Wednesday 12/22/2010

Wednesday

The Car.
I went over to Caleb's mother's house yesterday, go Caleb, went to the shop. My old car sitting there, acting as if nothing had happened. Or so I figured that car would say if it was ascencionate and could talk. 

The mechanic pointed me to a separate building. Okay. This building 150 feet from the shop. Kinda strange layout. I go inside that building and was very surprised at what I saw in there. They might be calling it the shop office, I was calling it a museum. The entire waiting room was lined with objects from the past. An old gas pump - like 50 years old at least - that had been completely rebuilt. Old Coca-Cola pictures - the real thing, not cheap fakes - lined the walls. Old fire hydrants and an OLD oven that looked like it just came off the factory floor. 

The stuff in there was in such incredibly good condition, I forgot what I was in there for a few seconds as I started inspecting everything. But, the mechanic came in. Turns out he is also the owner. He had driven the car several times, had it idling for hours (my over half tank of fuel was now done to a quarter tank, so I pretty much believed that). 

He had ideas - 3 ignition components that he recommended to be changed out if this problem persisted. Of course, he threw in there that one of them was "expensive, though" at $200. 

No idea. Just drive the car and see what happens. I drove it home, drove it to work this morning, nothing. 

Changing the subject, one of my company's credit personnel called me yesterday out of the blue. I don't normally get calls from those people. She was asking me what I am doing on Christmas morning. Nothing spectacular, I replied. Well, why don't you come over and join us for Christmas breakfast? Took me about a half a second to think about it and accept the invitation. This family are really cool people. I have no idea why she invited me, but she also brought a large pot pie for me to work last week, of which I consumed all of it.

No, she isn't single, either, she's happily married and I met her husband at the Christmas party, turns out he is also a truck driver. He hauls a fuel tanker taking gasoline to fuel stations around the Phoenix area. I've heard those drivers make good money. 

Speaking of single, I have been getting a LOT of hits lately on Plenty of Fish. Started talking to a few of them and one of them claims she wants to meet me. That's nice, please tell me something about yourself first! I mean, seriously. Okay, I do have the profile thing that asks you all kinds of questions and comes up with a personality analysis that everyone can see, I wonder about the accuracy of those things, though. Kinda cool to see some ladies taking interest if nothing else. One of them is a cowgirl, claims she is 42 years old and is on the go all the time. She's a pretty thing, looks more like late 20's than early 40's. 

Anyway, I am busying myself with responding to some of them and seeing if any of it might go anywhere. 

Meanwhile, 90% chance of rain today. Usually, that means it IS going to rain. Oh, and now, South Korea has turned on the rhetoric machine towards North Korea and supposedly is going to engage in the largest live-fire drill ever. Stay tuned folks, I'm sure they'll figure out how to get themselves into a real war pretty soon......too bad they are so hell-bent on such and our troops are over there. Then again, something definitely needs to be done about the nuke situation.

But, it's Christmas time. You couldn't tell that by reading the news. You also couldn't tell that by reading numerous online boards that I do with people getting into heated arguments over whether we should be calling it the holiday season or Christmas, Holiday tree or Christmas tree.

Hmmm, well, I have a Christmas tree in my living room to celebrate the Christmas holiday. 

My time's up for today.

Merry Christmas!!!
ben

Tuesday 12/21/2010

Tuesday

I have reason to believe on of my tenants is moving out - without actually saying he's moving out. A rather elongated discussion with Lynn (trailer tenant) yesterday revealed that he was moving a LOT of stuff out of his (the tenant that may be moving out) yesterday. 

This individual told me he was going to hang out with a cousin that is visiting from Alabama and then he was going back to Alabama for Christmas and wouldn't be back until the 4th, I think it was, of next month. I won't be waiting that long to post a notice of abandonment on his door, since he owes me rent for this week. 

Some people are that way, just leave, don't give any kind of notice. It's hard to start running room rental ads when you don't know when, exactly the person is going to completely vacate the room. Hence the need to post an abandonment notice. 

Umm, so, I am bracing myself for the eventuality - maybe very soon, of having a room vacated and having to try and find another tenant. Not a great time for something like this to be happening, but, worse has happened.

Well, work day got here before I knew it.

G'day.

ben

Monday 12/20/2010

Monday
4-day work week, since Christmas falls on a Saturday, Friday is off. So, it's Tuesday already!

My mother wrote me an email yesterday asking if I was coming to Christmas. This apparently isn't going to stop. I told her that I had an exchange with my brother, he's still playing his games, I'm not going to be there. I can stop by the day before or the day after if she'd like. 

My brother doesn't want to deal with his statements that I am evil, "just like dad" - to him that is a bad thing, and other malicious statements that lead me to believe that my presence at a Christmas "celebration" at his house would only turn into a disaster, as I will not just stand there and take his verbal assaults. I would just leave. This, in turn, would ruin Christmas for mother if no-one else, might as well just let the negativity fall in place beforehand. I don't really care one way or the other if I am there or not. In fact, I wish they would just let it go at this point - unless my brother wants to deal with the verbal altercation that occured.

He does not. Apparently, his idea of dealing with something like that is to get out the shovel, dig a hole and bury it, acting as if nothing ever happened. 

Whatever. It's only 3 minutes before work starting time, I was reading a lot of news before getting to this - NK apparently has backed down, Obama is going to face a tough campaign due to redistricting, a pipeline blew up in Mexico because of thieves attempting to steal whatever is going through that pipe, on and on. Even a story about Santa Clause was pretty negative stuff. Bookings are down. Santa charging $200 per hour? That's quite a lot of money, if you ask me, but you didn't.

So, that's it, the work day is here.......
g'day.

ben

Cafe World Tips 26: Gift Holiday Tree Ornament

This is a hack, folks, I'm telling you and warning you right now.  Zynga has doled out some pretty serious consequences to people using hacks in this game when they are found out.  Some people have their accounts completely removed, others face having all that the hack did for them removed from the game, including any leveling up it did.

