So, I got to thinking about why I'm encountering so much flack, and came to the realization: "I FORGOT TO MAKE A COME BACK THREAD! DUH! *ahem*

But whatever the reason... :stare:

Well, I guess I need to lay the ol' update on you, and after that, I figure we'll be smooth as a glass baby's ass (so to speak)! So here it is:

Last time I posted (Officaly) I believe it was back in...March? February? Well, I got a lot more to tell than that. For those that don't know, I have been hired, fired, and hired again. Last time I updated you guys as to my job status was when I was working for some Diner I believe. Well, I was working at a hotel for a while. It was a pretty sweet gig. I was the airport shuttle driver, and a bunch of other stuff. I cleaned the hotel's public areas, did occasional room service and even a bit of maintenance where necessary. And I got tips! Good tips too. Some weeks I pulled down $75 in tips. I got gratuity when a tour bus came through, and Overtime and Holiday pay stacked, so one pay period (we were paid every two weeks) I made over $1,100! Sadly though, as winter approached, the business dropped off and my hours were cut back. Well, they expected me to do 7 1/2 hours worth of work (mandatory daily cleaning and such) in only 6. If I had more than 3 runs to the airport in a day, my cleaning schedule was pretty much f'ed. And so in February they fired me. To their credit I could see in their eyes when they did it, that this was something they didn't want to do, it was "yet another victim of payroll and company PR policy regarding hotel cleaning standards not lining up with, you know, REALITY."
Whatever. The down side to that was that I had just gotten my wife a nice locket for Valentine's Day and now I had really no way to pay for it.

So I was out of work for 3 months, and spent the time filling out apps, and playing Minecraft. I got a couple of bites, but nothing solid until May. Went to Anime Boston, but I was pretty much broke, and let me tell you, being broke at an Anime Con is not an experience I care to repeat. I did however dress up. I went as "Steve," better known as "Mr. Minecraft." A plastic beach shovel and two cat litter boxes taped together...Cheapest. costume. ever. As usual however, I got props for being one of the best looking Steve's there; No small achievement when you consider that one guy went in the full cuboid body suit. As for Minecraft itself, well, I'm posting vids of that so I don't really need to go into that.

Now I work for a convenience store chain called X-tra Mart. It's no great shakes, but it pays fairly well ($8.25 hr, so better than minimum by a bit), and the work is fairly brainless. Make coffee, stock soda, run a derelict register that was state of the art in 1991...that sort of thing. (Google "Verifone Ruby Sapphire" and you'll see what I'm talking about.)

Bryce had his first birthday. The concept of "cake" blew his mind. (wait till he finds out...)

What else... OH YEAH! I'm in my own Crib B's and N's! It's an actual house and not an apartment! It's in a lakeside community kind of thing, nothing fancy though. All the people who live up here are all young folks like myself! Blue collar, young families. For $75 dollars a month (the association fee) we get water, and unlimited use of the association rec center. (It has an indoor pool!) The house itself is actually pretty cool as well, it's a geodesic dome. Stucco exterior, and cheap to boot! $65,000 took the whole thing! The guy who sold it inherited the house, but lives in Ohio, and never planned to come to Maine, so he just wanted out from under it, plus, because it is such a "weird" house, he thought no one would want it, so...
We plan to renovate the basement into a family room/home theater, and might add an addition. Unfortunately, Because of this decision, the basement is in shambles, and all of my gaming equipment has been mothballed. Until I can get the basement sorted out, I'm strictly a PC gamer. In fact, I really only have my computer for entertainment as this place doesn't even get the local channels. (No cable or satellite what so ever) We do have a 6 Meg DSL connection though, (courtesy of my Father-in-Law) so that KIND of makes up for it.

In August we were hosting my wife's aunt and uncle for dinner and Owen, the oldest one of our 3 cats, got outside. (We got him as a couple before my wife and I got married, when he was merely weeks old). He likes to wander off, and we had to track him down to catch him on numerous occasions. Well, I thought it would be fine if he was outside for the hour or so dinner would take and he tended to stay near the yard at least, so I let it fly. He never came back. We (my wife and I) now think a wild animal got him, but I personally like to think he found someone else to live with. I do miss that cat, he was really quite affectionate. *snif* So my wife gets on Craigslist and looks for kittens, and we did find one; A male Maine Coon/Angora mix...in Skowhegan. Now to put that in perspective, from where I live, it is quicker to get to BOSTON. Two states away. It was a 8 hour round trip, and so we named this cat "Miles," cause we drove miles and miles to get him.

Well, that about sums up. I'm in possession of an awesome House with no TV (but an awesome internet connection), we lost and gained a cat, and I lost and gained a job.

Now how's that for fresh content?

Sounds like you had a lot of things happen to you. But making an addition to the house seems pretty expensive, especially since you haven't finished paying for it (right?).

Sorry to hear about the cat.

All that content is fresh (even if the beginning is pointed and completely inaccurate).

Sorry, didn't read on account that you're not a girl.

PS: Welcome back officially

Since you have your pc you can make Magpies? Yes?

Officially welcome back oh master of staffs.

His wife won't let him.

Now the only thing holding me back is that while we do have a scanner, It wont talk to our computers. Everything is installed and such, but I keeps asking for a direct link. I suppose I could spring for (or dig up) a 25 network cable, It seems as if the all in one wants a permanent connection. That said, I can see what I can do, I did have lots of fun making them for you guys.

