Does everything have to get so f-ed up?

Why is it that most people don't know they are crossing a line until after the damage has been done? And so it goes this week...

I blame this new dryer. Even though it tries to make me happy with ring-tone sounds when it is done.



Our old dryer was costing us a huge amount of money in utilities. It wouldn't shut off at the end of it's cycle. It would just spin for hours. I figured a new dryer would pay for itself within a year. But before replacing the dryer itself, I wanted to redo the laundry room floor. I didn't want to have to haul the new dryer out again later to replace the tile.

So we brought our home-improvement guys back. They have worked for us before at our old house. And frankly, they saved our asses, allowing us to get our old house ready for sale before the housing market got really sour.

The first week I was ecstatic.

On day 6, they brought in an extra guy. No biggy. They were laying tile at that point.

Day 7, I hear the new guy talking non-stop for a few hours. The kind of uninterrupted conversation that is hard to pull off if you are actually doing something. I look in from time to time and I see they had been there four hours and only got a 2 foot by 5 foot area of wall textured. Finally I get pissed and walk out to the garage where they had migrated and were basically sitting around screwing off. I know I am a ballbreaker and all... but hell, it doesn't take 3 guys to texture an area that big. And you certainly don't get to be exhausted by it. The new guy goes back to chatting away.

I flat out say "we've got a problem". They seem surprised, and try to make explanations about how they needed to wait for the texture to dry. I say " I need three guys for a 2x5 foot area"? Why am I paying this third guy when I see that only two of you are working. This new guy is just standing around talking. I remind them I am paying them a lot of money.

They all get to work, and the atmosphere has changed. For the next two days they are doing better, but they still really don't need this third guy.

For some jobs adding more people doesn't produce more results. The room is only 5x10 feet. Mostly you are just getting in the way of each other.

Now, I know I complain about a lot of things... but my husband and I are also very generous to people who do a good job for us. That is our only feedback mechanism. If you treat us well... and do a good job, we reward you.

For instance recently I gave a 50% tip to someone who came in to rip out some trees and shrubbery out of this age consumed house. The quotes I got from other contractors were way above his. So I tipped him 500 dollars because he did a fantastic job, and didn't annoy me. The guy got a big tip and I still felt I got a deal.

So, I feel particularly pissed at this point because I have treated these guys really well. I provide drinks, and buy lunch at least half the time.

Not to mention new guy thinks he can spit in my garage. I'm also off the chart torqued that when they use my bathroom, these men can't aim their wankers, and I have to clean up after them. That shit f-ing pisses me off.

So my guys are gone now. And it sucks, because we really liked them. They do a really good job. But they f-ed it up by taking advantage of my generosity. They were suppose to put in cabinets. I told them to forget it. I still paid them close to what they quoted me because they did a good job on the rest of it. I hope it was worth if for them, because we aren't inviting them back.

This is the computer mock-up my husband did.



This is what it looks like right now.

Public Masturbation not a good idea? Hmmmmm... ya think?

We now have gotten to a place where everyone is so accepting of an individuals personality ticks, that public masturbation is a protected freedom.

Masturbation epidemic at SJPL
Jim Faith writes "This article from the San Jose State Daily Spartan, "Some patrons use privacy screens to view pornography," and descibes the situation caused by privacy screens. As on library worker says, "we call them porno screens." Sgt. John Laws, of the San Jose State University Police Department, said people using the privacy screens 'sometimes get carried away' and are caught masturbating at the computers." ---- I think the library needs to start equiping the stations with jars of vasoline and boxes of kleenex, and issue the librarians rubber gloves and lysol spayers.--

Wow... I knew we were progressive around here, but did I miss a memo? Far be it for me to step on your freedom of "expression". And you know it is always going to be some funky penis you would never want to see in the first place. Can't we donate some IPODS or something so they can at least masturbate in the Public Library bathrooms like normal people.

This weekend I think my neighbor died.

When we first moved in, our neighbor was pretty stand-out-ish, because he had this wild mullet. Especially for a man his age. I thought people grew out of those things. He also had intense blue eyes, but wore obvious color contacts that made his eyes seem un-naturally blue. We grew to understand he was a nascar fan, which is sort of odd in this neighborhood of retired grey hairs.

It was fairly obvious he had previous problems with his heart. He had a zipper scar that emerged from his muscle-tee. We have lived here four months, and have had meager interactions. He was a hardworking man, who even though he had retired helped his buddy out in construction. He was often popping his head over the fence to see what we were working on.

He did that just yesterday afternoon in fact.

He was also always working on something. He seemed like a nice enough man. And now we think he is dead.

My husband and I have become accustom to hearing fire engines come down our street. There are a lot of elderly couples in our immediate area. This is the type of neighborhood where nothing has probably changed for 20 years. These are the types of houses that no one moves from, and the only time you can buy one is when someone dies. It must have been alarming for them when we moved in and immediately starting ripping everything in sight out.

Somehow when you have been through a lot of tragedy, you just intrinsically know the sound of a fire engine. Even when the siren isn't blaring, the engine sound is so distinct. Somehow that sound is just etched in your brain.

So last night around 9:45 we noted a truck driving down our road. A fire-truck. This is something that actually happens about one or two times a month it seems. About 20 minutes later when I didn't hear the truck leave, I went out to investigate. I went to look out the front window and see if there were any neighbors outside. None of them were outside, but I could see fire-trucks lights reflecting off of the houses. This was close. But I still didn't see any neighbors out.

I conferred with my husband for about 5 minutes about how weird it was that none of the neighbors were out, with each of their houses were lit up like Christmas tree's. It has been about 25 minutes by that time, and the truck was still there.

I walked to the edge of our driveway, and I could see the siren lights bouncing off objects, but not the truck itself. But I could see that it was just right around the corner. We live second from the end of a block. I cross our street and look around the corner, and see they are parked right in front of our neighbors' house. We face one street and they face another. Sort of like an L. I run back into the house to tell my husband.

Trying to be discrete my husband crosses the street with me again, and there is an ambulance which has arrived at the house. It just showed up without sirens. By the time they all leave it has been over 45 minutes. They leave like they arrived, without sirens.

