Grand Theft Auto Diary: #10: Grand Theft Auto Onlinegate Again AGAIN

Over the weekend, I tried to play Grand Theft Auto Online again.  This time I managed to play a couple of missions, but the game ended up stalling while it was attempting to load the third of the initial missions that you undertake in order to get acclimated to the game.  At first, I was willing to blame my CenturyLink DSFUCKINGL for my difficulties with Grand Theft Auto Online.  Now, I blame Rockstar Games.

GTA Online patch now live on PS3

Sure it is.  You know, I'll believe it when I see it.

Lessons Learned From Imcompotence

Lessons Learned From Incompetence

On Wednesday, January 9th, the internet at my house went out.  Thanks to a foot of snow falling overnight and the streets around my neighborhood not being plowed, the streets in my neighborhood were slick and icy.  In these conditions, someone hit a CenturyLink utility box that provides the DSL internet service to my neighborhood.  This accident is something that could have been easily fixed if CenturyLink had the proper resources in place to handle the repair.  However, due to CenturyLink's complete and utter incompetence, these resources were not in place, and my neighborhood was left without CenturyLink service for about a week.

Not being to access the internet at my house made me very angry.  Very angry in deed.  If you follow me on Twitter, you are already well aware of this.  In this period of rage, I do what a lot of people do: I played a lot of video games where I could kill a lot of people.  Wow.  Typing that just now makes me feel that my response was kind of messed up.

As I was playing video games while my internet was out, I though of a news story that had broken recently.  Electronic Arts has announced what their strategy was for their upcoming entry in the Sim City franchise.  EA announced that people playing the game would need to always be connected to the internet.  EA said that this was because, in order for the game to play at optimal level, some of the computing would have to be done on EA's servers.  Skeptics slammed EA for this move, saying that the Always-On internet requirement was a way to curb piracy, dismissing what EA was claiming entirely.  However, I'd like to take EA statement on face value, if only for a moment.

Let's say that the internet was out where I lived, much like the situation that CenturyLink put me in due to their incompetence.  Let's say that I wanted to play video games, which is what I did during the period of CenturyLink's incompetence.  Let's say that I wanted to play the new Sim City game that I had legitimately bought from a legitimate retailer, legitimately.  Due to EA Always-On internet requirement, I would be unable to do so.  I would be unable to play a game that I had legitimately bought and that the company who produced the game was still supporting because of the failings of a third party.

This is why I do not support cloud based computing.  I do not want to be in a situation where a third party, who's utterly and unapologetically incompetent, prevents me from accessing something that I find to be critical.  Sure video games may not be of absolute critical importance, but what if I needed to access my banking information, or the place that I work, or health care services, or other things that may lead to actual harm to the lives of myself or the lives of others?  The only person I want to be at fault if something that I'm responsible for doesn't get done is me.  Blaming other people for things not getting done is a behavior that I don't like seeing in other people, much less in myself.

Project Buy A House

Project Buy A House

One day in October I saw a bunch of people walking around the neighborhood dressed up in costumes.  Seeing these costumes, I became slightly giddy, as I usually do on Halloween.  Then I looked at my watch.  It wasn't Halloween, it was October 17th, and those weren't Halloween costumes, those were costumes worn by people robbing the check cashing place/loan shark place just around the corner.  This had been happening with some frequency in the area that I live in, but bandits never ran through my neighborhood when I was at home.  That is when I decided I needed to move.

The following January, because I am a lazy fuck, I started my search.  I used various iPad apps, found some decent places, and went looked around.  There were a couple of places that I thought were nice, moderately priced, and were in neighborhoods where I would likely not get stabbed.  I looked over the rent amounts of these places, then ran these rent amounts against my current budget.

It's not that I was broke at the time, but if I had moved to any of the places I was looking at, I would have been.  So I put getting a new apartment on the shelf for a while.  However, I still felt like I needed to move.  This was due to more loan shark places being robbed in my area.  Also I was bored.

In March I started looking for condos.  I figured that a condo would be more affordable for me, plus I'd eventually pay off a mortgage, as opposed to rent which would only go up over time.  I hooked up with a realtor/well meaning white dude, and looked at some places.

Previous to this, I thought I lived in the bad part of the Salt Lake ValleyMetroComplexVille.  I was wrong.  One of the condos I looked at was in the Rose Park section of Salt Lake.  Due to the large iron gates secured with a magnetized fence, I couldn't just walk onto the property.  This should have been my first sign.  As I was waiting in my car for the well meaning white dude to show up, a Salt Lake City police office came screaming past me with it's lights on and siren full blast.  Then another screamed past.  Then another.  And another.  This was another sign.  This is when I left.  I realize now I shouldn't have left the well meaning white dude there alone waiting for me, but I had to get me and my big fucking SUV out of the area.

There were several other condos that I looked at in parts of the valley that were not heavily crime ridden.  A couple of them were actually pretty nice.  I looked at the price of these condos, figured out what my monthly payment would be, including HOA, taxes, and other expenses, then ran this amount against my budget.

Again I found that if I were to buy a condo at the prices I was looking at, I would be making myself broke.  Rather than putting the entire idea of buying a house on the shelf, I decided to go about reducing my expenses.

In the past in the past ten month, I have been putting more of my money into paying off debt and less of my money into things that are fun.  This has sucked.  Hard.  There were times throughout this process that I questioned whether this was all worth it.  Then the loan sharks would get robbed again, and suddenly my resolve would return.

Have I accomplished my goal yet?  Is this the blog post where I brag about finally doing this thing that I've been working on for over a year, and post pics of my brand spanking new house?

No, it isn't, but I'm getting there.  I can feel myself getting closer everyday.  Frustration still gets at me some times.  If you follow me on Twitter, you know how fervently I want to buy a new iPhone and chuck the thing I'm currently using as a phone into a fucking field.  I'd also like to chuck my CenturyLink DSFuckingL out the window, but other internet service providers either cost more or have substantially slower speeds.  Neither of those things are things that I like or are even okay with, but both of those things make me more resolute in accomplishing my goal.  I know that if I keep at it, eventually this will all pay off.  Every day that I continue pursuing my goal is another day that I get closer to it.  This is the same way I feel about my sex life.

One day, one day.