bad news : and we need less people like this dickhead, bashar assad, running them (anywhere). oh yeah, he thinks you’re an idiot. kudos to anonymous for exposing yet another douchecanoe to the world.

(re-posted from https://www.facebook.com/visitbatcountry)

i’m serious. my platform is simple and direct:

1. i won’t accept corporate or lobby fundingbribes.
2. i could give a fuck about talking to the CEOs of google, time-warner, or whatever. they don’t need help making money — inner cities, schools, and other civil services do.
3. mitt romney makes almost 50$million per year, in interest. at a 5% interest rate, that means he has like 1$billion in the bank. i have, on average, about 1500$. i’m rooting for the underdog 99% — you’d better believe taxes will go up sharply after your income passes half million dollars per year.*
4. i will put a halt to the insider trading practices in congress. I WILL ARREST YOU, CONGRESS.
5. actually, i will try to put a halt to wall street’s quackery as well. racketeering, bitches — the mafia gets put away for it, you’ll get your turn. I WILL ARREST YOU, WALL STREET.
6. we’ll stay the fuck out of things that don’t concern us. we ARE NOT “world police”.
7. no big government? great! first off, i’ll get them to stop spying on our own citizens — that should save us a bundle. second: TSA, you are worse than useless and you’re getting cut. buh-bye.
8. health insurance: you can have it.
9. education: you can have it. without going into debt for, like, the rest of your life.

vote for me.

because everyone else sucks.

* this may or may not be an accurate reflection of how his money …uh, works. either way, i put it to you, gentle reader, that he has too much of it, and isn’t using it for the betterment of his fellow man — or even himself.

i hope your shitty driving has earned you a stupendously large insurance premium, you fuckwit. i hope you roll your piece of shit SUV into the bay.

please die.

i didn’t really go away, but i’ve found there’s a certain comfort zone i need to inhabit to be able to write.

A ——– B —- C ——– D

if point A is a point somewhere on the anxiety-ridden side of at rest, and point D is the kind of boiling rage where you cut off other people’s middle fingers and arrange them in a giant depiction of a middle finger on your target’s lawn, then my comfort zone is from B to C.

as it happens, i returned from vacation and idled for awhile just below B, then jumped up into the C-D range, and have been hovering around C ever since.

that’s my story, and i’m sticking to it.

[close-up shot]: i sit by the computer, drumming my fingers. bored.

[another close-up shot]: i pull the phone away from my face. i look shocked and annoyed.

[shot, starts close, but pulls out, showing the rest of the room]: i sit at the computer, playing angry birds.

[shot, a building outside of a generic metro area]: an explosion rocks the building, all windows are blown outward in a spray of glass.

[shot, camera moves upward but stays centered on my face, slow change of focus to my fist]: me, standing in the middle of the living room, addressing the cats (one is sitting under and one is stretched out on top of the coffee table, and another off to the side, quietly cleaning her paw with her tongue), shaking my fist at the sky.

[shot, my kitchen]: my expression goes blank and i drop the pot of coffee. [cut to close-up of the coffee pot, inches off the floor, falling in super slow motion]: it hits the floor and breaks.

and now, the next exciting episode…

thu / 5.45.am – i receive an update from the 2nd tech i twittered with. he says there was signaling issues and asks if a tech had been out. i respond (at the more reasonable hour of 12.30.pm) that the issue had cleared up on its own, and asked if there was a problem with the modem. he responds that “it could come and go. we’ll keep an eye on it.”

thu / 1.30.pm – i  receive a comment on the last comcast post: an apology and request for details of my experience. i find some of the comment baffling, as she asserts that their social media/support reps are online until 1.am EST.

sun / 2.45.pm – i get home from brunch and am having the same packet loss problems as before. i send an email to the address provided in the comment, and cc: the 2nd tech that i had sent stuff to before. as i have a project deadline looming and cannot work on it, i, annoyed, proceed to annoy everyone else (cats included) in the house.

sun / 6.30.pm – magically, the problem disappears again.

mon / 11.00.am – i receive an email from an executive customer relations person. she would like to contact me regarding my complaint. i’m, of course, at work, and completely forget to respond.

tue / 9.30.am – i receive a 2nd email from this person, asking to contact me. i respond that i can talk to her on wed (today).

wed / 10.30.am – working from home today, and guess what? high packet loss. i call the number provided by the executive customer relations person, but get only a recorded message that the offices are closed and that business hours are …well, right now. i send off an annoyed email about the phone recording, as well as mentioning that i am supremely frustrated that i now have to go into the office to work.

really, what i want to say is that right then i should be logged onto the VPN, coding, wearing a tshirt & boxers, with a kitten on my lap, and a beer resting near my mouse.

