Western Arab

Took my car this morning to have the door pull handle trim replaced. VW has some crappy rubber material on the door handles to give a soft touch to them. But this material is crap and rips after some time. The handle underneath this crap is just fine, they didn’t need to put this on it. So I previously had VW service replace one pull handle and the other needed to be ordered. So I called last week and confirmed they had the order and scheduled an appointment for today.

And so today, I took the car. They always take a long time to do any service. The service adviser tells me it will take about 45 minutes. So I go and wait. It was 9am, I pretty much had not slept at all, and I hadn’t eaten so I was hungry. I got an almonds bar from the vending machine and decided to have coffee which they offer free. I am not really a coffee drinker but the last few times I had it, it wasn’t bad. I see a machine for hot water and grab a hazel nut flavored coffee package. One of those round little bowl type things with an aluminum foil cover on top. So I rotate it looking for the extended piece of aluminum foil to peel it open. I can’t find one, I grab another package to check, nothing … and another.

Green Mountain Coffee Maker

Alright, so I try peeling it. I cut my nails very short so it doesn’t help. I try and try, then decide to just punch a hole with my finger. Inside I see coffee whatever it is, but it is a lot. I think I can’t put this in a cup and add water. This doesn’t make sense, plus it had this zig-zag filter looking thing the coffee is sitting in. I dump it in the trash, figure coffee is too weird, let me go back to my tea. Grab a green tea. This is the same as the coffee thing. Punch a hole in it. Ok so this is weird, it has that filter as well. Poured some of the green tea in the cup. Finally a sales guy, comes by and asks me if I know how to use the machine. I said huh? isn’t this just hot water. Nope. He flips open a top which reveals a round tray the exact fit of the package in my hand. Yah embarrassing. I didn’t know how to use a coffee machine.

Or maybe he was a manager and figured I was going to punch holes in all the tea and coffee packages before I figured out how to use that machine. Well at least the hazel nut coffee was good.

Alright so obviously the car took more than an hour to finish and the service adviser tells me that they replaced the bottom piece only because the top piece had not come in. And I explain to him right in the show room with everyone there, that I called and made the appointment after they told me the parts were in. He said they must of just saw one and assumed and I complained that they are wasting my time. Yeah, so morons!

At this dealer, they always wash the car free when you do your service. FYI it has been raining here for the past few days, plus it was raining today. So why are you washing my car? Why are you wasting more of my time? Yeah, so morons!

Finally they pull my car up. I look at the door handle. The TOP part was replaced and the bottom was not. I call over the service adviser and show him. He said he must of misunderstood the service guy and got which part was replaced mixed up. Yeah so, morons!

Now before you call me a moron for not knowing how to operate the coffee machine, keep in mind, on a previous visit to that dealer. I actually had the green tea, and I didn’t use the machine. That tea didn’t taste good, and now I know why. Yeah so … shaaaadup.

Well it is that time again. Time to look for new work again and in this crappy economy. Who isn’t looking for work? Everyone is looking, and there are less jobs. So who is hired? Those willing to take much less pay. With less jobs and so many looking, you either have to have some unique skills or you are willing to take the lesser pay. And even worse, it seems IT positions are much less in demand at this time. So maybe another field is needed, another kind of job. Who knows? But I need something new, or maybe a good side business or two. Even the one side business I had came to a screeching halt with this economy. MEH!

In other news, I just had some chocolate milk. Mmmmm. I haven’t had chocolate milk in a long time. Very exciting I know!

So I was having some problem with printing. And I fixed it and was able to print a test sheet and I tried to print again. Only thing, I got something else. A thin maybe two inch something was flapping on the printer top.

Well I found the lizard. Or at least a piece of it. I printed a flapping tail.

The poor lizard. I tried to capture it to avoid something like this. Noose on a stick didn’t work. Jar with food didn’t work. Sticky paper didn’t work. Printer CHECK. I was h0ping he would have left the printer the other day when I saw him there. I would print a sheet and he would run out as the paper he was standing on got rolled in, like running a treadmill. I figured he would have left by now.