For those that are hell-bent on using cheats - here it is:  http://apps.facebook.com/cafeworld/send_gift.php?gid=2948

I doubt it will last very long, though, Zynga is usually all over this stuff once they find out about it.  I only include it in my tips because people are going to do this stuff regardless, I just wanted to through out the warning.  If nothing happens, so beit, but if you face penalties for using it, well, all I can say is: you have been warned.

That cheat makes it so you don't have to do the Treasure Isle junk to acquire the ornament or you don't have to pay $8 Cafe Cash to bypass it.

Sunday 12/19/2010 6 Days Til' Christmas

The Playstation 3 stopped working yesterday.  It had the "Yellow Light Of Death" going.  Meaning you try to turn it on, the green light comes one, followed by the yellow light, followed by the red light, where it stays red.  Caleb comes out "just telling you" that it's broken.  Well whooopdie doo.  I don't have $150 to be spending on that machine in sending it to Sony to get it fixed.  That's what they charge, a flat rate of $150. Whatever's wrong wtih it, that's what it's going to cost. $80 of that money is just to get it there and back via Fed Ex.

Screw that.  After that happened last time with the now-stolen PS3, I found people in Craigslist that say they can fix them.  I found one that fixes the YLOD for a flat rate of $45 yesterday.  We took it over there.  About 8 hours later, Caleb went and got the thing and we now have a functioning PS3 again.  My dad sent him a Christmas gift of $75, guess who's getting $45 of that?  Yes, indeedy, me, for getting that thing fixed.  He played it all night long, so I'm assuming he thought it worth the money to fix.

I wrote my brother back after he sent me a reply correcting me and telling me what Christmas is and what it isn't.  Not feeling to good about this situation, I told him such.  What's going to happen when we're in the same room and - he wants to open his mouth and let all kinds of s*** come out of it.  He hasn't responded.  I don't really care anyway, I doubt we are going to go unless Caleb wants to go by himself.  He isn't apologizing for saying the things he did to me, I take that as a bad sign, like, show up and WWIII is going to start. Who needs it.

Well, my Christmas tree is up, but I need lights for it.  Gonna have to go through all that stuff out back and hopefully find enough working strands to get it lit up nicely.

I was also out there yesterday going away at grass and some overgrown plants - I am just cutting them way back down and try to figure out what is the correct way to prune them after they start growing again to get them looking nice.

Fishies are doing nicely as well.  Hummingbirds - LOTS of them - coming to my property and feasting both on the feeder mixture and the Honeysuckle flowers.  Pretty cool to see so many different colored versions of them. Plus, there are 2 I guess that are mated cause' they never come alone, they always come with each other to feed.

Today?  I'm going to spend some more time out there cutting down some plants that need cut back.  It's actually quite relaxing and enjoyable.  It may not sound that way, but that's exactly what it is.  I also want to get something for my dad and send that out for Christmas - it's only 200 miles away if I get it sent out by Monday it should easily arrive in time.  I got the Omaha steaks for my oldest brother yesterday - at GREATLY reduced price plus free shipping, $30 at least less than what I spent on the same thing last year.  Caleb?  I am going to find a few small things so he has something to open at Christmas, but, I have spent more than enough money on that car and that's really going to have to suffice as a "major" present this year.

Happy Sunday.

ben

Saturday 12/18/2010

Got out there and started dealing with some landscaping issues today.
Got quite a bit of that done and then headed to Home Depot - wanted to get a live tree.
Well, they had them but they weren't near as big as I would have liked.  Went down to Lowe's,
they had "fake" live trees - made out of some plant, not a tree.  I already have an Italian Stone Pine
in the ground from 2 years ago or something, it's doing fine even if it only grows a few inches per year.

As for regular cut Christmas trees, Lowe's was sold out and weren't going to get any more in.
Back to Home Depot.  They had cut trees left - though not a big selection.  Don't need a big selection. I wanted about a 5 foot tree, nothing too huge.  They didn't have any, they were all 7 feet tall.  Got into a discussion with the dude - he was telling me that he had re-sized some trees and for whatever reason had gotten into trouble for doing so from his manager.  I said okay, was going to leave, don't want a 7 foot tree.

He then offered to cut it back anyway.  Lol.  He also gave it to me at the 5 foot tree price.  Apparently, none of these companies want to get stuck with too many trees, so they have cut back on the amount they are ordering this year.  Just an observation, but the guy at Home Depot predicted that the remaining trees on the lot would sell out today and that would be the end of it: no more trees have been ordered.

Proud owner of a nice tree in my living room.

Ummm, long interval.

And no time to move on with this entry.

G'nite.

ben

Café World Tips 25 – Teleporting Your Dishes From The Counters To The Tables – Get Your Buzz Rating To 105

Hello, fellow chefs and let’s get into this one a bit.  I will include information on how to fix teleporting that isn’t working, as I have helped a large number of players get it working correctly.

First, what is teleporting?  Simply put, it’s the act of blocking in your waiters and waitresses behind your counters so that they can’t get out.  They “throw” the dishes to the customers instead of carrying them over to them.  The reason this method of serving dishes is so wildly popular is that it almost totally eliminates and buzz rating issues you may have in your café.  The customers aren’t waiting for their food, they are happy, done.

BTW, did you know that you really don’t need more than 18 tables in your café?  18 is the maximum number of customers that will get served in a minute’s time.   That’s what the official count is, however, I keep about 22 tables in my café “just in case”.  The point is if you are not teleporting and have too many tables, waiters may have trouble getting to customers in time before the customer gets mad and leaves, causing your buzz rating to go down.

Anyway, how to set up teleporting.  Oops, just one more thing: teleporting is NOT considered cheating by Zynga, you will not get into trouble for it if they “find out” you are doing it, it’s a perfectly acceptable method to serve your dishes, even if, in real life, it would be quite impossible!

This is what you do.  Set up your counters in a box or rectangular shape.  You can use a wall as one side of the block, but you MUST leave room in between one side to the other so that your waiters have some place to stand inside of the blocked area.  In fact, you can use a corner of your café if you prefer and use 2 walls.  The point is to block them in, do not leave ANY open spaces. 

