I have to do something nice.

My husband has this work friend who is an amazing photog. He is constantly giving us good advise, and really has saved us a lot of money by helping us buy camera lenses.

Yesterday my husband comes home and tells me his work friend is going to lend us one of his lenses. Which is really super nice. These things are crazy expensive. Its like saying " here, I'm going to let you borrow my expensive china - I trust you not to break it".

Work friend is always offering and I'm always resisting because I hate to borrow peoples stuff. As a matter of a fact, another work friend sent home a lens with my husband before I could resist, and I never even used it because I was afraid something might happen to it.

So -now I think I should do something nice to thank him for all his advice, and lending of camera equipment.

Well.. short of asking him and his wife out to dinner. Because lets face it, I don't want to admit what an inferior photographer I am. And he's one of those guys who is really into photography and might just wind up talking about it the whole night. I'm just trying to give the illusion I can take good photos.

So I'm trying to figure out something that would be really thoughtful to thank this guy.

Since he is a transplant from Canada I thought maybe something uniquely Canadian might be nice. Short of that.. just something nice will do. Since my readers always have the best ideas - I thought I'd ask what you guys would do.

Drought? What drought?

Click to enlarge.

When the end of the world nears, and you don't have any water - you can blame my neighbors. They all have to water in the middle of the day. It doesn't matter if we are having hurricane force winds, or it's 109 degrees. I just don't get it.



Normally I wouldn't care.. but I'm going to get thirsty tearing down all that packaging material I get from companies.

Meh!

Don't laugh at my crappy picture. Fireworks are really hard to photograph! Expecially when you have a street light in the middle of the frame.

Anyway.... the fascinating thing this year was we didn't hear people setting off fireworks in the days leading up to the 4th. No one setting off boat flares or anything!

When did everyone get all responsible and stuff?

What does that mean?

On one hand - look how fast stuff gets shipped from China! On the other hand - what is brokerage?

And if it's an import thing, why is it being held in Ontario California? I'm guessing its California, and not Canada since UPS said it was suppose to be delivered today.

I've only got my panties in a bunch because I'm about 80% sure my house is going to loose power with the upcoming heatwave, and we are going to be forced to take the bunnies to a hotel. Like last year. Which totally sucks ass.

So - I'd totally love to have our laptop.

How Chrysler sucks and Pontiac doesn't.

Honestly - tires should last more than 11,000 miles. Right?

Apparently the tires you get when you buy a new Chrysler 300 don't. I had to stick new tires on the car yesterday.

If that were the only thing that irritated me about the car I might just bitch about it and move on. But..so far these are the problems I've had with it.

1. Automatic transmission refused to shift gears.

2. ABS (Automatic Brake System) stopped working.

3. Hands free phone system never seems to work, and the techs can never figure out why.

4. The satellite navigation system is the biggest piece of shit on the planet.

5. Chrysler wants 600 bucks to give you an updated set of maps.

6. Tires.

7. This isn't a Chrysler problem, it still irritates me. Sirius radio constantly looses signal.

Contrast that to our Pontiac Solstice which also has roughly 10,000 miles.

1. Soft top had a problem that made the cabin have excessive wind noise.

Yep.. that's it.

Even though the problem was pretty obscure - the techs did a ton of research and figured out the problem. After only one visit to the shop.

And - I just have to point out the Solstice is a much cheaper car than the Chrysler. Yet Pontiac didn't put such shitty tires on the car I had to replace them after only 11,000 miles.

Mini Photo Montage.

I'm pretty bored with this stuff now. But - I haven't told you the best thing about going to the faire.

Did you guys know you can get preferred parking at these places now?

For 15 bucks - you can park right up along with the handicap parking. Oh hell yeah. I did just say that. I know! It pisses you off doesn't it?

It was so freakin' awesome! I totally don't even feel like a hypocrite even though I made a huge stink about valet parking at the mall - because we parked our own car.

Anyway.. it made the faire experience so much better. After we were tired, we didn't have to truck nine miles to the parking lot and search forever for our car.

Now I must force you to look at more photos.



Hey! I want to know who climbed to the top of the Ferris wheel and gave a shout out to the sign of the devil. I didn't even know it was there until I was reviewing the photos. It was a completely unintentional shot. But.. maybe a sign.



