10
Dec
09
Let me tell you a story...
With the end of yesterday's big snow storm, I spent a good two hours shoveling the various pathways around the Manfort. But it took the plow until around 11:00 PM to come through and clear the road to the curb. So after finishing my evening movie, (Transformers II), I put on my coat and headed out at half past midnight to shovel a path through the snowbank before the snow turned into the icy equivalent of granite by morning.
A couple of shovel-fulls into it, I notice a cop turn the corner and come down Chicago Ave toward me. He flicks on the spotlight and blinds me as he pulls up. I'm sure I looked quite menacing in my blaze orange winter coat wielding a snow shovel. [rolls eyes] We have the following exchange:
Passenger-side Cop: What are you up to?"
Me (wanting to say, "Looking for buried treasure"): "Shoveling snow."
Passenger-side Cop: "Why are you shoveling in the middle of the night?"
Me (probably looking more than annoyed): "So that I can clear this path before the snow turns rock hard."
Passenger-side Cop: "Well, it's dangerous to be in the roadway. You should probably do that in the morning."
Me: "So you're saying it would be less dangerous when there's twenty times more traffic on the road during the day?" (Oh snap! I secretly congratulate myself)
Passenger-side Cop: "I suppose you're right, carry on then."
Me: stares at idiot cop waiting for them to leave...
Passenger-side Cop: "Have a good night." And they drive off at 5 miles an hour for the next two or three blocks.
Me: "Alright, buddy. Enjoy that donut. Dumbass."
Now my lack of a successful alliance with our local police is no secret, but I thought that was just effing ridiculous. Thanks for wasting 5 minutes of my life. And good job protecting our community against those dangerous midnight snow shovelers.
19
Feb
09
Okay, last quarter of '08 I lost 8 grand out of my 401. I just got my first quarter report. It's gone down another $14,000. Holy shitbuckets!!! Seriously?!?!
That's $22,000 doll hairs I don't get to have garnering interest for me. Jebus H. Christmas on a stick! Fucking fix this economy already.
18
Dec
08
I haven't been able to access my email since yesterday. :( No notifications, no tracking updates, no friend's messages, and no spam. :( :(
This is the first time Google has let me down. I'm sure they're just mucking about with the server my account is on and it will work when it's done, but it's 3 hours away from the 24 hour mark. Dammit!
Google says:
Sorry... account maintenance underway
We're currently performing maintenance on your account. You won't be able to log in while maintenance is underway, but your account data and messages are safe. Unfortunately, we can't predict exactly how long this will take.
If this maintenance lasts more than 24 hours, please contact us at gmail-maintenance@google.com.
17
Sep
08
Check out what I get to deal with...
It seems my fridge is on the fritz. There is no longer any functioning thermostat to keep the fridge from going into deep-freeze mode. Everything in there is frozen solid unless there's enough alcohol in it to act as anti-freeze. Yay.
So the fun started on Sunday, when I opened the fridge to a similar looking nightmare. 4 glass bottles of club soda and one can of Coke had exploded and blasted miniature shards of glass everywhere that then froze to the surface of everything. Ask me how much fun that was to clean up. I had to take everything out one at a time, wash it off, put it on the counter, and then have at the fridge interior. It took a good hour to wipe all the frozen glassy mess away.
At that point, I noted that everything on the top shelf was solid and the beer on the bottom shelf was not, so I rearranged liquids to the bottom shelf along with the last can of Coke that hadn't exploded.
Then the next day, I wake up to exactly the same mess! That last damn can decided to burst it's contents everywhere too. Great. Now I get to do the whole cleaning routine again. It's really amazing how extensive the mess is from a single can on the bottom shelf. It's like a bottle of Diet Coke and some Mentos got it on in my fridge over night.
So - I needsa new fridge. I've been watching craigslist for the freebees, but no luck yet. In the mean time, I think I'll offer Cryogenic services to anyone requiring them.
26
Aug
08
Excel linemen replacing my service line.
Nearly two months ago (right after the fourth of July weekend), my electricity in the manfort started acting wonky. Overnight, half the house quit working. No reason -- just quit. So everything in the basement and the kitchen had no electricity, but the outlets on the other side of the place still worked. A quick trip to the electrical box confirmed that none of the breakers were flipped. Hmm?
So I call Jon up and he gets an electrician over. Of course while the electrician was here, everything miraculously started working again. Great. And then the next day it quit working again. Seriously, some timing right?
And now the weird part. If I ran the dryer, the electricity would start to work so long as the dryer motor was running. As soon as the cycle quit -- off went half the electrical again. How convenient. So the electrician said that he couldn't find anything wrong and suspected the service from the transformer on the pole out back. In other words, Excel Energy's problem. So we put in the call on July 14th. read more »
04
Aug
08
Alright -- I still think facebook is superior to myspace in every way, but it seems I get this damn message at least once a day. Anyone else have as many issues as me? So friggin' annoying!
03
Jul
08
See the little fucker to the right? That's my neighbor's dog. The little shit is a Jack Russell Terrier that has no volume control or off switch. Whenever the damn thing is in the yard, it's, "bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark..." until it goes back in. No exaggeration at all, it's fucking constant.
So tonight...
That little beast has been yipping and yapping since 10:00. NON-STOP! It's now 12:30 in the morning. Yay. And it's still going strong. It's probably a really good thing I don't have my .22 handy.
Looking out the front window, I see the neighbor's car isn't there. (His absent status confirmed with no lights on in the house either). Well that's just fucking wonderful. How thoughtful of you, neighbor, to leave the terrier terror out in the yard while you're gone all night. read more »
30
Jun
08
See this little guy with his skin coming off in sheets? It's pretty much how my head looks right now. Just replace green with red. Tell you what -- sunburn isn't much fun when you're bald.
I got a little too much sun this last week. Not intentionally, it's just how it worked out. Today I'm sitting in my office at work and scratch my noggin. I get a handful of dead skin. That's nice, I think. I make my way to the men's room to survey the damage. It looks like someone lathered my head in Elmer's glue and it's starting to peel away now. Pretty picture I've formed for you I'm sure.
So home I go to use a mixture of razoring, loofah, and sand-soap to rub my head raw. That oughta be fun... Damn German/Scottish heritage, turns into a lobster in the sun skin.
27
May
08
Who else woke this morning looked at the thermometer and promptly said, "What the Hell?!?"
Two days ago it was above 80°. This morning it's 40°. When I get out of work, I refuse to acknowledge the elements if I see white shit falling from the sky.
02
Apr
08
Jebus H Christ! What a fucking nightmare!
Here I sit for over a half hour listening to the goddamn Comcast muzak waiting for the human to answer. Did I mention how much I hate Comcast? And not only because they've a complete monopoly on DSL service in the Twin Cities.
This all started because I've been busy upgrading everyone's sites from Drupal 4.6 or 4.7 to Drupal 5.X. And we all get a fancy and shiny new look to go with it. As I'm doing one site full of events, I notice that even though MySQL is storing the correct timestamp, Drupal isn't displaying it correctly. A week ago, this kept me up all night trying to figure it out.
Then I learn the issue is really a bug in the way php 4.0.1 (which is what was on my server) dealt with the date() function. Soon I realize that I can't use any of the fancy new php 5 functions either because my server software is woefully out of date. Even online forums were nearly useless, because they're all discussing php 5 as well. read more »
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