If it is HP then good luck. I hated my hp all in one printer. The thing wanted so many programs installed and suggested more and more and all I wanted to do was print a simple letter and on occasion, scan an old photograph. Then one day the ink cartridge exploded inside. Killed the machine.

Point being, not only do I feel your pain, but just know, it gets worse.

HP = sh*t

HP= decent computers
But I must agree, their peripheral department must be headed by a trained collobus monkey.

I'll Have to check, but I don't think it's an Hp...*goes upstairs to check*...

...

*returns* Nope, It's a Lexmark.

HAHAHAHAHA. Hahaha. Haha. *snort* Hahahaha.

No, their computers are the least sucking thing they make. But that's not saying much.

Their printers though, they are the worst. In fact, Insultobot, I bet your list of installed programs looked a bit like this.

Hp does, though, make decent sauce

I said "decent" not "great"

I define "decent" as "it turns on, boots with adequate speed, and doesn't facking use and require proprietary parts/software to function."



I am currently on a Samsung RV511 laptop, it runs Minecraft better than the HP Touchsmart Desktop my wife uses, and that one has a 1 TB Harddrive and a i7 quad core. This one only has 320 gigs and an i5 tri core. so yeah. no argument about HP being...lackluster...


(and BTW, If you claim that Dell is better I will smack you with a pot of lo mein.)

*edit* I did in fact mean to say "facking." I am not trying to bypass the swear filter. I'm trying to say that instead of the Fbomb so my son doesn't pick up bad language. FYI. XD

And I would say "decent", on top of those things, would be maintaining that status for the duration of use. Something HP does not usually do. I believe Ix, at this moment, is experiencing just how "decent" HP is.[/quote]



Then start winding up buddy, because that's exactly what I'm saying. The only two computers I use out here in the plant (user desktops and servers alike) are either custom made by me or Dells. We used to have a few HPs at some point, but I've finally got them all weeded out. The Dells well out preform HP in every aspect. You must be comparing like, those old ThinkCentres or something, either that or I'm taking crazy pills. If ever I get the chance, I make my own. If I have to buy a canned market computer, the lesser of two (or any number) evils is Dell.

Any attempt to justify HP's quality should result in a ban. How can anyone believe they're even remotely decent? When a company has a 20% failure rate with their HP laptops, there's obviously a problem. Why do you think HP stopped making tablets and computers in the first place?

i really hate all the bloatware that comes with new computers and hp products now. i got a referb hp computer and there was an entire hard drive filled up with nonsense. if i wasnt lazy id of reformated and started with a fresh drive.

And you would have still had problems.

Well Lantis, My personal opinion is that any computer should be able to be taken apart and modded and added on to up the wazzoo, and that any company that makes their computers need to have either A: proprietary parts or B: proprietary software to run or work, should have their right to manufacture computers revoked. Last I checked Dells fell into category A. Also, every time I ever encountered a Dell, the damn thing has had more technical bugs than a flee ridden cat. Oops! Wired mouse stopped working!, No, works fine when I plug it in to this OTHER computer. Guess I'll have to reboot. Oops! The processor locked up again, have to reboot! Oops! I hope you weren't planning to open that word file today, the CPU is too busy not being able to walk and chew gum. Guess I'll have to reboot. Oops! What? Won't talk to printer, Guess I'll have to reboot!, Oops! I thought I might use this computer for, you know, COMPUTING, Guess I'll have to reboot. Yeah. GREAT COMPUTERS them Dells are. The only reason IT guys like them, is 1: job security (see my rant above), 2: they are easy as HELL to nerf, and Demon monkey puzzle hard to Un-Nerf: (this feeds back into point one), and 3: They are cheap as a box of rocks. (especially on bulk orders)

As for HP's, the solution to the shovelware problem is simple: It's called a recycling bin. I have used MANY HPs and ripping out half of the junk that came installed is just something that comes with the territory. Yes, It is a pain in the but, and Yes, it takes 2 days, but in the end the computer runs just fine after THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I won't argue the quality of their hard dives though. My HP, I.e., My FIRST computer, the Hard drive crapped out only 2 1/2 years after I bought it. Thank god I was able to salvage the information (only the motor burned out). However, a more permanent solution to this problem (and one I'm sure you could agree with) would be to format the hard drive and just install Linux instead. There, problem solved.

Lantis, friend, Look, before you get all in a huff, we ARE agreeing that HP's are not great computers... just to varying degrees. and the last time I "looked" at Dells was 5 years ago. So things may have changed, dunno. However, In many of my convenience store jobs and when I worked for that hotel the usual suspect was a Dell. Over worked, under powered, never shut off, operated by everyone (especially people who still think computers are typewriters with a fancy pants screen), and abused Dells. I'm not claiming that kind of life wouldn't take its toll on ANY computer, I AM saying there are better computers to choose for such a life than a Dell.

So to conclude, I dislike Apples because they are disposable fashion accessories (I refuse to call them computers any more at this point, and they haven't been worth a damn since the iMac cameout.) and I'm...let's say "not a fan..." of Dells because they are the Chevy of the computing world. Common, cheap, and come in more flavors than a bag of jelly bellies. BTW, the Lo Mein was a reference to "hitting you with a wet noodle" you need to chill out dude.

Mac works better than HP.

@ Staffy - I could have typed out just as long a post as to why all that was wrong. How I deal with these computers on a daily bases for a living. But I forget there's no winning with you. So I'm just going to let it go.

...

ACHOO!

HP still sucks. Did I mention that before?