Art by MeddygonThere is a fine line \ Between genius and madness. \ It is called timing.

from http://www.layeggistrue.com/

First I run into Pflugerville, now this?

View Larger Map

Before:

After:

From Jonas 6mo+

Let me tell you something about the Something Store. Avid readers (*snerk*) may remember my previous post about the site. After reviewing my Google Checkout history, I’ve ordered 51 Somethings since November of last year. Wowzers! No wonder they were willing to help me with a slight problem regarding our office gift exchange.

I ordered 19 somethings for the 19 participants of the gift exchange this year. We each drew names of the others, and the plan was to pick a something to give to drawn person. I thought it’d be a little more interesting than handing $10 gift cards to each other. Another coworker and I peeked at each of the gifts to separate the girl gifts, boy gifts, and gender-neutral ones. We soon found out that we had more girl gifts than we had girls participating.

I immediately emailed the Something Store, and within twenty minutes I had a response: They were sending me three new somethings, free of charge.

Above and beyond customer service, all the time. I love shopping the Something Store.

From Jonas 6mo+

(oh and he’s starting to crawl.)

One of my classmates for this online physics class from CSU sent out an email to all other online students that she thought the midterm exam was unfair because it focused on equations. “Especially Joules” she commented. 16 questions on the test. She brought in five pages of notes. The email from the professor said that there would be 16 questions, that they would be based on the homework, and a calculator would be useful. The homework was mostly equations. I was under the impression that physics is mostly equations. I don’t know where she got the idea that she needed notes on history ore the examples given in the book.

Along with the city of Soddy Daisy, TN, your name makes me giggle.

View Larger Map

I have a feeling that if service providers of any service hired better programmers, their automated systems wouldn’t screw up as much and they wouldn’t have to hire customer service reps to repair the problems caused by the automated systems dropping the ball.

A script checked off a few things on our healthcare and decided to reject all the claims for Jonas because he had a different insurance for his first visit to the pediatrician. A phone call corrected the issue without any hassle.

An online request form automatically approved us for a budget payment plan of $100 for our electric bill. I called their customer service today to inquire why my bill was more than that, and, according to the CSR, it shouldn’t even have allowed me to sign up due to us using NOPEC.

Maybe a throng of CSRs is cheaper than a skilled programmer on retainer.

Last Saturday, my son woke up around eight at night with some goobers in his eyes. Turns out he had pinkeye. Got some eye drops for him and it cleared up. I warned my coworker who had come over that day with her daughter to watch out for it in case her kid got it.

Last Monday, I went to the doctor because my back was killing me. For my lower back, he cracked it and all was good. For my upper back, he wanted me to start taking my muscle relaxants again. I stopped taking them due to breastfeeding, so now I just get to live with the pain and hope Tylenol will work.

Last Tuesday, I woke up feeling as if I’d swallowed barbed wire. I called off work and slept in. Eventually this great glob of blood and mucus came out of my nose, ( gross) straight from my sinuses. It came out while I was breathing normally, no coughing or blowing. I felt better for a while.

Last Wednesday, I went to work feeling one hundred percent better than I had on Monday. I had to leave early, though, because my son had a fever.

Last Thursday, the guy who sits next to me at work called off. I started having coughing fits. My husband stayed home with our son since he couldn’t go to day care.

Last Friday, I was having coughing fits pretty regularly. I felt fine, except for the coughing.

Yesterday, I couldn’t sleep through the night due to the coughing. I waited until my husband got up and slept fitfully during the morning.

Today, I’m up again for the same reasons, except now I have pinkeye.

Woke up.
Backache+
Pills, back brace.
Backache-
Headache+
Drove to work. Bright lights at work.
Headache++
Removed back brace.
Headache+
Backache+
Tired+
Ingested pills.
Headache+
Backache+
Tired+
Consumed caffeinated beverage.
Headache+
Backache+
Tired-
Hyper+.

I am currently hyper with a photosensitive migraine and upper back pain.

ARGLE BLARGLE.

Citibank refunded the charge on 5/19 (it didn’t show on the online statement until 5/21). Even though this was resolved, I still received a new message from Valve’s support. They asked me for a screenshot of the fee. I obliged and gave also a screenshot of the Citi CSR stating which charges were considered foreign transactions.

