Now I'm highly stressed.

Some of my regular readers will know about my desire to have a reduction.

I've been in this limbo mode for a while. Insurance has to pre-approve you before the surgery. You have to get records from other doctors who will say they think the surgery is medically necessary. So I've been going through this paperwork nightmare.

I finally thought I was on the homestretch - but I hadn't heard from anyone in about three weeks. Even though we all know insurance takes their good sweet time. I figured I might as well call and get a status. This is where I begin to freak out.

Me- This is Mrs. S, and I'm just calling to get a status on my case.

Dr. Office- Oh Mrs. S, we haven't gotten anything from your GP.

Me - Okay.. when I talked to you three weeks ago I told you that if you didn't receive anything from them early the following week you should call me so I can light a fire under them.

Dr. Office - Well I left you a message on May 24th.

Me- Yes, and we spoke shortly after that. I said you should call me if you didn't get the records by the following week.

Dr. Office - Well... who is your GP?

This is the part that made me really nervous. I have told this woman at least 5 times on the phone who my GP is. And - it should be in my fucking file anyway. I wrote it right in there on the consult visit.

Dr. Office - Well, you probably have to sign something before they will send the records.

You have got to be joking me, right? Now my red flag warning is off the chart. This woman is acting like I have never talked to her before. She hasn't made any notes to our previous conversations.

For instance - why would I be calling about the status when the last time I talked to her I was told I needed to sign a release form for my GP to get him to send his records. She must know this or she wouldn't have told me they hadn't gotten anything from my doctor yet.

Do I even have to point out this is a procedure that scares the shit out of me. I don't even really want to have it. I'm actually in tears because this is like a major deal for me, and I don't want to feel like my doctor or his staff are complete fucktards. I'm sorry if this shit freaks me out, but honestly this isn't a little cosmetic surgery.

Really - I think I should find another doctor. Even thought this doctor came to me from a recommendation. I don't know how my insurance will say about all that.

Plus this sets me back about 2 months at least. It took a month to get into see this guy. So - technically 3 months.

My stomach is in complete knots right now.

The economy slows on Fathers Day?

I'm a little fascinated by Fathers Day - being the bastard child I am (literally). Hey - I heard you...it doesn't bother me. It isn't sad. So stop it.

Mr S. and I chose today to lay around all day and do nothing. Well, after talking to his dad on the phone and providing tech support.

We eventually decided to venture out for supplies and noticed the whole city was deserted. Nuclear holocaust style. It was all tumbleweeds and echos. I don't even think the traffic was this low on Christmas Day.

Apparently dads just want to lay around all day and do nothing. I guess that is the perfect fathers day for them. Which makes me a little conflicted because all of a sudden I think Fathers Day is the perfect time to shop. Think about it.. no one at the home improvement stores. Or anywhere for that matter.

Mr S. can stay home and lay around if he wants.. but Fathers Day is my new shopping day. Who else is going to prop up the economy?

Robogames 07' - Part II.

In retrospect, I'm not going to post as many pictures as I thought I would. I don't think I got that many great shots anyway. There are probably a ton of other sites that will have great coverage.

I was super happy the games had a bunch of robots and exhibits to see. The trade-off is it was hard to get good photos. Kids were everywhere as would be expected at this kind of event.

Kids don't have a concept of either looking cute so you can get a "precious moment" shot. Or letting you take your photo before they completely surround the target. Then all you can get is that back of their heads. From every angle. Like this:



The adults can be bad too... and some of those guys with the little handheld video camera were the worst. They would stand right in front of an object, and stay there for like 5 minutes. Often times when there wasn't any movement from the item they were shooting. I'm not going to go off on a rant about it too much, because this is really typical of these types of events.

Anything technology causes people to loose their minds and have no concept of anything around them. One more thing. Exhibitor's! If you want people to take photos of your stuff - don't make it hard for photographers. Don't stand in front of your exibit or move your items around constantly.

There was one exhibitor's item I was trying to take a picture of. He rearranged his display 10 times within the space of two feet, while standing right in front of it the whole time . I finally gave up after about 4 minutes.

More to follow...

Robogames 07' - back from the dead.

