Talk about bad luck - I'm cursed this month

So a few posts ago I talked about how my PayPal account had been compromised, and I lost almost $500 from my checking account.  Well, since then I've had absolutely the worst luck of any person I know of.  I mean, it's like literally every single thing in my house or in my name decided it's about time to break, die, or fall apart.

1. We'll start with the PayPal debacle. That was unfortunate luck, and it sucked when it happened, but eventually the bank sorted it all out, and I got my money back.  It just scared the crap out of me that at any time $500 could simply disappear from your bank account without doing anything wrong.
   
2. Xbox 360 - I got the Red Ring of Death (RROD) two weeks ago, and the hardware that I used the most in my entertainment system (watching movies, TV shows, Netflix, etc.) is completely dead and will cost $100 to fix
3. ASUS WL-500W router - While I was playing a video game one night (on my PS3 because the Xbox was already dead), I got a funny message saying the network cable had been disconnected. I didn't think about it until I went to my computer, and couldn't reach the internet. The router completely died, and won't respond to any troubleshooting techniques. I've scoured the internet on ways to unbrick the thing, but it's hopeless, and I'm not devoting any more time to it.
4. Hot-tub - I had to fill the tub last weekend because the weather was getting cold enough to freeze, and I wanted it to be up and running so it survived the winter. I filled the tub on Sunday, and by Wednesday, it was half empty, and almost too low to work. Luckily, Amber's brother came over and found the culprit leak and fixed it.
5. Toyota Camry - today my car decided to spring a leak in the radiator (a little hole dead center on the top of the radiator body), and it reached critical temperature the moment I pulled into my parking space at work this morning. I had AAA come and tow it, and now have to play "swap the car" with my wife today and tomorrow to get back and forth to work, etc.

I honestly have no idea why my luck has been so bad this month... It's frustrating because all these things are completely out of my control. I just cross my fingers, hope that nothing else breaks and keep going. What else am I going to do? It's a good thing I'm not a compulsive gambler, I'd probably have gotten my knees broken by now.

So it goes.

So...it's been a month since I've written an update for O2D. If either of my readers were wondering why this might be, well part of it is explained by Doug's update below and my response to it, and the rest can be explained by using today as a microcosm of my life over the past month.

Viewer Discretion Advised...

About a year and a half ago I had a job that I quite enjoyed and that I was rather good at. My boss would say, "do this" and I would do it. I would write a grant application, I would write a presentation, I would have a meeting about a program, I would do lunch, I would meet with a loan applicant, I would talk to the players and be there as deals were done. I may be romanticizing a bit, but I never woke up dreading the day ahead and I never thought my life sucked. Sure, I wanted more money, and I was a bit concerned that there was very little room for advancement since my boss showed no signs of retiring ever...but at least he was a great guy and a good boss to work for. My biggest problem was the commute: 70 miles round-trip and the price of gas had more than doubled in my time there. I killed two transmissions, and it looked like I might be rounding third. On the upside, I got satellite radio so I really got back into finding and listening to new music.

Over a couple of years, I conducted a job search for something closer to home which consisted of a resume posted on a couple of websites that I updated once every few months. Long story short...a nibble turned into a bite turned into, not a fish, but a drowning man pulling me overboard with him and I found myself stranded in the ocean of joblessness in the worst economy in decades. Several months of ego-shattering shit later with job offers that never came and outright rejections by places I wouldn't have worked in high school, and I finally landed a position with the unemployment office. It wasn't a perfect job, wasn't in my field, and I was told I'd be working four nights a week and then a 9 to 5 on Sunday, but it was a job. I went in for my first day of training and I was told that the schedule I agreed to was no longer the schedule. The new schedule was five weeknights AND that Sunday shift. One week into processing that, they guy who laid me off calls and tells me he sold his bankrupt company to a bigger company, and he's wondering if I'm interested in getting on board. My wife (who is much smarter than I am) tells me she doesn't trust the guy, so I negotiate a part-time consulting gig instead during the hours I'm not working for the state...a negotiation that takes from mid-April to July for some reason.