Now part of me wants to say that I am over-reacting. But my head says those all are really bad signs. And now I am officially in nosy neighbor mode. Everyday I have been listening to hear his voice or his whistle as he calls for his dogs. Or hear him working on something. It has been quiet.

The only neighbors I know... don't really know them. Even though they all have lived here for several decades. So all I can do is hope I am wrong.

Could CNET be listening to my thoughts?

I am under no illusion that anyone reads this blog. But something really odd happened this weekend. For the first time ever, the sound on CNET's tips for Digital Living was normal. How could this happen?

I'm not ready to let them off the hook yet, because it has only been one show. But if my post somehow popped up on CNET's RSS feed. I noticed. The sound is so much better. The other thing is ..... I don't remember them having a CNET TV tab on their web-site.

Those On-Star commercials are real.

I could never blog about this unless the outcome was good. Which it was. If it weren't, I'd be sobbing in a crumpled little ball.

This is how the scenario goes...

Last night I was a few blocks from my house. At a corner on the same side I was driving - I notice this woman clutching what looked to be like an 11 year old boy. When I say clutching, I mean it looked like she was holding onto him for dear life.

Later I would find out she was. The child was autistic. She was trying desperately to get keep the child from reacting to a dog. This scene for obvious reasons aroused my attention. The count-down went like this: I looked at them, noted it was really odd. Looked back at the road, and a big golden retriever is at my front right quarter panel. The same side the woman and this kid are on. Must have only been two seconds and I hit the dog. I was only able to slow down for about 3 feet when I was just on him. I was positive I was going to roll right over him. I hit the dog in a way that caused it to roll over like four times. I was sure the dog wouldn't get up.

The dog does get up, and runs to the lady and her kid on the corner. I run out of my car to ask if it is the lady's dog. She tells me, and the large forming crowd, it had been following her for blocks. Running circles around her and the child. By this time the dog is really bleeding, and everyone is on the phone to the police. I'm freaking out. The dog has no tags, and I am sure this dog is going to die. At one point a witness said she thought the dog was coughing up blood, and she thought it had a broken hip. I'm freaking out.. Did I mention that. All I can think is that someone's family is going to be crushed.

The police department finally made it obvious they weren't coming. Apparently hitting a dog in the street isn't a crime, so they weren't coming. Oh yeah... and they don't rescue squirrels either. They didn't say that.. but you get the idea. I at least thought they would want to make a report. Or take my information. Something.

So my husband is now on his way home from another town an hour away. He is telling me to call our vet and get the emergency clinic number. But at this point I am dealing with the witnesses and the dog. Trying to get the police to come, and having a complete meltdown. I was shaking.. apologizing to the woman who had the autistic child who saw the accident. I was a mess.

Later I find out my husband didn't want to pull off the freeway to look the numbers up for animal ER. I have made him completely panicky. All he wants to do is get to me. His only thought "must get to wife".

So he tries On-star. Tells them the scenario. Remember my husband is not in the affected car, and he is in a completely different town. On-Star at first couldn't find any information. So my husband asks them if they could call our vet line, who is closed - and get the emergency number for him. They actually did. They even connected him to animal emergency from the number they got from our vet. When he told me this after all the drama had died down I was completely amazed. I mean... I don't really think this falls under their umbrella of service.

Even if we never use the service again for an emergency.... it is absolutely worth every penny we pay for it.

Now back to the dog... a very nice lady and I got him to the ER in a different town. All the ones in our town close at 5:00. None of the witnesses thought I should drive. They all seemed more freaked out by my anxiety than the dog. Even though we all thought the dog would die. The ER doc checked him. Can you believe the dog was okay. I was shocked. I mean... I hit him at around 25 miles an hour. I think the limit is 30.

The vet said the dog looked like one of the better dogs they had ever seen for getting hit at 25 miles an hour. He had bitten his tongue. That was where all the blood was coming from. The exam didn't show any broken bones or internal bleeding. I still can't believe I didn't kill that dog. All I can say selfishly, I am hugely glad the dog was okay. I didn't want to have to live with that crap in my head. I'm neurotic enough.

I want to have your babies.

Last night something in my girls' head switched. She decided she knew me long enough, and that she wanted to have my babies.

I haven't really ever gotten why female bunnies try to hump on you like male bunnies. But they do.... and she did.

I'm sort of bummed about it, because I had this crazy idea I wouldn't neuter her. She is kind of too sweet. Which I really hate to gush about because bunnies are a very expensive pet to have.

Nothing can go wrong for years, then Bam. You are living in a cardboard box because they needed some expensive whatever, and the bunnies are nibbling the corners of the box.

Everything rational tells me to neuter like all the others.. but I don't really want to.

Nothing says I have way too much money like.....

Putting suede all over the inside of your brand spanking new Pontiac Solstice.



Amazingly crap-tacular.

Is this really that unusual?

This morning I wanted to take advantage of the deal that On-Star has with Verizon Wireless. I bet you think I am going to bitch about the Verizon customer support. Nope... I know a lot of people have problems, but the customer support has always been really good to us. So far (crossing fingers).

The problem is as follows:
My husband is primary on the contract. Despite both of us wanting to be on the contract, and giving them both of our SSN's. So each time I have to gain access to the account, they have to track my husband down and "ask his permission". What.. am I twelve?

Now there are many things that are in my husbands name, and I have to get his permission to access, but all of these things so far have had an ability to give a blanket permission slip. And let me tell you.....it is a collosally bigger deal than cell phone information.

Before you start thinking.. "well, I dont want my spouse to know bla bla bla". I understand. I fully support you. Though according to Verizon I can put in a change of liability slip, and take over what I imagine is the responsibility for defaulting on the cell phone bill. So...the issue isn't really spousal privacy.

Oh... and correct me if I am wrong... the government already thinks I am equally responsible. If he defaults you bet your ass they are coming after me.

Then of course.. because we are both adults, that limits his ability to independantly gain access to the account.

So I make absolutely sure.. the company already took both of our SSN's, there is no way both of our names can be on the account and we don't have to do this little dance. No can do. RIDICULOUS! I'm saving you a step of having to hunt my ass down. Why does everything have to be so difficult?

