the passionate ailurophile

Yanno, I leave this blog alone for a while (I know, my bad, but there was lotsa shit going on, more about that in a future post), and when I come back to it, stupid WordPress wants me to upgrade AGAIN.  Pain in my butt is what it all is.

So I upgraded, and my theme disappeared, it went back to that boring white thing with the blue header, the “default” theme.  I looked for my old theme to put it back, but it was GONE.

Then I remembered.  When I first installed this theme, and modified it to make it my own, it would keep reverting to “default”.  The only way to make it stop was to delete the one called “default” and rename this one “default”.

Well, that all went down the toilet after the newest upgrade.  Since WP comes with several themes now, it put back the default “default”, overwriting the theme I wanted.  Now I have to remember what I did to alter it, where do I put the cat pic banners and all?

Pain in my butt is what it is.  I swear, sometimes having annoying people ringing my doorbells and bothering me all day long is less annoying than this crap.

Well, once I get the cat pics back up in the header banner, I’ll try NOT renaming it, and see what happens, if it still will keep reverting back to the boring “default” on its own.

Srsly. I wish WP wouldn’t annoy us to upgrade every five minutes. I only do it because looking at the yellow upgrade bar in the dashboard annoys me. I do it just to “shut it up”.

Gack.

So, as you may know, for most of the flu season, I have been unable to get either the seasonal or the Hamthrax vaccines.  By some miracle, however, I have not gotten sick.  However, I’m still planning to get both of them anyway, now that they are both widely available.  I figure my luck can’t hold out forever…with my kind of luck, I’ll catch the flu right before baseball season starts.  And then I can kiss Opening Night for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats goodbye.  DO NOT WANT.

So, should I bother?  Yes, better safe than sorry, I say.  The CVS Minute Clinic should be able to give me both in the same visit.  Yeah, it’ll probably cost money, but hopefully not much.  Apparently, there are places giving out the Hamthrax shot for free, but I’d honestly rather pay.  The free places are probably all located in one of the inner circles of hell, full to the brim with The Great Unwashed and all their screaming, unwashed kids, with long, long, long waits.  I’d probably catch something before I even got the damned shots.  It’s probably all done in government buildings, the sort that are sweltering hot in the summer and freezing in the winter, because they are too cheap to turn on any air-conditioning or heat.  I’ve been in such buildings before, not fun.  So no thanks.  I’ll just pay the insurance co-pay at CVS, where there is likely very little wait, and get it over with.

Mike’s work just started offering a flexible spending plan, and he signed up for it.  Basically, this lets us pay for medical expenses such as co-pays with pre-tax dollars.  Mike estimated how much we’re likely to spend on out-of-pocket medical stuph for 2010, and his work put this entire amount on a special MasterCard debit card, which we can use to pay for any eligible medical stuph.  The amount they put into the account is divided by the number of paychecks for the year, and they take that much out each time.

We expect to save a hefty amount on our 2010 taxes because of this; I wish his company had offered this before now.  Mike spends a lot on co-pays for his various doctor visits and prescriptions, nowhere near as much as I do, but he has more health issues than me.  Just the diabetes stuph alone costs a fortune!  His insulin is covered by insurance (still, it’s a $50 co-pay, but considering that it costs something like $400 without insurance, we can’t complain), but all of his testing supplies and stuph are not.  Fortunately, these items are still eligible for the flexible spending plan, so it’s all been factored into the amount he’s having deducted from his paychecks.

In any case, I can get my flu shots paid for with pre-tax dollars, so I’m happy.

Speaking of taxes, we’ll probably start doing them this weekend, as we now have all of the needed paperwork for it.  I hope we at least break even this year.  I work as an independent contractor and do not get any taxes taken out of my pay.  So Mike increased his withholdings at work to cover it.  Last year we owed a little to the Feds, but got a small refund from Taxachusetts.  This year, we hope to owe less, or maybe get a small refund from the Feds.  We shall see.

