Here I go a'Bento-ing...

Mike finds it very sad that I've spent so much time on the bento thing. But it's a fun way to make my "food lowering intake plan" (diet is a hatefull four letter curse word that I refuse to use in conjunction to myself) all the more interesting. Who wouldn't want to eat something that looks as beautiful as it tastes? I think that's why they do things like that at the fancy restauraunts (aside from trying to hide exactly how little you actually get in a meal). I'm planning healthier meals now while still eating enough to fill me up. Last week alone I lost a half a pound and another inch off my waist. I know part of that is me gardening. But the food can't hurt. And I still get to eat my Samoas! Greatest cookie known to mankind and the reason I joined the Girl Scouts in the first place.

I think I shall definitely have to have a shamrock themed bento tomorrow. I have much to work towards in the creativity department when compared to others who're in the same bento groups as I am on Flickr. I'm a bit better than average but I wish to be amongst the best.

On the aside, this is a great way to try new foods, Asian or otherwise, that I normally wouldn't mess with. The smaller portions make trial a bit less daunting.

Shortest Netflix Account EVAR!

So a few things changed since I last had a Netflix account.  They were sued (and lost, but still screwed everyone) over fixing rental queues so that new members got movies faster while under trial accounts, and existing users took the hit of longer times to make up the difference.  They also added unlimited streaming to most accounts, and this guy added support for Netflix in Windows Media Center.

The goal: I want to stream movies to any room in the house, mostly the bedroom and the living room.  I want to pay a reasonable flat rate.  I want it to tie into Media Center because I have a kick ass remote that works on my PC for watching movies, and also because my XBox 360 is a 1080p movie playing Media Center as well.

If the title and cute Asian girl saying "fuck you" with a smile didn't give you the hint, Netflix did not reach the goal.  Now that, in and of itself, would not be worthy of a rant post (even on a grilled cheese blog).  Lies and poor service do qualify!

"Unlimited" streaming really means "one stream" at a time (or possible one to four streams if you have a higher plan, site isn't really clear on this point).  Oh, "one stream" is in quotes because it really means one PC - Netflix DRM (custom required install) lock streaming of your account to that machine.  So when I tested on my laptop, everything was okay.  When I testing my desktop, I was told my "one stream" was already in use - by the laptop sitting in the corner, switched off.

After a good 30 minutes trying to find the magic "I'm done now" button on the laptop, and googling for ideas (because the Netflix help was useless), I called the number that was showing on my desktop in the error message.  Please hold for 30 minutes...

About 10 minutes in, I saw a number on the Netflix website with "wait times 1 minute."  I hung up and called that number, and true to the claim, a human picked up.  Jake told me that I would need to be transferred to tech support for this issue so they could "change a flag" to fix the problem.  Would I need to do this every time?  He wasn't sure - in a way that conveyed "yes, you will but I don't want you complaining to me."  Transferring to tech support.... please hold 36 minutes.

Unable to cope with additional 6 more minutes from the previous attempt, I looked on the site for an email address I could use.  I figured I'd just send an email and check on it in the morning.  Oh, what's this?  Netflix doesn't have email support - phone only!  I decided to test the XBox 360 with the Media Center plugin - a message came up that streaming on the XBox wasn't supported (not Netflix's fault, unless you count this as something which they should be supporting themselves and not leave to the user's to figure out).

So, from my email timestamps I was a Netflix member again for exactly 1 hour and 19 minutes.

Best and WORST B'day Party

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had Hannah's birthday party at a fun sounding place called Thunderworld USA Family Fun Center.

First the good.

There was a great mezzanine area for birthday parties wherein parents could congregate and have immediate view of almost the entire area children would be running around in.

They have beer and mixed drinks.

They have skee ball, a DDR knock-off, a number of decent arcade games, a 'Deal or No Deal' machine, pool, and bowling inside the place as well as batting cages and go-karts outside.

The pizza was waaaaay better than what you get at Chucky Cheeze's and the girl that helped us with our party (an underling apparently far down the managerial ladder) was helpful and unobtrusive.

Now for the bad.

We ended up really needing to have gone to a few review sites before booking this place. There weren't many out there but if you're persistent you can find people not stymied by rage at their experience or tolerant of the subpar.

Yahoo! Travel had 6 reviews but is typical of our time there.

Insider Pages has only 2 reviews but the first one was what we'd had.

The party was expensive. Like Chucky Cheeze's without the stupid dancing rat.

Beer is $3 a cup and they don't open the bar for pool and mixed drinks until 5pm, even on Saturday.

Their prizes are even more insanely priced than Chucky Cheeze's and cheaper looking (how that's possible I don't know).

The bowling alley itself was large but the lanes were like looking at the ocean in freeze frame. That would normally not stop us from enjoying ourselves and had no real effect... except hilarity when Jose bowled a gutter ball that turned into a spare pickup in the next lane over for a young girl who'd bowled a split. An overriding factor for our dissatisfaction were the reoccurring glitches in their lane computers.

1) It took 15min for an underling to turn on our ball return after we'd told them it wasn't on.

2) Randomly throughout the game, the pins would be cleared. Usually when this happens you just miss out on the rest of the frame. Not at this place. Here, it still registered in the system what you bowled but unless your next throw was a strike (so it'd register a spare) it wouldn't count your first throw and allow you a third to finish off that turn.

Sound confusing? Try doing it.

Then there were a couple of other one-time glitches including the one frame Jose had to bowl 7 balls before it finally went to the next person.

Plus you had to pay up front for games and shoes. No prob. Disturbing to those who haven't had to do so, but it didn't bother me. The problem there came when Willie (who'd paid for 2 games in advance) tried to get a refund on the second game. At no time was payment on the first game in question. There was a sign that said: No cash refund. Cool. He paid with a card.

The manager staunchly refused to refund him.

Willie took issue at the sheer incompetence of the management and their seeming inability to understand that every second they argued with him lost them points in the eyes of all the parents whom would have otherwise booked events there as well. It wasn't a cash refund he was asking for. Just a credit back to his card.

When she finally capitulated after threat of contestation of the entire monetary transaction she then effectively told him to get the hell out.

After that hassle I'd give the experience in its entirety a 2.5 out of 5.

You have been warned. Proceed with caution.