Happy Birthday Scott!!! Hope today is the best one so far…

Love you!!!

XOXO

~me

We’re seeing Role Models again. Yes, it’s that funny that we paid to see it twice.

Seriously, go see this movie.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

I’m sitting in my hotel room right now, hoping that I can fit all the shit I bought in my suit case. It’s going to be tight.

Anyway, just winding down my first trip to LA. Work wise, it was a really productive week. Got done what I wanted to, even though the schedule was a little crappy at the beginning of the week. I flew into Baton Rouge airport on Sunday night and I had to drive up to Lafayette which is where my hotel was. It’s a little over an hour drive. The problem with that is that I was working at our Baton Rouge store first thing Monday morning, and I had to be there by 7:30am. So I woke up on Monday, and drove the hour+ back down to Baton Rouge. I worked that day, then headed back to Lafayette to the hotel. I was at the Lafayette store first thing Tuesday morning, worked there all day, then I left at 6pm to drive up to Bossier City, which is a 3.5 hour drive. I arrived sometime Tuesday night, and was at the Bossier City store first thing Wednesday morning.

I had no idea what kind of town that Bossier City was. This place is friggin great! Our store is located on whats called the “Louisiana Boardwalk” which is an area of stores and bars/restaurants on the river that runs through the city. You park in the garage, and just walk around the cobble stone streets to all the stores. It’s sweet. There is an Adidas factory store, a Nike factory store, Banana Republic outlet, and a ton of other cool stores. You walk down to the river, and our store is right on the water. This store is awesome. We have a patio with a bunch of tables, and a full bar with a view of the river and city that is kick ass. Especially at night when the casinos and the bridge are lit up. Speaking of casinos, I had no idea that there were casinos here. Binions Horseshoe, Boomtown, Sams Town, The Elderado and Diamond Jacks all have casino/hotels here. It’s great. On Thursday, I went to our Shreveport store and worked, and when I was finished, I did a few things at Bossier City, did some shopping then headed back to the hotel. I was sitting here and I decided to shoot over to some of the casinos, just to get $1 chips from them, which I collect. I went to Horseshoe, then to Boomtown, and when I went to Diamond Jacks I noticed that all these places have $5 minimums. So I figured, what the hell, I’ll play let it ride for a bit. I sat down, and ended up losing $80. However, when I was sitting there the pit boss asked me if I had a card. I said that I didn’t, and she made me get one because of a “hot seat” give away they are doing. I said fine, and what do you know, 30 minutes later someone came up to me and said that I had won, and she handed me $250! So I dropped the $80 at let it ride, but won $250 on their give away and said fuck it, and left. Not bad.

I fly out tomorrow morning, but with a lay over in Dallas, and the time change, I won’t be home till sometime early evening. Back to the cold weather and snow and shit. Did I mention that it was 70 and sunny here the past two days?

A few weeks ago Google decided to add some “updates” to it’s iGoogle pages. I get the thought process behind the changes, however the implementation was terrible. They changed the layout of iGoogle without telling everyone, and without giving the option to NOT use the new layout. To be perfectly honest, the new layout is fucking terrible.

The new iGoogle is designed so there is a tab bar on the side with links (the items on your iGoogle page) and when clicked, they will open in a window inside iGoogle itself. I get the idea, make it more productive with a lot more information available on one page, and more importantly, giving their advertisers more incentive to make widgets for the page with all this new real estate to work with. It’s all about the dollar after all, who gives a shit what the user wants.

Anyway, here is a temporary way to get around the changes. Set this as your home page:
http://www.google.com/ig?gl=all
The new iGoogle was forced on North America only, and this is a way to use the old one, with the tabs on top like they should be, not taking up a bunch of screen real estate on the side. (seriously, WTF was that about?)

I’ll be using this as I look for better alternatives to iGoogle. When I find one, I’ll let you know.

Here is the rundown. Tivo was fucked up. Called Comcast because their cable cards a shitty, and they always go bad. Comcast sends out a guy that has never worked with cable cards before. We swap out the cards, still doesn’t work. Okay, maybe it’s the Tivo…for the second time in as many years. So the Comcast guy leaves, but he never switched the cable card numbers on my account, to match the original cable cards that I had, which is what he left me with.

This is important in a minute.

Okay, so Tivo sends me out a new box, which I found out is DOA when I plugged it in. I call Tivo and they send out another one which arrives a few days later. I plug in the new/new/refurb Tivo, and the cable cards don’t work right because the host ID’s don’t match. Each card has it’s own ID number that must be listed on your account for it to work. This is what the first Comcast tech forgot to do when he left. So I call Comcast again to see if they can change the ID’s so they match, and I can use my shit. Nope, gotta have someone come out to do it…which is fucking stupid because the idiots that show up at my house NEVER know anything about Tivo or cable cards.

