(Yeah, mucho activity here today, huh? Lots to write about!)

Apparently Circuit City and Bank One (through whom the financing was done) were not content with the multiple ways in which they’ve pissed us off already. Today Tim got a call from Collections! We had been waiting to pay the bill until Friday, my payday, so that we could put a big chunk on it (and pay all the bills in one fell swoop). The bill isn’t due until 9/7 and we can pay it online, so we figured we were fine.

Until the collections officer called and told us to pay up now or lose the tiny little scrap of our supposed promotion which we still retain–the no interest for 18 months. And of course they don’t care that it’s not our fault we’ve got a past due balance, they just want their money. Luckily, with that money from Mom and Dad, we could make a big payment anyway, just not at the time that we’d have chosen.

The best part? Tim says the collections officer says she hears our complaint (that we were told no payments incorrectly) all the time.

If there were a tiny, itsy bitsy sliver of a chance that we might possibly do business with either Circuit City or Bank One, it’s completely gone now. This is absolutely ridiculous.

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Yeah, again. I told you I wasn’t happy with using the Blogger-provided templates. When Eyebrows over there turned up with the same template I was using, I figured maybe it was time to see what I could do about creating my own. It’s not great by any means–it’s really just the same one I was using before with different colors and graphics–but it’s a start!

Hm. Come to think of it, I kind of like this look. A new look for the Web site, maybe? (Not that I’ve done anything with the site in ages anyway. It needs more than just a face lift, but I’m not sure what to do about it, so I’m just letting it sit there for now.)

*does a little twirl* So what do y’all think?

(Have just realized title graphic says “thoughts” instead of “stuff”. *sigh* Too damned bad. I spent too long getting the borders on that thing just right; I’m not going back and re-doing it. The Journal is hereby declared to be a journal of thoughts, not stuff. *G*)

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From CNN: (Link removed as page is no longer available, sorry.)

Ho-ly cow. That’s just about enough to make me want to learn how to use a Mac. (Hear that, honey?) I’m drooling over here.

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Just added another blog to my links list. This one is called “Eyebrows McGee Plays in Peoria”, and lest there be any confusion amongst my offline friends–no, no relation to Russell.

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I haven’t exposed enough people to this T-shirt. I must share with you. Found via a random ad on MegaTokyo‘s page:
Kill Bill Linux Shirt

I won’t say it’s the best geek T-shirt ever… Much less the best overall geek shirt ever. But it sure rates up there, doesn’t it?

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A co-worker of mine has just discovered why, exactly, you should be patient with tech support. It’s not even because they hold the power of life and death over your (insert item here). It’s just because, well, sometimes they deserve a break.

I don’t even know what John was calling for support about, but apparently he’d been trying and trying for a couple of weeks and never could get anyone to answer the phone or return his calls. Finally, this week, he got fed up and tried calling sales instead. When someone finally answered, he started chewing her out over the company’s poor service. She clarified the time period this had taken place over, and then said…

“Sir, we’re right where the storm hit. We lost half of our building and many of us have lost our homes.”

Yeah. They’re in Florida. Yes, that part of Florida. Oooooops…

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I got tired of the random question in my (now-defunct Blogger) profile and went looking for another one. The new one still sucks, but in looking for a good one I was given the following which I thought you might find amusing. Or at least very weird.

• Paper or briefs? (This was my old question. Should have kept it, dammit.)
• Your hand has been replaced by a rubber stamp. What does it say?
• What was the stage name of your favorite actress before she was born?
• What’s the most amount of sand you’ve ever had in your swimming trunks?
• You can punch a hole in an apple using a straw. How do you think that makes your milkshake feel?
• In the dream where you show up to school naked, why do you never go swimming?
• Your superpower is that you smell like dandelions whenever someone lies. How will you maintain your secret identity?

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I think I must just be PMS-y today or something, because this is getting under my skin a little more today than usual.

What possesses people to run around the Net referring to people they know only distantly (or worse yet, total strangers) as “hun” or “honey” and giving them hugs? I mean, not hugs for any particular reason, even. Just random “hey, look, I talked to you” hugs.

I understand that in the South, “hun” is used for, like, everyone. I get that, really. But, you know, the vast majority of us don’t live in the Southern United States. And when you don’t… That term from a stranger sounds presumptuous and overfamiliar at best, condescending and rude at worst.

As for the hugs… Keep yer paws offa me. I don’t mind them from people I know, but from people I don’t… It’s just uncomfortable and annoying. I mean, how would you feel if some random stranger came up to you in a crowd, gave you a hug, and then ran off?

OK, I guess that’s your rant for today. I know it’s horribly unfair and all, but dammit, it’s annoying me today.

(Of course, we won’t even get into the Netspeak…)

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You know, I was having a really good Monday yesterday. It wasn’t a fantabulous day, but it was certainly pretty damned good for being Monday. As I left work, I thought, “This is too good to be true. I can feel something sneaking up on me.”

Well, I was right. When I got home, I found a bill from Circuit City in the mail.

Now I have to backtrack so those who haven’t already listened to me rant about this know why I was upset about this. You see, Tim and I bought a TV in June. A nice TV. A TV expensive enough to need financing on. We hadn’t intended to buy it right then, because we knew that with moving expenses we wouldn’t be able to afford the payments yet, but they told us there was a special deal going on where we could do 18 months with no payments, no interest.

Yay! we thought, and signed ourselves right up. Then in July we got a bill saying we owed money already. Plus, it had interest charged on it, so there were already overage charges. Despite the 18 months no payment no interest thing. So we called the store and talked to the manager on duty. He called the bank that handles the financing, and then called us back. He said that everything was taken care of and we should not pay the bill we had recieved, nor should we have to pay anything until the 18 months were over. Yay! we thought again.

So you see now why I was upset to recieve yet another bill this month. Especially since it had not only another payment due, but also a past-due balance from the previous bill. And the overage charges. And more financing charge. And a late fee. So I called the store again (since there was no number on the bill to call the bank about it).

The store took my info, hung up with me so that they could call the bank, and then called me back later to tell me that the financing was re-keyed and we would now have no interest for 18 months. When I corrected them–this should have been no payments as well as no interest–they told me that they didn’t know why anyone would tell us that, since they never ever run no-payment promotions. There’s nothing they can do.

End result: Tim and I are both really pissed, and the chances of our ever shopping at Circuit City again? Pretty much nil. Certainly not for anything that costs more than about $20. We just don’t trust them anymore. At all. First we were given incorrect info, apparently to get us to buy the TV, then it was repeated to us a month later and we were told everything was fixed, and now there’s nothing the store can do for us. I’m writing Corporate and expressing my displeasure, and then I think I’d like to forget Circuit City ever existed. Except I can’t because we’ll still have these bills to remind us about it for a while.

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Well, I’ve many a time joked about people’s turn signals being broken when they fail to use them properly, but I never thought it actually happened. Until now.

You know that little lever you push up or down to turn your turn signal on? Turns out it actually can break, sometimes without the driver really having put undue pressure on it. Who knew?

Tim’s broke Monday. We superglued it back (using stuff billed as “especially for plastics”, that being what his is), and then it broke again last night. We superglued it again, and it broke again this morning, apparently without his putting much pressure on it at all.

Luckily, his car is still under warranty. He’s having to pay a whole six bucks to have the part overnighted to Bloomington, but otherwise zip, zero, zilch, nada. The dealer says once the part and the car are in the same place at the same time they can fix it in about an hour. So at least it’s not going to be much of a hassle.

But if you see a white Mitsubishi Eclipse around Bloomington not using his turn signal… Be nice to him! He is getting it fixed as soon as the part gets here, we promise!

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