Hoover? Damn!

We recently purchased a carpet steamer/shampooer/cleanifier thingy. I've never been so simultaneously delighted and horrified with a purchase. Put aside for the moment the fact that the thing is cheaply made, with cheap toy-grade plastic, by our dear, dear friendly neighbors in Mexico. Disregard the fact that the instructions do not actually show how to attach the hose to the device. Overlook the Hoover brand name no longer means diddly, and that there's no way in hell this machine is going to last 20 years. Observe instead the horrors that are coming up out of the carpet. Ick. Arizona is a filthy, filthy state. Despite its shoddy construction, the cleaner seems to work well. The carpet feels better.

I Want To Be An Electric Eel

We went out to lunch the other day. To my right was a table full of cackling hens of varying ages who were extremely excited about their recent/upcoming trip to China. I know this because they wouldn't shut up about the two young girls learning Chinese. At the table. Over, and over, and over again. Now, I fully support the idea that those who are going to visit a foreign land have at least a passing familiarity with the language. I do not support you screaming Chinese while I'm trying to eat. The exception being that I'm in a Chinese restaurant, and some buffet buffalo just stomped on the foot of a waiter.

Behind me sat a family with an infant and a small child. The infant started out in a high chair, but cried so much they moved him/her/it to a seat with one of the parents. At more than one point during my meal, the baby kept touching my back. Now, many people will go "awww, how cute!" This is why I don't get along with most people. Up until that point, I had no idea the baby was immediately behind me. While I'm not the most massive person around, I guarantee you that my mass is more than enough to harm the baby had I leaned back, sneeze, or whatever. Tiny baby fingers will lose out every time. And in that scenario, I would be the bad guy. Because the goddamn parents aren't watching their friggin' infant. At home, where they should be until he/she/it is old enough to vote.

I'm waiting for some entrepreneur in Tucson to open a restaurant that only serves adults. They will get 100% of my business. Except on Screamin' Mandarin Tuesday.

Yep, Still Breathing

You know you're working hard when you get an e-mail from your parents that say they never hear from you. Then you check your blog and see you haven't posted in a month and a half. Wow. We've been a bit busy. Moreso than usual since the online empire took a severe kick to the groinular region. We're cranking out new shops, new blogs, and basically scrambling to lessen the impact of it all. Hey, it still beats waking up to an alarm clock and going through the day with homicidal thoughts. Plus, we're learning at an almost constant rate. Scary, perhaps, but true.

Sunday marks our sixth wedding anniversary for those of you keeping score at home. It seems that the traditional gifts for year six are candy and iron. Don't get those confused. The modern gift is wood. We'll take the candy, thank you.

Western Tanager

Nothing really blogworthy going on. The most interesting non-work-related thing to happen was two-fold: it rained, and during the rainstorm we were lucky enough to see a pair of amazingly colorful birds out of our sliding glass door. Glowingly bright yellow body, orange head, and black wings on the male, and yellow and grey on the female. I later learned that it was a pair of Western Tanagers (not teenagers, though some of those are colorful). They made for a nice splash of color on what we've come to term a "grey New York kind of day".

Other than that, not much. Working. Go figure. We're exciting like that.

Red Rock, Sedona, and Trains

The weather was darn near perfect. The above was taken at Red Rock State Park, where we walked several miles of trails. The train ride was downright nifty, even though there were far, far more people on the train than I had expected. ("Any" counts as far more people than I expected.)

It was a cloudy couple of days, which in any place other than Arizona would be bad. In Arizona, clouds are welcome. They add greatly to photographs, and cut down the blasting bleaching badness of the big hot thing in the sky.

My Brain Hurts. Or It Will.

I got a call today from the migraine study place. They're cancelling the study. She said it was because the company felt they weren't getting the results they wanted, but I find that hard to believe. So that means that early next month I go in for my last appointment. We'll see how many days it takes until I start getting migraines again. It was a nice vacation. Maybe they'll be nice and give me a going away present of a few metric tons of pills.

