Eve Online, another mmorpg. Like I need another one. This one is the closest thing you will find to Earth & Beyond.

I played it for 16 hours on Friday. From 7am to 11pm. I haven’t done that in a long time.

This people is the beginning of the end:

Effective Tuesday, May 16, 2006, Van Galder Bus/Coach USA will stop serving the Ramada Inn at South Beloit. Our new loading/unloading are will be at the McDonalds/BP Travel Plaza, which is located at IL-75&I-90. All scheduled departure times will remain the same.

What is the most likely? Guests who use the bus have to find a ride to a shitty hotel or they can take a ride to a decent hotel that isn’t managed by fools?

I want to talk about communication tonight. I’ll start with the definition of the word since I know that hotel managers don’t have a clue what it means.

com·mu·ni·ca·tion (k?-myu-‘ni(-ka-‘sh?n)
n.

1. The act of communicating; transmission.
2. 1. The exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, signals, writing, or behavior.
   2. Interpersonal rapport.

Pretty simple I think.

Two quotes follow. The first quote is from the local paper published May 13th:

…free calls to both the 815 and 608 area codes appeals to those visiting town to visit different attractions…

And then in the staff notes from April 27th (bolded and underlined to stress it’s importance?):

Phone Calls for guests: all 815 & 608 #’s $.50 for guests, free for frequent stayer Members!!!!

Now I guess my question is at what point do we the employees get to be told officially about this? Or has the hotel fallen so far into chaos that we now have to get our information about hotel policy changes from the local newspaper? I think at the core this is one of the biggest problems at the hotel. The lack of communication. Even worse is either the incompetence of the managers or them just not caring (whats worse?) that prevents this info getting out to the front desk employees.

Because this is a big change. The all calls 50 cents to a lesser degree can be handled by changing info in the computer I would assume. The same can be said for the free calls. I’ve checked in the computer and these people are getting free local calls. The problem is when these people come in or call in and ask if they get free calls I tell them no. And people want this kind of thing. It’s a feature people won’t stay at your hotel if you don’t have it. And the management here can’t even afford the time to type up one simple memo that informs the front desk about this change.

Until I see such memo or one of these “managers” chooses to inform me about this change I’m going to continue to not acknowledge this change. If they don’t care I don’t care. The way the hotel is run I swear that our company mission statement is made up entirely with the goal of fucking over the guest the best they can.

So I’ve totally lost interest in Oblivion. Here is another $1.89 plugin to get called the Thieves Den (4.5 MB).

The Thieves Den provides you with everything you need to outfit your stealth-based character for missions. Rediscover the legendary Dunbarrow Cove and the ancient pirate ship The Red Sabre. Dunbarrow Cove not only provides a home base to operate out of, you can purchase new vendors, trainers, and even an upgrade to your sleeping quarters with the loot from your heists.

• A fully detailed environment for your character to own and explore
• Free sleeping space: never pay for an inn again!
• Five upgrades for your lair
• Hire vendors designed especially for thieves, rogues, and assassins
• As you upgrade your lair new pirates will join your crew and provide you with income
• Over 45 new items
• 15 new spells

I’m disappointed in Bethesda. How many months has it been since Oblivion came out? All they can do is issue one beta patch? Yet they have no problem charging for content that many argue should be in the game already.

Gawain sent me this link which outputs a website’s html as a graph. It’s fascinating just to watch this thing render a website in this way. Of course my site is a mess. Below is the thumb to the full picture, which includes a key to the colors.

This graph just shows how ass backwards my site design is. Tables are on the way out. Everything should be divs and css. Oh well. For those interested (or bored) here is the link to see my site rendered in real time as a graph.

I can’t believe the fucking bus is still an issue. Check this out:

June 1, 2006

All Front Desk Agents

For the time being, we will be providing shuttle service to and from the BP/McDonald’s area where the Van Galder is now running. I don’t expect you to do it, but please notify engineering, management, or the MOD and they can help the guest. I will need to get an answer on what do if someone needs transportation early in the morning when no one is available.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

The Sheriff
Director of Operations
Ramada Inn-South Beloit

Let me get this right. The bus no longer stops here and we are going to waste time and money to ferry these assholes to and from the new bus stop? Did I read that right? Let me read it again. Well fuck me I did read it right. The hotel I think is officially the poster child for throwing money down the toilet.

Let’s clarify for a second. The memo mentions helping “the guest” in the second sentence. What is a guest is the issue then for me. Answers.com says a guest is:

One who pays for meals or accommodations at a restaurant, hotel, or other establishment; a patron.

Until these assholes step foot on hotel property and spend money they are not guests. Why provide a shuttle for these few (very few) that may take the bus that will stay at this hotel. It’s like admitting that the hotel fucked it all up by losing the bus. At this point it’s not really wise to make yourselves look any stupider than you already are by doing this. Save some face blame it on the bus.

Now I don’t want to appear to be totally negative to the needs of these assholes on the bus. I have an answer for this:

I will need to get an answer on what do if someone needs transportation early in the morning when no one is available.

It’s so simple really that you may laugh. I see two options here.

1. They can walk
2. They can call a taxi

When I work those are the options. End of story. I don’t care how many goddamn memos come out telling me different. I frankly don’t even acknowledge the buses existence any longer. Not that I get that many inquiries on the bus. But the lucky few that do call or come in asking gets no help from me other than the bus no longer stops here. It’s so satisfying.

Sin was a game I played back in the old days. It was a fps that reminded me of Duke Nukem. Now there is a sequel of sorts. Using Valve’s Steam to release Sin Episodes. The first episode is called Emergence and it will cost you 19.95. On the plus side you get the original Sin 1 and Sin 1 Multiplayer. The down side is the games length.

Content wise I still haven’t decided if this is worth the 19.95. It was fun. A single male is of course going to enjoy boobs and bullets. Which are in abundance. Other than that the other feature worth mentioning is the games Personal Challenge System:

Driven by one of the most elaborate statistics systems ever created, SiN Episodes will constantly adapt to your playing style and offers a challenge that is custom-tailored to your skill level.

Prior to a patch on May 17th this Personal Challenge System had a habit of raping the hell out of a player that happened to do better than the game thought you should. The patch does fix this. My long term enjoyment of this episodic content will be determined by the cost of the future episodes.