Popped up in the yard.

One of the neat things about moving into a new house is seeing what pops up in the yard. I am not sure these are quite my thing... but it is a fabulous respite of having to get rid of the zillions of rose bushes that exist here. I love rose bushes... but wow.. this woman went on a rose bush bender. I feel really bad about doing it, because the elderly lady who lived here must have loved them. She kept all the dog tags on and everything. But I have to draw my line at like 20. Even that is way above my tolerance, but some of them are really old specimins.

People with mock necks - shouldn't wear mock turtlenecks.

Why won't they just tell me they don't want my money?

Two weeks ago I put in an order for an Alienware machine. Like this one.



I did a bunch of research, and found a lot of horrible bad stories about Alienware support. But then... I found a ton of horrible stories about Dell, and Sony. So I figured if I was going to be in hell.. it might as well be cool hell.

First I call up sales.. and tell them I have seen some crazy horrible stories on the Internet and they need to convince me why I should buy one of their machines. Kind of stupid, but I always hope those calls are being recorded. When I know they probably aren't. Plus, I wanted my file to read "difficult" early. Somehow I went insane and placed an order.

Okay, so we just sold a house and have some unusual disposable income. At least I thought. I mean.. Even the bottom-line Alien machine isn't cheap. Sort of like a Porsche Boxster vs. a 911 . Both pretty damn expensive. I certainly didn't think a ton of people are plunking down this kind of money when (heavy sarcasm) the "economy" is so bad. I'm thinking the 3rd quarter is a period when they want to boost sales. It is easy to sell machines at Christmas.

Week one: I get an email.

There will be a slight delay in your Alienware order, because the part(s) listed below are temporarily back-ordered. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and assure you that we are doing everything in our power to expedite the process of obtaining the part(s). Once the part(s) have been obtained, your order will be processed.

1- NEC 16X DUAL LAYER DVD±R/W RECORDER ......................... Expected Date:
To be announced

I'm bummed.. but no biggy. I'm just going to call and have them delete the DVDR, and have them ship the machine. When I call however.. they tell me they are getting the parts in that afternoon. Al-right....whatever. I'm back in my happy zone.

Week 2. (yesterday) I get an email.

I am writing to you from Alienware Corporation to inform you on the status of your new Alienware P2 system. Unfortunately, due to overwhelming product demand, Alienware is experiencing delays in shipping your system in a timely manner.

Because of this shipping setback, Alienware would like to propose two options:

The first is modifying your existing order to remove the AlienFX system lighting control, and opt for a standard lighting choice of Red, Blue, Green, Turquoise, Yellow, White, or Purple. Choosing this option will allow Alienware to ship your system within 7 to 8 business days, as well as refund the original $150 option price to your order for the AlienFX system lighting control feature.

As a second option, if you would like to wait for the availability of AlienFX to be applied to your system order, Alienware will extend and apply free shipping, a $99 value, to the cost of your system. If you opt to wait for AlienFX to be applied to your order, your new Alienware P2 system should arrive within 4 weeks of the above date.

Um....hey guys...I might be less hissabitchy if you would have just said something when I placed the order. Instead you send me email every time you run out of twist ties. Now, like every purchase I have made for the last 6 months I wonder who the hell is spending this kind of money.. because I can't believe I am. Do I have to mention again how the economy is suppose to be bad. Oh yeah.. I think I might have mentioned that.

So I call Alienware today, and basically tell them I'm going to cancel my order. What good is it have a super cool machine, when, um... you never get it. I'm just going with another company. Somehow they convince me to stay by saying they will note my account, and it will only be 2 weeks instead of 4. I make sure to tell them if I get another email that I am absolutely going to cancel my order, and they had better note my account. I mean... come on! They are estimating an outset of 6 weeks. Hey... is this business one guy sitting in a garage assembling machines?

How could there be overwhelming demand when these are pretty high end machines.... and the other computer companies are actually scaling back revenues. "allegedly"

I don't know... if they don't need my business... why not just say that. Something like "Hey man.. we're good - we don't need your money". That way we can stop this bitching, and I can move on.

Is it just me?

Lately I have been seeing a huge increase in the following driving-related behaviors, and I can't decide which ones pisses me off more than the other.

Behavior #1: pedestrians who refuse to speed up when you are waiting for them to cross. As a matter of a fact, they seem to take the lackadaisical approach of cows grazing. Sort of a pedestrian zombie walk. Because apparently my time is less important than theirs is, and I should be forced to wait for them to cross. Walking however f-ing slow they choose.

I guess it is just me, but I thought there was some type of courtesy feedback. I politely wave for you to cross in front of me... and you showed me that you appreciated not having to wait for me to pass by walking slightly faster to cross. Now before you give me the stink-eye, I know some people are unable to walk briskly. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about people who are more oblivious to traffic than squirrels. People who blunder into the street without even the merest thought of oncoming traffic.

Some of these people even combine the "scratching my balls after having a huge meal walk", with the " I'm a pedestrian, I don't have to look before I walk into the street". I can't even say how how many people I have seen...just step into the street without looking. One person recently had their hair completely obscuring her face on a windy day, and just walked out in front of me. Thankfully I was not speeding, but I was so close I did have to do a crazy avoidance maneuver.

It has gotten so bad, that when I hear of peds getting hit on the news.. my first response is that they probably didn't look before they walked into the street. Maybe they should look next time.

Behavior#2: People in the fast lane, with no one in front of them for literally a mile. Because the rest of the freeway is somewhat packed, they have camped out in the fast lane and refuse to let you pass. They manage to time their driving so there is almost no way to get around them. They form a perfect fast lane triangle so if they wanted to, they could get into the second lane and let me pass, and then get right back into the fast lane.

Visualize a car in front and behind on the right of the fast lane offenders car. No one beside them. Now.. I will admit.. I am on their ass.. but not so bad that people are break checking me. And you know what would get me off your ass? Letting me pass!

Now the really odd thing I have noticed? It is almost always someone in an old Toyota Camry like this, or Subaru Outback like this. Quite frequently the color is maroon. I dont know why this is. There must be some demographic for buying these cars I am not aware of and can't figure out.

