Category Archives: ranty

Augh…

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This day just keeps kicking my butt.

I could write a long missive about the state of health care in this country, but I won’t. What I will say is this…it’s embarrassing when a 32-year-old woman is reduced to tears because the nurse tells her she’s going to have to come in for a physical before she can get her allergy medicine refilled.

“Um, how much will that visit cost?” she whimpers.

The story has a semi-happy ending, though…after being put on hold a number of times, I was told I could come in to pick up some samples to get me through until my visit on July 13, and that my visit would be billed as a follow-up instead of as a physical.

Sigh.

Then I tried to go to Caffe Aroma on Main Street, which alas, has closed. In its place, coming soon, is “Sea Bar!” Whatever that is. Grr.

So I’m at Starbucks (grr) paying for an hour of wireless access (GRRR) so that I can write this blog post.

I could have gone home and written it for free, except it’s hot. When’s it going to rain, anyway? It looked like it was going to rain earlier today, except, um, not. It got so windy that my basil plant blew off the windowsill.

Whine, whine, whine.

I’m going to try to accomplish something now. I hope your day is better than mine. 😛

Excuse me, I must vomit now.

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So the apartment downstairs has been vacant for quite some time, and they’re just now readying it for new tenants…new appliances, carpet, paint, etc. This means people have been in and out downstairs, working on the apartment.

I just went down to the basement to put in some laundry, and the guys working have the radio on in the downstairs apartment. I could hear it quite well through the floor.

They were listening to Rush Limbaugh. I tried so very hard not to listen, but it was nearly impossible. He was going on about the Hummer actually requiring less energy than the Prius (I actually saw an article about that somewhere in teh intarwebs, but I don’t feel like going and looking for it), and then moved on to Al Gore. I’m not sure what he was yammering about at that point, as that was when I started the washer. I think my blood pressure escalates at the mere sound of that man’s voice.

I feel like I need another shower.

Computer woes

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As you know, Bob, I got a new Wacom tablet this week. I installed the driver and the software, and everything seemed to be working fine.

Yesterday, I went out to dinner with Rand and LT. When I came home, my computer had gone nuts. After a couple of restarts, it appeared that the problem was with my trackpad button. I can scroll around with the trackpad, but I can’t click.

Oddly, the problem seems to be affecting Rand’s computer too. (We share a wireless network, but no software or hardware was installed on his computer.)

When Rand went to work today, he tried doing some troubleshooting, and we tried a few things. I discovered that if I plugged the Wacom tablet back into my computer, I can operate everything using the pen or the mouse, but I still can’t use my trackpad button. I downloaded and installed a brand new driver (released yesterday) from Wacom, but that didn’t solve the problem.

I’ve got an appointment with the Apple geniuses at 1. In the meantime, if anyone has any ideas, send them my way.

*UPDATE*

I was packing up to go to my genius appointment and accidentally clicked on something, and it worked. I rebooted my computer to make sure it still worked, and it did. I started Rand’s computer to make sure it worked, and it did.

The only thing I did? I emptied my trash. Go figure.

Genius appointment canceled, everything looking ok for now.

Peanut butter sadness

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peterpan
Originally uploaded by enappe27.

I eat peanut butter. A lot.

For whatever reason, peanut butter is one of those products for which I have brand loyalty. It’s always been Peter Pan. Creamy.

So imagine my dismay when I heard about the recall. I checked the unopened jar I had in the cupboard, and sure enough, it had the incriminating serial number stamped on the top.

I threw it away. I didn’t bother saving the lid, because I decided I didn’t really need the $1.69 that badly.

And when I went to Wegman’s yesterday, I thought I’d be able to buy more.

Sadly, I was mistaken. The shelves were empty; the tainted jars removed, and none there to replace them.

I picked up a jar of Wegman’s brand peanut butter. I figured for 99 cents, I’d give it a go.

Sigh. Highly disappointing.

I want my peanut butter back! Without salmonella, of course. (Which leads me to ask…how exactly does peanut butter get contaminated with salmonella? Hmmm? Maybe I don’t really want to know…)

Not my day

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I don’t know which is worse…the news that I need to get a new alternator, or realizing that TiVo has failed me.

TiVo did not record last night’s episode of Veronica Mars. Why? I dunno. It just didn’t. And also? It doesn’t appear to be available for download on iTunes. Why? I dunno.

*Grumble*

Augh

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My car battery is dead. Again.

Except this time? It’s a brand new battery.

Called AAA, and due to the “high volume of requests” today, they can’t even give an ETA.

Sigh.

ETA: So, if my car should need further work done, does anyone have a recommendation for a service shop? Apart from oil changes, the only place I’ve ever taken my car locally is Monro. Oh, and that evil, evil tire place when I got a flat that one time.

Update: AAA arrived. Jumped, and running fine. Apparently, I just hadn’t run it enough over the past few days for the battery to charge properly. Silly me.

