Updated: 9/17/09

Today I've actually started to enjoy playing the game Monopoly City Streets, an online version of monopoly taking advantage of Google Maps to make the entire world the game's board. As early as this morning, there was still a tremendous amount of latency as I logged in and tried to expand my empire. But it seems that most of this is (hopefully) behind us now- the servers are up, the game is extremely responsive, and it's significantly changed the experience of game play.

For the uninitiated, the game launched just a couple of days ago and has been absolutely swamped ever since. The game's blog has documented some of the difficulties and the load- about 1.7 million unique visitors every day. I honestly expected a bit more, but I completely understand the difficulties in scaling- 1.7 million *unique visitors* is a tremendous load on any server infrastructure, especially when each user is responsible for hundreds if not thousands of requests against the servers. Well, it's nice to see it running as intended. Finally.

I have to admit, the technical aspects of this game intrigue me. What a interesting way to tie Google Maps into a game! I haven't had the time to dig into the OpenStreetMaps API yet, but this game inspires me to do so.

The use of OpenStreetMaps isn't the only thing i find interesting- the logic behind the game is equally thought-provoking, at times. Since this logic isn't documented anywhere, I spent the first couple of days hypothesizing and testing to find out some of those fundamentals- they form the foundation for any sort of strategy. And I still have some unanswered questions about that logic, though I think I've got the basics down. For posterity's sake, let me review (comments are welcome and encouraged):

Game Objective(s)

There's really only a single objective, as far as I can tell: you win by making money. Your score is a representation of your net worth, which consists of the value of your property and the money you have in the bank. That's it.

Property Values and Rent

So one of the first things I noticed is that each street that can be purchased is valued at $1m or less. I'm having to make some unproven guesses here (watch out!), but it looks like the following properties apply to streets:

• Without any construction, rent is always 10% of the purchase value of the street, rounded *down*. So a street valued at $114,000 will carry a rent of $11,000 per day. A street valued at $990,000 will rent at $99,000 per day. So if you don't plan on developing (which would be stupid... see below), buy round numbers to make a better margin.
• Development of houses (or any other type of construction) impacts the rent returned by the street. For example, the most basic house carries a cost of $50,000. Adding this basic house to a street valued at $100,000 (yielding a rent of $10,000 per day) will add $5,000 to the daily rent of the street.
• If you've played the game at all, you'll notice that the amount of rent added to the street per house appears to be somewhat subjective. It's not subjective- it's relative. To the value of the street. In fact, as the value of the street increases, the yield of the developed real estate increases as well. Here's what I mean: if you build a house on a street valued at $1m (as opposed to the $100,000 example above), the house, still costing $50,000, will add another full $50,000 to the daily rent of the street. It's all about location!
• Density (how many developed properties a street will support) is relative to its size; the spacing is always fixed. See the Housing section for more information about density.
• Undeveloped streets are particularly prone to Hazards (see below for an explanation of Hazards). If there is enough undeveloped space, prisons, factories, or other Bad Things (tm) can be built on them- and this will make their rent yield drop to ZERO (d'oh!).

I originally had thought that I, the player, would be paying out rent to other players somehow. Just know that rent is fixed, daily, and paid by the bank changes how the game is played. The entire focus of the game is property- obtaining, developing, and protecting. Player interacting is very limited- either to screwing somebody else or making offers. It's only day 3... I suppose there might be some potential for allies to develop, but there isn't an in-game, inter-player communications mechanism yet (the docs mention a "Friends' League", but I haven't figured that out yet), so that would be challenging. If someone wanted to spend a little time on a side project, an allies and alliances site would be a great companion. Of course, there would be some problems with username claims...

Housing and Development

There are a number of residential and business buildings that can be built on a street. The key variants (outside of their look and name) are:

• Purchase price: starting at $50,000 and going all the way up to $100m.
• Rent yielded per day: starting at $5,000 (the cheapest house on the cheapest street).
• Space used on the street. Varies wildly, but generally, they don't take up very much.

