DIARY OF A TROUBLED LONER: October 2002 |
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Tuesday, October 1 2002
I didn't delete my Two Towers RM file till this morning. By then it had been downloaded a whopping 2,010 times (just from me!). I had to leave early for work because of my blood donation appointment. I got a KFC Twister on the way since I figured I should eat first. The cafeteria was quite crowded since not only was the blood drive going on at the eastern end, but some speaker was lecturing at a podium in the center of the room. When I finally got to see a nurse I was shocked to be told my pulse was too high. The nurse may have noticed my disappointment since she said I could sit for a while (and "think of the ocean") before trying again. My pulse was found to be too high the second time. The nurse suggested it could've been the caffeinated diet Pepsi I'd had with lunch. But regardless, I'd been rejected. This was extremely depressing for me since I'd never been turned away before. I joked about it afterward (as well as on my homepage), but to be honest it was indeed a great disappointment. It was rather worrisome as well, being told I am too unhealthy to donate.It made me think of the news Jeremy had e-mailed to us, of how a guy in his softball league had died of a heart attack Sunday, during a game. I asked Jeremy about it when I got back to the room. He said he felt bad since Jeremy's catch had robbed the guy from scoring, the game before. So of course I wasted no time in agreeing that Jeremy had killed him. Reid was in a good mood since some more of his writing had gotten a GOLD rating on the Something Awful forum. I completely forgot my traditon of listening to U2's October, so I had to do so when I got home. I also worked some more on my homepage, figuring out why my links would not open in a new window like they used to (before upgrading to 2.2). I printed up some CD labels for my CDRs. And I finally finished Fast Food Nation. Wednesday, October 2 2002
I found out on my Shoutbox that Reid was not at work this morning. I felt bad for Jeremy, being stuck there alone, so I went in a little early. It turned out Reid had had an adventurous morning. I'll let him tell it:
6:30- I get ready for workWe went easy on him, deciding not to make fun of him on his message board. On the brighter side, his writing yesterday had been admitted into Something Awful's Comedy Goldmine. The day was remarkably quiet; I did not get any calls at all. Thursday, October 3 2002
Reid made up for his absence yesterday by bringing in donuts. At long last Dennis e-mailed our review forms to us, so we could fill them out and send them back. This was my first review in two years. Dennis was hoping if he got the paperwork going before the holidays then we might get raises.TORN had news about something spotted in the fullscreen edition of The Lord of the Rings DVD. They didn't have a screen grab, so I made one myself when I got home. I e-mailed it to "Tehanu" but the screen grab was never added to the site. In fact, later on "Xoanon" removed the entry entirely. I wondered if this was because of some bias against the fullscreen version. Friday, October 4 2002
I went to Kmart before work to pick up a new pair of jeans. I figured Kmart wouldn't be crowded so it wouldn't take long. However I forgot about it wouldn't be that well staffed either. Only one checkout lane was open, so it took a while after all. The selection for Fast Food Friday was Wendy's again, so I stopped on the way up. Once I got in I found out that there would be some testing tonight, so I'd have to stay late. Figures, since it would delay my getting to poker night tonight.I brought my new jeans in with me, so I was able to change before I left. I stopped at Rite Aid and got a twelve-pack and then went to Larry's for poker night. A couple of the regulars had not been able to make it, but it was still a decent turnout. Mike invited me to the U of M game a week from tomorrow. That figured, since I'd just agreed to work that Saturday for Jeremy. This was the first U of M game I'd been invited to this season, so it figured it had to coincide with the one time Jeremy asked me to fill in for him. Uncharacteristically, Patti was the big winner tonight. Also uncharacteristically, we stayed much later than usual. I didn't get home till three and then stayed up till around four. Saturday, October 5 2002
I was pretty much dead to the world today. Partly because of the beer and partly since I was just so sleepy. Luckily I had no plans for the day, so I spent it lying on my futon couch and finishing up my Titus rental. I watched the movie twice, so I could listen to the second and third commentary tracks.Sunday, October 6 2002