The Last of the Thirties

I turned 39 a few minutes ago. At least as far as the calendar is concerned. If you want to be a stickler about it, it won't be for another 18 hours or so. I don't remember the exact time. I didn't have a digital watch then. (Or now, for that matter.) It's the last year I can be 30-something. I'm OK with that, because that was a crappy show. Deb has already made her famous chocolate chip cookies in honor of the event, so our plans for the day will involve cookies, lunch out somewhere, and more cookies. Sounds pretty darn perfect to me!

Next year at this time, I'll be cursing at turning 40. Because it just sounds old. And in 2012 when the Mayans come back from the dead and their gods kill us all, I'll be 42. Assuming they wait a couple months before they snuff out all existence. If you're a Douglas Adams fan, that age is significant. If you're not, then it isn't.

It's A Tradition

Whilst taking down some Christmas decorations outside today, I heard something that really put me in the mind of Christmases (or Christmasi) gone by back on the hill. As I was outside in my T-shirt, taking down garland and tending my peppers (yes, they're still growing), I heard the lilting notes of an ice cream truck. Not the engine, but the plinking music. It's just what one would expect to hear on the second of January, no?

End of December

Isn't this what the end of December looks like for everyone? T-shirt weather. Sunny, green, low 70s... No? Sucks for you, then. We spent part of the day breaking in our new walking sticks at the Catalina State Park. We walked for a couple miles. Had to cross actual water on multiple occasions, too! A rarity in Arizona, for the most part. The sticks were invaluable in that regard, so thanks again Kathy and Dan!

Nothing to Say

So I'll say it. That's what a blog is for. The usual here: working, making stuff, putting things in both shops. No real post-election insight to share. When the choice is between a slogan and the Manchurian Candidate, it just cements how bad off we really are.

Unrelated to anything: it was 84 today. 84 tomorrow, too. It's mid-November. Enough already! Make with the 60 degree temps!

Decision 2008

I have started a list. It contains the names of all the candidates who have called our phone in the last few days. It's so I can remember who absolutely will not receive votes from us.

One really took the cake today. (Not surprising, really. Politicians taking stuff.) We received a call today, and since I didn't recognize the number I didn't answer. The voice mail was a recorded message for one of the AZ candidates for whatever. I looked up his website, found a contact form, and used it to tell him that his phone call cost him two votes. I actually got a response, and the response has made me laugh. A lot. Why? He wanted me to call him so he could speak to me. Not kidding. I did not call. I will not call. I did e-mail him back and explain how insulting it is not only to be bothered by phone calls, but to be asked to call when I said quite clearly that it was the phone call that pissed me off in the first place.

Oh! There were typos in the e-mail, too. I let him know about that as well. I'm not voting for someone who can't spell. (I know, it's not from him. It's from a volunteer lackey. Don't care.)

Really Expensive Lunch

Yesterday, my lovely wife and I decided to go out for lunch. I got in the car, turned the key, and was greeted with a ticking sound instead of an engine-turning-over-and-running sound. Color me cursing. Since I know as much about cars as I do particle physics (actually less), I started calling. First my brother, then my father, and then Dan. (Good thing Dan was there, because that's pretty much it as far as the "people we can call" list goes.) Dan figured it out, we called the emergency roadside thing offered by our insurance company, and they showed up inside 20 minutes. A jump-start later, and we were off to the mechanic to get a new battery and an oil change. Since they couldn't take the car right away, we walked to IHOP for lunch. A leisurely lunch later, plus another 20 minutes or so, and the car was done and the wallet was about $190 lighter. Not counting lunch.

One Angry Man

Jury summons. I have to be at the courthouse at 8:30. A.M.. Why can't I be called for jury duty to night court? I'd like to watch a judge that can do magic tricks. I wish I had had more than a couple days' notice. I would have made a t-shirt that said something like "You are all guilty in the eyes of Gorto the Sock Demon, and you will burn forever in the Dryer of the Damned!"

Instead, I'll take a pill in a few minutes to put me to sleep, wake up to a damnable alarm clock, put on friggin' pants!!, and have my lovely-but-groggy wife chauffeur me to the court house. Where I will be summarily dismissed for one reason or another. Hope hope hope...

That reminds me. I've got to grab some books. How low-tech.

