| Now who did this work out for? |
[Feb. 8th, 2012|03:09 am] |
I bought Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning from Amazon. It was delivered today. I installed it and it installed EA's Origin game download service. This seemed rather pushy to me, but whatever. The game installs, unlocks, decrypts and so on. I run the game once to get to the main menu and then quit after making sure it's fully unlocked/authorized/whatever.. I uninstall Origin.
Now the game won't run. The error says it requires Origin to be installed.
Well...no. I'm not interested in doing that. If I wanted to install Origin, I would have bought this game through Origin. Instead, I paid for a physical copy of the game so as not to get involved with Origin.
Now I am returning the game to Amazon, I have a shipping label printed out and everything. Reason for return? Did not match description on website. The web site, naturally, did not mention you couldn't run the non-downloaded version of the game without the download service.
Good bye, game! Amazon loses money on shipping, EA loses money on processing Amazon returning the game to them and I waste a few hours on this.
I suppose that the misery is spread around, at least. Is that something they should be proud of?
I have learned the game is available on Steam. As I already use Steam, that would be acceptable to me. But now I am annoyed, so perhaps I'll just wait and see.
[Edit: Item returned, refund received. It is at the very least working out better for me than for the other parties involved.] |
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| Concert! |
[Jan. 30th, 2012|10:12 am] |
This weekend, I went to see the They Might Be Giants 30th anniversary show at Royce Hall, a theater at UCLA. The opening act was Jonathan Coulton.
I am very fond of both acts. It was my first time at Royce Hall, which is a nice place and conveniently located. Many of the TMBG songs were from their Lincoln album, which isn't one I had really listened to before. That was interesting. I imagine REAL TMBG fans all look down their noses at me for really liking Flood instead.
Jonathan Coulton was great, although half an hour was not nearly enough time for him. The intermission between the opening and main acts was longer than that. He played I'm Your Moon, which is one of my favorites.
Afterwards, we went to Jerry's Famous Deli. That was suboptimal, because I didn't realize the one we went to closed at midnight. There are only a couple of locations, but we picked the one that wasn't open 24 hours a day, so that was awkward. I'm never going back to that particular instance of the restaurant, I have no use for a cheap knock-off of something amazing. Also, the service was very slow and kind of rude. You know I don't complain about that generally. I'm not touchy... So avoid the Encino branch. The Studio City branch is much better.
It was a good night and a good weekend. I had a lot of fun. |
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| Stuck in my head...post-ABBA |
[Nov. 25th, 2011|08:13 pm] |
Only a couple of people I know would get a Rift/Weird Al crossover joke, but it popped into my head, so...
"Bolt of Depravity? No, they live happily." |
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| Stuck |
[Nov. 15th, 2011|01:57 pm] |
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I have been standing in this Best Buy for 20 minutes waiting for them to find something. A nearby console is looping an ad for an ABBA dancing game. Over and over... I am stuck here, but ABBA is stuck in my head. |
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| Lighter side: I talk with Cleverbot |
[Sep. 19th, 2011|04:35 pm] |
Us: How 'bout those Dodgers?
Them: What dodgers.
Us: Think they'll make the Series?
Them: The people AT the pubs could be both.
Us: So, uh, you passed the Turing test with lines like that?
Them: What kind of test is that?
Not a very good one, apparently.
Are computers getting smarter, or are people used in testing getting dumber? |
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| No joke! |
[Apr. 1st, 2011|12:54 am] |
Not only do I not have an April Fool's joke this year, I don't really have anyone to trick.
Alas. Another year, perhaps. |
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| There ought to be a law... |
[Mar. 28th, 2011|03:35 pm] |
Presented for your amusement, LA Municipal code section 43.30:
No person shall advertise by sign, circular, handbill or in any newspaper, periodical, or magazine, or other publication or publications, or by any other means, to tell fortunes, to find or restore lost or stolen property, to locate oil wells, gold or silver or other ore or metal or natural product; to restore lost love or friendship, to unite or procure lovers, husbands, wives, lost relatives or friends, for or without pay, by means of occult or psychic powers, faculities, forces, crafts or sciences, including clairvoyance, spirits, mediumship, seership, prophecy, astrology, palmistry, necromancy, cards, talismans, charms, potions, magnetism or magnetized articles or substances, oriental mysteries, magic of any kind or nature, or numerology.