Another dull day. I was slightly more active at least, but I mainly spent the day on the computer, cleaning out files. Some guy in the lot behind us had a bulldozer and was knocking down trees and leveling his backyard. It didn't affect me, but I was sorry to see nice trees being torn down. Today's movie was Superman; I already owned it, but I'd never really sat down and delved into the DVD. I ran into some strangeness in the eveinng. I was unable to log into AOL. It was telling me my password was invalid. It was saying the same thing on the web page too. I eventually called up and was told that AOL had itself frozen my accounts, because someone using my "ShortFatGuyCom" name had tried to e-mail spam to several hundred AOL users. I knew exactly what had happened too. A couple days before, I'd gotten one of those "You've Been Kissed" e-mails from "Love@AOL". I needed to provide my name and password to get the message. I didn't fully realize till afterward that the web page I'd gone to had nothing to do with AOL (although it was filled with official looking AOL images and logos). The URL by the way was "http://www.terra.es/personal9/fhj1018/" (don't try it though). I hadn't thought that much of it at the time, since it wasn't my account; but the spammers had screwed me over anyway. The woman I spoke with on the phone reset my password to a temporary one; I was able to get back login and choose my own passwords. The offending e-mail was still listed in my Sent Mail. For the record this is what they were trying to send. "Hey Hun, My New Free Live Webcam Is Now Online! .... "I am Inviting You To Come Check It Out!.... I Love To Get Wild On My Cam and Entertain People... So What Are You Waiting For? I'll Be Waiting For You...... "Just Click Here Now To Get Connected! "Love Michelle, :) "p.s. all you have to do is "download the cam software by clicking on one of my pictures, then open the cam software and hit connect!.... yes it's that easy =)" The link was to "http://www.wet.gs/mywebcam". I doubt it was too much of turn on coming from "ShortFatGuyCom". Monday, October 7 2002
Dennis had come in Sunday to switch the jumper to put us into narrow-mode broadcasting. The test had gone fine, but he was dissatisfied with how low our signal dropped. He switched us back to normal. There was more testing tonight, but it was of a different kind. It would not involve me or our room, but it meant programming would last till nine:o'clock. So I went in later today to make up for it. I used the extra time to go to Burlington Coat Factory. I wanted to shop for a blazer but also thought about getting a winter coat. Surprisingly, the coat factory had a paltry collection of coats; and the blazers were arranged in hodgepodge mess so that it was impossible to find a size.At night, I found a program called Andromeda, as mentioned on the pMachine site. It was a PHP program which could list all MP3s on my server and make them downstreamable. I thought it would be nice to make it easier for my visitors to access my U2 and Buffett and Li'l Stubby MP3s so I tried the program out. It was easy to load but I spent the rest of the night configuring it. It didn't help that my space problems forced me to split the U2 and Buffett concerts and Li'l Stubby songs to different servers. So I ended up deleting half the stuff and reuploading. (My apologies to anyone trying to access the files then.) Tuesday, October 8 2002
I spent the morning, since my files were uploaded by now, doing more work on my Andromeda setups. By the time I went to work, my Li'l Stubby and U2 jukeboxes were up and running. I didn't do any web surfing, so it wasn't till I got to work that I found out the Redhead and killed off her Door.nu group blog. Reid thought he'd been banned again, but I couldn't log in to the site either. Just to make sure I got my laptop out later on and tried from there, just to make sure we hadn't been IP banned. It looked like she'd closed the Door on us, and all her other blogs were inaccessible as well. I got an e-mail from Larry, saying he was bringing back his Shark Invitational competition, scheduled for October 18.Wednesday, October 9 2002
We had software trouble today. We were asked to print up a report on how many satellite receivers we have in the U.S.. We tried to run the report but it took so long we were afraid it would crash our system. I ran the report again in the evening, when things were quieter and it took two and a half hours to compile! I saved it as an Excel spreadsheet, not remembering till afterward that I should've saved it as a simple text file. (For some reason Excel, or our version of it, drops crucial columns of information.) I ran another search before I left, figuring Reid could save it tomorrow morning.)There was more testing on our signal, after programming, so I had to stay late. I was required to mute our signal so the on-site techs could take readings of the noise floor. It didn't last too long actually. At home I discovered my Amazon package had shown up. I also finally figured out how to get my pMachine calendar to work. (I had failed to upload an "events.php" file during my install.) Thursday, October 10 2002
Reid was unable to save the search report from last night. He kept getting errors. He had calls into our tech support in New Jersey. Since I'd been able to save the report as an Excel file, I wondered if there was some size limitation for a text file (like how Notepad can not view large files). Our reviews finally began today, with Reid going over to Dennis's office in the afternoon. My meeting would be tomorrow. I dealt with the New Jersey calls when they finally called back; it pretty much boiled down to they'd "look into it". Late in the afternoon I got a call from Dennis and Barry. Barry wanted to know if I could make a CD of a cassette tape he had (of a high school concert band). They also wanted to know my website addresses. I knew it would be best not to tell them, but I'm a terrible liar. After I hung up I realized this meant they'd be able to access my diary, here, and Barry could read Dennis's rant about a coworker at the Bitter Old Man site. It was funny to think my bosses were surfing the net, as bored as I was; or else they were checking up on me. My Heavenly Creatures rental was waiting when I got home, so I watched it later in the night.Friday, October 11 2002