So the next Saturday, they send someone out to the house to get it all squared away. I met the guy in the driveway, as I had to go to work, and I explained to him the situation. He immediately informed that he didn’t know anything about Tivo or cable cards. Fucking fine. All he has to do is match the host IDs on the cards, to the ones listed on my account, and test the fuckers. 1 out of 2 ain’t bad, right? He got the cards to match, and they seemed to work, so he left. I get home, flip on the Tivo, and I don’t get any of the premium channels. So the cards only half work. I call, again, and the first moron I talked to told me it was because the technician that was at the house that day, never closed the trouble ticket. He tells me that he has it set to close, and to try my shit again in an hour. I do, and I call back when it still doesn’t work.

The lady I got this time should get a raise. I wasn’t exactly pleasant by the time I had to call them again, but she was great. I told her all the shit that had gone on already, and told her that it looks like I STILL have the original cable cards that I started with, and that this was probably my problem. She agrees and sets up an appointment for yet another retard to come out and tell me he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

This part is for Joe….she also gave me a $71 credit on my bill. This covers each day of service since I first called about the problems, straight to the day that it should be fixed…which was the next appointment. Looking back, I got fucked out of a day, and here’s why.

Tuesday night, someone is supposed t be at the house between 6-9. As noted on my account, this person is also supposed to have cable cards, and cable card knowledge. Phone rings about 7:30, and it’s the comcast guy saying that he just looked at his next appointment…my house…and he doesn’t have any cable cards with him to bring to me. You believe that shit? At this point I was certain that I was being Punk’d by Comcast. Could a company really get as big as Comcast, with such absolutely fucking horrible service.

Sure can.

So I go basically tell the guy on the phone that he needs to get it figured out with his dispatch, and that this is just plain unacceptable. He agrees (yeah right) and says he’ll call me back. I was then going to call customer service to bitch some more, but lucky for them I got a work call that I had to take, and Kel called them instead.

I may have a different provider right now had I made that call. Last time this shit happened, by the time Comcast could send someone out to the house, I had WOW installed already. So I get a call back from the tech. He asks if tomorrow night would be okay, in the same time frame. I say yes, and wait for the next giant cluster fuck.

Wednesday rolls around, and the tech shows up a half hour early. First thing he says to me is “I don’t know anything about these cable cards, or Tivo. I hope you know what you’re doing”. Yeah, that’s right, I did all the fucking work.

But, after all that shit, miraculously I still have Comcast service, and my Tivo finally fucking works.

So Barack Obama wins in a total landslide yesterday. Every borderline republican and aisle sitter voted for Barack. McCain never had a chance. I don’t like the way the republicans ran a fear mongering campaign anyway, but that doesn’t really matter now. Like I told Kelly right before the coverage started, I just hope who ever wins, makes some changes for the good. It doesn’t matter who I voted for, so I won’t say, let’s just say I voted for the better candidate. I thought both candidates gave good speeches last night after the results. I actually thought McCain looked better than he has in months as far as how he carried himself. I wonder if the race would have been different if that was the guy that ran over the past few months.

The one thing that bothers me is the way my conservative friends are reacting to McCain losing. There are a couple of people that I know, that hope the country falls to shit…well, into a bigger pile of shit then it already is in, just so they can say “I told you so” about Obama. Think about that. That’s fucked up. I think some of it is the disappointment of their guy losing, so fresh in their minds, but still….that’s just fucked up.

On a lighter note, both local proposals 1 and 2 passed yesterday which is great. I voted YES on both. The first is the use of medicinal marijuana. Michigan will be the 14th state to legalize it’s use for medicinal purposes. Good for us. I don’t smoke it, but hey, if it gives some people relief for a short time of whatever pains them constantly, then more power to em. There are more addicting, legal narcotic pain pills available now anyway. Let the old people get high and enjoy what time they have left.

The second proposal was for stem cell research. This one bugged me because of the anti prop 2 campaign that was going on which was simply full of lies. The committee that ran the campaign made it all about our taxes increasing to fund this “new” research which was not that case at all. As a matter of fact, the bill had nothing to do with funding. It was about using currently discarded embryos for research instead of incinerating them. Not about making more, or how we pay for the research, but that’s how the anti 2 campaign was run. Well they lost, and I’m glad.

The whole election coverage day was fun to watch. I like that shit.

Did you guys all vote today? I don’t care who you vote for, as long as you vote for someone that you believe in. Oh, and vote YES on Props 1 and 2.

Happy Birthday to Aunt Bonnie and Melissa…!!! Hope you guys have a great B-Day!! Love you!