I put the year in the subject line because I have immense hope they will be returning. I'm only posting a few pictures for now - but I totally have to give Simone and Mr. Robotics huge props for the games this year. As soon as we walked in the door as I was immediately happy. This wasn't the sparsely populated games of last year.

This was a full fledged event I was happy to pay admission to.

More later...

Illusion.

The Warm California Sky.

I will remember this year for the endless red skies.

What is up with Pedestrians?

Well... I almost hit someone this morning. My nerves have been messed up every since. Now I have to go on a rant about it. This is what happened.

My light was green and I was making a right turn into the lane nearest the sidewalk. After I completed the turn, about 30 feet from the crosswalk this guy runs into the road. He is only watching the green light and not any traffic. It was like slow motion even though he was at a full sprint. He never once took his eye off that light.

I came really close to hitting this guy, and if I were going any faster I would have. It was that close. I could tell it shook the guy up as well. The blood probably drained from both of our bodies. I know it did mine. It was one of those "I could have gotten very hurt today" moments. He did wind up crossing again. In the cross-walk this time.

I was in my truck... so he would have taken a full body impact.

Which is where I am going to start my rant.

I've noticed in the last year that pedestrians have exhibited an uncanny trust of traffic. At least once a week I see someone barrel right out into the road and not even look. Not check to make sure traffic is stopping. Nothing. A few days ago my husband and I saw a woman walk out into the road and her face was totally obstructed by a package.

I just don't get it. With more and more people being distracted by phones and other in-car devices, I don't really understand why peds (pedestrians) have become less cautious rather than more. It just also really annoys me because I was hugely affected after hitting that dog. I don't really know how I would cope if I hit a person. This pedestrian behaviour happens so often, I'm surprised I haven't seen someone else hit one of them. I don't really want those images in my head either.

Set your Tivo's.

I've been totally robbed! Who would have ever thought Jimmy Kimmel was a Maker fan? We were there and didn't even know they were filming.

Maker Faire on Jimmy Kimmel Live! tonight!



My Maker Faire Series here.

Now - who doesn't need a stripper pole?

This is an actual product.





It's probably mean to put this guys picture on my site. But I thought it was super funny his picture was right next to the USB pole dancers. With the caption " This area is proudly merchandised by - Eddy Chang".

Does television influence the way you dream?

I'm not the kind of person who really likes to dream. I wake up feeling completely not rested. Like my brain hasn't shut completely down - and as an insomniac... I really need a good nights rest that doesn't include dreaming.

So - a couple of days ago I had a big giant nightmare. Which is fairly uncommon for me. Although I'm pretty surprised. The stuff I've seen, you'd think I would have more nightmares - but I don't.

Anyway, I remember the nightmare being in vivid color. I've dreamed in color before - but this was different. After thinking about it for a while, I started thinking that maybe the high definition world is creeping into my dreams. With TV's, photo images and high resolution monitors - the world seems a little more vivid. Perhaps this is what made the color in my dream really stand out.

So - after a while I decided to talk to my husband about the whole high definition dream thing. Because if true, its minorly funny.

He told me he has these dreams that has theme songs in his dreams. Background music, and directorial camera shots. Zoom, pan. Those types of things.

It just made me wonder if other people have odd things like this in their dreams which, clearly are influenced from watching television.

I'm never shopping there again.

Okay - today I go to the market to pick a few things up. I walk through the semi cold area. What do they call that area anyway?. The area they keep cheese and lunch meats. I'm going for ricotta cheese - if it matters.

So - I turn the isle and there is a guy stocking the shelves. But - he is standing in the freezer area. On top of a mound of bacon. His size 10-ish shoes. Right on top of packages of bacon. Not on the metal lip that keeps everything from falling out.

Am I the only one with the illusion they should be handling products in a sanitary way?

I walk down to the other end of the isle to get my ricotta cheese and think to myself "I've gotta take a picture of this guy" because who stands on products that will eventually be sold.

Damn - my memory cache is full. I delete a few pictures, and try again. He's still on top the the bacon. Phone still complaining about not enough space. So I give up.

I would have complained.. but would it have really mattered?

In Security News.

