Thoughts of Dic

I have moved my blog to my own personal server.

http://blog.dicion.net

All future postings will be there. I will, however, leave the existing older posts here, in case anyone wants to read them. :)

Those who know me well, know this already, so you can just skip straight down below to the story. However, for those who do not know...

The Zombie apocalypse is coming.

It is coming, and there is no stopping it. The only thing we can do is prepare, train, and survive.

I am one of many out there that believe this, and am actively preparing for it's arrival... We already have a base survival plan, meeting point, etc all set up. It is at the point now where I am now gathering equipment and other resources to assist myself, and the group, in escaping, surviving, and eventually outliving the zombies.

On that note, it has always been said that ANY zombie survival kit requires at least short list of necessities. Somewhere near the top of this list is a Bladed Weapon.

The theory is, zombies don't win with speed, or skill... they win with pure numbers. A single zombie is easy to dispatch. A Dozen, slightly more difficult, but still not impossible. A few thousand however is a different story.

You can carry as many guns, and as much ammunition as is physically possible to carry, and it will still not be enough. You will eventually run out.

That's where a blade comes in. As the saying goes, "A Blade does not require reloading".

People differ on which blade works best... some prefer Machetes, and some prefer other esoteric weapons.

Personally, I like Katanas.

So, I was searching the internet for an ideal AFFORDABLE Katana or two.. and I found the Sword Buyer's Guide.

They review Real cutting swords in the sub $300 Range. Perfect! I read over their site, and they have some really impressive swords there.. but in the end, I could never really decide just based on the reviews, which was *THE* best anti-zombie sword. I decided to write the man himself, Owner and proprietor of SBG, Paul Southren.

I composed the following email to him, and sent it monday afternoon:

Dear Paul and Co,

I am writing this seeking your recommendations on purchasing the proper
sword for my purpose. Some may consider my request absurd, or even bordering
on insane, however, I believe that you can never be TOO prepared, and as
such am taking all precautions.

I seek the ideal anti-zombie blade.

Which sword would you recommend for the purpose of separating the head of a
member of an undead army of zombies, from it's body?

It may seem like a simple question, however there are a few things to
consider. Keep in mind that while it is based on Human flesh, it may be in
different stages of decay, and therefore not as hard to cut through.

Also, distance is also an issue, so ideally I would want a sword with
excellent head-chopping abilities at beyond standard zombie arm-reach range,
however, this same blade would need to be manoeuvrable indoors in possible
close-quarters combat as well.

Durability is also an issue. The ability to keep cutting after separating
hundreds of heads already is of utmost importance. As the idea behind
carrying a blade during a zombie infestation, is that a blade does not
require reloading, however, if it dulls quickly, it might as well be
considered the same thing.

Taking all of these items into consideration, what would be Your
professional recommendation as to the proper blade?

Thank you in advance for your answer.



Today, I got a reply:



Hi Rich,

I'd say that the 9260 steel would do quite nicely in the post apocalyptic
scenario we all know is inevitable. Now while I have not yet had the
opportunity to test it on a real unlive zombie, preliminary tests using a
range of zombie simulation targets suggest that it would nicely take off an
arm or a leg with a solid hit, and decapitate. The Differentially hardened
Kaze would probably be the best for removing their heads with, but as it is
differentially hardened it may take a set on a bad cut - and when facing off
against multiple zombies, it would be a pain to try and straighten it out...

So that leaves the Tenchi and the SGC.

While the Tenchi is a good all round choice, the SGC is an interesting
animal...  What most people don't know is that the initials actually stand
for 'Specialized Ghoul Culler' as it is heavy and sharp enough to cleave
them in half with a single blow, and doesn't need to be as fast as a regular
Katana due to their inherent slowness...

I would also recommend a Tenchi Ko Katana for 'indoor' situations such as
the obligatory shopping mall set up where a full swing is not possible and
as a backup weapon.

With these two swords, a shot gun with as much ammo as possible and a pistol
with high explosive rounds, it would be possible to triumph over any zombie
invasion. It should also be noted that the Cheness warehouse is fully
prepared for such an eventuality, with numerous secret stashes of
Specialized Ghoul Cullers and numerous secret passages and cellars with
ample supplies 'for when the time comes'.

I hope this helps in your preparedness.

Kind Regards,

Paul Southren

www.sword-buyers-guide.com


Needless to say, I like their style, and will be purchasing from them in the near future.

