Sucks.

I was unfortunate enough to contract some sort of illness this past week which has made me pretty sick. High temperature, stuffy nose, headaches, and a sore throat. Basically, the works. The first night I had this cold, I couldn't sleep. I was up until about 6 in the morning trying to go to sleep, but couldn't because it felt like I couldn't breathe. Maybe it was also because I took Dayquil at about 12 that night.

What do you guys take/do when you're sick? What have you found to really help ease the symptoms of the common cold? Right now I'm taking Mucinex and Singulair along with a good amount of lying around doing nothing, which is a rare thing for me.

Our new sponsor Geeks.com was generous enough to provide us with free computer merchandise to give away. Thanks to them we're able to run one contest every month from now on with all different sorts of prizes each month.

This first month we'll be giving away a brand new PC Partner motherboard, pictured below:









The motherboard up for grabs has the following specs: (Please scroll down for contest details)

    * General Features:
    * ATI Radeon Xpress 200 + SB400 chipset
    * Socket 754
    * mATX form factor
    * Supports up to 2 GB DDR RAM (DDR400)
    * Integrated AC97 with standard AC97codec
    * 6 channel audio codec support
    * Realtek RTL8100C 10/100 Ethernet
    * Four (4) Serial ATA (SATA) controllers
    * Two (2) UDMA/133 IDE controllers
    * One (1) floppy controller

    * Expansion Slots:
    * Two (2) PCI slots
    * One (1) PCI Express x16 slot
    * One (1) PCI Express x1 slot
    * Two (2) DIMM sockets

    * I/O Ports:
    * Two (2) PS/2 ports
    * One (1) SPDIF connector
    * Four (4) USB 2.0 ports
    * One (1) RJ-45 Ethernet port
    * Line in, microphone and line out jacks

    * Supported Processors:
    * AMD Athlon 64 Socket 754 CPUs up to 3200+
    * AMD Sempron Socket 754 CPUs up to 3300+
    * 1.6 T/S HT (HyperTransport) support

    * BIOS Features:
    * Phoenix (Award) PnP Flash ROM BIOS

    * Hardware Monitoring:
    * CPU and system overheat protection

    * Regulatory Approvals:
    * FCC
    * CE

Package Includes:

    * PCPartner RS480MK7-A62S Socket 754 mATX Motherboard
    * Quick Installation Guide
    * Manual
    * Installation CD
    * IDE cable
    * Floppy cable
    * SATA cable
    * 9-pin serial header
    * I/O Shield

CONTEST DETAILS

This month's contest will be to see who can come up with the best new logo for The Geek Forums ( www.geekforum.org ) and The Geekery ( www.gotthegeek.com ). Submissions should be work safe, be no wider than 800 pixels accross, and no higher than 120 pixels. The same logo will be used on both websites and should have "The Geekery" written on it.

Entries will be accepted from today, Saturday, December 9th, 2006 until Tuesday, January 9th, 2007. After January 9th, a poll will be created for users of the forum to vote. After one week's time, the poll will be closed, and whoever has the greatest amount of votes walks away with the motherboard.

Please post/attach any and all submissions within this thread.

If anyone has any questions or comments about the contest, please PM me.

Everyone likes free stuff, right?

I have been able to work out a deal with Geeks.com in which they will give me some stuff to give away to you guys several times a year.

"Great!" I thought. Then I realized, I have no idea how the hell I am going to give away this stuff to you guys. So this is where you all come in. I want you guys to come up with some interesting contest ideas for these prizes/give aways and post them here in this thread for discussion.

Who knows, maybe our first forum contest will be to see who comes up with the best contest idea.

I figured since it's almost time to kick off the official holiday shopping season, I would let you guys in on my plan for this year's holiday season.

If possible, I'm going to try and order as many items as possible online this holiday season - effectively avoiding the hassle of waiting in long lines and driving with morons who buckle under the pressure of finding a parking spot. This is defiantly possible given that many places give you bigger discounts if you order online, not to mention free shipping on orders of 25 dollars or more in most cases.

I'm going to use this thread as a means to track my progress towards my goal. I have 6 or 7 people to buy gifts for, or at least that I would like to buy gifts for. With just about a month and a half to go from today, I should be in good shape. I figure I'll make my cut off during the second week of December. Any closer and I risk not getting the item on time for Christmas.

Additionally, before I do the bulk of my ordering, do any of you have any pointers/tips? I've ordered plenty of stuff online before, but maybe some of you have done this before and know how to get super-duper discounts like buy one for the price of two and get one free.

If you have any suggestions regarding the forums/community, please post them in this thread.

(Note: Any off-topic posts in this thread will be deleted by yours truly.)

For those of you who are unaware what a "Lemon" is, here is some background information on the subject.

