WANT!!!!!!!

I was browsing the Gun Blog Blacklist and ran across someone linking to here.  (of course I forgot to save a link to whoever it was that had it posted, arg)  Damn.  Maybe I need to go buy a Mega Millions or Powerball ticket….or better yet, have my husband do it, his luck is better than mine at such things.

Edited to add: I’d happily settle for this though.

Edited again: first house was found via Dum Vivimus, Vivamus, the 2nd came from a link at OldNFO.


To Tim Hortons USA Corporate

To the brilliant person who decided that busy corner needed one of your stores.  Bravo.  Thats a HUGE intersection with a ton of traffic, and no coffee or fast food of any kind for over a mile in any direction.  You even designed the traffic flow in the parking lot such that it should work well in such a high traffic area.  I was thrilled when I saw what was going in since I was having to go way out of my way to hit a Dunkin Donuts if I wanted something on my way to work.

To the idiot who decided to make the store a “small” store with a “limited menu”, I hope they fire you.  Seriously.  I can understand the lack of seating, but to essentially cut your menu in half, to the point where you don’t even carry everything on the drivethru menu (and aren’t GOING to carry everything on the drivethru menu) has got to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.  Especially in a location like that.  And I don’t mean that you decided that location would only carry donuts/sweets/breakfast sandwiches with none of the main meal pieces, I mean you decided not to carry half the standard menu.  AND THEN you put things on the drivethru menu that you aren’t EVER going to carry.  Nice.

Well, I WAS thrilled to see the store going in.  Instead you folks just lost yourselves a customer, one who was likely going to be stopping in several times a week on  her way to work to buy a coffee and a snack for later.  And I made sure to tell all my co-workers about your “limited menu” idiocy.


Not all AAA areas offer Tipsy Tows.

Did I mention that I hate people spreading miss-information?

So, a friend of a friend posted and shared that AAA is offering Tipsy Tows on New Years, NATION WIDE!!!!

Which isn’t actually the case.

So, the northern CA AAA (which covers northern Cali, Nevada and Utah) offers them on specific holidays.  TX AAA offers them on New Years and 4th of JulyFlorida AAA (which covers FL, GA, and parts of TN) offers a Tow To Go on specific holidays (or they did as of almost two years ago when I worked for AAA, so I’m pretty confident of that info despite the information in the first linked article).  The first linked article states that they actually checked with an AAA rep who told them that also Hawaii, New Mexico, and Alabama also offer Tipsy Tows.  As far as I know none of the New England, New York or east coast AAAs (other than FL) offer Tipsy Tows at all.  In fact in one article the North Carolina club states that they USED to do them and had to stop due to abuse of the system.

So if you happen to see that set of posts on Facebook do me a favor and tell folks to stop spreading incorrect information.  The folks answering the phones at AAA overnight on New Years Eve/New Years morning will thank you.

If you think your area might offer them call your local AAA office to find out for sure (NOT the 800# in the articles, lookup the actual number for your actual local office, they’re going to have the most accurate information for your area).


Snow!!

The Abominable Snow Dog is THRILLED.  Its drifted about a foot deep on the porch (where the picture was taken, he’s lying in it, first thing he did out the door was was flop and roll), two or three inches deep on the driveway.  He was rather peeved when I made him come in.  And of course, since this is our first REAL snowfall of the year (WTF?  Seriously all we’ve had till now is trace amounts, normally we’ve had like 3 feet by now, instead its been so warm its coming down as rain) everyone was driving like they’d never seen snow before.  Sigh.


Tam started it

She had to go list the top played songs on her Ipod.

  1. Gunpowder & Lead by Miranda Lambert
  2. Kiss This by Aaron Tippin
  3. Sic ’em On a Chicken by Zac Brown Band
  4. Toes by Zac Brown Band
  5. Drum Salute by Boghill & Bathgate Caledonia Pipe Band
  6. March Of Cambreadth by Heather Alexander
  7. Boondocks by Little Big Town
  8. Holler Back by The Lost Trailers
  9. Baby Girl by Sugerland
  10. Amazing Grace by The Canadian Scottish Regiment Pipes, et all
  11. Bones by Little Big Town
  12. Repent by SheDaisy
  13. Pour Me Trick Pony
  14. Chicken Fried by Zac Brown Band
  15. The Fire by Chely Wright
  16. Welcome to the Family by Little Big Town
  17. Rough & Ready by Trace Adkins
  18. Heaven, Heartache & the Power of Love by Trisha Yearwood
  19. Draggin’ the River by Blake Shelton & Miranda Lambert
  20. Travelin’ Soldier by Dixie Chicks
  21. 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton
  22. Convoy by Paul Brandt
  23. The Devil Went Down to Georgia by Charlie Daniels 
  24. Winterborn by Cruxshadows
  25. The Last Journey Home by Dragonforce

An awful lot of those I actually bought via ITunes, if someone there is paying attention they probably think I have multiple personalities.  (note: I took the Christmas stuff out of the list, as its been overly inflated by being listened to alot this last month.  Also note: since I have 6.5 days worth of music imported into ITunes I’m not really sure how this ended up being so reasonably representative of what I listen too, there isn’t really much missing style wise.)


Service Fail

Hsoi has been struggling with AT&T trying to get his phoneline working again.  Seems to be finally fixed, but he’s frustrated as heck with the run-around the company gave him. 

Unfortunately in my experience that sort of thing is becoming more and more common.  Although the people themselves often try to do their best with the information given (though there are folks who don’t even do that), there’s not much they can do if the system itself fails.  And unfortunately all it takes is a minor system fail, and a person or two who doesn’t really care, and you end up with a great big mess.

