Sargonas.com

So on New Years Day I went and bought a Motorola Droid, and switched from AT&T to Verizon. It was fun, I liked it. By the 3rd though I decided that for all Droid did, it wasnt an iPhone, and went back to AT&T.

I called AT&T, reactivated my account, had my iPhone turned back on, and went back to the Verizon store and returned my Droid. All this went smoothly.

Fast-forward to today. I pop into my online control panel for AT&T to see what my billing cycle is (I forgot) and to look at the new reduced price plans. I suddenly see my account flagged as Past Due with a balance of $155. I look into it and this is my early termination fee. WTF! I’m still a customer!

I call AT&T and after having someone research my issue for what seemed like kind of long to do a simple “hmm he canceled, hmm he came back, thats odd” verification they confirmed I was indeed due to be credited that charge. I asked why it was still on my account, and they told me it wasnt, that it shows the credit on their side. The fact it still showed the due amount on my web panel was a mystery to the agent.

After further hold time and investigation she told me that I need to pay the cancelation fee, even though its credited in their system, then when my Feb bill comes, there will be a $155 credit applied to my account for that month to account for my non-cancelation.

…what?

I laughed and said there would be no way I was doing that, I would prefer to let it just sort itself out in Feb when my new bill came and the credit was applied etc. She told me I could not do this as my account was currently flagged past due and would be deactivated for non payment before that point, and I was required to pay the fee, which would then be credited back to me the next billing cycle. (Please note I have no other due amounts on the account that I am liable for, the ONLY charge is the cancelation fee!)

…what what?

I told her that was a ludicrous request. How can they rightfully suspend my service for non payment of a fee I did not legally incur. (Please note I have no other due amounts on the account that I am liable for, the ONLY charge is the cancelation fee!) They themselves admit its a false fee, and its been credited to my account (for next month, for some silly reason) and they are going to suspend me for not paying it this month? Thats ridiculous!

I politely informed her this kind of service is the very reason why I experimented with leaving AT&T in the first place, and was making me start to second guess the choice to come back. That seemed to strike a chord with them, and after another 15 minute hold she came back to inform me the fee had been entirely removed as of now, which I verified online. Seriously folks, what the fuck?

Tonight I received the most amazing message I think I have ever gotten in my life. It was an email from my girlfriend outlining almost a hundred things split between those  that make her think of me because they hold a special reference to our time together, and reasons why shes fallen in love with me. These were not simple things like “your smile” but detailed items such as very specific personality traits I have under certain circumstances. It was the most personally tailored bit of flattery I have ever gotten in my entire life.

It ended with her explaining that because of all this, there was a problem. Her life was in chaos at the beginning of the year, too many balls being juggled in the air to the point she was already on the verge of panic and having a breakdown. I came crashing in, an unknown variable like a planet-killer asteroid and threw the chaos even more out of rhythm. I was unexpected, and problematic. In spite of all her feelings I don’t have a place in her life right now…

We were together 3 weeks. Short enough this isn’t earth shattering and almost insultingly easy to over come. At the same time, the loss of the potential, the could-have-been relationship, and the possibilities, its quite saddening. Part of me thinks its embarrassing to think there was enough substance after such a short time to feel an attachment and I will be mocked for this, and another part of me thinks its an insult to what we had and, most importantly what could have been, to speak of it in such a way.

Wow, what a year. Seriously, I don’t think that any other year has been this…. filled. Normally I think a retrospective look at a previous year on New Years Eve is a cheap and silly blog topic for one to write about, but so very much has happened, some for the good, some not. More changes and new developments in my life have occurred in this one year than I ever thought possible. So, without further ado, I give you my 2009 year in review.

January – I got final word that I would indeed be moving to San Francisco from Atlanta, and flew out here for 2 and a half weeks to prepare for the move. Ctide, Tiv, and Bill were nice enough to let me crash on an air mattress at 15b during this time, since Harry had not yet moved out of the room I would be taking at 1250 South Van Awesome. These 3 guys end up being awesome friends of mine as well as great co workers.

