Entries Tagged as 'shot-online'

Random Thoughts (Including Stuff On The Olympics), And Shot-Online Thoughts (After About A Month of Time-Wasting…er…Playing)

Grrr…another three days gone by without blogging?  WTF?

Random thoughts, a mostly-Olympic variety:

- I was watching the US Men’s Beach Volleyball team of Rogers-Dalhausser play the Brazilian team of Marcio-Fabio…

(Tangent:  How I wish I could just go by “Ung” in my life…)

and man, was the crowd super-annoying!!!  I wasn’t sure if I was watching a beach volleyball match, or a soccer match.

I get it that the crowd can be behind a team, and in most cases, I don’t have a problem with that.  However, can the crowd please save the boisterous chants for between points?  Is that too much to ask for?

Shut up…shutup, shutup, shutup…SHUT UP…SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!

- In a move that should surprise nobody, the International Gymnastics Federation has been asked to look into the ages of the girls women making up the Chinese gymnastics team.  Yes, there is no concrete proof to the contrary, and yes, visual proof isn’t going to suffice, so it appears that no penalties will be assessed on the Chinese team.

All that being said…

WHO REALLY BELIEVES THAT THIS GIRL IS SIXTEEN?

- Briefly, my take on the Greg Maddux trade:  sounds like the deal will not involve anyone of substance (Elbert, McDonald, etc.), though it will cost the Dodgers two low-level draft picks.  I love the deal, especially if Penny can’t give us anything for the remainder of the season.  Maddux allows us to keep Park, Kuo, and Jason Johnson in the bullpen, which is very important considering that the Dodgers must watch Clayton Kershaw’s IP count.

(I haven’t even touched on the mentorship Maddux can offer guys like Kershaw and Billingsley.)

I just hope Maddux can give the Dodgers a quality start to start off a brutal road trip (@PHI, @WAS, @ARI).

- My sister and I went to Souplantation tonight, and apparently it was Couples’ Night.  There was the couple in the other line, directly opposite of us, that couldn’t keep their hands off each other.  Then there was this couple:

Female:  This looks good [looking at the posole soup].

Male (in that whiny voice):  Don’t get that.  It’s a heart attack waiting to happen!  It’s not good for you!

F:  OK.  What about the chili?

M:  That’s so unhealthy.

F:  Ok, I’ll just get the chicken noodle soup.

M: How about the clam chowder?

OK…so a chili advertised as low-fat is less healthy than a soup loaded with heavy cream, bacon, and potatoes?

I felt like pouring a ladle full of hot clam chowder down his throat.

(Yes, I have problems.)

- Current rebate-o-meter:  $1150, though I’m getting royally shafted on at least $55 in rebates.  More on that next time.

- I’m now about a month or so in to my new addiction (Shot-Online) and here’s what I think I think about this game.

1)  Putting in this game is an ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE.  I could hit a 20yd putt on Hela in one round, and then five-putt a hole on Sosori.  A good round of putting, and I could probably go -10 on Alfheim.  A bad round, and I could go +5.

(I will neither confirm nor deny that the latter has happened.)

2)  Why didn’t anyone tell me how important it was to keep my Impact attribute at or above my Power attribute?

I’ve since fixed this, and now my Imp = Pwr, and my drives are finally going straight! :P

(Speaking of straight drives, I just bought a Werdandi driver for my main character from the auction house (more on that later).  +2 to all stats, plus a slower gauge, means I better not hit a drive out of bounds any more!  I just have to get used to the slow gauge, now…)

3) I made mention of this before:

…and about 99% of the players that play Shot-Online are nice guys (this may be completely untrue, but when I think of MMORPGs, I think of ten year olds that must use an obscenity in every sentence spoken, written, or typed).

and now I’m pretty sure that my 99% figure is a low-end estimate.  Left and right, I’m seeing high-level players offer millions of NG (game currency) to beginners, and only now have I been able to help out as well.

It’s pretty cool how grateful some people are, even when given a few thousand NG.  You could imagine how happy I made the one player to who I gave four clubs and some drinks.

4) At certain times of the day, foursome matches are almost impossible to set up!  It seems that, during these times, one of the following happens

  • A player joins, waits 1 nanosecond, and then leaves
  • Only one player joins one team, while three join the other
  • Three people are ready to play, but the fourth (usually the room creator) is nowhere to be found
  • The room has a glitch, forcing everybody to leave

5) My main character is now a Level 34 Amateur with a handicap of -6.  My secondary character is a Level 21, but I’ll probably ignore that one for now, as I’m trying to get the former to Semi-Pro status.

And finally (for now)…

6) I think I’m spending almost as much time in the auction house as I am actually playing golf!  Why?  I just can’t resist the temptation of buying a bunch of items at low prices and then flipping them later for anywhere between a decent and a substantial profit!

Case in point:  Zodiac Leo 100s (Pwr +6) generally sell for anywhere from 500,000 to nearly 1,000,000 NG.  In the past few days, I’ve been able to score several Zodiac Leos for less than 600,000, and I’ve been able to flip most of them for a “Buy now” price of 850,000.  After the auction fees, that’s an easy 200,000 NG profit!

Flipping stuff on the auction house reminds me of my Senior year in high school, where I bought and sold tons of trading cards to the tune of a nice little profit.  Ah…memories!

Until next time!

Several Random Thoughts, And Commercials I Hate (And CommercialsIHate.com)

I don’t have much to blog about, but despite that, I’m going go blog anyway.  So here goes.

(I actually do have something I could blog about, but it’s going to take me a while to arrange all my thoughts on that subject, so I’ll hold it off a bit longer.)