This week has been mainly occupied by finding clever ways to form a police state.

Well.. without the police "and stuff". It's only a few days until the neighbors party, and we will be up in the City. (San Fransisco) We got all of our cameras last week. Plugged a couple of them in, and the inside camera promptly overheated and died. Which would have made me crazy, but Luk Werks has already shipped a replacement.

The interesting thing about the system is that its quasi wireless. Meaning - it isn't wireless, but actually finds its connection through the wires in your house via the outlet plugs. So you can plug them in anywhere you have electrical outlets, and it must send out an electrical current to talk to the receiver in the next outlet plug. It's sort of hard to describe - so just go to the site and look at the pretty pictures.

Even if the whole thing winds up pissing me off - you have to admit that is a clever design.

Since we are sort of a high profile house on the block, we didn't really want to make the cameras too obvious. So this was our solution.



We were going to swap the garage doors, but in light of a time crunch we just decided to swap the opaque panels in the windows to clear plexi. See - that one on the right isn't swapped yet. Doing it this way makes it doubly nice because we aren't spying on the neighbors, we just want to protect our cars, and maybe keep an eye on the robotic mower.

I really need to get some updated pictures of that thing. Just this weekend 2 more neighbors came to watch the mower. It never gets old for them. Anyway.. I'm starting to digress.

Another blogger problem.

For some reason Blogger isn't showing replies to comments I've made. If you commented on something, you need to expand the comments section to see what I've said.

P.S. To the force that influences good in the world - Can't I have just one minute where I don't have to figure out why something isn't working? Please. It would be really helpful.

Update - Huh... now that worked freakishly fast.

Just weird.

So - there is this guy who walks the neighborhood with his cat. Like - every day.

I don't know what to make of him. He always wears these crazy hats. I think the one here is Donald Duck - but it can be a jester/captains/cat in the hat - hat. And he always sings in this loud deep baritone voice. You can actually hear him before you see him. Usually the cat is on his shoulder.. but sometimes the cat will just follow him like a dog. It is the weirdest thing. He acts like he wants attention, then really doesn't engage when you try to talk to him.

Every time I have anyone at the house and the guy passes they all ask "whats up with the cat guy". A question I think we'd all like to know.

My little slice of technology hell.

The past two weekends have been a blur. Which is why I'm writing about this now. In a few days most of the weekend events will just blend together into a ball of exhaustion.

In non-technology news.. the bunnies have managed to stage a revolt, and have had bunny emergencies on both weekends. Last Saturday Paisley's allergy problem flared into oblivion and she needed to be taken to the vet. Her ear was seeping puss. I'm now convinced she is allergic to petroleum based products. Vaseline.. and to the horror of all bunny owners - petromault. Which means when she gets a hair backup she has to go straight to propulsid. She has also been on baby Benadryl twice a day. Sucks.

This weekend - our bunny Fudge decided it was his turn, and in the middle of robbing him from extra fur he started screaming. His main malfunction is he won't stop eating when he feels bad and lets his stomach expand until it can't get any bigger. Blogged about it here. This would have caused a trip to the vet, but it was after closing hours, and since we have been through this before we just started him on the emergency routine. Sub-queue fluids, propulsid, anti gas meds, and pain meds. Yeah.. you read that right. Takes a lot of energy... and double sucks.

Now back to the technology stuff. I finally reached some sort of acceptance that I had to ship my Alienware machine to their site, and boxed it up. Took pictures in-case they claim it was fucked when they got it. Took the air compressor and blew it out from any dust. While the compressor is out we might as well blow out all the computers, roomba's, and scooba. And any other technology device that could use some de-dustification. Yeah - that now is a word.

The other thing is that the data closet (here) is fabulous - until you need to work on some machine. Since we were taking the Alien machine out, putting in an old crappy Emachine, and adding a new machine for the security system - this meant a total rework of the closet.

This was after pulling parts from other machines so I could use both my monitors. So we upgraded video card, power supply, and stole some memory from another machine to put into the Emachine. I might as well prepare for being without my Alien machine for weeks.