I bought my car this time last year. It's a 2000 Ford Explorer XLS. When I bought it, it only had 55,000 miles on it, and was still under warranty. I even decided to get the extended warranty on it which covers most major parts on the car. Both the exterior and interior of this car are in pretty much perfect condition.

The car ran pretty well when I first got it. I had no complaints, everything seemed to work perfectly. Then about 3 weeks after I had it, stuff started breaking. The first thing that went wrong was the catalytic converter started falling apart. I got that fixed (After weeks of waiting for a part) with no charge. Then about the same time, a spark plug went bad, making the car sputter like there was no tomorrow. They fixed that with no charge as well.

I thought that was going to be it for a while. And boy was I wrong. After the first time washing it, I noticed paint started to flake. I called up my dealer and told him what was going on, and he ordered me some free touch up paint. Fine no problem. I fixed the area that was flaking.

Just recently I noticed a weird noise being emitted whenever I hit a bump or made a turn in the right manner. I didn't think much of it at first, but then it started to get worse. I was able to pin-point the noise to the steering housing under the car. This probably isn't a good thing, given that it has to do with steering, and if you lose steering you pretty much lose at life. I told them about this noise when I took my car in for routine work (Oil, etc.) and they said that there was nothing wrong with the car, and no noise was heard. To me, I think this means that they didn't even drive it anywhere because they were too busy that day.

Next, the car started making an unusual shaking sensation shortly after I noticed the noise from the steering components (Or around that location). This only happens when the car is in drive, and I'm starting to think that this is a problem with the drive train, or some other major part that is going to cost thousands if it isn't covered by their warranty.

To me, this is all too coincidental. As soon as I take the damn thing off their showroom floor it starts falling apart. So is this thing a lemon? Did I get jipped? Is this normal for a car with 60,000 miles on it?

I saw Clerks 2 the other night with my girlfriend, and wanted to let you all know that for the first time in several years I didn't throw away my money at the movie theater. The movie was defiantly worth the money spent, and was probably one of the funniest I have seen in a long time.

Plus, the movie was supposed to have taken place right around where I live. They even make references to the community college that I attend.

Inspired by this thread I'm going to devote this thread to the endless stories that I have with customers. I'll try to update this every time I work, as I'm bound to have one stupid fucking customer a day.

First, some background on where I work, for all of you who still don't know:
I'm a manager at a local fast food restaurant (McDonald's) and have been doing this for a long time now (believe it or not). I know a lot of people in the area and as well as from the corporate offices, and I've delt with a ton of shit in my time there. I've seen it all from 3 year old kids running into doors and tables to 85 year old men shitting their pants, stinking up the place. Basically, it keeps me amused.

Here's today's winner:
New Girl started working at my store about one week ago, and she's been pretty good since the get go. She's been trained on register and selbomly makes mistakes which is hard to come by in a new crew person.

Asshole comes up and wanted a number 12 value meal (Hotcakes with sausage and a small coffe) and an extra Sausage McGriddle sandwich, as well as an extra coffee. Here is how the receipt prints out:

Small Coffee.... 1.00
Sausage McGriddle.... 1.79
#12 Hotcakes w/sausage.... 2.29

This was correct, minus the extra small coffee. You may be wondering what all my customers think... "Everything is there, even the extra small coffee... the drink comes with the number 12!" Yes, indeed it does, however we have to ring up the drinks seperatly from the meal because this way we can track how many orange juices we have sold vs. the amount of coffee we have sold. Simply put, New Girl left out the extra small coffe, but could not explain to Asshole (Who is about 70 years old) what actually happened.

Had it been entered correctly, here is what the receipt would have looked like:

2 Small Coffee.... 2.00 <----- THIS LINE IS DIFFERENT!
Sausage McGriddle.... 1.79
#12 Hotcakes w/sausage.... 2.29

This is where I step in and I begin to calmly explain to him what happend.

Me: I'm sorry sir, she must have missed your extra coffee. Here, let me ring you up for that right away.
Asshole: I paid for it already. It's on the receipt.
Me: I'm sorry sir, she just rang you up for the McGriddle sandwich and the number 12 with a small coffe. She did not put the extra coffee on your order. It'll be one dollar, with tax.
Asshole. She told me it came with the meal! Jesus christ (Huffs and puffs and starts to lose his cool)
Me: The receipt is broken down, this way we can track what kind of drinks we have sold. Here look, You take the one dollar, and add it to the 2.29 and you get 3.29 which is the price displayed on the menu board (Which I point to).
Asshole: She. said. it. came. with. the. meal. (Tries to scare me by acting tough, though I'm double this guy's size, and he's triple my age, if not more).
Me: No sir, I'm sorry, she must have missed it. It was an honest mistake. I guess she simply did not hear you say it.
Asshole: Just give me a coffe, I don't care! (I guess he thought I was just going to hand him a small coffee)
Me: Ok, that'll be 1.06, including tax.
Asshole: (Huffs and puffs and hesitates to take out his wallet, thinking I'm trying to swindle him out of money) Fine! (Takes a minute to get out his money, in hopes I would just give him the coffee while he was getting out his wallet, so he could run off with it. I out-smated him and held it until I received payment)
Me: Thank you. Would you like cream and suger to go with either of them?
Asshole: What did I tell you?! (He didn't tell me anything) Just put it in the bag! (Points to bag, trying to act tough)
Me: Sure. (Gets cream, while laughing) Here you go, you're all set sir. Sorry about all of that. Sugar is out in the...
Asshole: (Walks away without his sugar. Guess he was even more pissed when he got home and he didn't have any sugar)

