It was a good game, though.  And at least the Cardinals gave the Steelers something to work for instead of being an easy win.

We had watched the game at my husband’s brother’s house across town, so we had a bit of a drive to get home.  At about  the mid-way point downtown, driving down the freeway, we noticed the car we were closing in on in the next lane over wasn’t holding to their lane very well.  After a mile (and not passing them), we realized the person was probably drunk, so I had my husband turn down the radio and I dialled 911, who connected me to DPS’s 911. I told them we were behind a car that appeared to be weaving and swerving in their lanes and encroaching on other lanes, gave the plate # and description of the car.  The first guy I talked to said they had actually already received a few calls about that car and they were trying to get an officer out to pull them over.  I thought that was good, and hoped we’d see a cop soon.

We followed this guy (or girl) for several more miles, not seeing a single DPS officer anywhere.  We were approaching our own exit and my husband said we’d follow the guy until the next Loop and then we’d call it quits.  By this time there was at least one other car following this person like we were, also on their phone (presumably to 911).  We kept our distance but watched in fear that this guy would crash or take someone else out…

He/she got terribly close to the K rails in a construction zone – we don’t know how this person managed to keep missing the walls and other cars (yay on the other drivers for avoiding this guy though, they deserve more credit than this driver).

We came upon an exit only lane and this driver was in that lane (we were about four cars back), and my husband was watching carefully to see if this driver was going to yank back out onto the freeway when realizing he/she was on an exit-only lane… and he/she did (narrowly missing another car), and the SUV/pickup immediately behind this guy also jerked back onto the freeway (it was one of the vehicles we realized was also following this drunkard like we were).  However, we had a car immediately to our left so we could not move back onto the freeway, we had no choice but to give up our “pursuit”.

We were livid that the DPS officers had not shown up yet.  We had driven 15 MILES following that schmuck and had not seen one SINGLE cop.  Not ONE.  What the hell?  We could not fathom why DPS had not doubled or tripled their force on a night when it’s pretty clear with our home team in the Superbowl, that there would be a lot of partying and drinking going on, which would mean drunk drivers.  What. The. HELL!?!?

I just hope that whoever that dipstick was, they got to their destination safely and without incident; so far I have not seen any news aritcles about any accidents (fatal or otherwise) out west of where we had to exit.  I am thinking about writing a steaming letter to DPS complaining about the utter lack of officers on the freeway last night; we should not have gone five miles without seeing a cop on the road, and more importantly, not seeing one in pursuit of someone who it was clear to several other drivers, was driving drunk!

If this is what putting up all the new speed cameras has done to the number of DPS officers on our highways in town, this is just one more reason to have those damn things removed. It was supposed to free up officers for other matters, and to (mainly) bring in more revenue for the State.  But let’s face it – I’d rather see someone speeding down the road at 80 mph who is in control of their vehicle and get away with it, than a drunk doing anywhere from 45mph to 80mph and barely in control of their vehicle – and no cop in sight to pull that person over!

Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.

I thought those went the way of the dinosaurs with the birth of the internet and the new way to do pyramid schemes, but apparently that is not so.

A couple months back I got a bulky letter in the mail, addressed directly to ME, with my current married name.  I opened it, and what do I find?  One of those stupid pyramid chain letters, only this one “claims” because they use a certain phrase in it, that it is now perfectly legal, and there are only like six peoples’ names on the list for you to send money to.

Of course if you want to participate, you have to cough up the money to buy a mailing list.  Then cough up more money for all of the envelopes you will need, not to mention the costs for copying ten thousand copies of the letter, and then even more money to buy stamps to mail them all out!

I got another one of these Thursday!

I can’t believe people still try these things.  I guess the hope is that if they send it out to enough people, if a small fraction of those people participate, at the very least that person may get their investment back, but hopefully more.

Bah!  I am in the bunch of people who just throw those stupid things away and curse the company that sold my address to these idiots.  You have wasted your $1-$1.50 on me, people.  Because I really don’t think my trash can is going to send you or any of the other people on your list a dollar.