In a sidenote we are calling the security server Glady's after the old Bewitched television show. Sucks we have put it up, but one of the neighbors even suggested it since they were once broken into. Hopefully today we will get some of the cameras up. Next weekend there is suppose to be a kegger party, and I'm not sure all of these people will be drinking legal. If our cars get touched again, I'm going to freak out.

So - all the stuff from yesterday took us about 12 hours - and now my husbands video card is probably fucked. Hopefully. Otherwise I'm going to be lit up about it being a monitor. A big monitor that is little more than a year old.

I hope your weekend is going better than ours.

Slow news day.

Not much going on at Chez-Snarkolepsy this week. It will be a slow week to finish up projects so next weekend we can go to San Fransisco for Robogames.

Normally I would post bunny pictures, but only 1 of my 7 regular readers even commented. Thanks Monicker! I mean - who could not think that was cute?

My biggest dilemma right now is whether I should let my mother-in-law help me recover from my impending reduction. I don't have a surgery date yet, but she planned to come out this summer, and now wants to combine the surgery with that visit. She called last night in fact to see what the status is. The problem - is insurance hasn't let me in on their secrete plan.

I'm all shades of conflicted because my mother-in-law is a very wonderful person and means well - but I'm not sure I'm going to feel like having company. I'll be all drugged up, and probably depressed. And seepy. Yeah you read that right. Seepy. They put drain tubes in you, and it is surgery after all. Plus, she is all motherly in a normal sort of way, unlike my own mother, and sometimes it's just too much. But she really wants to help.

The other half of me thinks maybe I'm over-reacting, and it will be just fine. My husband probably could use the help. I don't know - at any rate, I'm feeling pressure about it.

How Alienware wastes my time and money.

Let me just start out by saying...buying an Alienware on site service contract is complete bullshit. It doesn't exist.

This is what happened. Yesterday Mr. Snarkolepsy and I were out putting up our LED solar numbers. I come back in and my machine is not responding. I reboot it. Still nothing. It looks like my motherboard has died.

This is a 6 month old machine. Which has already needed a graphics board replacement. Blogged about it here. Did I mention its only 6 months old? Oh yeah.... I did - it's right there.

It is now about 9:30pm, and I figure I might as well call support. I get to a tech in about 5 minutes. We start through the diagnosis phase. Re-seat memory, graphics board, and the motherboard battery. Nothing works. Pretty clear case of motherboard failure since the fans are still running.

It was then the tech told me I needed to pack my machine up, and send it to them in Florida so they can work on it. I'm in California.

This is where I hit the roof. "Oh no" I say - I paid for on-site support. The tech tells me they only provide onsite support after they know what the problem is. Which is complete bullshit because when my graphics board was only half functional I asked for on-site support as well. They wouldn't send a tech. They sent me a new graphics board via FedEX.

Now I am faced with being without my almost brand new machine for a month - if I'm lucky. What fucking company on the planet does this? They claim it will be 2-3 weeks turn around after they get it. Which I doubt very highly. Alienware chronically misses shipping dates, so why would I believe them on this?

They also tell me they may or may not wipe all the data from my disk drive. How great is that? I don't know why I even need to send them the machine with a drive anyway. They must have a master drive they can plug right in.

I predict Alienware will be out of business in 2 years. This isn't bitterness. Even with the "oh-so-cool" mark-up for these machines, I can not see a business model that makes this company profitable. The company never improves. Evidenced by how many hits I get on my blog from customers waiting for their machines, or having problems with Alienware support.

When bunnies smile - Part 3.

Part 1, Part 2.

When did this happen?

Valet parking at the mall?

I'm going to admit outright I don't go to the mall much. There is something about disaffected youth with nothing better to do than leisurely walk around the mall getting in my way that annoys the hell out of me. If I need to shop for something - I'm on a mission and everyone must clear a path. I don't find what I want 90% of the time anyway, so I have to walk super fast to make sure I'm in and out as quickly as possible.

So yesterday when I was forced to go into the mall I was super shocked to find they now offered valet parking.

Now - I have been to a lot of upscale malls. This one wasn't in an upscale neighborhood. But the mall had become all pretentious.



Who puts accents on a 'Y'?

Numbers.

I love when something works much better than I thought it might. In this case - Solar LED numbers.



