After 9 months on eHarmony, and getting past the initial stuff once, I think I can say it was a complete waste of money.

Once I was on the pay as you go schedule, I would get a lot of nothing during most of the month, followed by a large number of matches right as my account came up for renewal.

That’s how they get you.  You get distracted with 5 profiles to check through and suddenly you forget to cancel.

One or two might start sending you messages.  These will stop a day or two after you have to pay for the service.

When I was on a multi-month subscription, the same thing happened – lots of nothing for weeks, maybe 1 or 2 people, then right as renewal hit, bam, lots of matches.

Now my settings were not terrible.  I did have a few things that I wanted – no one morbidly obese was one.  Most people are just not honest with themselves.  I’ve seen some of the fattest people put down as one thing they are good at “staying in shape”.

I was also somewhat picky as I wanted people who had never been married before and no kids.  One person listed as something they were most happy about as “my divorce”.

In 9 months, no one returned my hellos.  I had 4 people send a request for a photo when I clearly had 4 posted.

I’m sure everyone knows one person who had success on eHarmony, which is probably how they keep going.  I too know 1 person.  1, and only 1.  Of the people I talk to who have tried eHarmony, we are about 1 out of 25.  Seriously, 4% success rate.

In my opinion, I should have just gone to a bar and ordered a couple drinks every week.  It would have been cheaper and I would have at least enjoyed the money.

In short, 225 matches.  Lost track of how many I sent initial questions/received them from, 3 answered those questions, 1 made it to open communication.

Waste

Of

Money

-pyra

After my last post about being off for a month, temptation got the best of me and I signed up for a 14-day trial.

I can admit that there have been many changes since I last really paid attention, and most of them have been for the better.  In only a few days I’m already level 14 and have my subjob items.  My gear is still total crap, as it took just about all of the money I had managed to accumulate (a vast sum of 7K) to buy the basic armor.  Oh and I accidentally found a check box in the config which will disable your sound.  And then I somehow unchecked this box.

I’m playing with some people who I got to know from WoW.  I have to admit, this is the first time in a while I’ve really said that I need to go reactivate Pyra now.

At the same time, its quite sad that my friend from WoW (who is a THF in FFXI) far outgears my own THF, even though he had stopped playing a year or so before I did.  They are quite a good group of people.  Maybe I can convince them to move to Caitsith.

It is, however, disappointing that the friend to whom I loaned my WHM account to has decided to sell some of my old items and keep the money.  The account was loaned so he could PL himself and run a salvage group with 1 less person.  He was also free to use the crafting skills or use the character to farm with as much as he wanted.  I don’t even mind that he made money in the server transfer (our original deal was that he could transfer the account to his server, but would pay to transfer it to a server of my choosing when I took the account back).  But not to sell the items and keep the money, at least not yet.  Especially when he asked me if he could sell it and I said ‘no’.  At least he didn’t unsign my gear.

It really was my fault.  I knew how he is and I let him use the account anyway.  Oh well, if all I lose out of this is a few items I wasn’t really using even when I still played, I’m doing well, and in reality, all I know for sure that he sold was my Uggalepih Pendant (which is worth 700K on Diabolos and only 480K on Caitsith) and some misc crafting materials that I wasn’t able to sell.

For anyone curious, here is how it would have played out.  Most people will be offended.  Don’t read on if you are easily offended.  If you do read on, don’t complain to me .  The whole thing was basically designed to poke fun of the political process, and also (here’s the important part) to offend everyone.

In an effort to keep this from an all out debate in my comments, I will turn them off if they get out of hand.

Pyra would pick Umah as her running mate (Umah is my WoW alt, still low leveled, but been around about as long as Syd).  Syd would pick Ata as her running mate.

All of the FFXI world would have thrown their support behind Pyra, except for the elves.  They would side with Syd “Because they like what she has to say”.  When in reality, they would only vote for her because Syd is an elf, and due to allegations that Pyra doesn’t like elves.  The self-proclaimed king of the Elves — Prince “Rev Al” Trion would have said something like “All true elves must vote for Syd”.

It was designed to highlight that far too many people are voting based on the color of the candidate’s skin.  Here’s a news flash — voting for someone based on the color of their skin is just as bad as voting against someone based on the color of their skin.  Need proof?  Howard Stern (YouTube clip).  “If Obama were to win, would you mind if Sarah Palin became Vice-President?”  “Yeah, I like her.”  Sal went into Harlem and presented McCain’s policies as Obamas, and asked people about it.  Yeah… not voting based on skin color, really.

