My So Called Life

The cell phone saga

/ Shane / Leave a comment

So, my cell phone stopped working the other day. It would just shut off in the middle of a call and then it was impossible to turn the thing back on. Sometimes it would just ignore you when you pressed on, sometimes it would turn on and then turn off while it was turning on and then other times it would turn on long enough for you to think it might be useful and then it would turn off as soon as you tried to do anything. It also somehow would stop charging if you left it alone while it was charging. I don’t even know how a phone could do that. So, in short, it was screwed.

The final straw was when I was in the airport in Chicago and I was trying to call and and say my flight had been delayed an hour and it wouldn’t stay on long enough for me to get a call out. So I lost $1 to the pay phone before I ended up calling with a credit card call. 30 seconds of talking, $5 of paying.

So I researched online and picked out which phone I wanted to get and the Verizon webpage assured me that it would be free. So I went into the store, pointed to the phone and went to pay. The reason the phone was free is because I got a “new every two” deal which gave me a $100 credit. Well the guy is ringing it up and he casually mentions that my plan that I have which has way too many minutes for me to use doesn’t exist anymore so they’re just going to transfer me to the next plan up which costs $10 more per month. They said getting the new every two plan constitutes a new agreement. So essentially, to get the $100 credit, I have to pay $120 a year more for 2 years. That’s just not good math.

So I say to the guy, “Well if that’s the case then I’m not going to get this phone.” and he says to the girl next to him, “Well, does he really have to transfer his plan?” and she says, “Welllllll technically.” and he says “Well either he does or he doesn’t.” and she says, “In that case he does.” So then he turns to someone else and says, “Does he have to transfer his plan?” and they said, “Yes.” So basically I’m getting the impression that they could do something if they wanted to.

Obviously I walked out of that place. Then when we were on vacation I tried to go to another Verizon thinking that maybe these people would be more helpful. Yes and no. They said I could keep my old plan, but they told me they couldn’t give me the $100 discount because I was in a different state than what my cell phone number is. I don’t know why that would make a difference? Maybe these people just had different ways of screwing with folks.

So finally I come home and find another Verizon Wireless, this one right by my house. Those people? Fantastic! I walk right in and they hook me up with the phone and let me keep my old plan. Easy as pie, I’m in and out in like 10 minutes. It’s amazing the lengths you have to go to to get some customer service in this world…

But the good news is, I do love my new phone. It’s not as flashy as some of the ones I could have gotten, but it works with all my old chargers and stuff, and plus Sara has a Samsung too so our chargers are interchangeable. It has a camera and stuff which I could have done without, but the OS is light years ahead of my old clunky Samsung.

I even tried downloading ringtones but then, just in the nick of time, I remembered that I wasn’t a tool.

Or was I?

The end of an era

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Today I retired my Birkenstocks.

10 long years.

I’m going to miss those bastards. :*(

P.S. I bought an identical pair.

Doesn’t seem like a Saturday

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I’ve been working 50 hour weeks for the last month. Usually I take Saturday off and work on Sunday, but today I worked which made this seem like a Sunday.

Didn’t do much today, worked and read and surfed the net a little bit. A couple of months ago all the libraries around me had used book sales. Paperbacks were 3 for a dollar and hardcovers were $1. I went to 3 in 3 weeks and spent about $25 which means I had a LOT of books to read. But that’s cool because I’m an incorrigible book worm and I burn through books at a fantastic rate. Especially now that I’m on summer vacation from school. I wish libraries had book sales like every week. I’d go every week.

I hardly ate anything today. I still felt stuffed from Maggianos when I woke up this morning. We ordered pizzas from Peace-A-Pizza and I got pepperoni overload (which is my favorite) but I only ate 2 slices and then that was it. I guess on the plus side I have like a whole pizza waiting for me in the fridge aging like a fine wine.

Oh, also Sara and I went for a walk today. We walked through some really nice neighborhoods and looked at some cool old houses and found a little pizzeria right around the corner from our apartment. If you don’t know me that well maybe you don’t realize what a momentous occasion me going for a walk is! 😛

My friend Kevin’s away message says he got engaged. I haven’t talked to him in at least 2 years. I wonder who he’s getting married to? I hope he invites me to his wedding, I totally want to go. Seeing that up there made me think of all the CS people I knew from college and how sad it is that I never talk to them anymore. Especially Stevie and Kevin.

Life has been very boring lately. I kind of wonder how I was able to put up with so much TV before…it just seems so asinine now.

Right now I feel….Explosivio!

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I am soooooooo stuffed.

Today was Tony Vegas’ birthday so we went out to Maggianos for some family style Italian. I ate like 3 times my body weight. And I way a LOT. Made me want to join a new religion. I always knew I loved pirates and pasta, but I never knew there was a religion based on it.

I didn’t go to work today. My job has this weird rule where you can get approved for overtime, but even if you get approved, the first 5 extra hours you work you don’t get paid for. Then, also inexplicably, that rule is waved on the weekend. So I’m doing what any reasonable person would do, which is not work a second over 40 during the week and then come in on the weekend. So, I had my 40 in on Thursday so I didn’t go to work.

I still programmed for about 9 hours today though, taking only breaks to vacuume and do dishes. I’m working on a program for Sara to use at work. I got *so* close to finishing it today. I guess I’ll finish it up tomorrow or maybe when I get done with this.

Did I mention that I’m stuffed? Did I mention that Maggianos is the greatest place on earth??

This my shit, this my shit

/ Shane / 2 Comments

This shit is bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s

Well okay, I’m back for some more mad phat blogging action. I can’t believe it was almost exactly a year in between posts there. Time flies. I re-read all of my old posts today. Good times. I’m a psycho! Sara always tells me I’m moody, but holy crap. I don’t know how she put up with me. The big take away was that I was really really freaked out about getting married. I totally didn’t remember that, but it’s obvious when re-reading this.

Okay, so what’s up? Like I said, I just got done with my capstone project. We made a pluggable card game. Essentially someone could create a few files and have a totally new card game that they could play in our framework. We implemented Euchre and Hearts. Stacy would have loved the Euchre!

Speaking of Stacy (LJ still reminds me of her), on the new Ben Folds CD there is this great song called Late. Its about a guy Sam Elliot who he kind of knew but he really liked his music and then that guy killed himself. It’s just like this really great song about things he’d like to tell the guy if he could. I just think it’s a really nice song because he’s just talking to the guy like he would if the guy were still around, not making this rediculous romanticized version of the guy. I used to think of Stacy and cry every time I heard it, but I’m over that now. I still like the song though.

Anyway, we went to NYC for our 1 year anniversary. It was a really great trip, although short. We saw Wicked and Avenue Q. They were both FANTASTIC shows. You can’t really compare them because they were very different, but I would strongly recommend either one to anybody.

Before that Sara’s mom came out to visit us for a week. It was a really nice visit even though we had to work during some of it. But here’s the weird thing. So I got this call from my friend Casey who I haven’t talked to in a long time. I called him back and he was like “Hey, we’re coming to see you, we’ll be there tomorrow.” So he ended up coming while Sara’s mom was here, which was kind of weird, and also he brought his new girlfriend Margret which was also weird because I knew her from high school but haven’t seen her since then. But she’s like suuuuper nice and I think they had a good time here. It was kind of strange though.

I didn’t really give the England trip justice in the blog here, but it was too big and too long ago to bother with now. It was the second biggest trip of my life and it was very nervewracking driving for a week on the wrong side of the road. But I only drove on the wrong side 2 times when we came back and I think I was even starting to master the round-abouts!

I’ve been listening to Tenacious D like a mad man lately. Best. Band. Ever. Sara bought me the new Dave Matthews Band CD because I was like insane-o fanboy, but I didn’t have the cd. So I got it and it was pretty much what I expected, by which I mean not all that good. It’s alright I guess, but I just feel like they’ve gotten away from what made them good. This album is too predictable.

Nala used to always sleep with me on the bed, by which I mean she used to let me sleep in the bed with her. But then when Sara moved in, there wasn’t room for the 3 of us. So Nala really kept us up a lot at night. Then last Thanksgiving we had left her alone while we went to visit Sara’s family and when we came back she was just flipping out because she was so attention starved. She’s such a needy cat. Anyway, we weren’t getting ANY sleep so we kicked her out of the bedroom and closed the door. Man did she not like that. She just banged on the door and cried so much that that was even worse as far as getting sleep. So then we tried putting her in the bathroom with the door closed and also closed our door, but even that didn’t work. She went so crazy in the bathroom that she started ripping chunks out of the door even though she has no front claws!! So we decided she was never allowed back in the bedroom. For about 6 months we tried EVERYTHING to shut her up, including wearing earplugs, running a fan, etc. Also I kept the spray bottle by my bed and about 3 times per night when she woke me up I went out and sprayed her. I thought that my sleep was going to be disrupted for the rest of my life and then one day, like magic, she just stopped! That was a few months ago and now she just doesn’t wake us up at all!! It’s like the craziest thing ever, it was seriously like magic. So the moral of the story is, stick to your guns and eventually the other person will have to give in.

My mom graduated with her masters, so congratulations to her. My mom, brother and sister are all up at the family reunions this week and I’m sooo jealous. But even more so, they’re going to NOAH’S ARK (the happiest place on Earth) this week. Ugh, I’m so jealous.

Alright I’m going to commit this because it’s getting long.