How odd it is, 2 strikes for my sister

How odd it is that while we're not in Toronto and going to Anime North,
it's all I can think about today. It's like there's this big party I
could have gone to see, but I'm not there. All day long I've kept an eye
on the clock and thought about what would be happening had we been
there. It's sad that it's too big, too much going on, and too corporate.
All along they've been wanting the companies to come to the convention,
but as a result it's the fans that get pushed out of the way. You can't
do some things, you have to do this to do that. Preference given to
media. You can't sell this. It's like a big trade show. Much of the fun
is gone.

But at the same time, it's not the companies that made Anime North fun.
For me, it's the girls in costume, and the underlying hope that I'd be
able to talk to some and make friends. Or meet that special someone. Oh
well... T.T I'll be depressed all weekend.

I realize we will be going to Colossalcon in a few weeks. I just miss
going to Canada. I wish I could go to Japan. Maybe I'll have better luck
with the ladies at Colossalcon.

----

My older sister has 2 strikes against her in finding people to rent Apt.
B. The lady today got laid off. I guess technically that's the correct
term. And as she was going around paying her bills locally, she got
pulled over by police that somehow she was passing bad checks. Somehow
her bank account got closed. I hope she can find out what the hell
happened. Hopefully she'll have another paying job soon. She seems like
a hard working person. I don't yet know the full details, but this is
the basic info I have. I almost had a single gentleman and his dog in
line to rent the place, but I never got a reply I was expecting.

Anywho, when I came home, her car was blocking the driveway. I told her
it's safe to park in the grass. She also had Mom's rolltop desk OUTSIDE
(without asking anyone) with plants all over it. I mentioned to her
about this being outside. She said she didn't have room for it. I said I
don't think Mom would want it ruined. And after I bring down the air
conditioner left in Apt. C by my sister, she says her brother will be
over and he'll help install the air conditioner and she'll ask him to
help me move the desk up into Apt. C.

353 Nails, Colossalcon, Anime North, Canada

So far the final tally on nails I had to clean up with a metal detector
stands at 353 nails. The lady in Apt. B says she still picked up a nail
in a tire. I've not had much of a problem there, but I will see to
getting out again and seeing if I can find more.

Got to watch my DVD of Memoirs of a Geisha. Finally!!!

Got to see some members of the main Colossalcon staff. Good people. Got
to see the hotel. OMG. There's a swingers bar. OK, maybe not best
described in that way, but I'm not ever going in there unless they have
Japanese Ladies Night.

I am sadly going to pass on Anime North. Not because we couldn't get the
time off, but because the convention is too big and too corporate. As
one friend put it, it's just a huge Anime Industry trade show now.
Corporate sponsors squeeze out the rights of fans to sell "unlicensed"
items like doujinshi. When fans get trampled on, it's no longer any fun.

My friends and I are hoping to plan an excursion to Canada later in the
year, but hopefully not too much later. Maybe by then gas prices will
come down from their gouging levels. There is no incentive for those
companies to get their refineries up to 100% capacity AT ALL. We need
one "blend" of fuels that can be used year around. It's always when the
refineries "switch" from their so called Winter blend or Summer Blend
that this price hike happens, and boy are they loath to lower prices as
fast as it went up.

Plans to build new refineries are usually met with resistance due to
concerns for the environment. Well, people, what do you want to do?
Cheap plentiful gas or pay $5 a gallon and continually complain about
how much you're paying?? Figure out what the heck you want and then DO
IT. And Oil companies - When you get the Go Ahead for building a
refinery, get the damn thing built FAST, get it online NOW, and make it
SAFE. No freakin' explosions or accidents that drive up the cost to
consumers when it doesn't cost you any more to get the raw material! I
hear it costs $9 to refine a barrel of crude oil into gas.

If I could afford a Hybrid car that doesn't have operational problems
and was cheap to repair if needed, you bet I would have one. In the
meantime, we ALL need to conserve as much as possible. If we could cut
back by 11% all the time, it would have a huge difference in the long
run.

The letter I sent that got results

CI Service Dept.

Dear Sir or Madam:

Please find enclosed one of your products, an MP3 player, a 512MB model, number MP3512B. As you can see, it is a formerly working model. I have enclosed a copy of the sales receipt to show you how much I paid for it. The main reason this is in your hands at all is the fact that within 2 weeks of purchasing the product, it failed to continue working properly.

First indication the product was about to fail was the single color backlight had stopped working. Attempts at getting it to work again, such as removing the battery and putting it back in, resulted in the product not working altogether. It refused to turn on no matter what after that.

I tend to not like how things do that, so in a fit of anger over this MP3 player not working anymore, I grabbed it by the earphones and whipped it at a wall. This resulted in the earphones disintegrating in my hands as the player hit a hard surface and subsequently fell apart.

Now, I'm not going to blame you for my impatience, but I refuse to take the blame in the fact that the player began a fast track to being useless, and in so doing, I am returning it to you. Clearly some of my actions has rendered the warranty void, but the way I see it, the product had already expired and therefore deserved the fate it got. I am not completely turned off to your products as I have been using for some time a 256MB model made by your company. It's very rugged and the design is excellent. I'm very happy with it and will continue to use it. It's a shame the 512MB model was of rather flimsy design and construction and failed to do its job for very long. The 512MB model was intended as an "upgrade."