Srsly.  I will never, for as long as I live, understand how anyone can enjoy going to a maul just for the hell of it, just for fun.  To me, the maul is one of the most stressful places to be on the planet.  It’s so bad, I hate it so much, that I had an anxiety attack while there on Saturday.  The only good thing was that the Burlington Maul is close to Lahey Clinic, so if I really were having a heart attack, at least the ambulance would have taken me there, and not to the Hospital From Hell.  So I guess when I MUST go to a maul, that’s another good reason to go there, and not to Square One, which is closer to the hellhole hospital.

The only two parts of that maul where I felt any peace were at the Bare Escentuals Boutique and Legal Sea Foods.  If you use Bare Escentuals makeup, and shop at Sephora, when there is a BE Boutique in the same or in a nearby maul, you are batshit insane.  Srsly.  I did go into the Burlington Maul Sephora, checked out the BE offerings, and it has gone WAY downhill since they opened up a BE Boutique upstairs in the same maul.  The place was a floopin’ circus, I could not wait to get out of there, and I went upstairs to the peacefulness of the BE boutique.  There, I could take my time, and look for what I wanted, in peace.  This store is one of the few reasons I go to any maul in the first place.  I only wish I didn’t have to walk halfway through that hellhole of a maul, nearly getting my ass mowed down by various idiot parents who were using their SUV strollers as battering rams, in order to get to this fabulous store.  Needless to say, the BE Boutique got my money, Sephora did not.  And I actually got a better deal, price-wise, at the BE store.

I had left Mike at Sears to buy his underwear and crap, and it was a mistake.  I had left him there because it takes him forever to pick out his crap, even if it’s just underwear, and it bores me.  He has no interest in going to a makeup store, and I preferred to go without him, anyway.  I also wanted to hit CVS in the maul, to grab some Nice & Easy, as it’s hair color time again.  I try not to buy that when he’s present, because he doesn’t like the smell of the hair color products, and will bitch and moan about it forever.  But if I buy the stuph, and he doesn’t see it, use it when he’s not at home, it’s all good.  The smell is gone by the time he gets home.  But if he knows I have the stuph, he imagines the smell lasting for months.  Go figure.

So, after I got my girly crap, I went back to Sears.  I wanted to buy underwear for myself, but could not find the women’s underwear department, no matter how much I walked around.  I did get the cooktop cleaner I’d been wanting to get; I got a couple of big bottles that should keep me going for the good part of a year.  When I was upstairs in the appliance/electronics department, I walked past the cordless phones, which reminded me that we needed a new one, as the old one pretty much died.  Normally, I would have waited until I met up with Mike again to make the decision as to what phone to buy, but I wanted a phone that was a little more expensive than one he would have picked out.  Which was probably why we had to buy a new one, he picked out a cheap one, it died, and there you have it.

Anyhoo, I selected a phone with two extra handsets, as well as a feature that the old, cheap one didn’t have…Call Block.  You see, I have been harassed several times a week with calls from some collection agency, looking for some guy who is not here, I assume it’s someone who gave out this number in the past, maybe he had it before we did, who knows?  But they are NOT looking for us; however, their message says that if I don’t pick up the phone and talk to them, I agree that I am *Joe Deadbeat* or whatever the hell his name is.  How dumb is that?  What if I weren’t home, does that mean I agree to be *Joe Deadbeat* and will pay his bills?  It’s actually WORSE if you pick up and talk to these people, then they will still think you are *Joe Deadbeat*, and therefore still won’t leave you alone!

Well, with the new phone, I can block the number that these calls were coming from.  It was the first one I blocked when I hooked up the new phone.  And I can block 29 more numbers of people who call and annoy me.  I love it!

Meanwhile, Mike had gotten his underwear and stuph…and a new credit card, from the evil Shittibank!  Apparently, the cashier who rang up his purchase told he could get $15 off his purchase if he applied for a Sears MasterCard (not the same as the Sears store charge, which we already have).  Now, if I were there, I would have told the cashier to shove it; as it was, the guy who rang up the phone and the cooktop cleaner did NOT ask me if I wanted to apply for this card.  Good thing, I wanted to just pay and move on, no hassle.

