So the day didn’t start off  very well (see post below).  Then I started sneezing and snotting uncontrollably (allergies).  Then this problem I’ve been having with my digital cable started getting worse. 

 

Every now and again, the picture and sound will freeze for a second or two when I’m watching TV.  Doesn’t matter what channel, or weather I’m recording on the DVR or not.  This isn’t a big deal, but the past day or two it’s gotten much worse, freezing every couple of minutes or so.

 

So I decided to call Comcast to see if they needed to boost the signal or whatever.  Well, to make a long story short . . . not only did my Comcast rep get a technician scheduled to fix the problem but offered me all kinds of extra channels and an internet upgrade for 6 months.  Sure it’s just a promotion, but my internet goes from 6 to 8 megs, and I get almost every channel possible for just .94 cents more a month for 6 months.  I just need to cancel the promotion before December 19th, but there will be a reminder on my bill about it.  The rep was very helpful and actually got stuff done for me, and offered me this promotion as compensation for being bothered by the problem. 

 

That’s very cool of them. 

 

It’s strange to have such bad, and then such good, customer service experience in one day. 

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It was 7am.  Not that early, but early enough. 

I woke up to the sounds of metal crashing into metal and people shouting.  From the sounds, my first groggy thoughts were that a car accident had happened.  As I peeked out the window to see if I needed to call 911 . . . I realized that it was actually a backhoe being unloaded from a trailer into the front yard.  They managed to make more noise unloading this thing then I thought possible.  Then they started it up and started digging in the yard and I realized it was possible to make more noise.  They were digging up the phone lines in the yard. 

The backhoe in my yard, unlike the one in this picture, has metal treads that sound like metal banding on metal every time it moves.  I cant even explain how loud this thing sounds, other then it sounds like a big diesel engine running and metal banging on metal constantly. 

 

Now 7am isn’t SUPER early, but it’s early enough.  Most utilities in this area don’t start working in the field until 8 at the earliest, usually 9.  For some reason Bell South / AT&T decided that they would start extra early.  And while I find this annoying not very courteous at all, I could have lived with it. 

 

I decided to call AT&T and just let them know that 7am was a little early to make so much noise (as it looked like they were starting a project that was going to take several days to finish and I wanted to be able to sleep in on Saturday).  I got the customer service number off of their web site, but had to wait until 8am to call as they weren’t open yet.

 

This is where my issue with them starts. 

 

I don’t have home phone service with them (I just have my cell phone), so every time I got through to a customer service representative they wanted my phone number so they could retrieve my account records.  After explaining that I wasn’t one of their customers I was basically told that they couldn’t help me. 

 

What ?  Are you serious ? 

 

You can send machines to my front yard to dig crap up at 7am, but you cant do anything for me unless I’m a customer of yours ?  ‘I’m sorry sir, but there’s nothing I can do for you’ was the response.  Well you know what, that’s not good enough.  After arguing with two different representatives, then being transferred to the repair department, and once again explaining the situation . . . I was again apologized to but told there was no way to help me if I wasn’t a customer. 

 

‘Who do I need to call to complain about your equipment waking me up at 7am, before your customer service is even open ?’ I asked. 

‘I don’t know sir’ was the answer. 

‘If I signed up as a customer, could you take my complaint then?’

‘Yes’ the lady answered.

I hung up.

 

So I signed up for new service.

I registered a complaint.

I canceled my service and made sure that I wasn’t being charged for anything.

 

The last customer service rep that I spoke with, to cancel my service, asked me why I was doing so.  After explaining the situation to him, he said that they absolutely could take complaints like that (with out me being a customer). In fact, he could take the complaint and make sure the local supervisor of repairs got the message.  He checked that my order for new service was canceled and apologized for all the loops that I had to jump through just to register a complaint. 

 

I’m probably just upset because it’s early, I haven’t eaten or had any caffeine yet . . . and oh yah, there’s this banging sound going on constantly outside my windows.  That could be why.

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So we’ve been reading this book called ‘it’ by Craig Groeschel as our staff book and talking about it in our staff meetings.  It’s a really good book.  I’ll have to write an entire post about it, maybe several posts about it, but I’m not going into it here.  But it’s so good that I’ve been reading ahead (I usually struggle to read what was assigned for that week to be honest).  At the end of the book, Craig has a Franciscan benediction that I found to be very cool . . . so I thought I’d share it with you.

 

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

 

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and the exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace. 

 

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, and starvation, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.

 

And may God bless with you enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

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Having completed about a third of the game (I’ve unlocked about a third of the area you can go to anyways), I thought I might jot down some initial thoughts about the newest arrival in my game collection.

 

Nothing about this game stands out as truly ground breaking.  Almost every element in the game has been done just as well, if not better, in other games. The plot line is ‘kiddy pool’ deep.  The graphics are par for the course, nothing special. 

 

But I have to say the way they put all these things together makes for a surprisingly engaging game. 

 

The plot line that starts the game, which you can find on the back of the box, goes a little something like this . . . it’s the future, you’re on a terra formed Mars looking for work (as the Earth economy is looking pretty bad) and team up with your brother who’s been here for a while.  The Earth Defense Force (EDF) who were originally here just keeping the peace are now oppressing the peeps of Mars, basically killing whom ever and taking what ever they want.  While out on your first tutorial, er salvage operation, with your brother you find out about the Red Faction and how they are fighting for freedom from oppression and all that.  You want nothing of it, you just want to make some money to send back to dear old mom on Earth. Well as luck would have it the EDF swoop in, kill your brother for being a terrorist, and then label you as a Red Faction member (you guys are brothers after all).  Just as you’re about to be killed, the Red Faction shows up, saves you, and thus you fight for them . . . because you don’t have much of a choice any more. 