she responds back, asking if there’s a number she can reach me at. at this point, however, i am running out the door and have a train to catch.

wed / 1.15.pm – after several increasingly terse emails, a technician is scheduled to be sent out tomorrow to check out the line. of course, this means i will be super-late for work again (like i was today).

and just because i’m on the subject, the longest standing thorn in my side about comcast is that their stated speed (for our package) is 20Mbps (~ 2.5 mb/s). i don’t think i’ve ever seen it push past 16Mbps, which is the rated speed of the next lower package – and $10 less a month (it doesn’t sound like much, but that’s almost an entire month’s internet+cable bill over the course of a year).

i know it’s not rush hour, but standing in front of the sole working ticket machine, attempting to pick out your destination station from an alphabetized list, for more than 20 seconds pegs you as mentally handicapped or a twat.

glaring at me when i ask you to stand aside, so i can transact my business, is definitely snooty, but moving back to your former position, as soon as i’m done, to further ponder deeply where exactly you are planning to end this journey of self-discovery and how much it will cost to get you there – in front of the other people in line – is downright rude and cunty.

ripple of evil: i hope you lose your ticket and are forced to pay full fare. as a result, you swear off public transit forever and drive into the city tomorrow to meet your girlfriends for some shopping at macy’s. while on the bay bridge, the new katy perry song comes on the radio and you crank it up. in the few moments your attention is diverted, you miss the S-curve at treasure island and flip your car over the rail. it lands on the rocks below and paramedics arriving on the scene pronounce you extra dead.

there is a story about it on sfgate, but someone, correctly, comments: “and nothing of value was lost“.

10.45 am : after running extensive ping, traceroute, and speedtests, then rebooting every piece of hardware i can lay hand on and run it all again – 20 to 40% packet loss after 2 router hops.

11.20 am : when i can’t find any working network status page for comcast, i finally call them. they tell me i’m not on the account and can’t put in a trouble ticket.

11.40 am : i log into comcast via my gf’s laptop, add myself to the account, although due to high packet loss, it may have been more expedient to use carrier pigeon. i call back.

11.50 am : the support rep i am on the phone with tells me she can’t see any trouble in my area, but also admits that their internal system is down. she apologizes for not being able to help troubleshoot what she is fairly certain is really just a problem occurring between my computer and the modem. i refrain from telling her that that is the only saving grace about this call.

12.10 pm : i try and get some work done, but am continually booted from my remote desktop session. i play angry birds and eat lunch.

12.50 pm : i re-run all my diagnostics, not only from my pc, but from my gf’s laptop and directly off the router itself. i double check all ethernet and coax cabling.

1.05 pm : i randomly google comcast twitter and find the twitter accounts of several techs who seem to be giving more solid help, advice, or even just up-to-date status to customers. i connect with a tech and am passed off to a second tech with a request for details of the issue.

1.30 pm : i happily send them brief traceroute & ping logs.

3.05 pm : i send a quick check-in to see if they have any updates on the issue.

3.15 pm : i realize that neither of the techs has responded to any issues since shortly after 1.30. apparently, they are on the east coast and have gone home.

4.00 pm : after having wasted an entire day, i call comcast again. their system is still down and since i never received any type of follow-up, i not only do not have a trouble ticket, but there is apparently no record of any of my previous contacts. i hang up in disgust.

4.30 pm : i am filled with the rage. i can’t  watch anything through boxee box, because it … you know, uses the fucking internet. i pretend that all the little pigs are comcast employees while i play motherfucking rage-filled birds some more. whatever corporate fuckwit decided that there should be no network status page deserves a triangular, yellow, gurgling bird to the throat.

4.50 pm : in a last ditch effort to at least appear productive, i call support again. i get put on hold and hang up.

5:20 pm : consistent service appears to be restored (just in time for people to get home and start watching tv!).

i almost hate you more than AT&T. almost.

[edit] i have been contacted by several customer relations people regarding this post. i will update this story as warranted.

you are not entitled to make it through the light. stop honking your horn fuck-wad. wait your goddamn turn.

you are not entitled to that parking spot. i couldn’t move any further up, and it wasn’t even a spot anyway, so suck it.

you are not entitled to know what is happening on the other side of the freeway. stop rubbernecking, ass-hats.

you are not entitled to have a post office experience free of line. knock off your bitching.

you are not entitled to in the fastest lanes at all times, so quit swerving your car all the fuck over the place, shit-head.

i spent over 30 mins last night trying to engage the fucking umbrella while getting my ass handed to me by an obnoxious sludge monster until i finally realized there was something wrong.

