Friday, August 31, 2007

Simple things Amuse Me.



I'm sure there is some easy explanation as to why this happened. But it still looks super cool.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Fox News Alert: Princess Diana still dead!

I had no strong opinions about Princess Diana when she was alive, but I have grown to loathe Loathe LOATHE the cult of Princess Diana that has sprung up around her since her death. Hey Morons -- there is NO SUCH THING as a "People's Princess"! The terms are utterly incompatible. To be a "Princess" is to set yourself up as being better than the "People". That's what royalty is all about -- being better than the common folk. You can't be both.

If/when Paris Hilton dies in a car crash, I give it about one week before people start calling her "The People's Heiress".

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

I don't know why - but I found this funny.

While we were laying in bed just now, Mr S and I had the following conversation.

Me - Do we still have ice creams on a stick?

Mr S. - I picked some up while I was at the store.

After smiling.

Me - I was wondering if you had the foresight to pick some up.

Mr S. - Yes, I had the forehead to pick some up.

After searching my memory banks to see if I had said forehead instead of foresight.

Me - I said foresight, not forehead.

Mr S. - Yeah, but my forehead is where I keep my mystical third eye which gives me foresight. And, in my butt I have my 4th eye which gives me hindsight.

Because you are too polite to ask.

Dear readers.... you know I'm going to be off this boob thing soon. Blissfully obsessing about some other topic. But, you have to understand, I've been stuck at home for almost 7 days. What am I going to blog about? Oprah?

Well, I did catch myself watching The View for about 3 minutes the other day. I've been home so long I think I may like people again. Who would have known!

Anyway.

So, I haven't really gotten excited about the boobs yet. Perhaps it is because I didn't do it for cosmetic reasons. But also - they don't really feel like my boobs.

They are way tight, and more than a little post adolescent. Textbook in fact.

I have textbook boobs.

I didn't really expect that, honestly. I didn't ask for, or even know they could make reduced boobs this tight. I'm pretty sure the only thing I asked for was not to be mauled, and that I wanted the doctor to be super careful that my nips weren't broken. Rnip is still trying to figure out if its broken or not.

My moms cancer mastectomy reared its ugly head all over the place before surgery. So the only thing I wanted was relief from back pain, and not to look like my mom did after surgery.

I know.. irrational. Two totally different operations. Sometimes you can't choose the things that leave a lasting impact in your head.

So, while I'm hardly going to complain. It's just going to take some adjusting to.

In 20 years I'm going to laugh at myself for even saying anything. But for now..the boobs are a little weird.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

When bunnies hate robots.



Alright, so my color balance is off - and its not the greatest photo. You are just going to have to sue me until I can roll around getting better shots. This was taken the day before surgery.

Lets just say that Saffron and the Roboquad are not friends. She was mostly trying to eat it.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Saying hello.

I just wanted to thank all my readers for checking in and making such nice comments. You guys are really, really nice. Which makes me wonder how you wound up hanging out at my blog.

The initial plan was for Mr S. to regale you with funny stories. Well, things aren't working out that way so much. You must be sad for him that he hasn't even gotten to watch very much crappy TV. Except for those Hero's episodes he's seen a hundred times. Yes, he's a serial viewer. Once I've seen something I don't need to watch it again. But I digress.

Even thought I haven't taken nearly as much pain medication as we thought I would. Which is the good thing. But I'm being needy in ways I never would have expected.

The thing about these surgeries is that you lose a lot of blood. And, oh yeah - when I medical professional tells you nonchalantly there is going to be some "seepage", I think most people figure it is just going to be some spotting.

Especially when you have a drain tube, you figure the tube is going to handle all that(sweeping hand gesture). There were a few times when I was almost sure I was bleeding to death. I was seeping into my bandages as much as was going into the tubes.

Freaked... my.. shit.. out. Which also makes Mr. S. a complete saint. He handled all my bandage changes without even a funny face. I'm having him do my next surgery.

Mr S. has been catering to the needs that come with blood loss.

Example: Baby I'm hot, no I'm cold. No hot! And cooking protein rich foods, and fetching stuff. And keeping my boob ice packs filled. I got these great boob ice packs from surgery. I wish I would have known about these things before.