I removed the flapping lizard tail. Opened up the printer, removed the ink cartridge and there he was not moving, part of his body was squashed. Poor fellow. I then needed to remove the jammed sheet of paper which was printed on with ink and blood. Poor fellow, I was hoping to get him out without him getting hurt. Yah I kinda felt too bad to take a picture. Use your imagination.

Was at the mall today. I wasn’t in there for five minutes and I see a Muslim couple with their children. We pass each other. Normal as anything else, until some random woman walks to me and says something. I didn’t really understand what she said at first. So she tells me again, looks at the Muslim couple that passed me, points to them and says the ones that wear that on their head, he makes her walk behind him. What the heck? How do I respond to this woman?

So I tell her, they look like they are walking side by side to me. She said no they aren’t, they always do that. wtf?! They? always? Who is she talking about? This woman has no clue that I am a muslim and is telling me what we always do? I didn’t know how to respond to her but I said something like you don’t know that. And she maybe realized that I may be muslim, gave a “I don’t know” look, shut her mouth, and walked away.

I was surprised that a strange woman would walk up to me and say things like this. She doesn’t know me. How can she just openly admit her discrimination? A dumb ignorant woman. I should of said something like I can’t wait to make my wife walk behind me. I am a Muslim! Walk behind me woman!

She was probably mad because she can’t get a husband to walk behind.

What ever happened to “behind every great man is a great woman”? I suppose if you are Muslim, you should walk as a family all side by side and block the entire isle. Ever thought that maybe the woman was stopping to look at crap to buy? Or maybe she walks a little slower and can’t keep up?

For the record, we don’t do make our women walk behind us.

I was getting shaky video on my desktop thru the kvm switch the past few days when playing Left 4 Dead. After investigating, it seems the shaky video is being caused by wire interference. I have had like a million wires and cables all wrapped and twisted together. I spent more than two hours cleaning this up. I disconnected everything. I did re-arrange things as well. My desktop went back down in the desk cabinet instead of sitting on my desk. I have more desk space now.

Finally after doing that, I went thru the same comcast crap as the last time. What appears to be comcast dns issues. Resetting router, modem and all that to fix it. Wasted I don’t know how much time on it. All I know it caused a lot of stress, cursing and anger. I hate you comcast. But atleast my desk looks cleaner and there are much less wires. It is 3:46 am right now. I will go get what sleep I can now.

And hopefully my video output on the desktop is corrected, but too tired to test anything right now.

I didn’t get to see Watchmen today at the IMAX. So just to do something I went to city place by myself.

City Place

I walked around, they had a band performing some old songs. I am guessing 80′s songs. So I had some good pistachio and strawberry icecream. Walked around some more, there was someone walking a huge dog which everyone seemed to like but atleast the dog was well behaved. Then I had a tuna salad sandwich at panera bread on honey wheat bread. Good sandwich and it came with a bag of highly fattening potato chips. Walked around some more … and that was pretty much it, but it was a nice night and it was something different for a change.

There was a bar on the upper level that had on arabic music and they had atleast two belly dancers going around from table to table, dancing and collecting the dollars. Inside they had another dancer and customers dancing on a table. Not sure what to say about all that … but I think one of the belly dancers was indian.

When I was leaving panera bread, a girl with her two friends opened the door to go in just as I was going out. So NATURALLY I walked through when she opened the door for ME. She didn’t seem very pleased with that, I think she muttered something about manners but I didn’t care to listen. She thinks because she has breasts, I am supposed to wait for her and her two friends to walk in. Logic says I don’t wait for three people, three people can wait for me. 

Got my 4 gigs of RAM for the macbook. Ended up going with xp 32 bit on vmware fusion. Working great so far. Installing the RAM was a major pain in the ass. Eight tiny screws. I got my box of cheap small screw drivers I had bought a few years back at the dollar store. So I managed to get six of the screws out and I ended up with a blister on my finger. I cursed apple for making it so hard to open the machine up. I finally managed the seventh screw, when I finally remembered I had a screwdriver on my keychain meant for eyeglasses, tried that on the final screw that would not loosen and isnstantly turned. It was only then that I realized, it is not the macbook but my shitty screwdrivers.