February – After going back to ATL for a week to prep, my relo package finally gets approved and I pack up everything I think i need for the time being into two big suitcases and fly out to SF once and for all, and move in with Clarence, Regina, and Stan. The following day, however, I get a phone call from my family to let me know that Tucker is in the doggy ER and has to be put to sleep. He was 14 and had become quite sick the last few weeks, but at the time I had planned to come home again in Feb or March specifically to say goodbye to him, knowing he would not last the year. Sadly at this same time a round of layoffs run through EA and 85% of my old ATL office is let go, as is Clarence from the sims team :\

March – after several weeks of sleeping on an air mattress and living out of a suitcase, I finally get my relo bonus and go to Ikea and buy a while new bedroom set, so I can live like a normal human. After that I can actually consider myself “moved in” and actually living here. For me, it made it all “final”. GDC hits and over the course of the week I am introduced to one Mr. Alex Q Ryan who is a sort of a gateway drug into an entire social circle out here that I am flat out honored to be a part of, these people make life here awesome.

April – Ariel and I mend some bridges and talk for the first time in almost a year, and I fly her out here for a weekend. It’s rather nice having my best friend back. Sadly my room mates had to entertain her for the whole weekend, as 6 hours after she arrives I promptly get alcohol poisoning and spend the rest of the 3 days violently ill and in bed.

June – I go to E3 for the first time since 2005 and have a BLAST. The following week Ariel comes out to visit for a week and do some much needed catching up. The day after she leaves, however, I return from my week and a half vacation to work and am promptly laid off from Rupture, just in time for my birthday… fortunately days later I met Allie. I think if she had not been around during this time it would have been a lot darker for me, but she definitely made it all the more bearable, and then some!

July – Two weeks after much frantic job hunting, early in the month I am back at EA. This time at our corporate office running PC/MAC Compliance within EA Cert, in no small part thanks to several people I used to work with who had great things to say about me!

August – I fly back to ATL for the first time since January, and pack up my old apartment and put it all into storage. I am officially moved out of ATL now, aside from a 16 x 5 storage facility full of boxes I have there.

September – PAX09 was even more fun than 08 was! Sadly, the day I return Allie and I are no more, as she had decided that an acquaintance of mine was apparently a more attractive proposition…

November – Another round of layoffs cut through work on a random Monday morning, affecting my entire Department, including our managers. Miraculously I and one other person are spared the carnage, and are shifted off to a new team. Now, who knows what is in store…

December – I go home for the first time since last Christmas, something I never though would take so long, and see my family. So much has changed in the city since I was last around it’s almost alien to me. After some careful consideration I decide that I am visiting my family, not going home. Home is now SF, and I have no regrets at all about that. This is an amazing city with so much to offer, and so much fun to bed had. I only wish I was a few years younger when I had moved out here, as I fear I won’t have enough time to experience all the fun there is to offer here before I have to start settling down in life and think about the future and stop living in the now. That’s my goal for 2010. Experience the ever living fuck out of California!

On a side note I’d like to thank my room mates for taking me in. They have become a surrogate family to me out here, and have made this transition so smooth. They really do feel like family to me!

Last night was the second annual fundraiser event in SF known as Ümloud! It’s a charity fundraiser geared around Rockband 2, whose goal is to raise money for the prestigious Child’s Play org started by the venerable Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade. (If you want to know more about either of the two groups check out their sites, http://www.umloud.org and http://www.childsplaycharity.org)

It was a BLAST! Entry was free, but there was a “suggested” $10 donation. Everyone recieved two raffle tickets for their amazing series of prizes, (well amazing if you ignore the three copies of Tony Hawk Ride they gave away). Bands could register to play on stage for $35, or for $120 get the full “Ultimate Band” treatment with recorded video and a band photo. There was also a silent auction for some amazing stuff, such as one of the much desired Eddie Riggs statues and one of the coveted $1000+ Uncharted 2 special editions.

We rocked it at one of my favorite venues here in town, DNA Lounge, which conveniently enough is rather close to my house as well. There is a live stream that was fed over justin.tv and is still archived, however sadly the audio sometimes falls out of synch, and there are a few gaps, for example, my entire band set has only audio and about 10 seconds of video :\ Still it’s worth a look for some of the more memorable moments! http://www.justin.tv/dnalounge/archive Some of the best highlights was the Broasis show.. although I think it was better when I was drunk, and my personal favorite was going up on stage as part of King Friday and the Awesomettes, playing I Was Wrong by Social Distortion.

Our apartment kind of made out like bandits too. In the vein of true irony, Wedge’s boyfriend, Witwix, won one of the two pairs of Astro A40s. Quite hilarious since one of our other roommates works at Astro and has been trying to score him a pair for a while now. Also Clarence won the Uncharted 2 special edition, as well as the final raffle item, the ION Drum set. He already has one however, plus I have my own in storage, so not sure what he plans to do with this new one!

Over all I had a blast, and got to hung out with a metric fuck-ton of industry friends from around the Bay. The night was awesome enough that I didn’t make it into work until noon today! I am interested to see what was raised once the numbers are tallied, hopefully its a hot number.