So, while I'm mostly just hanging out.. I am okay enough to start playing Bioshock! It is getting great reviews and for good reason. Though I have to keep from jumping. And it does make my heart race a bit. Hey - I can't be a complete invalid!

Anyway.. thanks again kind blog readers. I hope to comment on your blogs soon, because ya'all are so entertaining.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Post Surgery Update

Surgery was 5 hours, not 4 like they predicted, but everything went fine w/o complications. Thenthere was 3 hours in the recovery ward. We didn't get out of the hospital til around 4:30pm, andback at the house around 5:30pm.

But given all that's occurred today, she's in surprisingly good spirits. (or as she put it: "I'mjust amazed at how not writhing in pain I am.")

New Roombas

iRobot has announced their next generation Roomba. This time, it appears to be a real upgrade, rather than just changing the look of the plastic shell, which is how I feel about the last few versions. (In fact, we've found that the cheaper Roomba "Dirt Dawg" does a better job, and is quieter, than the Discovery model on our carpets.)

There's a nice video comparing the old Roomba vs new Roomba at Engadget, here

I'm sure we'll purchase one of the new, upgraded models, as soon as they're released. We'll post our experiences.

Surgery Day

Today is the big day.

We had to be at the hospital at 6:15am today. My tentative schedule was:
  • 1 hour 15 minutes for getting up, shower, morning routine, feed bunnies, etc.
  • 1 hour to get to the hospital (The hospital is about 40 minutes away undernormal traffic conditions, but I allocated an hour for the trip, b/c you can never tell with Bay Area morning traffic)

So that meant we had to be up by 4am. (Ugh!) Neither one of are morning people.At least I could have coffee.

The morning routine took a lot less time than expected, so we got on the road about 15 minutes early. And except for a 5 minute traffic snafu at a major interchange, traffic was pretty light, so we arrived at the hospital a full half hour early.

There wasn't any point to going in early, so we bucketed the seats all the way back, and took a 20 minute psuedo-nap (just resting, never actually going to sleep). There's a lot things we don't like about our Chrysler 300C, but I've gotta say that the seats are pretty damn comfortable. They bucket all the way to flat, Plus seat-heat! I love seat-heat.

The hospital parking lot has Valet Parking?!? WTF? You'd think this was a fancy-shmancy hospital, except that the building where we check-in for surgery is a trailer.

After the ubiquitous signing of misc papers that I'm sure we've signed 20 times already, we get to wait in the waiting area. After about 20 minutes, they take Mrs S. off to pre-op, leaving me alone in the waiting area. 15 min later, I'm lead into pre-op, thru a construction zone in the hospital, with lots of noisy power tools running.

Pre-op is a big room, subdivided into lots of litle rooms by curtains. We get a corner. The construction noise is still very loud, and very distracting. Waiting for surgery is anxious-making enough. The experience isn't enhanced by a soundtrack of power-tools.

So far, the experience is reminscent of going to the airport: Get up early, go for a long drive, check-in,wait, go to a different area, wait so more... And then, to make the airport-travel analogy complete, the curtain-room next to ours gets some tenants -- a family with two crying toddlers. Construction noise and crying children... joy.

Eventually the medical team comes in to prep one of the toddlers for surgery. The toddler switches from crying to sheer wailing. Like Spinal Tap, his volume knob goes all the way up to 11. While this is going on, I'm wrestling with my sense of decency. I feel like I should feel sympathy and compassion for the poor child, but all I can think of is that I wish the kid would shut up. I feel at a little better after eavesdropping convinces me that the kid isn't crying due to his medical condition, he's just cranky.

The little boy is finally taken to surgery, and the place is reasonably peaceful. (construction noises still abound)

Our surgeon is late. She says that somebody wrote the wrong time down on her schedule. This doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.

The aneasthetist gives Mrs S. some happy juice. It works almost immediately. Mrs S doesn't get all loopy like patients do on Dr 90210, she just got relaxed.

The cart her off to surgery around 8:10am. The surgery is supposed to take about 4 hours. So there's a lot more waiting in my future.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

A (re)Introduction


Hi, I'm Mr. Snarkolepsy. I'm going to be 'guest' posting here for the next week while my wife recovers from her surgery. (I put "guest posting" in quotes b/c technically, I've always been part of this blog, I just never get around to posting anything.) I promised Mrs. S. that I'd keep her readers entertained, so I'm going to do my best.