Reid remembered my mentioning the combination Pizza Hut & Taco Bell on the corner of Eureka and Telegraph. For Fast Food Friday, he wanted a personal pizza and Jeremy wanted Nachos Bellgrande. Today was also the day of my meeting with Dennis, so I brought in lunch early so I could make to my meeting on time. Oddly, this was the first time I'd ever been to Dennis's building. I actually got lost and went into the wrong tower. Once on the third floor I quickly realized my mistake, went back down to the lobby, and walked around to the other tower. Instead of backtracking, I continued onward, until I was back where I'd parked. Unfortunately, this was the long way, since I hadn't known there was a parking structure behind the building, making my walk that much longer. I was ten minutes late when I finally arrived. The nearby conference room was empty, so we slipped in there for our meeting. Dennis went over the review I'd submitted, and he showed me what he'd written himself, and then we worked on what should be written for the third sheet. The whole process took about two hours. (Dennis also suggested I should probably not mention taking naps at work, in my diary, since Barry had seen those references!) Barry gave me his cassette as well as a blank CDR. Dennis wanted the third sheet done by Monday, since he'd be leaving on a business trip on Tuesday. I filled out the third sheet and e-mailed it to him when I got back to my room.There was another test on our broadcast signal tonight. This one took a lot longer and involved several people on a conference bridge. I just sat around and muted the signal when instructed. I got home around ten. My cable modem seemed to stop working at around eleven. I wasn't sure what was wrong with it, since its lights were steady; but I could not connect to anything. I tried resetting it, and now the lights started blinking. Saturday, October 12 2002
My cable modem was still screwed up, so I guess it was a good thing I had to work, since at least I could go online. I was caught by surprise by road repairs on I-75, by West Rd, shutting the road down to one lane; there was even construction on Telegraph, right by my I-94 on-ramp, also closing the road down to one lane. I got in later than scheduled, but still early enough. As expected, the morning was very quiet and I received no phone calls. All the construction had been in the northbound lanes, so driving home was a breeze. My cable modem was still down, but I worked on Barry's cassette dupe first. Once that was out of the way, I finally called Comcast. I wasn't on hold that long luckily. The guy ran some tests on my modem and seemed to suggest it had locked onto a "0" IP address. He told me to hit the reset button and a few moments after that my cable modem sprang to life. I have no reason why hitting the reset had not worked last night. I got Mr Show disc 1 from NetFlix today. I went to Taco Bell for dinner; after I ate I impulsively washed my fish's cube. I worked on Barry's tape in the evening; and then stayed up late watching Mr Show. Sunday, October 13 2002
I'd intended to watch The Fellowship of the Ring last night, since it would mark one month before the release of the special edition. I wanted to watch the movie one last time and then retire it until the extended DVDs came out. I missed the anniversary, but I ended up watching the movie tonight anyway. I watched the full-screen version just to be different. Afterward I went on eBay and looked for some Lord of the Rings stuff to buy. I bid on some autographed photos and I also kept tabs on a Late Show with David Letterman auction I was bidding on. I lost the Late Show sweatshirt but I won the photo.Monday, October 14 2002
I needed to go in early again to drop off Barry's CD. I stopped at the nearby Bo Ric's but there were two people ahead of me and it didn't look like I'd have time to wait for a haircut. I got to Dennis's earlier than planned, and got to work earlier too. This worked out well actually, since I was able to help Jeremy out. Reid had taken the day off today, for a long weekend up north, so I wanted to assist Jeremy if he was having a tough morning on his own. But, as it happened, the day was very quiet.Tuesday, October 15 2002
I tried Bo Ric's again and had no trouble getting my haircut. There'd been no wait, so I had extra time on my hands. I swung by Borders before work, getting the new Cinefex (with a Minority Report cover) and the new X-Files Official Magazine. I was sorry to find out this would be the last X-Files magazine. True the series was over, but there was still talk of another movie and the season six DVD box set was coming out, so it seemed premature to pull the plug. I looked over their DVDs too, and realized I should get Koyaanisqatsi for my dad's upcoming birthday. I decided to do a little research instead. I thought there might be a special edition of the DVD. It turned out there was no other editions, but there was a 2-pack of Koyaanisqatis and Powaaqatsi; DVD Planet didn't have it, but Amazon did. So half my dad's present was done. (It could've been all of it, but I'd spent sixty bucks on my mom's birthday). I'd added some silly George W Bush animated GIFs yesterday, so I felt like being fair and putting some silly Saddam Hussein animated GIFs on tonight. I could not find any, amazingly, so I spent the night making my own.Wednesday, October 16 2002