I'm finding it hard to organize my thoughts to continue the story of the wedding below. It's not that I don't remember what happened, it's just that sometimes it's difficult to organize it linearly, in text.

I've always had this problem with writing, for as long as I can remember. I know what ideas/items/etc I want to put, I know what needs to be in there, I just can't start it off. Perhaps it's how my mind works... the same device that allows me to jump around abstract ideas randomly, think up solutions to problems so well, and cross-relate things that, in reality, have no logical relation to each other, causes me to be unable to put down a single linear thought easily in text. I just don't think linearly.

I'm sure some people would compare witnessing my thought process, that is if they actually could pop the top on my head and see it, to viewing the time vortex through the Untempered Schism (If you don't get that, watch more Doctor Who). The end result being that most people would either run away, or go mad.

For example, I submit an actual thought process I had the other day when thinking of what I'd get for lunch that day.

"Hmm. I'm hungry.. whats around.... Mcdonalds? Salad? Hamburger? Lol @ chick-fil-a cow billboard I saw that day.. hmm chicken maybe then.. is there a chick-fil-a around? Are they still run by mormons? Does that mean there's no cows in Utah? Or would that mean there's more, because they don't kill them for meat? I've never heard of utah cheese before.. its mostly from wisconsin... eww, that beer Q brought back from Wisconsin last week sucked, but the cheese was good... back to food... chicken... chicken sandwitch? nah... oo.. chicken wings? I just had those 3 days ago.. yea, but I want em again... ok. chicken wings, buffalo wild wings... oh, but their blue cheese sucks... maybe i should stop at kroger and bring my own... would they be okay with that? Hmm, Kroger.. we need to go grocery shopping, we're out of.. everything..."

And so on until I actually arrived at Buffalo Wild Wings. They say men think of sex every 10 seconds.. so there may have been one or 2 of those in there, but honestly, I don't think men 'think' of sex every 10 seconds... to me, it's more like a blanket.. it's always on top (or bottom, depending) of everything no matter what we're thinking, like, in addition to.

So, Jumping around.. (you wondered when I was going to say it, just admit it)

MechaCon!

We took the BattleTech pods to MechaCon last weekend, in wonderful Lafayette, Louisiana. MechaCon is an Anime convention, just like A-Kon, or Otakon, or <insert your local Anime convention here>. However, they specialize in 'Mechs: Robotech, Macross, etc etc. We figured, 'well hell, it's MechaCon, we have Mech Simulators, could there be a more fitting convention for us?', and we were pretty much correct. They loved us there. It was a blast. We were able to secure a spot in the video gaming room, and as such were able to run 24 hours throughout the entire weekend. About the only times that we didn't have Games on the waiting list was between 4-7am.

In addition to that, MechaCon was a stop on this year's 'Robotech World Tour' of conventions, so we had some Robotech celebs stop by for a game. There's just something about having the guy that brought Macross/Robotech to the US, which is what BattleTech was based on, in the beginning (there was even a lawsuit over it) playing a game in your pods. Checkit out:

I'm a bad person.

I don't update my blog as frequently as I should, and that's a crime, or probably should be.

It's not my fault, seriously... I mean, things happen.. lots of bloggable things happen on a near daily basis. So many, in fact, that they take up all of my time, and don't let me write about them.

Well, that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it... for now.

So, letsee here, what's happened since I last posted... ahh yes, the wedding.

Nirt '08

Lets start... the Wednesday before the wedding. Nimby and Dirt flew into Houston, and came to our house. Nimby stayed, Dirt's sister met her, and immediately whisked her away to prepare for the wedding. We played some Guitar hero, etc, and prepared for the times ahead.

The next day, pretty much everyone showed up throughout the day. Lots of people.. seriously, it was crazy. I went to Ikea early in the morning just to buy a daybed so 2 more people wouldn't have to sleep on the floor. Once everyone got there, and we got everything situated (picked up tuxes, etc) the festivities begin.

We grabbed Nimby and dragged him out for his 'Bachelor Party'. Our plan was to take him to Dick's last resort, followed by a strip club, but as we all know, plans don't always work out as, well, planned. We looked it up on the internet, got it on our phones. The address was the same on both, and we left. It was in the university district, and there was construction all over, so we spent a bit driving around to find it... eventually we parked the cars, and got out to walk.