But Mike, for some dumbassed reason, agreed to apply for the card.  He was approved, and they put his purchase on the new account, not the regular Sears charge, the one I’ve been paying ten times the minimum for, to get it paid off ASAP.  He now has a temporary credit card, and they’ll be sending him the real one soon.  And he’s happy about this…he, who wanted to close own the regular Sears account because it was bought by the evil Shittibank.  I was against that because I wanted to keep it in case we needed new appliances, which ended up happening (washer and dryer).  But Mike swore up and down, no more credit cards, and then HE gets himself a new one that we do not need!

Mike did not tell me of this new credit card, not until we finally met up at Legal Sea Foods, and not until after I had a Sam Adams Noble Pils in me.  The fact that Legal had Noble Pils on tap, in addition to the BE Boutique, were the only really good parts of this maul trip.

I didn’t ream him a new one over it, but I did demand that once the first bill came, that he hand it over to me so I could set up payment through our bank’s website.  I reminded him that the last time he tried to mail a check to Sears/Shittibank, they managed to *lose* it, and hit us up with a hefty late fee.  When I tried setting up bill pay on the Sears/Shittibank website, they let me pay the bill ONCE.  Then it never let me log in again.  That was when I set up online bill pay via our bank; after that, we never got hit with a late fee from anyone, ever again.  Our bank will cover our asses if a payee claims we didn’t pay.  Neener, neener, neener, Shittibank.  But WHY Mike agreed to another Shittibank card is beyond me, especially since he swore he never would.  This is what I get for leaving him alone in a maul for even five minutes, I suppose.  Next time, his ass gets dragged to the BE Boutique with me!

I guess there is one good thing about his getting instantly approved for another credit card…that means we might have a better chance now of getting approved for a mortgage to buy a house and get the hell out of this dump town.  Our credit sucked big fat hairy smelly donkey ‘nads for years, thanks to all of that Evil Bossman shit.  I guess it’s finally gotten better now; maybe it’s time to start looking at houses again.  Maine may not be realistic now, since Mike still has to work, but New Hampshire could be realistic.  But no way in hell will I agree to buy a house in Massachusetts.

Anyhoo…my panic attack came about after we ate at Legal Sea Foods…we’d forgotten the stupid shower curtain liners that only Sears has…the nice thick, cat-proof ones, that is…so we went back to Sears to get them.  As we were entering Sears, it started…I told Mike that I had to sit down, I was dizzy, light-headed, and was afraid I’d have to go to the hospital.  It had nothing to do with the two beers I’d had…in fact, if I’d been able to have a third, I may have been better off.  That’s how much I hate the maul, there is only so much I can take without some sort of medication.   So I sat down at a nearby chair, popped an Ativan, and waited to calm down, while he went to buy the stupid shower curtain liners.  By the time he came back, I was fine, and then we left the hellhole that is the maul, and went grocery shopping.  Fortunately, it was getting late, and Market Basket was pretty quiet and asshole-free.  And the liquor store next door had Sam Noble Pils, which brought much happiness.  Damn, but that is some wicked good beer!

I still didn’t get my needed underwear and socks.  Mike didn’t find the handkerchiefs he’d been looking for, either.  Maybe we’ll just go to that fancy French department store, Tar-jhay, to look for some.  Target is much less stressful than any maul.  Srsly.

NOT!  Tomorrow, we have plans to hit the hellhole that is known as The Maul.  No, that is not a typo, I spell MALL as MAUL on purpose, because that is usually what happens when we go there.  We get mauled by crowds of idiots.

We need to hit Sears, because Mike says he needs new underwear, that’s where he always gets it.  I also could use new underwear, and socks, as well…I’ve been tossing out the holey ones a lot lately, and it’s time to replace them.  I’m not a sock aficionado or anything, I just buy plain old men’s white tube socks.

And then I thought of other things we need from Sears.  Shower curtain liners.  For some reason, only Sears has shower curtain liners that are strong enough to withstand the abuse of cat claws.  Still, eventually, they need to be replaced, and we’re out of replacements.  So if we pick up a couple more tomorrow, that should take us through most of the year.

And cooktop cleaner.  We have this stove, and it came with a sample of  a cooktop cleaner.  It worked really well, but now the sample size bottle is almost gone, and I want more; however they only sell it at Sears because it’s the Kenmore brand.  So we’ll pick up a couple of bottles, once again, to take us through the year, and avoid further trips to the hellhole that is known as The Maul.