The two-week long equipment testing going on with the production folks would run till nine tonight, so I got to come in late again. I almost ran someone off the road on the way to work. I got onto the expressway and then merged into the center lane. I was staring into my sideview mirror and saw no one behind me, but at the last second I discovered I'd cut right in front of a big beige van. He jerked into the left lane, I got back into the right lane. I can't believe I'd been unable to see such a big vehicle; I guess he was most certainly right in my blind spot.Reid had banned Jeremy again for "sassing the admin". I couldn't see what the big todo was since the comments seemed rather ordinary. Jeremy got back by posting a manifesto on my message board, but since no one reads my message board Jeremy was unable to get any SEI rebels to rally to his side. I spent my long evening updating my SFG homepage. I was sick of those animated GIFs so I needed to come up with five blog updates to drive them off the front page. Thursday, October 17 2002
Any drama Jeremy and I wanted to stir up against the SEI message board petered out this morning when Reid reinstated Jeremy's membership. I don't know what Detroit Edison did, but we got a ton of wrong-number calls for them. (They apparently did not shut off anyone's power, since for every call there was always a TV set on in the background.)Friday, October 18 2002
The Fast Food Friday selection was Burger King this week. I finally got to try a chicken Whopper, since it's too messy to have as "car food", and a Burger King taco. (I wrote up reviews of them on my Food page.) It was a fairly quiet day, although the Detroit Edison calls continued. At least the video equipment testing ended, so I was able to leave at a normal time. This was a benefit since tonight was Larry's Shark Inivtational. I brought my camcorder so I could provide some screen grabs, but then failed to take it out of the car when I got there. Larry had arrange several sports for us to compete in, all set up in his basement. As soon as I showed up I was drafted to play hockey on Larry's domed tabletop game. It was a fun evening, but it bugged me that we were trapped in the basement while the food and the beer was upstairs with the wives.Next was doubles ping pong, then doubles darts (on an eletronic board), singles ping pong, another game of doubles darts (on a normal board so we had to do our own math), and, finally, doubles hockey. (If a tie breaker was necessary Larry had "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots" standing by.) As usual I did badly. The only game I won was the final game of hockey, and that was only because I let Joe do most of the work. (I did decently in darts but the other team won faster. I was so-so in ping pong, but seemed to always hit long.) When the results were tabulated Joe was declared the winner. Mike came in second, grumbling that he's never won (although technically he tied at the first Invitational, six years ago). The gameplay was done by around eleven, which was nice since we could sit around upstairs and finally sample the foods and beers. Steve, our high school class president so many years ago, stopped by. He's a priest now, and he looks pretty much the same as in high schoool. Saturday, October 19 2002
Fortunately for Larry I did not stay as late as last time. Fortunately I did not drink as much as last time. I found two packages when I got home: my Amazon DVDs along with the Inside Updown (as in Upstairs Downstairs book I'd ordered from WH Smith's (UK) many months ago. Last I'd heard they'd stopped the order since the book was reportedly out of print. But it showed up without fanfare or announcement. I spent Saturday finishing up the Mr Show disc 2. I got dinner from Taco Bell. And I spent the evening working on my SFG site, mainly on the "Games" section.Sunday, October 20 2002
The cool part about this weekend was it started my weeklong vacation. I had no travel plans, I just felt like hanging out around the house. I intended to really do some major work on my website, but that quickly petered out. I wanted to finally get around to digitizing video from my Windjammer cruise so I could finally add it to my Windjammer page. I planned on doing a RealVideo movie of each day of the trip, but all my short little shots would require too much editing; plus, the first day was too dull. Instead, I decided to just digitize specific incidents. In the afternoon I went over to the video store, spending the afternoon watching Death to Smoochy (watching it twice for the commentary) and the evening watching Hart's War (watching it once).Monday, October 21 2002
