November is for Thanksgiving!

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This year we saw Christmas items hitting the shelves well before Halloween. What happened to Thanksgiving? This has been out of hand for a while but it keeps getting worse. Now I hear “Black Friday” sales are creeping onto Thanksgiving Day. Is one holiday not enough for the stores? Now they have to steal another? Thanksgiving should be a day families come together and give thanks for what they have, while enjoying a good meal together. All these chasing of sales is nonsense.

My plan this year is to enjoy Thanksgiving Day with my family. The following day we will put up Christmas decorations but not before that day. We will also avoid all stores both days. You should do the same and help encourage retailers to allow their employees to also stay at home or on minimum staffing on Thanksgiving.

November is for Thanksgiving! Read Post »

Who will win the election?

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It’s closing in on Election Day and only nine states are still competitive for Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. I’m not a fan of either politician and I am a member of the Libertarian party. I decided to do an analysis in as unbiased a manner as I can looking at poll numbers and voting history. 

This is an analysis of the state-by-state race to 270 electoral votes, the total needed to win the presidency. These numbers reflect where incumbent Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney stand now. The numbers reflect electoral votes.

UP FOR GRABS (110):
Colorado (9) R
Florida (29) R
Iowa (6)D
New Hampshire (4)U
Nevada (6)D
North Carolina (15)R 
Ohio (18)D
Virginia (13)U
Wisconsin (10)D

SOLIDLY DEMOCRATIC (186):
California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois,
Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island,
Vermont and Washington.

LEANING DEMOCRAT (51):
Michigan (16)
Minnesota (10)
New Mexico (5)
Pennsylvania (20)

LEANING REPUBLICAN (32):
Arizona (11)
Indiana (11)
Missouri (10)

SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN (159):
Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina,
South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Total Electoral Votes by candidate:
Obama (277)
Romney (244)
Johnson (0)
Stein (0)
So close I won’t even call: 17

If I had to call the race today I would place President Obama as winning the election. It seems most gambling institutions also agree with my assessment and they actually have a good record at projecting outcomes. This post comes from a running total I have been trying to keep.

Who will win the election? Read Post »

Why I hate Blizzard and Diablo 3.

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I have never been a fan of WoW but I enjoyed playing Diablo II and Starcraft. I once enjoyed playing Diablo 3 but Blizzard doesn’t want to allow me to do that anymore. Sure I paid for the game and I only play the game single player but I don’t own the game and Blizzard has made that painfully apparent.

You see like many Blizzard customers I have had my account compromised  At the time I had an 11 character password and I’m not sure how it was cracked but it was. It seems like it is a common issue for Blizzard Entertainment customers. So I took the steps on their website to recover my account and even had progress automatically rolled back on my account. After I took all their steps I also added an authenticator on my cell phone to act as a second defense for my account. I now had a 16 character random name, number, symbol password (boy I hope that is long enough). After I did all that was my actual Diablo 3 game unlocked? Not at all. I have still been denied access to the game I paid for. The game I only want to play on my own and not online.

I have submitted another help ticket but my response from “Game Master Ryavale” was to perform again the exact same steps that did not help me in the first place. Those steps would include rolling back the progress on my game again, an action you can only perform three times.

At this point I am surrendering my account to Blizzard. I’ll play something that I don’t have to worry about how their server security works to play on my own. I guess that means more money for the Humble Bundle guys along with the charities and developers involved there.

Why I hate Blizzard and Diablo 3. Read Post »