No person shall engage in or carry on any business the advertisement of which is prohibited by this section.
This is why Harry Dresden had to set up shop in Chicago. He wouldn't be allowed to advertise OR engage in business here in LA.
So you'll just have to locate your metals, find true love and discover oil using science. Sorry! |
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| Random event from yesterday |
[Mar. 9th, 2011|10:00 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | A Retinue of Moons/The Infidel is me -- Rasputina | ] |
I was in the parking lot of a grocery store during lunch, one 24 pack of Coke Zero in each hand, just setting one down to open the trunk when I hear a car pull up behind me.
"Okay," I think, "I have a good parking spot, but the lot is hardly crowded."
From behind me, a male voice in the car says, "Hey man!"
I think to myself, "Probably a scam." Unless I'm in a computer store, nobody ever talks to me at random in public unless they're soliciting money or scamming. Only two people have ever asked me for directions. I just look like I don't know where I'm going, I guess.
I turn around and say, "Yes?"
There's a green minivan there. Inside is a dude. The dude says, "Hey man, you want to buy a home theater system? I got one free at work."
"No," I say.
He starts to respond with an additional sales pitch, but I interrupt.
"Also," I say, pointing at his vehicle, "Your van is the wrong color."
He replies, "Uh, hah, that's really funny. Yeah. Really funny." before driving off. |
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| Timing is everything in your playlist... |
[Jan. 11th, 2011|12:13 am] |
I have an mp3 playlist that I use when I play World of Warcraft these days post-Cataclysm. It plays in a random order and I've added things to it over time. It contains things as varied as sea shanties and Dresden Dolls songs. I always start off with One Short Day from Wicked.
Now, I picked a lot of these songs because they seemed to fit, so it's no surprise when they do. Well, except for three versions of Baby It's Cold Outside, because I was making up the playlist in the run-up to Christmas...and I added the entirety of Loreena McKennit's The Book of Secrets and Rasputina's Oh Perilous World because I thought the albums in question worked.
But sometimes it's especially appropriate...these are a few examples. Minor but vague spoilers...
Towards the end of Westfall, things go really wrong and your next mission is not to fight the rampaging evil, but to get to the King as quickly as possible and tell him. As I'm zooming off on a gryphon, on comes Rasputina's song Draconian Crackdown. Uh...yes, that is the likely result of my mission!
During the flight that takes you from the Western Plague Lands to the Badlands to do the next set of quests...on a goblin rocket...Tom Smith's song Rocket Ride(no link...couldn't find a version I liked) No, seriously. In case you're wondering, I had it in the list because my gnomish mage/engineer's main mount is a rocket.
Just now, right as I finished a quest in Darkshore in which you ride on the shoulder of an Ancient(really big treant) to stomp on some trolls, Basshunter's song Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA played. (We sit in Ventrilo and play DotA). DotA standing for Defense of the Ancients...and yes, the same ancients.
No, I'm not going to go out and found a new religion based on iTunes. It just made me smile that my playlist was so cooperative when it came to setting the mood.
As a reward for reading this far, I give you this: They always joke that this doesn't exist...and maybe it doesn't...but it DID! |
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| Does this ever happen to you? Musicals... |
[Nov. 23rd, 2010|03:06 pm] |
Some weeks ago, I frowned as I related a conversation I'd had at work and said to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7) anghouedd, "I mean, really. Defying Gravity? That's the only song from Wicked he knew?"
"It was the one they promoted," she replied. "It was on the shirts, remember?"
"Oh," I said. "Oh. Right."
But that's not the song I think of when I think of Wicked. I still maintain that my favorite song was Wonderful(that and Razzle Dazzle from Chicago are songs I always associate with my profession)...but the one I always think of is The Wizard and I*.
How about you? Have you ever disagreed with the common wisdom on what the important song from a musical was?
* The Wizard and I along with Elvis is Everywhere were the unofficial theme music of anghouedd's D&D game, much to her initial annoyance, I think. But while equating the High Mage with Elvis was just a running joke based on a heretical insistence our PCs had that he wasn't dead, The Wizard and I was a bit more serious. It was my wizard character's personal theme song, evoking her desire to follow in the footsteps of the High Mage. And, well, if you follow someone's footsteps adroitly enough, you eventually find them, right? Maybe I need to do a post about RPG characters and their songs. Most people probably have at least a couple, right? |
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