Not all houses yield the same rent-to-price ratio. The smallest houses (the $50k and $75k models) yield the best return on nearly all streets- usually between 40% of the purchase price in daily rent all the way up to a full 100%. This is balanced by density- by which I mean if you fill a street full of $50k models, you'll have a great daily return on the money you invested (100%, potentially), but the street will not yield its full potential. If you put some bigger ticket items on the street, you can increase the streets monetary yield substantially- but you will take a hit on your percent of return. You'll have to figure out when it's best to make high-yield streets- that'll be a key part of your strategy

I should also note that I've seen a chance card that allows me to demolish a building on another player's street- and I've had someone try and use that against me. It doesn't always seem to work (sometimes you apparently win the case in court), but you should be aware that nothing in life is certain- except death.

Location

Above, I wrote the words, "It's all about location!". Well, that's only partly true. I was concerned that there would be some prime real estate sucked up in the first minutes of the game that would seriously impact the fairness of the game moving forward. I had made the assumption that some real estate would be inherently more valuable than others- like city scapes and historical landmarks. So my first thought was to go attack the major cities and grab some prime real estate before it was all gone. That assumption proved to be flawed.

The logic behind the game is evenly applied throughout- so what is written above about Streets and Housing applies equally, regardless of the actual location. So streets will be the same price, based on their length, no matter where you go.

This isn't to say that property in cities might be more valuable- there are market considerations as well. Think supply and demand! Seattle, WA, for example, has a fair amount of property already taken by players. And not by a single player- by many different players. They are going to find expansion challenging, so they'll have to turn to buying already-owned properties. Since there are so many players and little room to grow, demand will outstrip supply and prices will rise. I would guess that they won't rise by much early on, since there won't be a great deal of disparity between the rent earnings of each player, but that will eventually change and that real estate will sell at a premium.

So the answer to the question: "Does location really matter?" is: Yes. And no. Choosing a spot where no one is going to bother you or encroach on your development will help early on, but (as with actual real estate) the prices of your development will not increase as much over time, as there will be far less demand. Consider that in your strategy!

Hazards and Bonuses

Disclaimer: I haven't apparently gotten into the game far enough to receive an actual Bonus, but I think I've figured out how they work.

Hazards and Bonuses are types of development that directly impact the rent yield (and potential resale value) of a street. Hazards generally stop the street from yielding rent *AT ALL*- meaning the player gets absolutely nothing from the street on a daily basis, though the value of the street is still included in their net worth. Bonuses protect streets from hazards, making it impossible for other players to sabotage it. There are also Bulldozers- which I mentioned earlier- which allows a player to demolish a development (including bonuses) on an opponent's street.

Hazards (in case you don't feel like clicking the "Gaming Rules" button in the game):

• Power Plant
• Prisons
• Sewage Works

Bonuses

• Stadium
• Park
• School (there's a typo in the documentation that excludes this)

You can tie it all together to formulate your strategy moving forward- just remember that your streets aren't safe from another player's evil intentions. I can't say exactly when these chance cards are offered- it appears to be either random, or random and weighted by either development or cash earnings.

Scoring

... is a bit of an enigma to me when I look at the leader board. As the rules go, your score is just your net worth. However, the leading players (currently there is one sitting at a score in excess of $240m) don't seem to have the same scoring applied to them. This may be indicative of a bug in the naming system (something they've admitted to recently), but clicking through on that top player shows the scorecard of an entry-level player who owns just 3 streets and whose net worth is $3m. Huh?

Other Notes and Thoughts

As I was writing the above, I clicked through on the "Leader Board" and attempted to access the "Friends" section, which I've been employing as a watch list (spying). Everything else in the game still works, but this section is down. Perhaps the "Friends' League" is coming??

A more important note: the docs say that "...rent is calculated automatically - so you can focus on being a property genius rather than a math professor." It's a bit of a lie and you should be aware of that. Keep the calculator handy. Manage your investments carefully- and think of them as just that, investments. You'll get a return and, in a strange turn of fate, you will control exactly how much your investments actually return. There's a reason why the "Chance" cards are called such- it really is the only element of randomness (or luck) in the game. Everything else is pre-calculated with cold precision.

On unfortunate byproduct of the above is that the game heavily favors people who find themselves in either (or both) of two categories:

1. Early birds. People who managed to get online and in the game in the seconds that it was actually available when the game started. The advantage is that they received an extra $1m and rent for their properties for each day they were online earlier than everyone else. I think this is the single driving reason behind the consideration mentioned on the game blog for resetting the entire game after the scaling concerns are eliminated.
2. Active players. Plan to login for a 10 minutes *every day*. It's absolutely critical- and they tell you so in the docs. Money will continue to accrue in your account, but not as quickly as it would if you were to be actively investing it. Remember that- if you have money left in the bank after you've finished playing for a day, you're leaving a ton of future returns on the table.