Here’s the conversation through Steam’s support:

8 « Message by Thomas on Tue, 19th May 2009 5:11 pm »
Hello Amanda,
We are still working on this issue and have been talking to the bank, can you please confirm the dollar amount of the foreign transaction fee that they are charging?

Read the rest of this entry »

EDIT on 05/21/09: see bottom for more details

Update on the foreign transaction fee issue. After waiting a few days for a response to my previous call, I decided it would be better to call them. After explaining the situation to “Hugo,” I was transfered to a supervisor (“Mr. Thomas”). I explained the situation to him, and he stated that the foreign transaction fees are automatic and they do not watch for them. Since it is so common for US businesses to process through Canada (and warn their customers of possible fees) they don’t bother with alerting customers of foreign purchases. He waived the $1.92 and thanked me for being a customer. I’ll be checking my account online at the end of the business day to verify that it’s been taken off.

If Valve had at all stated that they process payments outside of the US (in plain text would have been nice, but they didn’t even have it in legalese), I would have made the purchase in a different manner.
Read the rest of this entry »

Plans today:

1. Possibly sleep before having to leave, or maybe just sleep in the car.

2. Pack up and go go go

3. Lunch at Jorenko’s side

4. Dinner at my side

5. Return home and locate the stealthmaster daggercat and hope he didn’t hide in some barely reachable place again

Roomba may have mastered the skill of not-falling-down-stairs, but it is still easily defeated by chairs.

Disco Kitty

Today’s update is a new theme.
Also, I’m not doing anything wacky for the day. Laaaaame day.

I’m going to re-post some old stuff, be it art or writing or whatever, once a day. I’m probably going to just go alphabetically through my folders, but you might find something interesting (or crappy).

I’ve finally updated to the latest version of wordpress. In doing so, I also decided on using another theme and putting some distinction between private and public posts. So register if you haven’t already, and you’ll get to read EVERYTHING.

For those of you who don’t know what to get someone for Christmas, get them a Something. I first heard about the Something Store on NPR earlier this year and bought something just to see if this place was real, and that the somethings were as varied as they say. During the interview with the creator, he stated that the most expensive thing they sent out was a $450 emachine, though the majority of the somethings range from $2 to $20. Each something costs only $10, and that includes shipping.

The first something I ordered ended up being a wind-up toy from Kikkerland ($15 value). The second something was a mini magnetic dart board ($2 value). I was still impressed by the variation. The Something Tracker also gives you an idea of what people are receiving. I think that the only lie on that page is where they are going. I ordered 25 somethings this for my relatives this Christmas, and the majority of what I received is on that list.

For a while I’ve been using two lcd displays. My first one, going on four years old or more now, has a crappy contrast ratio and really makes it difficult to deal with colors properly when making arts. Because of that, and because I’d just bought a computer that could hand dual display, I bought a second monitor under a year ago. That second monitor crapped out on me over he weekend. It doesn’t surprise me, though, it was $100 cheaper than most monitors at that time and came with no warranty. It did display dark colors better, tough, and now that it’s gone, I’m really missing being able to differentiate darker shades.

So I spent just under $500 on getting two new monitors for myself. This old one I’m using now I’ll be giving to my parents. They’re still using a viewsonic CRT I bought them eight or nine years ago.

In 2000, a movie called “Pay It Forward” came about. In it, a social studies teacher gives his second-grade students a task for extra credt: come up with an idea to make the world a better place. The main character, a student, comes up with the idea he calls paying forward. Person A does three favors, for Persons B, C, and D. Then each of these people does three favors for three different people, so after just two tiers of this idea, twelve people have had their life made better in some way. The favors are to be done unasked and without any expectation or return: the person helped must simply pay it forward as well.

In the movie, the student starts his idea by taking a vagrant home and lets him clean up and get food. The child explains the PIF idea to him. The vagrant then learns that the child’s mother takes a taxi to work every day because her truck is broken down. The vagrant pays forward by repairing the truck. The vagrant noves on, and the idea spreads as he does his remaining favors. (Do watch the movie some time, the whole thing is wonderful, even if it is a bit long.)

Read the rest of this entry »