ardith's blog

So I found a discrepancy on my pending transactions. I contacted Chase Bank like a good, suspicious netizen. They canceled my card and told me a new one was on the way within 4 days. The lady on the other line never said anything about 10 days. 

I called today asking about my card only to find out about the 10 day thing. They then said that if I wanted a new card, it would cost another $5 to send me it.

I explained about the initial conversation and how I was told it would be this week. I was then transfered to another individual (Jim?) who listened to my rant and then said it would still be $5 to cancel the card and expedite a new one.

Now, here's the rub. 

1. If they had told me about the 10 days initially, I would not have been upset. I would know what was going on with my card.
2. If they offered to send me a new card and waive the $5 fee, they would have kept a customer who pays attention.

People may think I'm overreacting. Maybe I am. But I am also a really good customer. Looks like I'll be going to a new bank.

Any suggestions? 

Where have you gone, 2009? Don't you know that 2010, we're really in The Future? I know 2010 is going to be a bang up year. I can't wait to meet it.

My predictions for 2010? Aside from autopilot technology for cars, hence removing the human factor and a large amount of accidents?

I hope that the health care bill will pass. *sigh*

I can't believe how fast time has gone. I've been a bit neglectful of my blog. It's been a bit crazy the last few months.

First of all, I have a new job.

Second of all, I'm in Los Angeles.

Third of all, I'm still driving back to Murrieta on the weekends to check in with my parents and hang out and eat some yummy foods.

Honestly, I missed a lot of things about LA, but traffic wasn't one of them. I forgot how horrible the drive can be. Living in Torrance isn't bad when my office is in Culver City, so I'm just trying to force myself to wake up early and head to the gym before work.

Sometimes that even works!

Ok, now I better hit the sack. Tomorrow, I have some work to do. After work, I'll drive down to San Diego for my extended family's big Christmas party. Can't wait to see everyone there.

Well, it looks like I won't be making it again this time. As much as I'd like to participate in the competition, I just started a new job AND I have a freelance editing work that I need to complete.

I'm just about to crawl into bed as I write this. It's been a very long while since I've worked in LA and had to deal with the traffic and the crazy driving.

I decided to use Tumblr's private blog feature to take pictures of all the food I'm eating. What's the use of an iPhone if not to guide me to better eating choices. Wait? What do you mean it's a phone? TALK to people?! What's that?

Anyway, I better get to bed. Tomorrow, I plan to strike out early. Hopefully I'll have an hour in the morning after the gym to work on more edits.

Basic health care saves lives. The way health care is handled cannot continue.

Without health care, people die. Reform is needed. Please spread the word to Congress. They cannot ignore the voices that demand reform.

My mac-mini has been in the family for years. I purchased it soon after they were launched and I was thinking the poor old thing was getting on in the years.

It's the main computer my parents use since macs are simpler to use. My parents are more email/skype sort of people, so it doesn't have to run a billion apps.

But the past few weeks, I've noticed that it was taking a while to start up applications. Then one day, the APPLE loading screen (gray screen with apple plus whirly loading icon thing) was just hanging around on the screen.

Uh-oh....

I inserted the MAC OS X disc and did a repair. That helped for a few days.

Then. It died.

The hard drive was kaput.

So I toddled over to Fry's and picked up a 160 gb (P)ATA HD. I'm gonna do some surgery! Cross your fingers for me, mkay?

They had a 300 gb one, but my parents were using a 60 gb without filling it up, so over 2x the hd space seems like plenty of elbow room. Especially since they probably need to upgrade to a faster computer eventually.

I mean, the specs on a common netbook is not much of an improvement on my mac-mini. The big plus would be the portability. So I'm going to operate this afternoon. *cracks knuckles*

I found this video online:
http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/mac_mini_g4_mem_hd_opt_h/

Now I just have to get some philips screwdrivers, and a putty knife.

I was lucky enough to get an invite to Google Voice! Now I shall test the call widget function. You now have the power to leave me a voice mail. I don't know if you want to, but hey, the button is here.

The 10th Doctor's story is coming to an end. David Tennent and Russle T. Davies sit down and talk about it.

Honestly, I'm more than a little sad that David Tennent is leaving. I was in the huge crowed at Comic-Con during the Doctor Who panel and seriously everyone was crazy-excited to see him.

Of course, Nadine & I were there early (since I insisted) so we could make it in the room. After all the huge lines at SDCC, I didn't want to chance missing it.

So the interview (which runs like 20 min) has a bit of a spoiler ahead, so if you don't want to know about the upcoming specials, turn your eyes away now.

Source: Boing Boing via my friend James' Google Reader.

November is coming up again. That means it's National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo).

Last year, I got sick and never completed my goals. Of course, I was outlining at the same time as I was attempting to write. When you fall behind, you really fall behind. 

So after the wedding, I'm going to do some planning. October should be National Novel Outlining Month. I think that way the whole writing thing should go a lot smoother.

When I woke up this morning, the image burned into my head involved pink octopi encapsulating a person. The throbbing mass writhed as I tried to remove them off the body. When I finally got them off, the form revealed was curled in a fetal position, not moving.

Then I woke up.

What the heck? Death by octopi? Pink octopi?!

What could I have been trying to work out in my poor wee brain last night? I mean, I love octopi. For dinner. Tako sushi, takoyaki, hm tako tacos!

I don't recall much of the rest of my dream other than it involved an apartment about a resturant. I can only speculate the ghost of animals eaten attacked the chef for culinary atrocities.

I think it was probably the stress of trying to deal with wedding invitations with an already stressed out bride, through the champagne strawberry sangria did help.

I sent another email to the CEO of HP via the webform explaining how their customer service rep left a garbled message and didn't repeat herself and providing a ticket number for this very frustrating issue.

I got a call around 12:30 pm today from HP. This time I spoke with a very helpful gentleman named Milo who appologized for my sister's HP experience. He then said that they would refund the cost of the restore disc to her.

OMG! Someone who could help stepped into the mess and fixed things!

He was super helpful and listened to my complaints and seemed very concerned since my sister had "converted" from Apple to HP that she should have been treated better.

He said he would look into the history of the case, but that they'd begin to refund that fee right away.

I spoke to Angeline today and she was so happy that they fixed that. Her computer is up and running again and hopefully everything else works out.

So, I guess that concludes my adventures in computer support. It just takes concise complaining. Over and over and over again.

I'm really thankful to Milo, though. He made my sister's day.