I know I just blogged yesterday, but there's a certain need to blog again...


IT'S CALLED A SAMSUNG 46 INCH LCD HDTV!!!!!


It is just... breathtaking... be in awe of my techy-ness!


Now to the good part... the delivery. I was sitting at work thinking I can't wait until 4pm so I can go home and wait for my luscious TV.


My phone rings....

Me: Hello.
Delivery Man: Hi, is Chrysteen there? (that's not my real name, but he butchered it something fierce)
Me: Speaking.
Delivery Man: Hi, dis is da Geek Squad? I'm just callin to let you know I'll deliva at 1 dis afternoon.
Me: Umm... when I set up for delivery, I said I worked until 4, so they scheduled me from 4-8.
Delivery Man: Well, I don't know nothin about that, I'm gonna be at your house in 20 minutes. Is dere anyone dere to open da door?
Me: *looks at the clock - it's 12:40* No... that's why I had it delivered. I can't pick the TV up by myself, that's why I scheduled in the first place.
Delivery Man: Oh... well let me call somebody and we can deliva dis anotha night.
Me: *has a mini heart attack* NO! I'll be there at 1pm.
Delivery Man: You sure?
Me: Yes. I will be there *eyes supervisor's activities to gauge his mood*
Delivery Man: Okay, if I get dere before you, I wait.
Me: (in my head) OF COURSE YOU WILL, YOU HAVE MY TV, JERK!


So, after lamenting to my supervisor, I go home, open the windows in my car because my car is insanely hot and meet him at my house. He takes out the dolly for the TV, rolls it over to the front door and more fun begins...


Delivery Man: *eyes the flight and a half of stairs* You know, I'm just gonna drag dis up the stairs. It ain't dat heavy.
Me: Umm.. okay... let me go open the door.. (in my head) I'm mentally kicking myself for getting delivery, I could have dragged it up the damned stairs...
Delivery Man: I'll follow *my TV box goes thumping up the stairs as he follows me and I wince every step*


After we civilly talk about the mix-up in time, he helps me move my old TV onto the floor and sets up the new one. When he sees I have HDMI cables for the PS3 and XBOX 360, he immediately rips those open and sets them up for me... I'm not as angry about the stairs anymore, but if the Samsung doesn't turn on, there will be hell to pay. Specifically $1300. That includes the TV, tax and delivery fee. At one point he actually asks me why I didn't get the TV from the Best Buy across the plaza. Then I tell him that I did order it from there, I just couldn't get the damned thing up the stairs because I am human, not a gorilla. However, after watching him drag it, I should have tried myself. Lesson Learned.


So, we finally get everything the way I want it. Then he puts the batteries into my remote and this follows:


Me: Thank you so much! I'm pretty sure I can take it from here.
Delivery Man: Well, dis is how you set up your X game and PS2... I'll name the PS2 to Blu-ray and da X game to Game so you can tell da difference.
Me: *cringes at what he calls my consoles* Thanks, that will be very helpful. I think I'm good now.
Delivery Man: Well, here's your remote for your cable. You can control everything from here, but only if you press da TV button. See how nothin happens when I press da AUX button? To exit da main menu, just press da volume down button. You can switch to your X game by pressin da Input button, only after you press da TV button.
Me: (in my head) He must think I'm dumb. Or mentally retarded. Or any combination thereof.
Delivery Man: Now about da screen size... Dere's a button dat says "Screen Size", just push dat button if you don't wanna watch stretched picture.  
Me: Yea, thanks, I know about aspect ratios.
Delivery Man: Oh, do you want me to take da big box it came in?
Me: No, I'm going to keep that in case I move out of here.
Delivery Man: Oh... dat's a really good idea! Huh...
Me: Well, thanks for everything, I have to get back to work now...
Delivery Man: Oh you're welcome, enjoy da TV!
Me: (under my breath) I sure will... while I'm at work... *mental scream*


So, as I lock up and leave to return to work, I notice that it's dark outside... it has torrential downpoured on everything during the 30 minutes I was in my apartment... And my car windows were open... I suck it up, put the cat blanket on my seat (I'd rather have a furry butt than a wet one) and drive back to work. After trying to get as much water as I could off the inside of my car doors, I walk back into work. Once my supervisor sees me, he laughs at my disgruntled appearance and says "So what happened?".