This whole scene lasted for about three minutes. I was seriously ready for him to try and throw his one cup of coffee at me, or something along those lines. That would have been the highlight of my fast food career had he done that. I don't think I would have stopped laughing if he did. Not to mention I'd hold him in the storre while the cops make their way because I'd press charges.

Under most normal circumstances I would have just given him the coffee to keep the line moving. However I had two registers open at the time, and he already gave New Girl shit about what happened. Giving him the coffee for free would have not only let Asshole win, but also show New Girl that what she did was wrong, and cost us money. I wanted to let her know that I'm there to support them, not just give them directions.

I'd give this a 4 out of 10 on the asshole scale. This was nothing unusual. I just thought it was amusing given the guys age.

I recently purchased a Cobalt RaQ to go hand in hand with a new internet service I ordered from my ISP (Which went down the tubes). Eventually once the service becomes available in my area, this will be serving up some of the images and files to help lower my hosting cost by both reducing the bandwidth that the sites consume, as well as the amount of space required. I have no intentions of moving the "mission critial" stuff because let's face it, my ISP fucking sucks.

Just thought some of you fellow geeks would like to drool over these pictures.

Click:

http://www.gotthegeek.com/hn/img_1454.jpg
http://www.gotthegeek.com/hn/img_1456.jpg

EDIT:
56k = NO
DSL = MAYBE
CABLE = OK

Don't worry... ads are only displayed to those who have not registered or are not currently logged in. I want to give this a try for a little bit and see what happens.

If any of you registered / logged in people notice that you're still seeing the ads while logged in, please let me know in this thread. The only people who will see the ads all the time are myself and The Judge.

I used to have a computer teacher in high school for several years who insisted on typing in capital letters, and forced us to do the same. No matter what she was doing, it was in capital letters. File name? Capitals. Letter sent home to a parent because their child was caught looking at porn? Capital letters. Email to a bank? Capital letters. This woman loved capital letters. I honestly believed that she was a Capital Connoisseur, kind of like the John Nash of professional formatting, but without all of the delusions... well, I don't know that for sure, so I can't rule that out.

This lady was a nut case. She was an old typewriting instructor who now was faced with teaching computer courses. She was ill-prepared for the task, but she took it like a trooper each year - I'm pretty sure she kept a bottle of lube in her desk for times when she couldn't figure out how to restart the computer. She tried to teach kids the improper way to create web pages using Microsoft FrontPage, as well as how to create dumb programs written in VB that would display stupid pictures of her dog Jake. (She was in love with her dog Jake, as well as Capital letters. Maybe the dog's name was 'JAKE' and not 'jake') Needless to say, after about the first week of class (I had her for three classes during my high school career) the entire class hated the lady with a passion. Maybe it was because she always typed in caps, maybe it was because she was fat, and maybe it was because she could not comprehend how to properly save a Word document within a directory structure, or maybe it was because she was rumored to be a lesbian. PEOPLE DID NOT LIKE HER. PERIOD.

BJ, as I'll call her, and because that was her real first name, wins in my book for "Worst internet etiquette. EVAR" simply because it was painful watching her send countless emails and letters out to parents and administrators in all capital letters.

What examples do you guys have of poor internet/computer etiquette throughout the years you have been computing?

If you're reading this, then you made the migration from phpBB to SMF! Not to mention you also made the cut from a week back when all members with a post count of 0 were deleted. Wow!!!

I decided to go with a forum that was easier to upgrade than phpBB was. phpBB bagan to be a pain in the ass after you would install 6 mods, and then a week later they release a new version saying, "GUESS WHAT GUYZ!!1 YOU HAVE TO REINSTALL ALL UR MODS NOW FOR IT TO WORK! THANX!" Hopefully this will work out better.

Currently, avatars and attachments were not pulled over during the migration, but I will work on bringing them over as well.

Trust me on this one, this switch will benifit the community. There are a lot more out-of-the-box features with SMF than there are with phpBB, not to mention it is coded better.

Please post any bug reports/outages here in this thread and I will try to work on fixing them as soon as possible.