I am a horrible evil person... and I am going to hell for sure.

Little background. My husband and I had to sell our old house because we had some troublesome neighbors. We worked our asses off to move, and get away from them. Because of the housing market at the time, we had to make sure the house had as few flaws as possible. So we had a lot of work done. Because we were just done and wanted to move.

One of those things was taking out single pane windows and putting in double pane.

Most people don't want to pay to have that done, and people scrunch their noses at houses that have old windows. Because honestly it gets pretty hot here. I called a bunch of contractors and got a bunch of bids. We wound up going with the largest company in our town. We figured...hopefully it would be the least hassle. They were huge after all. I told the company up front. I have to have a permit. I am selling this house. Like 10 times I said it. Over and over.

The guy comes out, and says there is going to be a 24 hour delay with the permit. I was okay with that until my roofer came out. Who I kind of had a history with on previous jobs. He told me to get on the ass of the window guys, because to start the job, they had to have the permit posted. So I did.

Turns out the company had let their license lapse. But on the contractor website it showed it was valid. I think he was late one or two days. He said he had paid and was just waiting for them to record it.

Did I mention they were the largest company in our town? Oh yeah.. I did.

From other contractors who I really trust, it happens somewhat often.

The payment to renew his license wasn't suppose to be recorded apparently for like 5-7 days. My windows were going to take 3 days, and I knew they would have no motivation to get the permit after the job was done. So.. I turned out having to get hissabitchy. But it wasn't like I didn't tell them a half a million times I needed a permit.

Also, they tried to convince me I had dry-rot when in fact I didn't.

Snap to today. I have a crappy back, and it is a chronic thing, so I don't really baby it. I just go to the chiropractor all the time. This guy comes in at the same time I did, and was looking at me. He looked familiar... but even though the old house was only 6 months ago... it is a million years in time for me.

It was like a million projects ago, so I really didn't know who the guy was. He outed himself to me. Asked how the windows were.. which immediately made my eyebrows narrow. Instead of being a bitch, I simply told him we moved from that house, and didn't say what I wanted to. Which was " I'd never use your f-ing company again".

So I am sitting there waiting for my "adjustment" and I could hear everything the guy was saying to my chiro who I have known for like 6 years. He wasn't being discrete or anything! And he was shaping up to be a whiney little bitch. Very loudly he was announcing that he was doing "clensings" and was describing the consistency of his bowels.

I couldn't f-ing believe it! He was practically crying about how he couldn't sleep.

At that very moment I went to hell. Because normally I don't wish pain on anyone.. no matter what kind of an asshole they are. But my first thought was "good, this guy deserves it".

Late night sleepy husband with sleepy Saffron

I have to get a sweet bunny post in. My husband will probably hate that I chose this image.. (sorry in advance SPP) but I think it is really sweet.

Jane Doe's eye. Update.

I am going to try to make this entry as un-fragmented as I can.. but I am so pissed really. I'm not sure I can be successful. I apologize for the length.

Quick background - Jane Doe is one our bunnies, and the girl has glaucoma. Blogged about it here. After being stable for 6 months with the glaucoma, around the end of July she started favoring the eye. For example, squinting, and not keeping the eye open. At the time I started preparing myself for the possibility the eye would have to be taken. You don't hear about many cases, but I have read rabbits can do fine with one eye. Me - still not crazy about the idea. Nor was my "been through hell with me" vet. Sometimes you trade one set of problems for another. Plus.. her glaucoma by any measure appeared to be under control.

Back to her favoring of the eye. Turns out she had the smallest perceptible ulcer. About the size of a sharpened pencil head. It is obviously enough to make her unhappy. Went to my "been through hell with me" vet, and she urged me to go back to the eye specialist. Al-right fine. At that time I just had a weird feeling about them. They just seemed a little eye grabby happy. You can see from my previous entry (link) about this issue the eye actually looks pretty amazing considering.

The eye specialist debrided the eye. But never actually said that was what they were doing. Even though I watch them like a hawk. You might think the MD would say something like.. this pet is going to be in pain for a little while. But no.. I guess I am being difficult for wanting to know such things. This is what prompted the oatmeal can collar. We put her on Metacam for a few days which is your basic bunny aspirin or aleive. She was put on an exhaustive routine to get the ulcer stomped down. When I say exhaustive, I mean medication every hour.

The truth is.. guilt kept me on the hourly doses. If she eventually had to get the eye taken, I didn't want it to be because I was too lazy, or life became too complicated to do the routine. If the eye was going to go, I wanted my head to say "you did everything you possibly could - there is no way that eye could have been saved".

Jump forward to the beginning of August. I was beginning to be really pleased about the eye. It looked shiny. Her white margins seemed normal. So we went back to the eye specialist for the routine checkup. Glaucoma... wow.. so under control. However the ulcer was still as big, just not as deep as it was previously. The specialist floated the idea of again debriding the eye, and putting a coating of surgical grade super glue over the ulcer to protect it and promote vascularization. Not many sites talk about this procedure, but you can read about it here and here. I was told it would be less invasive than the original debradment, but it gave a 90% chance of knocking the ulcer out completely. Otherwise it might take 4 months of antibiotics. The specialist made it seem like "no big deal". My bad though.. I should have played 700 questions instead of 500 questions.

I had been in the waiting room 3 hours by the time I was able to be seen by the eye specialist the first time that day. They had an emergency. I completely understand. Now I am a total pet person, but by this point if I had to hear another story about how smart everyones pets are, I am going to throw myself down a flight of stairs. This was an emergency room atmosphere. Completely packed, standing room only, and everyone wanted to tell you stories. Which is great.. for like two hours. Not only that.... these people were the kind that wanted to talk baby talk to their pets in the waiting room. Now... e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e who has a pet does that. At home, so no one can see your tard ass. Each time I have been there, it is just this surreal experience. Queue the crazy cat woman on the Simson's. But only it is really tiny dogs with cones. Like all of them. And at least one eye is bulging out.