Hints and Tricks

After you've read the above, you'll be much better prepared to enter the game than I was. But then again, I knew there would be a learning curve- and exploring accounted for the first couple of days of game play. Because I'm a nice guy, I'll give you some points on strategy that you might not otherwise pick up right away (I didn't):

• Avoid other players as you get started. Stay under the radar for a few days, if possible. Don't piss anyone off. The last thing you want is to attract the attention of someone with some real cash (think what $20m could do to your development!)
• Given the above, find a spot that is likely to be untouched for a while. Once you build your portfolio of real estate (and your available capital) a bit, you'll want to diversify and go after some better real estate. If you start in a more contested space, you might get lucky and just make it big, but that's a risk you'll have to weigh independently.
• Keep a calculator handy, like I said before. Early in the game (for the first few days), you won't have a lot of money to throw at things. Maximize your returns early on- take advantage of the cheaper houses that offer a better value over time (the $50k and $75k models).
• Again, let your available capital dictate what kinds of streets you purchase. Buying 3 $1m streets on your first day will only give you $300k in rent tomorrow. Buying a single $1m street and filling it as full as possible with high-yield developments will give you vastly more to work with next time you log in.
• Fill up streets as much as possible. It maximizes the street's yield and it also limits room for hazard construction.
• Use your bonuses, if you get them, on your best streets.
• Update your strategy as your resources (capital and real estate) change. I've mentioned a few keys here that will help you get started, but they won't serve you well when you're rolling in the dough. Be flexible and adjust to the environment you find yourself in.
• Remember that the smartest players are going to be watching you. You've probably got a much later start than most, so you're already at a disadvantage. Be aware that being small doesn't mean there isn't a bulls-eye on your back.

Before you sharpen your claws and jump in expecting to own the world in 10 days flat, remember this: I offer no guarantees as to the accuracy of the above information, nor do I offer any warranty that it will do you any good. I see it as common sense, nothing more. Chance and luck will play their part. Your brains will play a bigger part. Good luck!

Other resources

The community-driven sites have been growing and this is not the only helpful site around. Donovan (see comments below) has given us an awesome property and real estate value analysis here.

"Not Giving Away" has also given some key pointers in the comments. I quote: "A couple of tips to add to Tom's useful ones though: the smallest properties can be squeezed into more space than others, so the returns would appear higher on these. And if you don't get a bonus build, spread your cottages between the cones: the space is too small for anyone to sabotage with Bad Things, so if you can fill a street by only half filling, still protected. When you have spare money, find your premium streets, and you'll have space to double your investments too, if you're lucky."

As I mentioned, there a number of community sites, most of which are still in their infancy. Check the official blog site, specifically blog comments, for links users have posted. Here are a couple I've found useful:

• http://monopo.ly/- great forum site for Monopoly City Streets!
• MyMonopolyCityStreets wiki
• Monopoly City Streets Secrets (a little light on the info, but what's there is good)

Let me know if you find any more useful sights. There's a link in the comments for a clans site, but it doesn't appear to be up yet. Hopefully, that will change in the next few hours. The associated blog site is up and has a very useful greasemonkey script. Well done!

Hacks and Other Evils

I'm not a proponent of gaming the system, but I am extremely curious about the technologies used and some ways we could take advantage of them. The game is built on flash, making a number of calls back to the server as the game is played. Obviously, there are the ties with OpenStreetMaps, but there's also the overlay of owned roads and developments that are part of the game's core infrastructure. The leader boards, bank, alerts, and profiles are all part of that infrastructure. If a person cared to reverse-engineer these things, a number of possibilities would open up:

• The allies/alliances application I suggested above
• Email alerts- when your bank balance changes or alerts are received, among other things. Eventually, I do expect seconds to matter in this game- notifications would go a long way.
• Publicly-accessible leader boards. No login required.

And you thought I had something more nefarious in mind? Sorry, I don't play that way. If I do well, I want to do so on my own merit, not by some subversive hacking. The above would be great additions to the core of the game. I actually expect that a public leader board will be published some time soon. Here's to hoping.

