monkey nonsense

what is up with my customer service issues!? tried to call cox today at around 5pm EST. got told their offices were closed. and then the automated lady started to tell me what their hours were… 8am to 9pm…

uhhh… yea.

so i bought an HD projector! finally some nice TV! no more flickering, tiny tube tvs! our band’s singer might actually be able to read the words clearly in rock band/guitar hero!

so i looked into upgrading to directv HD service. i knew i’d have to pay more monthly for HD service. $10 a month. not cheap, but not bad. but then! directv wants to charge me $199 to get the HD DVR receiver! wait. for the receiver that i pay $5 a month to rent.

huh?

apparently, this is just the way directv operates! what a load of crap! the $199 doesn’t pay for the box clearly (else, why are you charging me $5 a month extra?) and it doesn’t pay for the HD service (else, why are you charging me $10 a month extra?)… so what exactly am i paying for?

spoke to THREE different directv reps. all of them basically said they couldn’t waive that fee. that it costs more to buy the receivers new ($500) than to rent… ‘cept if i bought, at the end of it, i’d own the receiver! (even got one rep to admit it made no sense that after 2 years of renting, i’d basically have paid enough to buy a receiver. then she was like but why would u want to buy a receiver? u can only use it on our service? to which i responded… so you’re telling me there’s no point to staying with directv? because u’re either trying to sell me a receiver that can only work with your system or u’re trying to make me spend enough money to buy a receiver, but not actually buy it? how are u selling me on staying with directv?! … then she got all flustered)

i am apparently not the only person annoyed at directv… there’s apparently a class action lawsuit too! see: http://medialoper.com/directtvs-dvr-lease-shell-game/

A few months back, I tried out Ba Le, a Vietnamese restaurant, in Rockville. I remember thoroughly enjoying my food, but the place seemed more like a restaurant. They had a few coolers and displays of prepared Vietnamese food but nothing compared to Eden Center. Plus, it was much farther than Eden Center, which I already don’t go to much! Then a friend mentioned that there was another location in VA really close to my house! I never knew how close it was! But friends would stop by and pick up sandwiches there on my way to my house often.

I finally went this weekend! This location seemed to be much bigger than the Rockville location! Maybe not as much seating, but plenty more prepared foods! I was so overwhelmed by the choices! I wanted to buy one of everything but I was on my way to a baseball game so I couldn’t! I ended up getting a mango bubble tea (delicious!! it even had the fibers of the mango!), while a friend got a pineapple bubble tea (which I tried and thought was delicious!!!) and another friend said the Vietnamese iced coffee bubble tea was also good! I got a chicken “lunch box”… that chicken was so juicy and flavorful! I wanted to try their beef noodle soup that I eyed on someone else’s table as I was leaving! I love beef noodle soup (both the pho type and the Chinese type!) but my favorite place is too far away for me to go often!

I think I will be visiting Ba Le a lot now…

Note- post title taken from: Candy Mountain!!

when i’m frustrated, patience and empathy are the first things out the door. ironic… since those are the 2 things that i’m looking for from others too.

so i saw this sale on sigg water bottles and thought, perhaps i shall get some. since plastic have been shown to have bpa or whatever and my bottle is from before they started selling them labeled with bpa-free. i heard those metal ones were safe. so i was about to order a sigg bottle when i started reading negative reviews. apparently aluminum (what the sigg bottles are made of) is not entirely safe either and the sigg bottles’ liner wasn’t bpa-free until only recently (past year or so). reviewers were telling me to get kleen kanteen instead! which apparently is stainless steel. of course research into that says that those bottles are made in china. manufacturing kiss of death? how soon before there’s a recall on them?! so…. i don’t know what kind of bottle to get. and i’m sure in five years research will show that neither of the bottles are good. but i just want something to hold my water!! what to do?

latest supreme court nominee is jewish. read an article on cnn about how the court is now catholics and jews, but the author was saying that in reality, the catholics and jews and protestants share similar views (on governing) so it doesn’t really make a difference. but the author brought up how a more diverse supreme court would still be nice. (article – http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/19/do-6-catholics-3-jews-9-protestants/?hpt=C1)