Quick-hitters, a somewhat super-sized edition:

- Lack of sleep = bad.

Lack of sleep + red eyes every morning = really bad.

Lack of sleep + red eyes + a screwed-up sleep cycle = insanely bad.

Speaking of lack of sleep…

- I’ve gotten back to the habit of a cup of coffee or two daily.  Normally, when I brew coffee with my Vietnamese coffee press, I don’t bother replacing the metal lid after pouring the water into the press.

A couple days ago, on a whim, I decided to try brewing the coffee with the lid on.  Wow…what a difference!

(You would think that this is common sense; without the lid, steam can easily escape, rapidly cooling off the water being used to brew the coffee.  Have you forgotten that I am an idiot?)

- Shot-Online update:  my primary character, fdsfdsg, is a level 25 amateur, and I really have to get rid of this driver I’m using (power +5 is nice, but not at the expense of minus-2 points of impact).

I also had two of the worst rounds of my life (yes, even worse than when I was a beginner):  +6 in nine holes on Alfheim (the beginner course), and +8 on six holes on NamChoc CC.

Gosh I suck.

- I filed nine rebates with Parago over the last few days.  Five approvals, four rejections.

AKA par for the course.

Speaking of rebates…

- Current rebate-o-meter:  $1,400.  However, I have about $300 in rebates that have yet to be filed, and they must be postmarked by TOMORROW.  Oops!

- In the pantheon of douchebag-y commercials, I think McDonald’s might finally be topped by another superpower retailer:  Wal-freaking-mart.

(LOL.  Just as I finished that sentence above, a McDonald’s commercial aired.  I may have to reconsider my stance.)

Case in point:  that stupid commercial with the mom, the kid strapped to her, and the little girl causing general mayhem, including spilling something on her shirt.  Am I the only one that wishes he were in that commercial, so I could trip the kid?

Yes, I have problems.

Do you know why I can’t stand Wal-Mart?  Do you need to ask?  Wal-Mart commercials annoy me so much that they have influenced me to introduce a new category of blog topics:  [bad] commercials!

(As an aside, while Googling another commercial I can’t stand—that Secret one where the girl has her hands raised throughout it—I stumbled upon this site:  CommercialsIHate.com.  Awesome site!)

OMFG!  Another WalMart commercial just aired!  AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

That’s it for today.

Hotel Operators Are Really Quick and Efficient, And Why Shot-Online Is Currently My New Favorite Time Waster

You may have noticed that I have yet to discuss the nightmare I suffered while building my sister’s new computer.

Don’t expect the blog entry regarding this any time soon :P.

Quick-hitters:

- This is either the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while, or the most disturbing.

I’m inclined to vote for the latter.

-For the last few days, I’ve been getting annoying junk phone calls on my cell phone.  Most of the calls are from 818 #s, advertising cleaning and maid services.

Here’s the caller ID# of the last two calls I’ve gotten from these clowns:  818-648-295.

(Um…)

(And please save the “That’s probably caller ID spoofing.”  There’s a good chance that’s the case.)

- Current rebate-o-meter:  $1,400 on the nose.  About a third of that is currently unfiled :P

- A couple of days ago, I sold an item on Amazon.com, and the buyer wanted the item shipped to the Radisson Lexington Hotel.  Having never shipped a package to a hotel before, I emailed the Radisson for information regarding shipping packages there.

By Monday—I emailed the Radisson on Saturday—I did not get a reply, so I called the Radisson’s toll free number.  When I got to a live operator, I explained my situation.  Before I could finish, though, the operator told me that I had to contact the Radisson Lexington Hotel directly; I should have known that the toll-free number was the Radisson’s national hotline.  She gave me the direct number to the hotel (the 212 # listed on the web site to which I linked above), and hung up almost immediately afterwards.

I called the 212 #, got to the front desk, and explained my situation to the front desk operator.  About half a second after I finished my question, I heard the muzak again.

When I finally got to the correct department, I explained my situation a third time.  The rep explained what I had to do, and after I told him that that was all the information I needed, he quickly said “take care” and hung up.

Total time spent on the phone:  four minutes, tops.  If only my calls to Sprint could last that long AND be that effective.

- My Nintendo Wii is gathering dust.  My Guitar Hero guitars are buried somewhere in my office.  My PS2?  It’s around here somewhere?  Why am I seemingly avoiding my console games?

Meet my new gaming addiction:  Shot-Online.  Now, I’m a fan of the Tiger Woods series of golf games.  I’m NOT at all a fan of MMORPGs, though, but this game is thoroughly enjoyable.  The game is extremely easy to pick up—if you can click a mouse three times, you can play—difficult to master, and about 99% of the players that play Shot-Online are nice guys (this may be completely untrue, but when I think of MMORPGs, I think of ten year olds that must use an obscenity in every sentence spoken, written, or typed).

(As I was typing up this blog entry, I just got kicked out of a Shot-Online game in which I was dominating.  Stupid server maintenance!!!)

I picked a female character in this game, and I’ve already been hit on a couple times.  You should have seen one guy’s reaction when I pointed out that I was really a guy!  Maybe I should try to use my female character to score some money or loot :P.

EDIT:  So far, I have two characters.  The first, my primary character, is named fdsfdsg.  Yes, it was created when I slammed my fingers on the home row of my keyboard.  I had no intention of playing this game for very long, until I actually started playing.  My other character is named Hospitalsrule, a tribute to my Calculus professor butchering the pronunciation of “L’Hopital.”

Yes, I’m a dork.