I don't expect any response of any kind, I'm just letting you know that one of your products failed to deliver. I don't know why I had to pay $30 in the first place to find this out and let you know. At any rate, there's one of three things you will end up doing: you may refund my money, send me another 512MB player, or nothing at all. At least you can figure out what went wrong now that you have this one. The other model I have is the MP3257. Very nice. Make them more like that, just with more flash memory.

Sincerely,

Wedding Peach Secret File

I waited at least 10 years to own a copy of the book, and finally I have
it and I didn't have to fight others on eBay to get it.

I was checking out alt.fan.sailor.moon by chance, and a girl in Illinois
had posted a message about selling some items. Eventually I was able to
discover the Wedding Peach Secret File book was among them, and her
price was not out of my range. I fired off an email, asked her to call
my phone number and leave a message if I'm able to get it from her.

After I returned home from work that day I emailed the girl, I got the
message. [happy dance]

It finally arrived yesterday.

And thus ends the saga of the book I ordered through Diamond and perhaps
Capitol Cities distribution and never arrived.

Thanks to Lori for letting me snag this baby for a pittance (which isn't
much more than the price I saw in Previews - I will have to dig out the
book I ordered it from, either Previews or Advance Comics).

Thanks to Sabrina H, a wonderful young woman who sent me photocopies and
scans of the book when I was wondering where the hell was my ordered
copy. If you didn't live so far away, I'd try to date you. T.T Anyone
who went to so much trouble is worth keeping as a friend and more.

Done.

The roof is done.

The major clean up is done. I did it mainly by myself. The neighbor in B
said she'd help twice - but all I got was 15 minutes of stuff, and then
she had a friend help with that.

It was over 5 hours of using a garden rake and a snow shovel to pick
this stuff up and put it in the dumpster. It had to stay over 2 extra
days at $50 for me to get this done.

All that's left is the downspouting and looking for nails.

Yeah. whoopee.

Unexpected good things

I seem to be collecting MP3 players.

Some time ago, I had purchased a Curtis 256MB flash drive model at
hhgregg for $25. It has been a good model, nice and rugged with good
sound quality. But I soon filled it with files. I had been eyeing 1G
models for a while, then saw a 512MB model in an hhgregg advert for
about $30. So I went over and snapped it up.

I realized soon after I bought it that it was going to be trouble. The
battery door didn't quite fit - a tab used in the design of the part
snapped off so I had it held shut with a piece of tape. 2 weeks after
that, the single color backlight stopped working. Attempts to get it to
work again, which was mainly pulling the battery out and putting it back
in, resulted in the unit not working at all.

In a fit of rage over this piece of junk, I whipped it at a wall and it
naturally burst into pieces. The earbuds themselves disintegrated in my
hand.

On March 1st, 2007, I finally shipped the thing back to Curtis
International along with a copy of my sales receipt. The thing was still
under warranty, but due to my fit of anger, I doubted they would do
anything. Warranties usually do NOT include coverage for acts of abuse
or neglect, but in my case, the device failed to work anymore so it
deserved what I did to it.

In the middle of that, a friend had noticed one model of MP3 player at
Officemax that was a sport model that read Secure Digital memory cards,
up to 2 G. Attempts to order it failed, but I found a simple card reader
/ MP3 player at USB Geek for $15 US. I ordered 2 and traded one with
that same friend, who ordered 2 1G SD cards, and traded one of those for
one of the players. This is a no frills player, no screen. It just turns
on, plays MP3 files on the card, and turns off. It also plugs into the
USB port directly. The clear plastic case for the device is quite
fragile. Mine had broken into pieces that I was able to superglue back
together. I haven't tried a 2G card in it yet, nor other forms of memory
cards. Should be interesting to see what it can do. Some files it won't
play if the sample rate is too low.

Anywho, back to the other player...

I will have to include the letter I sent along with the Curtis MP3
player sometime soon, because today via FedEx, was a package from Curtis
International. They had sent me a brand spanking new 512MB MP3 player.
This is a different model from the one I bought at hhgregg. This
completely knocked me over. I had sent off the defective unit, explained
why, and didn't expect anything out of them except hopefully making
better quality products. After all, the 256MB model was a beauty of
design and still works just great.

This new model is sleek, sexy, and has some nice features. I hope this
is one of their top of the line models for the memory size. It has 2
output earphone jacks! It has an Inline Jack for recording from other
devices! Imagine being able to record off your tape player then pulling
that over to your PC and editing it later! Multicolor backlight! Much
more rugged and precise in design and manufacturing. It doesn't have a
built in USB plug like the other models, but a cable is included to plug
it in, as well as a CDrom for Win98SE.

To the people at Curtis International, thank you very much for honoring
your warranty when you didn't have to, and I now believe I will get my
money's worth. Please continue to make MP3 players that are rugged and
also look nice.

