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Forget everything I said in last season's ''Highlights'' about the unanticipated ramifications befalling this illegal, corrupt presidential regime -- despite all the bad publicity & backlash, it all gets rapidly forgotten and it regresses back into ''Business As Usual.''
The asshole whom I reported for throwing his rubbish and other items out of his apartment window had seemed to cease for a while, but is now back at it, this time resulting in contributing to the monster-sized rip in my motorcycle cover, so I showed our security officer the damage and what caused it and asked him to file another report. As expected, no resulting action.
And for some very inexplicable reason my apartment has very recently been becoming the central location for a problematic cockroach invasion -- despite spraying practically everywhere almost on a daily for weeks now! Part of it is slipping in through the gaps between my apartment door & frame from the outside hallway from one of the other apartments, as evidenced by the recently frequent presence of their disgusting corpses and occasional live scamperings out there (though I cannot be certain if it is the one next door to mine or the vacated one across from us, though it seems evident that they are coming from that end of the hallway), but I have also been finding them frequently appearing in my bathroom, and despite having plugged over every possible hole & crack they might be using as an entry point they still show up there and I cannot for the life of me figure out just where the hell they are coming from or how they are getting in there. Also, don't believe that garbage about a bug spray's supposed ability to ''keep killing up to four weeks'' or some such nonsense -- what it means is if the affected roach is not killed instantly by coming into contact with said chemical spray it will keep killing that roach ''for up to however-many weeks'' until the cursed thing finally gives in and dies.
I've also been coming to the realization that the main reason for my delay in setting up the Hewlett Packard as my primary computer is due my trying to free up hard disk space on the G3 iMac in order to copy files over from the G4, which exceeds the G3's remaining capacity to accept them all. So I suppose my only solution to the problem is to copy all my multimedia files and archived webpages to CD-R, transfer the data over to the HP, then clean out the redundant files on the G3 and use the data discs to access them again on that machine if need be.
Unmentioned Highlights From Previous Quarter
March 1, 2006 (Wednesday)
Yesterday morning, taking a traveling route toward one of the freeway on-ramps to the main center of the city from Honolulu's ''Kaimuki'' district, still very near the ''Kapiolani Community College'' campus, some pick-up driving asshole deciding not to use his/her headlamps on a dark morning nearly caused the truck turning left in front of me to slam into it -- then this morning, in the same part of town, again close to the college campus, on a different route to an alternate town-bound freeway ramp, some prick in a Jeep decided (s)he wanted to completely ignore me traveling on the main stretch of road by making a left turn which seemed less like turning onto the same road in the same direction in front of me and more like turning onto the road on top of me! I wonder if the gasoline prices are setting people on edge so much that it is affecting their judgment out on the road?
I didn't really think she'd do it, but my mother actually followed through with my half-serious request to send ''apple butter'' (something Hawaii is not all that familiar with) when I told her that I had immediately begun getting cravings for it when radio talk host Mike Malloy (who broadcasts his Air America Radio program from Atlanta) made passing mention of it in one of his remarks about something else entirely.
Have to place a reorder for the DVD movie ''Tyakushin Ari 2'' after having discovered that the Korean edition I ordered comes only with ''Korean'' and ''Japanese'' subtitles, and I'm no longer certain if the website had originally mentioned that ''English'' subs were part of the package... if so, then they have since made that correction on their webpage info. Of course, if I can ever get myself to focus on trying to learn the language with any degree of sincerity, the day will come when I should not have to rely so heavily on subtitles.
20:55, Hawaii Standard Time.
March 7, 2006 (Tuesday)
Yesterday morning I had to contact the HP ''Help and Support'' Center to clear up whatever was preventing me from accessing ''secure'' web pages, but I wound up calling three different times in a row because each time it sounded as if I had been re-routed to Bangladesh or something because I kept getting ''representatives'' with such thick and heavy accents that I could barely understand them, and so each time I revolted by refusing to continue conversing with them. After the third time I decided to use the ''live chat'' feature, which was a tedious pain in and of itself, but after supplying all of the pertinent information of what was not working properly the 'chat screen' blanked out and would no longer function properly, so after about 20 minutes of nothing I took a chance on making a fourth (and hopefully final) phone support call. Fortunately, this time, I either got connected with either an American female or another one of those Indians/Bangladeshis/whatever who managed to master the ability to mimic a white female flawlessly. After explaining my situation to her and having her walk me through typing in some ''regsvc_.dll'' commands she asked me to restart the computer, which again resulted in another one of its temper tantrums and refusal to properly shut down. As I explained to her that I had been having this problem recently she suggested that it might be the result of spyware. Though I assured her that my antivirus program was always functioning and full system scans twice a week revealed no infections, she still recommended that I try a system scan by a site called ''Trend Micro,'' since it can sometimes pick up things that the antivirus software I was using cannot.
