Snapped a quick pic while at the Thunderbird in Ocean City, Maryland.  Happens to be the place I’ve stayed at for the past couple of times in OC.  Much cheaper than the Hilton which towers high above next door.  You get whatchya pay for.

This past weekend I ventured back down to Ocean City, Maryland with Jeremy Thursday thru Sunday.  After checkout we hung out at the Thunderbird Beach Motel pool and later got changed over at the Hilton.   We decided to wonder around a bit inside the Hilton where we came across a video game room.  Inside were several arcade and pinball machines.  One of the arcade games was Aliens:Extermination.  Unfortunately, a Windows Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) etched it’s ugly face onto the screen with some ntfs.sys error.  Guess Microsoft exterminated those aliens. 

(click images for larger size)

I just got back yesterday from my overnight trip to New York for business.  I stayed at the New Yorker which is located just down the road from where the New York office of the company I work for is located.  When I woke up in the morning I was surprised to see that the shower had a total of 4 water controls.  (2 Hot)(2Cold).  After scratching my head for a brief few seconds because I thought I was seeing double, I soon realized that one set controlled the lower faucet, and the upper set controlled the top showerhead.

I snapped a pic of it with my blackberry.  Just something I have never quite seen before and thought it was funny.

The Netflix movies did arrive on Saturday.  Unfortunately, because there was an email system failure at work I had to concentrate on trying to restore services throughout the weekend to get things back and running before Monday.  No movie watching for me.  Blah.

The latest message on the Netflix website indicates that DVDs which should have been mailed on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week will now be shipping today (Friday).  I decided to look in my queue and it says my next two movies should be shipped on Monday.  Ahhhh!  Caught you Netflix.  What’s going on here.  Lies Lies.  Oh well…life does go on.  Click on the screen capture below to see what I’m talking about.

Netflix Message Lies

Let’s see if I get my movies by tomorrow anyhow.  I assume any mass shipment of DVDs today is going to put some strain on the USPS with the backlog of deliveries.  Netflix members will also be getting a 15% credit to their account on the next billing cycle which for my $13.99 / month plan translates to $2.10 credit.

Netflix Message on Friday 8/15/2008

Update (Thursday Evening 8-14-2008).  Looks like my movies which said they would ship today have again been delayed to show Friday as an expected shipment date.  Netflix system’s which are reportedly proprietary in nature must be really hosed or there is something they don’t want the general public to know about.  HackingNetflix.com reported that a possible botched Oracle database upgrade could be the root cause.  They have yet to determine an exact cause of the failure either.  Early reports are that Netflix could stand to lose millions of dollars per day that they are down, along with a potential decrease in customer base if people decide to make a switch over to the online Blockbuster rental brand.
CNN Article:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/14/news/companies/netflix_outage.ap/index.htm?cnn=yes
A new Netflix notice has appeared on their website.  Changed from ‘Might Been Delayed’ to ‘Likely Been Delayed’ also stating how credits will be applied to next billing cycle or trials for new customers extended.  (click for larger image)

|….Original Posting…..|
I was wondering why I never received an email this past Tuesday morning from Netflix about having received my two DVDs (21 and The Bucket List).  Apparently Netflix is experiencing technical glitches in their system which have prevented them from sending any DVDs out of the warehouses or even dispatching emails to confirm receipt. DVDs I should have received this past Wednesday were nowhere to be found.  My next DVDs say they are expected to ship today (Thursday). Ugh, technology is so awesome! 

The official message within their website says: