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Blah-Blah-Blog
Bureau-crazy In Action (March 29th, 2007)
Sorry for the lack of posting. My general apathy towards life has kept me from babbling on a daily basis. It’s been a helluva year so far. In early February, my 25 year old gas boiler died on the first really cold day of the year. The water cut-off failed and the boiler burned itself out sometime in the night. This was despite my checking the water level twice daily in the winter months so it was full before I went to sleep that night.
Thank god it didn't blow up which could have been one of the alternatives and given we use gas heat; that would have said hasta la vista baby to my house! I also managed to get a small third degree burn to one finger to boot when I just had to touch one of the connecting pipes like a dope. Almost 2 months later, it’s almost healed up.
I had PSE&G, our gas/electric company come over to check the boiler, and as I already knew, the serviceman declared it dead as a doornail. PSE&G has a contractor who can install a new boiler and the guy gave me a price on the spot which was pretty darn hefty but he said they could install it tomorrow. I told him I'd have to think on it and call them the next day which surprised him a little.
I tried a few places like Sears and Home Depot but now-a-days they have to send someone over and give you a quote, then you place an order and who knows how long before installation, a couple days, couple weeks, a month -- who knows? Plus the day after the boiler died, the inside temperature of the house was in the 20s! Can you say Brrrrrrrrr??? I couldn’t afford to wait to install a new one so I bit the bullet and called PSE&G who said they could do the installation the same day! Yippee!
So we had to get a permit and have the boiler inspected after the fact as they couldn’t get the permit, install the boiler and have the town’s inspectors come over all in one day. I got a permit in the mail a few weeks back and finally made an appointment for them to come today. I was surprised to hear three separate inspectors were coming. Plumbing, Electrical and Fire.
My house is a bit run down due to lack of finances to do anything right now so I hate to have one person come over let alone three! The only one that concerned me was the fire inspector in case he decided to nose around outside not that I had anything to hide but authority figures sometimes make me anxious. My stomach has been doing flip-flops all morning for no ascertainable reason I can figure except nerves. I finally took something for it as I got tired of running to the executive washroom every hour.
My appointment window was from 10am to 2pm. At 11:45 the electrical inspector finally showed up. Took one look, said it was fine, slapped an approval sticker on the boiler and was gone in all of five minutes or less.
Called up the Building Department which issued the permit and schedules the inspections to find out where the other two inspectors were. She put me on hold and a minute later I was talking to the plumbing inspector who promised to come over in a few minutes. Being as I live 3 blocks from the Town Hall, it doesn’t take too long to get to my house. A half hour later he finally showed up and took about five minutes to walk around the boiler and approve it. Two down, one to go!
Now all I had was the fire inspector to come. I called the Building Department back and rescheduled his visit for Monday as I’d wasted enough time waiting for these guys to come and I had things to do!
The next morning, the fire inspector called me and said Thursday had been his day off! Why didn’t anyone else tell me that! He said he could come today as he was on vacation all next week. I told him I had a meeting today but would be home around 4pm and he said he’d be here at that time. As I write this its 5 minutes to 5pm so and since he told me his work day ends at 4:30, I strongly suspect he’s not coming. You’d think he’d at least have the courtesy to call and let me know if he wasn’t going to show up! I guess I’ll have to wait a week and then try again to get him over here! Sheesh!
Gotta Love City Government Employees!
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Bank On It! (January 11th, 2007)
Turns out that call yesterday was from my bank regarding a loan I have with them. Weird that the caller yesterday did not identify himself as being from the bank and I forgot to mention he ended his message saying it would be to my benefit to call, which was just weird sounding especially when I had no clue who I was dealing with!
I'm attempting here to post every few days if not more to get into the swing of it. We'll see how long I can keep it up! |
Phony Phone Call (January 10th, 2007)
I had a strange phone message while I was out today. I played it 3 times but I couldn't decipher it 100% if I played it a 100 times. They called me by name and the person said it was Mr. Gonzalez or Gomez, it wasn't coherent enough to make certain which and he said he was from the Loan Processing Thing and I should call him back at an 800 number.
