I hate...

<font> tags. If you don't know what I'm talking about, consider yourself lucky.

First snow of the season

Obviously these people don't live in unincorporated St. Louis county....only 7% rated "it was pretty poor" and 5% rated "it was terrible."

My street/subdivision is a mess. I slid turning onto the highway 44 outer road. Yesterday when I was shoveling snow in the driveway a salt truck/snow plow went by and didn't even have his plow down on the pavement and wasn't leaving a salt trail behind him.

Snow is only "fun" when it means you get a bonus day off of work.

For gosh sake people...one holiday at a time!

News Flash....

Just because all of the stores have their holiday merchandise out and are playing Christmas carols doesn't mean that you have to too. At least wait until after Thanksgiving to start decorating.

There is a house I drive by on my way home from work that has had their Christmas lights on outside their house for the last week or so, and today when I left work, the building I work in had all the Christmas lights on outside.

It drives me nuts that everyone is so focused on the holidays before they even get here.

Dumb A$$ Dish Network

Dish Network sent us a broken "replacement" DVR to replace the one that wouldn't record correctly. Only the one they sent us wouldn't even connect to the satellite, let alone record.

Dish Network is going down...

For the second time in a week our DVR from Dish Network did not record the television show that it was set to record. The first time was America's Next Top Model last Wednesday night. Minor inconvenience since Top Model is repeated Sunday nights. Tonight the piece of junk didn't record Gilmore Girls....the LAST Gilmore Girls episode ever. Dish Network will be hearing from me soon...

Just when I thought stltoday.com couldn't get any more annoying...

If you live in St. Louis and want to find out what is going on in the news, many people turn to stltoday.com to have the story. Recently though, they have added some extremely annoying rich media banner ads, and I'm tired of it. I was annoyed by the hummer ad (that covers your content and then snaps back up on top where it belongs after playing for several long seconds). Today when I visit, I get the hummer ad, hit refresh to get a different ad because I'm not going to sit there and wait for it to disappear, and what do I get but a Ray Vinson Mortgage ad that has "Ray's" voice when I accidentally drag my mouse over the ad - not click like most banner ads that feature sound. The ironic thing is that I designed banner ads at the last company that I worked for, but honestly, I don't feel that any of ours were used in such an obtrusive and obnoxious way as these on stltoday.com. And by the way, I make it a habit not to frequent businesses with annoying advertising, be it billboards, television/radio commercials or web.

Well I've had enough of this crap blocking me from what I really want to see. From now on, if I visit stltoday.com and one of these obnoxious ads come up, guess what, I'm leaving the page. I'll go visit myfoxstl.com if I really want the local news. For national news, I'll stick to cnn.com where I've never seen such obtrusive banner ads.

Sayonara Sears

Our dryer died the week before Christmas. Being a busy week we decided to pick out and purchase a dryer after the holiday when we had a week off. We figured we could buy it and get it delivered all while we were off work. Wishful thinking.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006:
I wash and dry a load of laundry. I go downstairs to put a second load in the dryer and it won't go on. Tom takes a look at it and confirms that it isn't working.

Friday, December 22, 2006:
Tom takes the dryer apart to try and figure out the problem. While he had fun deciphering the wiring diagram conveniently included inside the dryer panel, the dryer either had a dead motor or a dead timer. We decided to just buy a new dryer instead of repairing a 25 year old dryer that could require more repairs in the coming months.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006:
Me, Tom and Tom's father visit the near buy Sears hardware store and choose a moderately priced dryer with all the features that we wanted. Tom's parents offered to purchase the dryer for us as part of our Christmas present, and we graciously agreed (thanks again!). That evening Tom tried calling the Sears information line that they told us to call if we had any questions. We wanted to find out if the 25 year old setup down in the basement was still code by today's standards for a gas dryer. All Tom could get out of the recording on the phone was when it was going to be delivered.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006:
Tom calls St. Louis County to find out if our copper gas line meets county code. They say yes, it does you should be fine.