This next point is VERY important, please pay attention to this:  Make SURE that ALL of your counters are accessible to the waiters from INSIDE the block.  Do not put stuff in front of the counters inside the block, do not double stack your counters so that one set is behind another, your waiters MUST have access to each and every single counter from inside the block or it simply will not work.

I cannot stress that point enough because people often ignore it, put all kinds of stuff inside there, the waiters can’t get at a dish they are trying to serve, so, they just walk through the stuff in the way, get the dish and walk right through the counters and hand deliver the food to the table.  The whole point of this setup is to get them to stop doing that.  You want them to “throw” the food to the customers from inside the block or rectangle of customers.  The REAL point to doing this is to get your buzz rating back up!!

My buzz rating is at 105 and stays at 105.  On a rare occasion, it might drop a few points when I come into my café but then it goes right back up and stays there. 

You do not have to have the counters set up against the walls.  That was just an option.  You can create a box or rectangle of counters out in the middle of your café if you prefer, it doesn’t really matter WHERE you put  it, it’s how you set it up that’s very important. 

If my instructions above weren’t clear enough, just leave a message below and I will get back to you.  Also, if you have experienced a sudden drop in buzz rating, well, you probably did something in your café to cause it to happen.  I know, everyone always says that they didn’t do anything, but every time I have checked someone’s café to see what’s going on, I find something wrong and they say: “Oh, I just changed that yesterday and I didn’t know that would affect anything”.  Yes sir or ma’am, it did is my response, show them what to do to fix it, buzz rating goes back up to 105 and stays there, walaah, it’s done. 

BTW, one final thing here, you cannot currently have higher than a 105 buzz rating.  I have talked to people that say that it happened to them, but from Zynga, the highest it goes is 105.  So, don’t try to get it to get higher than it is possible to get it to go to!!!

Again, if you have any questions about this or just about any other facet of this game, I will be happy to try and answer them for you.

Friday 12/17/2010

Friday

Ummm, well, I had to deal with a comment on the Cafe World Christmas tree entry before coming here to post my daily tribe. I don't want to mix regular entries with Cafe World entries, so that's that. I play Cafe World daily and know a little bittle something about the game at this point, being at level 285, so, I sometimes share some of that information. It attracts quite a lot of visitors to the site, which interests me because I see on the Feedjit places that I have never heard of before.

I usually look the up on a Google search to see where the place is. For example, I am looking at a place called Saint-esteve, Languedoc-Roussillon. I have never heard of any of that. Look at the flag next to it, don't remember that one. If that is the name of one city, I would hate to live there, having to recite a syllable series of words to describe where I live, lol.

As for today, well, it was foggy driving to work! A nice change, it wasn't too dense so that you couldn't safely drive, it reminded me of snowy conditions, sort of. I'm sure the roadways will be filled with accidents this morning as people will find they just can't cope with such. It rained yesterday and it is wet and cold out this morning - I let the dogs stay inside, but they better behave.

I never heard back from the auto electric shop yesterday - not that I'm in a big hurry to hear about some huge bill. I hope it isn't that, I really just asked them to check it out and call me. 

Anyway, 8 days til' Christmas. The wet conditions made it so I couldn't turn on my Christmas lights outside last night. Oh well, hope that stuff dries out today and maybe tonight I will be able to. Actually, I'll go out there today and take a towel and hand dry off whatever is wet. The power strips are covered, they can't get wet, as well as the main outlets. 

Ummm, that's about it, I have several things I want to look at, including this newest, trillion dollar bill that has been passed and sitting on the President's desk. Hey, if they can add all that to the deficit, I would like to add my own, personal bills to that deficit as well. Why not? Doesn't Obama want to run my entire life? He can take care of my bills, too!

G'day.

ben

Cafe World Tips 24: Indoor Christmas Tree Has Arrived!

Okay, folks, Zynga listened (to a lot of complaints) and they finally came through with it.  Of course, you aren't just going to get one for free.  You aren't going to be able to go into decor tab to get it, either.  No, it's either pay Cafe Cash or do the ASK routine.

You have to ask for:
10 Fairy Lights
5 Chimes
5 Baubles
......and you have to collect Exotic Ornaments.

It's the Exotic Ornaments that is causing some players to get huffed and puffed (upset).
I have to agree to an extent, because you are going to have to play Zynga's Treasure Isle to
get the ornaments and have to go through the first 5 levels to get it.

I have no inclination, whatsoever, to play Treasure Isle.  In fact, I don't want to play ANY other Zynga games, so, the option is also there to pay 8 Cafe Cash and you are done with that portion of it.  I have plenty of Cafe Cash that I have acquired free, I am simply going to spend some of it to get this tree "built" and get it into my cafe.

One further note:  I did NOT get the giant popup that comes up when you are prompted to build the tree until WELL after a lot of other players I know got theirs up and running.  If you do not have yours yet, no worries (hopefully), it will show up eventually.

Thursday 12/16/2010

I see the House and the Senate are throwing around the trillion dollar word again as if it's totally meaningless, like finding a penny laying on the ground. Well, that's what this tax bill is, almost a trillion dollars. I hope they keep it up - just spend money like it's nothing. It will just refire the anger coals of those that voted out the Dems. Next time, vote them ALL out, at least those that are up for election. 

Well, McCain WAS sitting there talking about the absurdity of what is about to happen after the voice of America spoke: spending is out of control, we are voting to fix it. Well, obviously, it isn't going to get fixed. Not when you are talking about almost another trillion dollars that is going to be added to the deficit. They aren't listening to us, at least us that voted for the change we had a glimmer of hope for in the recent elections. They are screwing the nation is what bothers me. You simply can't keep spending money you don't have. Sooner or later, it's all going to come crashing in on you and then what? I dunno, those people running the country are all rich, what does it bother them? 