I don't know what these were - but I'm embarrassed to admit I was completely fascinated by them.

I know.. I'm one step away from having a Velvet Elvis painting in my house. But these things moved! I couldn't take my eyes off them.



I thought it said Flying Boobs, and if I was at all motivated - I would Photoshop it to say that. But I'm not.



Gratuitous cuteness.



This was in the quilt building.. but I don't think it was a quilt template.



When did almonds start costing 25 bucks a bag? Cripes!

Damn overachievers.

Okay - So I'm going to push out a couple more entries about the faire before I loose interest.

I took this picture especially for Mommy De Gallo. Because she is a kick ass quilter. And I secretly thought I could get her to do crazy projects.

I'm so totally not into quilting, but MDG caused me to actually drag my husband around the whole quilting building. Which is big deal because those people on those little rascal scooters drive me insane.

Can you believe this quilt only took third place in ... hell.. I don't know what the competition is called for quilting. I'm sure MDG will tell me because she rocks.




Click to enlarge.

At least no one lost a limb.

Photo Montage.

Mixed messages.

Four feet away was this:



Should read: I was an Easter Bunny that somebody loved until I became too difficult to take care of. My Family decided to set me free and now I live on the streets of the city. Everyday things that you see are dangerous and even deadly to me. Cars, cats, dogs, birds, and plants aren't things you would think of as lethal at first glance.



Can you imagine the cold icy stares as these two groups set up their booths?

Look at me!

Don't you just love these things? What are they called anyway?



I'm not sure if I should be concerned when they start climbing rock walls to get my attention though.

How I'm still ruining the earth.

I have to admit.. I don't really care that much about ruining the earth. A meteor is just going to come through and make everything right with the universe anyway.

So - when a company's packaging gets on my radar - you know it has to be excessive. You can see this stuff happens all the time. Here.



This is a simple roll of lead tape. It was the only thing that was in that box. WTF?

Does it really cost less to send a big box like this rather than a small envelope? I mean.. that's only explanation. Right? Lead tape isn't breakable.

Okay - I'm done messing around.

Leave some comments - or the lamb gets it!

I can dream can't I?

Is it wrong I feel jealous of Texas because its been raining there for weeks?

I've decided that if it were ever to rain here again - I'm going to buy a chaise lounge and just lay out in the rain for hours.

Untitled.

Okay.. I'm starting to think most people who read this blog don't really like bunnies because I don't get many comments. You don't hate bunnies... do you?

Maybe they aren't cute enough for you? Well.. maybe Paisley looks a little demonic this time...

Clever advertising - or inappropriate?

You be the judge.

A sales rant about Vonage.

Tonight I get a call from Vonage. At first I thought it was a routine sales/marketing call.

The sales guy however tells me Vonage is calling customers that have called them recently because they have a sales promotion going on.

All of a sudden I got all exited. Because honestly, I did just call them a few days ago after I had my last customer service rant. Here.

At first I was super impressed because I never gave Vonage my number. Their sales guy had effectively frustrated me enough that I wound up not switching my service to them.

So, the company stripping my number from the sales call impressed me. Okay.. it doesn't take that much these days. To be honest, the sales guy could have had me at "hello".. but this is how he screwed it up:

While giving me the hard sales pitch he says the following:

"Do you have a pen, I'd like to give you some information to write down". Then he says " I'd like you to write down our company name - this is Vonage".

Me - "Um.. yeah, I know." You said you were calling all the customers who had recently called you. I know who you are. Plus, you've said the name like 20 billion times in 3 minutes.

While my husband is trying to find a pen, I figure I'd ask the sales guy about something I read. So I ask "I heard that Vonage uses Comcast's lines, and that Comcast has been downgrading the Vonage signal because they don't want you to enter the sector.

This causes the sales guy to totally ignore my question and tell me about the Vonage services again trying to stay on script. So I say "that doesn't answer my question". I again ask about Comcast downgrading the Vonage signal.

He then tells me he'd never heard about that problem. Then starts backpedaling.

Well, he says - if that does happen you can increase the Vonage signal. But again, he's never heard about Comcast doing that so it shouldn't be a problem. And we can try the service risk free for 30 days without disconnecting from our current service. Then goes onto say, maybe he has heard of Comcast downgrading the signal, but they have a complaint registered with the FCC.

