I’ve seen  some of my friends level really quickly and don’t have time to sit around and play the game all day so I figured it would be an interesting challange to write a bot to play the game for me. In the past I’ve used SCAR Divi in the past to write a bot for Puzzle Pirates so I think I try writing a bot for Farmville and post the results and possible the code.

Wait. What? After getting her all dressed up as snow white with a bow and shoes and everything we hopped in the car with her grandma and were off to score some candy. Mmm candy. As we were getting close to where we were going she started to get upset. We figured of was because she didn’t want to be in the car anymore. Boy were we wrong.
She go more and more upset as we walked around. We made it all of 100ft from the car before we decided to go back and take the costume off and see how she was. It didn’t help. She was angry and tired.

Let’s hope thanksgiving goes better.

Why is it so hard for Sylvania to make a good quality TV? Did I just get a lemon? Why did it take six months to get a box snipped to me to mail it to them? What did they actually do with and to my TV for the two months they had it?

All of these questions race through my mind and make me so frustrated. I really hope I can get somewhere when I call them tomorrow. I have a feeling they will not be able to find any record of me ever shipping them a TV and them never doing any warranty work on it.

This doesn’t even being up the fact that the TV is now out of warranty because they took six months to get me a box and find my original warrenty request.

Wish me luck dealing with them.

I received a phone call last week from a shipping company telling me that they had my TV and to schedule a drop off. I was excited to say the least. It had been about two months sense I had finally had it picked up for repair. I couldn’t wait to watch HD TV and play some GTA IV in HD again. 

The TV sat all boxed up at my parents house for a few days until I could stop by and pick it up to bring it home. Before I brought it home I wanted to make sure the blue / purple pixels had actually been fixed so we hooked up an Xbox with XBMC and let it run on screen saver mode for hours. Everything looked great. I didn’t see a hint of the blue / purple pixels.

Cut to today. After work today I drove over and my brother helped me load up the TV for the drive to my house. The TV made it home safe and sound. My wife couldn’t wait to have it hooked up so while she made dinner I hooked it up. HDMI to the Xbox 360, coax to the wall, original Xbox to input 1. We were set.

The first thing we watched was Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. We both thought we saw a hit or a flash of the blue or purple but not enough to really make us question it. After the show she recommended some GTA IV.

I dive right in. Driving around shooting guys. It’s great. I make a left under a bridge and the scenery goes from mostly light outside to dark inside and boom there it is. The blue / purple is back. Oh wait what is this? It is easily 10 times worse off than it was before I sent it in. This is great. I hate this tv. I hate Sylvania and Funi Corp.

I turn to my friend Google to see if I can come up with any sort of reason why this is happening other than “There is something wrong with the TV”. Some people suggest that it could be as simple as the HDMI connector causing problems. I needed to let the TV scan all the channels so I could get the digital ones back.

Once the TV is scanning channels the blue / purple goes away. It was like magic. It was there one second and gone the next. While it was scanning channels I swapped out the HDMI cable with the component cables.

Scan finishes no blue or purple. Ok so maybe it was the HDMI. Back to GTA IV. not two minutes into the game its back, just as before. I’ve taken a few pictures of it and plan to call Funi Corp or Sylvania or who ever I can get on the phone tomorrow and try to find out what exactly was done to fix my TV and what can be done about it in its current state.

We did our homework and found that BJ’s had a 42″ plasma TV for $999.99 and had Gears of War and a Xbox 360 elite as a bundle. We went down and looked at the TV and compared it to the others they had on display and decided that we would treat ourselves and get it and the Xbox 360 bundle.

We took it home and set it up and it was great the color was really sharp and clean. We had no complaints for the first 4 or 5 months. Around July or August we began to see a flash of purple when there would be rich deep blacks displayed. This wasn’t an every time thing so we really were not sure if we were making it up or it was really there.

Time goes on, we are busy with getting pregnant and holidays and everything. By the beginning of November there is definitely noticeable purple splotches and streaks when the TV is displaying deep blacks. I look up the warranty info and find out that I need to be dealing with Funi Corp, who can be reached at 1-800-968-3429.

The first phone call I made was on November 17th 2007. I was told that I needed to fax or mail proof of purchase and then could call back and schedule a box to be shipped to me. In that box I was to pack the TV and money order for $95.00.

I faxed the proof of purchase the next day and called back a few days later to schedule a box to be sent. I was told that the box would be here in 15 to 20 days. The box never showed up.

I called back in late January and told them I had yet to receive a box and they said that a new box would be shipped to me and if I had not received it in another 15 to 20 days to call back. That box never came.

