One Crappy Day...

Today sucked. It sucked for two separately sucky reasons. Each one, alone, would have been enough to qualify this day as bad, but put them together and you get a masterpiece of crap.

First, my employer took us all on a field trip. I live in Madison, and we had to be in Chicago by 9:45am. So we left Madison at 6am drove to Milwaukee, and then took the train to Chicago. After sitting through some very boring speeches, we went on this boat tour. We were the last ones to get on the boat, and we sat in the 'middle.' You know what I mean - there are lucky people in front of you blocking your view, behind you enjoying the breeze and above you with perfect views, and you are forced to sit in this cramped, dark, smelly hole and not see anything. Next, we went to a very nice restaurant, and got the crappiest service I've ever had at a place with white table clothes. The food was actually bad, the service staff was rude, and they took so long to serve us, we had to leave before we got dessert. We topped off this experience with the train and car ride home. Overall, a waste of time and energy. I would rather have spent the day working out at the gym. At least I would have gotten something out of it.

Second, I've discovered why BEST BUY IS EVIL. They make a big deal about selling you these warranties, and then it takes them forever to service you. And you can't buy a product without the warranty, because the products are so shitty, they are guaranteed to break within 2 years. For example, take my TV. Best Buy convinced us to by a $60 warranty when we bought to TV less then 2 years ago. It recently broke (see the previous post). I called the service line, and Best Buy referred us to this little TV service shop in Madison, telling us that the local place would send someone out to try to fix our TV. We called the TV shop, and they told us the earliest they would be able to make it out was July 11th. That is almost TWO WEEKS from now. So I did the obvious thing, I called the particular Best Buy where I got the TV and asked if I could bring it in.

Of course not. Best Buy doesn't actually know anything about TVs, so they can't check it out themselves. They have to send it out, and someone 'qualified' must say it's broken before I can get a new one. This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. My TV is so clearly broken, that even I can tell it will never come alive again. It's so dead, even the Best Buy guy sounded sorry that he couldn't give me a new one. But he still did do anything to get me a working TV.

So I figure it will be three weeks before I get to watch TV again. In the interim, I figure I have several options: (1) Screw Best Buy, get a new TV from someone else, and then write a letter to Best Buy explaining why they suck and hope to get my money back (which I won't, but at least I'll have a new TV by tomorrow). (2) Buy a small crappy TV to tide me through until I get a new one, and for future emergencies. (3) Buy a new TV from Best Buy, keep it until they fix my old one, and then return the new one (and hopefully they won't charge me anything). (4) Just go without TV.

I realize the fourth option is probably the wisest. However, since my only real source of entertainment after work is the TV, I will probably succumb to temptation over the weekend and just go with option two. In the end, having two TVs in the house probably isn't bad - then I wouldn't have to fight with my boyfriend over whose show we are going to watch - I could just go watch it on the other TV....

That sounds good. I think I'll go check craigs list to see if I can find a used one...

Nothing like retail therapy to make a crappy day better.

I fought the TV

And I won, but that leaves me without a TV.

I was flipping from TLC to the Food network to watch one of my all-time favorite shows, Good Eats, and the TV turns off. Or I think it turns off. So, I push the "on" button on the remote...and nothing happens. I sit there for about 2 minutes, jamming the "on' button, and finally, panic sets in - I broke the TV.

I calm myself momentarily, get up, and try the power button actually located on the TV, fully prepared to be embarrassed by my own stupidity in assuming that the remote would always work...and nothing happens. I go around the back to wiggle the plug to make sure it is actually plugged in...and nothing happens. Panic and Despair set in, and the Family Guy episode where Peter takes out cable for the whole town comes to mind.

After 30 minutes (actually a very short amount of time as these things usually go), I am told by a very nice woman who works for Best Buy that my TV will be broken until the Madison service people go to work tomorrow, and probably even later than that, because I have to call and schedule an appointment for them to come fix my TV. Also, since my guess is they will be unable to fix my completely lifeless TV, I will have to wait for someone to replace my TV, which will probably take even longer.

This makes me sad. I am currently missing Jack McCoy verbally beat the crap out of a Very Bad Guy (VBG). However, since I am also probably missing the spectacularly unspectacular cooking of Bobby Flay on Iron Chef, I am somewhat mollified.

Beginning

I guess everyone has to start somewhere. I've spent years reading other people's stories and wondering if I would ever have anything interesting to say - so I decided to stop wondering and just try it.

I'm a pretty boring person. I go to work or school, come home, cook and eat dinner, watch the food network and go to sleep. On weekends I spend time reading, shopping, and generally hanging out with friends. Like I said, pretty boring.

I do have an "overactive imagination" though. My imagination will probably make an apperance here and there in this blog. It usually strikes right as I'm about to go to sleep, or just as I wake up. One night, I actually lay in bed all night and didn't move because I was convinced that the light on the smoke detector was some kind of evil insect. Unfortunately, I'm not making this up.

I think I'd like to try doing restaurant reviews. I've decided that since everyone and thier mother does movie reviews, I'll try to stay out of it unless there is something that really makes me angry. Otherwise, I'll focus on where (and where not) to eat in the different places I travel to.

In the end, I'm convinced this will be a pretty hum drum blog with a few funny stories and posts that have no relation to each other. Hence, the name of this blog. I have the attention span of a goldfish (or so I've been told), and I am easily distracted by shiny objects. My mind is extremely random, and most people have learned to stop asking how I mentally got from one topic of conversation to the next. Finally, this blog is about thoughts: I'm not really telling stories (stories have a beginning, middle, and end, and usually make sense); I'm not seeking or telling the truth, and I definitly won't be trying to get you to sign on to my political agenda. I'm just writing down all the shiny random thoughts I have, and hoping that someone will enjoy it.