A big thanks to Chris Kohler, John Seggerson and Joe Market for making this all happen for the second year in a row, as well as their army of volunteers. Child’s Play is one of the few charities I really have a strong feeling about, and something I take quite seriously. Anything that benefits it makes me happy

So I love my iPhone, I really do. I left Verizon after 7 years of happy service, and jumped to AT&Ts world class shitty service when the first gen iPhone launched. That little phone was the first ever to last me more than a year. Until that point I upgraded phones annually, coughing up the full phone price almost every time since I was only upgrade-eligible every 2 years. This summer the 3gS launched, and that little work horse was finally traded in, after 2 years of round the clock abuse, and the 3g has been a strong little phone ever since as well.

I have recently had my hands on the Droid and Droid Eris (henceforth referred to as Eris here) from Verizon, however. With the ever increasing frustration I have been getting from the Bay Area AT&T network, that seems to degrade weekly, I am beginning to have doubts how much longer I will be on the iPhone train. The Android app store now has versions of every iPhone app I can’t do without, plus amazing things like Google Goggles. (until you have used it, like I have, you cant understand how cool it really is!). Also the native support of google voice, something I have but am slow to adopt due to the iphone’s clunky support of it, is a big tipping point for me as well. I now have a bay area phone number on GV, and I would like to use it in tandem with my 502 number on a more regular basis.

At this point I am facing a tough decision. Convert my iphone into a powerful ipod, by deactivating its phone service and using it as my day to day ipod as well as it’s wifi powers to run some apps, and switch over to an Android powered phone or ignore all the hooplah and stick to my Apple love. To be honest it’s not looking good for my ex-girlfriend’s stock options at Apple.

Both the Droid and the Eris are enticing. The Eris’s pebble like shape and size is, in my opinion, superior the the physical design of the iPhone in many ways. At first I felt it lagged behind the Droid due to its using the Android 1.5 OS and not the newer 2.0 and due to the fact it runs the HTC SensUI, however I have now learned Android 2.0 will be available for it in January once HTC is done updating SenseUI for it. Even better, you can turn off SenseUI in the settings and use the base Anndroid OS if you so choose. (Although the SenseUI has a lot of improvements the Android can benefit from). The Droid however has a slightly larger screen (0.4 inches) and a slide out keyboard. Using it though is NOTHING like my keyboard experience from when I owned the Verizon 6700 due to its small size and quirky feedback. Also did I mention the Droid is $199 and the Eris is $99?

After spending time with both.. I am finding it harder and harder to resist the urge to go to the store later this week and jump back to Verizon, $175 AT&T termination fee be damned.

Talking with some folks today about UT, and being invited to play some UT2k4 in an interdepartmental gaming group that gathers over lunch got me thinking. It made me remember one of *the* most epic moments in LAN Party history in my life, and one of the hallmarks of what was so amazing about being honored with the Gummi Bear clan tag, both in game and out.

We were at Asylum Lan. The exact one I don’t remember sadly. I think 2k4 had been out for less than a few months though. GB was in the final match (no surprise there) playing the new and awesome Onslaught mode. Now bear with me because the details of my memory are fuzzy, as are the exact mechanics of ONS and the map in particular. Perhaps a fellow Gummi will drop by to flesh out anything I forgot. Sadly, I think this was one of the rare matches we don’t  have a video cap of

It was best 2 out of 3, and on round 1 we steam rolled fairly well. I think we linked up the nodes to their core, and damaged it down in under 2 minutes. Nothing spectacular, about on par with our performance the whole tourney, but fast enough to demoralize the other team a bit. Then round 2 came up. Now, this particular map, if memory serves me correctly, had 2 nodes outside each teams core, where only one was needed to link up to the chain across the board. (For those who have never played ONS mode, you take over nodes to build a straight link from your core to theirs, which drops the shields on their core and allows you to damage it.) We strategically had people in the right place at the right time to take over the first node faster than normal, and two guys in place to start capping the second node the instant we had #1. By time #2 was then taken, the team that took #1 was already at #3 bunkered in and ready to start the process, using link guns all along to speed things up. In the time all this went down, the opposing team was still at the alternate #3 taking it, and preparing their vehicles for a convoy to #2 to try to take it from us en mass. Something major was about to go down though that no one other than Stale knew. While we were working on #2 and #3 he had peeled off in a vehicle and flown up to grab the Redeemer, and then hauled his ass up high in the air. Before #3 was even fully ours, to complete the link to the Core, he fired it off on a slow path to their core. Because of this, when we took node #3 the message popped up on everyones screen saying the Red Teams core was exposed. Before the message even faded and anyone had any time at all to react however, BOOM the core was destroyed and we won the match. I think it was a good 20 seconds before the other team realized what had happened and it sunk it.