It was definitely a vacation day now. My big plan for today was to get my driver's license renewed. The card expired this year so I had to go in person to renew. I went to the Secretary of State's around one. Luckily there's a branch right by me, and the wait was not that bad. I got 100% on my test (but they wouldn't let me get my license for free). I don't think I did that well on my vision test, but they didn't seem to care. (I kept seeing [b]Q[/b]'s but they were probably [b]o[/b]'s. That's Keratoconus for you.) Interestingly, a woman nearby got in a small argument with a worker over a question involving approaching an intersection with a flashing red light. There's a Wendy's across the street so I got a taco salad for lunch. I spent the rest of the day finishing up Hart's War. At night I started a different website project. Mike, Joe, and I share e-mails every Monday on the weekend DVDs we watch; for a while I'd been intending to include their brief comments alongside my own writeups on my DVD reviews page. We'd all gotten our DVD players back in December 1999, so I went through my e-mail files from then and began the laborious process of culling their comments and inserting them into the my applicable review. I think I got up through April 2000.Tuesday, October 22 2002
Today's plan was to shop for a new blazer, for my uncle's 80th birthday surprise party. I went to a "big & tall" store. It was my first time for one of those stores, but it was not a blow to my pride. They had my size, but not the length. I would need a "short" (instead of regular or long) so I would need to order it. The man suggested Men's Wearhouse so I went over there. They had some shorts, but not quite as big as I wanted. I ended up getting nothing, but I intended on going back to Casual Male Big & Tall and ordering the jacket. (They were a bit too pushy at Men's Wearhouse.) On the way home I stopped at the fish store in Woodhaven and got Fish III some new food. He seemed so listless and sickly that I assumed his food must be going bad. After all, I'd had those same bloodworms since Fish I. I dropped off my DVDs from Sunday and I got two more: Birthday Girl and Brotherhood of the Wolf. I watched Birthday Girl in the evening, along with finally getting around to working on this here Diary page. I finished up the September page and then did the first week of October. The fish did not care at all for his new food. He completely ignored it. I went through my May 2000 e-mails and added more of Mike and Joe's DVD comments. I started Brotherhood of the Wolf before bed, and then ended up staying up till around five in the morning to finish it.Wednesday, October 23 2002
I was concerned about my fish since he was still completely ignoring food, so I went back to the Woodhaven fish store. They had an alternate betta food, but the woman who handles the bettas told me I'd bought the one she recommends. When she found out I was using one of those fish cubes from the mall she told me to empty the gravel out and switch to the decorative stones (about the size of a thumbnail) they sell at Frank's Nursery. She was convinced it was the gravel (and all that had collected in it) which was making my fish sick. I stopped at Frank's on the way back. Not only did I get the decorative stones I also bought a vase so he'd have more room to swim around. The woman told me I should not use distilled water, which I had been doing. Instead, I should pour tap water into a jug and let it sit uncapped for 24 hours. The chlorine would evaporate in that time, and afterward I'd have perfectly good water for my fish. I got started on that when I got home. Tomorrow I could set up the Fish's big vase when the water was ready, but for now I poured Fish into a cup and cleaned out his cube again. I got rid of the gravel and I switched to those colored stones. I put fish back in, but he did not react to the change. He continued to ignore food (which I would have to scoop out after a while), and, even worse, Fish seemed to swim sideways, leaning to his left side. Occasionally he'd flutter furiously and dart about. It was as if he had some inner ear deficiency or was even suffering from dementia. I continued to wait and see.I went through my June 2000 e-mails for Mike and Joe's movie comments. And I watched today's NetFlix rental, The Black Cauldron. Thursday, October 24 2002
Fish was still doing poorly and to be honest I doubted he had long to live. It may sound callous but it seemed a waste to leave such an immobile fish in a large-sized vase when he probably wouldn't even notice if I dumped him back in his cube. I was already thinking of buying another fish, since this red one looked a goner. I'd need to go to Frank's again to get another bag of stones, this time for the small cube; I went there first, then went to the post office to finally send out a money order for an autographed Peter Jackson photo I'd won on eBay, then to Subway for a tune a sub.I got Fish's cube ready. I'd chosen red stones to go with his red scales, but this turned out to be a particularly ugly combination. He'd been pretty lifeless all day, but I got a reaction out of him when I poured him into the cube. He was pissed. He actually jumped out of the water, jaw snapping, as if he wanted to bite my face! Or maybe it was just the dementia. Getting a closer look at him, I noticed his scales were gritty -- as if he'd been lightly breaded! He did not look at all healthy. I had lunch and then got