Still Breathing

We're still alive. Just busy. The blog suffers, but that's OK. Nothing much exciting here, anyway. Keeping two shop sites going is still taking some time, but we're getting the hang of it. And of course, when really busy there's nothing better than opening yet another site! Yes, I'm a moron. For the curious (and the search engines) it's shirtgazer.com. Stargazer... shirts... shirtgazer. Made sense to me! The site isn't 100% complete yet, but all the links go where they're supposed to go. That's good enough for right now.

Other than that, not much. The weather has finally cooled off a bit in the last few days. Enough so that we've actually had the windows open until about 1 pm, and can open them again at night. Well, have them open without letting the burning hellfire inside and melt the carpet.

Not Funny

Guess who just got another jury duty summons in the mail? ("Another" is the key word in that sentence.) Yep, me. Federal court this time. No, it turns out I'm not exempt. In order to be exempt, you have to actually have served on a jury that delivered a sentence. The sentence I'm delivering has lots and lots of expletives.

Color me pissed yet again.

Wordle

This one's for Sam. My blog is apparently about phones and problems, which I find terribly funny as those two words go hand-in-hand.

Never Let It Be Said That I Have No Sole

I've been spending some time recently doing something different. Designing shoes. It's a nifty new thing at Zazzle, and quite honestly I'm having fun doing it. (This coming from the guy who has purchased exactly one pair of shoes since moving to Arizona.) (Not that I'm going to buy any of these. I stopped wearing women's shoes years ago.)

We Really Shook The Pillars Of Heaven, Didn't We Wang?

CafePress has a problem with its shopping cart. The problem isn't widespread, and that's probably why a fix is slow in coming. It's been about three weeks now, maybe more. I've submitted bug reports, as have other people, yet the problem remains. Yesterday, I decided that I'd had it.

I e-mailed the CEO and told him all about it.

I told him about the problem, told him where to look to see that I wasn't the only wacky person experiencing the problem, and I told him how bad it was for business for all of us. (I used more words than that. You know how I get.)

To his credit, he responded in about six hours. I know it was from him and not from a lackey. He thanked me, and said he was going to make sure it got investigated. About an hour later, I received an e-mail from the EVP. He said the same thing.

Now, according to a post on the CP forums, they've changed the way these bug reports are handled. More informative, straight to the IT department, good stuff like that.

While I'm not thrilled with CP right now, I am impressed by their executives. Hopefully they'll see to it that the problem gets fixed ASAP.

I'm just glad to have successfully tilted at a windmill. I have to mark my calendar.

(Bonus points if you know the movie quote.)

That Old Familiar Feeling

CafePress announced that it will be changing the way it pays its contributors. As you may have guessed, the change is not in favor of its contributors. Some of you may remember that I worked on a project that the IRS projected would save them seven million dollars its first year, for which I received a $900 bonus. Before taxes.

I can't help but have flashbacks. The people doing the work that enables the site to exist are getting screwed seven ways from Sunday, and they're only pulling in $50 million or so. My heart bleeds.

Oh, and through all of this we were finally treated to words straight from the fingers of the CEO. (By that I mean typing, not the finger that I'm currently pointing at him.) The man can't spell. At all. You know I judge people by their usage of the language. Moreso when it's the only thing I have to judge. After reading his words, I can only hope that his lackeys have an education greater than fourth grade. That way, they've got a good four more grades' worth of intelligence to bank on.

In case the subtleties were lost on anyone, I'm downright fucking pissed off.

You've Heard of Money Laundering?

Here's a quiz: Do you know what happens to a cell phone when you leave it in your pocket? What's that? Nothing? Oh, did I mention that the pocket was on a pair of shorts that had just been in the wash? (Not the dryer, though. That would just be stupid.)

So, yeah, I wrecked the cell phone. Or the only phone, as the case may be. I'm sure the calls were just a-rollin' in in the interim. (The phone rings maybe four times per month.) (Yesterday was probably the day we got that call informing us we had one a kajillion dollars.)

We took a trip to the Verizon store today. The phone was officially declared dead. The ceremony was lovely. Luckily, we still have our old cell phone. Gorto the giant tech-who-can't-keep-his-gum-in-his-mouth reactivated it, and we're ready to make and receive calls once more. A hell of a lot cheaper than buying a new phone, too.

Next week, I'm going to take a power washer to my computer. We'll see how that goes.