Running the program when I did last night wound up making me late for work, since I had no idea the scan would take as long as it did, but it did come up with a ''trojan'' infection that ''could not be cleaned,'' so I had to wait 'til this morning when I ran another scan with the program. The trojan came up as an infection again, and again it could not be removed. I followed with a scan with my antivirus program and it still claims to detect a clean system. So I sent an email to the ''Trend Micro'' folks to get some additional insight into the matter, since their site was able to ''identify'' the infecting malware, but claimed to have no ''information'' on it.
20:55, Hawaii Standard Time.
March 14, 2006 (Tuesday)
Contacted my local insurance agent to inquire about why the premiums on my motorcycle reverted back to the originally quoted price rather than the adjusted lower rate I received when we called national from the local agent's office. We think we figured it out and it might be cleared up so that I may still be good for the downward adjusted rate.
Related somewhat, I finally decided to set up an appointment to do the next scheduled servicing on the ''Dark Princess'' -- and the Suzuki shop assured me that due to all the rain we've been having throughout these last couple of weeks that I could pretty much bring the motorcycle in anytime and they'd be able to take care of it.
I also called the office to get information on how to go about using this private (for profit) ''employer-provided'' health insurance that I've not used since accepting it, in order to make arrangements to get my eyes examined for ''health'' updates and to get a stronger lens prescription for my left eye which does not ''see ghosts'' (inside joke).
18:00, Hawaii Standard Time.
March 26, 2006 (Sunday)
Was finally able to determine earlier this week what the ''soapy residue'' type taste was that I've been detecting in my food for the last couple of weeks, which I originally suspected was from film being left over on my cooking pans (even after I had ceased to use dish soap to wash them out) -- it turned out to be from all that spraying for these cocksucking cockroaches that have been invading me, and the chemicals were seeping through the ramen noodle packages! Fortunately, I never got (noticeably) sick from consuming any of it, though there's no telling what potential ''long-term'' effects may be down the road.
Also set an appointment the same day to have my eyes re-examined. I had initially intended to have the hospital I used to visit and where I had my major eye surgery performed when I was originally on the State-funded ''QUEST'' health plan to handle my visit (since I can no longer afford a plan with the ''non-profit'' Kaiser Permanente, thanks to our company switching over to the ''for profit'' Summerlin plan), but they first could not get me scheduled with the ophthalmologist until May, then managed to get me bumped up for a regular exam in mid-April, which was still too late for me (my left eye is talking to me fiercely, and it's yelling 'desperate wake-up call!' -- so I contacted the private practitioner who had actually performed the surgical procedures alluded to, and got an appointment set with him for March 27.
Spent horrendous amounts of time over the last few days trying to find downloadable files of the last few bits of music I really wanted to add to my personal MP3 collection that either did not require registering with some sites or dealing with some online 'plug-in' or helper application that did not restrict any particular if not every Macintosh OS! (...And the ''Mac'' freaks are wondering why anyone would want to abandon the ''Macintosh'' operating system for ''Windows.'') For all of my efforts, there are still about a half-dozen songs left that I really want badly which I'm having trouble acquiring, one in particular by Ce Ce Peniston -- I'd like to have all my audio files accumulated all together before I begin the process of transferring all my important files over to the ''HP.'' Also took time out to clean up a sizable portion of my DVD cover art images on my ''Movie Library'' pages.
Then there's the problem with my job. It's another of those situations where there's no communication and tensions fly (especially when somebody's trying to throw more responsibility on my back that's different from what I've been in the practice of doing and for which I'd not received any ''valid'' updated information confirming that such adjustments had indeed been made. And, as is always the result, none of my supposed ''superiors'' take too keenly to my refusal to buckle unquestioningly in the absence of such verifications, so they've decided they wanted to ''lay down the law'' with me by telling me to pretty much do WHATEVER ''anybody'' who is an ''official'' part of campus employment-- no matter how major or menial his/her position --regardless of whether it's right/wrong or in the ''S.O.P.'' or not, and NOT give anybody any lip about it, period, or they'll have me replaced... regardless of the fact that at this point I have pretty much assumed the lead in the game as their top worker out there. Okay.... Whatever.