Yeah, another whatever moment. SLOW work week. Nothing in Truck Routing system for today. There is some stuff to do, but when there are no pickups, transfers or deliveries, it can make for a very long work day, indeed. Even at only 7 hours, it can seem like an eternity. It isn't totally unexpected at this time of year, but geeze, at least SOME deliveries would be nice.

Well it's Thursday so at least the work week is winding down.

My time's up for this one...
g'day.

ben

More

I am, for several reasons, rather annoyed right now.

I'll get over it, but, my gosh.

Anyway.  I pick up Caleb on the way home from work, get home, the old Buick wouldn't start.  I used jumper cables, it fired right up.  I was going to go to the electrical shop, instead, I headed to Auto Zone.  Let's have the battery (which is brand new) and the alternator checked, please.

The battery was BAD. 2 months old and already BAD?  Not just drained, DONE, TOAST, goodnight.
Warranty covered that.  The bolts that hold the clamps into the battery?  Rusted out.  Dude at the Zone was very helpful and did all the of the work.  Removed the battery, got me another one, I bought the new bolts for it. He removed the old bolts and put the new ones in, got the battery clamped down.  Now, he was ready to test the alternator.

But first, the computer has to check the battery.  Battery good. Thank you, it just came off of their shelf.  Start  the car, check the alternator. 14 volts.  Nothing wrong with the alternator.  We're done here, Auto Dude can't tell me anymore, didn't expect that he should be able to.  He went out of his way to help, I offered him a generous tip, he turned it down.

Put it this way: if I would have taken it to the electrical shop with a bad battery, they would have been calling me telling me the battery was bad, that will be $200 and then we can find out what's wrong with your car.  Auto Dude saved me a good deal of money and/or dealing with the car.  I mean, I wouldn't have HAD the electrical shop replace it with an over-priced battery, I would have taken it to AutoZone for the free replacement warranty.  The electrical shop would have charge me a fee for their diagnostics, just plain and simple, I thought Auto Dude deserved a tip. He flat wouldn't take it.  Oh well, I tried.  Thanked him profusely and headed to the electrical shop.

My son's first drive on the freeway.  He was in my newer Buick, following too closely behind me for my tastes.  At least he was QUITE intently watching what was going on in front of him.  Which is good, because a van pulled up in the line to the right of him and completely cut him off.  No signal, no advance warning, just zipped in between my car and..........my car.  I had the notion of slamming on my brakes to give that person a taste of their own medicine, as I saw my newer Buick going at an angle as Caleb hit the brakes hard to keep from running into the idiot.  Good job, Caleb, anyway, for not smashing up my car.

I was watching him in the rear view mirror pretty much the entire distance on the freeway - I kept the speed below the speed limit, which, btw, is not how I usually drive.  That's all I'm saying about that, ahem, let's move on.  Got to the shop.  The dude that obviously runs and owns the place?  JUST like Virgil at Highland auto, who runs and owns the shop that I am now a loyal customer to.  I thought, no wonder Virgil recommended this shop to me.  This man said this is what we do: figure out electrical problems.  They've been in business 3 dozen years and as Virgil's shop, a lot of acclamation for this shop as well.

Set it straight here, cause' I've done both routes, when it comes to complicated issues, it is FAR better to just spend the money outright at a place that charges more, if that's the case, to get it done right the first time, than it is to pay an inferior shop  - to not do anything but perpetuate your problem and keep you on the hook.  And let me give Virgil, owner of Highland Auto in Chandler, Arizona (yes, props for Googles searches, thank you) a spot here: HE paid for the last tow I had in there, got the car running and didn't charge me a single dime for the time spent and money spent on the tow.  Now, he didn't want anything further to do with this problem with my car, I don't have a problem with that, either.

So, the car is there, don't know when to expect a phone call, guessing sometime tomorrow, but who knows.

BTW, this is NOT what is annoying me.  I was well prepared for today, it's been coming for 2 weeks and it turned out much better than I planned for.  HOW, you say, is THAT?  Because, the car drove all the way there without a hiccup.  It didn't stall on the freeway like it did last time without warning.  That did not change my mind about getting it checked out, no, I don't need a car just bugging out on me whenever it is having a period and needs a giant Midol to take it's misery away.  Not dissing the ladies, just an observation about a car that is now in the shop for the 6th time in about, what, 2, 2 and a half month's time?

What's bugging me, for one, are tenants.  I mean, the trailer people are the ones that have been cleaning the main bathroom, 2 of the in-house tenants haven't lifted a finger to help with that.  The third has done it a couple of times - which has little relevance, really, considering the time she's been living here.  What I heard to day made me mad.  You see, I left a note for everyone.  This is what's going on, we are adults, let's not think that one person should be dumped with the responsibility.  The jist of the note.

So, I hear today that the newest guy said that: "His ad didn't say anything about cleaning the bathroom".  FREAK.  You're right, it doesn't specifically state that: it says that a person needs to clean up after themselves.  To hear that a person has a problem with it?  That person can move out.  I have no problem issuing notices.  Yes, it may affect my income, but, I have no doubt that I can re-rent the room.

Long interval in writing here.  Can't finish tonight.

G'night.

ben

Cafe World Tips 23: Low Buzz Rating Revisited

Low buzz rating.

Hiya chefs, I am doing some updating on my experiences with Café World, what makes it tick and how to make it play as well as your computer can.

Low buzz rating is almost invariably a problem with doors; blocked passage ways; poorly set up café (tables are thrown all over the place making it take a long time for servers to get food to the tables) and the lack of using teleporting.

In fact, if you AREN’T using teleporting – where waiters are trapped behind the counters and “throw” the dishes to the waiting customers, I STRONGLY suggest you set up your café to do so, especially if you have consistent low-buzz-rating problems.  When you have your waiters teleporting the food, you can set up your café just about anyway you please and you will still have a high buzz rating.

90% of the time that I have inspected a person’s café to try and help them fix their problem, the problem lied in the fact that they thought they had the waiters teleporting when, indeed, they were not.  When I reported back to them that their waiters are wandering around the restaurant, they were surprised at such and reported back that yes, you were right, they aren’t blocked!!