Continuing the Pyra vs Syd bit, everyone would have jumped on Umah saying how bad, inexperienced, etc she is.  Of course the obvious thing absent is that Syd has basically the same experience as Umah, yet Syd was running for President.  A semi-washed up actor would make a comment about how Umah will probably become president because Pyra is so old she’ll end up dying in office.

The obvious correlation here is that Palin and Obama have basically the same level of experience in government — next to none.  And Obama has been basically running for President since he started in politics.  The thing no one likes to see is that Umah [Palin] is running for VICE President, and Sydonia [Obama] is running for President.

As far as the washed up actor comment.  It is sadly true.  Matt Damon was the washed up actor.  He basically said that McCain is so old he will die in office, leaving someone with basically the same experience as his choice for President in charge.

Pyra and Syd would throw some jabs back and forth.  Anytime Pyra made anything remotely negative, it was torn to pieces on the blogs and internet.  Anytime Syd made any comment remotely negative, it was treated as gospel.  It would get to the point where Pyra would be torn apart for saying anything negative, and not saying anything negative.  A real Catch-22, and the candidate chosen by the media would sadly come out ahead.  Remember, the media chose Obama over Hillary, and now they are trying to chose Obama over McCain.

Also, Obama has accepted millions in foreign money, mostly from George Soros.  He also broke his promise to take public funds for the campaign.  This would have set a cap on how much he could spend.  While Obama and McCain had an agreement to take them, Obama broke the agreement, allowing him to out fund raise, and thus outspend.  So now the media is picking our winner, and foreigners are buying the election.

In addition, Obama’s ‘no tax increase’ is what is called a ‘marginal rate hike‘.  It works out that EVERYONE’s taxes will go up by about 10%, unless you make between 85,000 and 95,000 per year.  I worked damn hard for 3 years to make 10% more.  Now, I’m being told ‘You don’t deserve that money as much as this guy who hasn’t worked in 5 years does’.  If I get a 10% raise in my taxes, it will destroy my quality of life (which is not that staggering already), and will cause me to likely not be able to afford my condo — or I’ll be eating top raman everyday.  Could I afford slightly higher taxes?  Probably.  Could I afford 10%?  Not a chance.  Especially since VA is controlled by the Democrats, who also enjoy raising taxes, even in years of a budget surplus… I already pay too much in taxes (over 50% when you combine the state, federal, social security, etc).  If I wanted to pay 60% taxes, I could just move to Paris.  These tax increases will also hurt the company I work for.  I don’t believe it will go under, but we won’t be able to expand as quickly as we want to, and we might not be able to afford even a cost of living raise every year.

Everyone talks about this mysterious middle class.  Where I live, I’m squarely in the middle.  Maybe even borderline poor.  For my area.  If I lived in other places, I would probably be rich.  It is all based on cost of living, which no one has addressed so far.  Based on what we’ve seen, Obama figures that middle class is those making 85,000-95,000 per year.  McCain tried to define it as anyone making less than 5 million per year, and was torn apart on the news channels as ‘out of touch’.  5 million might be high, but if you define 5 mil or less as middle class, and favor middle class tax cuts, I can see what you are saying, and I can either agree or disagree.  Obama hasn’t defined middle class, yet I just saw an add which says he is for ‘middle class tax cuts’.  And yet, people eat it up.

Obama is also in favor of reinstating the so-called ‘Death Tax’, where you have to pay taxes on money or property that you inherit from a recently deceased relative.  This is that great tax that causes families to have to sell farms that have been in the family for hundreds of years, simply because the family cannot afford to pay the taxes when the farm passes from one generation to the next.

During the final debate, the announcer said that ‘McCain benefits more from keeping people afraid’.  The next day, Obama gave a speech, saying we shouldn’t run a campaign of fear.  30 minutes later, I saw an add that involved a rolling ball of yarn.  I have seen this add probably 200-300 times already.  McCain is constantly accused of running a negative campaign, yet Obama is flooding the airwaves with negativity, everyday.

I live in Virginia, a battleground state.  I have constant visitors from the democrats, and phone calls every 1-2 days.  I get 2 or so a week from McCain too. The difference here is that I asked to be on the McCain call list.  I have in fact asked to not be bothered by the democrats anymore.  They have not respected my request.

