indiboi.com

There has been a lot of frustration over the past couple of weeks with the server and hosting company in general. The server is, unquestionably, old. A server with approximate specs can now be leased for significantly less than I’m currently paying. The only issue I’ve had with upgrading, aside from the unbelievable amount of work that needs to be done, is that I hadn’t been able to find a significantly better server (i.e. one worth upgrading to) without spending a significant amount of cash.

Well, I finally had enough. I’ll spend more, it’ll alleviate the frustration. My datacenter had a promotion that expired a week ago or so, which was really disappointing as it was supposed to last until mid-January. They started up another, but different, promotion. I didn’t particularly feel the need for 5000GB of data transfer, but to double my HD, RAM, and Bandwidth it was going to only be another $30 over what I was going to pay anyway, which in the grand scheme of things wasn’t bad at all. It’s still probably $30 wasted, as bandwidth usage never even approached the old limit set by the datacenter.

So, here we go… I have a shiny new dual core server with SATA drives and 4GB of ram, and an absolutely ludicrous amount of data transfer… on order. Thanks to the pro-rated billing, this became an affordable reality, not having to make two full server payments the month of the upgrade is extremely helpful.

The rest of my month will be insanity, no doubt, while I prepare it for production use and transfer the hosting accounts. I only hope the addition expense of the new server over the current rate won’t be too much of a burden. I think it’ll be quite squeaky over the next couple of weeks between the pro-rated payment and the full month.

I woke up the other morning to find a bandaid affixed over the bathroom fan switch. Odd, I thought, but surely there must be something wrong with it.

Apparently Mom thought it smelled ‘burning’ when she had used it. Well, desperate to take a shower, and the fan is absolutely necessary for that, I risked it today. I didn’t smell anything off, but it did take a good while to get up to speed. It’s ancient anyway, time to replace it.

Add a replacement for the nearly busted bathroom fan to the list of absolutely joyful unexpected Christmas purchases. Those purchases would also include a bit over $600 in car repairs… the water pump was malfunctioning. Considering the labor for that repair was essentially the same as that of the timing belt replacement, she opted to include that too, only added that extra $100 anyway. At least the timing belt repair was semi-scheduled, but for next month. That’s a lot of unexpected expenses for one month. At least I’ve footed the bill for the new fan… on the credit card now that the one held payment has finally been posted fully.

Silly me thought replacing the bathroom fan would be a much easier prospect than what it actually is. Someone will need to go into the attic to remove the old and also put the replacement in. I figured all that could be done from within the livable portions of the house. It also seems we’ll need to cut a new opening, as the old fan is tiny, even in comparison to the one we bought simply because it was smaller than the preferred model.

I don’t do attics, at least not the sort where you need to watch your step for fear of falling through the ceiling. The little entrance into the attic requires a ladder and, well, I’m sure only the ’size 0′ types can even make it through that little hole. That’s why our little kitchen remodel of the lighting system has all the new lights still in their boxes, from a couple years ago. No one with the skills to do the job will go into the attic.

So as much hemming and hawing I did in regards to signing up for Gamefly, I’m sure glad that I did.

The Simpsons game is just awful, horribly awful. I don’t think I’m even going to play it any more than I already did. The Harry Potter game is enjoyable as basically an RPG, but it’s full of tedius chore-like busywork. I’d never want to play it again after the first go through. I suspect there’ll be a lot of games like that, with the exception being the ‘always fun’ party style games.

My Orchard Bank credit card payment is still only half posted, with the payment still being held away from my available credit. I was planing on making my final payment this month to finish off the balance, but clearly that isn’t going to happen until they actually start accepting my payments properly. Nowhere in the payment terms does it say they can do this either.

I’m so infuriated with this bullshit, if all I’m able to do is pay on the balance, I might as well just close the account. They’ll probably pull the shit again when I do make the payment, it’s due within 12 days anyway. I don’t have a whole lot of choice though, it’s either pay them and deal with the bullshit payment holds, or not pay them again this month and give them interest.

I’m also so goddamn sick of broken English with an Indian accent.

I sure have learned my lesson though, no more than one or two payments per month, don’t ever pull that I’ll pay each week thing again.

I finally signed up for Gamefly, this month the 2 games at once plan with the discount, but I’ll likely drop back to the single game plan for next month.

So it turns out that Gamefly has ‘keep it’ prices, granted they’re pre-played games you’re keeping, but in some cases the discount is extremely significant. I have “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” on the way and the “keep it” price is only $15.99. The Simpsons game is also on the way, but its “keep it” price is $33.99.

Apparently they give you $5 in ‘reward money’ for every three months you’re a member, after six months you get 5% discount on game purchases, and after a year of membership the discount climbs to 10%. Those are small incentives, but it really makes renting feel like less of a financial blackhole.