Yes, I said 'Thing', that I understood. I even played the message at a slightly slower speed so I could hear every syllable and he said 'thing'. That set off a red flag that is was some kind of solicitation, likely for a loan. I tried tracing the 800 number online but nothing came up. I considered reporting the caller to the 'Do Not Call' Registry which I'm registered at but since I'm not really clear on the call, decided to skip doing that. If they call again, and it is indeed phone spam, I will! |
Driving Me Crazy (January 5th, 2007)
And now the exciting conclusion! I finally got my car back today. Garage mechanic called me at 7:30 this morning to tell me it had been done last night and parked on the street so I could either hop a bus to pick it up or he'd come and give me a lift around 11am. I chose the former.
Weird thing was, he told me I'd have to come in tomorrow to have them put both the front hubcaps on. He said, and I'm really assuming he was joking, that this was to make sure I came in to pay him for the work. I have no sense of humor at 7:30 in the morning and it ticked me off a bit.
I guess I'll pay him even though I have a couple of spare hubcaps in the house so I could drive off to South America instead. Yuk! Yuk! |
Auto Update (January 4th, 2007)
Well we picked up the 'right' part for my car today but the mechanic who's going to fix it has his Mom in the hospital and its messed up his schedule. He may be able to do it late tonight so I can pick it up Friday morning. Cross your fingers and any other flexible body parts you have that it happens! I've finally reached the point of frustration about all this not that it'll get me my car any faster! |
Drive Shaft (January 3rd, 2007)
I'm optimistic that I can turn things around for myself in 2007 but the New Year isn't starting off with a bang for yours truly. I have not had a car since Saturday. I use a local mechanic who just charges me for labor and I get most of the parts from where my brother works, an auto parts place, since he gets a discount.
I had to get a couple of special parts from the dealer this time and apparently no one told me there were 2 versions of the main part I needed, a hub assembly for one of the front wheels. The mechanic called Hyundai when they found out it was not the right part and they said they'd order one and have it for us Wednesday so my car's been sitting in the garage with the wheel well unassembled since the weekend. The holiday delayed everything a couple days. I realized as I was leaving the garage that I would not have a car to pick up the part and my mechanic, a good guy, said he’d check on it and take me to pick it up. Now that’s service!
So as we all know, today is Wednesday, my mechanic called to tell me he checked and they never ordered the part. They claimed he said he was supposed to call him back!!!! So no car for at least another day or longer! I called up the dealer and spoke to the parts department myself. Supposedly they will have the part for me tomorrow. We shall see. I now have to cancel my Thursday appointment and can’t even run errands besides the post office which is a mere two block walk from my house!
I’m crossing my fingers the car is ready to roll Thursday as I don’t have enough groceries to last past that day! Thank goodness I buy two weeks worth at a time.
HAPPY 2007 EVERYONE!
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One More Time! (October 8th, 2006)
I’m baaaaaaaack! Miss me? I thought not! I know its poor blogging etiquette to talk about your own lack of posting but hey, I love to kvetch (that’s Yiddish for complain) so why not?
hear lots of “real writers” who have blogs say they do it because it loosens them up for the day’s work. If I spent an iota of the time I spend surfing the net or just screwing around in general working on my own blog, I’d have several book’s worth of material posted. Call me lazy, call me apathetic, just don’t call me late for dinner. Insert rimshot here!
Hey! I just looked and its been exactly a year to the day since I last posted anything! What a great day to start anew! I must be psychic, I know I’m psychotic! Yuk! Yuk!
So fasten your seatbelts everyone, I’m going to be posting again and jumping all over the place from my favorite TV shows this season to music to movies and of course, comics and collecting – my favorite things. I might even reveal a little if not too much about myself, so hang on and enjoy the ride!!!
