For someone who plays Cafe World on facebook for a long time now – i know they said that Cafe World is still on beta – but they keep changing things every few days – this morning – i found that they changed the menu too.  Mannn!!  they really have to give it a break  – it’s disrupting when you are already used to the old pictures and the way things were going – so this time with the new menu – you can see the Cafe Points you earned in total when you cooked the said food – but really – does it matter?  Not to me though – !  usually i just check out the hours needed that suits my need – and the amount of CW coins i can earn and that’s about it.   What about you?  anyhow – enough of talk about Cafe World – i just hope they stop changing things again and again – plus it just mess up the game when one is trying to play.  Ok – i’m going to get my weight loss products before the store closes.

So we just bought a netbook with Windows 7 Starter on it  – we are so used to our Windows Vista in our old netbook – we find that the Starter comes with limitations.  You see you can’t even change it’s wallpaper for one and you can only run concurrent applications on a PC at a time (this excludes background processes such as anti-virus applications, wireless and Bluetooth, and system tools like Explorer and Control Panel).  So yes – i don’t know what we are planning to do with it – but i’m stopping my rant here to run out and get some natural prenatal vitamins for my best friend.  But an upgrade is most likely to happen anytime soon – i’m going to have to read up more on it.

I don’t even want to get started but some people are just a pain and definitely need some Acneticin. Why? they are not only crooks but they are crooks that are so ignorant – you really wanna smack them. A crook rented a game from us a month ago and instead of returning it and pay up his lates – he told us that he was going to keep the game for free – since he didn’t want to pay his lates. Today he was online selling our game that he had stolen on a yardsale. Of course, we stopped him – informing everyone that they didn’t belong to him. He had the cheek to call us to say that he called the cops on us???!!!?? the crook who stole from us calling the cops on us – WHAT IS THE WORLD BECOMING? The crooks are bolder than us? how ignorant this crook is.

So the next day I got an email saying that they’ve located my TV and it’s on its way to Halifax and will arrive there on Monday Feb. 5. I should be receiving it Tuesday Feb. 6. I have no idea what calender they are using because Mon/Tues is Feb. 1st and 2nd. so I hope it’s this week and not next, this has dragged on long enough. They also are refunding the cost of the shipping to compensate me for all the trouble and delays. I think I deserve more than that, but I’ll take what I can get.

I bet I could take that Orlando vacation I’ve been planning, come back 3 weeks later and STILL not have my new TV. Oh and get this, he says if I haven’t heard back by Monday that he will change the delivery escalation to a credit escalation so I can get my money back. Fat lot of good that will do though since it was paid mostly by gift cards, I can’t just take my money elsewhere. And now there’s also no chance of getting such a good deal like they had during boxing day. A 52″ LCD for $1199? Doubt that’ll happen again until next Christmas. Yay for me, I get to just keep on waiting!

God damn this shit is getting on my nerves. Much more of this and I’ll be needing a dose of anti wrinkle treatment to get rid of stress lines. And I’m generally a stress free kind of guy!

I called those fuckers at Futureshop, again, to see where my order is. I got the same answers as last time.. ‘oh let me look into that’, ’strange I don’t understand why it’s taking so long’, blah blah blah fucking bullshit. I mentioned again how my order status says “successfully shipped” but yet they told me on the phone that the order is still sitting in their warehouse. That doesn’t make sense. So the girl on the phone told me that since I’m in a remote area and need it sent by ’special delivery’, my order has been shipped from their warehouse to the delivery company’s warehouse. Thus the ’successfully shipped’ tag.

Ok, that’s fine, I thought to myself. And I asked, so who exactly is this delivery company that has my stuff? What’s taking so long? Are they waiting until more people from my ‘remote’ area place orders so they can do us all at once? “No” she assured me, it doesn’t work like that. Then she looked and said to me something like “the area on here that should have the delivery company name is blank”. So they have no idea WHO has my stuff! Unbelievable!

Now my problem has been re-escalated to their shipping department to try and find out what’s going on and I should hear back in 24 to 48 hours. Lovely.

A few weeks ago I had written about my WOW account getting hacked again. So enough was enough, even the wife was pissed that I had to spend so much time trying to retrieve my account. I had to prove that it belongs to me by waiting on the phone with Blizzard to talk to them and even fax them my driver’s license to prove my identity. So she insisted I get the Blizzard Authenticator so that I don’t have to go through this ever again. It’s only around $18 (shipping/foreign exchange included). No, you don’t have to get this authenticator or pay for it like getting your industrial supplies, in fact it was a very simple process.. and I had it via courier within 5 days.

So how does this authenticator protect you from being hacked again? The Blizzard Authenticator is a small device you can attach to your keychain that provides a second layer of security to protect you from keyloggers and other morons who want to get into your account. Once you associate the Blizzard Authenticator with your account you’ll have to login to the game using 2 passwords. Your regular one, and one provided by the authenticator when you push the button on it.

As you can see from the picture, there is a barcode with a serial number on the back. This in technical terms is the encryption seed. When you buy the authenticator, you enter this serial number into your account. When you press the button on the front of the authenticator it takes your serial number and applies a secret Blizzard algorithm (likely fractals) to it that is relational to the current time and date. The result is a six-digit code that displays on the front of the unit. Since hackers don’t know the algorithm (or your serial number for that matter) the chances of them getting into your account are practically zero.

So unfortunately a home warranty isn’t nearly as good as buying something like an RV extended warranty, hardly anything is really covered. I’m not sure how wide spread Maple Leaf Homes are, but if you’re looking to buy a new pre-built home, make sure you have it checked over real good by a professional, although personally I’d steer clear of Maple Leaf completely. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go hire a carpenter to find out why my damn door is leaking!

My postal code is definitely valid. I’ve tried entering it every way imaginable and it just won’t work. ARGH!

UPDATE!

Apparently the solution to many problems is to simply bitch about it on the internet (to the right people at least). A couple hours after writing this post and twittering it to Major Nelson, I got a call from someone at Microsoft explaining that the problem is that I likely had United States selected instead of Canada. I hadn’t even noticed before that I was logged into the US site. It’s not even a matter of logging into a separate Canadian site, but selecting Canada from the list after clicking on International. I feel a little silly for not figuring that out myself, but I’m sure I’m not alone.

So if you’re in Canada and you can’t udpate your xbox live information due to an “Invalid Postal Code” error, this is how to fix it!

Click on International

Choose your Country

Voila! It’s done.

It’s also worth mentioning that you should update your bookmarks otherwise when you reload from a bookmark it will be back to the US site.

Looks like these guys were trading in a bunch of PS2 and original XBox games, and after the clerk was done punching them up in the computer and told them straight-faced, “After the refurb charges I can give you 8 bucks for this stuff”. Needless to say they were a little upset when they were told the wireless guitar was only worth $3 and their dozen games were worth $5. They didn’t create a big fuss though, just collected their stuff and left.

$8 for 12 games and a guitar. $8 store credit, not even cash! I could make that much in 5 minutes writing slimming pills reviews! Don’t waste your time bringing old stuff to Game Stop or EB Games, they offer horribly low amounts for it. You could get much more at the smaller mom & pop stores, or selling it on eBay yourself.