Starcraft II Is Out!

Finally, 10 years after the first, Starcraft II is out! How big an event is this? BIG! We’re talking about a game that has sold over 11 million copies, still being played all these years, and is Korea’s national sport. They even declared today an official holiday. Of course, there’s a lot of unofficial and personal holidays elsewhere today.

It is doubtful if it can better the original but time will tell (like maybe 10 years) but it looks great, modern, and fun in its own right. There’s no LAN play which was arguably one of the reasons why the original is so popular. That’s a bummer but we can do without that anachronism as shown by World of Warcraft. Maybe it will even force those ISPs to drastically improve their service.

Looks like I’ll be needing a new gaming computer.

Customer Service Hotlines

If you’ve been dealing with companies long enough, you will notice a notable decline in their customer service. It has become impersonal and less of a service. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the so-called customer service hotline.

First off, it’s not exactly a hotline. A hotline is supposedly a direct and immediate telephone linkup, especially between heads of government, as for use in a crisis. But with most customer service hotlines you get a busy or unavailable signal. Good luck on your crisis.

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Snake: YouTube Edition

Everybody with one of those classic monochrome Nokia phones would know Snake, that game where you control a snake going around the screen consuming apples which in turn makes the snake longer and longer and making it harder and harder to consume more apples. It was quite useful when you’re waiting and bored.

Now if you’re watching YouTube and you have extremely slow Internet connectivity (like when you’re using Sun “Broadband” Wireless) you will be waiting and bored a lot. Worry not, as I discovered just today, the cool dudes at YouTube apparently programmed in Snake in their Flash-based player. Just press any of the arrow keys when the rotating buffering animation comes up on the player screen. Have fun!

2011 Hyundai Genesis Coupe

On my way from Servitek, I dropped by a Hyundai dealership along the way. I checked out the Genesis Coupe on display and I noticed that it seemed different from the one I saw last Saturday. This got me curious  and, after a few minutes of searching, I learned Hyundai has come out with the 2011 model year Genesis Coupe.

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Flat Tire

As we were about to leave for the office, I noticed that my rear left tire was deflated. I looked and saw a screw embedded deep in the tread. You DON’T remove embedded objects from your deflated tire so I just tried inflating the tire with my handy lighter air pump and thankfully the tire seemed to hold air reasonably well enough to let me drive to the office.

But I wasn’t about to let it stay that way for long so I left work early and went to the nearest Goodyear Servitek branch where the service guy cold patched the tire. He even replaced the missing tire inflator valve of one of my tires. As always, great service from Goodyear Servitek.