when i plunk down 50$ for a game, i expect to wrangle with some driver issues, or a “this service should be stopped to improve framerate”, or whatever – so the problems with alice are fairly unacceptable. seriously, did anyone do a clean install before ship? because every issue i’ve had so far dealt ENTIRELY with borked keybinding config files (those are the text files that map the keys of your mouse & keyboard to actions like move forward, attack, etc…). with all the things that could go wrong – this is the fuckup? really? ea should be ashamed of themselves.

so, the following is a collection of fixes that got me back up and running. your path will most likely be different from mine (so change [R:\Steam\steamapps\common\] to your path). there also seems to be a different naming convention between pc download/boxed vs. installed from steam versions in that steam’s files are “DefaultInput.ini”, but i’ve seen references to “AliceInput.ini” – these are the same files, just switch “Alice” for “Default” if needed. and of course, keep a backup copy of any file you change.

fixes:

1. umbrella glitch (changing the key that engages the umbrella deflect unbinds the action)
2. cannon glitch (can’t fire cannons or depth charges on the ship minigame)
3. hysteria (can’t change hysteria key in UI)
4. ?? i’ve seen references to glitches that are in parts of the game i haven’t reached, but were fixed by some of the below items, so YMMV, but i’ll update this list if i come across any more.
5. [submitted by spee] framerate glitch using nvidia twinview.
6. BONUS: enable special edition dresses & weapons

here it is:

1. open the file R:\Steam\steamapps\common\alice madness returns\AliceGame\Config\DefaultInput.ini
2. find the line: Key_Block = TriggerBlock
3. change it to: Key_Block = TriggerBlock true | OnRelease TriggerBlock false
4. everywhere you see a “|” character in the file, make sure that it has spaces on either side, like: ” | “
5. the umbrella is glitched, so if you want to change what key does the umbrella deflect, find this line: +Bindings=(Name=”E”,Command=”TriggerBlock true | OnRelease TriggerBlock false”)
6. change “E” to whatever key you want to use. i use “/” because i’m left handed, so my right hand is on the keyboard.
7. likewise, on the line: +Bindings=(Name=”Enter”,Command=”TriggerHysteria”) change “Enter” to something else if you want to – there’s no option to change this in the UI, so here’s your chance.
8. save & close this file.
9. open the file R:\Steam\steamapps\common\alice madness returns\AliceGame\Config\DefaultControlLayout.ini
10. find the line: KeyBindArray2=(Name=”E”,Command=”Use | push | PickUpActor | QuitFPS | SwitchWeaponGroup”)
11. comment it out like: //KeyBindArray2=(Name=”E”,Command=”Use | push | PickUpActor | QuitFPS | SwitchWeaponGroup”)
12. everywhere you see a “|” character in the file, make sure that it has spaces on either side, like: ” | “
13. save & close this file.
14. BONUS: dresses (i don’t know if this works for non-steam installed versions): unlock the special edition dresses and weapons by opening this file: R:\Steam\steamapps\common\alice madness returns\AliceGame\Config\DefaultEngine.ini
15. find the section: [AliceGame.AliceGameEngine] at the very end of the file.
16. change: GIsSpecialPCEdition=FALSE to GIsSpecialPCEdition=TRUE
17. save & close this file.
18. IMPORTANT: run the game, go into the configuration and reset the controls to DEFAULT. change your other keys as you see fit, just leave umbrella alone. this will also reset your mouse settings, so make sure you reset those as well.
19. to use the special edition stuff, go to equip from the main menu – use the arrow keys to change equipped options – trying to change them with the mouse WILL NOT WORK.
20. if you are using nvidia twinview and experiencing intermittent pauses in your framerate, try disabling your second monitor in windows (thanks spee!). considering that it seems to affect both the newer geforce 460 and my (quite a bit) older 8800, i’m going to assume that anyone with an nvidia card using multiple monitors is going to feel this one.

hopefully this will save you some time & energy – again, i will update this if i come across anything else, but this seems to have fixed everything so far. besides the specific umbrella glitch, the “|” change seemed to be the most important fix. weird, i know.

note: almost all of these i culled on a one-by-one basis from various forums and i take no credit for their discovery. they were, however, all the fuck over the place, so i thought i’d pull them into a single location (for my own benefit as much as yours).

all that said, other than this COMPLETELY FUCKING ANNOYING and TRAGIC flaw, the game is gorgeous and i’m totally loving the hell out of it. enjoy.

[edit] just a quick note on enabling the limited edition content – it will add a new item, to play the classic version of alice, to the main menu – unless you actually purchased the “complete edition”, this link will not work. just ignore it.