My hazy, 5 year old memory wants me to think it was 45 seconds into the match.

Yeah, we fucking rocked that shit in record time. I still have the trophy from it! Ahhhh memories. Such a different time in my life that I do indeed miss at times like this!

Gummi for fucking life, yo.

So I just got a new toy. Dating someone from Apple has its perks, not only do I have someone incredible awesome to spend my time with, but I was able to get a Time Capsule for my laptop to backup against for about 30% off!

This thing is great. Its a much better secondary wi-fi point for the front half of our house due to its increased strength, and the 802.11n speeds. Also its nice being able to turn time machine back on, and not having to worry about the fact I am backing up against something that I have to physically remember to plug into my laptop anymore, so now its always-on! I am such a geek sometimes… sheesh.

On another note, why is it people who have cats that are “scared of people” always seem to love me? Yet again an antisocial cat thinks I am quite awesome after just a few hours around me. I don’t get it.

I really didnt let this blog die, I just got lazy and unmotivated, thats TOTALLY different. I swear!

So time for the obligatory blog-catchup. In feb I moved to the Bay Area when EA relocated me to the Rupture team, this was a Huge Thing. Then 2 weeks ago I was laid off. This was also a Huge Thing. I am currently waiting to hear back this week on a (hopefully) pending job offer for another team at EARS. If all goes well I can hopefully land that and stop worrying

Living in San Francisco is amazing, and I think I have found my last true Home. This place, is so me. I wish I had moved here years ago. I have some awesome friends here, and some equally awesome room mates I have known for years, and just this weekend started hanging out with someone new who is even more awesome than all of the above, but I wont go into detail on her for fear of jinxing myself

Lastly, the first day I started work out here, Tucker passed away. I hadn’t seen the little guy in weeks, so this really sucked. As soon as as I have my life settled and am in my own house, I plan to get a Yorkie of my own, but it sure wont be another Tucker, he was one of a kind.

So yeah thats the most important bits I guess of the last few months. I’m gonna make an honest effort to get back into updating this regularly, but we will see just how well this actually works. History does not favor my track record.

That’s right! I’m moving, AGAIN!

My new boss, Shawn, has deemed me worthy of a relocation out to San Francisco. However I will be working out of the Rupture office in downtown SF, and not at the main EA campus in Redwood City (this is a good thing really). Current plans look like I will be moving around mid Feb or so.

RAWK!

aaaand I’m back at the condo Its VERY rare for me to be at a gaming event and call it a night at 11pm, but when you factor in the time change, its 2am, and damn it I’m tired!

Today has been an absolute fracking blast. After getting in the hall early around noon (yay media badges!) I spent the two hours of media-only quietness trying things out before the lines got stupid, and saying hi to tons of people who would be otherwise busy the rest of the day. I finally got to meet Spyke, our Beta Producer for Warhammer Online in person, and ran into a random person in the food line who, it turns out, is our EA rep to Wal-Mart down in arkansas. After eating food while ignoring all the chaos around me I teamed up with BananaHammock and ran around to various things, and he introduced me to a handful of people I know but never met in person. After that I bounced around between hanging out with him and E and Kitty, and catching up on old times with The Girls, and watching V3nus destroy every single person who came up against her at the Plantronics booth in UT3. (Even I tried.. it was… tragic..) On day 1 the hall is only open from 2-7, so it wound down fairly quick on the show floor side. I got side tracked and missed out on the Key Note speech by Ken Levine, which made me a sad panda AND forgot all about the Final Boss/Freezepop/Jonathon Coulton concert… grrrr. Instead though I had just as much fun at the GamerDNA party at the hyatt.. Rockband FTW! (speaking of.. i saw rockband 2… OMG!)

Forgive me for the lack of insight into WHAT I saw, as I spent little time playing games and seeing new stuff today. I last was able to be social in person with my gaming community crowd in SEPTEMBER of last year, at WSVG Toronto, so I was really longing to say hi to a lot of people. Tomorrow I plan to “play tourist” and check things out, and flex my Media Pass muscle to skip a bunch of demo lines, heheh. I’ll upload some pics later tonight or tomorrow and link em here when I can.. however I shall be calling it a night now, my feet are absolutely KILLING me.