Besides keeping you readers informed, my main job is to play Nurse Stimpy to Mrs S's Ren, taking the best care of her that I can as she recovers.
Surgery is tomorrow, and we're both stressed about it. But happily, we seem to be pretty good about not being totally stressed at the same time. I reassure her when she's scared, and she cheers me up when I'm all worried. (Marriage is nice that way)
Stay tuned for updates.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

How WowWee makes me sad.



Are they kidding?

For a couple of months WowWee has said the Roboquad would be shipping this month. I was happy the bunnies and I might have something to play with while I was recouping. Especially while all doped up Vicodine.

Now they aren't shipping until the new year? Really? Not even shipping for Christmas? WTF?

I'm so bummed, I'm not even going to plug their website. But you must go see the video here.

Update: Allegedly Hammacher.com says they have some in stock and is shipping me one tomorrow. I don't know why Amazon.com doesn't have any. We've been on the waiting list for about two months.

Since shipping takes about 4 days to arrive - it's just going to have to be a cliff-hanger for you guys. As I doubt it will get here before I go into surgery.

Todays Ruining the earth Story.

Oh people! You must wonder why I'm constantly on tilt with companies. You do wonder that don't you?

This is why.



Some adult-tard actually sent me a vacuum filter in a big giant box. And look at all that fucking packing material! The item in front of the filter is some Revlon color stay lipstick. I put it there for scale.

Vacuum filter - not breakable.

Oh! And get this. The filter, which by the way could have been put in a padded envelope - weighed less than an oz. The packing material weighed 3.7 ounces. Four times what the item weighed.

And! Wait for it. They charged me 8 fucking bucks for shipping.

I know you are saying "hey dumb ass". You knew you were paying 8 bucks for shipping. Yes.. I .....did.

These days, you sort of get used to paying inflated prices for shipping. Usually I grit my teeth and just pay it. But come on! What are these people thinking? Other than "hey sucker - here's your filter".

If they would have stuck the filter in an envelope, it wouldn't have even caught my eye. But, when a big box shows up with a tiny little item inside, you know I'm going to bitch about it.

See my ruining the earth series here.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Fwd: Fw: Fw:

Why is it that old people can't get a single program on their computer working - yet they all can find the forward button?

Half the time they can't even send email. But when they do, you can bet its some letter they got from someone else. Filled with giant bouncing emoticons. And pictures of cherubic angels wistfully looking away in embarrassment for the sender.

I picture them saying " I know.. I cant believe they sent this picture either". They are always looking up at the sky, almost as if to roll their eyes.

You'd think it was a uniquely old woman thing to send these kinds of emails. But no.. old men send them too. Somehow old men turn into old women when it comes to forwarded emails.

This is the thing. Because they are old - you can't say shit to them about it. You have to say something like " oh - they mean well". And it spreads like a cancer. First one old person. Then the next.

I would rather see a trillion pieces of spam in my mailbox than one of these forwarded letters. At least spam isn't trying to steer my moral compass.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Confessions of a control freak.

The whole thing is just uncomfortable. Seeing more doctors than I probably would in a lifetime. Having more tests than I should ever need. Realising I'm having a surgery for something that isn't really broken. That's right folks. I'm in the panic stage.

I'm at the surgeons office today, watching other clients who seem jubilant. And I'm sitting there with my stomach in my throat. I know I'll have to let other people take care of me. That I'll soon have to trust.

I've been trying to convince myself that most of my stress is just about hating doctors. I come by that easily. I went to more funerals before the age of 12 than most people attend in a lifetime. It was like my family was trying to set a record for most dramatic death scene. And they were doing a really good job.

Being po' folk, we couldn't afford babysitters to keep impressionable minds from seeing stuff they really shouldn't. So, I've easily earned my right to dislike anything that comes from medicine. I have an unnatural amount of stress about the whole medical field. I don't trust them. I don't think I ever will.

Today though, I realised that only half of my stress is due to hating the medical field. The other half is just downright loosing control of being able to make decisions. And it just feels really uncomfortable.

I want to have some magic epiphany and say " you know.. I'm going to be less of a control freak". But I think that's just bullshit. Maybe I'll just feel better admitting that wanting to stay in control is why I'm so completely stressed?