The point is that you have to make sure they are sufficiently blocked but at the same time that they have access from inside the blocked area to ALL counters with food on them.  THAT is where most people get it wrong.  People think that they can block in their waiters and at the same time have their counters set up any which way.  Simply not true. 

If you waiters do not have access to all counters from inside the blocked area, then they will simply walk right through the counters and deliver the food to the waiting customer.

Make sure, from INSIDE the blocked area, that you have nothing on the floor that will stop the waiter from accessing EVERY counter.  Make sure you haven’t got counters in front of counters, this is usually the problem and simply rearranging the counters usually fixes the problem.  Once you actually have your waiters teleporting the food, sit back and enjoy the fact that your buzz rating is going back up and will stay up there.  Occasionally you might find it go down for a few seconds upon entering your café, but it always should go right back up and stay there. 

Also, always make sure that when you leave your café, the buzz rating is at 105.  The buzz rating will NOT go down once you are out of your café and will stay there for however long until you return to your café to take care of your customers and waiting dishes. 

If, for some reason, you do not want to have your waiters teleporting, then you must closely inspect your café if you are having buzz issues.  The customers do NOT want to wait forever for a waiter to bring the food to them. If they have a long way to go, or there are obstacles in the way making them go far around to get to them, or there are blockages making serving them impossible, they will leave with thumbs down and buzz goes down, too.

Each table much have at least 1 access point for the waiter to be able to put the food on the table.  One of the biggest problems I have encountered is that many people put their counters up against a wall, far away from the tables.  This works fine with teleporting, but if you don’t want to teleport, probably not so fine.  A more effective setup has your counters in the middle of your café so that waiters don’t have far to walk to get food from counter to table. 

There is another issue I must address here that I have spoken about before as well:  Your computer.  I recently built a new computer.  It has 8 gigs of RAM; an AMD Athlon II X4 640 Processor; and a medium quality ASUS motherboard, fitted with a 1 Terabyte hard drive and a 750 watt power supply.  My OLD computer IS old. It was built by Dell.  It has an Intel 4 processor, no clue what the motherboard is and 2 gigs of ram.  THAT computer had GREAT difficult running Cafe World.  I would enter my Cafe and buzz rating would drop and drop and drop.  If I let it sit there for a couple of hours without doing anything, the buzz rating would eventually come back up.

Yes, that's my point.  It isn't ALWAYS Zynga's fault.  Your computer might be a dinosaur that needs replacing.  There isn't much fun about an internet experience that is slow, gives you lots of error messages and causes Explorer to shut down.  I know, we are in bad economic times.  Maybe buying a new computer or building one yourself isn't in the cards.  But, if by chance, it is and your computer is old, you might consider it.  My entire internet experience greatly improved, not just with Cafe World, but - I have to say that Cafe World loads almost instantly now.  It used to take up to 15 minutes to load it.  I click on something and it's either there or a second passage and it's there.  For as much time as I spend on the computer and internet, the money spent was WELL worth it.

More to come in the future.  

Cafe World Tips 22: The Holiday Dinner - Goals and Mission

The Holiday Dinner – Goals and Mission

First, the 7 goals.  I am not going to go into the specifics of the goals here, since they are posted all over the internet, I AM going to go into the glitch that is making it impossible for numerous Café World cooks (players, lol) to be able to finish the goals.  The glitch is the inability to send out RSVP’s to your neighbors while asking them to help you finish whichever goal you are on.

In these 7 goals, they ask you to ask your neighbors for help getting various items.  You either ask your neighbors or you pay an exorbitant amount of café cash to finish each part of the goal that requires it. 

I cannot offer any assistance on this issue, Zynga knows ALL about this problem, they apparently have yet to fix it.  I DID encounter this glitch just about every time I went to send out requests.  “Sorry, something went wrong in the kitchen” would come up instead of a list of your Café World neighbors.  I just kept trying until the actual list would come up.  I would send out a LOT of requests on one thing just to make sure I got them out because, apparently, no-one is immune to this particular glitch.  When I tried to send the requests, another error message would come up, same error message as before.  But, I had already hit the send button and found out even though that error message is coming up, the requests were sent anyway.

I eeked through that 7 goal list.  The final goal has 30 requests that you have to get filled up, which in turn is making a lot of people made because many of them simply can’t send out any requests at all.

Moving on.

The Holiday Dinner Mission.

I like this mission, but a lot of people are hating it.  Many of them have one or another dish that is in the mission locked, even though they did everything necessary to unlock them.  The dishes you have to cook and serve are: Waldorf Salad; Baked Ham and Angel Slices.  MANY people don’t even HAVE the Angel Slices, making the mission impossible to complete on their own.  So, those people head straight to the Café World discussion board, venting and ranting about the situation.

I feel for those people, but, it IS possible to finish the mission if you have neighbors that are able to cook the dishes that you cannot. 

The point?  Another Zynga classic blunder.  Putting out a Christmas mission that SO many people can’t even participate in because of the numerous glitches.  I mean, it’s what, 10 days until Christmas? 

On another note, Zynga apparently is finally getting a clue.  You know that ugly Crane machine that looks like it belongs in a circus that you might have built, put in your café and then found out you can’t remove it from your café?  You know, the one that, after you built it, doesn’t WORK?!!!!  Well, on the boards, a moderator posted yesterday that Zynga is doing a trial run to see how well it works and whatever glitches might be encountered.  It’s not IF a glitch is encountered, at least not from my perspective, it’s how MANY will be encountered.  So, 3,000 people and 3,000 only are going to have that thing up and running in their cafes.  THIS is the way they should do ALL of their new rollouts.  Get a group of players that will test it (preferably without all the griping about the glitches they are going to encounter, since they are voluntarily being Guinea Pigs) FIRST before rolling it out to everyone. 

Since we’re almost at Christmas, I would also like to gripe about one more thing in this game: the lack of a freaking Christmas tree to be able to put INSIDE of your café.  They have one for the outside of it, great.  How many people put a Christmas tree outside? If they do, they probably also have one INSIDE as well.  They’ve come out  with everything BUT an indoor Christmas tree!