on the computer to type up some entries for this page. Afterward I vacuumed out my car (at last!) since I was planning on taking it in for repairs tomorrow. Late in the afternoon I finally went to Woodhaven and the Day One fish store. It was rather crowded, with several kids rushing about telling their dads what fish to choose. I looked over the blue bettas -- which was the color I'd wanted to get last time, but they hadn't had any -- but couldn't decide. The saleswoman recognized me, and when she had time I told her how my fish still wasn't eating and I'd come to get a replacement. I guess she felt sorry for me, for keeping me, so she mentioned she'd been hiding a particular betta since she hadn't decided whether to display it or not. He had a pinkish body and purplish fins, which I guess is rare. I had to admit it was a pretty combination and hard to pass up. I felt self-conscious buying it, but she said wouldn't've shown it to me if she hadn't wanted me to buy it. (I was also slightly leery since I didn't know if I was the best owner of a rare fish.) I bought another fake plant too; this one was a longer one, to go with my tall vase. Before I left the woman told me several of her betta tips, such as leaving a jug of tap water out for 24 hours so that chlorine will evaporate. She always keeps a jug handy to make sure a betta's water is always the same. In fact, she gave me one of their jugs so I wouldn't have to worry about conditioning the fish. I cleaned out the vase before I put Fish IV in there. I only had enough jugged water to fill the vase up about halfway, so I prepared another jug which I would be ready tomorrow. Out of deference to Fish III I put the vase on the other side of the room, so Fish III wouldn't see he'd already been replaced. I thought about putting Fish IV in the den again, near my computer; but I couldn't get over the suspicion that my computer might be the reason Fish III got ill in the first place. He'd started acting funny around the same time I'd started running my computer 24 hours a day, since I was running those United Devices experiments. Maybe the unending whirring and vibration from the computer had driven him mad. I wasn't sure where else to put Fish IV though, so I ended up keeping him in the bedroom. I had a late dinner, I watched some TV, I did some more work on my DVD reviews page. I tried to go to bed kind of early, since I wanted to wake up early tomorrow. Friday, October 25 2002
I got up around six in the morning, taking my car to the Saturn dealership by seven:thirty. It was raining and dark. I wanted to get my muffler fixed as well as probably get my brakes repaired -- the need for this was illustrated by the fact I almost hydroplaned off the road while trying to turn into their driveway. I was talked into getting the 65,000 mile check-up, so the receipt I signed for was only $9.98. While waiting, watching news of the Virgnia sniper's arrest on Good Morning America, a woman next to me told me how a semi-trailer passing her last night had clipped her, almost sending her over the guardrail of the Rouge River overpass. The truck had not stopped and she didn't even know what company it was for. Despite her long story, it sounded like she'd only needed her door replaced. When the salesman met me, he had a long laundry list of suggested repairs: new brakes, new tires, serpentine belt, spark plugs, resonator, even new wipers. These totaled up to around twenty-four hundred dollars. It was a lot, but I figured most of this stuff would need to be fixed eventually, so I decided to go ahead and get them all done in one fell swoop. The woman next to me went on about how my bad news couldn't be worse than hers, but I bit back telling her that my bill sure as hell would be more than hers. Right around then a worker showed up to ask if anyone needed rides; I had him chauffeur me home.Fish III was in the same position as this morning. He was nose down in the plant, as if trying to find some privacy. I wasn't sure if he was dead, since he'd spent so much time being still, so I started emptying the water out to see what he'd do. I poured him into a cup where he just twirled lifelessly. I gave him a burial at sink too, but unlike Fish II he was already dead. He'd probably passed away overnight. I spent some of the morning working on this October page again. I close to getting completely caught up, stopping after the October 23 entry. Mike wrote me, reminding me about the U of M game tomorrow. With so much to do I hadn't expected Saturn to call till late, but they called up around one:o'clock. I asked to get a ride back and the guy showed up around twenty minutes later. My bill, once I arrived, was a thick multi-page print-out. The total was around eighteen hundred bucks. I guess that was part of their strategy, by making me think it was more I felt grateful I was only paying eighteen hundred bucks. It was surprisingly painless though, especially since I just put it on my credit card. My car was a lot quieter now that the resonator had been repaired; the brakes were firmer too (but there seemed a lot of play in the steering wheel). Once home,I got back on the computer, learning from Mike that tomorrow's U of M tailgate would feature steak sandwiches and chicken soup. I also got an IM from Paul, an old friend from my last job, who was suggesting we meet up this Thursday at the Rio Bravo by Fairlane mall. I remembered belatedly that this would be Halloween, as well as my dad's birthday. I thought about rescheduling but left it "as is" for now. I spent the rest of the night on the computer, writing. Saturday, October 26 2002