It seems that sometime between the last internet update and that day, that Dick's went out of business, and some other restaurant moved in. Eventually we called the number listed, and some other restaurant (turns out it was the one we were standing right next to, but we didn't figure that out until later) answered the phone.

So now, without a place to go, we looked around, and found the nearest Irish pub.

Turns out it was a decent place. We went in there, gave Nimby a pink cowboy hat, got harassed by hot women offering free beer (uhm, sure!), and generally had some fun. Our goal was to keep Nimby 'pleasantly iniebriated', at least until we got to the strip club.

The night went on, we got more drunk, and we decided that it was time to go. We left the pub, but not without stealing our new Bud Light beer pail that the free beer chicks brought us the beer in. To us, at the time, it was a well-planned covert operation to sneak it out without anyone seeing. Looking back, I'm pretty sure everyone saw, and just didn't care. I mean, 4 guys all walking out obviously hiding something between them isn't hard to miss, but we were drunk, and it was fun.

We left to head to the club. I was asked to find out what was one of the nicest clubs in the area, made a phone call, and picked one. We headed over there, found some parking (in the parking lot next door that had signs saying 'storage patron parking only, towing enforced,' but those are never enforced.) We started walking towards the club, and approached a well-dressed gentlemen that appeared to be straight out of The Sopranos.

I believe the conversation went like this:

"Good evening gentlemen, how can I help you?"

"We'd like to get in the club"

"Hmm... I'm afraid not tonight, not in those clothes"

... or something to that effect.

Granted, yes, we were dressed like a bunch of hooligans, well, some of us (myself included), and I was mad at myself for not thinking of this first. I mean, we were going to one of the nicer clubs in the area, of course they had a dress code.

So, we decided to just head back to the house, and join the party-in-progress going on there. We arrived to find it in full swing. Suffice it to say, we all had a good time that night. I think we may have been a bit loud, there was a paper plate on my wind shield saying 'Keep it down, your neighbours are trying to sleep!' with an added quip of 'Yea, Fucker!' lower on the plate. These are the same neighbours who had just had graduation parties the week prior that lasted all night long. Granted, their parties were on a Friday night, and this was a Thursday night, but meh, fuck em. I work Saturdays sometimes, so it could have just as easily been a work night for me that night.

We packed everyone up, and after some workings about who is going in which car, we departed for Sulphur, Louisiana!

More coming in the next post :P

We did it. We bought a house! All I can say is, glad that's freaking over.

Its not that I don't like the house we got, it's great. I don't like the endless searching, viewing, comparing, computing money, etc that goes with it. It can really start to suck after the first week or two. Anyways, that's over, and we have a house! Woo!

First thing I did... Day 3, was rip out all the existing telephone & cable wiring, and re-run it all to a structured wiring panel, along with Cat5e. Now, I have at least 1 phone, 1 F Connector on RG6 Q/S, and 2 Cat5e in every room. Some rooms have 2.

After that work, we needed to get a refrigerator. These things are more expensive then I thought... Anyways, we found one at Home Depot, on sale, bought it, and scheduled delivery. That brings us to yesterday.

The Fridge arrives, and the delivery people come in to survey the path to bring it in, ya know. We find that one place the fridge has to go through, between 2 counter tops, is only 25" wide. The fridge, even with its doors off, is 26".

Ut-oh...

Well, I ended up having to remove a cabinet and the counter top that was on it. Not that big of a deal, actually. We got the fridge in, and last I saw it, it was keeping my double cheeseburger from McDonalds cool.

On other topics, Nirt'08 is like, a month away, and I totally need to go to Al's Formal wear to get my Tux lined up. I wonder if they're open today. We're slowly but surely moving boxes to the new place, one load a day or so. We're going to move all the big crap next weekend, considering that's the LAST WEEKEND before we have to be out of the apartment.

Well, for the past 2 weeks, we've been busy buying a house!

Exciting? Yes. Scary? Yes. Stressful and nerve-wracking? Definitely.

For those if you who have never purchased a home before, it's a LOT of paperwork. Sign this, initial that, turn over a kidney for deposit here, etc. I am proud to say, however, that we are over the first hump. All the initial paperwork has been submitted, and I've been told (literally) by both my Realtor and Mortgage Broker to sit back and relax now. So now I get to start planning all the work I want to do to it :)

First, they ran the cable tv coax outside along the roofline, and there's 2 satellite dishes mounted to the roof. Those are so gone. I'm gonna rip it all out, and re-do it all to be total badassosity. Multiple Cat5 drops and Coax to every room, coming back to, and terminating in a centralized closet, with patch panel, et al. It's gonna be awesome when I'm done with it. I completely cannot stand a half-assed, shitty looking cabling job.