I’m not all mad and upset about Café World and what’s going on, I’m just expressing my discontent with a game that is bugged with all kinds of known glitches that are never fixed. There are far too many bugs with the game that have plagued the game for SO long, it's a bit ridiculous that they continue to bring out new goals, missions and other things yet they don't seem to get it: FIX the EXISTING issues!

Wednesday 12/15/2010

Wednesday

Okay, so, my mother attempts to talk me into coming to Christmas party with family. I said no thanks, not if middle bro is there. It was a drawn out argument a month or more ago and the end was, whatever. I mean, she just wants to see us, that's fine, she doesn't have to see us at the same time.

Then I get a call from my sister-in-law. My mother put her up to it. She had no idea that there was anything going on. She wasn't too happy my mother put her up to something without letting her know what's going on. Got into a bit of a discussion about other things, but that story ended the same way: no thanks.

Yesterday, I am going through my email box and find my middle brother has sent me an email. Morbid curiosity caused me to open the thing, otherwise I would have passed on it. He asks in the letter if we would come to Christmas dinner at his house, his son is going to be there and wants to see Caleb.

I've always wondered how people can do that. Act like there's nothing wrong. Politicians obviously can do that with the financial nightmare going on, but in personal relationships, I have no clue.

I've been in this situation before with brothers who thought I was some sort of religious zealot and therefore deserved a good tongue-lashing at either Thanksgiving or Christmas celebrations - or both. I have walked out on such before and don't even want to put myself in the position of having to do so again. I didn't start preaching to them, either, I didn't even bring up the subject, THEY did.

So what to do? Write him back and ask some blunt questions. WHY do you want us to come to your house for Christmas? What's going to happen when we get there? Are you going to start s*** again? If so, I can stay home with my doggies, cook a Christmas meal and be as content and happy as a bug in a rug. I have a large end Standing Rib Roast in the freezer, just itching to be taken out, cooked and eaten. And so it will be, just deciding when.

December 15, 2010 6:02 AM 

Anonymous said...

Onto other things. In the last week, I have left my son messages about helping me get the car in to the shop. I am not going to drive the thing over there and then pay $40 to get at taxi home, which was included in those messages.

He never returned the calls. I thought, well, who cares then, leave the car sit and I will do nothing with it. I called him up again, no answer as was the case with the other calls, this time I just let it loose: Since you don't seem to care one way or the other if you have a car to drive, I don't either, the thing is going to sit there and rot, or, I will get it fixed and sell it for whatever I can get out of it.

I dunno, I guess if I have to get rotten about it, I will. He calls back, this time, in about 20 minute's time. Yeah, yeah, I'll help you get it there tomorrow afternoon. Ohhh? Why didn't you return my other calls? He had no answer. I wanted to know. I mean, this is for HIM, not for me. I can drive MY car and it won't bother me one way or the other. He blamed his phone. Another whatever moment.

Limited chance of success in Afghanistan. That's the new reports out. I'll say it again: Let's get the bleep OUT of that country and let them kill themselves. They have been doing it for centuries, why get OUR troops killed along with them? Is this a matter of pride or something? Like, "we're America, we can't lose!". Who CARES. This is a worthless war, imo, it's time to LEAVE. It would be helpful if we had a president who actually had some kind of respect from other nations and who could stand up and put the gauntlet down, but, that's not going to happen with this chap that's in the Oval office.

If the tax cut thing didn't have such serious ramifications, it would be hilarious just watching these politicians mouthing off all over the place. I'm just sorta running around the news. I mean, I don't want my taxes raised, I want the government to live within it's means. It gets enough money, DEAL WITH IT.

Work day is here. Not much to do in the truck routing system. The closer we get to Christmas the more it will slow down. In between Christmas and New Year's is almost always very slow. Yeah, not much fun.

Anyway, I'm outta here.

G'day.

ben

Tuesday 12/14/2010

Tuesday

Sangfroid, huh? I don't recall hearing that word before. I must admit I had to look it up and see what it meant. I was reading a story about the 17 year old that took the french nursery hostage, with a description of the teacher of the class having had "great sangfroid".

I probably won't be adding that word to my repertroire, it has a strange sound to it and I don't really ......like it, really.

It WAS an interesting read yesterday after the Federal judge threw out a portion of the health care law, the portion that states that buying the health insurance is mandatory and if you don't, you will be - fined I think it was, no penalized on your tax returns.

The issue is whether congress has the statutory power to force anyone to buy anything. The judge found not. I read the judge's opinion and ruling on the thing - I think it was over 30 pages long. It was an interesting read, I thought anyway. Will his ruling stand? Who knows - if/when it gets to the Supreme court, we'll hear the answer to that - don't hold your breath, not like it's going to happen tomorrow.

IF it does stand, it will basically take the teeth out of the bill, from my perspective anyway, cause' the bill relies on the "fact" that everyone MUST pay into it for it to be able to work.

Lots of other stuff in there, too, but, enough of that. The tenant that likes to do 8 loads of laundry per week certainly was well at it again the last time she was at my house - she comes and goes, no rhyme or reason to it. She had already done her 2 load limit for that week, but continued right on in the wee hours of the morning, doing laundry and thinking I didn't know about it.

There are 2 reasons I DO know about it. First, I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. The laundry room is next to that bathroom and I could hear the machines running. SHE is the ONLY person that does laundry THAT late at night.

Second, my electric usage went up $4 for that day and $3 for the next day - that's above and beyond what it normally would be without her doing all of that.

So, the question stands: HOW MUCH LAUNDRY DOES ONE PERSON NEED TO DO IN ONE WEEK? She doesn't have a family of 8 living with her, it's just HER. I am going to write her a notice. She is behind in her rent again anyway. I'm kinda getting tired of dealing with this person who has lost 2 jobs since the time she has moved in and the loss of the jobs were solely her fault. 

