Stuart Conover is a blogger, published author, geek, entrepreneur, horror fanatic, and gamer. This website is a glimpse into what I enjoy and my world.
So.. yesterday my phone turned itself off so didn’t wake me up for work. Today it woke me up but my dog had jumped into bed when Leah left and was being absolutely cute and I was ALMOST late to work. It’s been a week of close calls I tell ya! Fortunately even the Ali Monster couldn’t prevent me from getting into work, no matter how cute she is when I’m half asleep. Damn.. cute… sleepy dog. Speaking of the dog she’s getting semi-regular walks again and loving every second of it. In fact yesterday’s walk was more of her bouncing in excitement instead of actually walking.
Life
Went over to my parents for lunch and brought the Ali Monster
Leah and I had dinner with her parents
Leah and I spent a LOT of time watching Eureka this week. The show is hypnotizing.
I just can’t help but being a fan of infographics. They are a visually entertaining way to sort through a subject. So when you mix an infographic with horror I’m of course interested and when you mix with classic horror I had to share.
This one is a mix of the highest grossing classic horror films, which were most popular and which had the most memorable quotes. These are some of the all time best horror films from the past and it shows a variety of ways they’ve been an impact.
Another week has gone by and the first month of the year is starting to draw to a close. It’s a shame as I feel like while I’ve gotten a lot done there is a lot I should have gotten done and haven’t.
Life
We got our Wedding photos, they are all very awesome. Information on ordering them SOON. They really are awesome.
Speaking of the wedding. To remove The Great Wedding Debt – We’ve started getting rid of old stuff we don’t want on EBay
Leah and I have been catching up on relaxing.. relaxing .. and Eureka!
Projects
2 new advertisers setup for Buy Zombie for next month
Well with Ali being a royal pest as of late we’ve I’ve started walking her again and it seems to be calming her down. Damn spoiled dog! (Can’t.. resist… her… cuteness…) Aside from that the majority of the week was spent trying to get some relaxation time in. The holidays are over and being able to kick my legs up on the coffee table are back in! Granted I did work on some writing, my project list, and chores as well.
Life
Ali has started getting walks again to try to burn off some of her energy
Contacted AT&T to get a new router, most painless experience of working with an ISP ever
Leah and I spent a lot of time on the couch, probably more than I should have
We didn’t spend all of our time on the couch. The Christmas Tree has left the building
I’m not usually one for posting actual commercials on the site. This though. This is quite possibly one of the greatest commercials have ever seen. I don’t know if it’s from my love of Star Wars, my love of dogs, or just because this is an absolute riot but holy shit you need to watch this 5 minutes ago!
A canine chorus barks a familiar tune. Keep an eye out for our 2012 Game Day commercial—it will all make sense. Love Star Wars and Volkswagen? Create an Intergalactic Invite to your Big Game party here: http://vw.com/star-wars-invite
Do you know how to keep your customers happy and loyal? Good customer service.
I’ve had AT&T since Leah and I moved in together so it’s been roughly 2 years. 2 years of nearly stellar service with only one brief outage of a few hours. After nearly 2 years the our wireless gateway is starting to have issues. It’s dropping the wireless (though not wired) connections in our house for one minute at a time randomly. I did some research online and went through all of the troubleshooting that was suggested – no go. I contacted their online support and tried a few things – still no go.
So I sucked it up and called tech support.
First off for those that know me you know that I work in tech support so I know what people have to deal with. If you are lucky you talk to someone like our help desk. If you aren’t lucky you deal with someone like Comcast or a help desk outsourced to another company.
I have a stigma against high speed from years of Comcast. I used to have so many problems with their customer service (or lack thereof) over the years that I just was terrified of having to call them. If Leah is reading this she has to be shaking her head since one of my main reasons for switching to AT&T was that I didn’t have to deal with bad support.
