I think I have some kind of router curse.

See, it’s like this. The router that I’m using on my network at home right now is a Linksys. I hate it. For some reason, whenever I sustain a high transfer rate for more than a few minutes (for example, while I’m pirating software or using video chat), it crashes, and I have to go all the way down to the basement to reset it. To get around it, I usually have to do all my downloads with Getright and set the speed limit to something small, like 10K/s. It sucks.

So I finally got a new router today, a nice Gigafast guy. I’ve become a real fan of Gigafast networking devices lately.

So I install the thing, and it runs beautifully. To test it out, I downloaded about a gig of crap in half an hour, and all it did was look down at me and say, “Oh, did you just download a JPEG? I was too busy having a huge penis to notice.” It was wonderful.

Wonderful, that is, right up until I tried to video chat through it. It didn’t work. I tried port forwarding, I tried DMZ, nothing worked. Finally, I called tech support.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m having trouble using video chat with my router. It’s an EE400-R. I tried port forwarding and DMZ already. They didn’t work.”

“I see,” the tech support guy said in a thin Pakistani accent.

“Funny thing is, this is the only thing that doesn’t work. Everything else is fine.”

“I see. Okay, first of all, can I have your name please?”

“What?”

“Your name.”

“Oh,” I paused for a moment while I tried to remember my name, “okay. Er, Ray.”

“Good, and your last name?”

“Merkler. M-E-R-K-L-E-R.”

“Thank you, and your phone number?” I told him my phone number. “Good, thank you. Now the first thing I’d like you to try is to downgrade the router’s firmware to version 1.860.”

“Sure, no pr– Wait, did you just say downgrade the firmware?”

“Yes, sir. It turns out version 1.860 is a little more lenient with its firewall, so downgrading to it usually solves this problem.”

“Oh,” I said, realizing that this actually was a good idea. “All right, then. Lemme do that real quick.”

So I downloaded version 1.860 of the firmware and installed it. As I was waiting for the router to restart, the tech support guy said, “Oh, I just remembered, I forgot to ask you, what brand is your modem?”

“My modem?” I said, just as surprised as when he asked for my name. I thought quickly. “Oh, a Motorola.”

“Oh, really? Is it an SB series, by any chance?”

“Yeah, actually, it is. Why?”

“Oh! Ha ha, that’s probably it. There’s an incompatibility problem between our router and that series of modems. All it takes is a little patch, and that should fix it.”

“Oh,” I said, suddenly angry, “well, that’s just great, ’cause what you just told me to do destroyed the router.”

The line was silent for a moment. “Um,” the tech support guy finally said, “really?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Oh, geez, sorry. Well, listen, if you just take the router back and get a new one, that patch I just told you about should fix the problem.”

“Great.”

“Sorry about this. Have a nice day.”

“Yeah.” I hung up.

When I downgraded the firmware, for some reason, the web interface refused to come back up. Somehow, it had disappeared. The router was ruined. The best part is, when I ordered it, it was shipped from Edison, NJ, which is only about a half hour from my house. To return it, I had to ship it all the way to California.

So yeah, there’s my story. Yuck.

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Yay! Another movie review!

‘Kay, I know this is gonna be way out of date, but the only reason I saw it was ’cause I accidentally paid for an extra month on Blockbuster Online and decided to throw a buttassload of DVD’s onto my queue. Anyway, the movie: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: it’s beautiful, especially by 2001 standards. Compared to more current stuff like Return of the King and probably Revenge of the Sith, it’s merely pretty, but still, lots of great eye candy here. Square’s CG sequences in the Final Fantasy VII+ games have always been the stuff of teenage boy arousal, but this film’s visual quality blows them away. We’re talking major detail here, right down to the pores on the characters faces, very natural idle standing animations (you’d be surprised how much realism it adds), even their eyes twitch around correctly. They even got gravity right, which you’ll notice a lot of CG sequences screw up by making the characters fall too fast. The only complaint I had was in the characters’ gestures: they were stupid and unnatural. Hated ‘em. Made me feel uneasy.

The story is typical Final Fantasy fare. If you’ve played the games, you’ll feel right at home with all but one aspect: it takes place on Earth. Ordinarily, I would’ve been able to shrug off any disbelief due to the fact that it takes place in some far off land, but stick all this spiritual Gaia stuff on my mechanical little homeworld here, and I just can’t get into it.