Just in the last year I’ve had a couple experiences of that myself. 

The first one was UPS.  Tracking number said it was out for delivery, but when I got home (at almost 6pm) I had neither package, or sticker, on my door.  Called the 800# to find out if it was still likely to be delivered and the nice lady said that it was still possible, and if not then the tracking number should update to reflect that.  7:30pm and no package and no update on the tracking number, so I called again.  And was told that “well, the driver’s day doesn’t technically end till 10pm, so maybe they’re still working on it”.  Now that seemed kinda unlikely, but ok.  10:30pm and no update, no package, at this point I’m a bit pissed, but I called again.  This time the polite gentleman informed me that I could still get my package delivered through midnight.  I hung up on him.  Now it turned out that my package had gotten mixed in with the stuff that was being dropped at the Post Office, and so UPS couldn’t deliver OR update the tracking.  I got it the next day via the mail lady no problem.  But I was a little frustrated to say the least.  So, once I’d gotten my package, I filled out a complaint form, specifically detailing the problems I’d had with the PHONE support people.  And I got a call back from a lady at the LOCAL office.  I sighed, and explained that my problem wasn’t really with THEM, it was with the phone people (cause there’s a point where “I don’t know, and I don’t think we can find out till tomorrow” is a valid answer).  She was very polite and understanding (I got the impression this wasn’t the FIRST time the phone people had done this) and gave me the direct line to the local office for next time there was an issue.  On a side note, one of my co-workers had a very similar experience a few months later, as in, almost word for word from the phone people.  He was even more pissed than I was.

The 2nd one was Amazon.  Placed an order for 8 really cheap plastic raised garden bed holders.  The first two charged to my card and shipped no problem.  Then I got an email that they had attempted to charge my card for the next 4 and it had declined.  Checked the card on the companies website and it showed the charge from Amazon as PENDING, and that there was plenty of available balance to cover it and more.  Figuring it was a glitch, and knowing that such pending charges clear themselves after a few days, I clicked the button to tell Amazon to charge the card again.  And got ANOTHER email telling me that my card had been declined.  Sure enough now there were TWO pending charges on my credit card.  Arg.  Called the credit card people, they said they couldn’t do anything and I had to talk to Amazon.  Sent an email to Amazon cause I was a bit short on time, and got an email back……detailing how to change my form of payment since my card was declining.  Gee, thanks.  So I called them.  Got a VERY clueless person who insisted that they didn’t get any information from my credit card as to why my card was declining and that I would have to change my form of payment, when I insisted that wasn’t the problem she offered to try to charge my card again, I said ok (stupid, I know, I was tired), and told me the charge had gone through.  Five minutes later I get another email that the charge had declined, again.  Called again, and got the same song and dance.  Um, No.  Look, I’ve done enough financial stuff to understand how this works, at least to some degree.  Tried again, got a different lady who thankfully understood what was going on and was able to conference call into my credit card so we could get the pending charges cleared, and presto all the sudden the card went through no problem.  Figured that was the end of it.  And it was, till stuff happened and I ended up deciding to return 3 of them.  And went through almost the exact same problem in reverse, except this time it wasn’t my credit card that was the issue.


Not much going on here

Week’s been a bit hectic but generally uneventfull.

Work was spent rushing to get shipped the orders of people who don’t understand the concept of “plan ahead” including the guy who wanted something shipped (yesterday) overnight on his UPS account to him for today.  One BIG problem with that is that  UPS doesn’t deliver on Saturdays, and since Monday is the replacement day for the holiday it wouldn’t arrive till Tuesday.  Offered USPS Express with the extra fee for guaranteed holiday delivery but he settled for UPS 2nd day instead.  Course then I had to go figure out the UPS website and how to ship UPS under someone else’s account, I swear they’ve changed how the website handles that since the last time I did it.  I mean, I know I don’t ship UPS alot?  As in, once every 6 months or so?  But, it couldn’t even find the company’s email address.  Ended up calling into the 800# to get walked through it.

Not much going on at home either.  We’ve been prepping for a hoped for “surprise” that should be arriving Dec 31st.  More on that when it arrives as I refuse to jinx myself, its already been put off twice due to situations out of my control.  Husband and I both got Amazon gift cards from family, and since they arrived early with no wrapping they got spent early.  I bought a bunch of odds and ends, preordered some books, a remote trigger for the camera, and what not.  Husband bought a new headset/mic combo for his computer (though it’ll hook up to the Xbox too) so when  he’s playing online games with his friends he can chat with them.  He then promptly sat down at the computer and has hardly budged since.  I threatened to hide the headset.

Animals are doing ok.  Apollo’s thrilled at the snow that fell last night, when we take him out all he wants to do is paw at it and dig in it, and snuff the snow.  Nutcase, its only an inch or so, but he thinks its awesome.  On a side note, he’s so well insulated that when snow falls and lands on his coat it doesn’t melt till he comes inside.  Trouble has been  her usual self, when we got the box of Amazon orders she climbed into the empty box and proceeded to *swat*claw*swat* at everything that came within view through the gap between the box flaps.  Apollo couldn’t figure out what she was doing and got swatted several times before deciding that whatever it was that she was doing didn’t REALLY matter.  Janie’s doing ok, still stable.  The Vet is supposed to be calling me to set up some dietary changes for her in an attempt to help her kidneys’ function a bit better.  In the mean time I’m supposed to try to feed her a low fat diet, not easy when the cat in question is the pickiest eater ever.  Thankfully she’ll eat boiled chicken and rabbit.  I’d be happier if I could get her to eat a raw diet, but she refuses to touch it, no matter what or how.