Needless to say, I'll be calling Best Buy later to see if I can get a free delivery due to the time mix-up, which my loverly boyfriend and his father suggested. Or who knows, maybe I won't get a refund but I'll feel better by yelling at someone at Best Buy :D


Now, when I go home, I'll get to watch Avatar on Blu-ray on my awesome awesome TV and I'll forget all this nonsense ever happened... HAH.


Technology Tip of the Day:


Do your research before jumping into buying the newest thing out there, especially for phones. Don't get me wrong, I REALLY want the new iPhone 4, but check out the Andriod's new 2.2 FroYo software. The competition is important because you don't want to be disappointed if you wanted one functionality and you could have gotten everything you wanted with a different phone. Don't listen to the hype, make your own informed decision. Aside from paying HUGE fees, you're stuck with your phone until 2 years is up. So do the research! You'll be happy with yourself in the end. (Just to be clear, I will get the iPhone 4, it's just a matter of time...)

Sadly this past weekend, I've realized how dreary the "real world" can be after all those warnings from older family members. This weekend I stayed in, not feeling my best and skipping the birthday cookout for my step-brother and his girlfriend that was an hour and 15 minute drive away. Not to mention those crazy storms that blew in this weekend, causing such havoc in the Ohio Valley and even in Pennsylvania. We had a tornado watch for quite a bit of the weekend, although luckily Rhode Island didn't see any twisters. Saturday I ended up watching Aeon Flux, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Resident Evil: Extinction and Chronicles of Riddick since they were on TNT sequentially. I reluctantly went out afterwards to get food for my cat and ended up calling Chili's for take-out. Then, Sunday I spent the day watching a Land Before Time marathon on HBO Family. After random hormonal outbreaks (why do the mothers always kick the can in my favorite movies? I mean, did they have to kill Bambi's mother?), I realized that my blog should really be helpful for me, as well as being helpful for others.


Many people don't know this, but I am horridly bad at moving. The first time I moved was when my mom got remarried and I moved from Connecticut to Florida. I know, you think "holy crap Florida! How can she complain?!". Well let me tell you, when you're not just visiting Florida you have to deal with severe drought, being told when you can wash your car or water your lawn, being excessively dependent on air conditioning and under the delusion that morning frost is snow. Okay, so that last part only bothered me, but come on people, frozen dew is not the same as snow... I stayed there for 2 years, made friends, found a boyfriend and then was forced to leave after divorce number 2. Don't get me wrong, I was happy to leave Satan and his demon spawn, but the whole idea of starting over again was very intimidating.


So, we moved from Florida to Pennsylvania to be near my mother's family. In fact, we stayed with my aunt for about 3 months while mom searched for a job and I started 10th grade. In high school, you pretty much have your friends figured out along with the different social circles since you've grown up with them. Since I didn't have that previous knowledge, I resorted to making friends with EVERYONE. Bad idea. I found out very quickly when certain people hated other people and I was friends with both that I needed to just narrow down to the people that I could relate to and weren't jerks. That was a relatively easy process seeing as most my good friends stemmed from band and color guard.


Even going off to college wasn't that hard, because it was like I had a home base at my mom's, and I knew my friends and I would get together for the holidays since we'd be home. This is not to say I didn't have friends in college, I did, I just wasn't going to the frat parties and getting wasted every other night since I had math homework to do. I graduated college, moved back home and started the job search. 4 long months later, I landed a job with my dad's old employer and moved to Rhode Island. Not before finding a boyfriend that I fell deeply in love with, making moving that much harder (flashbacks of Florida come to mind). I was told jokingly that I should let everyone know if I meet Peter Griffin, even after repeatedly reminding them that he is animated. The other thing I learned was that Quahog isn't just the residence of the Griffin family, it's a shell-like creature that is consumed much like oysters or clams.


However, with the new job, friends are much harder to come by. Of course, working with a bunch of middle-aged men doesn't help either. No joke, I was talking to my cube-mate about seeing Pamela Anderson at a club I went to for my brother's fiancee's birthday party, and he gave me a puzzled look before saying "who? Is she some kind of singer?". So amidst my older working crew and no school to help me meet people my age, this whole "real world" has been my social life downfall. I was told I should go to a meet-up group to meet new people, but honestly I just don't have the courage to go by myself. Maybe I'll just force the wonderful boyfriend to go with me when he gets here in 16 days.. hehe. (Not to downplay his arrival here, but I'm sure you don't want to read paragraph after paragraph of mushy "I love you"s so I'm omitting this for you dear reader.)