*EDIT*: there is a very basic alliances site up here, though it is *extremely* basic. Perhaps it'll see some added TLC over the next couple of days. Regardless, nice work on implementing a very, very powerful option for the game. I don't know if this post was the source, but if not, birds of a feather, eh?

Comments are more than welcome. I haven't seen any other guides, faqs, or introductions to game play out there. Let's get one started!

The equation is simple. From the google search results for the two terms "Entourage" and "Sync Services", you get the feeling I'm not alone in this. For those of you who have not suffered at the hands of Entourage, a brief explanation: Microsoft Entourage is a trimmed-down version of Outlook that runs natively on Mac OS X. And it stinks. But then again, so does Outlook (can anyone say, "bloatware"?).

Here's a review of the symptoms that led up to this morning's intervention:

• My computer started to become very unresponsive
• The poor CPU/system fans started running incessantly (I have a MacBook)
• Activity Monitor showed a few processes going nuts:
  • Microsoft Sync Services
  • SyncServer
  • mds

There was a bit more to it, but that's the summary. Now, my MacBook is the backbone of my work. Everything I do, I do on that little puppy. It's a fantastic laptop. However, with these things bringing it to its knees, I simply couldn't get much done. Not to mention the fact that my battery would last a whopping 1 hour as compared to the original 4. Something had to be done.

So, I started taking things apart. Using Syncrospector, I pinned down that it was indeed the ical sync between entourage and iCal that was killing things. Address book was fine. I also took a look at the sync truth database (~/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/data.syncdb). As per this wonderful post, I did a quick vacuum, bringing my 600M database down to 150M. Unfortunately, this did nothing to help.

Next step was to delete everything in the SyncServices/Local folder. Just remember, if you're trying the same thing, that you have to 'killall SyncServer' and exit iCal/Entourage/Address Book. Unfortunately, as soon as I kicked off SyncServer, things started going nuts again. Now we get into My Big Mistake (tm).

Thinking that the truth db might still be messed up somehow, I told Syncrospector to unregister Entourage 2008. Don't do this. Let me repeat: Don't do this!. The next time I tried to get Entourage to sync with anything, I got a nice little crash dialog, popping up every few seconds until I managed to tell it to knock it off. It took quite a while to figure out what went wrong. I had to run Microsoft's Sync Services daemon from the command line to get some readable output. Doing so finally let me know that the isync database schema had forgotten about "com.microsoft.entourage.notes.Note".

I shouldn't have found the forgetting part surprising... I had basically given SyncServer the concussion of a lifetime by deleting it's entire data store. So I spent the next twenty minutes trying to find the schema definition. I finally just created a new account on my MacBook, registered Entourage, and watched to see what changed, finally spotting the schema update under ~/Library/Sync Services/Schemas. A new bundle, called (surprisingly), "com.MicrosoftOfficeNotes.syncschema" was placed there. So the next logical step was to see how to get *my* account to accept this schema update.

I tried the obvious first- just dropping the bundle in the same location and recursively chown'ing the thing to my account. Of course, that didn't do anything for me. My next step is the first intelligent step- take a look at the Sync Services API for Cocoa. You can take a look here at the documentation, specifically the Creating a Sync Schema article. This finally led me to necessary function call for registering new schema, which I could use to register the missing schema bundle with Sync Services.

Now I really didn't feel like writing up a wrapper for a single call, but, again, if you are trying to follow this to repair your own system, you might want to. It's simpler to do so unless you happen to have ruby + rubycocoa already installed... Since I did, it was a fairly trivial script:

That was it. I fired up Entourage, kicked off Microsoft Sync Services, and I was back in business. Unfortunately, that meant I was back to dismal performance. So, I finally took a look at what in my calendar was giving SyncServices so much grief. Lo and behold, I had 3500 calendar events spread over the last 6 months. And 95% (literally) were duplicates. A half hour later, after sweating out deleting all dups by hand, I kicked off sync services again. Huzzah! It works! My iPhone now syncs in less than two minutes, (it was taking >20 min before), my iCal has my Entourage calendar events, and my battery life is almost back to normal!

If you've suffered the same, or need some help getting your Entourage back to it's (still sad) original state, feel free to drop me a comment. I'll do what I can to help.

