May 2006 Archives

I always wonder how effective the Better Business Bureau is. I occasionally use their website to look up a business, but untill recently I never used them to file a complaint.

So the other day I noticed that my CC was being debited for the last couple of months with a charge I didn't recognize. It turned out to be some "rewards" program that I had signed up for to "evaluate" and cancelled without much thought. Apparently I had "signed up for two programs" (or so they claimed) and didn't cancel both of them.

I called their service line and complained without much success. So I decided to file my complaint with the BBB. Lo and behold, a couple of weeks later my CC charges have been refunded without any fuss, what so ever. So I guess businesses do care about their BBB ratings. Good to know next time someone tries to scam me...

When I was picking out a cell phone a couple of years ago, I made sure to get one with Bluetooth, because it gives you so many options - like synchronising with my iMac wirelessly or using my iMac to dial a number, or easily sharing phone numbers, or using a wireless headphones.

This weekend, I bought a really cool Bluetooth-enabled gadget. Yup, I decided to burnish my treehugging-liberal bona fides by getting a Prius. Actually, my Maxima was getting a bit long in the tooth and the gas isn't getting any cheaper. I considered some other Hybrids, but the Prius just fits my bill the best -- a great combination of size, power, gas mileage and geek appeal.

However, Priuses are a hot commodity, at least here in Austin, and it usually takes at least a couple of months to order one. The problem with that is that the hybrid tax incentives that you get for buying a Toyota are about to hit the 60,000 vehicle limit, so if I were to get one, I better do it fast. It turns out that dealerships sometimes have vehicles that a customer ordered a couple of months ago and then changed their mind. So if you're not too picky, you can get a Prius on a pretty short notice. We got a car that's white (not Jfer's first, second or third choice) but otherwise decked out like we wanted. And it took about ten days from my first online inquiry -- and only a few hours from the time the dealer called me on Saturday that he had a vehicle available.

BTW, kudos to Champion Toyota of Austin where I got my car. They "get" the Internet buyer and were professional and responsive. Kevin Bishop provided me with good information and called me with a car he had within a couple of days (it was too loaded for my taste and wallet).

I initially tried to go through Charles Maund who's much closer, but they turned out to be a bunch of incompetent clowns. I set up an appointment with them, and when I showed up, they had not idea that I was supposed to meet someone, and, of course, they had no vehicle to show me. Plus the email from their salesguy looked like something you'd get from an AOL newbie who just discovered that you can set font and different colors in your email.

BTW, if anyone is looking for a '97 Maxima SE, with manual transmission, 83,000 miles and lots of goodies, give me a holler.

Around 6:30PM yesterday, while I'm entrtaining Magda at work, I got a call from three of my neighbors informing me that someone drove a golf cart through my back yard fence. And Rose had gotten out, but David across the street got her. And who knows where Homer is.

So I headed home and found Homer still in the back yard (good boy!). After putting him in the bedroom, I headed across the street to pick up Rose and learned that the cops have the perps down in the parking lot.

It turns out that some (five?) kids stole a golf cart from an apartment complex down the street, spray-painted "Chosen One" on its hood (WTF?) and spent the afternoon joyriding around the neighborhood and steeling misc. stuff. And they endded the whole thing by driving through my privacy fence and crashing into an Austin Energy transformer that sits there. Apparently it didn't take the police very long to track them down.

So now I'll have to wait for Austin Energy to fix their transformer which got moved a little and is leaking oil (although our electricity didn't get affected). And then I'll have to get the fence fixed -- although we really should replace the whole thing.

I really hope that those punks got a good dose of poison ivy that grows over the section of the fence they busted through...

Magda had been gradually reducing her bottles (at a slower pace than what our pediatrician would prefer) and for the last few months she just had one -- in the evening. Part of our nightly routine would be me spending some time with her getting her changed into her PJs and then giving her a bottle. That was always my favorite part of the day, since she'd spend some relaxed, squirm-free time on my lap.

In the last few weeks, she'd occasionally go to bed without her bottle, depending on what else was going on that night. And so we decided that when the latest box of formula was finished, that would be it. That moment arrived last week. We're trying to transition her to maybe have a cup of warm milk on my lap before bed, but she's not really interested. So it's just some winding-down time and then off to bed with Jfer.

It's great for her that she's moving past those stages without looking back, but I feel a bit nostalgic. We started bottle feeding over a year ago (when we discovered that she wasn't getting enough milk) and I enjoyed it from the get-go. I liked measuring her development by her size, weight and awarenes during those evening feedings. It's another chapter that's closed and that I can now only look back on.