I'm going to be moving my AT&T U-verse there when I move in. It's awesome. It's a VDSL connection that brings in TV, Internet, and Phone, all together. Screw that Cable TV crap, this is Fiber To The Node. My fucking TV and internet will be controlled by blinking lights shooting into little glass strands. Also awesomeness.

On another front, we're submitting Kirsi's Request to remove restrictions on her Permanent Residency today. It's 45 days later then it should have been, but technically we have until May 22nd to submit it. However, it moves at the speed of government, and I'm worried about her not getting her processing extension in time. I guess we'll see.

I've also gotten back into EvE... People have started playing, so I hopped in and have been going along too :) It's fun.

So the past few weeks at work have been bland. No active projects right now, pretty much just running maintenance mode on a few things. So I've been pretty slow. So, I made a plan for today for a bunch of stuff that's been back-burnered at work for a little while. Was gonna knock it out.

That was until the phone rang at 8AM. We had an intersection on the Houston Light rail line (which we maintain, all the signals along the rail) that went All Red, and stopped there. So, I had to drive downtown, in 8-9am traffic, to get there. Fun.

Fast forward to about noon. We're finally done out on the rail for the day. We pack up, and head back to the office. Still time to do my stuff, after all, I've got all afternoon still, right?

Literally, as soon as we walk in the door, phone rings again. ANOTHER Signal out on the rail has gone all red. We turn around, and go back to where we just were. Cept 5 intersections north.

By the time we get it all sorted out again, its 3pm. Get back to the office about 3:45.. and my day's now gone. Considering I get off at 4. Not to mention, that while I was out on the rail, we had another, more minor, maintenance thing come up, which I have to take care of tomorrow.

So, in short, I got nothing done today that I wanted to. Yay me.

So, I finally bought an Xbox 360. I acquired it through less-then-conventional means (it was a refurb), but hey, it works, it plays games, and that's good enough for me.

I also went out and bought like 8 games for it, all at once.

I have so far played exactly 1 of these games, for all of about 5 hours, and I've had the xbox for almost a month now.

Is that an indicator that you're too freaking busy, and need to take a break? When you have 3 video game consoles that sit there mostly unused, because most of the time you'd prefer to go to sleep, rather then play them? Between my day job, my company I'm a part owner of, my consulting for another company, my lan party planning and running, and my general 'computer' time, It always ends up that I don't have any time to sit down, relax, and do nothing but play video games.

Sometimes I wonder... am I over-stretching myself on all these different projects?

Possibly.

So, Ya, I've been playing Mass Effect. Haven't hit the big 'sex scene' yet, but its a good game so far. Maybe I'll finish it sometime this year.

So, in case you've been living under a rock, Bioshock comes out Tuesday.

I'm excited.

I was a huuuuuge fan of the hugely under-appreciated System Shock games, especially System Shock 2. It was, and remains to this day, at least to me, the creepiest game ever. Something about seeing ghosts of people getting murdered and such... It was one of the best games ever. Unfortunately, the marketing sucked, and apparently people didn't like games that made you think, or something... Whatever the reason, it never got the fame it deserved.

Anyways, Bioshock is dubbed a 'spiritual successor' of System Shock, whatever the hell that means. I don't know, I don't care, all I care about is Irrational, makers of System Shock. made it, and it has the word 'shock' in the title. That's good enough for me :P

So I will be purchasing Bioshock on Tuesday. I'll go home, install it on my PC, dim the lights, close the blinds, crank up the 5.1, and have at it. Should be fun times.

... now though, I'm going to watch Flash Gordon :)

Well, I just finished watching it. Overall it was pretty entertaining. While they did use some common clichés, (the 'I had the item I was looking for on me all this time and didn't know it' was the biggie), and you could see some plot elements coming a mile away, I'll give it a 7/10.

It's worth continued watching I think, but if they don't step it up, it's going to go the way of the Dresden Files. Even that series had some surprises, something lacking so far in this.