((Previous Week In Review))
March 31, 2006 (Friday)
Ran around all morning in the constant heavy downpour and flooding roads to get my eyeglasses prescription filled ''at the last minute,'' but the young woman who handled my order informed me that if I delayed placing the order until Sunday that I would qualify for a ''buy one, get one free'' promotion -- which I thought I was already doing under their current ''50% off'' promotion with my selection of a pair of similarly priced frames with the same type of lenses and the same prescription, but the ''B.O.G.O.F.'' offer gave me a better price? (How's that for ''fuzzy math''? Go figure.)
Prior to this errand I rode out to the company office to ask for a radical adjustment in my regular scheduling, mainly in hopes of avoiding having to encounter that asshole who may wind up making me forget (or worse yet, making me remember) who and what I am. I'll be utterly amazed if they can work it out per my specific request.
After all of my stuff was finally completed in & throughout the unrelenting rain, almost no sooner did I push the motorcycle back into our apartment building courtyard that all that water stopped falling out of the sky! My rainsuit kept me protected for the most part, but I got ''duckfeet'' like I don't know what all.
* P.S. - Happy 2nd Anniversary, ''Air America Radio''! *
16:00, Hawaii Standard Time.
April 19, 2006 (Wednesday)
YESSSSS!!!!!!!! I just saw the blurb posted at BartCop -- which I'd initially thought was a joke, so I followed the link to the Associated Press story posted at ''Yahoo News,'' and true enough ... first, it was White House ''spokesgeek'' Ari Fleischer who couldn't continue to lie on behalf of this corrupt & amoral criminal enterprise known as the ''Bush Administration,'' now, FINALLY, ''Simple Scott'' (''Scotty the Duck'') McClellan (that shameful excuse for an Irishman) has at last had the good sense to call it quits! (About stinkin' time! Now I'll only have to deal with Bush's irritating voice to cause me to choke on my tuna fish. But unlike Jeff Gannon's boyfriend, I can at least laugh at Bush whenever he opens his mouth.)
So now there's an even greater cloud of blood spreading throughout the sea of this presidency... you think this means that the White House Press Corps, the news media at large, or the ''Democrats'' will finally grow a spine and go into ''feeding frenzy'' mode? You're joking, right? No, I mean REALLY... what are you smoking if you honestly and truly believe THAT? Look at the track record! End of discussion. Even so, it's nice just watching this criminal organization implode, even if nobody's really paying that much attention to it or taking their cue from it.
16:30, Hawaii Standard Time.
April 21, 2006 (Friday)
Finally went to pick up my new eyeglasses -- a week late ... and the prescription is still wrong!
I've been using Alta Vista to find many of the remaining ''X Minus One'' radio dramas I wanted as well as almost completing my music files selections which either the Google search engine would not alert me to or for which I tired of waiting at random for Pandora to shuffle up through its playlists. If everything checks out, I'll begin transferring all of my personal files over to the Windows PC before the end of next week.
20:25, Hawaii Standard Time.
April 28, 2006 (Friday)
Attended a follow-up visit with the ophthalmologist to try figuring out the situation with my left eye -- seems that the blurring/ghosting effects which are causing my left eye to fall out of sync with the vision in my right eye is due to a developing cataract and that there is not much outside of surgery to correct it, so I guess I live with the problem for the time being.
I'm still in the process of trying to restore my preferences and whatnot in the ''Windows'' OS machine. That's right... no sooner than I get all ''cocky'' and spouting off about how close I was to officially ''making the switch-over'' that the bastard machine greeted me Sunday night after work with an 'auto-startup' screen with an ''error'' display telling me that it could not start properly due to a software issue. So after failing my own attempts to bypass the ''sorry, sucker'' screen and achieve full start-up, I wound up having again to call the 'tech support' wage slaves in ''INDIA'' (because American corporations think American workers are not deserving of handling American callers) which upset me even more that ''Raji'' and ''Kamala'' are being ''trained'' to identify themselves as ''Jack'' and ''John'' or wateverdaphuk! (I'm really beginning to hate America for, if for nothing else, it's corporate hypocrisy!) Anyway, I was told what I had pretty much expected them to tell me anyway, and I was reduced to having to completely scrub & reinstall my factory-installed OS. Fortunately, I only had to lose a few downloaded programs like alternate web browsers, media players and whatnot: I had no unrecoverable ''personal files'' that had to get lost in the madness. For all the hassle I have to endure, one semi-good thing resulted from the crash sinister in that it resulted in giving me a little bit of an extension on my ''free'' internet security trial period.
19:30, Hawaii Standard Time.
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