 

Here’s the game play break down . . .

 - much like GTA, there are different ‘zones’ that you need control of.  You try to complete different missions (basically destroying or stealing EDF property in the area, or defending people form attack, or rescuing prisoners and transporting them back to your base) until their control in the area is gone.  You can also do missions which improve moral in the area, which means more people randomly start fighting for you during a fire fight and you get more random ammo stashes and the like.  Then, when you finally have forced the EDF out, you move on to the next area. 

     You have a bunch of static missions on the map you can do, plus many random ones that pop up from time to time, each worth either money, control, moral or all three.  You don’t have to do all the missions, just enough to get control of the area.  The missions are different enough that they haven’t gotten boring yet, though it’s usually some form of destruction, kill the bad guys, or theft. 

 

- again, much like GTA, there are roads and cars for you jack and get around.  Pretty well done actually, as the cars range from trucks to huge dirt movers to little zippy bubble things.  Each has different speed, handling, armor . . . some have weapons, some can hold people (who you can rescue and get back to the safe houses in some missions). 

 

- some people think the terrain is a little sparse, but it’s not . . . the buildings are just spread out.  Each area has a distinct look (color, feel, type of cars, etc) but many of the structures do look similar (though they are far from being cookie cutter copies of each other).  Being a terra formed Mars (no space suits here), along with the buildings looking very Earth industrial, makes the game seam like it’s set in the desert on Earth rather then on another planet. 

 

- every time you destroy stuff, you can find scrap.  This is used like money to buy upgrades to your weapons.  As you do different missions, you unlock different and better weapons.  You always have your brothers sledge hammer with you, and you get to carry three other weapons at a time (go back to base to change out what those three are). 

 

- while I wouldn’t consider it ground breaking, the destructibility of objects is very good in this game.  Other then the ground rock, just about everything you can destroy.  It breaks off in pieces and very believable chunks, the sounds don’t repeat when stuff falls like in other games, and usually stuff pretty well obeys the laws of physics (other then you can bust through metal and concrete with one swing of your sledge hammer, but you’ll be having too much fun to care).  Buildings even collapse when you take out their walls . . . or drive through them with a huge truck !

 

- there is a day / night cycle, but it’s purely visual.  No NPC’s change their patterns based on the time of day (at least not yet). 

  

     All in all I’m very happy with this game.  It’s just a fun game, not deep, not groundbreaking . . . just fun.  I haven’t tried any of the multiplayer yet, so that will be my project for this afternoon.  I give this game an A- because, well, it’s been a while since I played a game that was just all around fun instead of being the ‘first’ or ‘best’ at one thing only. 

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What I’m busy with lately. . .

 

- getting church web page updated (with the help of David Mayer) with new content and tweaking the bugs that seam to be popping up

 

- prepping for the Community for Christ outreach on July 5^th.  This is where bunches of church’s in the area get together at the High School stadium and have a ‘community church service’.  We’re bringing sound again this year and . . . well it’s a pretty big undertaking to prep all the equipment and rent the extra stuff we need (weeks in advance) and then get it all to work in the scorching summer afternoon sun.  But it’s always exciting !

 

- recovering from a nice thick chest cold with some nice antibiotics, steroids, and a cough suppressant.  The steroid keeps me up at night (I cant skip a dose or that will make me worse) and the suppressant makes me loopy.  So the evenings are actually pretty fun lately lol. 

 

- trying to make our announcements look a little better (and more engaging) with a revamped design

 

- typing up a survey to get peoples feed back about the new site and media we’re trying out

   

In other news . . .

 

     E3 is over and, while I missed most of the live coverage (other then watching peeps Tweets and looking at joystiq.com) I’m still excited about a few games.

 

     Left 4 Dead 2 is coming out this fall.  Apparently this was going to be a huge update for original zombie-killing city-escaping FPS, but was so big Valve decided to make it it’s own game.  This has prompted some to cry foul, saying that releasing an entirely new game so close to the original is the company milking the franchise for all it’s worth rather then delivering on the massive amounts of DLC promised time and time again for the original game. 

     I’m kind of on the fence with this one.  When I first heard about this ‘protest’ to the new game I couldn’t understand why they were so upset about a new game coming out.  But when I think back to all articles and reviews of the original game where Valve promised time and time again a slew of DLC to keep the game going . . . I can see where they are coming from. 

     I’m really hoping that the new levels (maps, episodes?, movies?) are much less linear and more dynamic in the routs you take to the finish.  The new improved AI Director, weather, and time of day passage should make the second installment even better then the first.  Unless Valve just messes L4D2 up badly, I’ll be buying it for sure. 

 

     Assassins Creed 2 is looking pretty impressive as well.  This sequel is set in Renaissance Florence (and a couple other places) and has the new ancestor character, Ezio, friends with a young Leonardo DaVinci who has crafted for his him a strange new replacement to his throwing knives (a small gun).  There’s a pretty good interview over at joystiq.com (here) if you want more info and a cool trailer. 

 

     I want to see more on the new KOTOR and Splinter Cell games.  I remember seeing the ‘crowd dynamic’ video for the ‘new’ Splinter Cell game at the same time the   original Assassins Creed came out and thinking that they looked very similar.  Hopefully the ‘new’ Splinter Cell will be released before the SECOND Assassins Creed game is gathering dust.  KOTOR I’m just expecting to be good (with such a long development time now, hopefully they are crafting something worth all that time). 

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