I was pretty skeptical about them.

We charged them and played with them for about a day, then we put them back in the box until we can hang them. 3 days later they were still glowing. I know LEDS don't take much power, but still. We haven't even taken the protective coating from the solar cells yet. Pretty impressive.

The Comcast Battle Rages On.

About a week ago Tivo stopped recording some of our premium cable channels - like Showtime.

The first sign that something was wrong was when "Penn & Teller's Bullshit" failed to record. But we wrote it off as a glitch, and told Tivo to re-record the next showing. But when that failed too, we started to try and figure out what was going on. We flip over to Showtime and realize we are getting a cable card error and no picture. This of course results in us needing to call Comcast tech support. I can hear you regular readers gasping. No I didn't freak out. Yet.

As many of you probably guessed - we were not able to fix the problem on the phone, and an on-site service visit was scheduled. Still no freak out. We called on a Monday and the tech was supposed to come out today (Thursday).

Okay.. here comes the irritating part. Yesterday, my husband emails me this link from the Tivo forums. Apparently a ton of people in the Bay Area are having the same problem. We are all in a 50 mile radius. You'd think our support people might have gotten the news of the problem. At any rate.. I think "there is no way I'm calling Comcast again - I've already talked to them this month".

My husband and I debate whether we are going to let the tech come, or sit on hold for however long it takes to get support to fix the problem. Because it doesn't require a tech to come out at all. Neither solution seemed great. Some people on the Tivo forum have had support come out up to seven times. They don't bring the right cards, or not enough cards. On the flip side, people have had to call support back many times too.

Being the calm person he is.. my husbands decides to call. He walks the support person through getting the box to work. And he gets them to give us one week's credit for the time we have been without our channels. It was effortless. Amazing in fact. Even though I was still a little irritated that we have to walk a company through fixing our problem.

When he got off the phone I asked Mr Snarkolepsy how I got so lucky to have such a patient husband?

Him - Process of elimination.

Me - What?!

Him - A man who wasn't patient wouldn't marry you.

Me - What does that mean?

Him - You made all your boyfriends jump thru hoops, and were always giving them little tests. Most guys would have given up, so by default any man who passes all your tests would have to be patient.

Me- Well, maybe I wouldn't have married them.

Him - Yeah.. that's just another way of saying it.

Me - Shut up!

Me - Comcast was lucky to not get your "don't fuck with me" voice. How come you didn't yell at them?

Him - This was just another way to get them to do what I wanted. It was a "win/win".

Me- But Babe, its suppose to be a "when/when". When do I get to yell at them?

For the record - I never wind up yelling at anyone. Except inside my head.

Week in Review.

Last week was downright exhausting. My roof is fantastic BTW, but it didn't come without taking a toll on my reserve nerve. My greatest wish is that I can get through one contractor project without being completely fed up.

Up until Thursday, it was just standard contractor baby-sitting issues. Then -everything went sideways.

The master bedroom in this house is up on the second floor. Which means there are downspouts from the second floor roof - which takes water from the second floor onto the first floor roof. But they hadn't stuck on part of the first floor roof. One of the guys was up on the second floor roof hosing it down. Causing water to pour into the garage. That was my first freak-out.

Then that evening I'd noticed that the remaining worker had started peeing on the side of the house. I'm not going to pretend I don't know this stuff happens. Not crazy about it. But the workers are on-site all day, and they aren't going to jump in their car and go to a bathroom. I just don't want to know about it. So - I talked to my roofer.

Me - you need to talk to your guy and tell him to stop peeing on the side of my house.
Him - He's not peeing on the side of the house. He knows not to do that.
Me - He is peeing on the side of my house. He picked the only area in my yard that doesn't get any water. And besides, it is directly in a corner, so it is really obvious.

The next day I walk out there and wouldn't you know it. He had done it again. I go to talk to my roofer again.

Me - did you talk to your guy?

Him - Mrs. Snarkolepsy, he isn't peeing on the side of your house.
Me- yes he f-ing is.

Him - show me. Then he screams "hey worker - stop peeing on the side of the house".