Okay...Comcast is pissing me off so much I might not even care you guys are having a little flame war, but don't fucking lie to me about about it. Either you've never heard about it - or you have a complaint with the FCC. It can't be both.

It's all about my rack.

I'm still on this crusade to have some surgery. Hopefully sometime before the sun burns out. So - I figure I would just make an appointment with my GP, to see if I can get things moving along.

My doctor has treated me for various problems with my back over the years, but he hasn't really had a first hand look at the problem. Mostly because I sort of had a crush on him for a while. Thankfully over the years he had convinced me he was gay. But not convinced enough to show him my parts.

So - I go in and talk to him about the problems I was having with the surgeons office. I explain to him how I'm stalled because I can't get his office and the surgeons office to communicate, and I urge him to take a look at me. (He'd never seen them). Because at this stage I really need my doctor to fight the insurance company on my behalf. I could tell he really wanted to look, even though he didn't really want to ask. I'm sure he sees that stuff all the time.. but I got a vibe he was much happier I offered.

So - I take my shirt off..... and now I'm pretty convinced now my doctor is not gay.

Of course he was really professional...but straight men make a super hard attempt to not react, but they just can't help it.

Needless to say.... I'm hopeful the process will get easier for me. And I'm happy to report that I'm doing a bang-up job of minimizing these puppies. All the medical professionals I've shown them to say they would have never guessed I was as big as I am. They also seem much more willing to help get them whittled down.

If I would have known how hard it was to get through just getting okay'ed for surgery I would have started this process a year ago. At this rate, I'm guessing maybe by Christmas I might be all fixed up.

California Burning.

Last night - our local news led in with 7 fire stories. Most notably the South Lake Tahoe fire that destroyed around 200 homes. News link here. I'd been jittery about the fire season all spring. With really good reason.

Conditions are so favorable for fires right now you see smoke in the sky roughly once a week. I've started taking my camera more places because I just don't see how CAL FIRE is going to be able to manage enough resources to keep the season under control. You can see from the hillsides just how dangerous things are. This used to be a grove of oak tree's.



So anyway... I'm out running around this morning. I pop on the freeway to get to an appointment and off in the distance I see a huge smoke plume. But at this point I'm late. So I can't really go to investigate.

Since none of the firetrucks seemed in a big hurry, I figure it probably wasn't that big of a deal. Plus, I didn't see air support.



I figure the fire is going to be out by the time I get done with my appointment, but it wasn't. The winds had started kicking up. By the time I got up near the fire line - it was obvious it wasn't a big fire, rather lots of little hot spots. From the freeway the fire looked much larger.



Those are huge satellite dishes in the distance.



This weekend should be pretty interesting though. Thankfully I've heard very few pre-fireworks.. so hopefully people are taking the fire situation pretty seriously.

A little out of my element.

I find myself in a really weird position of needing to buy a sewing machine. I think.

Well... first lets start with the fact I don't sew. At all. So keep that in mind. I never dream of sewing. Not even when I have grandchildren. I totally respect those who have the patience to sew. That isn't me. As a matter of a fact, it seems like a really bad idea for me to sew anything. But I'm going to do it anyway.

My regulars know I'm completely ADD. I'm either going to wind up driving the needles I've dropped through my feet, or sewing my fingers to the machine. I can just see it now.

The problem is I need some curtains hemmed, and searching out a seamstress seems like a pain in the ass. I don't even know where I would find one. Besides the obvious - the phone book. The job is so small, it hardly worth any seamstresses time.

But - apparently, curtain manufacturers don't think customers need curtains thick enough to block out all visible light in the size I need. So I'm forced to hem.

Normally, I would just lop off the bottom of the curtains and call it a day. But I think I may want to wash these things. Which surely will result in them completely unraveling. Then I'll have to go through this whole process again. And I really.. really don't want to spend months shopping for simple non-hideous curtains again.

Women must think god awful designs are the greatest thing. Therefore torturing me, because I don't really need flowers on every piece of fabric in existence. I also don't need to feel like I'm having a grandmother flashback with the weird 1970's materials.

Now I'm digressing.