I’m not even going to bother talking about either candidate’s health plans — they both suck and are unrealistic. They are both (sadly) just telling people what they want to hear. Neither one will work.

Obama is so out of touch with reality it is amazing. Maybe he is more in touch with the youth, but you need to have more. McCain might be out of touch with the youth, but he is in touch with reality. This is what I would prefer myself.

Then there is the contradiction of a politician who unites rather than divides.  Its funny, we all want to be united, but the only way to differentiate yourself is to take a hard stance on a divisive issue (like abortion, or a social issue), then convince the world that your opponent wants to club baby seals, while you want to shower the world with rainbows and lollipops.  The only way get the power to be a uniter, is to first be a divider.

In the end, it comes down to this.  Obama is an optimist, McCain is a realist.  McCain tells people how it is, Obama tells you how he wants to think the world is, but really isn’t.  Maybe more culturally relevant, McCain is PC, Obama is Mac.  You want to like the Mac, but when it comes down to buying that new computer, 90%+ will buy the PC, even while rooting for the Mac.

Also, this is why I hate politics.

Sydonia is a relative newcomer to the life of politics, a spell caster, who has lived on Crushridge for her entire life.

Sydonia went, in a matter of weeks, from a newbie to an officer of her guild.

For a candidate who has not been corrupted by years of visits from lobbyists and others who want special favors, Sydonia is the candidate for you.

This message brought to you by Sydonia for President. My name is Sydonia and I approve this message.

Pyra is a very experienced melee, originally from the Diabolos server, who now resides on the Caitsith server.

Pyra has run many successful linkshells, and when not a leader, has excelled as a member who can be counted on when needed for any task.

For a candidate with strong leadership skills and a long history of success, Pyra is your candidate for president.

This message brought to you by Pyra for President. My name is Pyra and I approve this message.

I saw the band play in 1998 twice. Once in the now Wachovia Center in Philly, and once at the now Tweeter Center in Camden, NJ. For the Camden concert, I and two of my friend from High School were in the 4th row, right in front of the violinist.

Throughout High School, and even into college, I was into jazz music. In High School, I played the alto and tenor saxophone. I even did marching band (yes I know, I’m a nerd) with a tenor sax, until the weight just started to hurt my back by too much and I had to use something lighter (and switched to clarinet for half of the time).

I can safely say that LeRoi was one of my heroes of the time. He showed us what you could do with a woodwind, and that the sax and flute had a place in popular music.

I will miss him. He was my favorite member of what was my favorite band throughout High School and much of College.

I’m watching the Parade of Nations, something I usually find far too boring to care about. My parents always turned it off growing up. And truthfully, I didn’t plan on even watching it at first. But then I was curious.

China is not known as a an open place. But this is so fascinating to watch, the 5000 year old culture opening up.

However, the most important thing (in my mind) is this: of the thousands of people who have walked by so far, probably 90% of them could be someone from around the corner. It is times like this that you realize that people around the world are not really all that different from you and I. For one brief moment, me sitting on my couch in Virginia, and everyone all over the world, are connected, watching the same thing at the same time (or close to the same time). We really are the same.

During one of the breaks, a campaign add for both McCain and Obama come on. It brings me back to reality for a minute. While other channels have re-runs on so as not to really compete and just let the ceremony be, politicians are still arguing.

I enjoy the contrast, in one minute, one of the great uniting events (quite possibly a huge turning point for China and how it relates to the world), the next, politicians dividing us again.

All combined, it just shows that we could probably all get along, if it wasn’t for politicians constantly convincing us that we can’t get along. Perhaps it will be our generation, that can spread information faster than ever, that finally breaks down some of those barriers. Or at the very least, leads the way towards making the world a bit smaller, and a lot better.

In a way, FFXI is an interesting uniter as well. We play with people from all over the nation, and the world. We talk with people from all sorts of ethnic, religious, national, financial, regional backgrounds who we would probably never otherwise know. I’ve met some of the most amazing people, a galka SMN from Japan who spoke broken English (and in who’s shell we all spoke a modified version of English with Japanese grammar structure to communicate), to a members of every branch of the US military, and a French-Canadian who barely spoke any English (although who’s English improved significantly over the years we all knew each other). There are players from all over the English speaking world, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England, Ireland, and elsewhere. And of course, from across the US. An art student in Texas, a state trooper in Michigan, stay at home moms from various states, a young married couple from Texas, people who work in the Vegas casinos, and people who just live near Vegas.