Tax guy, after two weeks, I called for two days to get a hold of him. Tells me he is working on my taxes and will try to finish them up next day by afternoon. Again I say you will call me when they are done? He says yes. Day goes by, no call. Arab to Arab all over again. Not using his services again, or lack of services. Will see if he calls tomorrow.

We changed the green/yellow parakeet last weekend for a female green/yellow one. She is a little older than the blue male one and has long wings. She flies good … kinda. She doesn’t seem to avoid walls. She flew into the wall twice. So I let her out in the screened patio now only. She flew into the screen at least three times but I think she will get better over time. Maybe I will post a video of them later when they are out on the patio.

So we got two pet parakeets for my dad on his birthday. My mom doesn’t like that both are males, but I didn’t pick them out, my sister didn’t care when she got them. So we probably will change the blue one at the pet shop for a female later. We have dumb and dumber as of right now, maybe with a female, things can change. Two of my sisters are each claiming it was their idea to get these for my dad as his gift. I don’t know and I don’t care who’s idea it is, but if he didn’t want the birds, I am sure they would of blamed each other for the idea. Here are two pictures, as always click to view larger.

Parakeets

Here they are facing each other. I let them out of the cage in the screened patio. The blue one went out and explored, the green one did not. So we took the green one out and all he wanted to do was get back in, but let them hang out, outside the cage for a while. At least the green one kept climbing the cage and getting some exercise that way, blue one jumped around mostly.

Parakeets - Facing each other

Ok, so I decided not to call Monday or Tuesday or even Wednesday, I figured I will wait out my accountant. Well here is Thursday, still no call. Nine days after I submitted my taxes to be completed, after being told I will get a call in two days, I have not recieved a call telling me they are complete and ready to be picked up. Why? Because I used an Arab. Simple as that. Am I going to wait for two weeks to go by? I don’t know yet, but I am very annoyed. I know when I call, the secretary will say they are ready and I should come by and pick up. The problem is the accountant said he will call me, so why can’t I get the call saying your taxes are ready, come pay us for our service.

Idiots.

Maybe next year I will go to a Jew for my taxes.

Monday’s suck. We need to make weekends three days long. Two day weekends are too short. I want to sleep, I am tired and today is gym day.

So Monday, electric power flashed 3 times this morning. Short, quick off/on after I left my computer for the bathroom. I have a battery backup so things normally go just fine. This time however the internet was not working. There was some dns issue. I don’t need to get in all the technical details of it all. I called Comcast and spoke with one of the techs. She was nice and we went through the usual comcast crap. Reset modem. Restart Computer. Connect direct to PC rather than thru router. Nothing, we didn’t get anywhere. She concluded there was a hardware issue on my end. She was actually smart and knew what she was talking about unlike most of the techs I get with comcast. So she said this is when they would refer you to the manufacturer, that is the problem is on my end with my computer and I would contact the manufacturer of the pc. I built my PC, there is no dell to call!

This was all fine, I can investigate the issue further on my end, knowing now that she was able to remotely reset my modem, I knew there was no issue with the communication lines. I just did not want her to go yet.

Me: So you just going to just leave me now?

Rep: (laughing) Well this is when we just refer to the manufacturer…

Me: (I cut her off) Oh stick around, you got a nice voice.

Rep: (laughing again) Thanks. Alright I can stay.

Me: Aleast stay until my PC reboots and we see if it fixes. I got vista on this machine so it will take some time to startup again!

My vista machine really does take a long time to startup and she did stick around. She was nice, and we had our conversation while my machine rebooted. So yes I flirted a little with a comcast rep, she kept me entertained while my slow computer restarted. And she really did have a nice voice. Restarting didn’t fix it, and I ended up spending the next hour or so on it but I fixed it eventually. The power flashing must of messed something up. Resetting my router completely to manufacturer settings seemed to have done the trick. Was almost ready to buy a new router when I pin pointed the source of the problem to be the router, but a little more patience saved me some money.

Turned out she was right about the problem being on my end, shame she lives in Tennessee.