random ramblings

I am in Austin. I am in Austin. I am in Austin.  ^_^

I came back from the gym finding that my internet was stilll down.  But I decided to wait till 9PM to call comcast to save my daytime minutes. Hehe anyway, long story short, after 4 calls to comcast since last night and hours of utak-atik my two computers + modem + router, my internet is back up now.  ~ Wohooo ~

So so so dissapointed with comcast.  Just about 3 weeks ago I received a letter informing that they will increase the monthly rate from $29.99 to $42.95 !!!! They also increased the rate for cable tv, but only by $2.  So my monthly bill jumps from around $74 to $90 starting this month.

The reason was because my 6 month promotional period was over.  BUT I didn’t even know that I was on some promotional period. I remember asking the comcast person about this when Comcast took over Insight Cable last fall.  And I’m sure that time the person said that it’s just $29.99 forEVER.   I’m too lazy and tired to argue with them about this,  so I’ll just let it be for now.

DSL is now only $19.99 a month, but of course I will need to install a landline which will cost around $15/month. So total is still cheaper, but there will be installation fee, etc etc…. I guess it’s not worth my time to switch back to DSL again. 

Oh this reminds of another thing.  Along with all of comcast’s services "upgrades", they also removed premium and in-demand channels from the analog cables.  This happened just last weekend. So now, we could only get those channels if we have digital cable. Well for me, this means my ‘kotak item’ is useless now :p hueheueh  but I guess for this one I really can’t complain, can i ?  ^_~

I better get to sleep now. Tomorrow morning I need to get up very early to get ready for Austin and also I will try to get to work early hehe… I’m a last minute packer… It’s a habit I can’t get rid of :p

Tuesday 9.55 PM – I’m writing this down on notepad right now because my internet connection is DEAD ! The last few hours have been *excruciating* @_@ I don’t think I could live too long without broadband connection hehehehe unless I’m with my honey :p. No tv is not a big deal, but no internet is a disaster . I went home to change for gym but of course I stopped by my desktop to check on my bittorrent downloads and found out that they’re all at 0 kbps and all windows were showing tracker connection error. I then checked my eMule plus (also downloading 2 movies) and it’s also disconnected. Then I checked my ip address, tried to do an iprelease / iprenew but it failed saying that it couldn’t talk to the adapter. Next I turned on my work laptop, and couldn’t get connected either. Oh what a horror. I logged in to the wireless router, and released / renew the ip addresses from there but it couldn’t get a new ip either and strangely the router setup page was loading so slow. I suspected there’s something wrong with the router so I unplugged it and connected my laptop directly to the cable modem. Checked the ip address again. Finally got a new ip. But I noticed the DNS suffix is different, usually it’s. "in.columbus.comcast.net", but today it’s "il.chicago.comcast.net". Weird. I launched firefox and it tried to open google which I had set as my homepage. Althought the url shows www.google.com, the page is showing "Welcome to comcast high speed internet" instead. Basically it’s asking new and existing users to download and install a new comcast application and complete registration from that page. There’s only one button there. I clicked it and nothing happened. I right clicked and chose ’save as’ and it saved a very small progam. I executed the program, it opened the DOS command and I got a system error. Aaargh ! I tried it again this time ignoring the errors and proceed and finally it looked like it’s going on an infinite loop of spaces (the cursors is just moving very fast with no text in the DOS window). Scary, since I’m using my company’s computer, I didn’t want to take any risk. I switched to my desktop again, but I couldn’t get an IP address ! Rebooted the machine and still nothing happened. I checked all the network and connection settings, everything is correct. I burnt that little program I downloaded in the laptop and ran it on my desktop. Same thing; system err and infinite loop. I gave up. I informed Magda (my next door neighbor who is sharing internet connection with me) about the situation. By this time of course I already missed the regular window to go to the gym *hehehe what an excuse*. I decided to take a nap instead on the couch :p

I woke up about 1.5 hr later, American Idol was on. They’re down to the final 6 now. I haven’t been really following this season.