Jennifer and I actually got to go out twice last week! On Monday Jfer dropped Magda off at Elizabeth's and picked me up to go to the final AOL season performance. This was Mozart's Don Giovanni, which I had actually seen twice already. But it was a blast, none the less. The singers had both good voices, but also they fit the character dramatically -- Don Giovanni was a very believable rake. And after Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth Of Mtsensk it was kind of nice to get one of the classics.

We ended up the week on a completely different note, attending a Texas Rollergirls roller derby bout -- with Magda in tow. We learned about it because Tim's band, The Bad Rackets was playing there, and I'm not likely to see them at their usual venues -- downtown bars at late, late hours.

The Roller Derby turned out to be a lot of fun. We initially had no idea what exactly the purpose was, and the scoring seemed a little random. It reminded me of the first time I watched Amercian Football -- in some hotel in New York where I was stuck due to a delay and missed connection during my first trip into the US -- and it just seemed like a bunch of guys piling on top of each other for no reason. But eventually we borrowed someone's program which explained the rules and it all began to make sense.

The main event was the Honky Tonk Heartbreakers against Rat City Derby Liberation Front from Seattle, and our girls beat them handily. The bouts are pretty fast paced and, as you'd expect, there is the often hard blocking and a skater on top of the spectators. But despite the fact that medics had to help a couple of the girls, it never semmed wanton. Mostly it was just very impressive and exciting skating. And lots and lots of loud noise. And beer got mentioned a lot, too.

So I'd go again -- it would be a cool thing to take out of town guests to. But next time I need to remember that at any place where Tim's band is playing, the standard attire requires at the very least some of your clothing to be black. Metal spikes, Mohawks, tatoos and piercings are, of course, prefered.

We started seeing lightning bugs in the park last week. Usually just one or two, blinking between the trees.

But last night, after our walk, there were quite a few hanging out in front of our house. Jennifer wanted to catch one for Magda, so we were stumbling through the rapidly darkening front yard trying to catch one of the elusive critters. We eventually succeeded and Magda got to see one up close. She likes bugs.

After she got out of her stroller, she still want some fireflies. So Jennifer went chasing after them agian, and Magda promptly follwed her onto the grass. Walking around like a zombie with her arms stretched out in front of her "catching" bugs.

BTW, I must say that our front yard was the only one where I noticed any fireflies. Our neighbors' yards with their nicely manicured lawns were completely dark. So when I excuse our weed overgrown "lawn" as a "diverse biotope", I now have something to back me up.

Tim ("Freedomhater extraordinaire") sent around a link to Stephen Colbert's performance at last Saturday's White House Correspondents' Association Dinner (here's a recap from the WaPo). What's usually a soft roast of the President was something completely different when Colbert took the stage. Staying in his Colbert Report persona he unleashed a load of acerbic satire on the press in attendance, but especially -- and mercilessly -- on the President:

Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.

It's fascinating to watch. I actually fell uncomfortable at times watching, and you could see the tension in the room and the grim expression on Bush's face as Colbert goes from topic to topic. Colbert was saying things that probably many people in the room were thinking, but noone in their right mind would dare to express. And so the response was often quite chilly -- with the impressive exception of Judge Antonin Scalia (!) who was laughing his head off when Colbert was making fun of his "gesturing off" a reporter.

Here are some download links for the video. And here's Thank You Stephen Colbert, "A site for Stephen Colbert. A man with balls."

We spent some quality time playing in Bullcreek with Carlos and hist family on Sunday. Then on the way home, we made a "quick" stop at the HEB (Braker and MoPac) to pick up a bag of ice for our ice cream.

With only two items to check out, I headed for the self-check out line, hoping for a quick exist while Jfer, Magda and the dogs waited in the car. I should have known better. I ended up stuck behind a woman and her son who were slowly going through their groceries. And I mean slowly, since she seemed to have to think about every item and slide it across the scanner a couple of times before she managed to line up the barcode. And she had a bunch of produce which, of course, she didn't weigh and label in the produce section. So they had to lookup the produce codes -- and then she'd have her kid (slowly) enter the numbers.

This was at the 10 Items or Less checkout counter. Even if you count all the lose avocados and other vegetables she was herding around as one item, I bet I watched her go through a couple of dozen things before another register opened up and I breezed through it in under two minutes. As I was leaving, she still had a bunch of stuff in her basket, several plastic bags full of groceries and her total was quickly approaching a hundred bucks.

It looks like Tim had a similar experience on the other end of town a couple of hours later. However, considering that that women in front of me was operating a self-checkout register, it's safe to assume that a) she could read and b) she could count. With those posibilities eliminated, I'm left with the conclusion that, indeed, she was being an "inconsiderate asshole".

What a lesson to teach your kid, lady!