The other thing I didn't really appreciate...some woman walks in complaining about a leak. There lots of businesses in a fairly large - really old complex. Even (shudder) restaurants. Which didn't seem like a big deal, until this women walks in. I thought it was a neighboring business who shared a wall, and they had a leak together. Seems common. Oh... no.. the woman leaves, and the receptionist who I would say is a fairly simple person, tells everyone in the waiting room she has already told that woman she needs to contact management. That the woman is from the Chinese food restaurant underneath the eye specialist office. Okay....I know I probably look like super bitch because I constantly complain... but come on.. who of you out there doesn't think that is f-ing creapy weird?

I go back a couple hours later to get the super glue thing done, and spend another 2 hours there. Another woman and I talk about the whole experience at the office. I then realize she had been in the waiting room the whole time I was that morning. Off in a quiet-ish corner. Her first appointment was right before mine that morning. I'm pretty memorable.. because I don't have a tiny dog with a giant cone like everyone else. My new temporary friend has a giant dog, with a giant cone. I get home, and prepare to put the oatmeal collar on. The specialist at least says Jane will be in discomfort for 1-2 days. But still makes it seem like no big deal. Let me tell you... after about 4 days I am becoming a super pissed, because the girl went from an eye that looked good, and didn't hurt, to an animal that was bordering on inhumane treatment. I think I have royally f-ed up for making the choice to do this procedure.

I am absolutely not being dramatic or exaggerating. The eye was so inflamed I was sure she would loose it just based on trauma. I didn't want to go back to the specialist because I think they suck for not having any clue about pain management. They are only pets after-all. I figure, what can they do at this point except take the eye or put her through more pain. None of my options are good ones. I start resigning myself to having fought like crazy for this eye, only to have all that work reversed in one full swoop.

About four days ago I think I see the ulcer getting worse. The eye looks like crap, but honestly a million times better than it looked for two weeks. I take a flashlight to the eye, and wouldn't you f-ing know it...her eye is filled with veins. The area in the lower half of the eye that looks like a wave is nothing but blood vessels.



Today was Janes checkup, and I was totally conflicted. The treatment actually worked, even though it was my own little bit of hell. And hers. I got into see the specialist fairly quickly. While she was looking at the eye, as delicately as I could I admitted it was sort of hard to complain because of the results. But their pain management was non existent. I mean... come on. Scrape your eye, then put super glue on it and tell me that isn't painful. I have to be careful though, because these people are my only chance, unless I want to drive to UC Davis. Hours away. She looked directly at me and said "well, we don't have a lot of choices". Then said very little.

Um... okay. Not a "not a lot of choices" and "no choices" are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. And let me tell you.... not one of the three doctors ever brought up pain management. I kept choosing a different specialist at the office hoping I just got one of the sadistic ones. How about saying anything so your regular vet can help you manage pain! Finally after about day 10 and my girl still has not opened her eye, but she seems less painful and stable. I called my own vet an just pleaded for the future. Please I ask... even if I have to drive in every day so you can administer it, if this ever happens again, can you do something. Did I mention this was suppose to be minimally invasive? The thing is.. if my vet would have done surgery, Jane would have gotten immediate pain control. A narcotic, not bunny asperin. Because the specialist is really handling the eye issue, most vets defer to the specialist. The good news is Jane has turned a corner. Her Galcoma is in the range of a completely healthy eye. The ulcer is healing because of the new blood-flow. I am doing everything in my power so I don't have to see those f-ing people for a very long time, and my normal vet can take back over.

Is there such a thing as too much Robot Love?

Hopefully robomowers will become mainstream like Roomba's. Friendly Robotics is even trying to capitalize on the roomba name.

We have had ours for about two years. It moved with us to the new house. Other than the first out of the box problem, it has been a really good machine. The gentleman below however seems a little too excited. Link.

The link I provided used to work. I'm going to leave it in incase it comes back. The other thing I noticed about the guy in the picture is he is wearing surgical gloves... like maybe he doesn't want to touch dirt. I can understand garden gloves.. but surgical gloves?

You've got to see these tiles!

While in the process of modeling our laundry room, and looking for design idea's, I ran across these tiles from Stone and Pewter Accents. Main site, and tile link. I certainly give them points for wow factor.



This isn't "my thing", but I have to admit, these tiles from Designer Glass Mosiacs are fascinating too.

CNET'S top 5 worst tech : Themselves.

Okay... correct me if I am wrong. CNET reviews technology.... right? Because from their little TIVO "CNET tips for Digital Living" series, you really wouldn't be able to tell. Inexplicably they are completely unable to moderate their sound. From trade-shows where the "executive editor" refuses to hold a microphone, and is drowned out by the trade-show noise. (wait, let me turn the sound up so I can hear what they are saying) to a transition to host Molly Wood. (Holy shit! now I have to turn it down because it is 10 decibels higher.) Back to the office, where again, the "executive editor" is much lower and muffled because techies are not hosts, and don't know how to either emote or enunciate properly. Did I mention everyone is an "executive editor"? Every episode is like this. It's like playing volume ping-pong.

I'm sort of just sport bitching here because I could choose not to watch them, but I have a business need to watch the advertising on Tivo. I'm not going to explain what it is.

So my husband decides to email CNET, because frankly we can't figure out why an entity that is in the business of reviewing technology can't figure out such a really basic issue.

Despite CNET saying they wanted our tips and feedback, he couldn't easily find just an email address. Instead he gets a feedback "form". And certainly nothing that allows you to comment about the Tivo Digital Living Series. Even if you search on their site for anything Tivo, it only allows you to give reviews for the tivo boxes themselves, not their show on Tivo.

At any rate.. back to the form. After filling out the form he gets some such error, and then the form clears itself. So you can't even fix the error, and re-submit. You have to re-type everything in again. After trying to submit the feedback form both from explorer and Mozilla it becomes clear that CNET.com will not let him use the form because of his security software not allowing a trackback.

Okay... are they kidding me?

My trouble with Seagate.

I can not even tell how you how much I hate constantly having to complain about companies. My constant bitching makes it seem like I am a really demanding person. But I really am not.

I just expect the things I buy to work for, say..... more than 3 months.