So, I'm doing both jobs for a while and I'm getting totally burned out. I feel like I'm sleepwalking through my life. I force myself out of bed every morning as my wife is leaving for work (no, I didn't get to talk to her at all before she left) and I try to get to all the shit that needs to be done. I'm working on my consulting job when I have the time and the energy. I'm trying to take care of things around the house, trying to make an application for a permanent job here and there, trying not to think about how much I miss my wife and my friends. I have to pack a lunch (there's nowhere to get food and make it back to work in the lousy business park and I don't get paid enough to eat out anyway) and leave an hour and a half early or I won't make it on time. It's a shorter distance but it takes me longer to get to work than my old, good job did. I work my shift, come home...my wife is already asleep. I veg out on whatever Netflix sent just so I can get my brain to shut off and I can go to sleep. Rinse, repeat. I feel like the lonely, bored, soulless early scenes of Fight Club.

I am Jack's silent despair.

Two weeks ago, my boss for my part time job sends me an email, and I paraphrase, "we're not getting enough leads on this, so we're cutting you loose. Submit your last invoice." That's interesting since we've had enough leads for me to work on one at a time, which is almost more than I felt like accomplishing. But maybe this is for the good, I didn't really feel like doing that any longer. But is this their sly way of saying they didn't care for my work and I'm being fired? I've never been fired. Great, another thing to lose sleep over.

If all of this sounds like whining, it's really just a prologue, but my narcissism goes only so far. I spend a good portion of my working day talking to people who haven't been able to find work in over a year and who don't have any more benefits coming, so I know the value of what I have. That doesn't make it any easier when the universe decides to give you a Hot Carl...which brings us to...TODAY!!!!!

I yank myself out of bed and try to accomplish a few things. Hello Mr. Headache-I-seem-to-get-every-day-now. I'll bask in your company while I take care of some e-mail...Oh, look...that job I interviewed for the other week decided that my skills were impressive but blah, blah, blah. OK, I was pretty sure that job would have sucked. Let's see what else I have in my email. What's that sound? OH FUCK IT'S STREET CLEANING DAY AGAIN AND I WORK A SHITTY SHIFT THAT MEANS MY CAR IS ALWAYS ON THE STREET FOR STREET CLEANING DAY!@!!! I guess I'll go grab the ticket off my windshield. While I'm out here I might as well check the mail. Hmm...I have two invoices pending with that consulting job and one is more than a week past due. No check in the mail. Let's see if they respond to this email informing them of when the invoice was submitted. They kind of suck at paying on time...my last check was more than a week late too. I guess I'll do some dishes. Well that took forever, but at least it and a couple other things are done. I better pack food to take to work with me. Great, the salad I was planning on packing is going all slimy and rotten. I guess I'll just have to pick out some of the good leaves and make do. Check the email before I go to work...(paraphrasing) "Conrad remember when I said I had this totally financially stable company and you came to work for me and my company went bankrupt and it took me forever to get you your last paycheck, but then I sold my company and I offered you another job and I said the company that bought me was totally financially stable? Guess who fell for it twice. Maybe we'll turn a profit some day and you'll get paid." Great...what a fun day and now it's time for work. Walk into the office and sign in...hmm, what's this sign? "Dear second-shift suckas, fuck you. We in management have decided that, while we've successfully crushed any family or social life you might have on weeknights, not enough has been done to thoroughly demoralize you. Starting in three weeks, we're taking away Saturday night too because your shift on Sunday is no longer 9 to 5, it's 7 to 3. Because my balls, that's why. And we know you'll be too tired Sunday to enjoy that evening either. Love, Governor Rendell. PS, if you were thinking about complaining to the union, remember, all the union meetings are scheduled for the evenings while you're at work. Ha ha."

I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

I prayed for a job, almost any job, that whole awful period I spent being unemployed. How's that saying go? When the gods wish to punish us...

I'm social media overloaded!!

So after so many months of trying out various social networking services to keep in touch with family and friends, I've got one final conclusion: There are too damn many social networking sites.

While I can definitely see the intrinsic value of keeping in touch with old friends, or using micro-blogging as a means of advertising, it's simply too much to keep up with on a regular basis.  Or I should say, it's nearly impossible to keep up with all of them. If you have a day-job, your company likely blocked many services (like Facebook, Twitter, AIM, etc.) so keeping up to date with them becomes a full-time job outside of work.  I don't care enough about all the things going on with my friends or my friends' kids/dogs/cats/etc. to have to have fresh news delivered to me via wall updates or tweets.

