Oh, actually, I just found out what the game was, it's called Night Slave. Basically an Assault Suit-type side-scrolling mech shooter... that just so happens to have hentai in it. For some reason. Oh, and it was for the PC-98, not the X68000, my mistake there.

And if there are cease and desist notices being thrown around for Blackstone Chronicles then that's just pathetic. Hey, guys, instead of trying to stop people from playing the game why don't you work to BRING IT BACK? Insane idea, I know, but I think it might benefit you more in the end.

Though abandonia aside, none of my problems with finding the game had to do with it being removed, more bad luck. Like the one download with the corrupted file, the torrents with no seeders around, and the 4+/- kb/s download for a 1 gb game. How annoying. T_T

Fuck me sideways. So, recently someone tried resetting my Steam password. I first thought this was some random attempt by some random guy on the internet, these things happen after all, right? However, this kind of thing has only happened once to me before and back then it was someone I had some kind of connection to (a guy using a machine where I had logged into my Steam account once). After several minutes it slapped me in the face: my stolen laptop! A year ago my laptop was stolen during a break-in. Now, sure, what are the odds that it found a new owner without anyone cleaning it first? But, well, there was this "laptop in Iran" story, so these things seem to happen. And what are the odds that someone only tried this kind of thing a year after my laptop had been stolen? Well, who knows, maybe it just took a while to find a buyer or something. But still, I wanted to be sure, at least so I don't have to go through the horror of knowing that someone may be going through my most personal stuff again.

So I asked Steam support whether they could provide ANY additional data about whoever sent the password reset request like the operating system, the system language, the version of the Steam client, maybe something about the hardware - something that would help me determine whether it could indeed be my laptop. And after all, who knows what kind of data the Steam client transmits when someone requests a new password. Again, a long shot, but I tried. After four days I got this reply:

"We apologize for the delay.

Valve's Privacy Policy prevents us from releasing any account information except to comply with court orders or laws that require us to disclose such information."

Now, I wasn't too surprised that I got a negative answer but frankly this answer still kinda blows my mind because:
1. This would have been the kind of information that I need to determine whether this is a situation that may require legal steps or whether it's worth getting an attorney involved - that makes it a crazy vicious cycle. Plus I don't really know what kind of information they have. Now, let's assume that I paid an attorney to do some magic and force them to reveal everything they have - in the end it may turn out that for technical reasons they are not even able to provide the information I need and all of this would just have been a waste of my time and money.
2. They talk about account information but... wait a minute! They gave me the IP address of the person trying to gain access when the request was made, so sharing THAT information which happens to be "Personally Identifiable Information" (as it is called in their privacy agreement) is okay but they cannot give me a few random facts like the client's version number? What the hell?! Plus it's MY account and I've confirmed that! They will provide some contractor with this information but not me? The hell is going on here?!

Anyway, I can't blame the support dude assigned to the issue - frankly the delay makes me assume that someone has actually checked whether they could give me something. Still, the thing pisses me off, particularly due to the lack of logic. After all, they DID give me the IP address when the request was made... now they could give me a little friggin' SOMETHING that isn't quite as sensitive, right?

And don't get me wrong. I'm still aware that this was most likely some random attempt by some random dude or by someone who got my account name through other means but still... I just want a little certainty.

I'm fairly sure there are laws for that kind of stuff, including a company having to give you all your stored personal information. And since it's your account that has asked for password reset, surely, you could ask them for the info on the grounds of that? I do believe this has to be done via a physical letter, I am completely rubbish when it comes to law tho

Nothing to bitch about for me other than lack of hours at work and me getting a little nutty from time to time from being home too much.

Living in the midwest = not really much to do in the winter.

You know, thinking about it I may actually call a lawyer tomorrow. I actually know a guy who has already helped me with a few things for free (a very good friend of my family), so who knows.

You have to constantly annoy them like there is no tomorrow. In time, they will get sick of your emails, text messages and phone calls. Then they will pay you back.

I hate scalpers. People that over-inflate prices to line their own pockets are pricks (caveat: a slight increase is fine)

This is in relation to ESO Imperial Edition in Australia. It's already overpriced here (AU$140) and we didn't get many copies. Some arsehole decided to buy 99 copies and is selling them on eBay for AU$300 (which he increased to AU$350 today!)

In case anyone asks: I already have my copy, I just HATE this sort of thing happens to people

EDIT: I fail at spelling

Yeah they are some of the lowest forms of life. Taking advantage of their fellow man. Like you said a small 10-20% increase is sort of reasonable, but when you start to encroach on a 50% mark up you need to be beaten within an inch of your life and your goods and your profits given to a charity. Assholes.

Working overtime is time better spent in my opinion, well unless you consider bugging people to be a form of fun :-P Really, 100 bucks is not worth obsessing about.

I usually keep my 2012 Philips Smart-TV (I think the model is Philips 47PFL4007T LED TV) without an internet connection, as it doesn't seem to have really useful online features anyway. Not even Netflix support, it has some costly online pr0n channel options and weather pages though, meh.

Anyway, when I recently connected my LAN cable to it, I was delighted to see an incoming, recent firmware update available for it. I thought Philips wouldn't release any new firmwares anymore for a two years old TV.

I am unsure what benefits this new firmware offers, now I see a menu appearing in some channels which lets me see more details about the incoming programs in a pretty good menu system, but I am unsure if this was there already before, as long as I had had it connected to internet. Naturally there was also the TV program system that comes with the signal, but that has always been rather slow and cumbersome, the internet version works better.

But this new firmware seems to have lots of new bugs. With a week after use, at least things like this:

- Sometimes I get no audio at all with my external TV speaker system (also from Philips), connected with a HDMI cable. Shutting down and restarting the TV and the speaker system usually seems to fix that.

- Especially if I switch to using the legacy SCART-connection (for my PS2 console, or my old TV program recording box), I seem to be unable to switch back to the TV internal receiver. The "watch TV source" buttons often seem unresponsive, I just get a black screen no matter what I do, after using the legacy SCART connection. Shutting down and restarting the TV and the speaker system usually seems to fix that.

- Sometimes when I turn on the aforementioned SCART sources (like the recording box), I get a big "No signal" error box on the screen, even though the video signal from e.g. the recording box shows fine. And that error goes nowhere, and I can't cancel/remove it either. Restarting the recording box or PS2 seems to usually get rid of that pesky error message, not sure if I sometime had to restart also the TV.

I certainly hope Philips releases yet another firmware update for this TV, otherwise I want the old firmware back! I'm getting tired of having to switch the TV and stereo system off and on many times a day due to these errors.

Yeah but I'm not sure if that is an option in Hungary and if one enjoys trolling people, then bugging people is a form of fun. :)
I consider that behavior, a legal way of stealing. But we shouldn't really hate the player...we should hate the game.

More medical/mental/healthcare problems... what else is new...

Made appointments with my doctors (200 miles away) about 6 weeks ago. The soonest I could get in was tomorrow. Fine and good until today - I wake up with a flu that has just gotten worse throughout the day. There is no way I can do a 10-hour trip tomorrow like this.
Next available appointments are in 5 weeks... :(

Do you live on an island?

Nope. I live in a spot where five deserts meet each other.
We have a hospital, plenty of doctors, and like 80 freaking dentists - but no mental healthcare.
The region used to have a few psychiatrists, but a few years ago they all moved, retired, or died. Now the closest one is literally 190 miles away.

You live here?