So after the terror of calling them, with the horrors of Comcast’s past stuck in my head I waited on hold. Yes I had to wait on old – for only ten minutes. Ten minutes, that’s it. Anyone who has had to call high speed tech support knows that’s amazing. Comcast was usually a nearly 30-45 minute wait when there wasn’t an outage. Ten minutes and I was talking to someone who I calmly explained what I had done so far.
After I explained it she said I had already gone through everything they would have me try so I could either have a technician come out to try and troubleshoot or they could send a wireless gateway overnight. I wish I had called earlier in the day as it was too late for it to get here by Thursday at this point but it would be shipped tomorrow. All of this took another ten minutes.
I accomplished in 20 minutes what would have, with Comcast, probably taken an hour and a dispatch to get done.
AT&T U-Verse. Thank you for doing such a great job at customer service. I’m so glad you finally broke into the Chicago market and wish you all of the best as long as you continue to give this great service. Thank you. Thank you for not making me have to have Comcast and their horrible service and support. Thank you for including a battery backup with your service so I still have Internet when the power is out. Thank you for having nearly no outages in my area. Just thanks.
Well it was my birthday last week so had a great time at Benihanas and most of my close friends that live in the area were able to come out. Matt wasn’t able to. So I have a poisoned spork with his name all over it! Aside from that though was a great time there and with most people coming over after. Saturday was relaxing and Sunday was off to my parents for a family birthday for my mother and myself. Good times!
Aside from the most of the week was spent writing, relaxing, and doing chores. Oh so many chores! I decided to be productive around the house and on a few other things. Hopefully that will continue through the weekend so I can keep getting ‘stuff’ done and then spend a week relaxing. Speaking of relaxing our trip to New York is scheduled! W00t!
Life
Birthday party with friends at Benihanas and our place after
Another day and another Birthday party! This time with the family at my parents place
Speaking of birthdays after the snow last night my parents gift is now my favorite. Snow Blower of Doom!
Ali has been a BAD dog and has been trying to dig out of the fence in the backyard. By trying I mean she did and got into the neighbors compost and came back. Fortunately she came back
Projects
No major news here
Media
Watched The Edge of Darkness
Watched Setup
Watched The Howling: Reborn
Watched Fright Night Part II
Watched Eureka Season 1
My Writing
Got a page in on a short story with an outline for the rest
WARNING: If you have NOT watched the show and plan to do NOT watch this video until after.
First off this is not real. However it’s a damn funny 16bit version of what Battlestar Galatica would have looked like as a Role Playing Game. They do poke a little fun at the plot holes in the series (almost to the point of annoyance, I did love the show) but it’s done so hilariously (for the most part.)
If you loved BSG as much as I did you should check this out for a laugh. If you were frustrated with the series you should check this out for a laugh. If you hated where they went at any point you’ll relate to the video. It’s all 4 seasons, each one minute long, poking at the fun of all of the problems with the show.
So an end of the week roundup a day late? How rare is that? Honestly between being slammed at work and it being my birthday yesterday I had next to no free time to think about updating the blog. Honestly I thought about it… but a combination of keeping my boss happy and too busy having fun after work kept me far too busy to get logged in, throw some pictured into what I had typed so far and hit post. More on the birthday next week as it happened after this post should have happened
Life
Happy birthday to me today
Happy New Year! Leah and I had a great night in together
Leah and I went out with Megan and Jason to go see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Got the Roku setup in our bedroom and I do have to say it works out pretty well if I do say so myself
Sadly my horror western did not make the cut. Fortunately there are two other horror anthologies open right ‘now’ to sent it right back out the door with
Well I was reading my nightly news and stumbled across an article on Mashable that Moo is making Facebook business cards based off of the new timeline profiles. How awesome is that? I instantly jumped into changing my profile picture and header graphic for a card I could use here and there for horror:
I need to get around to making myself some straight up Buy Zombie ones but in the meantime this will absolutely do. It’s got a crisp look, easy style, easy interface to make them with, and all in all just are pretty damn awesome. Right now they are free though I’m pretty sure that at some point in the next 5 hours all of the freebies are going to be used up. So get them while they are hot! (and free.)
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