Netflix sucks!

this is how it works (which, btw, is the same thing but more expensive than Blockbuster): you pay $22 a month and you can have any 3 dvds at a time. they mail you the first three right away, then you just send one back when you finish with it and they mail you the next one on your list. sounds good, right? I have a friend who is an avid Netflix fan.

here’s what doesn’t work: you have to wait forever for your movies! I signed up for a free trial (why? tell you in a minute) – a free two-week trial. after signing up in 15 minutes, putting movies on my list and telling it to go, I was pretty pumped. I thought, “what a great deal!” they said something about mailing stuff out right away, “rushing” the movies to me. bah!

the free trial starts when you sign up for the service. me: Friday before 8am. when does my trial end? Sept. 30. that’s not two weeks, that’s 13 days! they’re already jipping me. they *just* now mailed the movies, to get here on Wednesday, so now my 2-week trial is only 8 days long.

now, if the 3 movies I chose were just regular movies, this wouldn’t be so bad. I’d still be miffed about the false advertising, don’t get me wrong… but I ordered the first 3 discs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 6. =) we can’t rent it at Blockbuster because they don’t have anything higher than season 3. no one demands it but us, and I don’t think that’s enough to get them to buy it. can’t imagine why no one else wants to watch Buffy…

oh, well. we’ll just have to do 3 episodes a day to get those discs watched in time. =) and really, I’m grateful that at least we can get hold of them without buying them. so there’s my world gratitude – I’m grateful that Buffy season 6 is out. =) all the same, don’t get Netflix – go to Blockbuster.

today is: world gratitude day

does it ever end?!

car trouble. again. if there were any way to just quit driving, I would. unfortunately, Indy doesn’t have the world’s most extensive mass transit system (that is, when the danged thing is actually running), and I can’t ride my bike to work because it has flat tires. oh, and it’s a 15-minute drive in my car. when it works.

let’s do a quick run-through of all the things I’ve had to do to this ’98 Grand Am (which, being such a relatively new car, shouldn’t be having so many issues!):

• 6 – count ‘em – 6 alternators (before they figured out that some kind of exhaust was blowing STRAIGHT onto my alternators, causing them to basically MELT on the inside. $800. first one died and needed replaced – $400. second one died 2 days after the warranty on the first new one expired. what were the odds? $400. got a napa part, though, so the other four alternators were completely free.
• 2 batteries, because alternators dying with such frequency wreaks havoc on the battery. $140.
• air conditioner compressor. not the clutch, like they said when I took it in for an $80 repair. oh no. it was the compressor, which, they say, could have caused my whole engine to seize up had I not replaced it. at the same time, they replace the window motor assembly in the passenger side door after I rolled it down and it didn’t go back up and there was a big storm. those repairs together with a state inspection and new brakes cost about $1200. thank you, thank you, thank you, Mom and Dad.
• front rotors. a known problem in my model/year of car, and one I expected and saved for, unlike these others. but, had to replace them *3* times, as each new set was warped shortly after replacing. my most recent repair (save today’s) was one of these replacements. how did I know when the rotors started warping, you ask? well, something about rolling into intersections (don’t worry – they weren’t crowded, mom!) tipped me off. paid $250 for the first replacement, and haven’t paid parts or labor since. did I mention how much I LOVE napa?

now. onto today’s excitement.

they’ve been telling me for a while that I needed to replace my right rear wheel bearings. I asked them, each time I saw them for the above repairs, if it was dangerous or if I could wait until I had a little more money. they said, no, it’s just going to be very loud. I said, alright. I can deal with loud, especially since the repair is $350.

turns out it is dangerous. so, when my car rocked a little pulling out of my parking space yesterday, I took the car in. yup, it’s going to cost me $350, but wait! that’s not all! (I said that in my game show host voice… =)

my serpentine belt has dry-rotted and needs replaced. only about $40, so it’s a CHEAP repair. and… drumroll please… I will soon need to replace my rear shocks. $190.

add the costs of all of those repairs. that equals HALF what I owe on the car. anyone wonder why I haven’t paid it off yet?

*sigh*

today was church day. we had a good morning – I had to play my sax in church… hey – speaking of saxes, I’m going to interrupt this story with my favorite news of the year:

I made the Indiana Wind Symphony!!