I got up at six again, to get to Mike's by seven:thirty. I'd taken my MP3 player out of my car Thursday, prior to taking it to the dealership, but I put it back now. I also grabbed some DVDs to show off to Mike tonight after the game. I assumed it would be cold, so I dressed in layers like an old tailgating veteran. I thought I had plenty of time, but I ended up leaving late. I couldn't find my glasses anywhere and I wasted a good ten minutes hunting around the house. I finally had to give up, daring to drive to Mike's without them. I hooked up the MP3 player when I got in the car -- and I found my glasses, entangled in the MP3 player's cables! Luckily getting to Mike's is almost all expressway so I hoped I could make up some time by speeding up I-275. However, once I got on the road, my car seemed incapable of going faster than 65 mph! It seemed to prefer right around 62 mph, and if I revved it as much as I could I might get it to surge to around 70 mph -- with the tachometer getting up to 4000 rpm before the gear would change -- but then the car would buck and jump and I'd be forced to drop back down to around 60 mph. It was incredibly frustrating and it pissed me off that I hadn't discovered this yesterday, on the way home from Saturn. But, just to make things difficult, I'd been on surface streets and residential roads all day yesterday. I hadn't known there'd been a need to test drive the car on the expressway, nor that my repairs would've somehow crippled the car rather than improving it.I showed up ten minutes late. Mike was of course already packed so we left immediately. Dick, our host, and his nephew Billy had already set up a lot of stuff in our usual area. I had to take the blame for keeping the waiting for the rest of the gear. We had steak sandwiches with real New York strip steak cut thin, cooked on Mike's Grill-to-Go Thermos propane grill. One of the wives brought a chicken soup, which Dick heated up on his own burner. Dick had also made a very tasty fresh salsa. Schmoe and Greg showed up too. Schmoe's kids didn't care for the salsa since it had corn in it. They preferred salsa from the jar, which they referred to as "real salsa". We thought this funny, but Dick gave me a funny look when I referred to his salsa as "non-real". Iowa definitely outplayed Michigan. Their total yardage was almost triple Michigan's. Dick was not in a terribly good mood after the game, which was not improved by the fact there was a cold drizzle falling. Schmoe and Greg came back too. Some stuff was put back out so we could continue tailgating, but as I began to have more salsa Dick told Billy to seal it up and put it back, as if he was afraid I'd finish off the whole bowl then and there. Despite the rain, we stayed for quite a while. Once back at Mike's, I invited myself in and showed him my DVDs. We watched some of the full-screen Fellowship of the Ring, my Yatta DVD, and I even played him parts of Singin' in the Rain just to show him musicals aren't quite so toxic. Most of the night though was spent watching my Concert for New York discs. I left at around eleven. I took Sibley exit off I-275 and, unbelievably, actually had to stop for the Van Horn train even though it was eleven:thirty on a Saturday. Sunday, October 27 2002
The first half of the day was raher dull. The second half was a chicken dinner for my dad's birthday this week.Monday, October 28 2002
I woke up at six again so I could take my car back to Saturn. Yesterday my brothers had told me the dealership would probably tell me my new repairs were not covered and I'd have to pay extra, but I figured they had to be covered since it was obvious it was a result of whatever they did Friday. However, after sitting around an hour watching Good Morning America I was told that I needed a new catalytic converter. They'd replaced my emission system from the resonator down, but ahead of that was the catalytic converter. It had been hit by a rock some time in the past and I was finally feeling of the effects of that now that my resonator had been improved. So, in short, I'd need to pay around four hundred bucks for a new catalytic converter. After shelling out eighteen hundred bucks three days before I was not about to pay more, so I left. I was disgusted that I'd paid all that money to have my car run worse. It pained me that I was actually considering routes to work where I wouldn't have to drive 60 mph. The guy at Saturn had suggested going to a garage for the catalytic converter, where I might get it installed for two hundred bucks. This was not much consolation. I also didn't think I could get it that cheap, since a quick search online showed a catalytic converter for a 1999 Saturn was $186 just for the part.I went to work for the first time in over a week. Luckily it was a pretty quiet day. Reid and Jeremy told me this was a welcome change since they'd had several special shows last week. I told them about fish adventures but not about my car. We got a couple calls, but after Reid and Jeremy left I only got one. There was no Strong Bad e-mail, but in the evening this year's Halloween cartoon showed up. Tuesday, October 29 2002