At some point there is a saturation level that one can reach that it all becomes overwhelming. If I had to remember to carry on this many conversations at work as I try to in Facebook, Twitter, digg, Blogger... I'd be terrible at my job, and practically lose my mind in the process. Don't get me wrong, I think it's awesome that there are so many ways for people to keep in touch now. Technology has truly changed the way that communication occurs, and that's a good thing.  However, I've reached the point in my online life where I see it all as a wash. The deluge of twitter updates from the 43 different people I follow, plus all the wall updates on Facebook, makes me completely numb to new and interesting information when I hear it. The most mundane has become the norm, and I have no idea whether I'm reading something that's actually important, or someone updating their profile with the some crap about what they're going to eat at that moment.  Are you a twitter shitter?

There are thousands of Wikipedia pages full of useless information, overflowing with an abundance of inane factoids. Not only do people somehow feel the need to keep everyone abreast to all the ho-hum things going on in their lives - it's like everyone on the internet started taking narcissism pills - all the time. In terms of famous people, I can completely understand it from their perspective (though I'm quite far from famous). If your business is to basically sell yourself, whether through media outlets like film, music or photography, you need to find a way to engage your audience.  The minute people stop caring about you is the moment you become irrelevant, and your career is over. Can you imagine if Kevin Nealon had to get a day job? I hate to say it, but I can totally see him acting in real life like his Weeds character Doug Wilson.  It would be amusing to watch, but a total car-wreck for his life.  I may be completely wrong about Kevin Nealon (and I'm sure that I am), but the whole point I'm trying to make is he needs his audience to sustain his livelihood.  Without an audience to hear his funny attitude and his bizarre ball references, he would just sound like some crazy cook you work with at Applebees.

Keeping people truly engaged is a really hard thing to do. Especially, when those people are young, impatient, and used to the go-fast lifestyle we Americans have become so accustomed. Entertainment is much harder to maintain now than it was 20 years ago because the entry level is so much lower.  If you can get 100,000 views in a day on YouTube, you suddenly become an internet sensation... but fame comes when people remember your name months and years later.

Society has taken to heart the Andy Warhol phrase about 15 minutes of fame. Too many are clawing their way onto reality TV shows and doing stupid tricks for some ridiculous reason to get attention. Why is it so important to be remembered that human beings go to such assinine lengths to become immortal?

I'd say the most ridiculous thing about reality TV is the statement that goes something along the lines, "I'm not here to make friends." I see people saying this phrase, and it is so backwards I can't help but laugh out loud.  Regardless of what these people are literally saying, even if they think they really mean it, it's a lie. Why would anyone go put themselves in front of people if they didn't want someone, or anyone to like them?

I guess I've strayed from my point a bit, but I think you're getting the gist. I'm sick of social networks, I canceled my MySpace a while ago, and who knows, Facebook, and Twitter may be next.  We'll see.  And believe me, I know how much of a hypocrite that I am - take a look at all those pretty little links below this and every article posted on open2discussion.com... won't you please share us on your Facebook/Twitter/Digg/StumbleUpon account?

Follow Up: You know you're in trouble when...

So after going to my local bank's branch office, and signing 24 copies of the form that says "Under penalty of perjury, I did not authorize these charges" I had a hand-cramp.  In speaking with the bank representative, he said that upon working with his ACH department he discovered that of all the unauthorized fund transfer complaints submitted to them - 93% were related to PayPal transactions.

It turns out PayPal may have really screwed up here in terms of what happened with my account, and how the charges were applied without my knowledge or authorization. It says on PayPal's own website "As a fraud-prevention measure, we send an email confirmation for every online PayPal payment that you make." That means I should have received 24 emails from PayPal - one for each transaction as it would have been authorized with my authentication via the website. This simple fact apparently slipped their minds when they tried to explain how the unauthorized charges may have happened. I did not receive a single email thanking me for authorizing payment from my PayPal account. However this malicious person did this, did so by getting around PayPal's own system - not just my account specifically.

