GamersBeyond Community Blog

So I have been through a lot lately… Ever since coming back to America I have moved a few times and have yet to settle, thus the reason I update so infrequently.

This post is more personal as in there is no news of hardware or games coming out just an update of my situation and the things I have done since I have been back. I will continue with news and interesting technogasms when I get a place to settle my PC.

I currently live with some friends in Fremont, I moved in after being unknowingly moved out of the apartment I was paying rent for… Long story…

I finally found some full time employment, I had some offers along the way but I decided to stay at the university in hopes they find something more permanent for me. My other offers included IT for a non-profit in Oakland and also for a hospital in Hayward… neither sounded as lucrative as the university with the benefits and higher pay.

One of my goals upon returning to America was to loose the extra weight I had gained in Korea. since I have returned i have Lost 15-20 pounds and gained a lot of the stamina I had lost. I have hit a little bit of a plateau but I feel I am about to break through the barrier and loose the next 20 pounds. I have a running bet to keep my facial hair in all of it’s glory until i loose my weight.

In other news my memory on my new PC died… well one died so i am stuck with 1 gig until I get the new memory I ordered and am able to RMA the ones I have now; it should take a day or two as i prioritised it w/ next day air.

I have been spending a lot of time on my PS3 lately. The PSN games are damn fun, bionic commando rearmed is a must buy if you want a challenging look back into how games used to be. My PSN ID is Wissape. add me if you want to play some games.

I recently had some issues with ordering the system from the previous post from newegg.com. The situation was this:

I am abroad and wanted this new system to be delivered to me awaiting my arrival so I would have a system that could be used day one of my return, barring any construction time.

I have a newegg preferred card with a limit of $2000 (why they would give a floundering college student with no income 2grand is beyond me, but I am not complaining and I always pay it off)

I am a good customer/in good standing and usually buy a new system/parts every 6-8 months when I pay back my current debt with them

while I was away I had to change billing addresses a few times to friends places so I could still receive mail, etc… from companies that wished to contact me. I knew from past experiences that the newegg card could have some issues with my new addresses so I made sure to order early and expected some hiccups.

first thing I did was made sure that all my billing and mailing addresses checked out and were generally similar, I have some issues with accessing the credit site using my local connection but figured it wouldn’t be a problem as I could just call them and they could change the billing address.

the address change was simple; same complex, different apt number. I was figuring I could just change the number and be scott free. I had also mentioned I was abroad and wanted this to arrive before I got home, they said it wasn’t a problem.

my first attempt failed, I was declined. I called the credit company’s customer service and explained the same thing; I am abroad, changed address, blah blah blah why was I declined? the service rep said it was a billing address problem and we checked the fields.

during the night they had me do everything from capitalize all fields to moving the apt number to the top line, to everything possibly imaginable. I believe that I attempted to purchase my system close to 10 times that night.

eventually they decided it was outside of their support and after talking to 10 people both from newegg themselves and from the credit services, the problem was pushed to tier 2 with an average response time of 2 weeks.

I decided to sit on it for a week so I could deal with finals and worry about details of my return, just to try again on Thursday. after being declined I called the credit’s customer service and after retelling my story for the umpteenth time the response was posh and pissed me off but I decided to try anyway. he basically made me feel like an idiot for trying to do this overseas and said that there was nothing more they could do. I told him thanks and he ended up being the most helpful of the representatives I spoke to. the call was quick and concise and gave me the proper tools to solve my problem.

at the time I was chatting with a friend of mine and then asked for remote privileges so I could order from “America” . NOTE: this wasn’t the first time I thought of this, I had asked a rep earlier if this was the problem and if I should find a way to order it from the states and she had said that it should be a problem and that I should just wait the 2 weeks for tier 2 to respond.

10 minutes after I remote accessed my friends PC and ordered my parts from “America” my credit was approved and billed. The order went through on the 19th and my entire shipment (3 pkgs) were not only shipped on the 19th but will be delivered on Monday the 23rd.

I can’t imagine I am the first person to experience this issue, I would assume that many people would want to beat the waiting for delivery and order before they come home. so I would imagine that this problem could be resolved with an “overseas” flag where the purchase will go through when bought from overseas, or the reps would have known that this wouldn’t work and could advise me on ways to make it work.

with how easily everything went after I found out what the problem was my faith in newegg was restored and I will keep them at the top of my list to order from in the future.

do any of you have ordering horror stories? share them in the comments, or register and request author status and you could post your own posts!

ciao

ok, I realize it has been a long time coming, and that those of you subscribed or randomly coming upon this page have long given up hope of my return. For this loss of whatever it was that intrigued you in the first place, I am sorry, I have not forgotten about this site or you guys, and I will return in full strength; probably when I return to the states and get settled.

Some tid bits that cover what I have been up to since we last chatted:

School: Almost finished with this whole abroad thing, it was fun but I am looking forward to returning home.

Age of Conan: The first MMO with bare breasts… need I say more?

Mass effect: Lesbian alien love scandal, fox thought it news worthy, I thought it was quite funny.

spec’ing a new system: all the PC I will need for at least another year. I will post actual specs when I purchase it.

finding work: I need a job, if anyone has offers let me know!

finding board: and room, anybody that can support my ass for a few months until I get on my feet can reply here w/ A/S/L.

so yeah, sorry for the absence, life has been kind of hectic in between my gaming.

I will be returning, possibly with a whole new site for the times… as the plan was to set up some kind of net broadcasting thing where we could host our own shows and let you guys get them, more on that when it matures.

So until my inevitable return, play more games!

-Shegs

Welcome to my weekly news update. There has been a lot of news this week, more so than the past few weeks. Which is a shocker since GTA came out earlier this week, and I would think the rest of the media would be playing it instead of reporting.
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It seems that no matter what happens in the games industry and no matter which games become successful bigger companies will blame piracy for their problems. now, I know that no big name exec will stumble upon this site and read my words of wisdom and be turned to a life of making quality titles that appeal to wide audience with the best form of antipiracy available… but it doesn’t hurt for me to explain my theories and possible solutions here to my 5 readers (I happen to be 2 of them so 3 readers).
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I think that the current layout is not “techy” enough as the only tech is in the title bar and a few custom graphics I pulled outta photoshop.

the idea was to first create something reminiscent of a bios, but blue was drilling into our skulls and making our eyes bleed… so I changed it to a dark red. let me know if it is too dark or ugly or whatever.

keep your comments constructive, as I dont at all believe I am awesome at design and could use any help I can get.

follow the forum link to add to the discussion or leave simple comments here.
thanks

Another Wednesday is upon us and as with every Wednesday there is news in the air… albeit not as much news as I would have liked, it seems that some AAA console title is coming out this week and if you are the all purpose gamer that I would think you are then you should already be in line waiting to pick it up. This game is of course GTAIV and as it is more likely than not to reach PC shores I will admit that I am excited for this game, but I cannot play it due to my lack of consoles and current overseas location. Pity come my way, all of you with the resources to play this game had better play it, play it good!
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Welcome back folks, I’ve been out of it for a while now and I apologize. I plan on making it up to you by offering one of my new more condensed and only what matters version of the News. the idea is that instead o f digging around for all the news which mostly sucks I will only pull the news that I saw as important for the genre. This will probably help to drive a focus to this site, as being the only contributing author can be taxing on a newbie like myself.
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expect news tomorrow (my time) so your evening.
I’m going to sleep now and I will post first thing when I wake.
-shegs