The characters, overall, kinda suck. The voice acting, overall, kinda sucks. And there’s also this one character, the Marine Captain, who looks just like Ben Affleck, but talks like a drill sergeant. The voice just doesn’t fit the character at all. In fact, it killed every scene that he’s in for me. Hated him.

Finally, there are no chocobos. I mean, come on!

All in all, I’d give the movie a 5.5/10. I didn’t hate it, but I’m glad I didn’t have to waste a lot of money to see it. If I’d paid to see it in theaters, I probably would’ve hated it.

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I just tried out that Gillette M3 Power razor, and I’ll be shitpooped if it ain’t the best shave I’ve ever had as a post-pubescent male. Whereas most razors feel like they’re cutting coarse hairs from my face, this one felt more like it was wiping whipped cream from it. My face is so smooth right now, it’s like I’m nineteen years old again. I really have to wonder what perversion of the laws of physics allow the simple addition of a vibrating motor into the handle of a razor to produce such results.

The only complaint I had was that the vibrating mechanism produced a slight gyroscopic force that made it feel a little like the razor had a mind of its own. Then again, maybe it does. Those guys at Gillette really know their stuff.

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Does the fact that I’m freakin’ thrilled about Lucas replacing the English text in A New Hope with Aurebesh for the DVD make me a nerd?

Yes.

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It’s that time again! Get ready, ’cause here it comes! It’s…

RAY HAD A WEIRD DREAM!!

I tend to have a lot of dreams that involve characters from my favorite franchises (Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, the New Jersey Devils, Harry Potter, etc.). In this one, for example, though it’s not really an example because this dream is actually the subject at hand, I was a Jedi. I have Jedi dreams a lot. So I’m fighting this female dark Jedi who is, strangely enough, using a blue double-bladed lightsaber. She had a couple other dark Jedi with red sabers to back her up, but it was mostly just her.

During the entire battle, I kept asking her, “Will you please just tell me why you’re using a blue saber instead of the usual red that you darkies like to use??” That’s right, I used a racial slur to refer to a dark Jedi. *shrug*

So finally, Luke Skywalker joins in, and we overpower her. Not that I couldn’t handle her myself. Having Luke around just finished it faster. Oh, and I did this really cool thing where I was using the Force to chuck my saber all over the place rather than attacking her myself. I rule.

So she retreated. We then had to get all the colonists onto a train to take them, er, somewhere. I got onto the horse on the right, and Aragorn son of Arathorn got on the horse on the left. You know, the horses that pull the train. Yeah.

After a brief lesson from the King of Gondor on how to work a horse (”Pull the right ear to speed up, and the left ear to slow down. If you want to stop, don’t pull either one, because that will hurt it.”), we got on our way.

Several hours pass. I got bored, so I went off to be an extra in Revenge of the Sith. I wanted to be a Wookie, but no one would give me their costume, even though I was a freakin’ Jedi. Hmph. So I walked around the set for a little bit. It was Tatooine. I dunno what Wookies were doing on Tatooine, but hey.

I got back on the train and talked about stuff with Aragorn. I think Legolas showed up momentarily, too. Eventually, something got in the way of the train. Some kind of boulder thing, I think. Damn, it’s already getting fuzzy. I need to start writing faster. So the train stops, and I get off my horse and step inside to talk to Luke. When I got there, the dark Jedi came back. This time, while she had the same lightsaber, it was about the size of a letter opener.

So was mine.

So we dueled again. I used the Force to fling my lightsaber around like before, but since it was so small, I had a little trouble. So I Force Pushed her out of the way, and went back to my big, two bedroom apartment. Naturally, the Alien and Vernita Green from Kill Bill came to back the dark Jedi up. I killed Vernita very quickly by slamming a big door in her face, and somehow that meant I won and the dark Jedi went away. The Alien ended up not doing anything.

So back in my second home growing up, me and Luke were in the guest bedroom, organizing our stuff. Luke told me, “Y’know, I think I look a little like you.” And I said, “What, like, you, Luke Skywalker? Or you, Mark Hamill?” His answer: “Hmm, yeah.”

And then suddenly I was growing a Chuck Chaplin/Adolf Hitler mustache.

On my bottom lip.

Then it started to get kinda warm in my room and I woke up. I was really sweaty for some reason.

As usual, while this dream really did take place, it is submitted merely for entertainment. Go ahead and interpret it how you want, but come on, you already knew there was something a little batty in my head.

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