Shinmizu's page

ANW's 6th season is currently being filmed. They've wrapped up Venice, CA, Dallas, and St. Louis. Miami's being filmed Friday and Saturday this weekend (May 2-3), and Denver will be filmed on the 13th and 14th. The show will begin airing on NBC on Monday, May 26 at 9/8 Eastern/Central. It will run into September, and each episode will be two hours.

After about four or five months of chiropractor visits (sciatic nerve pain from a pinched L4, L5, and S1--holy hell that hurts, by the way), a few months shy of two years of exercise and training, and 65 pounds dropped, yes, I got to compete in the qualifiers in Dallas. :)

No, I can't tell you how I or anyone else did (except for anyone they've showed on the commercials, and then I can only repeat what happened in the commercial).

No, there's no guarantee I'll get even a second of airtime (they usually run upwards of 125+ people overnight ALL NIGHT LONG, and that's very difficult to cram into two hours).

No, they didn't actually send me an invitation; I had to go as a walk-on. I arrived and claimed my spot in the walk-on line on a Friday. Eight people were already in line ahead of me (the first guy got there Wednesday). The filming started Monday night after sunset, with some of us not running until the very wee hours of Tuesday morning before sunrise.

Yes, I wore my hat the entire time. Look for me in the Dallas episodes. :)

I'm a bit surprised there's not a thread for this. I thought there would be at least a few former G4 watchers that would be talking about the show.

So, it's been airing its fifth season for about three weeks so far, alternating between G4/Esquire and NBC. They've shown the regional qualifiers for Venice Beach, Baltimore, and Miami. Next week is Denver. I know several people that were there, and one of those people was me!

Camped out in the walk-on line from Friday to Sunday (some guys actually got there Wednesday and Thursday), and got a number to run: "W174." Alas, filming stopped at sunrise (I dropped 60 pounds, and all I got was this lousy number!), with them only having reached W161. Poo. (I think they were using continuous numberings from previous regions, since the guys in Venice had W001 to W050.)

On the bright side, I *did* actually get called onto the set and got to hang out with all of the competitors in the waiting/warm-up area, and I was mere inches from the course when they took us alongside to explain the rules. Also, since the competitor area was right next to the quintuple steps, you can start a drinking game and take a shot every time you see me! (I'm in the Indiana Jones-ish hat with a large gray raincoat, glasses, and a freshly trimmed beard. From the camera side of the course, we're all bunched up to the left of the bleachers, almost directly behind the quintuple steps.)

Denver qualifiers are going to be on G4/Esquire at 8:00 Central Sunday, July 21, and at 7:00 Central Monday, July 22 on NBC. Yes, those are two completely different episodes showing the same night of filming (a very long, cold night... just barely above freezing), but a different subset of competitors.

If they show their runs, cheer extra for Christopher Gray (for driving me and a couple other walk-ons around Denver), Shaun Summers for letting me train on his homemade course (I think there's a good two dozen obstacles he has), and Joey Zavala (for driving me from Denver to Amarillo, which was about half of the trip back into central Oklahoma).

Seriously, they ran 125 people that night, and only show such a small handful of them.

My recent trip to Denver and last-minute emergency trip alterations due to the weather events around Oklahoma City have put a major hit on my finances. Unfortunately, I will need all of my subscriptions cancelled for an unforseeable amount of time into the future. Hopefully, I'll be able to resume sometime, but it doesn't look like it'll be anytime soon, unfortunately. :(

Please cancel all subscriptions *after* the late-July shipment, and remove the pre-ordered WizKids miniatures from my sidecart.

Thanks to the weeks of record highs (seriously... 113 in June? Mother Nature's smoking something bad), a now-dead A/C system that probably saw zero maintenance for the decades before we moved into the new place, and the imminent arrival of twins, funds are going to be severely restricted for an unforeseen amount of time. Otherwise, I'd love to stay a Pathfinder Superscriber. :(

I finally got around to going through old emails and noticed that for the third (or fourth, maybe) time, adding a new subscription or re-adding a previously canceled subscription has reset my preferred delivery method from UPS Ground to Standard Postal Delivery. This time, it was the Pathfinder Fiction subscription.

(I'm able to set the preferred shipment method back to UPS Ground just fine, but I believe this issue should be rectified. Wouldn't be such a fuss if the local postal service wasn't notorious for delivering packages to the wrong streets, losing entire boxes, etc.)

Let's try this again... the forums keep eating my posts, and I end up with an entry that says "0 posts," and when I click on it, it just takes me to the top-level Customer Service forum page. *kicks at the server hamster, rolls a 1 and ends up smacking self in the face* :(

I received an email for #1292722 and #1292716 combined together that gave a UPS tracking number and stated a package with eleven items would be shipped. Based on this, I assumed that the packages were being combined into a single shipment.

However, six days ago, I received a single package with only four items (the items listed in #1292716). The remaining seven items from order #1292722 appear to have been shipped in a different package. Is it possible to get a tracking number for this package, or was it intended to go out in the same shipment as #1292716? (Do I need to contact UPS if this is the case?)

On November 19, I received an email with the subject line "Paizo Order #1292722, #1292716 Shipment" that stated:

"A package containing 11 items from Paizo Order #1292722 is about to ship from the Paizo warehouse via UPS Ground, estimated 4 to 5 business days in transit."

A single UPS tracking number was provided. This led me to believe that the two orders were being combined into either a single package, or a single shipment.

A single UPS tracking number was provided. Five days ago, I received a single package with four items, and using the provided UPS tracking number on ups.com states the package has been delivered. Checking my order history, #1292716 has four items, and #1292722 should have the remaining seven items.

Is there a tracking number available for the remaining seven items in order #1292722, or were the two packages supposed to be sent in the same shipment and I need to contact UPS or something?

I received an email on November 19 with two order numbers (#1292722, #1292716) in the subject header. Looking at my accounts page, order #1292722 actually had seven items, and order #1292716 had four items. The email stated:

"A package containing 11 items from Paizo Order #1292722 is about to ship from the Paizo warehouse via UPS Ground, estimated 4 to 5 business days in transit." (along with my address, the list of products, etc.)

A single UPS tracking number was provided. This led me to believe that the two orders had been combined and were shipping together. Five days ago, I received a single package with the four items that were listed in order #1292716, and the tracking number provided in the email gives a "Delivered" status, so it does not appear that the two orders were combined or shipped together.

Is there a tracking number available for the package containing these seven items, or were the two packages actually supposed to be in the same shipment and I need to contact UPS?

I'm probably overlooking it, but I see the options to change address and payment method, but not one to change shipping method.

I had previously set my shipping method to be UPS Ground for its tracking capabilities due to previous history with the local postal service simply not delivering packages period, necessitating reships and the like, but for some reason the shipping method for this order is listed as being via Postal Service.

(I'm guessing that the shipping method resets to USPS when a new subscription is added? I had the RPG, Chronicles, and Companion subscriptions coming in with UPS Ground, and later added the Adventure Path subscription. I just checked the "My Subscriptions" page and it had the future shipments listed as USPS instead of UPS Ground, and I was able to change those shipments back to UPS Ground, but am unable to do so for #1292716.)

Could you please change the shipment method for #1292716 to be UPS Ground? Thank you.

Listed as having been placed July 26, and having shipped August 4. Given the relative expediency of the previous shipments, I'm a bit concerned after fifteen days.

Are there any delivery difficulties of which you are aware, or should I just be patient a few more days? (Not sure at all if tracking is possible with USPS shipments.)