The worker immediately starts to deny it, and act like he doesn't understand what I'm talking about. This causes me to freak and start confronting the guy directly. "Look worker", I say - "don't try to act like you don't know what I'm talking about. Stop using my house like a bathroom". At this point my agro level is on supernova.

I'm still not sure why guys are so confused why stuff like this pisses women off.

Not Crime Free After All.

Dear Readers... it has been a really hard week. I will give a re-cap soon.

I'd hoped to have a fairly relaxing weekend. The only thing I really wanted to do is get landscaping bark off one side of the driveway, so we could stop parking one of the cars on the street. Saturday we spent a good deal of the day doing that.

I figured the rest of the weekend we would grow ass-roots.

We thought about going to a BBQ today, but Mr Snarkolepsy and I both have the Maker Faire plague. Since my husbands friends have fairly young children, we felt it wasn't a great idea to pass along our germs. But I digress.

Anyway, so far it has been anything but a relaxing weekend.

Yesterday morning I wake up. Stumble into the kitchen to get coffee, and look out my front window. Even in my non caffeinated state I notice the car that is still parked on the street - is covered with something. From the house it looks like spray paint.



I immediately run out there, and find it is some kind of dust. It sort of looks like cake mix, and is sparkly like snow. My first thought was - it's something that when mixed with water is going to eat the paint. So, I gather some up to see what happens when water is added to it.

It doesn't seem to react to water, but causes a oil slick to form. Still unsure what the substance is - I did one of the least bright moves ever. I tasted some. When it turned out really salty and not sweet like cake mix - I started to wonder if I had just poisoned myself. Since you are reading this..I obviously survived.

It all did manage to wash off. Which is a huge relief. Even though dust streams out of the window cracks when you drive. But still super irritating. Especially since this is the second time we have been hit. Two weeks after we moved into this house, a few cars on the street were egged including us. A car also had it's window broken out, but they live closer to a kid block. I didn't think much about it at the time.

We have become pretty close to the neighbors, and yesterday they told my husband that this kind of stuff doesn't happen often on our block. But it does happen. They've had tires slashed. Their house paint balled, and a licence plate stolen which wound up in San Fransisco.

After the egging they told us they had their garage broken into. But I thought it was "just one of those things" that happens sometimes. The thing is - this is not a bad neighborhood.

So - we decided to put up a security system. Which is sort of a bummer for me. We somehow have to figure out how to blend the security cams so the place doesn't look like a prison. Of all the houses to vandalise...hitting ours was the least smart, because we are the most likely to put a camera system.

The system we chose was from Luk Werks. Mainly because we had seen them at CES, and I was pretty impressed at the time. Hopefully it will do what we need it to do.

It might be nice if since the cops are ticketing people for parking too far away from the curb, they might send some extra f-ing patrols around.

Oh - did I mention how super thrilled I am to have an add-on project? Setting up the system should eat a weekend.

Bunnies + Benadryl = Chin Hair.

Mr. Snarkolepsy and I thought we were making good progress with Paisleys' balding problem. We started her on baby benadryl, and changed laundry detergents.

Even though I have a hard time accepting she can be allergic to detergent.

See.. even her chin hair was starting to grow back.



So, we began to think maybe she was having an allergic reaction the whole time, and not an OCD problem. Kind of a bummer, because rabbit allergies are not something I would have thought could be a problem.

Her ear was even starting to look better. Until last night.



We think she might be having a reaction to Vaseline.

Her ear was looking fabulous and her hair was growing back. But she was starting to get a little dry scaly-ness. So, two nights ago I put a little Vaseline on her ear to relieve the dryness. All of a sudden last night her ear looks more inflamed than ever, and she's all swollen up. Back to square one.

Now I don't know what to put on the ear, because she tolerated Vaseline really well in the beginning. Now, not so much.

It was so beautiful.

It was day 4... and my contractors hadn't done anything to make me that crazy.

Then...

They tried to flood my garage. If I can just make it through one more day, maybe I can find a happy place in my mind and have a relaxing weekend.

After all.. the new roof brings the promise of being able to BBQ without burning my house down. And hopefully the cover we bought for the BBQ (like the lid on this item) will come tomorrow. So I don't have to worry about burning other peoples houses down. The fire danger in California is really bad this year.

