hour and all I could think about was how much it was shaking and vibrating. When I was finished I had a drink with my Dad and I could hardly hold my arm still. In fact, for the next several hours all my arms were doing were shaking slightly. Dinner was slightly odd because I couldn’t hold my food still and I definitely spilled lemonade on me later at night while on the computer. I’m fine now … but it was awful. XD

I’m not opposed to yard work, but I don’t think I’ll ever be volunteering to do something like weed work again. I’d much rather sit on the riding lawn mower and cut the grass or rake leaves. Speaking of leaves, my GOD is it ever beautiful here this time of year. All of the trees are bright orange, red and yellow. It’s really quite amazing! It’s too bad it only lasts a few weeks and then everything is a crunchy brown. Around Halloween there’s no beauty left in anything. I always kick myself for not taking pictures this time of year … I should really get on top of that and start early fall next year.