Perhaps the most fascinating person I ever met was a student from Bahrain. Someone I know for a fact, I would never have known if it wasn’t for FFXI. Some of my talks with her have been the most interesting. She was also the one who made the comment first “we really are not that different”.

So think about it. People around the world are not that different from each other. Placed together, we generally get along, even if we don’t agree with each other about everything, we can almost always be friends.

To say this ban was fair and deserved would be an understatement.

Yep! The title says it all. Today i won a free trip (all expenses paid) to one Mordion Gaol! And let me tell you, the rumors of the land are grosely underexaggerated! There are ferris wheels there, bumper cars, hanging swings, the scrambler, tilt a whirl, the works all there! I had an excellent time until they forced me to logout!

So I was officially banned today until “midnight 8/9/06″… though i’m not exactly sure what that means. Does it mean 11:59pm on tuesday, or 11:59pm on Wednesday? What day do we consider midnight to be in the real world?

GM Luminious was my GM… and basically he seemed to only speak to me in a pre-determined statement setup by SE a while ago. Ironically, i could not take a screenshot of the log as I was in Gaol without windower loaded (when i realized i was zoning into Gaol randomly i quickly closed my FFXI thinking i could somehow evade them), but the reason for my banning was for the use of “illegal third party applications”. The terminology is very vague, so i’m not sure exactly how they fingered me in particular. The GM did not answer any of my questions (including the simple question of midnight EST?). The funny thing is, they are VERY CLEAR to you that you are not getting perma-banned throughout the whole process. I guess SE really doesn’t want to lose customers!

The GM character models themselves (which i’m sure everyone has seen at some point in screenshots) are pretty ugly (they are the executioner style where you can’t see their faces)… but one thing that screenshots don’t do ‘justice’ to them is that GMs have a weird “heat” effect that makes their character slightly blurry. It’s kind of like when you look down the road, or off of the hood of your car, on a really hot day and you can kind of see heat waves flowing up into the air. I don’t really see why they have that effect, as it just makes it annoying to look at them.

Anyway, i’ll see you all again on tuesday… wednesday… thursday… whatever day they meant for this to end!

And then the followup to the August 2006 temp-ban

First off, my guess is i was banned specifically for POS hacking while mining… which is probably the dumbest thing you can ever do.

See, i’ve used POS before… enough that i have even gotten that “You cannot enter the next zone” message 10,000 times b/c if you get to a zoneline earlier than physically possible you are not allowed to actually zone. You just get that weird message. GMs have never been auto-called on me b/c of that message… so i guess i assumed there wasn’t any auto-detection in place for POS at all.

I’m still not 100% sure how i got caught though. My guess is if you arrive at (and mine) points “too soon” the game will auto-call GM on you. But, i was also dragging mining points away from all of the mobs to safer areas to mine them… so they could’ve detected that my current x,y,z was not close enough to the mining point’s x,y,z to legitimately mine it.

All this being said… my first offense was actually a pretty big one (using hacks to make profit) and i STILL only got 3 day suspension. I am guessing all of this nonsense about windower and getting banned for using it (using /console instead of the console button) is probably just the excuse people cooked up to their friends when they got banned for something else and thus the rumors started. There is a screenshot somewhere online right after that last update on the 22nd of someone admitting to a GM that they had windower and that’s why they couldn’t use the warp taru and the GM didn’t care at all. Even if you shouted in cities that you used it i’m guessing they’d ban you for ’spamming’ faster than banning you for windower.

My advice to you… hack away! Just don’t use it for profit, or they’ll detect you!

A month later, they were banned for flee hacking and pos hacking to complete the ninja AF quests faster.

About a year after this all came out, we finally got the list of things they had done:

Fish Botting
Flee Hacking (appearantly if you use flee hacking with the sky statue bind move you look like you are running, but not moving, on other’s screens). Was also used for dynamis pulls.
POS Hacking (for mining and also in sky to check if other NMs were up)
Moving targets to evade client side checks. Many green targetable objects handle proximity checks clientside, such as mining points. If you use a 3rd party tool, you can ‘pull’ the target to a safer spot.
Radar apps
An app which would leave a monster name on your screen if it ever appeared on your screen (useful for seeing if NMs came by while you were AFK).
Buying gil online. Although relatively speaking this was a small offense.