Saturday, August 11, 2007

The depressing state of trying to buy lights.

I don't know why I'm shopping for lights today. I really need to be wrapping up details of my life so I can check out for a couple weeks if needed.

But there we were. At Lamps Plus. Probably our 20th attempt at finding exterior lights for the house. We started looking right before we got the house painted a couple months ago. Have I mentioned how much I hate shopping?

Okay.. so this is the thing. Why do exterior house lights still fall into two categories.

1. Nautical themed lights. You know.. those that look like they should be on a ship.

2. Or torch lights. Those who look like they should be in a Jack The Ripper movie or somewhere in Colonial America?



This is the year 2007. Right? I mean, on some houses these probably look great. But we just want a simple brushed metal design. Modern looking, with simple lines. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently so, because we've had to expend an enormous amount of effort on it. Plus, I'm sure we are the only homeowners on earth who actually wants such a thing.

We found some fabulous outside lights for the old house. That company doesn't make them anymore. So I'm guessing there must just not be that big enough market for them.

Yet, the stores are filled with these monstrosities made to look like something out of the old ages. People must love that design.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Yep - I'm a babysitter.

I swear, some days I just feel so exhausted from constantly having to hold the hands of companies. It is just unrelenting. Day after day.

Today, I just want a bunch of people to get laid off, so they can know the appreciation even having a job. Yeah... that's right. I said it.

Okay.. what I'm ranting about now? All of a sudden my semi-annual mortgage statement starts showing up addressed incorrectly. Thankfully the post-office re-routes it to my house. Kudos to the post office.

You'd think the loan company would um... keep track of the properties they have mortgages out on. I was in my last house 7 years, and not once did the mortgage statement come incorrectly addressed.

At any rate.. that wasn't the irritating part. That was having to navigate the circular logic of the phone menu's. Where the automated system told me all the information about my loan. Then forced me to verify they were correct by pressing pound.

This was after I'd already asked for an operator. But, I was never getting to one, until I agreed to what the automated system said. When did they start fucking doing that? I've called plenty of places I had loans on, and none of them forced me to verify my loan information while I was in the call tree or otherwise.

They want to verify my identity, but not the loan information.

I finally had to bump out of that call tree and try to get to an operator a different way. Even though I swear I agreed with them, it would send me in the same circle over and over. I'd agree.. they'd stick me back on hold, and then force me to verify the information all over again. Don't these people ever navigate their own menu systems?

Then, I got to sit on hold for 8 minutes and talk to an operator that acted like she was collecting an overdue bill from me. You know the ones..bored and disinterested sounding. I'm sure she was fling her nails. Um hmmm. For a change I didn't even make, remember.

I know I'm a super bitch for wanting my statements to come to my home and all.. but fuck it drives me nuts. I honestly have much better things to do.

Last update on Helio.

So.. the good news is Helio customer service does respond to email quickly. I have to give a point in their favor. However, I really don't understand how a company can stay in business with the reply I got.

This is what they said:

"Hello from Helio, this is Joseph,

Thank you for your inquiry.

I apologize, but if those dealers do not have a working demonstration, then there are no other retailers in your area who have one. I realize that this is a huge inconvenience to you, but you may wish to take advantage of our Thirty Day Happiness Guarantee, where you can order a device and activate an account. If for any reason you are not completely satisfied, you can cancel your service and return your device for a full refund within the first thirty days. Thanks again for your inquiry. I apologize that we cannot locate any more retailers for you to visit. Have a great day!

I hope we answered your question. If we didn't answer your question or if you have additional questions, please send us another e-mail at the address below.

Helio Member Care
Membercare@helio.com "


To say that I am completely shocked by this is an understatement. They're joking. Right?

Within a 25 mile radius of me, Helio has 48 stores.

Within a 50 mile radius there are 143 stores. That covers most of the greater San Fransisco Bay Area. Including pretty much all of Silicon Valley. Which by the way - I think would be at least in the top ten of market importance.

Are they seriously telling me they don't have one working phone in a 143 stores?



Mr S. decided after the last interaction (here) with Helio that we would not be buying from them. But I am fascinated that a company can make a big deal about themselves "being different from the other guys". When they've pretty must demonstrated that they are no different from the "other guys".

Unless that means worse.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Unexpected sarcasm.



