Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Breakfast: Patrick made French toast and grilled banana for me and Mom Ryan. I broke a pair of scissors today trying to remove a Hi-Viz Lufkin tape measure from its blister packaging. I can never remember when buying products to avoid those that come in blister packaging. Blister packs would be illegal if I were dictator. The scissors I was using had plastic handles and on my third cut into the blister packaging the handle simply gave way completely. It felt like breaking a Milky Way bar in two. Fortunately, I did not hurt myself. I wonder how many probably unreported injuries occur worldwide because of blister packs. Evil! A month ago I had purchased Apple OS 10.4 Tiger for my Mac at work not realizing it would be delivered on DVD instead of CD. After not understanding why it wouldn't install, I finally figured out (I forget how) that it was a DVD. I found a form on Apple's website which permits me to pay $9.95 so that Apple can deliver me the operating system installer on CD-ROM instead. A month goes by because I don't have time or feel like filling out a form in order to get Tiger. Finally I look at the form but it asks me for the sales tax in my area. I'm not a salesperson, so I don't know what the sales tax is. I call the 800 number on the Apple form to ask what my sales tax is and Apple says they don't have that information. They suggested I call my local store to ask, so I did and found out it's 8.5%. While on the phone with Apple I also ask what I'm supposed to do about the proof-of-purchase coupon. In order to get my DVD exchanged, the form says I need to send in a proof-of-purchase coupon. However, when I purchased Tiger, I received it in a padded envelope with no proof-of-purchase coupon. I waited about 8 minutes on hold. The woman returned and asked if I was currently on the maintenance program. I said I purchased the maintenance program at the same time and I didn't know if I had it or not yet. She went away for another 4 minutes before returning to tell me that I didn't really need to send in a proof-of-purchase or even a copy of my receipt. As long as I filled out the form and sent in the DVD it would be okay. So that's what I did. The expected turnaround time after they receive my order is 3 to 7 working days. Got another student's wireless working on her laptop. Doctor appointment. Got another student's laptop working. Dinner at home with Mom Ryan and Patrick: homemade deep-fried tortilla chips and cinnamon krispas, turkey quesadilla. I ordered Mom Ryan's new TV/VCR/DVD after having lots of trouble with my credit card company. I called them to add her address as a shipping address but they said (in a thick Indian accent) "please call back within 20 minutes." I called back after 15 minutes (which was within 20 minutes) and they said, "please call back in 5 minutes." I called back in 5 minutes and they said, "Please call back in one hour." All this time I was afraid my shopping cart web page would time and screw up my order. I called a different credit card and added her address in about 5 minutes then completed the order. Some success with the Mac Mini—I figured out that I can play Shoutcast PLS streams using VLC Media Player. Now that our media computer is non-functional due to a crashed hard drive, it was nice to be able to still get some kind of music. I was unable, however, to figure out how to associate PLS streams with Firefox so that clicking a PLS link would open the player. I successfully burned backup files to CD-RW after failing to do the same with DVD-RAM (the Mac Mini would not recognize the disc) and CD-ROM (the Mac Mini burned files to it once then upon the next burn attempt it said the rest of the disc was not writeable). Unable to buy bus passes today at University Express—they said to try again tomorrow. Lunch today was spaghetti with cow sauce, garlic bread, side of corn off the cob. Moved our printer from the broken computer to a working one.