Mike was just figuring we’d go to the closest maul to us, the Square One Maul.  I nixed this idea, because this particular maul doesn’t have a full-service restaurant within, one that serves beer.  Sorry, but no beer, no maul.  The maul is so horrible, I NEED beer after putting up with all of the crap there.  Square One has an empty bar/restaurant space, but it’s not had a tenant in years.  Only food option there is the food court, which is one of the inner circles of hell, as it is full of surly teenagers and screaming little kids.  No thanks.  I want my BEER!

I figure if we HAVE to go to a maul, it had better be worth my while.  So we’re going to the Burlington Maul.  Not only does it have restaurants that serve beer, but there is also a Sephora and a Bare Escentuals Boutique, things that Square One sorely lacks.  I’ll be hitting the BE Boutique, for sure, as I need some stuph from there.  Plus, it gives me something to do, while Mike takes forever just to pick out a package of underwear.  Srsly.

I think we’ll eat at the Legal Sea Foods there, we haven’t been in a while.  Nomnomnomnom…

I think that’s about it…we won’t be hitting any electronics stores, looking for a playstation 3 or anything. We can get better deals online for stuph like that, anyway.

I’d much rather be going to a ball game, a living history museum, or a beer festival, but none of that is going on now…okay, the living history museums are open, but it is COLD!  So we do the boring, necessary crap when it’s cold and nothing else is going on…and wait for spring, when the FUN begins!

I wish to once again express my gratitude to all of the computer geeks out there who start their own blogs and websites to help other users out.  As I said before, owners’ manuals are often useless, so I’m glad to be able to do searches and find other users who can help me.

This time, I was looking for help with this Netbook Mate Docking Station thingy that I finally got today.  It seems like forever since I ordered it, due to FedEx delays due to storms, and then Mike not being in the Massachusetts office of his work until today, to bring it home for me.  The thing was actually delivered on Saturday; yeah, we COULD have gone to his office then to get it, but we were too busy with that PawSox thing.  Although the office is officially closed, he has a key card to get in.  And then, he had to go to Rhode Island on Monday for the boring meeting, so he didn’t bring it home until today.

I wanted the thing for my netbook, so that I could have more storage space and an optical drive, so we can watch DVDs when traveling, install software on the thing, etc.  But once he brought it home, I opened it up, connected it to the netbook, and then popped in a DVD to test it out.  The netbook did recognize the presence of the external drive, but it would not play the DVD.

Once again, the owners’ manual was useless.  I wondered if perhaps the thing was not compatible with  a Linux operating system, but it’s a plug & play thing, connected with a USB cord.  And dammit, it says right on the box that it’s compatible with Windoze, Mac, and Linux!

So, before getting pissed off enough to pack the thing up and return it, I did a search online for help.  I actually found an entire site, complete with a wiki, for users of the Asus Eee PC, which is what my netbook is.

What I learned was that the media player that comes with the Linux based Asus netbooks will not play most DVDs on any external drive, due to some stupid licensing crap.  But there is a downloadable solution, and when I tried it, it worked.  I don’t know why it had to be such a pain to figure out how to play a DVD on this thing in the first place, you’d think it was one of those complicated home security systems or something. Would it have killed them to mention this in the stupid manual?

I don’t know if I’d really have sent the thing back, anyway.  It also has a 160 GB removable hard drive, and I was pleased to see that it can be connected to ANY computer with a USB cable.  That’s certainly added value.  So I’m happy.  And I’m happy I ordered it when I did…it’s more expensive now, and the rebate offer is gone.  Now I just have to remember to send in the rebate form!

So then I was going to buy a case that would hold the netbook, the docking station, the power cords, mouse, etc.  But then Mike told me that I could have part of his major award.  Said “major award” was his choice of anything out of a catalog provided for employee service awards.  He picked out a wheely suitcase that is very similar to mine, and it came with a bag that is about the size of a laptop case.  He already has a case for his work laptop, and he said he didn’t need it for anything else…so he reminded me of its existence and said that I could have it.  Fine with me!

New toys are fun!