Another Comcast Story.

For months I've been getting offers from Comcast Cable to upgrade my current phone service to their new Digital Phone Service. I haven't seen any need. My main resistance is - I just want to go two months without having to deal with them somehow.

Plus, my phone service works fine - when I'm not having an outage. Since all my services from Comcast go down at the same time, I don't think upgrading to Digital Phone Service is going to make any difference for me.

So - today I get an automated phone message from Comcast saying they were "discontinuing" my phone service. But wanted to thank me for being a Comcast customer. Not sure if they were going to transfer me to the new service or just cut my phone, I figured I should call.

When I reach a Comcast support rep., she immediately starts giving me a sales pitch.

At the first point I can make verbal entry I tell her " I don't know why you are trying to sell me on the product - I don't have a choice". She giggles and replies " yeah - thats right.. you don't have a choice". Not in a snotty way..but what else can she say? Unless I want to change phone providers, I don't have a choice.

The phone rep asks me if I want to upgrade to the new service. Which, I know they have to do because of federal law or something. So I agree. She then tells me "well, for you - we are waiving the installation fee". Um yeah. Thanks, but thats a really good thing, because I don't have a choice. When I tell her this, she again laughs nervously, and repeats "thats right, you don't really have a choice". This happened 5 times.

And I will try not to be irritated she asked me what number I wanted to upgrade - when to pull up my account I had to give her my phone number.

Finally she puts me on hold to book my appointment. Yep, thats right. Comcast has to come to my house. I'm overjoyed.

A new interesting factoid is when Comcast comes out now, they apparently ID check you. When I asked why I had to have my ID she asks "this is your account right'?

No - I just gave you the answers to all the security questions because this isn't my account. She goes onto say "well, someone could be at your house and take off with the new equipment, and you would be billed for it".

Really? Someone is going to steal my phone equipment? And BTW - you can see how long I've been a customer. I bet you can probably see my house is jam packed with your equipment. Thats okay...I have to prove myself to you.

Honestly - I don't mind so much proving who I am, but don't give me a ridiculous story about it. Oh yeah, and if the person on the account can't be there, someone else over 18 can - as long as they have a copy of your ID. So much for someone else stealing the equiptment.

But - thats okay Comcast - expect your tech to be unhappy. Because I'm not letting them run the phone line through my carpeted floor like when I moved into this house. Back then I was so stressed about everything else it wasn't work haggling over. This time your tech gets to get into my really tight crawl space.

I might have been a little more flexible if your company wasn't a constant source of irritation.

When I get old.

I vow to never use the word "darling" to describe something.

Example: " Oh - that is just darling"

Are people saying this when they are younger and I just don't notice it?

When I get old... I vow to never use the year something happened to tell a story.

Especially if it's more than 10 years ago. I know a person who does this all the time, and it kind of bugs me. You know a story is going to be long when it includes a date. How do they remember what happened in 1979 anyway?

A Crime Free City.

That can be the only explanation as to why I got ticketed twice for parking too far away from the curb. Of course the driveway is filled with a roofing trailer, and I have miscellaneous contractors coming and going every minute. So I have my cars out on the street. One car is clearly in violation. Parked at 23 inches away from the curb. The other car was exactly 18 inches. Which is what the code is.

I am now 80 bucks poorer, and really pissed off.

In Today's Really Lame Story.

See video from wibw.com.

A mysterious four-foot robot that prompted police to shut down an area around a Curtis State Office Building on the Capitol grounds in Topeka has not been found to be a hazard.

Kansas Highway Patrol Lieutenant John Eichkorn says maintenance workers notified authorities about the robot Tuesday morning because no one received permission to display it.

A completely valid reason to bring out the bomb squad. Right? I mean...we all know the best way to blow things up - is to create a somewhat detailed robot.

This is shades of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Meaning - totally ridiculous. It doesn't even have a digital countdown clock like on 24.

They f-ing better be made of Cashmere!

Honestly.. this is how much is costs to get these damn dust artifacts from my camera mirror? I did manage to get the tiny threads to go away. But jeez.. 4 bucks a pop for something I get to use once?