Whatever the case, I just noticed the work day is almost here already. I also realized this morning that though I have the front of my house lit up VERY nicely, I have done NOTHING with the inside of my house!! I need a Christmas tree!!

Oh, and my sister-in-law called yesterday. She wanted to know if I am going to show up to my middle brother's for Christmas. My mother put her up to it. I said no, explained the altercation between my brother and I - the fact that I am definitely NOT going to go to HIS house to do what, have a blowup with him dissing me to my face in front of everyone? How many Christmases has that happened in the past? SEVERAL. I would rather stay home, thanks and have a great celebration without me, I don't care to attend that kind of atmosphere, it is only stress, not enjoyment.

I did say to her that she should be looking for a package, coming soon. She knew what that meant. "Is it coming from Nebraska?". Lol, yes, it is. She finally admitted, for the first time in years, that they actually look FORWARD to getting that package delivered to their doorstep. It's Omaha steaks, I came up with that as their present 4 or 5 years ago - they are the "have-everything" type of people that are tough to buy for, but not with that little gem.

Well, gotta git offa here.

G'day.

ben

Monday 12/13/2010

Monday

Here we are again, yet another Monday.
Woke up groggy and I am feeling the signs of potentially some respiratory illness setting in. There were sick people at that party on Saturday, I tried to stay away from them, but, I dunno. It really isn't too pleasant for people who are sick to show up to such an affair, hacking and coughing all over the place, spreading those germs everywhere.

Well, they're going to make other people sick, that's all I'm saying. At least take a healthy dose of cough medicine and try to keep the coughing down if you ARE going to show up to such an event in sickly condition. At the VERY least you could COVER YOUR MOUTH to try and contain the spread of the germs every time you are coughing away.

I just stay away from people as much as possible when I get sick, but there are plenty of people out there that apparently don't care one way or the other whether they are going to be responsible for making others sick by their rather selfish behavior. 

I have avoided lines at grocery stores when seeing people standing in those lines, sneezing and coughing, not even covering their mouth. Or, if I'm stuck in one of those lines, I stay back from them as far as possible and yes, I WILL say something to them if they are coughing without, at the very least, TRYING to cover their mouth. I've received some pretty nasty responses for my bluntness and I always do very well at dishing it right back at them. 

I'll find out later on whether I'm sick or this is just some fluke. It happens when cold air hits my lungs - my respiratory system isn't exactly the most perfect unit on earth as evidenced by much childhood sickness with asthma and bronchitis. 

At least there is one delivery in the system this morning - spent hours loading it on the truck on Friday. I get in this morning and find out that half the order is cancelled and they only want a fraction of what was loaded onto the semi. I don't give the salesman a pass on this one, he claims the contractor called and said he only wanted the larger pipe over the weekend, I'm guessing the salesman didn't bother to get the full story from the contractor and didn't communicate. Frequent occurence around these parts: a great lack of communication. 

Anyway, work day approaches, I was just reading more North Korean rhetoric, this time they are threatening nuclear war against the south. Yeah, good luck with THAT idea.

G'day.

ben

Sunday 12/12/2010

I watched the Steelers/Bengals game today, Steelers won handsomely.  I left the room after that and came back to hear a bunch of booing and broadcasters saying "that ain't right".  I was on the end of it, so I didn't find out why the fans were booing or the broadcast personnel were making their statements.

A Christmas Carol, my favorite version, is airing tomorrow.  I have it set to record on both DVR's.  It's my favorite Christmas movie of all time, though there are others that are definitely up there as well.

The weekend is over.  Nothing grand, but the party was fun.  I have done nothing much of anything today besides some cleaning stuff and internet surfing.

I have no clue.  My mind is elsewhere right now, lots of things I am "thinking" about.  Christmas lights are on.  I was going to go buy a Christmas tree today for my living room - but - my son had to take the car to work.  I might have been able to take the old Buick - but - not worth risk of a breakdown.  THAT car is going into the electrical shop sometime this coming week.

I was just looking at a report about Disneyland.  As much as I have hated some of the last visits I have gone on - so many people you couldn't move around without brushing up against others - I still love the place.  It took me to a different place - I have been there so many times since I was 10 years old, I have most of it memorized.  It's the memories of the good times there that got a hold of me, probably why I'm rather distracted right now.  Those thoughts took me to the distinct lack of having a significant other - a person that might also like Disneyland, even if we are in our 40's.

G'nite.

ben

The Company Christmas Party

Well, I took a lot of cheeses, crackers, meats out there for hors D'ouevres.  Well liked, yes, but some of the dishes that other people brought were absolutely amazing.  Think of 20 dishes that are family secrets handed down for generations all showing up at the same place, think the party I was at tonight.

I freely admit I WAY overate.  Fried turkey; Beef rib rack; Pasoli; all kinds of stuff that was absolutely amazing. The highlight, though, was the second annual Corn Hole competition.  I figured my team - 2 people to a team - would nail this one.  He's very good at the game, I'm not too shabby.  Today, my skills greatly increased.  I was nailing it right in the hole, or pushing another bag into the hole, even got 2 bags into the hole at once by hitting a bag that was right on the edge of the hole and the one I threw to hit it both going in.

Net gain? $130 to be split equally.  My partner shook hands, the Ops manager pulled out the earnings, he walked off and said: "give it all to Ben".  Ops manager comes to me, counts out $130 in bills and that was that.  Not.  I am not going to just take the whole till.  I could certainly USE the till, but I wasn't even going to say that, that would be tacky at a Christmas party.  I found him, had his $65 in hand, he refused.  He is an outside salesman, he has made a lot of money in his life, this I am pretty confident of.

So, I put the money in my wallet, thanked him for a great game and walked to another group of people.  Someone made a comment about my team - being paired up with an ex-pitcher from the Seattle Mariners.  Huh?  I chuckled, thought they were joking.  No joke, he actually DID pitch at one point in time for the Mariners!! I don't know what years or even if he actually started or played in any actual MLB game.