Then I was inspired to try something else with the computers hehe… I released the ip on the laptop and then switched the cable to the desktop, and tadaa finally I got an ip address. So does this mean I could only get 1 machine connected at a time now ?? Anyway I opened firefox again, google.com again, and I got the same "Welcome to Comcast" page again. Did the same thing I did on the laptop. This time I checked the .exe size is bigger ( 2MB instead of some KB) . I used Internet Explorer now and tried to download it again, this time I could see that the application size is actually 36MB, and with IE there’s a progress bar for the download so it took a few minutes to download the whole thing. Ahaa.. now I have a real installation program, not just a few KB of some DOS commands. So I ran it, and it checked my connection, my PC specs, there’s some user agreements, then I had to put in my account information. I didn’t have my account number since I don’t keep paper bills anymore. Everything is online these days, I could get my account number if I could access the internet :p Luckily, it let me enter my address & phone number and it found my account. So I clicked NEXT. And ERRORRRRRRR AGAIN. "Please call 1-800-COMCAST to continue registration". AAAAAAAARGH. I guesses I had no other choice. So I called them and the tech support guy told me that the registration system is down at the moment and they have no idea when it’s gonna get back up. I was advised to wait till tomorrow morning and call back if it’s still not working. *Sigh* OKAY. There’s nothing else I could do.

So what else is new with me this week ? I got a haircut yesterday. Around 10 cm of hair was cut off. I have short hair now, a little below my chin. I’ve been wanting to get a haircut the last couple of months. I’ve stopped by Renu, the Korean salon in Purdue twice the last few times I went there but it’s always too late to get an appointment. So I took a chance with this new stylist in town. I saw her business cards in New Japan, a local japanese restaurant. The name is Chie, so I knew she’s Japanese. I called her last Thursday for a weekend appointment, but she’s booked up. I wanted a new hair before going to Austin on Thursday, so she squeezed me in yesterday during lunch hour. I like her, she’s really taking her time cutting my hair, hehehe with 3-4 different scissors. it’s full service so I got a shampoo, then the haircut, and then the blowdry. It took an hour total. And I am very satisfied with the result. At first, I wasn’t really sure what to expect because nobody recommended her to me, I really just picked up her card at a restaurant. What if she’s an old japanese lady ? hehehe What if she’s not japanese ? Her last name is american. But when I came in and saw stacks of jap hairstyles magazines in her station, I knew I came to right place. I didn’t want those crazy japanese hairstyles, but I wanted a Asian hair stylist hehehe. Last night in the gym, a few people commented on my new hair. Sush, a coworker of mine, even asked me for the phone number of the stylist. This morning she told me she’s already made an appointment with Chie. HAhahaha. But she also said "What happened to your hair today ? Yesterday it looked so good!" What’s that supposed to mean ? Okay okay I am not a person who spends a lot of time in front of the mirror in the morning. Of course yesterday it looked better. It was fresh from the salon ! Anyway, I still like my new hair even today

Ok lah.. there’s still other stuff I wanna write about but this is already a very long entry. I’ll save the rest for next time. Now is almost 11PM, still couldn’t connect to the internet. I’m gonna call yayang now.

——————– Update : First thing I did this morning is check my internet. It’s still not working. I’m already at work now, posting this thing. I hope it will be back up by the time I get home this evening.

————–2nd update : I called comcast this morning from work, they said they only could help me if I called from home because they need the serial number and MAC address of my modem.  So, I went home for lunch especially to take care of this.  Spent almost 1/2 hour on the phone with the tech support guy   *what a waste of my mobile daytime minutes*  but I still couldn’t get connected.  He said he would send a technician tomorrow morning to switch the modem to a different model. But I have to be home for it of course. What a hassle. He would try getting me connected with my current modem, but he said it might not be possible.  He said he’s going to give me a call back. But I waited and waited he didn’t call me back, so I’m back at work now and still bummed.

