Octoweiners

They are awesome. Revel in their glory.

GE Blows Goats

I'm officially adding GE Service to my list of despised entities. I have no qualms with the appliances themselves, mind you... just the service folks.

You might remember from my last post that we needed to get our stove fixed. Our first service appointment was on the 7th, from 1-5 p.m. In order to make it home by then I had to work late the day before and be at work at 5 a.m. Super fun. At least the guy showed up at 1 p.m. on the nose- so I wasn't sitting around all afternoon thinking about how I had gotten up at 3:30 a.m. for nothing. He checked out the damage, and quoted me $224. That's pretty shitty, considering he was only replacing four $13 parts, which would take him all of 20 minutes. But we can't order the parts from GE ourselves, so what could we do? He set up another appointment for the 14th at the same time. Which was awesome, because I love getting up at 3:30 in the fucking morning. On my birthday. So I messed with my work schedule again, and luckily it was slow at work so my boss didn't mind too much.

Fast forward to the 14th. I was at work, and it was about 11:15 a.m. when my phone rang. It was an automated message letting me know that I'm next and the service guy is on the way. WTF!? And the only choices I was given by the automated bitch was to confirm that I'd be there or cancel the appointment altogether. Well fuck if I'm going to cancel now, just to deal with this shit again the next Friday-not to mention live without a friggin' stove for another week. No way. So I confirmed, and yelled something to my boss about "the douchebag is early" as I ran out the door (I have an extremely understanding boss).

As I was screaming down the expressway, I kept hoping that A) there were no cops around B) the service guy was further away from my house than I was and C) traffic doesn't suck ass. At the same time I was muttering obscenities (as I'm prone to do) and yelling like a crazy person at people who suck at driving. Luckily, traffic was clear enough that I was able to speed the whole way home, and there were no cops.

I was a few blocks away from home when my phone rang again. It was the service guy. "You're not at home?" No shit! I told him I was just a few minutes away, and was getting there as fast as I could. At least he didn't just leave. When I pulled into my parking space, I noticed he wasn't in visitor parking. We have pretty clearly marked parking- numbers for residents and other spaces that say VISITOR in big white letters. I almost said something, but decided I'd rather see him get towed. Anyways, I rush inside and put the dog away as he got started. The guy could probably tell how furious I was, but I suck at being a jerk, so he just fixed the oven and left. I figure it's over now, and I'll likely never have to deal with this again. But it wasn't quite over.

Last night, at 10:09 p.m. my phone rang. I had been in bed for about half an hour at this point, and was just on the cusp of falling asleep, so you can imagine how irritated I was to find out it was fucking GE. What is wrong with these people? It was some woman calling to ask me about my experience. OMGWTFBBQ??!?1! You want my opinion? Learn how to tell time!

In reality, I was much to sleepy to fully grasp the magnitude of my own annoyance. So I just started answering her questions... but when she came to whether or not the guy showed up in the allotted window, I sprang. No! He certainly did not! I explained how he came nearly an hour and a half early, causing me to have to run out of work early. But her scripted survey was not prepared for this, as her next questions were "How late was he?" He wasn't late, he was early. "Did he apologise and/or explain why he was late?" No, because he was early. Obviously, I was dealing with a complete dolt. My annoyance grew, but I knew if I got all crabby on her ass, I'd wind up waiting to talk to a supervisor, and I really just wanted to go back to bed. Besides, I could always vent later in my blog. So I finished her questions and went to bed. And now here I am. Rant over.

The Joys of Home-ownership

We are quickly discovering the many wonderful things that come with owning your own home- like a massive stream of unending repairs. We officially moved in last weekend, and have discovered a few things about our new home.

For instance, the lovely unobstructed westward view comes with a small price: the wind hits the house like a friggin' freight train. To be fair, today's wind storm was pretty intense with gusts up to 50 mph, but I honestly thought the windows were going to implode into the living room. Also, the windows are super drafty- so drafty that there was an actual breeze as I sat on the couch. I created a temporary solution out of some wadded-up paper towel bits and packing tape, but that can't last very long.

We also managed to break the oven. We did this by incorrectly lifting the range top to clean it, and busting the little gas pipes that lead to the burners. It turns out this was a $224 mistake, which sucks. But what sucks more is that the GE guy can only give me a window "between 1 and 5 p.m." That equals a lot of fucking with my schedule at work so I don't lose any PTO. I don't think my boss is too happy with that, so I've been busting extra ass to try to make up for my jackassary.

Oh, and that's not all! As it turns out, the doorknob on our only entrance is a bit, um... temperamental. Sometimes it will unlock, sometimes not so much. We discovered this earlier this evening when Scott tried to leave. The door refused to open. We locked and unlocked it, but the handle refused to turn. Eventually Scott forced it with a screwdriver, which seemed to correct whatever issue it was having, and he left. Later, when I tried to walk the dog, I couldn't get it to open again. After deciding that my barrage of obscenities wasn't helping, I tried the screwdriver. Nothing. If you look at this picture...

...you can maybe see how it's pretty easy to jam a Flathead in there and push the latch in manually. But that little fucker wouldn't budge. I didn't know what else to do so I took the inside half off, carefully, so that the outside part of the knob stayed in place. I don't know the first thing about doorknobs, so I just jiggled things around a bit. I noted how a flat poky bit controls the lock, and a square poky bit is what turns to open the latch. There was more jiggling, then I decided I was completely lost and maybe I should just put it back together. Very carefully, as to not push the outside half of the knob out of the door, I screwed it back in place. And somehow, it was magically fixed. Finally, poor Spencer was able to pee. I left the door ajar while we were out (I'm no fool) and when we came in I tested it again. It's as though nothing happened. We'll be relying solely on the deadbolt for a while, just in case, but everything seems okay for now.

And since I'm in a ranting mood, can I just bitch about Comcast for a minute? I hate Comcast like nothing else. We've had horrible experiences with their cable, internet, and customer service. When we bought this house, we knew they were the only option for high-speed internet, but we were willing to deal with it. We hoped that since it wasn't an apartment, the signal would be better- which it is. But still not as good as Verizon. I miss Verizon, and their HDTV package with DVR, and their superior internet speeds. All for the same price as what we're paying Comcast for shittier TV (without HD channels or the DVR) and slower internet speeds. Bah! I hate you so hard, Comcast. Hopefully soon Verizon will come save us from your craptacular tyranny.

I know, this is a lot of bitching. Mostly, it's great owning a house, and really exciting too. While there are times when I miss the ease of renting, there are far more times when I do NOT miss the inability to fix things the right way (as opposed to the cheapest way) or have something other than white walls and beige carpet. Once we move past the "fixing" stage and into the "decorating" stage, I'll feel a lot better.