I even take some responsibility for this one because I bought some crappy technology. I just didn't know it at the time. I just saw "ooooh - 500gig disk drive". The truth is I didn't even know what the difference between serial ATA, and Ultra ATA was at the time. My bad.

So, I have taken my responsibility, now let me get on to the bitching.

Background: The first 500Gb drive we brought home was DOA. This should have been my first clue. We knew it was the drive, and not my computer, b/c we tried installing it on a couple of machines and it was dead on all of them. The store (which rhymes with Flies) swapped it right out. This was all back on May 13th.

Somewhere around the end of July my disk started acting up. I thought maybe I had a virus because my machine just started being really slow. I'm really good about keeping my anti-virus protection stuff up to date, and it turned out - no virus/spyware detected. The drive had also began running really hot. It seemed unusual that all of a sudden it would start doing that, but I read they ran hot and we got a fan just for the drive. They make them so you can just put it in the unused drive slots.

My husband had me install a hard-drive diagnostic tool called 'HDHealth'. After looking at HDhealth something was obviously wrong. The subsequent running of Seagate's diagnostic tool "Seatools" confirmed... This drive had had a heart attack and was on life support.

I knew the return process was going to suck.. it always does. So I call Seagate preparing for the worst.

I got through within a minute or two. Talked to a support guy who was super nice and offered right away to send me a new drive. I was in shock... super happy. I couldn't believe my luck. This never happens.

He says "we'll send one right out to you, let me see we have that drive in stock".[Queue ominous music and the sound of screeching of tires].

Them - we don't have that drive in stock. It will be about two weeks.

Me- You've got to be kidding right?

Them - no, there is nothing I can do about it.

Me- Okay....it isn't like my drive is a year old. This drive is only 3 months old. Do you have an equivalent drive you can send me.

Them - No I can't do that, but here is my manager's number.

(I used to work in tech support- I know this is probably the guy in the cube right next to him) But I call anyway and plead my case.

My husband and I start debating whether to just go buy a new drive and just eat the cost which is pissing me off, because while I understand hardware failures, I don't understand having to just throw away almost 300 bucks for something that has been used for 3 months.

Several days after making the call to "the manager" he calls back. I didn't think he was even going to call back at this point and I am ready to never buy another Seagate product ever. He says he doesn't have my drive type but he can send me a refurb 180 gig drive as temporary replacement until they have more 500Gb in stock. Which was really nice. Although he put it on the slowest possible shipping method and it took like 9 days to get here from Florida.

We put it in, run HDhealth and it looks pretty f-ed up too. And wouldn't you know it... it failed within 3 days.

At this point I accept that there may be something about my machine that eats drives... but I still find it hard to believe it would eat a drive that quickly without some other catistropic symtom. Especially since Seagate is having horrible failure rates right now. Here, here. Seagate themselves list the rate at 0.34. That would mean you have a 1 in 3 chance of getting a bad drive. I'm a betting person and all... but right now my odds look pretty bad.

So now it has been 22 days and no replacement drive from Seagate for my orginal drive. They are closed on the weekend. Tuesday it will be 26 days. I can't even believe I have to call and bitch at another company whom I have already been on the phone to about 6 times.

How NOT to retain your longtime loyal customers - in 3 easy steps. Listen up XM.

1. Make sure your web-site is often unavailable.

2. Make sure your customers are unable to manage their accounts from your web-site on the rare days you can get to it.

3. Make sure your customers know you don't give a shit if they leave or not.

Oh yeah, and irritate them by having the login screen take up every bit of a 2000+ pixel monitor, and not allow your customers to resize the screen. This is an actual screen shot from my husbands machine when logging into the XM radio web-site. The black area is not his background. It is the unused portion of their login screen.



I want to start out saying that we were early adopters. We have probably been XM customers for 3-4 years.. I don't know.... A LONG time. Well before anyone thought people would pay for radio. The relationship was flawless until this past Christmas. Today I am downright pissed about it.

Rewind to this past Christmas. My husband bought me a Delphi XM hand-held. The unit was an out of the box hardware failure. (gritting teeth) I understand failures. Look at my other entries. The hardware issue however was not the irritating part.

We replaced the unit with one from another manufacturer. We thought it would be a simple issue to switch service from the failed unit radio ID, to the new unit ID. At that time the web-site wouldn't allow for this. It was Christmas, and they were obviously under-staffed on the phones. I think it took about a day to finally get a live person on the phone.

I sort of understood not being able to disconnect service from the web-site. I'm sure it is just a need to talk your customers out of leaving. Well... despite we weren't leaving, just changing radio IDS.

Fast forward to this weekend. We sold our old car, and wanted again to manage our account. I wanted to delete the handheld, and find out what notice they needed to cancel the car. I wanted the new owners to have a little time before the radio was shut off.

Wouldn't you f-ing know it, the web-site was unavailable. The web-site not working after 7 months is absolutely unacceptable. You still can not add or delete radios online. And that would be great if when you talked to someone on the phone they actually tried to talk you out of leaving. BUT THEY DONT! As a matter of a fact, customer service did none of the things customer service does. Like try to find out why/if you're not happy.

So they transfer me over to the disconnection department. I flip out. I make sure to tell the operator on the other line I wasn't yelling at her, but it seems to me that XM doesn't want to keep their customers at all. There is no harder customer to drive away than us. I complain about the web-site, and she confirms it is ridiculous that their web-site is still not working. She apparently gets that complaint a lot.

UPDATE: I waited to publish this entry, because of some other crazy stuff I will eventually complain about.

We started getting notices from XM to give them our credit card, because our new 3 month trial would soon be up for our replacement car. (gritting teeth again) Even though I made sure to tell them to put the new radio on our old account so we could just start getting billed automatically when I called to have them manage our account last time.

We have had the new car 2 months, and I've already gotten two notices. I figured I should do something about it. Despite thinking the trial service was for a year. Whatever.. things have been crazy, so perhaps I was misunderstanding.

So... first step. Go to their web-site. Hurray! We can log in. We have a huge credit on our account. (because we are under a trial period) So why are they sending us these notices? We have our credit card on file. Crap... wouldn't you know it, I'm going to have to call customer service.