Freedom Writers

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I read lots-n-lots of blogs in Bloglines. I save stuff that I want to link to/talk about. Sometimes I never get around to it. And every once in a while, I do this.

Over at PopWatch a few weeks ago, they “reviewed the reviews” of Freedom Writers. I want to see this movie, despite my lukewarm feelings about Hilary Swank (Oscar voters, is she really our greatest living actress? Really?).

Some backstory. A few years ago, I took a job in public relations at a nonprofit agency in WNY. For the most part, I hated this job. I won’t get into why. But while I worked there, I got to do a few really, really cool things. One of those things was meeting Erin Gruwell, the teacher behind the Freedom Writers Diary.

0202071011a.jpg

Ms. Gruwell, and several of her students, signed my copy of the book. And even though I could never accomplish the things she accomplished, meeting her and reading this book was a large part of what inspired me to become a teacher. So I found snippets of reviews like this completely annoying:

“And not that she needed a crack habit, but Erin herself is so unbelievably saintly — and her fellow teachers so snivelingly evil — that she’s impossible to believe as anything more than an inspiration-bot. Every student is fundamentally good and easily taught and reformed, and the eventual triumph of the human spirit is so predetermined that it’s not particularly satisfying. The music swells, the tears well up, Swank smiles lovingly, and the crack pipe starts to look rather appealing.”

Hm. Mr. Josh Bell of Las Vegas Weekly seems to completely ignore the fact that Erin Gruwell is an actual person. I don’t know how true-to-life (or to the book) Freedom Writers is, but, well, this just seems like an utterly ridiculous thing to say. Erin Gruwell’s story is one that seems made-for-Hollywood, too good to be true. But the thing is, it IS true.

I’ll post my own review after I see it. 😉

Things I don’t need

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So I’m still sick. Better than I was on, say, Friday and Saturday, but sick nonetheless.

I have a basketball game today. A miscommunication worked slightly in my favor, and I’ll be meeting the girls at the gym between 5 and 5:30. (rather than after school at 4, which was my original intention…so they’ll be a little less prepared than I would like, but what are ya gonna do?)

Anyway. I haven’t driven my car since Sunday. It’s all cold and covered in ice. I figured I’d go out and scrape it, and while I’m at it, warm it up a bit.

So I try to start the car and it’s dead. Nada. Nothing. 🙁

I figure it must be the battery. I do have jumper cables, but the lot is pretty deserted at this time of day. I could go knocking on random people’s doors, but I have neither the time nor the energy to do this today.

So I go online and join AAA, which I’ve been meaning to do anyway…but…sigh.

Then I place the call and find out that yes, they’ll come and help me, but they assess a $25 fee for “same day service.”

Why? Because they can.

“Do you need service today?”

Well, gee, I probably wouldn’t be calling you if I didn’t, right?

Sigh.

And now I wait…

Update:

It was indeed the battery. They jumped it for me, but I need to get a new one. I figured.

Bah! Humbug.

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I’m in a mood today.

What’s not helping is that I’m knee-deep in paper grading, and the stupidest things are setting me off. Like the inability to follow simple instructions.

I ask all my students to write a short reflective self-assessment to hand in with their portfolios. Now tell me, dear reader, how one misunderstands the SELF part of self-assessment.

Yeah, I don’t know either.

Apparently, my class wasn’t entertaining enough for this one. I should have had them “play some writing games or something.”

Feh.

Imagine me rolling my eyes…

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Thanks to Jen, for alerting me to this article on Slate:

SUVs for Hippies?

The Spot: A man waits in the checkout line at the supermarket. He’s buying organic tofu and leafy vegetables. Meanwhile, the guy in line behind him is stacking up huge racks of meat and barbecue fixings. Tofu guy, looking a bit insecure, suddenly notices an ad for the Hummer H3 SUV. Eureka! In a series of quick cuts, he exits the supermarket, goes to the Hummer dealership, buys a new H3, and drives off—now happily munching on a large carrot. “Restore the balance,” reads the tag line.

Apparently, the original tag line was “Restore your manhood,” but that didn’t test well. 😛

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again…the Hummer is an obnoxious vehicle. It’s ugly, it’s oversized, and it’s nothing more than a status symbol. Apparently, the H3 is smaller and more reasonably priced than its predecessors, but that doesn’t change my opinion of it at all.

And I think this ad campaign has got it all wrong. Anyone buying tofu and organic veggies is going to drive his hybrid with pride. Not that I want the Hummer to have a successful advertising campaign. You wanna go after tofu-buying hippies? Have at it.

Speaking of hybrids, I meant to talk about this a while ago…I saw a Toyota commercial touting the company’s low gas mileage vehicles. But strangely, the Prius was conspicuously missing from the ad. Seriously, how do you make a commercial about your low gas mileage vehicles and leave out the hybrid? Is this big oil at work?

And just to tie it all together, here’s another article from Slate:

Hummer vs. Prius: The surprising winner in the war for America’s auto soul