Rants

Something Is Trying To Tell Me Something

I went shopping for my new USB Thumb Drive on the net. I started with the Lockergnome version of a price grabber search and then tried yahoo shopping. At Yahoo I found a good deal on a 128MEG Apacer drive with a neato docking station/extension cord thingie for $49 from here. I placed my order using the info in my Yahoo Wallet and within moments received a confirmation email. So far, so good.

Later that night I got an email informing me that for security reasons they won’t ship to a different address than my billing address. I am informed, in a way that lead me to believe that English was not the author’s original language, that I need to fill out the attached form and fax it back to them. The them in question is a outfit called SuperMediaStore.com not the dvd-rw media .com I thought I bought from. The return email address is supermediastore_annie@linkyo.com, so I type in www.linkyo.com into the address bar of IE and I get a generic “we haven’t been built yet” page from yahoo/Geocities hosting. Now things are not so good, the warm and fuzzy I felt on originally ordering is all but gone, but being a red-blooded American consumer, the low price offered kept me in the game. It was too late to call the phone number in the email, even with the West Coast time difference, so I figured I’d wait until I get to work in the morning and fax the authorization in.

This morning I checked my email before heading off to work and I discovered an email from DVD-RWMedia.Com AKA Selvi@linkyo.com promising me a free pen drive if I bought a 25 pack of DVD-RW discs. Jeez, spammed already, I don’t remember any place to opt in or out of email offers during the checkout process from these folks.

Still intent to go through with the purchase, I went down to the fax machine and loaded up my form. After several rings, I could here the announcement in the background, “The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please check the number and try again.” I check the number on the paper against the number I dialed and they match. Well, that was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, I’ve got to find another place to get my drive from.

When I tried to call the number that was listed on the web page for canceling, I got the same “no longer in service” message that I got when faxing. Then I went to Annie’s email and below her name was an 888 number and a different fax number (it probably works.) After listening to the 8 branches of voice mail tree I selected Customer Service and was connected to probably the same person who would have answered any of the selections. Judging by the voice, it was probably Annie Ang, author of the email. After seeing that the order was on hold in her system, she told me, “No problem, I’ll cancel it.”

There was a place that was close to getting my business yesterday, so I hunted them up in the history file and went back. Ordered a 128 MEG drive from a place called Wolverine Data. No fancy docking station, but it does come with a couple of different color covers so I can match it to my wardrobe or mood. 🙂 Like yesterday, I got an almost instant confirmation email. So far, so good.

Today I got an email telling me the drive had shipped.

1.3 Episodes

That is how many I managed to slog through of the cult fave show, “The Osbournes”. I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t do it. The novelty of actually hearing the “F” word instead of bleep wore off rather quickly. Partly because it was used so frequently by every member of the household, including, I think, the dogs and partly because I guess I’m old fashioned. And poor addled Ozzy, I think he had too many nights of living the high-life. He shook when he was sitting on the couch, sad. I kind of like his music, I have a couple solo CDs and a Black Sabbath one as well, but when they showed him making a Tonight Show appearance and he sang, it sounded the same as every thing he has done before. Mostly though I am not a big fan of “reality” shows, I have enough angst living my little life without peering into the sordid little lives of others.

Wobbly Tables

Is it quality control at the factory and they are shipped out that way? Is it that when shipped they are damaged in transit? Are they so cheap that after a short time in use something bends? We have been in 2 local restaurants in the last 2 days that have only been open for 2 months or less and both times we got a table that wobbled. Yesterday’s was cured by 6-8 napkins folded in half. This after moving from the first spot we tried because the table there wobbled too. Tonight’s table required the handle of Donna’s knife (approx. 3/8″ thick) to steady it.

Spam

Went away for the weekend to go hiking in the Georgia mountains. I left early Friday morning and returned Sunday at noon. I checked the email before I left and when I go back I had received 42 pieces of spam at the Master’s Miata Club Yahoo email address in those 54 hours. My favorite is the one from Venessa with the subject line, “Sick of Deleting Junk Email.”

Weaving Like A Drunken Sailor

I drive a Miata. It has a tight suspension (really only slightly tauter than stock) and 50 series stiff sidewall tires. It handles like it is glued to the road. One by product of this is that bumps, holes and ripples in the road are felt a lot more than in you typical family sedan. I try and avoid them when I can, but it is not always possible. Lately in our little town, the top layer of asphalt seems to be coming out in dinner plate sized chunks along the tracks of where most cars wheels travel in. Not just one or two places, but more like several dozen. On the commute to work there must be 10 of these little patches of 2 inch drops that I try and slalom around. I think that one day if a cop follows me for any distance he will probably pull me over for my seeming erratic driving.

Locked Out

Donna and I decided to walk up to the Chinese Restaurant to eat supper. It is about a mile one way, so it makes a nice evening walk. Walk, eat and walk back helping to burn off the meal. When we got back to the house, I went to unlock the front door and when I pulled my keys out of my pocket I realized I didn’t have the house key anymore. When I got the custom caricature key chain I didn’t put the key back on, hadn’t used it in so long that I figured what the heck, leave it off. Donna reached into her purse to get her keys and it turns out all she had was a car key, a key to her desk and a house key that we have no earthly idea whose house it goes to, but we do know it doesn’t go to ours. Normally Donna’s mom would be home and she could let us in or maybe the door wouldn’t even been locked, but tonight we had to use the emergency key. I took the screen off a window that we knew was unlocked, Donna boosted me up and I climbed in.

Hudson Hawk

Borrowed Hudson Hawk on DVD from a friend at work, I think I deserve either a medal or some commitment papers for lasting 1 hour and 1 minute into this movie before hitting the eject button. I like Bruce Willis usually, but this must have been something he shot during a hiatus of Moonlighting, back when he was grasping with being a “star.” As a bonus bit of ugliness it had my least favorite movie actress of all time in it, Sandra Bernhard.