So to recap - I just want a simple sewing machine. I don't need 80 stitch patterns. That is just 80 patterns I'm going to sew into my hand.

The problem is.. most of the really simple ones are manufactured by Brother. Who I just blacklisted 2 months ago. I'm never buying anything from that company again.

I have a fax machine from them, which apparently will not work without the color ink cartridges. It won't even allow you to send a fax.

What pissed me off more is the machine stops working when the color cartridges still have a lot of ink left in them. To replace all my cartridges cost me 75 bucks. while buying a new low end Brother fax machine would have been 100 bucks.

So - long story long... Brother may have a sewing machine a little more my mentally challenged speed.. but I'm not going to give them my money.

So I'm asking for ideas from my readers. I know I have some readers who sew, and I'm positive they will give me some really good ideas. You guys always do.

This is how I embarrassed myself today.

I just found out I've been calling my neighbors wife by the wrong name. For a year and a half. Then when he told me - I tried to cover it up and pretend I knew her name and I was just having a stressfull day. Which I'm sure just made the whole thing completely worse!

Man... I suck. How do I fix that?

Update:

I am all in a tizz about getting my neighbors name wrong. I feel really bad.

So I call up another neighbor and ask " Hey neighbor - what is our neighbors wife's name"?

Him - "um.. I just drew a blank". Why?

Me - " Apparently I've been calling her by the wrong name for a year and a half. I know I've said her name in front of you and you've never corrected me ".

At this point he busts out laughing.

Him - " um.. I don't know. What's her name"?

Me - " what do you mean? You've lived here for 20 years!"

Him - " So- whats her name"?

Me - "I'm not telling you - have your own embarrassing neighbor moment".

The thing is.. not one of my neighbors has corrected me when I've said her name. And they have all lived here for decades.

My Insta-freakout.

So - I'm going to talk about the Instapundit thing.

I didn't really think I would get picked up by one of the most popular blogs on earth. At first I was super excited. But of course it freaked me out, and I became super self conscience. Because - I'm still really a shy kind of girl, and I realised there were way more eyes looking at all the stuff I've written about.

Then I started thinking about the posts where I talked about my vast porn collection and my boobs. Then my vast porn collection with my boobs. Okay... maybe not that.

Even though I know this is very temporary, I kind of thought I would gradually acquire readership over time. Not be noticed by a huge blog.

Thankfully everyone has been really nice (thank you Instapundit readers) - except that one guy who had sand in his vagina about me bitching about Alienware. All in all, its been a good experience.

Questions that don't need to be asked.

I figured we would go super low tech today. I know I'm on tilt right now... but maybe my customer service scab could heal if people would stop asking me stupid questions.

I'm at the hardware store buying two 8 foot 4x4's. This is not one of those items where you can just take a little paper slip with the UPC on it up to the checkout stand, and they'll load it for you. You have to take the actual lumber to the register.

So - the cashier asks me if I'm buying two of them.

???

I'm trying to figure out what the cashier was thinking. Did he think I was only buying one 4x4, and I brought the 2nd one to the cashier just for exercise? Or did he think I was somehow smuggling a 3rd eight foot beam up my ass?

Okay - this is the other thing. I know this store doesn't put any bar-codes on their lumber, so I made sure to take a close in cell phone picture of the price tag and the item number. Had it right up on my phone screen so when he went to find the barcode I could just show him the price-tag.

I walk up, and the cashier starts to look confused. Because no one under 20 who works at a fucking hardware store knows what a 4x4 is. They don't even have different length 4x4's at this store.

So - I hold up my phone which has a pretty large screen. Roughly 2x2 inches. So he's not looking at a little tiny cell phone screen. This only makes the cashier ask me "what's that"?

Fuck me...!

I don't know... what could it be? It has a bar-code, item number and description. And the price.

Update: I finally got around to getting the picture off my phone.

Customer support sucks ass.

I have to make an admission. My fuse is becoming positively short with representatives of customer support. I don't like that about myself right now. It didn't used to be that way. They could annoy the hell out of me, and I could still make jokes. It is just getting harder and harder to find the funny side of dealing most companies.

This is my laundry list of complaints today.

1. Why have an f-ing website if you can't manage your account from it? Or when you do manage your account the information gets lost - so I just have to wind up talking to a support rep anyway?

