fair trade

I have a LitterMaid catbox for my two cats.  I originally bought it in April 2005.  It broke just before our Vegas vacation in October.  The scooping mechanism just stopped scooping.

So, I called up the manufacturer, reported the trouble, and they instructed me to send them the battery compartment cover, and part of the power adapter (cut about six inches from where it plugs into the littler box).

I do so, and the replacement arrives on Wednesday.  They just send a whole new unit.  Cool!  A free replacement!

I set it up tonight, and noted that my old one and the “new” one were different colors.  No biggie, I thought.  Who cares what color the box is, right?

It wasn’t until I toted the broken litterbox out to the garage in the cardboard box of the new one and saw the original cardboard box in the garage, that I realized why they were different colors.

My original one was a newer model.  I got an older model to replace my broken one. 
😡

I guess beggars can’t be chosers, but still, it would have been nice if they’d replaced it with the same model rather than one that’s probably been sitting in their warehouse for lord knows how long.  Grr.

frickety-frackety truck!!

It’s been a while since I’ve had to complain about our truck (Saturn VUE), but that’s because with the price of gas skyrocketing, we haven’t been driving it!  Plus one other reason that cropped up recently, but I will get to that shortly.

Today, because we do try to drive it on short trips* on the weekend, we took it instead of my ION when we went to go look for a Mi*ghty Mouse at Comp*USA, and to pick up lunch.

The gas gauge was low, but not enough to turn the warning light on.  When the light comes on, there should be about two gallons of gas left before the point of no return.  We assumed, since it was a short trip (maybe 15 miles one way), and the light had NOT come on, we were safe.

You know the old saying about the word “assume”, right?

Fridays suck.

I hate Fridays.  Really, I do.

For one thing, because it’s not really MY Friday.  Not at work.

Secondly, because Fridays, of all days, tend to be overly busy at work.

I’ve complained about it on here before.

You customers should be out boozing it up, for crying out loud.  It’s Friday!  Go party!  Worry about your troubles on Monday, for the love of pete!  That way it’s not MY problem.  Heh.

red carpet service, my ass!

You’d think a company that will be doing nothing but TAKING your money for the next 15 years wouldn’t give you the 5th degree when you call them and try to get your account information since they didn’t feel so inclined as to send you your billing statement for the upcoming month.  It’s not a checking account, you twerps, it’s a MORTGAGE.  It’s not like I can take money out of it, it’s sole purpose is for you to take money from ME.

keee-rist!  I’m trying to get the info I need to pay THEM and they’re grilling me about when I opened the account, what my payment amount is, WHEN I sent the last payment… Give me a break!  I know they must have some security measures to follow, but like I already said, it’s not a friggin checking account.

Grrrr….

just a little annoying…

I think I’ve ranted about Classmates.com before.  In short, I think that they’ve become too greedy.  You pretty much have to be a paid member to do just about anything at their site.

This morning I checked my mail and found I’d been sent an email via Classmates from one of my friends from high school.  I went to reply, and at the top of the page, it says this:

Please Note: As a Classmates member, you may reply to this Email once. To be able to send Email to any of our more than 38 million members or to reply to this Email more than once, you must become a Classmates Gold Member.

So I thought, ok, I can reply to my friend, give her my email addresses outside of Classmates and be done with it.  I compose my reply, and hit “preview message”.

What does their system do next?

Niki, you’re so close to getting in touch with **** ****!

All you need to do is become a Classmates Gold member and you’ll be able to email **** ****, or any of our more than 38 million members, whenever you like.

Um, yeah.  Excuse me?  Did I not read that first statement correctly?  Does it not say that I can reply once without having to pay??  WTF??

Bastards.  So I sent off an email to them this morning asking what the heck is up with that, their system lied and is demanding I pony up the membership fee before I can reply to my friend.  What a crock of shit!

I don’t expect to hear from them any time soon, so I am trying to cheat the system by posting my email addresses in my Bio.  For my friend to have sent me that email she obviously is a paying member, so she’ll be able to read my full bio and see my email addresses (craftily spelled out like “niki at prismaticdragon dot com” so as to avoid any automatic filters in their software!).  I just hope she checks it and sees it, as I’m not sure how else to get ahold of her at this point.  And there is no way I’m going to pay for a Classmates membership, even for a few months.  I’m not catering to their evilness.

I don’t consider this neighborly…

Josh & I are getting annoyed with one of our neighbors.  Read this to see why.

As he said, it’s not even 6pm and the water company, who we pay for garbage removal, says we have until 6pm to move our trash can back up to the house.  Out to the curb by 6am, back to the house by 6pm the same day.

Today, we came home to the trash can, sitting on the driveway, in front of the garage.

Neighborly would be, maybe, pulling it up to the side of the house where we keep it.  Not blocking the entrance to our garage.

Anyone have any ideas to deter any future displays of neighborlyness without causing bodily harm?  We’re thinking a nice thick coat of vaseline on the handle.  It’ll give the gross factor but won’t be dangerous.  Or maybe some double-sided sticky tape?