So, for those who aren't aware, I am a part-owner of Mechcorps Entertainment LLC, which means that every friday or saturday, I'm up here at our location hosting our Battletech Regular's Night. Basically, It's a pay-one-price-play-all-night sort of thing, and we have a blast. Normally, however, there is at least one of the other 2 owners here. Tonight, however, it's just me, so I'm sorta busy :).

Anyways, I just actually realized tonight, that this weekend, is the first weekend in the past month where I'm not like.. 100% busy or working or something that demands me all weekend long. Yay! I fully plan on doing absolutely nothing of value this weekend. Maybe I'll just lay on the couch, and drink beer. Haven't done that in a while.

On another note, people who drive up a lane that's clearly marked as closed ahead, and cut over at the last second just to get ahead are the lowest form of life on earth. Don't they realize that THEY are the reason that traffic is backing up at that lane closure? I think if I was ever going to flip out and go homicidal maniac, it would probably be set off by one of those people. So at least I'd be killing people that diserved it.. and not just random folks. Sometimes I want to build some sort of air-powered vehicle caltrop dispenser for my car, so I can shoot em out the side onto the lane/shoulder I see a vehicle speeing up that shouldn't be.

... that is all :)

Ever get an injury, and have no clue how it happened?

It happened to me today... apparently I pulled something in my shoulder pretty bad... like, bad enough where I'm actively trying not to move my arm. However, I have no friggin clue where, when, or how.

It was mid to late afternoon when I noticed that it started hurting.... sometime after my trip to Home Depot, but before I got back to the office (4 hour window). I don't recall lifting anything, or doing anything really at all with that arm... until I got back to the office, and I went to lift my arm to point at something, when I actually stopped mid-sentence to go 'ow!'.

Maybe my shoulder just decided to spite me with pain for something....

I hope it feels better tomorrow, or else it's seriously going to hamper my day.

By the way.. day 3 of no drive orphaning! Yay! Little things like that make me happy.

For those who don't know, I have a Cingular 8525. It's a PDA that has all sorts of cool stuff. Camera, bluetooth, Wi-fi... oh yeha, and It's a phone too. With this device, I have entered the world of mobile computing in a hardcore way. So, whereas before, I really didn't care about anything mobile-related, now I try to keep up with the latest tech. Anyways, onto today's um, review of something new :)


So, I downloaded Yahoo's new 'Yahoo Go!' mobile app, and amazingly, it doesn't completely suck.

Actually, it's pretty decent. The reason I got it, is I wanted a better way to check my email then through their mobile webmail site. For those who have never used their mobile webmail, its not all that bad, but it still requires like, following 3 links to just delete an email. It can be pretty tedious to just read your daily mail.

Go! does meet my expectations on this front. Better previews, easier to change folders and delete stuff, etc. Overall, an improvement over their mobile webmail. Another thing I found pretty neat is the integration of Flickr into it. Basically, I can now take a picture on my phone, and directly upload it to my flickr account right then and there. Even titling it and setting a description. I never really was a big Flickr user before, but now... you better bet that I'll be uploading all kinds of random crazy stuff to my flickr photostream.

It also has some mapping stuff, which I find sub-par compared to my mobile Google Maps I have installed, and another thing is, you can't remove, or even disable portions of it. The onesearch feature is also alright, although, its a little different to a simple websearch. It's more designed for things you might need while mobile, restaurants, businesses, etc.

I'm still playing with it, so my opinion of it is still subject to change, depending on if it maintains its 'cool' factor after a few days.

So here I am, sunday afternoon, at my office, replacing some parts on our fileserver, hoping that this fixes the problem. Its a dell Powervault, with 4 drives in raid 5. Issue is, it keeps orphaning one of the drives for about 30 minutes, then picks it back up, and spends 4 hours re-syncing.

So, I called Dell the first time this happened, like a year ago. They made me pretty much jump through hoops to prove that I did, infact, have a problem. In the end, it required me sending screenshots of the system logs and of the 'orphaned drive' messages, since, Dell's own little DSET program they have you run said there were no problems. Sure, because the drive was working fine at the time I ran it...

Anyways.. they sent me a new drive, I popped it in, and all was good... until last week.

It started doing it again... same drive. Once again, the hoops... once again, the screenshot (I was ready this time!) and once again, they sent me a new drive. Popped it in... and.... it orphaned it the next day.

So, I actually got a case worker who appears to know his head from his ass with this issue it seems, so I sent him an email stating that it didn't fix it. I also offered my opinion that I think it might be a controller issue.