So - today I get a call from Sirius Satellite radio. My one year free subscription is up. Okay fine. The call is automated and if you wanted to renew you just had to press a button and you will be connected to an operator. Except they put me into the general queue and I'm on hold for 11 minutes. I didn't even call them - they called me!

I knew for a fact last year we linked our credit card to our Sirius account because we were having problems with XM at the time. I didn't want to have to deal with customer support when the free trial was up. I just wanted them to seamlessly start billing my credit card. How hard is that? The customer support rep however, insisted they did not have our credit card information.

To add insult to injury I just logged into the Serius website and they do have my credit card on file.

2. I want to talk to a support rep who makes me think they have worked at the company for more than 20 minutes. I've done plenty of phone work in my career. Some of that was in tech support. When I first started working - they made you learn the f-ing rehearsed script before they even stuck you on the phone.

When I ask a question - I'd like it if you first acknowledged you've heard a question. Not pause, and re-read the same sentence from your script. If I happen to be standing in front of you I'd like more than a blank stare. Maybe a nod or a flicker of acknowledgment in your eyes. Is that too much to ask?

3. Why do I have to spend more time on hold than I would at a normal job? Why do I have to be on hold for 30 minutes to order an item? For that matter - why do I have to be on hold for at least 30 minutes no matter what company I call? Unless that company calls me. Then I'm merely on hold for 11 minutes.

4. Why do I have to talk to a company a minimum of 3 times to get a resolution to a problem? See # 5.

5. Why do I even have a problem? I paid for your service or product. Why do you keep switching it on me causing me to have to call and figure out why the service I paid for doesn't f-ing work anymore? I just want to get what I paid for, and I don't want to talk to you ever again until I make a change with that service. You aren't making my service better. In fact usually you are making it worse. Or I would have already switched.

6. If you can't handle the customers you have - lay every single one of your sales people off. Stop taking new customers. Most of them don't even know how to sell your product anyway.

7. Why is it the only choice consumers have is between "sucks ass" and "sucks donkey balls"? It's ridiculous!

8. Why do I have to walk your technical support reps through how to solve my problem? Why?

This clearly isn't only about Sirius. Its about the constant dealings with untrained support staff I've had to do this week. Then companies like Comcast Cable for example who make you so crazy - you are willing to pay anyone on earth besides them. My previous rants here and here. I'm not the only one being driven to insanity by Comcast. Look here and here and here.

Then you have to pull your hair out to find another company who makes you believe for one second their support staff is in any way more competent than the one you are leaving.

Am I really asking for that much?

Upate:

Hey, I got insta-lanched! Welcome Instapundit readers.

Today I became a hypocrite.

I did all that bitching about Lenovo last year. Here.

What happened this morning? Mr S. purchased a Lenovo Thinkpad X61 Series. I've been trying to talk him out of it for two weeks because I blacklisted them.

He finally wore me down by telling me how much the people at work thought the construction was much better than all the other laptops his co-workers have owned. So - what could I do?

But - all those other companies.. I'm still not buying from you.

Anyway.. they allege it should be here in 2-3 weeks. Oh - did I mention they are having a big sale. If you call their sales department and sit on hold for 30 minutes you can get an extra 15% off the sales price listed on the web-site.

Midnight in the Garden of good and Evil.

Mr S. said most people would feel title would be anti-climactic. He thought most people would want a story from that title. If you think so - the comment section is open.

Normally I hate my photo's and grow to love them. This one I loved, and now think it sucks.

I'm posting it anyway because I love the feature on my camera that allows infrared light in, but also allows vivid colors to show up. Which means I can take pictures in complete darkness. Like this shot.

You have to admit it's cute.

I know this crosses some weird line about dressing up your pets.. but Tivo Antenna's don't really count. Do they?



BTW- she now hates those antennas.

More bunny pics here.

My girls travel in packs.

Normally I don't post about conversations I have with friends. Mostly because they are too intimate, personal, inappropriate. Choose one. Today I am breaking my rules.

When one of my girlfriends called last night at 9:00 - I knew there would be trouble. Before I even answered the phone I was sure she was in a dark place. Which is basically my code phrase for freaking out. Sounds more ominous than it really is.