I’d given up on it – I didn’t audition well at all (I’m a good player, but I didn’t play like a good player), so I was just accepting the fact that I’d have to wait until next year to play… I was so disappointed, but played it off…

but I made it! I get to play again, finally! Dr. Conrad, the director, called yesterday while I was at David’s – our first rehearsal is Wednesday.

anyway, back to the yuck. so, Bethany’s sis is visiting us. she likes to use a *lot* of toilet paper. we don’t (correction: didn’t – Bethany and/or I have lived in that apt. for 3 years and never needed it once) own a plunger. =)

Becky uses the bathroom and the toilet clogs. she says, “Bethany, it won’t flush” and Bethany tries to flush it again. immediately it starts overflowing, and it’s all over the bathroom floor. I look at Beth and put my shoes on – I know we’re taking a trip to the store to buy a plunger. =) Becky stayed behind and sopped up the mess with towels (EWW! – they got thrown right into the washer and washed a couple of times). Bethany and I spent the rest of our afternoon super-cleaning the bathroom and doing laundry.

hehe… makes me wonder what the pharisees would have said. don’t work on the Sabbath (yes, I know that the Lord’s Day isn’t Sabbath, but if this had happened on the Sabbath 2000 years ago, etc…), right? would they have let us clean up that mess so that we could use the bathroom, or would we have had to wait until dark?

anyway, it was gross. and now we own a plunger.

… that’s what my apartment’s pipes were today. arid. as in, containing and trafficking no water. but it happened all of a sudden – it was the weirdest thing.

Krista Vannoy, a fellow-music-major-chum from TU days, came to visit and crashed at my place last night. good times – good discussion (I came in with a crisis and the three of us – me, Krista, and Bethany – talked through it), good movie (Runaway Jury – I *love* Cusack movies), and plenty of water to drink and to do dishes with (both for pots hand *and* the rest in the dishwasher).

this morning, there was enough water for Beth’s shower and teeth, for Krista’s teeth and face, for a couple of toilet flushes, and for me to get my hair all soaped up with shampoo in the shower. then… argh! the water pressure starts waning… I noticed and start rinsing, figuring it was because of the storms last night. then the stream starts really looking really pathetic and starts pouring straight into the shower-caddy-thing. I ripped that off and finished rinsing my hair as the usually-very-nice water pressure tapered off to mere drips and dried up completely.

I had to brush my teeth using a cup of refrigerated (why do we spell “refrigerated” and “refrigerator” the same but not “fridge”? from whence comes the “d” by the “g”?) and filtered water because I didn’t have enough time in the shower to brush my teeth (which I normally do while the conditioner sets in).

called the apt. office, which now doesn’t open until 9, and left a message. their hours used to be 8-7, and now it’s 9-6. while I don’t begrudge them their now-normal hours off, I *do* hope they’ve fixed my water by the time I get home. what if I have to go to the bathroom?!

so, let’s talk about being inconsistent. ooh… or maybe about being consistent in inconsistency. let me preface by saying that this always happens and that it drives me crazy. =)

our deadline – the one we’ve been working toward for a LONG time, the one that made me miss seeing Kristen while she was in the states, the one that I stayed late every night this and last week to make, the one for which all my work was done – that deadline – has been pushed back a week. that’s right, folks. a week. I was given, at the last minute, a ton of work to do, but finished it (roughly – not polished – but finished) by the night before the “deadline.” and we’re moving back a week.

you may say, “that’s all well and good – at least you can polish your work and retest everything, Tara. things aren’t that bad.” but if you say that, I’m going to say that you’re wrong. next week, we’ll *still* be working late and pushing like crazy to get things finished. mark my words. if I’m wrong, I’ll… tell you I’m wrong or give you a cookie or something. =)

this, folks, is why I always post anonymously. because, really, it’s kind of a waste of etherspace to have people like me doing things like this. for my sister and her college-type friends, this is a great way to keep in touch, but for me… I’m thinking I’ll just do what everyone else in the world does and use it to vent about stupid things.

so, here’s my first rant.

first, all I wanted to do was post not anonymously on tomatoes, only you can’t do that unless you take some very important moments out of your life to create your *own* blog-mess. if you want to post anonymously on my blog-thinger, please, by all means, do so.

second, there’s some serious design gayness going on here… I’m not allowed to design my *own* template, but have to choose something cheesy from a list. the only relatively cool template is a homestarrunner.com-lookin’ template that Shmel and all her friends have already chosen.

third, let’s talk about how the post window thing gives the illusion of being *both* an rtf editor *and* a place to put REAL html. I would just like to say that I had some interesting times figuring out how to make this work and make sense. I would like to think that I’m not stupid, but this thing is making me feel dumb.

so… there. I now have a username.