The thing that really chaps my ass about this whole thing is that even though PayPal flagged transactions 10 through 24 and said they were "holding the funds", they still charged my checking account for each transaction that had been flagged bringing the total to almost $500 when it could have been stopped at less than $200. I have no remorse if PayPal has to eat the cost of each of the chargebacks coming their way from my bank for every fraudulent transaction. If they aren't secure enough to stop hackers from surreptitiously gaining access to accounts on their own website, they don't deserve to have any sympathy.

When you're in the business of securely processing transactions, the last thing that should ever happen is losing the security you're supposedly providing. I'm sure that there will be some sort of backlash from PayPal to me - claiming that I violated my terms of service, or whatever. That's fine with me. I planned on canceling my ebay and PayPal accounts anyway once this whole debacle is over. Once again, it goes to show you that nothing is safe in this electronic world. Do your best to protect yourself - don't use services that may come back to bite you in the end. I learned my lesson the hard way.  Learn from my mistake.

DnD 4e session Debrief

So our first official foray into Dungeons & Dragon's Fourth Edition was completed on Saturday. After weeks of prep, I finally unveiled my baby to our Playgroup: Mr. Misanthropology and his Mrs, DougV, and a gamer couple, Mr. Ego and Ms. Thrace. They played a Druid, a Rogue, a Warlock, A greatweapon Fighter, and a Paladin. At first I was worried that not having a dedicated healer would be a problem, but Thrace handled everything perfectly.

And it was fun. But...

Some things didn't work. We had originally decided to have the session around a big ol' dining room table, but afterwards people complained of being stiff. I completely understand: I think my enthusiasm for my storyline was the only thing to keep me jumping and hoping at the table. My excitement also underscored another problem: they wanted frequent breaks but I didn't want any.

This is a symptom that is easy to remedy. Caught up in the creation of my epic story, I lost sight of the goal: just to have fun. At one point, as my NPC windbag was speaking, Mrs. Misanthropology laughed at Thrace and said, "thank you for taking notes." My god. I was creating homework! After this revelation I began to think and I figured it out: The details of the story don't matter if they don't progress the story forward.

It doesn't matter--right now at least--who created the world. None of the characters needs to care about that now. Later, when the plot thickens and the characters become embroiled in more than just local adventures, they will remember who did what in the history of my world. So my hard work will eventually become material for the game, but for now, they just care about Lord Marklehay and his Kobold--Or as DougV called them, Cobalt--problem.

Overall, the response to our D&D night was positive. Mr. Misanthropology said:

I thought one of the coolest moments was when Mrs. Misanthropology decided that her mad acrobatics skillz could get her on the skull-skull rope for a ride up to the second level. I thought the best encounter was the last one. Maybe it's just my personality, but I enjoy it best when there are opportunities for creative exploitation and long odds on survival. Bigger, crazier combat encounters speed up the game for me because it's easier to get into them than in a series of micro-encounters...
I liked the armor traps, and I think more skill and strategy challenges help gel a team...especially if they move the story forward, and I'm interested in the story and what our characters can bring to it.

And I agreed with him. The thing I like most about 4E is that it can be whatever you want it to be. I started to dig it because of the tactical encounters, but it seems like people were having the most fun actually role playing their characters. This is an easy fix but it was interesting for me to come across it.


The Story So Far:

Having no particular path to follow, our heros find themselves making their way to Fallcrest. There they meet a grizzled mage who takes them under his wing. The also encounter the local nobility and a pesky den of Kobolds that needs clearing. After clearing Kobold Hall, our adventurers find the young Seer Malicus Quai who is at the mercy of a mysterious priest-like figure. The unnamed figure disappears before our party can get their hands on him and instead free Quai who reveals that he's not a very good Seer, because even though he knew that the PCs would get there, he arrived a day too early.

Quai then helps the PCs discover one of the Vaults of Kanedias, known as the Master Maker. The door to the vault is covered in an ancient puzzle. After moving the tiles into their proper positions by rotating them, the door slides open, revealing several sets of armor and, in the middle, a rusted metal sword.

After some deliberation, the sword--which seems to be magical for all it's appearance of disuse--and a suit of armor with magical properties is taken. The heroes will return to Fallcrest victorious, though a little banged up. The questions remain:

• Who was the Unnamed figure?
• What has riled up the local Kobolds and where did they come from in the first place?
• Why was Quai looking for these people?