Honestly, I wanted to not answer the phone. My girls seem to run in packs, and when one wants to talk they all want to talk. Its gotta be some crazy thing like women's periods sync up or something, because it happens all the time. I can go for days and not speak to any of them... then bam! they all descend on me like the neurotic chatty Cathy's we all are.

So I was already pretty high up there on the talked-out list. But it was uncharacteristically late for her to call.. so I figured I should just suck it up.

Let me just say - talking to my girlfriends is a little like squirrels on crack chattering at cats. Because all of our lives are so hectic - we get to talking so fast that a full 8 hour conversation gets condensed into about 2 hours. I'm exhausted by the time I'm done. Then - I wind up doing the highlight recap for my husband which always involves the phrase "can you believe that"? He gets exhausted just from the 15 minute recap. Plus all of a sudden he is faced with a wife that is completely wound up like a child on sugar.

So anyway...my girlfriend and I are spawned from the hippy-est hippies on the planet. I started becoming more conservative long ago.. but she moved to Seattle and became one of my most liberal friends. And I live pretty near San Fransisco, so that's saying a lot. I wouldn't say I am a full out conservative.. I'm not. I'm just more conservative than she is. I'm the type of conservative that doesn't care what you do with your life.. I just want to keep the money I earn.

This is how liberal she is. When she met and married her husband some years back he wouldn't even use a car at all. He would only use a skateboard for transportation. The only reason she still drove is because she's a girl and girls are not going to choose a skateboard over a car.

Well, lets say some years later skateboarding isn't as practical. But he still wants to buy a cabin in the woods. Stock it with supplies for when the end of the world comes due to global warming, antiperspirant giving everyone cancer, or whatever this weeks liberal is telling her she needs to do to prepare for Armageddon. She told me last night her husband actually told her he thought they could hike to the cabin in a week.

As you can imagine there is a lot of eye rolling. Nodding in agreement and biting my tongue - but whatever. The thing is, almost every time I talk to this friend she is becoming remarkably more conservative. And it isn't happening gradually over time. Every conversation she is becoming less granola hippy, and its freaking me out.

I've never seen anything evolve this fast. Its like how fast the sea-people evolved on the Southpark epiode "Simposons Already Did It". At this rate next month she is will be to the right of Rush Limbaugh.

Aliens have reached the mother ship. Another Alienware rant.

Yes.. Dear Regular Readers, I know I'm boring the shit out of you with these posts. But you must know this is for search purposes for potential buyers.

Today I got the following email from Alienware:

"Thank you for contacting the Alienware Technical Support team.

In regards to your inquiry please be advised that, unfortunately, at this moment we do not offer an option to check the status of your system while being serviced in our facilities, in the same way it can be done when tracking the progress of your order through the Order Status page.

In regards to your inquiry please be advised that according to FedEx, the system was delivered today in our facilities. It should be entering the diagnostic phase during this week.

The normal Depot turn around time frame is approximately 15-20 business days. This time frame is subject to change depending on stock availability of replacement parts. If any issues were to come up, we would be sure to notify you."

Did you see that part where they say turn around is 15-20 business days? Plus 7 days for shipping time. Probably times 2 because who here thinks turn around time counts time to ship the machine back to me? Ya'll raise your hands if you do.

Okay - so this is the thing. This morning my husband told me his company started offering company discounts on Alienware machines. Lots of tech companies do this, but I couldn't have cared less.

Honestly there isn't a discount on earth that makes buying another machine from them worth it. Especially when I pay for on site support..which doesn't exist. Then have to ship my machine back to them for a minimum of 4 weeks. That's if they have the parts in stock.

Anyone want to take bets on how long it takes them to figure out I put a new drive in the machine that is completely clean? Drives are so cheap these days that I didn't want the support guys checking out my vast porn collection. So, we just popped a new drive in it when we shipped it back. We didn't even install an OS on it.

Okay - so I don't have a vast porn collection.. but I do have financial data, and they don't need the f-ing drive anyway. They can just plug in a master drive.

Oh wait.. I forgot to link my last post on this. So here it is.

Lighthouse.

Should read - Lighthouse For The Blind.

Clearly if you need to see the building name you shouldn't be there.. so why trim the tree.