Annette took the day off and we went to a wine tasting, hosted by my friend/coworker Matthew. We sampled some very fine Olive Curtis wines. (They make a great, somewhat atypical Chardonnay and their Old Vine Zin is goning to be something to kill for.)

After we left the tasting, we decided we were up for some more wine. So we hit The Wine Galleria in San Jose. We were served by Angela (who was new and just learning how much wine to pour for a tasting… woohoo! hehe) and the joint’s winemaster, Sean. They were a lot of fun and we were the only one’s in the place, for a while. I think that got us a wee bit more wine than if they had have been busy. Sean was very happy to introduce us to some of the staff favorites. Um, we were happy about that too. :)

All in all we came out of the day with six bottles of wine. Two from Oliver-Curtis and four from the Galleria. Good shit, maynard.

Oh, and somewhere in there we had a pint downtown and had a good psuedo-mexiacan dinner. It’s great when we get to spend a weekend day together.

Great product. It really improved the performance of my Airport/Linksys setup at home! Go order your WiFi Speed Spray™ today!

There is a Guestbook out there for the alumni of all those local dialup BBSes of yesteryear. I met so many people through those boards and they changed my life so much. I will never forgive them!

Er, forget them. I mean. Uh, I will never forget them. Ah, the good ole days.

Because it’s just that important.

I finally got my friend Eric over at KSSX to make me a KSSX button with the xgirl. So, I had to update the buttons on the left side. I moved the BuffyRAdio button to the bottom of the list, because it’s not BuffyRadio anymore but Showtalkers and there are no Showtalkers buttons yet. (*cough*nudge*) I also removed CentralBooking because, alas, it is no more. Well mostly no more, last I looked.

So, DSL is in. LinkSys WiFi configged. G4 (wtf) in the DMZ. Tivo HMO set up.

I no longer have to sneak onto my neighbors wireless network to get my email. :)

Oh, and I’ve been (appropriately) badmouthing eTechwarehouse on all the consumer sites. (epinions.com, pricegrabber.com, etc.) Looks like I am not the only one, either. Lots of bad reviews. Keith must be very busy. (Oh, btw, fuck you, Keith, you fuckin’ fuck.) I’m doing more research next time I try to buy from a non big-name company on the web.

For the record, I’m ordering my IOGear switchbox via The Nerds who, in addition to having such an endearing name have a good rep. -0= etw.

Don’t do business with these losers. Their customer service department fucking blows. (Fuck you, Keith. You fuckwad.)

Ok, so… I was ordering a 2-port ADC KVM switch box. It’s not exactly a brand new computer or a shiny new car, but it’s not a cheap little KVM either. ADC KVM’s can be kinda expensive as far as KVMs go. This one, in particular, was $257.99 through them. A good deal, actually. (If you don’t factor in Keith.)

As not having this switchbox is one of the delaying factors in me getting all my machines hooked up at home, I was quite anxious to get it. If I knew of a brick-n-mortar shop where I could go get it, I would. So, instead I bit the bullet and paid for the 2-day FedEx shipping. $20.

Well, as it turns out there was a problem with my billing / shipping address. They sent me a mail telling me that and I called them the next day to straighten it out. (They wouldn’t ship to my shipping address because it was different than my billing address and wasn’t on file with the credit card company. Ok, now I get why they do that.. prevents fraud. Ok. I buy stuff and have it shipped to work all the friggin’ time and I’ve never run into this before. But, ok… whatever.) I sorted it out with the phone rep and he told me that the order was processed and would be shipped out. Since I had asked for 2-day shipping, I confirmed that it would be shipping that day and not the next. That was on the 17th. yay!

Today, the 19th, I checked the order status on the web page. It was on hold again with a fucking “address mismatch” error. No email this time. It’s just fucking sitting there “waiting for customer information”. Now I was a little irritated because I was expecting to HAVE my switchbox today or tomorrow and now I am finding out that the order isn’t even processed yet. And I’m finding out by going and looking, instead of them letting me know. hello? wtf?

So, I call them to inquire about my order, again. Keith, the poorly trained monkey they have answering my call, tells me that the billing address I gave them didn’t match what Amex had on file. huh. Ok, well I DID just move and perhaps not all of Amex’s systems were updated yet or whatever. I explained that to him. I was, at that time, considerring just telling him to try processing the order again. However, he accuses me of giving them “mis-information” last time I talked to them. What the fuck?

Now you see, the thing is that two days ago, etechwarehouse told me, on the phone, that the order was processed and would be shipping THAT day. THAT’s fucking mis-information, you ignorant shithead.

Ok, frustrating enough. I attempt to explain this to Keith as well, still politely as I can muster, but he begins to talk over me. (!) He tells me that I am wrong and that the rep didn’t really tell me that. Excuse me?

Now, I rarely lose my cool with anyone. Especially retail salespeople, customer service people, etc. But this fuckin’ monkey was talking over me and calling me a liar. Unbelievable and unacceptable. I decided I wasn’t going to do business with this unprofessional fucknut. We argued a bit more and then I told him to “cancel my fucking order” and so he did.

Fuck etechwarehouse.com (aka etw.com) and fuck you, Keith.

I’m still debating whether I should spend my money on the ADC KVM somewhere else or on a baseball bat and a ticket to Tampa, FL.

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is a dickhead. There’s an article over on AP/Yahoo to prove it. He wants to give copyright holders the technological (and legal) ability to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download copyrighted content.

Allow me to rephrase: This fuckwad (excuse me, he’s a senator… I should respect his position)… Senator FuckWad wants to give corporations the ability to be destructive vigilantes. Now, I don’t expect this sort of thing would be approved by Congress, but still… Come on, now. THINK, Senator… think.

Why not just get serious and let the corporations have real goon squads that can go to peoples’ houses and kneecap ‘em? It’s really not so different. Hey, maybe cops should bash in the windshields of people who park in no parking zones!

Orrin Hatch is an anagram for “A rich thorn.” Yes. In the ass of America, apparently.

..are teh m0th3rfsckin shiznit, y0! Better than crack.

Ok, I’ve never HAD crack.. but it can’t be better than Dark Chocolate Reese’s Peanutbuttercups.

• New apartment in Los Gatos. Good.
• No DSL Yet. Bad.
• Borrowing someone’s wireless LAN. Good.
• Rough day at work on Thursday. Bad.
• Dinner and Thursday evening with my girl. Good. (F’n great, actually.)
• Friday morning, lung pain. Bad.
• Friday afternoon, Annette surprises me with flowers. Good.

There’s actually a few more Ups and Downs in there, but you get the gist. Some of the Downs really bite. Like the lung thing. Timing sucks. I have lots of work to do on a big project at work and some moving chores to wrap up and the lungs are slowing me down.

That said, if I had the opportunity to trade it all in… I wouldn’t. The Ups are too good.

On the way home from work today, I saw a license plate ring that said “Relax, God is in charge”.

You know, that’s not exactly very relaxing. (Well, especially to us non theistic types, but that’s another matter.) I mean, have you noticed everything that’s happened on “His” watch? Theft, rape, murder… not to mention the small things like war, genocide, microsoft and other plagues. Don’t you think that if someone was in CHARGE they could maybe at least take care of AIDS or cancer or something?

Yeah. I think I’ll forgo relaxing for a little old fashioned worry. Thanks.

And anyways… admittedly I’m no theologist, but isn’t that “relax” thing a bit counter to the whole “God helps those who help themselves” thing? Can’t the bumper-sticker people and the license-plate people get together and work this sort of thing out? Or is this like the whole Catholic/Protestant thing?