You get the idea someone was unhappy people couldn't figure out the initial message. So they added "Do not put wipes in hamper - there is a trash can."

I think they should have followed the second attempt up with a DUH!

If I'd had a pen I would have helped them. I always want to add or remove things on signs. Surely it's is a sign of mental illness.

Three products I still totally love and would buy again.

1. Zeno pimple popper 2000. Okay - so its just called Zeno.

Bought it at Christmas here. Still totally love it.

Aside from just getting rid of acne faster - the sucker keeps a charge forever. I've only charged it twice since Christmas. It also fits nicely in your hand.

2. Solar LED house numbers.

I know its only been two months since I bought them. Here. But I honestly thought they would have crapped out by now. Winter is coming, so I might change my tune, but for now. Still love them.

3. Retrofit Fan Remote Control.

Still hate ceiling fans. Here. Love that if a ceiling fan doesn't come with a remote, and can buy one of these little devices. Makes it so any ceiling fan can have a remote.

Great for when you don't want to get your lazy ass up in the middle of the night to turn off the fan.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

More fun with Helio.

Dear Readers, Helio broke Mr S.'s heart. He said he was fine, but then I'd walk in on him looking at a Helio forum. Or reading comments over at Engadget. He's not fine I thought.

Mr S. thinks he'll give Helio one more chance to try and sell him a phone. He is much nicer and more tolerant than I am. I would have given up on them after the last conversation.

But at this point Mr S. is starting to really need a phone. His phone is really screwed.

So he emails customer support at Helio to see if anyone else can provide a location to see a working phone. I'm sure he thinks customer support will give him a dealer in the next city over. Or two cities over... or even maybe 10 cities over. This is fucking Silicon Valley after all. Most people probably commute through 6 cities to get to work.

This is how it went:

Subject: Where can I see a *working* demo of a Helio Ocean?

I'm interested in the Ocean. It sounds nice, but I would have to see a working one in person before purchasing. But none of the Helio dealers in my area (zip XXXXX) have a working one. They all have only hollow shells. I'm not buying a phone w/o seeing it work first. I can go to the local Apple store and see an IPhone. I can go to the local Verizon/Cingular/Whatever cell store and see Blackberries, SmartPhones, Qs, etc. All working demos.

Where can I go to see a working Helio Ocean?"


Helio emails back:

"Hello from Helio, this is Noel,

Thank you for your inquiry.

Thank you for taking the time to e-mail Helio. I am sorry to hear you have had such a difficult time finding a retailer with a working demo device. I understand that you wish to see the device working before purchasing it. I really do not blame you. We all like to know what we are purchasing, so I went ahead and looked up all authorized retail stores in your area. (XXXXX)

Hear is a list of all the local retailers:


(Noel provides a list of 6 local retailers. Phone#'s and addresses)

I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Thank you for contacting Helio and have a nice day.

I hope we answered your question. If we didn't answer your question or if you have additional questions, please send us another e-mail at the address below.


Helio Member Care
Membercare@helio.com "


Mr S.'s reply:

"Hello Noel,

While I appreciate the kind and understanding words, I don't see how you think you answered my question at all.

To recap: I did this:

(1) looked up my local Helio dealers on your website
(2) called those dealers, and determined that none of them have a working demo of a Helio Ocean
(3) emailed you, asking for help locating a dealer who _does_ have a working demo.

In your response, you gave me exactly the same list I started with in step #1. (You obviously didn't try to verify that the dealerships actually had a working model, otherwise you wouldn't have listed those same dealers)

How is that supposed to help me? To repeat: those dealers _do_not_ have a working demo.

You can help me by finding a dealer which _does_ have a working model that I can see demo'ed."


Should it really be this hard to see one of these phones?

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

The queen of lame.



She says "don't make fun of her"! She can't help it if she's allergic to her own skin.

If any bunny owners ever click on this link who have a rabbit with allergies - please email me at she_said @ comcast.net. Not sneezing allergies. But real life hives. I'm not kidding. It is such a unique problem that I would love to hear from anyone else that may encounter it.

Some readers may remember me talking about her having an allergic reaction way back here. We'd taken everything from her diet and her ear and chin was looking magnificent.

Until we gave her one yogurt drop. She had an immediate allergic reaction. I'm still convinced she can't tolerate petroleum based products. Yeah.. that's right.