Four years ago we had our house treated with Termidor, and got the treatment that is supposed to be guaranteed for five years.  By my math, we should have at least one more year before we should be seeing any signs of any termites.  But no.  With this most recent rain, they decided it was time to crawl out of the ground and start feasting on our 2x4s.

When this happened four years ago, they popped up only on the outer walls of the house (inside the house, but the walls that share the exterior of the house).  Supposedly, rather than coming up from the ground, it was surmised that they got in through the roof.

This time, they are on an interior wall.  A wall that does NOT share an exterior side with the outside elements. What the heck??  And the buggers are eating quickly, too.  The first patch we have spotted seemed to have popped up overnight.  There’s no telling how big that tunnel is going to be by morning!  My guess is they got in the same way as before – through the roof, since we’re on a cement slab and the exterior walls also happen to be made of cinder block.

Stupid bugs.  They give me the heebie jeebies and my skin crawls just thinking about them.  I know they won’t hurt US, but they still give me the willies.

I guess I get to call the exterminator tomorrow and have them come out and do an inspection.  On the bright side – at least there is still a year left on our guarantee so that hopefully this re-treat is not going to cost us anything!  Or at least not as much as it would if it were not under warranty!

That is what happened last time… we had a re-treat, which was only warrantied for a couple of years, and then a couple weeks after its expiration, the damn bugs showed up again.  I’m glad that was not the case this time – treating for termites is not exactly cheap.  We paid over $800 for the last treatment with Termidor, so they darn well better do a re-treat for practically nothing, if not free!

*shakes fist*  Go away!  I don’t want you here days before a holiday!!

So I’m sitting here consuming a huge glass of orange juice and took two vitamin C pills.

I hope it goes away… I don’t want to be miserable for Thanksgiving!

NOOOOOOOooooooOooOOoOooOoo!!!

WTF, man?  It seems like the networks always, ALWAYS are canceling the interesting shows and keeping the crap, unless an interesting show is really super uber popular (a’la Heroes).  We both swear the network execs must smoke crack daily to make the decisions they do on what shows stay and what shows get the ax.  Why do they still base their decisions primarily on Nielsen ratings??  With the throng of Tivo and other DVR recorders, you’d think they would find some way to take their ratings from those devices, especially since many people have dual tuners or multiple devices in the house that record shows that are on at the same time on different channels.

Bah!  I’m just ticked off that another great show is meeting its end just because it can’t gobble up a 20 share in ratings (or whatever).

Sorry I haven’t posted in a few days.  Just didn’t have the posting itch.

Anyway.  What kind of crazy state makes a law where in order to hold a contest, you have to register it with the AG’s office?  Seriously?  Oh yeah, the one where I live.

Even if the host of the contest is in a different state, if they want people from MY state to be eligible, they have to register it with the AG.  How annoying is that??

So it makes me sad on two parts – I won’t be able to enter all these contests that are going on at various blogs unless they registered with my state’s AG office (and most have not and probably will not), and second, I can’t hold any more contests myself unless I want to run the risk of getting into trouble.

It’s just plain stupid.  I think we need to move away.  Because that will probably happen a lot sooner and be a lot more likely than that stupid law getting changed.  ]]> http://www.itsjustmythoughts.com/that-makes-me-sad/feed/ 0 http://www.itsjustmythoughts.com/i-am-so-ticked-off-right-now/ http://www.itsjustmythoughts.com/i-am-so-ticked-off-right-now/#comments Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:40:19 +0000 nw http://www.itsjustmythoughts.com/?p=352 I have changed the theme to match my other site, which works.

Identical themes.

Both with several errors when run thru the W3 Validator, yet the other site works, and this one does not.

The only differences are the content and widgets.

I even tested a theory and added a supposed missing closing div tag. It eliminated one error in the validator, but remains broken.