He responds, saying "Your model doesn't have a RAID controller"...

Which is true... it doesn't. It DOES, however, have an onboard SATA controller (which is what I was referring to, guess I should have been more specific). Anyways, he decides to finally send me out everything short of a new motherboard. New daughterboards, new wiring harnesses, etc. It arrived friday, at like, 2pm, and I really didn't feel like taking down the office fileserver while 30 people were using it.

So, anyways, as of now, I have replaced every part he mailed me. Hopefully, this will fix the issue. Only time will tell.

So. I watch Sci-Fi, a lot. I'd consider Science Fiction my favorite genre of... well, anything. Books, TV, Movies, etc. So a whole channel dedicated to it? You better believe It's constantly being recorded.

So there's the campy horror/monster flicks that are more comedic then scary, and then there's the ever present StarGate shows that will probably go on for eternity, and tons of other semi-decent programming (Eureka, The Dresden Files (which got cancelled!! Grr!)). However, every once in a while, there's a few slivers of excellence. The Lost Room is a good example that comes to mind, and who can forget that Sci-Fi brought Firefly back... if only briefly. Overall, the network has it's ups and downs... but the highs make it worth suffering the lows.. I guess.

Anyways, since BSG has been doing great, I guess they figured they'd go ahead and resurrect another old show that had a cult following, but never really made it 'huge'. I am, of course, talking about their latest incarnation of....



Now.. I will freely admit, that I never saw the original series, read the comics, or watched the movie. I have, however, heard Queen's theme for it, as I'm sure everyone has. If you haven't, go HERE now.

Does it look all that amazing? Right now... notsomuch, however, they really haven't said ANYTHING about it.... nothing about plot, or anything... For all I know, it could be the next BSG, or SG1, or some other sci-fi show with a 3 letter/number abbreviation.... although FGN doesn't really sound like a viable way to refer to it...

In short, will I DVR it? Definitely.

So... We were renting a 24' Budget truck the other day... and they had this gem there at the rental counter. It almost made me want to try it to see if it was actually possible, or if they were just trying to be humorous.

So, this blogging thing... as usual, I'm one of the last people I know to jump on some new trend-train. Why? I don't know.. I didn't get a myspace account till like.. a year ago... Oh well. I'm here now.

So, let me start this off by recounting a story that was told to me by a co-worker. It is 100% true.. just FYI.

First though, a little background.

So, toll roads. You drive on them, there's booths, they take your money, etc etc. Hopefully you know how they work. Also, nowadays, most toll roads have transponders.. little boxes or stickers you place on your windshield that allow you to drive through dedicated lanes, not having to stop, and your toll is automatically deducted from a pre-paid account. Hopefully you understand how that works as well.

Now, to get a little technical. Those transponder tags work on radio waves. Basically, as you drive through the lane, an antenna in the lane sends out a signal, and the little thing on your windshield answers back... basically, it goes like this. Substitute the text for rf-like communication, however...

*Car drives through lane
Antenna: 'Hello?? Anyone down there??"
Transponder: "Yep! I'm here.... and my unique number is 348956378"
Antenna: "Thanks, have a nice day!"

So... these tags are specifically designed to work on the specific frequency of the lanes... etc etc.. they're designed to talk to each other.

So, here's the story.

A coworker of mine was working on some equipment at a toll plaza. While he's working, he looks up to notice a car going through the transponder lane... immediately slamming on the brakes after going through it and seeing the red violation light, (which means the lane didn't read a tag). and makes a sharp turn into a parking lot right next to the toll plaza (cutting across like 8 lanes of traffic... first clue this person wasn't too bright).

A female driver gets out of the car, and begins walking into the toll plaza. My co-worker, being curious, heads in as well, to see whats going on. He finds the woman talking to the toll plaza supervisor. Now, the following isn't a verbatim quote.. but it's close enough.

Woman: "I drove through the lane, and the red light went off... why"
Supervisor: "Do you have an EZTag? If you don't, or it wasn't mounted correctly, that might be why"
Woman: "Oh... no, I don't have one of those... but I held up my credit card as I went through. I thought it would read that"

At this point... the assistant supervisor, sitting 10 feet away bursts into laughter.... the supervisor does her best to keep her composure, but eventually succumbs as well.... my coworker also joins in. At this point.. the woman simply turns around, and walks out to her car and drives away...

... seriously... credit card.... wow.