The Month in Review - May 2006

I've been in a blah kinda mood. So I haven't really felt like writing anything lately. But now that we are in the month of June and, I suppose, a lot of stuff happened, I should probably relieve you of your suspense. Yeah, right...

IPOD
Right around the end of April my Ipod died. Hard fast death. It literally just stopped working. So I had it checked out and the hard drive had failed. Since the fix was a couple hundred bucks I got a new one. And I went all out and got a black 60GB. If only because I've been spoiled by having my music collection accessible at a moments notice. And I must admit the video feature is much cooler than I thought it was. Not that I want to sit for hours on end watching movies on the thing. But a couple music videos every now and then is pretty cool. Say what you want about the iPod but its a damn good product.

DENTIST
1st week of May found me at the dentist office. Nothing major just my regular routine maintenance. Though I did discover that my regular hygienist has up and moved to Arizona. Her replacement (a friend of hers that she went to hygienist school with) says that she said it was because she wanted to buy a house. But she suspects it was because of her boyfriend moving there. I suspect the latter as well. Too bad she was cute. Not that my new one isn't. But she's married. Kinda changes the dynamic.

So to top that off I find out that my bottom gums in the back have gotten worse. On both sides. I think it was the vigorous scrubbing I gave them with the toothbrush before I went. Though I didn't bother to tell my hygienist. But hey what do I know. So that sucks. Now if I could just keep flossing on the regular I might be okay.

EYE DOCTOR
Finally went to the eye doctor and got a new contact prescription. And a new eye doctor too. My last one was cool. But he was extremely laid back and nonchalant about the condition of my eyes. They are nice and healthy and all that good stuff but I do have an astigmatism. And now that I have the new Dr I actually have a better understanding as to why contacts don't correct my vision to 100% the way glasses do. Old Doc just kinda shrugged it off. They don't make contacts that can correct for my astigmatism cause... well they just don't. New Doc actually explained why and there is more to it than, "they just don't." My eye condition is about half way from where it needs to be to get the special astigmatism lenses. Of course she gave a much more in depth explanation but hell I'm not an eye doctor. The point is new prescription, better night vision, and I need to get new lenses for my glasses.

EBAGS
I've had nothing but good experiences from ebags.com. I've gotten a backpack, a messenger bag & and a new suitcase. And up until my most recent purchase I was a satisfied customer. My latest purchase, however, (a messenger bag exactly like my previous except larger and with a special compartment for my laptop) has found me wanting. The order went through ok and I even received the item a week ahead of the estimated deliver. Ok, cool. But upon inspection it was defective. Containing not one but 2 cuts side by side on the strap. One about half an inch the other about a full inch. And they were probably only about an inch apart, or less. Which means that it it was almost about half way through the strap. So, frustrated I go only to find out how to exchange it. Only to discover that they don't have direct exchanges. They have returns and what they call exchanges is a return with a store credit. *sigh* Ok, fine. So I go through the motions of doing what I need to do for the "exchange" only to find out that they e-mail you a label to print out and tape to the original box and send through UPS. Box? What box? They sent me the bag in one of those cheap grey plastic mailing bags. *sigh* Fine, Spend $2 on a box, wrap everything back up and drop off at the UPS store. Finally, got an e-mail about them receiving it a few days later and the store credit e-mail would follow in 24 hours. So, 2 days later I go only after not getting the e-mail find that I was actually credited. They just didn't tell me. So, once I again I go through the motions of reordering, using the credit with a couple bucks to spare due to a special promo and according to their calculation it should have been here yesterday. *sigh* But on the bright side UPS scanned it in about 6 miles from my house at around 11:30 PM on June 2nd. And yeah they do deliver on Saturdays. That was the day I got the original one. *sigh* Not to mention I got not one but two e-mail the day after I submitted the reorder saying my my store credit was available. Three days after they told me it would be a day. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

REALITY TV
Pretty much sucks. I bring this up because in the last month I have either seen or heard of shows that cause me to shake my head in disgust. I means seriously, Yo Momma, God or the Girl and King of Cars? Who green lights this shit?

Somebody please smack the shit out of Wilmer Valderrama. I've seen a few eps (and by that I mean I have seen about 5 minutes of different episodes) and it comes off like bad battle rapping. Guys basically tell yo momma jokes and then Wilmer and his boys talk about who was better. WTF? This is a show? This should be a 2 minute internet clip on mtv.com. At the most.

God or the Girl basically follows the lives of several men as they go to seminary and their struggle to be a celibate priest or go back the women in there lives. Never seen an episode, but the premise alone...

King of Cars reaffirms my belief that car sales men are the scum of the Earth. I watched all of one episode and was thoroughly discussed by the shady dealings of this Las Vegas car dealership. Seriously, you have a trade in and put down $10K on an Charger R/T but you can't get payments of $400 a month or even a little less? The couple wanted payments of $400 at the most. The salesman nickel and dimed them down from like $500 to $439. Bastards. And I won't even mention the website dedicated to the shady dealings of this dealership.

I'll leave it to you to google these shows for more info. Right...

BET
I'm fuckin' done with BET. They completely suck nothing but ass now. Rap City can no longer redeem them.

CAR
I think I'm going to keep my car after the lease is up in November. I figure I might be able to have it completely paid off in about a year in a half. All I'm looking forward too now is not having a car note. Because of that I've taken to doing regular maintenance as recommended. Which basically means I'm going to need some new tires here soon. And now that I have replaced a belt, a motor mount and some other regular stuff I feel like I'm on the path to true car owner ship again. Not to mention this might be the first year ever I can pay off my car insurance premium as opposed to monthly payments. That would be freekin' sweet.

So that's what's been going on with me. What's up with y'all?