Friday, December 29, 2006:
The new dryer is delivered. However, the delivery guys refused to unhook the old dryer from the gas line because of the copper line. They tell us to have the gas company out, and once the line is replaced with a black pipe, then they will come out and haul away the old dryer and hook up the new one.

Wednesday, January 3, 2006:
Tom takes a day off work to stay at home and wait for Laclede Gas to come out and switch out the gas line.

Saturday, January 6, 2007:
Sears comes back out to haul away the old dryer and hook up the new one.....except that their order form from the store doesn't say anything about hooking up the new one. They haul the old one away and assure us that someone will be out later in the day to hook up the new one.

Tom spends the entire afternoon on the phone with Sears, and gets different stories from each person he talks to. Some say that it should have been hooked up. Some say that the ticket was written out wrong and they should have hooked it up anyway. Some say that the "customer refused hook-up." After 4 hours of getting no answers Tom tells Sears we are returning the dryer, that this is ridiculous and we aren't putting up with their crap.

Sunday, January 7, 2007:
Sears guys come to the house to hook up the dryer. Tom tells them that he's returning it, and once again calls their customer service to return the dryer. We are offered a $50 Sears gift card for our troubles if only we do not return the dryer ($50 to spend EVEN more money at a place that can't get their shit together...)

Monday, January 8, 2007:
Message on the answering machine when we get home from work from the local Sears Hardware store manager saying that she hears we had a "situation" over the weekend.

Tuesday, January 9, 2007:
Tom returns the call to Sears. The manager is one of the rudest people Tom has spoken to yet about the "situation" and tells Tom that he had not given them the opportunity to fix the situation before returning the dryer, and that he had called the wrong people on Saturday (so apparently the Sears store is separate from Sears customer service and Sears delivery....I think not!). Tom tells the manager there is nothing she can do, the damage has been done...Sears already had a chance to try to make amends.

That night we went to the Maytag store where we purchased a much cheaper dryer (with all the same features) from a very knowledgeable and friendly salesman. That dryer will be delivered and hooked up this Saturday. Maybe they will arrive at the same time as the Sears people arrive to take out the one we are returning.

We'll keep you posted on how Saturday goes!

Silly Blogger!

I switched my blog over to the blogger/google beta version and now aparently I cannot post on anyones blog that has not been switched, and anyone without a google accout (just a blogger account) cannot post on mine. This is really annoying, so feel free to post annonymously and just put your name in the post message if it won't let you post like normal.

It's not Christmas Yet Folks!

It's not Christmas yet. It's not even the Christmas season yet. Advent doesn't start until next Sunday. Thanksgiving isn't for 3 more days, and yet, as we drove thru our subdivision this evening there were several houses with Christmas lights up already. One business north of hwy 40 between 270 and Woods Mill had lights up reading "Christ the Savior is Born". Excuse me, but I believe that Christ wasn't born until the 25 of December, and it's not even the 25 of November yet.

The Christmas season is a special time of year, but part of what makes it special is that it only happens for a short while each year. If we had Christmas lights up all year long we wouldn't notice them, they wouldn't mean anything to us.

(As a side note, I don't have any problem with people putting up their outdoor lights when it's a nice weekend, just don't turn them on until at least Thanksgiving!)

Stupid School

Ah yes, my alma mater; they is really good at grammar! Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the statement on the above is not correct grammar. Shouldn't it be "The faculty are really good; they care about you."? The above image is from the homepage of none other than the University of Missouri-St. Louis. They are working hard to improve student recruitment and retention, and apparently they're appealing to those students who ain't got no grammar skills!

ipod Pains

*sigh* I listen to my ipod at work everyday, and for the last week every time I plug it into my computer and open itunes it has been telling me to update the ipod software, so I finally downloaded it this morning. Well turns out I can't use my ipod now until I plug the darned thing into a wall outlet - too bad I don't have the wall outlet plug here at work and now I'm stuck listening to internet radio all day! (b-ana-nas! bananas! bananas!)