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Prima donna Appliance Installers
We bought a house, and as the appliances were ancient, well used, and put away wet, we decided to replace the kitchen set. There were some difficulties finding a refrigerator that fit the space in the cabinets, but that was minor compared to the Bosch Dishwasher we bought.

First, it was back ordered. Many deliver dates were promised, and missed. Apparently the installers would pick them up and deliver install at their whim. Finally, we had them deliver it, and then send the installers.

The week we moved, on Friday, the dishwasher was delivered (it took 5 weeks from order to delivery). The installers were scheduled for the following day. Cool.

Not cool. The installers said they wouldn’t install it. The hot water valve had some corrosion on it, and they wouldn’t touch it, as “plumbing can go wrong, and we aren’t plumbers”.

Sigh, so they gave us a phone number to call when the plumbers replaced the valve.

After they left, I crawled under the sink and looked at the valve. Yes, a little green brass corrosion. But it was minor, and the valve actually looked fine to me. I would have just installed the dishwasher. But what do I know, I just tagged along with my appliance repairman stepfather as a teenager…

Of course, the plumbers are busy, and it takes almost 2 weeks to get them to come out. The plumber takes one look at the valve and is as equally as perplexed as me. His comment was that the valve was no more than 4 years old, and a really good valve (not a budget Lowes special). The hard water of the area tends to cause the green coloring.

The installers wanted to not install on this valve.
Wimps.

The plumber cleaned the valve off with some CLR and it looked brand new.

Later the same day the appliance installers return (the same crew), and he wanted to refuse to install the appliance, bitching that the plumber should have changed the valve.

Fucker.

Fortunately Barbara insisted that they install it. They then claimed that the washer was broken as the lights on the controls didn’t turn on.

The quietest dishwasher I have ever seen

Of course, the idiot didn’t realize that being on the top edge of the door, they only come on when you open the door. Douche extraordinaire.

So, net result:
- we have a dishwasher – Yay!
- the subcontractor for Pacific Sales is a whiney bitch primadonna.
Suck it up cupcake, and do your job.
April 11, 2015
My affair with racing games

Coming of age at the dawn of the video game revolution, I pumped a lot of quarters into the machines. I loved many of them, but the one that really captured my attention was Pole Position.

Prior to that I had played the “Night Driver” game on the Atari 2600 (I remember playing at a friend’s house) but it was primitive. Pole position, with its steering wheel and the perception of real driving was captivating.

From there it gets fuzzy, but I remember playing racing games in monochrome on an IBM PC clone, and a variety of driving games on dos based systems throughout the 1990’s.

In 2006 or so, I splurged on an Xbox 360, and the first game I bought was Project Gotham Racing. An arcade style game, it had impressive graphics, and incredible game play. I probably put 400 or more hours on it. There was a follow-on version, that I also voraciously played.

Then I lost interest. It was too arcade-y, and got less enthralling. The Xbox was used solely for playing Golf with Barbara.

Introducing Forza

Forza 2 was introduced. It took the realism to a new level. The car models were scary accurate. And instead of exotic and high end sports cars, it had a wide selection of common cars too.

Add the ability to customize the cars, to improve the performance, and I was again hooked. I spent more hours playing, building my garage. Adding things as mundane as a Mini, and a highly modified Volkswagen Corrado.

Forza 5, and my new Xbox One, is my new passion. It is a refinement of the game, with even more realism. The career mode leads you through a development path to hone your skills, and to become more proficient.

A new twist is the “drivatar”. Instead of just using simple AI drivers against you, the avatars are based on real drivers, that are about at your skill level. So they drive off track, and ram you (and each other too), so it is more like racing multiplayer live. It does make the game more fun.

Of course, Forza 5 is now a year and a half old, and the newer version is available. I will buy that one day, but for now, I am greatly enjoying discovering the Forza 5 career mode.

Ok, now I need to get back to the game…

April 10, 2015
Toys – XBox One

With the move, I made a singular splurge. While I have cut way back on video gaming, I do have a humongous soft spot for racing games.

From the first time I played the Pole Position arcade game back around 1983. I was hooked.

My favorite game on my XBox 360 was the Forza series, and when the premier launch game for the XBox One was to be Forza 5, I knew I was doomed.

I held out for over a year, but with the move, and a new TV, and of course the demo of Forza 5 in the local Best Buy, I was hooked.

So, I cashed in the rewards coupons from Best Buy, and the 10% off any one item coupon (thanks to the change of address form) and Best Buy matching the Amazon price of the Halo Master Chief bundle, and I was out the door with taxes for $212. Not bad.

Plugged it in, added my XBox Live account information, and I am good to go.

A few weeks before I bought it, Amazon had one of their flash sales, and Forza 5 was only $20, so I nabbed it.

Of course, I am starting at 0, and working my way up through my career, but it is enjoyable escapism. I will post later about Forza, but it is impressive.

April 5, 2015
House Journal – the Fence

As we settle into our house, I will be writing about some of the work we have done. I have already commented on the plumbing work that escalated, now I will talk about the fences.

One of the first observations we made when we initially looked at the house was that the fences sucked. Actually two of the three sides of our yard were in pretty bad shape (the back fence is actually OK and serviceable.) We knew we needed to have them replaced.

Of course, there were complications. There always are. Both sides had/have large trees impinging upon the fence. One side, had a smaller tree, but a limb that was hitting the fence, the other has a giant tree (at least 60′ tall) with roots that are lifting the fence.

The cool thing is that both neighbors are ecstatic to split the costs. The bad thing is that the larger tree is big enough that the city needs to issue a permit to have it removed.

