Today I found some notes that I had taken down on some previous batches of beer. One of the things in the notes is that stubbies are a pain in the ass to cap. Now I am dreading the capping process because about half my bottles are going to be stubbies and a good chunk of the remainder are Corona bottles.

A lot of people who play GW use GuildWiki. Recently I saw that GuildWiki has an annoying ad at the top for GW2. So being the sucker that I am I looked at the link. There's some info and a few videos but the bottom line is, well… it doesn't look so great. The graphics are better but fer Chrissake it's been half a decade, they HAVE to be better. Actually, they look a lot like Aion don't they?  The gameplay videos are short and do not show the UI. The gameplay videos also lead me to believe that players will make audible smartass remarks when they cast or kill. Now if you can't turn that off it'll be annoying as all holy hell. Looks like just more advertising to me with no substance to back it up. Fumble!

I had to go to Perth today to pickup my bike… on the way home I was a little hungry so I pulled over at Woody's Pit Stop for some fries. The service was great and so were the fries. The parking lot even included a long stripe to accommodate people pulling trailers or driving long RV's. Next time I pass by there I think I am gonna have to try a poutine for sure! They don't have a website but you'll find them right on HWY7 just west of Carleton Place (just before the Innisville bridge over Mississippi Lake).

I really am!  Go ahead and check it out for yourself:

Abba – Dancing Queen

See? I told ya I was listening to it! I also found this little gem – I Love Pottery.

Sometime on April 22nd my ADSL connection got really shitty. I mean REALLY shitty. Basically what it comes down to is that 1 in 4 network packets just gets lost. So I sent an email to my provider (who are typically very good about things like this). They made some suggestions and I tried a few things and then it turned out that Bell said they had a problem. Apparently Bell said that some "server" was overloaded and that is why the packet loss issue is being seen. Now this strikes me as being rather odd since ROUTERS and SWITCHES are responsible for network traffic, not SERVERS. Anyways, I was told by my ISP representative that it would be fixed by the end of Monday. Tuesday morning I tested it and still had the exact same problem. Today is Thursday, a full week later and the problem still remains. Bell has no idea what the fuckin' problem is do they? Either that or they are choosing not to fix it. Fuck you Bell Canada, you bloated whore.

Well… tonight I decided to brew up a batch of beer. I haven't made any beer in a couple of years but being a cheap bastard I thought it might be a good idea. I am using Morgan's Canadian Pilsner that I got at Defalco's, and I am mildly worried about the equipment being well sterilized after having sat around in the basement for so long. Funny how I decided on an Australian maker of a Canadian beer eh? Well, we will see how it turns out. Tonight I "pailed" it and that means Monday May 3rd will be a good time for carboy day.

The beginnings of my first batch in a long time

For some reason, when I relocated both of my MediaWiki installations I was getting a freakin' AutoLoader error message. It was looking for IP.php in the "includes" directory. When I went to the includes directory I saw that the file was there but had been remaned to ip.php (lowercase). Once I changed it back to uppercase name (with lowercase extension) it worked fine. Imagine that.

For anyone who doesn't know, Sandals is a chain of hotels in the Caribbean that is more expensive than most hotels but claims to offer better service. I have been going to Sandals resorts for a number of years now and am starting to become concerned about how much longer I can stand dealing with them. Here is a copy of an open letter I am unfortunately going to have to mail them.

Dear Sandals,

I would consider myself a pretty consistent Sandals customer. I am part of the Sandals Select Club, I have 51 nights stayed, I got married at Sandals, I have a Sandals vacation coming up next week, and just a few weeks ago I made plans to also buy three more Sandals vacations from 2011-2013. I go to Sandals every spring, and I tell people that I think it is worth paying the extra money to get better service.

However, I believe that customer relations by the Sandals organization outside of the hotels sucks. Every year I book a Sandals vacation, and every year I get spammed with email offers. Every year I click on the "unsubscribe" links at the bottom of those emails, and every year I continue to get spammed until I actually leave on my vacation. This kind of advertising is annoying and shameless. People should have a choice regarding whether or not they receive your extra offers, Red Lane Spa advertising, and unsolicited spam.

Frankly, because I have so many nights already invested in Sandals, I am tempted to just get my free week at 70 nights stayed and then stop going to Sandals. Here's chronologically what has happened this year:

1. I booked a Sandals vacation.

2. I received an unsolicited email from Sandals.

3. I received another unsolicited email from Sandals.

4. I received a phone call from Sandals asking me to pay US$300 to upgrade my room type.

5. I received another unsolicited email from Sandals and clicked the unsubscribe link.

6. I received another unsolicited email from Sandals and clicked the unsubscribe link.

7. I phoned 1-888-SANDALS and asked why I was still getting spam, a supervisor said she would remove me from the mailing list and assured me I would receive no further spam.

9. I received another unsolicited email from Sandals.

10 I called again and was told that the Sandals rep I was talking to could clearly see a note on my account to not send me any advertising. She asked me to forward her the most recent 2 emails so she could see where they were coming from.

11. Mere minutes after the above phone call I received another unsolicited email from Sandals.

I do not think that this is an appropriate way to treat customers who have spent in the neighbourhood of CDN$50,000 over the years to go to your resorts. I truly hope your customer service and administrative departments decide to start showing loyal customers the integrity that the hotels and hotel staff have shown for years.

To be honest, I like Sandals, and Beaches, and I like the staff. My problem is with the administrative people who insist on shoving advertising down the throats of customers who pay their fucking salary. Well, let's see what kind of reply I get.