Larry |
Fats Domino Is Missing! (September 1st, 2005)
Just heard on the radio that family and friends of the legendary Fats Domino have reported him missing. Fats resided in a pink mansion in New Orleans which is now essentially a lake at the moment. I got teary-eyed at this news and hope the Fat Man is located safe and sound. Words cannot express how much I love the music of this great performer and I hope he surfaces unhurt. |
A Fuel And His Money (September 1st, 2005)
True story -- I went grocery shopping today one town over. On the highway were 2 of the brand of gas stations I frequent. I passed the first one and saw gas was now up to $2.99 a gallon premium which is what I use. Wow, I thought that was high as the last time I bought gas last week, it was about 20 cents less.
So I did my shopping and figured I’d get my gas at the other highway station on the way back but it was a little too crowded so I decided to go to one of the same brand stations closest to my house. When I got there, the price was $3.19 a gallon for premium! 20 cents more a mere town over! I decided to unpack the groceries and drive back to the original station as I’m cheap, a subject I’ll discuss in a future post. When I got to the station, the same one that was $2.99 a gallon for premium less than 2 hours ago, the prices had been changed to match the higher priced station! Less than 2 hours later I said!
I hope this whole thing simmers down soon, I used to fill my small car for 20 bucks and now that amount fills half my tank! Thanks George! |
| Back To The Futurama (March 18th, 2005)
Due to my obsessive habits, I tend to take it slow when new technology comes along that calls for me to start collecting a new form of entertainment. I waited a year before I started collecting CDs because I couldn’t get what I wanted on vinyl anymore when they first emerged. The same goes for DVDs. I had been collecting video and didn’t want to go into another format being the compulsive collector type that I am.
Well, less than 2 years ago, I broke that barrier but have been treading lightly for the most part with DVD purchases, buying most of what I have used off the internet or at Best Buy on new release day when a lot of DVDs are on sale. I’ve even gone a few weeks without a new purchase! My big interest is TV Shows on DVD Box Sets although I have a number of single discs as well with feature films, cartoons, music video, etc.
I also look at a couple of internet sites which list DVD deals at various stores & websites and are updated regularly. Caught a post about some good deals at Costco for which I have a membership card at. Its one of those warehouse stores for those who don’t know, where most items come in bulk but they also have a spot with a small but nice selection of books, CDs and DVDs priced better than most so when they have a coupon deal for something I want, I do not hesitate to go that week!
This week, they had a few good specials: Five different 20th Century-Fox TV Season Box Sets for $18 after the discount. I had or didn’t want all but 4 so I snagged Season 1 of NYPD Blue which I wanted. I loved that show as my post below attests to and miss it. They also have $10 off all 20th Century-Fox TV Animated Shows Season Boxes which included all released to date sets of The Simpsons, Family Guy, King of The Hill, and Futurama.
While I could have gone hog wild as I only have Season 1 of The Simpsons, I was jonesing to score all 4 seasons of Futurama as that is the complete series and I really enjoyed that show and haven’t watched it ad nauseum like Simpsons which is on several times a day in reruns.
I and many TV viewers will never be able to figure out the the intricacies of television programming and why some good shows get cancelled before their time. The Fox network is especially guilty of this with their most recent discretions being the cancellation of Firefly, Wonderfalls, and Futurama.
Futurama was to my memory the first Fox show to be run in the 7pm time period which I thought was odd given that prime time has always been considered to start at 8pm. That is a lousy time to put any new show on, especially when its constantly postponed during football season when the games ALWAYS run past the 7pm time. That combined with a severe lack of support for the show put it into an early grave with some of the fourth season episodes not even being aired until the shows began running on the Cartoon Network late at night. From what I understand, and I could be wrong, Fox only ran the show as long as they did to keep its creator, Matt Groening, happy as he was also the creator of The Simpsons, Fox’s cash cow of an animated series now in its, what 16th season? The show has definitely lost its edge yet still has its moments, albeit less of them than it used to.
But that’s enough babbling for the moment, I have work to do and DVDs to watch!
Woo Hoo!
Futurama marathon! | | |
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