Time for a change in breakfast

08.29.2012

For years my go-to for breakfast has been Atkins Shakes. I got hooked, or maybe I just switched, to them years ago when I was serious and lost weight going low-carb. Each one seems a little high in calories(160) and fat(9g), especially since I'm not focusing on low carbs, so that 1 net carb does me no good! Generally I have 2 shakes, so double those stats for me. As such, I'm going to experiment and see what other shakes are out there that I might enjoy.

The hard part is that I actually like the flavor of the Atkins Milk Chocolate shake. I used to drink Slim Fast shakes, and I tried one years ago, in the midst of Atkins, and found it too sweet to drink. But I'm going to persevere and see what options are available today for my on the go breakfast option.

Today at the grocery store, I picked up 3 alternatives to try over the next week. They are:

• Special K Protein Shakes
• Slim Fast Shakes (going to see how that sweetness thing has worked out)
• Muscle Milk

There may be more options, but these were grouped together at Publix. I got a 4-pack of each, so we'll see if that gives my taste buds long enough to make a decision.

Probable boring updates to come!

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Naswidgey 2012

08.22.2012

After playing through a couple more races I've tweaked the house rules for Formula D that we've leaned toward.

No idea why I'm putting a link up here other than I'll eventually forget where I stashed the silly thing.

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The Charter Update

08.21.2012

My internet connection has been active for almost a week. After my last service call the problem was diagnosed as "water in my cable line". Oddly enough, this kind of makes sense. If I think hard enough I could see where my service would go out after a hard rain. Water would disrupt the connection within the line. Ok, I'll bite, I have water in my line.

The service tech installed a new line outside where the there's a connection between the pole in the back yard and then going into the ground by the house. Where the line connects to the house he applied some silicone to keep the water out. And I got a new modem since the one I've been leasing is a "2.0" model and they use "3.0" now.

After the tech left, I attacked my bill. On the 27th of last month, I downgraded my service to internet only. My old service total was $130.52 (internet, tv, no bundles but some crap from teh last bundle was still on, like the Charter Cloud). My internet only total would be $62.92. At the time I downgraded, I was charged for a partial months service so my total for the last payment was $86.00 instead of $130.52. I was taking care of all of this at the office in Athens and paid with a credit card.

When my new bill arrived in the mail it was for $183.53. This is substantially more than $62.92. On my bill it showed my payment of $86.00, but also showed all of the old services I discontinued. So, I got credit for a partial payment of $86.00, then charged for the remainder, plus a late fee, plus the next month's service of $130.52. If my payment hadn't showed up I would have though something didn't go through, but I paid and downgraded at the same time, and each service tech commented that I only had internet service through Charter.

I make my call through the automated Charter answering flowchart and finally get to a person. I explain that I downgraded my service, but my old service was still showing on my bill. She typed away and told me what my current service was (internet) and the charge on my current bill should have been $62.92. She was sorry for the confusion, but the bill was sent out before my account was updated with the change in my service.

But I did everything at the same time. And my payment showed up on the bill. How does my current service plan not get updated at the same instant?

I didn't ask that. I know better than to think somebody answering calls and (mainly) customer complaints knows anything about the inner workings of the cable company. Complaining to her wouldn't do any good. So I kept my mouth shut. Then I came to the internet and bitched about it.

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!@$# Charter

08.16.2012

I attribute my lack of updates over the past couple of weeks to the inconsistency of my home internet connection. Today, for the 3rd week in a row, I have a service call with Charter to come fix my freaking internet. Granted, it works right now, but it won't stay on.

2 weeks ago I scheduled a service call because my internet would go down between 9AM and anywhere from 7-10PM. When the tech came to fix it, he removed extra splitters from the outside of the house, and did something at the pole. Not sure why that combination would suddenly be the source of my problem, but everything was working afterward.

1 week ago I scheduled a service call because my internet suddenly stopped working - no signal at all on the modem. When the tech came to fix it, he turned the service that someone else switched off back on. Apparently one of my neighbors didn't pay their bill, so my internet was turned off. Unfortunately, that's not the first time this has happened.

Yesterday, I scheduled a service call because my modem would not connect to the internet after I got home from work. The service tech will be here this afternoon to bring me a new modem. As of now, my service came back up at 7:28PM last night.

So now while I have an internet connection it's time to surf and find out if anybody besides Charter provides internet service to my address. The last time I checked, nobody did. It's been a while since I checked, so maybe that's changed.

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Zombie Mall - 1st Shop

08.04.2012

Just to show some progress on my list of things I'm working on, to the right is the first part of the map for the zombie mall game I've been working on. I've got the first pass of rules ready to playtest. I still need some cards that will be used for events and items to make up, and of course I need a map board to play on.

Originally I was just going to make a big (40"x40") map and print it out at Staples. Nothing overly fancy, just enough that you could see walls and differences in stores. However, I found out that the 11 year old version of Paint Shop Pro that I'm using won't let me save the ½ Gigabyte file that I would generate. And that's an empty file just taking up those dimensions at 300dpi.

I could use another graphics program, I've got plenty that are probably up to the task. I just don't want to mess with the learning curve right now. So, I go back to may plan for when I was going to build up a 3D map - modular stores. The best part is I've got the floorplan ready for 5 or 6 stores already, I just have to add walls and content. Content is the sticky part. I've got a few libraries of props from an overhead view that will work, but there are still some things I need that I don't have. Clothes hanging up is a perfect example. What mall doesn't have hanging clothes?

I'm trying not to get too carried away. This is prep for the playtest phase after all. Odds are whatever I make will have to be tweaked, even the map. Still, it's more fun to play with something that's graphically pleasing.

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