I just got my new All In One DVD player. It’s a progressive scan, region-free, can play dvd, vcd, divx, xvid, jpg, mp3,  it supports almost all the file formats that I have : avi, asf, mpg, wmv. So that means from now on I could watch all my downloaded movies, animes, and  tv series on the big tv screen.  Yay !! ^_^   The last few weeks I’ve been downloading like crazy, adding some 25+ hongkong & korean movies, and 3 complete series of korean dramas to my collection  hehehe.  I was tired of watching them in my laptop.  Plus, a few months ago my laptop cd-rom were ruined because it couldn’t handle my drama marathon nights :p I think it got overheated or something. 

So I went searching for divx certified dvd players. When I told yayang about this, he said he would buy it for me, meaning I could use his credit card hahaha.  Last time I looked, divx players were still expensive, maybe around $150-$200, but it’s quite a while ago.  I found one model that seemed popular, it’s Phillips DVP-642 and it’s $70 everywhere I looked ( walmart, amazon, newegg, etc ). That’s already a very good price.  I almost bought that one when I came across this one. Just couldn’t resist the price and it has such good reviews.  So I decided to save my honey some money and buy the cheaper one. 

Okies, I’m gonna watch something on my new dvd player now. 

What would you do when you pass by a naked person ?  This afternoon I just said hi to her.  But I remember the first time I saw her undress in the gym’s locker room  I was quite *shocked* and probably and then said Sorry or Excuse Me  and she just said "Oh, you’re fine!"   So… there’s this lady who’s probably about my mom’s age in the gym  who likes to change in the aisle way to the restrooms.  There’s actually the option to change behind the lockers ( like I always do ) or  change in the shower rooms  but no, she always undress in the aisle way. Everybody who enters the room will definitely spot her right away. And the thing I always don’t undertand is why she always take everything off before putting on the gym outfit… so there’s always a few seconds when her body is bare naked .. *tanpa sehelai benang pun*…  Why doesn’t she take the top off first, put on the workout bra  and then take off her pants or skirt, and then put on the workout pants   like most people do?    Today I saw her after she’s done so she’s changing back to her normal clothes.  Same thing..  I walked in when she was completely naked.   I just walked pass her to the restroom and on the way back I saw her showering and she did NOT close the shower curtain.  Why Why Why ??

It’s only been a few weeks, and I already don’t know what to write here :p   Nothing’s happening in my boring life :p   Most of the times when i have something to share with my dear friends.. it’s always about another person..  so i can’t write about those in my blog, can’t i ?  What if they come across this page one day and read about it ? hehehe..

hmm the past few months,  every few days when i log in to msn messenger,  there are a few pop-ups that XXXX and YYYY has added me to his/her contact list.  At first I thought it’s just a mistake.  But then it happened again and again.  These people usually sent me msgs in chinese.  I understood most of them,  anyway it’s always something like "Hello/ good morning" type of greetings.   I replied to 1 or 2  but then I just started blocking them everytime I got the pop-ups. Just now I count the people in my blocklist and there are 71 of them at the moment !!
Where did these people got my msn email address?  I never posted my email as far as i could remember. 

I just got back from the gym. I only stayed for Kickboxing + Ab class
today. It was a killer one. I was out of breath so many times.

This week I’m back in training for the whole week.  That means no MSN and i-net browsing during the day-time. That also means I’ve got to get my project presentation ready tonight because I have to present it tomorrow morning at 8AM.   

I’ve got a very good news from my honey just a couple hours ago.  He got the long-awaited promotion this morning! ^__^ I believe his job title now is "Staff Software Engineer".  Of course he also received a salary raise.  Hehe He is very delighted.  I’m very happy for him too. He really deserves it after all the hard work, long nights at the office that he put in these past 3 years.

Congrats hon !  xoxo