Then read the comments, one of which said how the only way to have true separation of church and state is to have only atheists on the supreme court.

questions

• does atheism count as a religion?
• can u have separation between church and state with religious people?
• can u have separation between church and state with ANY group of people? because people will always have an inherent belief (believing in the absence of god is still a belief no?) this is kind of combination of the first two questions i have
• “The separation of church and state was to prevent the state from establishing a state church and to prevent the meddling of the state in religion.” (another comment) – true or not?
• if the above bullet point is true, what is meddling?

it’s springtime! with the nice weather and extra motivation that comes with nicer weather, i’ve got a list of things i want to do… let me know if you want to do ‘em with me!

• crabbing. i want to go a lot. i want to catch a lot.
• crab feast. regardless of whether the above bullet point happens or not, i want to have a crab feast… either purchased or caught… i want a crab feast!!
• learn guitar. anyone giving lessons? taking group lessons? the last time i tried to learn guitar, i didn’t have any goal… i got a goal now. i want to learn how to play that thing you do or stacy’s mom on guitar.
• play tennis.
• fly a kite.
• go kayaking
• go see movies outside in Rockville/Reston/DC/Arlington… so many places show movies outdoors now!

wow, a fourth of 2010 is over! let’s see… what have i been up to?

• i still have no furniture. i’ll post a picture of my doctor’s waiting room living room once i get the pic off my camera.
• i’ve been sick twice since the new year and three times this winter! on the plus side, no fractured ribs this year! and the weather is starting to get warmer so perhaps the worst is over.
• i’ve stopped tutoring SAT (last student was uber genius man… only tutored 5 sessions and she killed that test!!). i’ve stopped tutoring at little lights. (side note: went to help out at camp hope one evening and some of the kids seemed to recognize me a little… not that they remember me, but they asked if i was around last year or if i was still tutoring? … i was terrible though, they asked me if i remembered them and all i could say was i remember their faces, but not their names =( booo on me!!) so what have i been doing…
• attending lots of weddings. so last year, i said 2009 was the last year of lots of weddings… i was wrong! stilll got a bunch this year. also… when i say “a bunch”, i mean like 3 or 4. i do NOT understand people who have no free weekends during the summer because of weddings… that would drive me nuts! i would just stop attending weddings at that point! hahah
• football. yup, that’s still going.
• i’m also trying to get back into cooking. i have a fairly nice kitchen that i underuse considerably. i’m also trying to learn the guitar (for real i mean, i always say i’m trying to learn it…). And I’m actually pretty up to date with my TV watching (fav shows at the moment: modern family, burn notice, chuck. himym is slowly losing favor for me…)
• i met the president.


thanks jason for the arrow!

haha, i was looking for a shredder deal on slickdeals… i’m still sorting through junk mail that came to me at post tysons that i moved with me! identity theft has scared me from just throwing them out! so i’ve been hand ripping them….

anyways, there was a slickdeal for a $20 shredder. i contemplated buying that, but really with the amount of junk mail i have, i’m pretty sure i’d kill that $20 shredder within a week…

and then i read this post on the forums:

You’re going to want to spend a minimum of 800 dollars on a paper shredder. Any less than that and the quality is going to be so low you’ll want to replace the damn thing within 5 years, but you won’t be able to because your identity will have been stolen and your bank account emptied.

If you’re serious about shredding, get something with carbide cutting heads and at least a .5HP motor. I have a Rawlings-Chamberlain MK220 AKA “The Silver Knight” .
It comes fully loaded with a dual rubber roller feeder and 6 layer hopper to separate different kinds of paper, wood, metal, etc.. I can shred a New York telephone book in under 15 seconds.
The built in milling computer lets me customize the shred pattern to meet any security needs. I prefer a 3mm parallelogram with bilateral fiber separation. You can’t even make out individual characters on those things.

Send me an IM if you’re serious about this. Welcome to the world of paper shredding. You’re in for a hell of a ride.

HAHAHHAHAH… this guy is awesome. if he’s making this stuff up, i love the attention to detail. if he’s not making this stuff up, wow.

entire thread here: http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1903644

the young canadian pair just ice danced to bohemian rhapsody!! that was my idea!!