the week's not over YET?!?!

I just deleted this entire post because I can just replace it with this:

BITCH AND MOAN

same diff.

untitled, as of yet

I struggled with the title of this post... How much is too much? Here's how it went:

calgon, blow my fucking head off

That's a bit strong, don't you think? Take it down a notch.

calgon, blow my effing head off

That's still a bit much. It's alright, but...

calgon, take me away from this hell

Sticks with the original quote's basics, but it's not really hell, and that sounds like I'm talking about work, when I'm not.

calgon, blow me away

Clever, close to the original quote, but with a twist. Still with the guns and the death though... But it's a contender.

calgon, put me out of my misery

Blah. Nowhere near the original quote, and just watered down sentiment.

Originally, I settled with the last one, kowtowing to public decency and familial reactions. But then, I really like the contender and I'm partial to the original.

Then again, I always say, "Fuck public decency."


Anyway, I spent 3+ hours dealing with a vehicle registration/insurance snafu that resulted in my registration being suspended. Since mid-November. Surprise!

I had to talk to the DMV 3 different times, and got 3 different answers. 4, if you count the manager I spoke with. The first person I talked to apparently didn't even open up my account; he just told me it was all OK, nothing to worry about. Wrong. WRONG. (Kelly - you're on my list, man.) Luckily I called back. Twice. (With this kind of customer service, why am I still surprised that they provide neither last names nor direct extensions?)

I had to talk to my insurance company (yes, that company) twice to find out why the hell they didn't send the electronic proof of my car being insured for California like they should have when I registered my car and again when I spoke with them in November and they told me they already had.

At the end of it all, the DMV was faxed proof of my continuous coverage in Cali from 7/2006 through the present day on MONDAY, and it takes them 3 days to process those. THREE DAYS to walk over to a machine, grab a slip of paper, and check off some box in my file on the system.

This is why robots will replace the DMV. And that should be our first priority; not space travel, not building cars, not vacuuming floors; our first robot priority should be to replace the DMV. As JR said when told there was nothing this representative could do, it was "the system", he said, "Can I talk to the system then?" Amen, brother! As my favorite Futurama episode (Hell Is Other Robots) states, "THAT = TRUE".

i got an iPhone!

You all know what they look like, so I'm not going to bother to post a photo of mine here. The purchase came down to a matter of necessity really - My Motorola POS9000 has been crapping out more and more lately, where unless I bend the phone halfway shut at just the right angle I can't hear the caller. But the caller can hear me. And sometimes no matter what I do I can't hear the caller. And this has made for some very colorful and obscene yelling at the phone that can be heard by the caller. In the last day the only way I can hear anyone is by putting it on speakerphone - the ear speaker must be out completely. You want to know how much fun it is to have to have all your conversations on speakerphone? NONE! Zero fun! I hate those people! And I refuse to remain one of them.

Whaddya know, I pass an Apple store this morning just 3 blocks from the hotel. It was windy as hell and really cold - make your eyes water windy and cold - so I took the opportunity to walk in, take another look at them, and decide to go ahead and buy one. I couldn't stand my Motorola another second. It just so happens that my salesman can't hear or speak, so he hands me a notebook and indicates that I should write down my questions. Surprisingly, it went really well! We ended up walking over to one of the Macs and typing questions and answers back and forth in TextEdit, and once he'd answered all my questions, I was good to go. My main question was: I have service with AT&T already - can I just switch my service to the iPhone easily, and keep ny number? The answer was: Yes - if you have iTunes, you just hook it up and switch it over, easy as pie. He went and grabbed one, swiped my credit card, and I was outta there! Elated! I am now a proud iPhone owner!!!

Fast forward to me sitting in a food court, trying desperately to do just what he said. I learn that I can't activate an iPhone with my current version of iTunes, so I need to update it. I download the install, which goes SO SLOWLY, and then hook it all up and ... iTunes 7.5 won't sync with iPhone in my current Mac OS, even though the help says it should. I try and update it, but I get all kinds of errors - I can't update my work laptop remotely. I walk back to the Apple store and ask a different guy why it won't work, because I'm on OS X 10.4.8, with iTunes 7.5, and he says 10.4.8 isn't even Tiger, much less Leopard, (very unhelpful and snooty, this one) and these new iPhones only sync up with 10.4.10!!! And I can't use one of their computers to do it - I have to do it on my own computer.

I walk out of the Apple store feeling like I just bought a $400 useless piece of junk that I won't be able to activate or use until Friday night when I get home, which doesn't do me any good whatsoever considering my phone's condition. I end up calling the help desk at work, and they figure out that I couldn't update the OS because I wasn't trying over VPN.

I start downloading the update, which is 304MB, and it says 2 hours, no - 3, no - 4, no - 2 hours remaining. I am running very low on battery at this point, I'm sitting in the hotel bar, and there's no place to plug in. I had tried to go up to my room earlier, but housekeeping was in the middle of cleaning it. And I have hardly had a sip of my beer. With my battery quickly fading, I pay for the beer and just walk out with it and head for my room with my backpack, my heavy coat, my big red purse, an open laptop on wireless, and a beer in my hand. I get into my room with the help of the housekeeper, plug in, and as the time remaining drops to about an hour, I sit and wait, dozing off every once in a while.

I finally got all the planets in alignment and the thing actually goes through the activation process seamlessly, just as promised. So now I have an iPhone. Now I just need to go back and get a case for my preciousssss, and a headset, and I'll be golden.

Hooray, iPhone!

grrr...stupid broken netflix dvd

Don't you hate it when you get 3 fresh, new movies in from Netflix, and you are working your way through them (assume in this case they are TV series discs and you are really hooked), and you go to watch Disc 3 and it won't play? You eject the disc to discover that it's cracked from the center all the way out in one spot. You were all set up with a glass of wine and finally an evening in which you could watch this show, and now... boned.

All I can think is, "Why didn't I open them all up when I got them and check them? Why?!? By now the damaged one would be replaced and I would be getting tipsy in front of the space cowboy warmth of my Firefly..."

Every time this happens, I vow I will open all the DVDs up on arrival, and I never do.

Grumble.

Side note: I can't believe that I haven't had a "bitchandmoan" label before this post. Huh.