So, they are coming for a week long visit starting tomorrow. We’ll probably play some Warhammer as we’re both in the beta, maybe some WoW too. Lots of console games, although doubtful it will be mario kart. One of the two of us is way too good at all things mario kart related to the point where they are just frustrating to play against. And that person isn’t me.

I’ll also be on-and-off FF all week. Maybe I’ll have both of me on, but for a change, won’t actually be dual boxing. My friend is fairly experienced as a thf, blm, and whm. And still owes me 200K and a set of HQ fishing gear that someone was borrowing when they got banned… =P

-pyra

“People are nicest to random strangers when they want their parking spot”

Discuss.

I went in a general direction, and I had a blast. Here’s the first pic from it because I know mach will yell at me for not posting something ASAP.

This is from my point and shoot, which while amazing, is not a RAW from my D70. That pic will need a bunch of processing to be made available.

Give me a week or so.

-pyra

He received a movie from NetFlix.  Would it be unethical for me to look at the title of the movie?

What about to watch it if it is a movie I would like to see?

The movie is “Dan in Reel Life”.  Does this change your feelings about either of your answers?

In other news, a supermarket near where I like to have lunch decided to tow people who park there and do not go inside.  It was done out of spite because they told the place next door that their parking lot would not be large enough.

The supermarket’s parking lot is never even close to half full, so parking there does not block an actual customer.  Also, those parking there for lunch park in the spaces furthest from the supermarket itself.  The few times I have actually gone inside (mostly because it was close to where I went for lunch) the store was empty.

Today, they were threatening to tow everyone.  So, I went inside and found the cheapest item I could possibly use.  It was a container of Tic Tacs, 85cents plus 2cents tax.  I charged an 87cent item for spite.  Credit cards take 25cents per transaction plus 5% of the overall sales, meaning they would take 29cents out of the sale, leaving the supermarket with a sale of 56cents to cover cost of the item, plus keeping it there, plus expenses.  Was that wrong?

If I say it was a Safeway supermarket, does that change your feelings?

Ahh the good old days, of last week.

Today I saw $4.55/gallon.  Ew.  I really hope no one actually paid that much.

Your/You’re, and Affect/Effect.

Your is possessive. Your car. Your house. Your light staff. Your Scorpion Harness.
Can I borrow your ring for this fight?
This is my gloves, not yours.

You’re is a contraction of “you are”. You’re not gonna like this.
When used as a question, can use “Are you” instead of “You’re”. You’re coming? Are you coming?

Incorrect usages. (Correct usage)
Your on your way? (You’re on your way?)
Your coming? (You’re coming? Alt: Are you coming?)
You get you’re drop from Kirin? (You get your stuff from Kirin?)

Don’t ask me why, but using the wrong ‘your’ drives me bonkers. Using “ur” doesn’t drive me quite as crazy though for some reason. I guess because the person typing it is admitting defeat from the beginning, instead of trying and failing. What really gets me is when people who are apparently quite intelligent use the wrong one.

The other pairing that annoys me is Affect/Effect, but not as much. I’m somewhat ok with this mistake because in many accents they sound the same, and the words both have a similar etymology.

Just so we know — It is a status effect, not a status affect. Your actions affected the outcome. Your actions caused this effect.

The best way to explain it — affect implies that something already exists and is altered by the action. Effect implies that something did not exist before, but does exist afterwards (ie, it was created).

Which brings up one of the best entries in a comic I like, xkcd. Effect an Effect.

Also, see the Usage Notes on the Wiktionary for Affect.

And yes, I have a good reason for burning a post, it will be clearer soon[ish].

-pyra

Yesterday (April 5th), I took a trip down to DC for the National Cherry Blossom Festival.

And of course, I took my camera.

Washington Monument with Cherry Blossoms:

This one is so bazaar, I just love it

The branch is just suspended there, coming from no where.

It was such a big deal, that Tommy Jefferson decided to show up.

Actual size too.  He really was 25 ft tall.

Here is Tommy’s House with some of the Blossoms.

Some of the trees are fairly old, with a handful of originals from about 100 years ago.

The older ones have branches that reach out over the path.  This one is from behind.

Also, some of the older ones have small buds coming directly out of the larger branches.

And finally, my show off picture for today.

-pyra