During a lengthy email chain with some members of my family, the following exchange occurred:

Will: Don’t you people have jobs? It must be nice to get paid to dick around on email all day.

K: I know someone working in IT isn’t asking about jobs. Anyone one whose job it is to wait until something breaks to actually work shouldn’t be talking crap. Don’t you have an x-box hooked up to your computer at your desk? I know you spend all day on x box live until someone can’t figure out their Excel document!

Will: Just b/c your IT guys are lazy sacks of shit doesn’t mean that the entire industry is that way.

K: I thought it was a prerequisite for the position. Come on, you don’t have a “game boy product” at your desk right now? Don’t lie.

Will: I’m done with this conversation.

I was pretty mad at this point, so I just stopped responding. A few of our readers would consider themselves techs, whether you do maintainance, coding, or whatever. What do you think? Is he right?

While on our way home, Will and I were discussing whether or not a friend was a D&D gamer. The friend already had an interest in video games and comics, so D&D isn’t TOO far behind. In a moment that could only be described as ‘true-geek-love’, we said in unison “video games, comics, D&D…TRIFECTA!!!!”. We shared a good laugh as we turned off of Route 1.

I am so lucky to have such a wonderful, silly and equally geeky husband. I will roll d20’s with this man for the rest of my days!!!

Three days. That’s how long I’ve had my URGE subscription. Just a few minutes ago, at the very beginning of a song, my Zen Micro Photo threw the error message “Playback error” and stopped playing music. I have been able to pinpoint the problem to my DRM-ed tracks, since the unprotected ones play just fine. I reset my player, thinking that it would fix the problem (it works with PCs all the time). Started up, rebuilt library, playback error.

When I get home tonight I’ll resync with my library and see what difference it makes, if any. I know that licenses have to be renewed every so often with these subscription services, but three days? Isn’t that a little too soon? A quick Google search brought up others with similar issues, but they used Rhapsody’s service. Since they are both PlayForSure, maybe they are related?

I put in a request with URGE support, but I have no doubt that I will get the standard, “check with your device manufacturer” or “is your firmware up to date?” response.

Update: I got a lengthy response from URGE support describing a step-by-step process for fixing the problem. I’ll give it a shot tonight. If you are interested in seeing the message, read on. (more…)