So read my blog, don't read my blog, care, don't care, it's up to you. Honestly I started this blog to help me talk about what's going on, but also to impart technological tips to help the masses. If all you're here for is the latter, enjoy!


Technology Tip of the Day:


Remember to charge your electronics before you go to sleep. If you get in the habit of plugging things in before you go to bed, you'll never have to worry about dying phones or laptops when you want to use them. This, however, doesn't work if you're playing Scrabble all day on your iPhone and then wonder why the battery is drained. You get out what you put in. If you don't charge it properly and want to use it for 30 minutes straight, that might be an issue. With iPhones these days, generally the 3G version can last most of a day with intermittent playing games and taking phone calls. If your father calls and wants to talk for an hour? Better find a wall outlet and get comfortable for the long haul. I've noticed that if you have under 20% left on your iPhone and you try to charge it, it will die even though it is plugged in. So my recommendation would be to use the phone plugged in until you're at 2%, end the call with the lame excuse "sorry, my phone is dying" and get off the phone. Apple's conference was today, so lets see the new and improved iPhone with less sucky functionality.   

Well, it's been one of those over the hump days... You know the kind. You make plans, they fall through, you rely on someone to do something, they don't do it etc.

So, I had made plans with intern buddies of mine from last summer's intern experience (the people really made the job on that one, otherwise it was hell because of the 2.5 hour commute daily, but that's another story). We were going to go see Shrek 4 after going out to eat at Ruby Tuesdays. All good plans. It's been a year since we hung out and honestly, my work atmosphere consists of older family men... therefore no social life prospects. And let me say that my social life is wilting horridly. It was dying to begin with as I only have so many friends I hang out with on a regular basis, or even talk to regularly. So, my plan was filled with not having to rely on the phone (or the cat) for conversation. *social life happy dance*

Oh yea, I have a cat. She's fat. I like to call her Fatty McFat Fat. Or just Fatty for short. She's adorable and makes my lungs not want to work. Onward...

I get to work this morning and I am excited to get through the day, chill out with some friends and watch a funny movie. Well, my project leader calls in sick. This is after I sent her an email yesterday FULL of questions to be answered to help me revise a systems spec. So, there goes my work for the day. Time to look busy all day on the Linux lab computer and play Mahjong or FreeCell. Oh, and dodge my supervisor who appears at my side faster than the devil.

*Poof*
Supervisor: Hey! Did you change shop orders for today?
Me: Uhh... yea... um, like you told me to yesterday. *starts clicking like mad to get rid of the games and sees "invalid move" 50 times in the process.. damn FreeCell*
Supervisor: Good. Too bad Margaret isn't here to help with the spec.
Me: Right! I really hope she feels better... *clears the games memory... so long 4 game winning streak*
Supervisor: So what are you working on in the meantime? *leans around the desk to look*
Me: Oh, just looking at the code, trying to familiarize myself with it. *magically gets the main.C program displayed in time*
Supervisor: Good idea. I have a meeting at 1 and then I'm leaving early to go sailing.
Me: Oh, awesome! If I don't see you before then, have fun!
Supervisor: Thanks.
*Poof*

So. That was my 9 hour day... Why 9 hours you ask? Because in my company, there's a magical thing called "mandatory overtime". Boys and girls, this means that if you work the normal, labor union sanctioned 40 hours a week, you get a "talking to". Meanwhile, my mentor can't even make 40 but somehow has safety from said talks. Really. Back to my story...

So, around lunchtime, I get a text saying one girl doesn't have a ride home after activities. I offer to drive her the half an hour drive home. Then the interns decide they want to watch a game tonight instead of a movie so they want to go out to lunch instead of dinner. I can't do that, I have my scheduled 30 minutes I can take for lunch. That's it. So, then starts the rescheduling of plans... I can see the small glimmer of the "I'm not a cat lady because I have a social life" persuasion zoom right out the window. 

So sports fans.. I hate you. *grumbles* Stupid game tonight and the penguins aren't in the stanley cup playoffs and the flyers are... This must be some alternate universe I've gotten myself stuck in. Oh well, it includes beer. Maybe I'll stay awhile...

Technology Tip Of The Day:


We are not stuck in the Nintendo Entertainment System age anymore. Newsflash! If you kick it, it will probably break. Smaller parts that enable us to have wonderful things like netbooks and thin laptops, cannot stand up to the beating we would like to give them. So! Next time something makes you angry... Just hold down the power button until it restarts. That's the technology equivalent of kicking it in the balls! (It's also called a hard restart!)