My SFG site was down again today. I didn't feel like calling, so I just sent an e-mail to my host. Saturn called me, repeating their advice about getting the replacement done cheaper elsewhere. I really didn't want to deal with it so I simply waited for them to make their point and hang up. As it turned out, my hobbled car was not a big concern today, since there was a huge traffic jam on I-75 and top speed was around 15 mph. There have been patching crews in the right lane for two weeks and we've all grown to adapt and accept it, with people simply merging left to get around this. So I have no idea why today this same scenario should turn into a such an insurmountable brain teaser. I was already extremely late, but I'd counted on having lunch on the way; by the time I got onto Telegraph Rd I figured I'd earned it. I went to KFC which itself was mind-numbingly slow. It took about as long to crawl up ten miles on I-75 as to go through their drive-thru lane. I was a scandalous fifty minutes late when I showed up.I found out Reid was suffering even more. One of our companies wanted to add three more authorization tiers to their set-up. They'd sent a list over yesterday, but instead of letting us work on it they'd called up so they could walk through each receiver indidivually. Reid had been the lucky winner to answer this phone call and he ended up spending over three hours on the phone with them! My stupid SFG website was down the whole day. I sent another e-mail at around seven PM. It was still down when I got home. I knew my host had to be getting my e-mails, since his own site was still up. However, I discovered another one of his domains was down -- but this should be another incentive for him to get his server back up and running. I spent the night watching The Changeling which had shown up today from NetFlix. Wednesday, October 30 2002
I got my car repaired at Top Value Muffler this morning. It cost $169. Back home, Saturn tried to call again, this time for a customer satisfaction survey. I let the machine take the call. My stupid site was still down. I was leery of taking I-75 again, when it was time to leave, so I took surface streets to get to Telegraph Rd. My SERVICE ENGINE SOON light came on, adding to my woes. I wasn't sure if this meant Top Value had bunged-up the job or if this repair would lead to my spending more money on another repair. At least the car "felt" better. There was more pick-up, but, unfortunately, I couldn't speed now since I wasn't on the expressway. I sent another e-mail to my web host when I got in. There was no change all day, so I finally called him up at around four. He sounded quite surprised to hear my site had been down a day and a half. I mentioned how his own site had been down, but he told me he'd done that himself, getting rid of it. That figures. My site was back an hour later. My SERVICE ENGINE SOON light was on again as I headed home. It was nice having my website back, especially since I could use my e-mail again. I wrote to the Redhead, I responded to a letter from someone on Match.com, and I even wrote a fan letter to the Brothers Chaps.Thursday, October 31 2002
The guy at Top Value figured the computer chip needed to be reset, and that would clear my SERVICE ENGINE SOON light. Yesterday, Mike and Schmoe and I had exchanged e-mails about my car woes. Mike had pointed out "At least when a car nags you, its about legitimate problems, not just because the car feels cranky at the time." This led Schmoe to comment "Sounds like we are onto something. '50 ways a car is better than a wife'." He suggested "49: A car can be turned off." The list grew longer this morning: 48: You can trade your car in for a newer, sexier model every couple of years.And that's where we left off. We also talked about Dick's possessiveness about his salsa last week. Speaking of that, Mike invited me to this Saturday's game. I hoped my return would not set Dick over the edge, especially since I'd jinxed my first game this season. That computer chip had obviously been reset, since my clock was off and my radio station presets were gone; but the stupid SERVICE ENGINE SOON light came back on on the way to work. I didn't want to deal with it anymore. I'd wait till Monday, just so I could wake up at my normal hour tomorrow. As per tradition I listened to Alan Parsons Project's Tales of Mystery and Imagination and U2's October today. It was another quiet day at work. I was delighted to find out there was a Strong Bad e-mail this week after all, even though it showed up today rather than Monday. I never bothered to reschedule so I met up with Paul at Rio Bravo. We hadn't seen each other in a year. He had some beers, I had a margarita. I think we stayed maybe an hour. I had to give my presents to my dad, so I couldn't stay too late. I'd bought him some DVDs he liked (the last of which showed up today!): Koyaanisqatsi and Powaaqatsi, Valmont, and Sunset. He used to really like Valmont, but after he opened it he asked where I'd gotten it and then asked if I could return it having bought it online. Back to Trouble Loner homepage To Bitter Old Man site To SFG World |
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