So that Blogger outage was a thing.

As my fellow bloggers know, Blogspot was pretty much completely unavailable yesterday, as it was just in read-only mode.  Hence another week where I miss a post.  Although, with what they did, in removing Wednesday's posts to stabilize things (and then republishing them), it looks like I missed two days.  Awesome.  Am disappoint, Blogspot.

So with that happening, I'm going to try my hand at a couple posts tonight (outside of this one) to bring my count up to speed.  Which I kind of hate to just post this and then go onto another post, as that makes this one really short and one-note-y, but, oh well!  I just gotta do what I gotta do.

I cannot state how much weather and news suck.

I'm sure you guys noticed the lack of post yesterday.  I apologize for that.  I'm sure the news of that big band of storms rocking the, well, east section of the country has spread about, and while I assure you I wasn't in one of the more affected areas (thankfully), it still kept me away, if only because we really should have gotten storms.  Er, well, kind of.  According to every weatherman and newsperson at least.  Sure, everything looked convincing enough, but as northern as I am, everything sort of went south and east of us or north and west of us.

So here is why all of the involved parties suck.  Not only could they not identify this well enough to report it, when they started reporting the (as it turned out, weather that never happened for us) they barely touched on it, and used vagueities to do so.  They didn't do the break-ins for weather alerts, despite basically the entire state being in a Tornado watch for six hours, they didn't keep the news weather-centric for the majority of the broadcast, no, they did the normal news thing with it.

They teased it.

The first news show I watched (around 10 PM, I believe), it started with a 'quick look at the situation' in which he didn't say what was going where, who should be worried about what, or anything of value.  It wasn't quite the levels of, "IT'S GONNA RAIN!", but it wasn't too much more informative.  And when he ended that with, "We'll bring you back the full forecast after this break" I knew, knew that this was going to be a long night.

I do apologize, but I really, honestly, truly do not give a shit about anything you had to say aside from the weather, News.  I don't care that Donald Trump made himself out to be a complete dumbass and nobody seemed to notice.  I don't care that that Senator who got shot months ago got on a plane to go somewhere.  I really don't care that a camera man got a snowball thrown at him by a woman who starved some horses to death!  For the record:  That is not a surprise attack, you stupid fucks.

And then, when the fucking weatherman finally did come around with the weather report (twenty minutes after saying "After this break!") he was only marginally more informative than the first time for a while before he took a wicked turn into dumb-fuck-ville.

You all know this, but these news stations spend ridiculous amounts of money on these sophisticated weather trackers and forecast machines and etc. etc. etc.  Like, this is not something that you should argue with when you spend this much money on it.  And by prefacing it like that, I'm sure we know where I'm going with this.

So, he does the FutureCast, which shows storms moving off around 11 or so and, well, not returning to my region until like 5 AM or so.  And despite this, he goes, "Now, while it's not in FutureCast, I expect some more storms to pop up in this area" (Note:  The area indicated would have moved right over my location eventually) and then provided absolutely nothing to back it up. 

And guess what?

Yeah.  That's right.  THOSE STORMS NEVER POPPED UP.  (-Some- storms popped up, but not the ones he figured on, and they were just windstorms, honestly.)

I simply cannot fathom all of this.  And I know I'm not ranting about something that nobody doesn't know about; we all know how douchey the news is, and there's nothing that can be done about it, really.  It kind of annoys me that I have to harp on this, because with as known as it is, I feel like I'm writing two pages about how fucking wet water is.  But goddamn if this shit is not infuriating.

Misadventures in Bargain-Shopping: Dragon Age: Origins: Ultimate Edition: Colons

So, as some of you might know, down here in the States, Dragon Age: Ultimate Edition on Consoles was 50% off.  Which is a pretty sweet deal and all.  The only thing that's a shame is that the K-mart in my area is...well, first off, it's not -in- my area, it's a 40-minute drive away.  It is also in a less-than-safe location, and the store is in fairly massive disrepair and unmaintained.  It is, for all intents and purposes, a Shithole.

But I loves me some deals, so I was thinking "If only there were another store that I could buy the game for that price in."  And then I thought, "Hrm, who does Price-Matching?  Oh!  Best Buy does price-matching!  And I just happen to have Best Buy funbux right here!"  So, that was it, then.  Best Buy is only slightly less of a terrible drive than K-Mart, and as I said, I had currency that needed to go there.  I called ahead and asked about their Price-Matching, and he said as long as it was a local competitor's ad, it would be gravy.  This is a key fact.

So.  I went there, grabbed DA:O:UE:C and a shiny, shiny new Dualshock 3 controller (Red~), went to the customer service desk and presented the ad.  And....suddenly the guy picks up the phone and calls K-Mart to inquire whether K-Mart had it in stock.  Was.....he going to tell me to go there if I wanted that price?  What, what the hell was this.  After finding out that they apparently did not have it in stock (Mind you, this is today.  I saw 3 copies of the game in K-Mart's shelves -yesterday-.), he went on to explain to me that if the competitor doesn't have the item in stock, then Best Buy won't honor the price.

I was dumb-founded.  "But I was just there.", I explained.  "They had it!"  "Well, the person I talked to said they don't, so there's nothing I can do."  After telling me this, he went, "Do, uh....you want me to keep this, then?"  And I assured him with a notable amount of snark that I was not going to buy it, so that would be the wisest course, yes.  Burned and seething, I took solace in the fact that with just the controller, since my gift cards would cover that and then some, they would not actually be getting any of my money.  Actually, at first, I almost refused to go through with my purchase of the controller on principle, but realized there wasn't much of a moral victory in refusing to use store credit.

Something really bothered me about what he said, though, and it didn't really click until I was almost home.  "She said they only had the regular version.", he said.  "Wait a minute.  The Regular Version?  Of what?  There's no other Origins/Awakening pack-i-Oh balls.  Dragon Age 2."

Shitshitshitshitshit.

So when I got home, I called K-Mart and spoke with the lovely-sounding Erin after about, uh, 20 minutes of being on hold, and after convincing her that she was looking for the wrong game, she looked where I instructed her and said, "Oh, no you're right, I've got a copy right here."  Damnit!  She had mentioned that someone else had called about it earlier and this was the point where I explained the circumstances, which, I must say, did nothing short of mortify her.  I could tell that she felt really, genuinely bad about being an unwitting cog in the machine of Stupid that kept me from getting my Dragon-Slaying simulator.

And with another call to Best Buy, they informed me that, since I had been right three hours prior, I was definitely deserving of the game....provided I went all the way back there right that minute and bought it.  "I...really can't get out again today," I explained.  "Best Buy is a terrible drive from here and, in all honesty, it was your screw-up."  Of course, I was speaking to the same Customer Service rep that I had spoken to on the phone the first time and in the store.  Of course I was.  "Well....let me talk to my manager and see if the deal could be extended."  After a few more minutes of holding, he informed me that, nope, that was the deal.  I waste gas that apparently becomes more precious by the second, time, and patience that I simply don't have, to pick up a game I could have had three hours prior because Timmy McFucknugget couldn't be assed to get an assurance on the status of K-Mart's stock.

"Well, I might be in, but if not, then the lost sale is kind of your fault, y'know."  "Have a nice day Sir."

And that is the story of how I almost got Dragon Age:  Origins:  Ultimate Edition.

Almost.

...

Goddamnit.