All I want from them is to link our credit card to this radio so when the trial period is over - 3 months or 12 months, whatever- they will start charging us. Did I mention how long we have been customers with the same credit card number on file? Oh yeah.. I covered that.

Apparently... customer service can not do this until a few weeks before our trial period expires. So I have to call them back. But how the F am I going to know when that is, because they are sending me notices every two weeks. By this time my husband is talking to them, due to my accelerating sarcasm. I'm not nasty... and I do laugh while I am telling him to tell them - that if our service gets cut off, I am going to call them back and completely wig out. She claims she stuck this in the notes.. I'm sure it just says difficult.

The thing is, I have had to call them 5 times this year, for things that could be simply handled from their web-site.

The answer is to change right?

Well.. I have to admit, we did get a Sirius unit very recently. The differences are pretty interesting. First...if you drive down a tree lined street. That is enough to stop your signal. Sometimes you just loose signal for no apparent reason. XM doesn't do that. The other...(tortured look) they have got me stuck in the f-ing 70's. For instance this morning flipping through the channels I was greeted with RUSH on two channels. The Beetles, (old)Santana, Led Zepplin, and I forget what else. I went though 30 channels before escaping that era. This wasn't even from the listed retro and hair band channels. Which is another 30+ channels. They have a freaking channel just dedicated to Elvis for christ sakes, and some Jimmy Buffet guy. A whole channel each!

So to sum things up.... XM customer service sucks, but the Sirius content sucks. Customer service at Sirius was actually really good. XM would be really good if they just fixed their web-site to take pressure off their customer service reps. I get the impression they get bitched at a lot. Unfortunatly I had to be one of the masses.

And frankly.. I dont enjoy it. What happen to the good old days when it took one call to get something solved? Now it seems on average it takes three... I really have better things to do with my day.

When Bunnies Smile. Part II

Part I here.

Time for a new project.

Well....the amnesia from our last tile project seems to have finally set in. I'm starting to fantasize about glass tiles. As if the last project wasn't easily the hardest job we have ever done. I will post an update when I get my native machine up, and files restored. So, while out trying to find design ideas we ran across these.




Now, I would never put these in my house. But I am oddly fascinated by them. They look like bubbles. I can't imagine how hideously hard the grout work would be, and how many times I would freak out trying to make it look right. Not to mention the shaving of years in my husband's lifespan when they inevitably need to be cut.

They do make me wonder what application you could use them for without making the whole thing look like a piece of crap. Which I absolutely can't. Not to mention how hard they would be to clean.

Fun was had by none.

Don't believe me? Look at these faces.



I know it always seems like I am complaining about something. So far life is failing to live up to my, apparently too high expectations. This was suppose to be a tranquil day at the Montery Bay Aquarium.

The television tells me the economy is bad. So far I have yet to see anything that makes me think this. In fact, the place was so crowded, we had to leave after an hour. This was the line to get in.



Once you get to the end of the line you think you are home free.. This is the line inside.



Just to see this.



And well... maybe this.



You couldn't get close to any of the exhibits. The whole downtown was cram packed. After the constant wailing of infants. Normal children noise. Being constantly jostled, and just not being able to view the displays, I couldn't even stand to sit down in a nice restaurant in Montery. Oh yeah.. and the bumper to bumper traffic both ways, on a Sunday. Which also tells me the economy can't be that bad.

What did the five fingers say to the face?

SLAP!

This is what AT&T is doing to Comcast at this very moment. They are taking advantage of a devastating (for the company) weakness with Comcast service.

When this happens........



People get really f-ing pissed. What makes them even more pissed? Not being able to use a land-line phone. Doesn't seem like the huge deal I am making it out to be? Be without power for 23 hours and see how far that cell phone battery takes you. Sadly.. I was one of the lucky ones... There were many reports of people being out of power for days.

Unfortunately.... you don't even have to loose power to go technologically dark. So when Comcast called a week after the power outage to sell me services, I was so pissed I told them they were the last people on earth who should be calling me.

Since moving into my new place four months ago, I have had 3 complete Comcast outages. One was do to the heat index and resulting power losses. The others.. who the F knows.

So when Comcast again called yesterday to ask about the nature of my last call, and what my customer satisfaction was. I let loose. I was so pissed about the other stuff that I forgot to even complain about HD content.

Don't I pay extra every month for HD.. yes I do. I have previously blogged about it here.

Later that day I told my husband with glee they called to let me bitch at them. Ironically at that very moment we heard an ad on TV bitching about who else? Comcast. It turns out the issue must be big enough that AT&T has run a whole ad campaign to capitalize on the weakness. Apparently that random call wasn't so random. The ad campaign must be making a difference to Comcast. I have never had them call to see what my satisfaction level was.

Unfortunately with so few choices... changing providers is a little like trying to figure out which side of the apple is less rotten.

I'm not just sport bitching. But I'd rather not go through all the trouble of switching only to find myself in a rather similar predicament. Which is why I am not currently at AT&T.

Have people lost all modesty?

Okay.... so .... I am picking up sandwiches last week from Togo's.

Even though I can go straight to the pick-up line, the place is packed, and I decide to wait in line.

In walks a woman... who is obviously pregnant. Not the "oh when is your baby due - I'm just fat" kind of pregnant. The "shouldn't you be calling an ambulance, you're gonna pop any day now, um... I think I see the baby's head!" pregnant. Obviously very late in the stage. Absolutely no mistake pregnant.

She is wearing daisy-dukes, and a little muscle beater type t-shirt. With her stomach fully exposed. Not "my stomach is poking out". Rather - bottom of the boob to just above the pleasure patch exposed.

Think a Jessica Simpson/Dukes of Hazard amount of clothing. Okay... it could be okay right? But she is the type of girl that even in her non pregnant stage, you would look at her and go "oh girl, I'm surprised you're trying to pull that off". The kind of girl who normally has a full muffin top - bulging out of her pants. Who on retrospect might have given the "what are you looking at bitch" head snap. But that isn't the crazy part. This is California after all... we get used to people "keepin it real".