I re-unzipped and re-uploaded the theme so it’s “fresh” and right out of the box.

Site is still broken.

AGHAGHGHGGGG!!!!!

I’m hella pissed.

At this point I am [thisclose] to just backing up my damn database and wiping the site and installing it all over again.

Excuse me while I go bang my head against a wall.

I fixed it.  Weird stuff indeed.

This morning our car told us to check the tire pressure on the tires (it’s not quite so sophisticated as to tell us which one, just that *a* tire or tires needs to be checked). We noted the front left was low on air before we left the house, and made a point to stop and put air in it at the gas station before we hit the freeway.

Fast forward to lunch, and *bing* it warns us yet again, to check tire pressure. *sigh* Same tire, almost as low as it was that morning. Greeaaaat.

So after lunch, since my boss is so much cooler than my husband’s and I can get away from the office easier and without a big to-do-about it, I took the car to the nearby dealership to have them check the tire.

Turns out, it was leaking from a PATCH that was done on it sometime since we bought it new in March 2007.  Who knows when, but we were never informed.  Neither my husband nor myself recall being told that it had been repaired.

The ONLY tire we are well aware that had been repaired, was the REAR left tire, and that was done right before we left on our vacation to San Diego in August.  And *I* had to point out the stinking nail on that one.  AFTER they checked it and filled it with air and were about to send us on our way.  Nice, right?

Anyway, apparently, they don’t keep track of simple tire repairs in their system.  So I have no way of proving WHEN it was done.  I can only guess, it was probably when they last rotated the tires, which was in February 2008.  Which was, incidently, just before we went on our anniversary vacation to Las Vegas.

Are you keeping track of the number of long distance driving stints we’ve done so far?  Not to mention the daily weekday commute, 45 miles one way, to work and back?  And the occasional visits across town (75 miles) to my husband’s brother’s house, which there have been at least two or three of those…

So here is the kicker.  It’s not so much the fact that a) they didn’t even tell us about the repair, and b) they don’t track repairs to tires since they don’t charge for them… but it’s WHERE the damn patch was located that has me so ticked off.

Basically, the guy today told me it was too close to the sidewall to re-patch.  And frankly, it shouldn’t have been patched in the first place, but replaced  (he didn’t say this out loud, but the implication was loud and clear).  And the little bit of digging I’ve done on the ol’ internet since I got home, confirms that.

I’m steaming mad.  We are DAMN lucky that this failing patch evidenced itself as a slow leak, and wasn’t a catastrophic failure while we were, say, driving 75-80 mph on the way to San Diego and back – with our daughter and mother-in-law in the car with us.  Or the times we drove to my husband’s brother’s house across town – with our daughter in the car.  Or the numerous times he and I drove to work and back at 75-80 mph.  Or when we drove to Vegas.

The guy offered to wrap the tire in plastic and place it in our trunk so when I go to the dealership by our house – which is the one we regularly take our cars to – I can show them the shoddy work and total disregard for our safety, and try to get *something* back for the… I don’t know.  Just SOMETHING.  I don’t care if I get the next three oil changes done for free – they better bend over backwards to show their apologies.

Our car has only ever been to two other places other than this dealership.  One – a collision repair center from our accident (we were rear-ended) in April, and two – the dealership I took it today, the repair center took it in to have it looked over after their repairs to make sure everything was up to spec and to check the seats and LATCH connector where the empty carseat was attached (our daughter was at daycare when the accident happened, and yes we bought a new carseat).  And neither of those places had any reason to do any repairs to the tires, our tires were not damaged in the accident.  So that leaves the dealership by our house.

Yep, they’re going to just LOOOVE my visit on Saturday.

I can just feel my blood pressure rising, and my nerves becoming frazzled.  And if it’s due to someone else’s mistake, then I just plain get pissed off.

I take pride in my work – as boring as it can be at times – and I really hate it when I inadvertantly screw up.

Excuse me… I think I am going to go stomp on something now.