Somehow, I had it in my head that today is Sunday.  I only just in the last half hour have readjusted that thought: it's Saturday night, enjoy the rest of the day with a very full belly, go to bed, get up in the morning and get some house cleaning done.    Pleasant, enjoyable day.  The money won at the competition should pay for the diagnosis on the car.  Hey, I didn't say anything to anyone there about what I am doing with the money, but blowing it on something is not in the equation.  I mean, the thought of hitting the casino hit my mind, but I dismissed it.  Don't feel like going there tonight and I only do that on weekends nights, it would have to wait  until next week.  But, it isn't waiting for anything, I would rather be guaranteed that I spent the money on something I needed to get done - though it is sometimes very tempting.  I don't go that much any more and when I do go, it's usually a good night.

I also am tempted to go on Tuesday cause they are giving away 9, brand new cars that night.  However, the giveaway STARTS at 6:00 pm.  I think they are drawing names throughout the night.  I can't really spend all night long at a casino and then expect to go to work the next morning.

Ummm, well, I think I'll dismiss that thought, at least for now.

That's it.

G'day.

ben

Saturday 12/11/2010

So, did they get it?  Did Washington come the conclusion that we don't want them spending more money?

NO, is the definitive answer, they did NOT.  Another almost TRILLION dollar bill that is getting loaded with useless junk.  $857,000,000.00 was the "current" estimate and it sounds like even more is going to be loaded into it.

Nope, they didn't get the message.  We cannot continue to spend this kind of money, period.  This kind of spending is, in a word: unsustainable.  This isn't what I voted for last month.  I don't know what the House is going to do with this bill, but - if they don't vote it down and quash it, smash it and pulverize it, then no, they definitely didn't get the message and -- what are voters supposed to do?

Some economists are making statements that eventually, this whole thing is going to crash.  We will end up in financial/monetary crisis and then what?  The collapse of our government?   How does government function without money?  You think employees are going to work for free?  I'm just musing here - what kind of low is it going to take to "get there" - to have our hand forced back on us?  How about if China stops buying all the bonds?  I'm all for getting it over with.  Simply meaning that when our hand is forced back on us, there will be no choice but to incorporate massive cuts in government spending.

If the current House doesn't stop this madness, then the only truth that has prevailed all along anyway is:  it doesn't matter who you vote for, it all ends up with the same outcome: spend, spend, spend like there's no tomorrow.

I'm not sorry to say that I am disgusted and repulsed by the actions of these irresponsible, selfish, greedy people that are running our government.  I will still hold out a glimmer of hope to see what the House does with this garbage.

Off of that subject, company Christmas party today.  I haven't started on cutting anything up - but that's intentional, I was waiting until sometime this morning to start that process.  I am going to slice up all the cheese and put them individually in plastic storage bags to be transported in such fashion to the party, which is about 50 miles away.  I guess I am going to have to use a cooler, too, since the high today is slated at 80 degrees, which is too warm to just let cheese sit out.  I figure to put out a platter with the stuff, but not all of it and replenish it as time moves forward during the party if needed.  That way, my expensive cheese won't go bad and perhaps I'll be bringing some of it back home with me.

Ummm, a lot of time passed.  Cut up everything that needed cutting, went up to the store for another 2 dips - they were on manager special, normally $4.99, $1.59 today - meaning it probably only has a couple more days shelf life before expiring.

Gotta get ready to go - later!

ben

Hummingbirds and Cheese

No, I am not going to start eating hummingbird sandwiches with cheese on it.

Yesterday, I was sitting next to my big pond. I REALLY like doing that, as long as dogs aren't barking out there (and no, I am not referring to mine, I do not allow them to bark incessantly), interfering with the tranquility of the moment, I can sit out there for an hour, 2 hours, whatever, enjoying the fruits of the labor of my hands  - and God's hands since I neither invented fish nor could I ever think up the perfection in the way He created such to work so brilliantly even in a setting with my house in the middle of a desert, in the middle of a very polluted and populated town.

Well, I moved the hummingbird feeder because I haven't seen any feeding from it.  I thought maybe it was too hidden for them to find.

Au contraire.  A hummingbird that is the most beautiful version of one I have seen around here yet came up to the thing, took a drink, backed off, took another and then headed straight for my Honeysuckle plants.  They are blooming in full force right now, literally hundreds of flowers in the front and the side of my house.

I concluded from that that probably, that stuff is too old to try and be using anymore.  I've had the base mixture in my refrigerator for a year, time to throw it out and get some fresh stuff.  I would have done that today while at Fry's, but I totally forgot.  There are quite a number of Hummingbirds visiting my property and partaking of the Honeysuckles, I just want to be able to watch them feeding from inside my house which is only doable if I get some fresh mix.  It isn't expensive, I'm just cheap in such things.  Use it ALL up before getting anymore.

The cheese part of this entry comes from my visit to Trader Joe's today.  I had never noticed the huge and very fine selection of quality cheeses they have.  I mean, they have just about everything and they have some great prices on fine cheeses.  They also have some very high prices, I can only imagine what such must taste like - cheese heaven - and imagining is as far as it goes.  I've spent $50 - far more than I really wanted to - on this endeavor, but, it's for a good cause: make everyone at work including the general manager happy, lol.

I also got a variety of crackers - from plain old Ritz to wafer to a variety box to an entertainment box and some other stuff.  It sounds like more than it is, I bought just enough of it to give a good sampling of each, but I didn't go overboard with it.  I have 2 rolls of summer sausage, a package of sliced pepperoni and 1 container of some very excellent dip.  I am going to buy 2 more of the dips and call it done.  I will be cutting that stuff up tomorrow morning.  I don't even want to open the packages until then - just want to keep it fresh and not getting dried out. I am going to make my cheese tray a party experience, that's all I can say about it, and it is, IMO, money well spent.

That's it for the entry, OH< WAIT A MINUTE!!!

I just got a call from the ex - Caleb (our son) found out today that he passed the AIM's test!! YAAAAHOOOOOO!!   You don't graduate High School without passing that test, period.

Oops, the sun is beginning to go down and I want to hang out next to the ponds for a while.

ben