This woman...... has SAVAGE stretch marks. Not the "wow, you have some really bad stretch marks" kind. The holy shit, "you really got the genetics shaft, nothing is going to fix that" - "Did you get mauled by a bear", kind of stretch marks. I've seen burn victims with less damage. Who also by the way, would have elicited less interest.

So I look around.. and everyone who has noticed her is trying desperately not to look at her. Myself included. Everyone is trying to be respectful, and act nonchalant. But an obvious reaction is being made... followed by an obvious attempt at not having a reaction.

This woman, of course, does not notice the room wide uncomfortable-ness. Or perhaps just doesn't care..

Now don't get me wrong... I love looking at bodies. But what happened to the generation where people actually tried to minimize their flaws. Everyone doesn't have to look beautiful, but at least a general attempt at decorum should be made. Is that too much to ask?

What are you looking at?

Do not do this to your bunny unless you have a dire medical need.


Our girl Jane Doe has glaucoma in her right eye (the one you can see in the picture). After a visit to the vetrinary eye specialist (with misc pokings and proddings), her eye became very irritated, and she started scratching at it. We needed to control her ability to get to the eye.

So the challenge was: how do you get a bunny to stop scratching an eye? People with dogs have it easy -- just put on a cone, or doggles.

Bunnies however have all sorts of engineering "problems".

1. Bunnies have no discernable neck. A cone would just fall off.

2. Bunnies panic easily. They can get really freaked out. They are very sensitive in the face, and they really don't like to feel trapped.

3. Bunnies will eat anything. Including hard plastic, like a dog cone. Including things that will kill them.

This was our solution. A Quaker Oats can. (well temporary solution - She got it off within 2 hours, but she seemed to leave the eye alone) We used the lower third of the can, and cut radial slits in the bottom to allow her had to pass through it. We also cut notches for her ears and muzzle. Not only are Quaker Oats good for your heart. (allegedly!) Their containers are completely edible (except the lid) by bunnies.



She was pretty okay with it until her mate started trying to "help her". First he started tugging on it trying to get it off her. Then he thought, "if your head is in there, maybe mine should be too". I didn't get pictures of that, because she started freaking out. After seperating her from her mate, she finally settled down. Begrudingly. And as you can see from the picture, we still had the directions to cook the oats.

Fires are NOT suppose to be funny... right?

Hey Jackass! Quit setting fires.



Yes.. I am going to make jokes about it. It is funny, and no people or property have been injured. How do you not snicker when you have to talk about this fire?

Lightening sparked the blaze near the Nevada California-line. News links here.

If you show me your Roomba, I'll show you mine.

I've been watching the steady migration of frisbybots (patent pending, patent pending, patent pending) trying to take over one country, then the next. First Canada. Then Australia, and now New Zealand (Courtesy of freitasm.)

Never in the history of the world have people been so excited to share pictures of their vacuum cleaners. Just ask flickr.

Once upon a time, if a significant other even dreamed about giving a vacuum cleaner as a gift, they would be exiled forever in the surviving partner's mind. "Yeah, I loved that person, but I had to kill them, I'm not your cleaning whore".

All of a sudden people are excited to purchase an item that previously was so completely mundane. Only clean freaks or people with OCD would brag about doing such a chore. Creative videos are popping up everywhere. This guy straps a camcorder on for a Roombas eye view. Youtube has a series of videos here. A pretty good animation assembly for a Roomba on Google video here. Roomba Wars via prasad here.

iRobot seems to be poised to be part of one of the largest industry expansions since the 80's. Not all that surprising since vacuum cleaner sales had enjoyed year over year record setting unit sales.

According to Appliance Design, "Breaking records is becoming the norm for the vacuum cleaner segment of the industry. If projections and estimates hold up, the segment in four out of five recent years will have achieved new highs in unit count. Record years and their numbers":

• 1996-16.1 million
  
• 1998-16.3 million
  
• 1999-17.6 million
  
• 2000-18.5 million
  
• 1997 scored 15,692,000 units, only 2.5 percent off the 1996 mark of 16.1 million.

Somewhere between the year 2000 and now, things seems to have taken a dramatic turn down. Here, here and here.

iRobot has seen enormous growth even without its military segment, and is nipping at the heels of more established companies like Dyson. Despite reporting record results at years end. A large segment of its business last year came from Tokyo, but only sold about 200,000 units. Link here.

Dirt Devil was once owned by Royal Appliance Mfg Co., and acquired by Techtronic Industries in 2003, and is certainly not boasting about their vacuum cleaner sales. PDF 2005 Annual Report. Good luck.

The Kirby Company is also a pain in the ass to get current financials for. Hoovers here says 253.5mil, but who knows what year that is for. They also do not seem to be bragging about sales growth. So I guess the last major player is Electrolux, whose sales are pretty stagnant, and the German economy certainly isn't helping them.

With all this bad news, iRobot is clearly breathing fresh air into an industry covered in dust bunnies.

Embargo? What Embargo?

My personal view is that economic sanctions are never successful because you never get full cooperation. Here is an example.



This is a dessert menu from a California restaurant, one of those places where they print a new menu everyday. (I didn't feel it was wrong to take the menu, since they'll be printing a new one the next day anyway). I was a little shocked by the blatant selling of 100% Cuban cigars.

Another reason to stay in school.

I don't sell insurance. I don't care who you get your insurance through, but if you have Farmers, you might as well get a discount.

After adding a car recently, and paying the insurance premium - I get a call from our agent. The addition apparently triggered them to look at how this car is getting paid for. It turns out Farmers Insurance thinks you got all that binge drinking done in college. If you have one of these,

From Colorado springs:
"Firefighters, Police & Law Enforcement Officers, Physicians, Surgeons, Pharmacists, Registered Nurse, Teachers, Engineers, and certain other college degrees."

you qualify for a professional discount.

This seems to be a little known discount. I will not send you to the Farmers site, because I basically gave up trying to find information about it there.

We'd been with Farmers for a few years, and had never heard such a thing. So I poked around the web to see if it was just my town, or state. Despite running across this article from 2004, I was able to find very few links which mention it for obvious reasons. I'm not sure whether to praise my agent, or stick him into the witness relocation program.

Why even give a discount if they dont want you to know about it?