I don't even believe rabbits can have allergies. I mean really. If someone told me their rabbit had allergies, I would think they were a kook. But it seems to be true. She came very close to needing surgery because she had such a reaction.

Thankfully benadryl shots got the swelling down. But can you believe that crap? Shots! I told you I have some odd stuff here at the house.

Monday, August 06, 2007

It changes from day to day.

I find my emotions bouncing around quite a bit from day to day. Fear will come later. But going about my daily activities I find so many things to become excited about.

For instance last night, I felt most excited about having better posture. Not that I have a big ol' hump on my back or anything. Just the simple act of pulling my shoulders back, and walking around in public without stares. The thought just made me really happy.

Today however, I'm excited about medically induced sleep. I know it sounds like a really stupid thing to be excited about. After getting about 2-3 hours of sleep last night - I'm really looking forward to medically induced sleep.

I have my normal baseline insomnia. Then there are days of super craptacular insomnia. The kind where you finally get to sleep only to be woken up at 6am by the smoke alarm bitching about the battery being low. That's where I was at today.

The kind of sleep deprivation that you aren't completely sure you should be driving. The whole world seems like a blur around you.

Thankfully the universe took pity on me today and let me get all my stuff done without other people getting in my way.

While I'm all strung out in medically induced sleep-land, Mr S. however, is excited about being able to watch the most unwatchable TV on earth. Yeah, yeah.. he's taking care of me and all. But listen - he also gets to watch hours and hours of crap without hearing the words "what the hell is that"? What's not to be excited about?

Oh my goodness people. Mr S. just told me he is going to watch the new Flash Gordon series on scifi. I might take a few extra pills to make sure I sleep through that.

Another quirky thing you must know about me is I won't watch anything before the year 2000. I know.. super lame. But thankfully Mr S. will watch any ol' crappy thing, so our marriage has worked. I don't know what I would do if he was actually picky.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Bucking the trend Baby - Bucking the trend.

Yeah - I'm going to be talking about my boobs a bunch in the next few weeks. There are all sorts of things that that come up that I would have never expected.

For instance getting bigger boobs is easy. Everyone has a friend who has gone bigger. Women who have gone smaller seem to be more secretive about it. Even harder, trying to figure out what your going to look like. Going bigger you can pad and get an guesstimate. Getting an image of smaller is not so easy.

Now that I am paying for this myself, my ego says I should only let them take 40%. My back however insists on 50%. I know I freaked out about that amount a few months ago, but after I got over the initial shock - I started warming to the idea.

That small difference of 10% doesn't seem like much, but I'm having a struggle nevertheless. It equals a full cup size.

Even crazier - I have always envied women with say a B cup. I always thought I would have loved being that size. I think I was a B when I was 9. But now I'm freaking out over being a C.

Yeah - I can be pretty neurotic about everything. Just wait till it gets closer to my mammogram. My mom had breast cancer - so I have all sorts of neurosis about that.

Saturday, August 04, 2007

I hear they're delicious!

Helio - Are they High?

Let me quote directly from the Helio site:

"We're some folks who got fed up with the existing carriers, their one-size fits-all philosophy, generic devices and disappointing service. We wanted more from our wireless experience. Since there wasn't already a mobile company out there for people like us, we created one of our own."

You can not believe how truly crazy this statement is.

Today Mr S. and I wanted to look at one of these phones. His phone is really screwed, and he'd been lusting after a Helio for months.

So we walk into one of their "premier" dealers in Fremont, Ca.

They didn't have one in the store, but we could order one. Why they think I'm going to order something site unseen is beyond me.

So, Mr S. decides he will have to call the stores before we waste our time driving around. We called three of their stores. Again, these are stores they list as premier sales sites.

Store after store said the following:

1. They each had a Helio Ocean shell (i.e. non-functional) they could show us.

2. They didn't display any working models because they were super paranoid about them being left out and stolen.

Lets address problem #2 first. Have they ever fucking heard of lo-jacking the phones? They aren't even that expensive compared to say.... a Blackberry. And the places who do sell expensive phones have them all cabled to the wall. So WTF?

What makes them think their service is better than other carriers when you can't even find a phone to look at. And if you did, all the guts have been removed so you can't even turn the phone on? Who's bright idea was that?