It is now late February and I call back and this time change the shipping address to my parents house figuring that for whatever reason they were having problems getting it to my house. I was again told that the box would be shipped and to call back in 20 days if I didn’t get it.  I didn’t get this box either.

Now we are in mid March. I call them and explain the entire situation again and this time I find out that they had only changed the street address and city but not the zip code. This is corrected and verified and I’m told yet another box would be sent and to call back if I didn’t get it in 20 days. Twenty days pass, no box shows up.

April 9th I call and yet again am find out that the zip code doesn’t match. This time they open an escalation to a supervisor and I’m told one more time that a box is being sent and to wait 20 days. I actually had a pen and paper handy so I wrote down the supervisor I spoke to “Chris” badge number 1174.

May 19th rolls around, no box, no calls, no “hey you didn’t get a box because we hate you!” mail. Nothing. I call and talk to “Mike” badge number 1790. Mike tells me he filed out a status check to see why I have yet to get a box He also said that a box will show up within 15 days. If no box comes to call back and speak to a supervisor.

Is anyone starting to see a pattern here?

June 12th I call and speak to Julio badge number 1961. He files yet another escalation and status check.

June 17th, By now I’m very annoyed. I just want this TV fixed. I filed a warranty request in November. Hello? 6 months ago? I call and this time I am in the car so I only wrote down badge numbers and didn’t get names. Badge number 1855, a woman, I explained everything to her from the beginning and ask for a supervisor. Badge number 1088, a man, I explained the whole thing from the top again to this guy. After lots of round about logic I am told that the only option I have left is to fill out yet another escalation and status check and wait for a box to show up. I ask to speak to someone else because that is crazy. How many times am I going to have to do the same thing and get the same result of no box? After being on hold for another 10 minutes or so I get on the phone with a brash man, badge number 1254 who starts off the conversation making it sound like somehow I am at fault for not getting a box. I am however given the option to go out and buy a box that will safely hold a 42″ tv. Once I have said box I am to call back and then schedule a pick up.

Normally I wouldn’t have a problem with this. However, I’m fairly sure that that $95.00 I’m sending with the TV is to cover the packing materials + shipping. I inquire if I can subtract the cost of the box and packing materials from that $95.00. I’m told that once I have the box to call back and we can discuss it, but only if they can find proof that I’ve been dealing with this sense November.

Wait, Lets pause for a minute to let that sink in. Yes, they want me to prove to them that I’ve been dealing with this sense November. Everyone I’ve spoken to has seen the original call date of November 17th except this guy? right? what?

As it stands now I have a Sylvania 6842THG that has purple streaks on it. I get to go buy a box and pack it myself, out of my pocket because Sylvania can’t get their shit together and mail me a box.

I really don’t understand how this kind of thing happens. Are they just so inept that they can’t manage to send a box?

I can honestly say that no matter what I’ll never be buying another product made by or that has anything to do with Sylvania. Maybe my 6842THG is the odd one that breaks, fine but I really didn’t expect this kind of customer service, if you can call it that.

/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%.html

 to 

/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/.

This seems like it would be a trivial thing to do with the Permalink Redirect Plugin. I followed the instructions and then was getting 404s on the old links. I don’t really have time to dig into it now but I’m guessing it has something to do with the .html in my original link structure. Maybe some regular expression issue.

I’ll take another look at it in the future. I would like to find a way to do this without manually coding mod_rewrite rules. I’m open to anyone leaving comments and I’ll be sure to post anything I find out.

This is a good thing becuase it means we don’t have to wait as long to meet my daughter. From what I understand anything over 37 weeks is pretty much as good as full term. That being the case there really is no down side to her coming early.

This has reminded me that I need to hurry up and decide what I’m going to do on a site I bought for her when we actually decided on a name, http://www.GraceElizabethCampbell.com. Right now it has drupal 6 up and running and I think it does a fine job for displaying the few posts I have up on it.

I’ve recently been coding a plugin for WordPress to integrate the ebay EPN network so you can manage auction items in your posts. I’m leaning towards making it something like BANS but its still really early in development.

That being said, I’m really starting to like WordPress more and more. It is very good at what it does, giving you a way to post stories and posts. The admin interface, especially in 2.5 is such a pleasure to work with. Everything feels right about it. Being that it is WordPress you also get all of the other nifty plugins that other people have created, like the All in one SEO plugin and the WPG2 plugin to integrate Gallery2 into WordPress.

I suspect I’ll be making a final decision in the next week or so. I’m mostly looking for something that I can build up with her pictures and little things she does over the years.