Addendum

If you find that mds and SyncServer seem to spike at the same times, crack open your System Preferences, open "Spotlight", under the "Personal" heading, select the "Privacy" tab, and make sure you add:

• ~/Library/Application Support/SyncServices

I honestly have no clue *why* spotlight would be trying to index SyncServer's logs and databases, but there you are.

Our house has a wonderful, unfinished basement. There is a plethora of reasons why I simply love the fact that it is unfinished:

• It doesn't matter if it gets dirty (well, Elise will eventually complain and make me clean it up
• If you poke a hole in the wall, it doesn't really matter (unless it's an outside wall, of course)
• Concrete walls. They're just plain awesome.
• ...

The list goes on and on. Of course, when *I* look at an unfinished basement, that's just the icing on the cake. When no drywall is hung, one can run as many cables as one likes, wherever and (just about) however one pleases. Thus, my Frankenstein is conceived...

Over the time that we've had this house, I've slowly gone about making certain technological ...upgrades. It began with bringing in a standard DSL internet connection with a static IP address, built to adding a *second* internet connection with static IP address and BGP routing, offering transparent redundancy and increasing connection speeds, and has continued from there with over 500 ft. of new CAT5 cable run throughout the house. A bit of blatant foreshadowing: a full *five* separate CAT5 cables were run into the basement...

The project reached a fever pitch over the past two weeks with the acquisition of a 42U server rack, one 4U file server chassis (24 bay, SATA-II, hotswap, awesome...), one 2U chassis for a virtual server host (via vmware, my xen is a bit rusty), and a 24 port managed gigabit switch (netgear, sadly).

I will note, at this juncture, that while I am jumping up in down with glee at this, I recognize that the vast majority of those reading this will, sadly, simply not appreciate this post. You have my condolences, of course. For those of you in that demographic, there are some pictures at the bottom so you can see at a glance what I will, undoubtably, spend several more paragraphs describing in the most painfully dull detail. For the rest of you, read on.

The "Project", as I've labeled it, has involved some pretty complicated planning and implementation has been anything but simple. Of course, if it were just throwing up a rack with a few rack-mount servers, it wouldn't have been a challenge. No, that would have been easy. Honestly, though, when have I ever chosen the *easy* route?

The Plan

A project of this magnitude, with the grand work for which it is destined (yet more blatant foreshadowing...), simply cannot be started without a detailed plan. After several days, several pages of notes, and a to-do list larger than any I've seen, the Plan started to come together. I used a very cool tool called "OmniFocus" to build it up. Boy am I grateful for good software. The Omni Group also publishes a few other fantastic tools.

I managed to throw together an ordered to-do list with associated dates (otherwise known as a Gantt chart...), develop a purchase list, research pricing, and lock down the intended result. A short list of the basic requirements:

• 42U rack, floor mount
• Independent power circuit run from main
• Power redundancy by both UPS (for 15 minutes) and standby generator
• Switchable power control- meaning several 15 amp circuits, controllable by computer or network
• At least one high capacity storage server (24+ bays, redundant power supplies, hot-swap SATA-II controller, etc.)
• At least one 2U chassis to replace a desktop chassis for the primary domain name and secondary name server
• Managed, 24+ port, gigabit switch
• Two independent internet providers with separate lines and methods of communication (I chose a basic DSL line and a radio link for diversity)
• BGP routing for both networks
• There's more, but I'm sure you're bored by now

You can guess at the work (and budget) involved in a project like this. Speaking of budget...

The Budget

Recently, as you can read about in other posts, I put a fair bit of money into a very nice bike. There will be another post very soon regarding my intentions with that very fine ride, stay tuned! The only drawback (thus far) with ownership has been the smoking hole in the proverbial family pocket from the purchase. What does this mean? It means I had basically no money to accomplish The Plan. Not to worry! Not for naught did my father and I enjoy MacGyver! Throughout the years, making something out of nothing has become a talent.

There were several pieces that would undoubtably cost money. The real question was how much. I planned about $150 for the 42U rack (a steal, for a four post), the same for the 2U chassis, and $350 for the file server. As for the switch, I had originally hoped to spend <$200, but found that if I wanted a *decent* one, I'd have to up it to about $300. Total so far: $800.

Fortunately, Mozy, the company I work for, is in the data protection business. We were just replacing a few of our high capacity server chassis, so I made an offer on one. I got it for a steal- all the power supplies, the SATA-II backplane, the drive bays, everything for my budgeted $350. Thanks Mozy!