Update:

While I was writing this post Mr S. was on the line to the Helio sales department to ask them where he could see one of the phones in our area. The support rep asked for our zip code. It was at this point that Mr S. told them he had called all the stores in our area and none of them had a working model.

The rep then said the best thing for us to do was to buy one and take advantage of the 30 day "total happiness guarantee".

Mr S. stopped him immediately and told him that wasn't happening. Which made the rep say he didn't know what to tell Mr S. Who then said "Well then I guess you aren't selling a phone."

This is the best part. The rep actually said "fine by me".

It is times like this I wish I recorded the call. But you just don't expect support reps to say crap like that. I mean.. we aren't being unreasonable in wanting to see the phone in person. Are we?

I also don't think I should have to call all over Silicon Valley to find an in store model. Which at this point, I'm not even sure exists.

Thank heavens they are so concerned about disappointing service.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Am I the only one who thinks...

If you are invited into a persons house that you don't know, you should wait to be invited into other part of the house as well? Or do people think that once you are in the house, it's a full invite? Just curious. Really.

Maybe I'm the one with the skewed sensibilities.

Normally I don't invite random neighbors in. But I did today. I have a little entry way, and expected to converse in that area. She was trying to poach our painting contractor. Which isn't that unusual. We do it all the time.

Though, when I went to get to get the color chart we used on the house, I found her roaming around in another part of the house.

Personally.. I wait for specific instructions on where I can go in someones house I've never met. But that is just me.

This is the thing. My house is rather non-traditional. There is a ton of shit in my house I don't want people I'm not familiar with to see. Taken out of context - its looks creepy and bizarre.

For instance - if we are having a bunny emergency, I might have syringes with needles visible. A bunch of them. Sometimes its like a full blown vet hospital in here. Most of the time I have it all put away.. but sometimes not.

People I know, not a big deal. People I don't know, may think we are junkies. At the very least it's cause for a mental notation. For instance Mr S. told me when his mother visited one time she was alarmed we might have some horrible illness. It was just the bunnies.

Given an explanation - all this interesting stuff is really anti-climactic. But I don't expect to have to give random neighbors explanations. Especially when I'm just trying to be nice by inviting them in, instead of having a long conversation at the front door.

I also don't expect people to just go into any room they please. Or I wouldn't have invited them in at all.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Relief - Finally in sight.

Today readers.. I am super happy. My surgery is finally booked.

Of course, most of getting here has been a pain in the ass. I'm not usually one of those "things happen for a reason" sort of people. I don't believe in higher power. But.. maybe things happen for a reason. Without the whole religious intrusion part.

First let me say - I have this whole theory that getting medical care in the rich district is less expensive. It seems counter intuitive. But, I really think there is some element of rich doctors not having to charge as much, because there is a lower patient default rate. The doctors aren't as worried about getting paid, so they don't mark shit up as much.

Secondly - for the amount of money my surgery is costing. Fuck insurance in the ass with the biggest telephone pole on earth. I can't believe I wasted 4 months of my life with a doctor (including waiting to get in) - only to find out I wasn't going to die penniless if I had to pay out of pocket.

My case really is something insurance should cover, I fit all the criteria. I've had extensive treatment. I didn't think I would have so much trouble getting them to pay. I really resent having an expensive insurance company now. I'll be switching at the next open enrollment.

The flip side.. if I hadn't gone through what I did in the last 3 months.. I wouldn't have seen as many warning signs and sought out another surgeon.

As a side note - I now question the sanity of my GP who gave me the referral.

Third - I love the free market. Over time.. it makes things cost less. If some socialist medicine candidates (Hilary) had their way, I would have to suffer for all of eternity. Even though I was rejected by my insurance mostly because the staff at my first surgeons office was incompetent.

Oh by the way. Just last Friday (three weeks after my rejection letter came) the first office called me to come in to take "new" photos. Two and a half months after my first visit. And let me just point out. They took one photo. The surgeon I was at today, by contrast, took about 8.

And lastly - I feel really comfortable with my new female surgeon. She didn't point at me with a pen. She explained everything in great detail. Showed me pictures of her "work". The office seems like they might remember me the next time they talk to me.

While I had to wait almost a month, and it was sort of a pain in the ass. It was totally worth getting a second opinion.