Just need something to get them to stop.  I can move my trash can up to my house quite well on my own, thank you very much.

how ‘bout them gas prices?

With my little green Saturn, I typically only have to fill the tank once a week.

Last week when I filled it, I noted that the price was at $1.97/g, when the time before that, it had been at like, oh, $1.84/g I think.

Tonight the needle was dangerously close to the “E”, so I stopped at Circle K on my way to get dinner to fill’er’up.

Fill’er’up I did not.

I did a double-take when I looked at the price of plain ol’ 87 unleaded…. $2.14/g?!

Nearly 20 cents increase since last week.  What the hell is up with that?

I put $15 in my tank, and that didn’t even make 7 gallons.

Shit, I can remember when ten dollars would FILL a tank on a mid-sized car.  This is just shitty.

an event from yesterday…

I had a close call on the way to work yesterday.  I was going to post it yesterday, but found I wasn’t really in the mood to blog about anything at that point.  And so it appears today.

Anyway.

I had a really close call on the way to work yesterday.  I mean, by inches.

So, I’m driving east on the 101, about two miles past the I-17.  I’m in the middle lane, tootling along at about 68-70mph, minding my own business, probably singning to a random song on the radio.  A black ford pickup truck is in the lane to my right.  And I am not, I repeat, not,  in his blind spot.  The front of my car is probably even with where the hood of his truck meets the windshield.

Do you see where this is going yet?

I suddenly notice the distance between us has grown smaller.  I realize he is moving into my lane.

Um, excuse me, I’m in this lane already!!! He didn’t even give me the courtesy of a friggin blinker!

I lay on my horn, glance to my left (there is a big red pickup in that lane, but it’s behind me so it’s not in my way), and start slowing down while inching to the left to avoid being hit by the fucker in the ford.

Usually, when I hit my horn when people are coming too near to my car, they hear it and lurch back into their own lane.  This schmuck kept on moving into my lane!  It’s like he didn’t even hear my horn.

I was able to slow down enough to get out of his way and back into the middle lane where I was before.  But not without flipping off the asshole in the Ford first, of course.  I think I had to actually slow to about 55-60 to get out of his way (speed limit is 65 on that freeway).  I was a jumbled bundle of nerves at that point.  And then I got pissed.

I punched the gas to catch up to the Ford (I wanted to flip him off again).  By the time I caught up with him, he had moved back into the right lane.  I paced him, looked over to prepare to flip him off again, and saw that he was jabbering away on his friggin cell phone!!  No fucking WONDER he didn’t hear my horn! He was too caught up in his conversation to even realize what was going on around him.  Since he wouldn’t have seen it anyway, I didn’t bother with the bird.  Instead I let loose a bunch of cursing, sped up and passed him so I could get ready to exit to the 51.

I really don’t know how I managed to keep from getting hit by this guy.  I even managed to keep my side mirror intact, although I’m sure he got pretty close to it.

While cell phones are good for having in the car in case of an emergency, and while I do use my own in my car while driving, that guy is probably a real good reason they should probably be banned from being used by the driver of a car while it is in motion.  When I use mine, I try to be careful and make sure I don’t become one of those assholes who become totally oblivious to the fact they’re supposed to be in control of their vehicles and that they’re not the only people on the road… and when I have my headset, I make a point to use it instead, that way I have both hands free to handle the steering wheel and stick shift…

I think what annoys me the most about that whole thing, is the fact that he probably had absolutely no clue he nearly side-swiped someone that day.  Because he was holding the phone with his left hand, which was blocking his peripheral vision, and the phone was at his left ear, which is probably why he didn’t hear my horn.

Gah!  He’s lucky he didn’t do that to some ganster packing a gun.  That sort of thing surely would have gotten his ass shot dead.

well, sheeeeeeeiit!

Ok, so my comments don’t work.

Gah!!

They worked before, wtf?  I just click submit and the stupid page reloads, but doesn’t post what I typed.  Grrr.

Gonna go scour the forums at pmachine to see if I can dig up a resolution to this.

presumptions…

Speaking of knitting…

Why is it, just because I’m of child-bearing age, that everytime someone sees me knitting something that even resembles anything baby-like, they automatically assume that I’m the one having the baby?

Even the ladies at the yarn shop assumed that when I showed them the booties I was working on a couple weeks ago.  “Is there something you’re not telling us?” was the alluded question.  “Oh, you’re having a baby?” was one of the direct questions.

It’s fucking annoying.

Yes, someday when it’s my turn to have a child I will most likely knit something for him or her.  But until then, it’s not safe to assume that just because I’m knitting something babyish that it’s for a yet-to-be-even-conceived child of mine. Gah!

Please, oh please, if you see someone knitting a baby item, don’t ever assume it’s for them.  Resist the urge to ask them if it’s for their baby… Keep it to a simple, “Oh, how cute! Who is that going to be for?”, and that will do just fine, thank you!!

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