The west side is done. The slightly impinging tree has been removed, and on March 25th, the fence was replaced. The speed with which they tore it out, and replaced it was mighty impressive. It is solid, well built with new lumber, and I am sure it will be fully serviceable for a long time.

The East side is still waiting for the permit to remove the tree, but it will be done soon.

April 4, 2015
Moving notes

Been a bit radio silent this last week. The move has been in progress since Tuesday, and the time since then has been a blur. Each day was at least 12 hours of shifting boxes, packing, loading the van, unloading, and finally unpacking.

There is no graceful way to move. If you have beaucoup bucks, you can pay someone to do all the hard stuff (packing, loading, moving, unloading, unpacking) but there is always some effort and pain involved.

Since we aren’t rolling in the dough, we did a lot of the work ourselves.

Since we moved from Phoenix to the bay area, and have lived in an apartment for most of a year, a LOT of our belongings were in storage. But a ridiculous amount was also crammed into 1100 sqft of our apartment, complicatind somewhat our move.

The early move era

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March 30, 2015
The HOV Experiment has Failed

This morning, I had a doctor’s appointment in Mountain View, so I had a pleasant 70 minute crawl north on 85 to El Camino Real. I had plenty of time to observe the HOV lane.

The HOV lane was a noble idea. Incentivize people to carpool, making a dedicated lane for vehicles with 2 or more passengers. A fast lane so to speak during the commute hours.

Of course, here in California, they have expanded the lane to allow first Hybrid cars. Then zero emission vehicles, and then super low emission vehicles.

Enough loopholes that the lane is now about 9:1 solo occupants. You can bet that many of them are hipster douches.

Fail.

March 24, 2015
House – Almost Ready!

As the sojourn of our house comes to a chaotic close, we are almost ready for the heavy lifting of the move. A good time to reflect on the travails to date.

When we started, the house was ridden hard, and put away wet. The interior had some surface warts, including an odd paint scheme in the rooms that look somewhat haphazard, popcorn ceilings that were the rage in the 1970’s, a yard that was overgrown, and unkempt (totally understandable, as I am loathe to do yard work personally), and appliances straight out of the pleistocene.

However, even with this veneer of tired and well worn exteriors, clutter in the yard, and in need of some TLC, we saw a diamond in the rough. The inspection report supplied by the selling agent wasn’t too scary, and our own inspection concurred. This is a house with good, solid bones.

The journey began with a successful offer to buy, a whirlwind of navigating the loan and closing, and finally, transfer of title.

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March 22, 2015
House Journal – Comcast buggery

As we are preparing to move into our new house, after all the work and changes we wanted, it is time to begin the migration of things like utilities.

Monday, I called Comcast, our cable provider, and got a cheery person who assisted me. I explained that we were moving next week, and that we wanted to move our service, and to add a landline phone (at the Wife’s request).

No problem, and in fact two days later they had an install appointment, and could just get it all set up on Wednesday. I asked twice that this wouldn’t be an issue with our current service, as we would be in the apartment through the weekend, and until we moved. I was assured that this was fine.

Wednesday morning, and the technician is on time, efficient and gets it all set up, even activating our internet. Cool.

Or so I thought.

Apparently, when he activated out internet, he queued up our service in the apartment (about a mile away) to be shut down. So while the Tivo and the cable cards still worked, the cable modem there went dark.

I got home from work on Wednesday about 7:00PM, and of course the Wife was a bit peeved. I called Comcast support, and the technician was polite, but after an hour of diagnosing, it was determined that the account was put in the shutdown queue.

I was bounced to the “move” department, and the chipper technician there told me that he saw the note ont he account, and that it was in process of being deactivated, but since it was after 6:00PM, he was unable to fix it. He advised me to call in the morning.

I called. Apparently, to get service back in the apartment, I would have to order new service, and pay for a technician visit.

Fuck that for one week.

I politely declined to be put through to sales.

However, I did get the bright idea of taking the now functioning modem from the house and bringing it to the apartment. Voila, internet access.

Lesson learnt: If Comcast can screw up, they will, and you will have no recourse.

March 21, 2015
Apartment Life – tagging

As we prepare to end our time in the apartments, I was looking for an icon of the life here. I have complained about the safety, the cleanliness, and even the character of the neighborhood. However …

Anything standing still will be tagged

One picture wraps it up well. Here we have a piece of furniture that was dumped near the trash station over the weekend, a sign of a vacate and bail on the lease event. On Monday morning, as I was headed work, I noticed that in the 8 or so hours that this piece of furniture (a couch / sleeper it appears) was tagged by a grafitti artist.

Yep, some düsh shook a can of illicit spray paint, and fucking tagged this discarded furniture.

Typical for the neighborhood, anything standing still gets tagged by one of the street gangs.

I feel like Rutger Hauer at the end of Blade Runner, time to leave…

March 20, 2015
Passing of the torch – EA Sports Pro Tour

I have an Xbox 360, I play only two games with any regularity, Forza Motorsports, and the Tiger Woods Golf franchise (actually, I play that with my wife, and we enjoy it).

I haven’t kept up with the franchise lately, because the 2012 edition was pretty good, and we really didn’t feel the need to shell out money for the latest version.

Tonight, I got an email announcing the next one. However, it does appear that Tiger Woods’ douchiness has finally caught up to him, as he is no longer the standard bearer of the game.

Welcome to Rory McIlroy’s PGA Tour.

GOLF WITHOUT LIMITS

Usher in the next generation of golf with the power of the Frostbite engine and play the most beautiful sports game to date with no load times, enabling you to explore authentic tournament courses or unique fantasy environments.

I guess banging family restaurant hostesses, and crippling back pain have finally caught up to ol’ Tiger Woods’ marketability.

Bummer

March 16, 2015