Some pointers:

1. A 12 band customizable equalizer would be nice. When I have to put up
with subpar quality earbuds, the equalizer that I can adjust at will can
offset the bad qualities of the worst of earbuds. Presets do only so
much.

2. Decent bass boost regardless of audio mode - Lots of bad earphones
are midrange and compress the quality so much. The bass range gets
squeezed out. It needs all the help it can get.

Oh yeah, the one feature that knocked me out in regard to the player
Curtis Int. sent back to me - support for Japanese text!! OMG! This is
too cool! The model number is MPS533! I can put my Japanese anime MP3s
on the thing, and if any of the ID3 tags are in Japanese, I'll get to
see that. Sugoi ne!!

The roof is almost done. The part over my room is done. But the roofers
working on the part above Apt C just popped the old shingles off today
and created another huge mess and a roofing nail nightmare - again. The
dumpster company wants to come pick their property up soon, and I have a
huge mess to clean up. I wish the roofers would have been more careful -
some pieces hit part of the Dish Network antenna dish thingy and broke
part of the plastic covering. It still works, but I'll need to glue it
back together and use some duct tape or something. I half a half-day off
tomorrow. T.T

Comment to send to milkbone.com

For quite some time, I have had an issue with the picture on the back of
your products. It shows a person holding a treat with the dog supposedly
looking at the person and the treat. The problem is the eye line of the
dog to the human does not work. If the dog was REALLY looking at the
person and the treat, you'd see the BACK of the dog's head. The
illustration is really annoying on all the boxes this appears. It should
be more with the person holding the treat and have them appearing from
the right side of the box (you don't need to see all of them) and the
dog actually looking right at them. The way it is now, it's really
annoying.

A ray of sunshine...

I get home tonight to find out the guy my older sister had arranged to
do the roof can't get to it for another month.

So mom called one guy she knows and he can get to it TOMORROW. I wish I
had the day off so I could help. But it looks like the roof will finally
get something on it at last...!!!!!

"Read this very carefully, I shall type this only once nyo!"
"There would be little point in typing it twice nyo!!" - 'Allo 'Allo nyo

"They make crayONs; do they make crayOFFs?"

Dancing among the Rafters

Tuesday night this week was horrible for me... T.T

Since my older sister did a half-assed job putting tar paper and No
Shingles on the roof, some of that tar paper on my part of the roof over
My Room blew off during the day. The paper itself was inexpertly applied
and has some holes in it. (Oh no - but oh yes). I'm beginning to think
this was done on purpose.

It leaked like last Tuesday's storms but even worse. I mean Oh my God,
if it hadn't stopped raining when it did, I'd have lost lots of my
possessions and anime goodies. I was flipping out like never before.
There's a reason why I should be investing in more of those plastic tubs
for storage. I bought 4 more this week.

My bed was soaked. I didn't sleep in my bed Tuesday night at all.
Wednesday night it was cold and damp but darnit, it's my bed and I'm
sleeping in my room. The ceiling has more damage than before my sister
tried "fixing" the roof.

I put up with so much.

It's good I had Wednesday off. I went up to Lowe's in Alliance around
9:30 am or so and bought a roll of 10 feet by 100 feet of 4 mil plastic
sheeting.

Now here's where it gets interesting. I had always wanted to get some of
this stuff. I find out plastic sheeting is very affordable and comes
folded up in rolls. I need just under 250 square feet of the stuff (My
room measures about 12 x 17, but I have the attic to cover). This stuff
ranges from thin plastic wrap used in painting to heavy duty 6 mil
that's clear or black and used in construction. In a pinch, 6 mil black
plastic sheeting could be tacked in place on the roof and used as actual
roofing material. 6 mil is Industrial use. Sugoi ne!

The roll I buy is under $40. Cheap! I get some staples for the stapling
gun, and off I go.

I spent about 2 to 3 hours in that attic laying this stuff down and
fixing it in place. This is when I see a hole in the roof, and right
above the plastic storage tub I placed there last year to catch the
leak. Before my older sister came along and ripped things off, I had
this one controlled in my catch and release system. Now this one spot
looks like someone put their foot through the wood. It's a freaking huge
hole!!! That's along with the loads of sunlight pinholes I see between
the wood slats and all.

If noone has mentioned how fun it is laying down plastic sheeting in
their attic, do not let me be the first to say that.

I made a good first effort in getting this stuff down. I'm afraid to say
that while this will handle most of the leaks, there's some at the very
edge of the roof it won't contain. I am not done. I spent Thursday sore
and in pain. It wasn't until I had a beer that most of the pain went
away. I have to go up again to finish the job and to check the wiring
for the one working baseboard heater that for some reason isn't working
right now. (oh no...) I am still feeling a little sore so I probably
will have more beer.

I hope to get this finished before the next time it rains. I may also
take the caulking gun up there and see about sealing some of this from
the inside.

Still nobody has shown up to put any shingles on the roof. I'm
considering talking to an attorney to see if I can sue my landlord. What
she did was WRONG. We get treated so badly by her. She has a PhD and
thinks she knows best, but this time it was clear she should not have
done anything more than one roof at a time. She's done this stuff
before. 7 months in 1995...