11-30-09 Monday (Conflicts)

Thanks to Facebook and reconnecting with friends, Jim started a part-time-temporary job at his friend Laura’s title company. It’s pretty exciting really. He’s been longing for something to keep him busy. Sure, family and friends volunteer to utilize him to clean, cut grass, repair this, repair that, but we all know that’s not fulfilling at all. Aside from making a wage, working is so much more sometimes. A perk of Jim working is me getting some alone time. AND at the end of today, maybe he’ll have some events to share with me – things I finally wasn’t at his side for.

Another side effect: Christmas music! Last year I barely listened to it. This year, so far when Christmas music has been on the radio, 95% of the time Jim has turned it off.

Other mundane tasks? Packing up meat. We stopped at Costco last night for steaks, chuck roasts, and pork tenderloins. I wrapped the duplicates up and put them in the freezer. Please, hold all applause and displays of excitement until the end of the blog entry. Thank you.

Warning: Computer Rant

I know I have many a reader who use Macs. I’m not against them, I’ve never used them. I just know they're expensive. I guess for something that doesn’t get a virus or “breakdown” it’s worth it. Sometimes I wonder if they are virus free because hackers don’t bother with them. OR because Macs aren’t used for anything important (that I know of). But on the PC side of things, think about how many of you and people you know have computer issues? Runs slow, crashes, spyware, virus’, etc. Today’s technology is tomorrow’s doorstop. Why do we consumers put up with this shit? My laptop was purchased before we hit the road. We bought an HP Pavilion Entertainment PC (DV9700 or DV9910) for me. Larger screen, came with a remote control to watch movies. It’s the ENTERTAINMENT PC dammit. Irony? The speakers suck. Most of the time we could barely hear what we were watching. Then we’d watch something and half way through the computer would lock up (I think it overheated). Eventually after a lot of frustration we’d never use it as an Entertainment PC. Months ago the sound stopped working. I looked up the problem on the net. A lot of people seemed to be having that problem. I can get it working for a short time here and there. It’s too complex to explain really. Recently Jim has been looking up the extended warranty on it. He thinks that something we’ve paid for should work properly. Silly, isn’t he? He contacted HP to get proof of the warranty date so that he could pursue the extended warranty. Me? I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to part with it for a week to 3 weeks. I don’t want to figure out how to protect my documents and photos and links and settings and everything else.

HP emailed me. They’re wanting to help my problem. How nice. I explain. I explain in detail. With photos. They don’t get it. Try this, try that. I do. Last step: Reformat your computer and return it to factory specs. The infamous last step of every computer manufacturer. Bite me (I edited my original phrase, trust me). I’ll just bitch about it here. I ain’t doin’ it anytime soon. I also won’t buy HP anymore. Their product sucked out of the box to begin with. Even before sound issues we couldn’t watch a movie without problems. Maybe when my portable harddrive and desktop computer come out of storage. Does the support person really know anything or do they just search a database for problems and then insert the steps into our on-going messaging?

I’m just tired of software conflicting with each other. Hardware that fails. Support that sucks. I just want it work like it should. I wonder what those Amish people are up to these days?

End Computer Rant

I just vacuumed and mopped. Looks purdy, don’t it? My Swiffer Wet Jet stuff smells good too, right? C’mon, throw some compliments out there, would ya?

My Christmas music listening quest is going quite well. Below is one of my favorites. It’s a duet. Bing Crosby and David Bowie. The music actually starts at 1:44 if you’re impatient.

Jim is home from work. Wow, I haven’t said that in over a year! We went to the gym for chest, back, core, and cardio. We’ve taken showers and now I’m grilling a steak, steaming some fresh broccoli and doctoring up some left over mashed potatoes from Tim’s. They were quite good when I ate them at Tim’s but I prefer them smothered with gravy. Since I’m gravy-less AND it’s real bad for us, I’ve mashed in some minced garlic, some powered cheese flakes and then topped with a little real cheese and slid it into the oven. They came out delicious.

You may now do that applause thing. Thank you. Encore tomorrow.