NewEgg was kind enough to supply the rest for me. I split this across three months- purchasing the server from Mozy first, and just recently the rack, 2U chassis, and switch. I can't tell you how exciting it was to see the boxes in the living room when I got home from work...

Now there are still some pieces missing here- some unfortunately pricy pieces. The most key of them is the switchable power distribution unit (PDU). The idea behind this little piece of magic is to allow an administrator to remotely power cycle a machine or piece of hardware. There is a good reason why this is expensive- it's essentially an embedded computing device inside a power switch. Generally, they run about $600 and up. Needless to say, I'm not spending that much on a power strip. Period. So...

The Construction

We build it. There is an astonishingly simple electronic component called a "Relay". A relay is essentially a magnetically controlled switch. Run some DC voltage through it and the switch is turned on (or off, depending on the model). Cut the voltage out and the switch toggles again. This is the building block for a remotely controlled power distribution unit. Once you have a few of these, you have some options:

The Dumb PDU

There are two pins in a serial port that carry a (supposedly) consistent voltage: the DTR and RTS pins. They are generally used to indicate the state of the device for communication- DTR indicating that transmission is pending (more or less), and RTS indicating a ready to receive state. The simplest PDU in the world disregards these finely tuned purposes and employs these two pins as simple drivers for the relays. What I mean is this: turn the DTR/RTS pins up and your relay (if connected properly), becomes either active or inactive (your choice by design). Voila! You have a very stupid remotely switchable PDU!

The Smart PDU

There is a distinct drawback to the above approach- you can only control two circuits from a single RS-232 serial port. Most computers (including mine) only provide a single serial port, if any at all. I had a flaky DSL modem, a flaky wireless router, two servers and a switch, at a minimum, to control. If my math is right (generally questionable at best), that's five separate circuits. Problem? Not really. We just need to use the *rest* of that fine serial port.

There are more than a few ways that this can be done- you can buy the ICs, etch some boards, and produce a nice serial relay controller. Cost: somewhere around $50, from RadioShack estimates. The much faster, simpler, and reliable alternative is this: Serial Port Relay Board from Carl's Electronics

Let me tell you, it was a life saver. a $65 price tag gives control of 8 independent circuits, 15 amps each. I purchase and had this shipped to the house. Once received, the only piece left was a bit of code to control it. It uses an extraordinarily simply protocol (thank heavens) that was equally simple to implement. Ruby being my language of choice, I grabbed a copy of the Ruby SerialPort Library and started hacking. About 20 minutes later, I had a simple class put together implementing and nicely abstracting the serial controller protocol. You can find the code here. There are a few main methods- power-on, power-off, power-cycle and status. Returns true/false for power events, a hash structure of all relays and their status with the status command. Extremely useful.

To power cycle any of the hardware, I simply need to call "power-cycle" on the relay in question from the controlling computer. Next steps: grab a mini-itx or smaller m/b, cpu, and the rest to build a little embedded controller. I can then slap the thing into its own rackable box!

The Result

As things stand right now, there is a single rack sitting in the basement of my house with two entirely independent (albeit slow) internet connections, entirely controllable via ssh. I've run 4 cat5 cables down to that basement (one for each internet provider, one to route back to the rest of the house, and one for future scalability). The entire house is wired with a gigabit backbone (useful for the Apple TV, but I don't think the Tivo. Overkill? Of course. Can it be done any other way?

The Ulterior Motive

I must be honest about my intentions. As a simple hobby or experiment, this is insane. Fortunately, I plan to recoup the investment in more than one way. One of the biggest driving reasons behind the construction of The Project is the poor infrastructure in the development where we live. Harvest Hills is a beautiful place, but frequent electricity outages, brown-outs, by-law stipulations against Comcast and other more capable server providers, and finally but most critically a back-yard, barely legal (if at all) shared dish/direct-tv connection called the communities cable, and perhaps more critically, another back-yard DIY project sharing 3 T1 (a T1 is 1.5Mbs up/down) for 450 homes. They call it high-speed internet, but you can do the math on what it really is.

So one of the ulterior motives is to significantly improve both bandwidth and uptime of the service involved. As it stands, each power outage results in a prolonged outage of both cable and internet. There isn't even a single UPS batter backup on either! Insanity. Total insanity.

Stay tuned- I'll post a few updates here as progress is made.