That’s what I’m going to be doing today, for the most part. The new place is great, and I love that it’s not outrageously hot in here. I can actually unpack and move stuff around without feeling all that uncomfortable. I’ve still got a whole lot left to do, unfortunately, but it’s coming along nicely.
The cable situation has been taken care of. There was a bad splitter behind my wall that was preventing things from working right, but the wiring in the building is still not good enough. As a temporary solution, Cox put an amplifier in for me, but things are still marginal. I do at least get all the digital cable channels now, but some of them go pixelated from time to time. Sometime in the next two weeks, they’re gonna be rewiring my apartment, and then eventually the whole building, all because of what I started.
Tomorrow, I’m going to the last Dodgers home game of the season, with Roughy and his wife, and then not going to the Emmys. The game’s at 1:10, and we want to go to batting practice, which means I get to leave Santa Barbara around 8am for it. There aren’t many things that’ll get me up that early on a Sunday morning.
Well, I should get back to unpacking now…
Just for fun, I decided to try connecting my cable modem to the line that the cable guy said wouldn’t work. I was getting some, but not all, of the digital cable channels, so I figured maybe the internet service would come through as well. And it does, though I get about 1% packet loss on it. I don’t really notice that while I’m using, though, and file transfer speeds were good.
I’m still going to talk to the manager today and tell them the cable company said we need to run another line to my apartment, but at least for the moment, I can deal with this.
Well, I’m in the new apartment now, and just about all of my stuff is moved over here. Most of it is as of yet unpacked, but I’m really in no hurry. I’m not in a rush because I’m no longer certain I’m actually going to stay here. I was told I could get cable modem service here (by management, not Cox) and Cox came today and told me the wiring in the building can’t handle it. So now, I have to wait until Monday to talk to them about getting another line drop or having some rewiring done. The only apartment in this building that has cable modem service is the one on the end, right next to the main cable box outside.
It seems he also has wireless, or someone else around here has both wireless and a cable modem, because I’m online with my cantenna through a cox.net IP address right now.
I also can’t get digital cable right now, and I need my MLB Extra Innings package, so I have to get that, too. Hopefully, they’ll just let the cable company run a nice drop to my apartment, but I don’t know how likely that is. If not, I really don’t think I can stay here. I just signed a one year lease, but that was after I was specifically told that I could get a cable modem here. I just hope I won’t have to take them to court to get out of it.
I got my sample ballot for the recall election in the mail today, and was looking down the list of candidates. First of all, I want to kill whoever had the brilliant idea to not have the names in alphabetical order. They seem to be grouped by letter, but I can’t figure out any pattern other than that. Now on to the candidates themselves… there are the expected ones, Arnold, Gary Coleman, Larry Flynt, (Leo) Gallagher, but then there are some interesting ones. Mostly, just the occupation listed is the interesting part, as that’s the only information there other than name and party.
Some of the candidates listed:
- Ivan A. Hall, Custom Denture Manufacturer
- Joel Britton, Retired Meat Packer
- Mary “Mary Carey” Cook, Adult Film Actress
- William “Bill” S. Chambers, Railroad Switchman/Brakeman
- Ned Roscoe, Cigarette Retailer
- Kurt E. “Tachikaze” Rightmyer, Middleweight Sumo Wrestler
- Michael Jackson, Satellite Project Manager
- Bruce Margolin, Marijuana Legalization Attorney
This whole recall election is insanity. Not that Davis is a good governor, but…
I still have no clue how I’m going to vote.
I called up all my utilities to get them set up to move with me to my new place next week. The gas and electric companies’ activation/transfer fees are reasonable. The cable company seems a bit high, but they do actually have to send someone out to hook things up.
Verizon, though, pisses me off. It’s $46 to “transfer” my service. And by transfer, I mean not let me keep my old number and just flip a switch somewhere to activate the line in the apartment. I’ve been debating calling them back and just cancelling the line altogether. I never call out from my landline, and the only calls I get on it are telemarketers. I do, however, want a phone number other than my cell number to give out to companies that ask for my phone number. I don’t want them to start telemarketing my cell phone.
So, I was looking around for an alternative. One option is to buy a phone from Amazon that is -$99.99 after rebates with service signup. If I sign up for the cheapest plan, the monthly cost is the same as my Verizon bill now, lower activation fee, and I get $100 back. It’s a possibility. It does lock me in for a year, though.
The other option is to get a voicemail box. I came across VoiceNation while Googling for options. They offer a local number in Santa Barbara, the activation fee is a third of Verizon’s, and the monthly fee is half. Plus, telemarketers will always have to leave a voicemail. They’ll also e-mail me when I get a new message, and for another $5/month actually e-mail me the message itself.
So… does anyone have any experience with VoiceNation, and with not having a landline in general? Let me know if I have any other options. There’s that whole comment thing below that you can use…
I saw the Italian Job last night. It wasn’t bad, although I would have been just as happy seeing it on TV instead of in the theater. There was one part of it that bothered me a little bit when it first came up, but by the end, I thought it was pretty funny. The computer guy claimed he really invented Napster, and was Shawn Fanning’s roommate in college. They showed a scene from a dorm room where he was sleeping (napping) at his computer and Fanning steals a disk from it and supposedly stole Napster from him. Later in the movie, he wants to be known as “The Napster”. By the end of the movie, it didn’t bother me at all, and then when I saw the credits, it was all worth it. Worth it because Shawn Fanning played himself in that scene. For some reason, I just think that’s really cool.
They’re back. I was hoping to miss them this year. At least I’m getting out of here soon.
It hardly seems like a year ago that I started this thing, but that’s when it happened. Of course, at that time, it was still called alanpenner.com.
I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for a year. This will be the 122nd entry, which means on average one every three days. I guess that’s not too bad.
Everyone should go congratulate Jon for passing! Unfortunately, you have to create a Xanga account to leave a comment.
I’m gonna go finish watching the Mets lose to the Phillies now…
I posted something about this a while back. I feel like posting it again.
My terror level page is the first result on Google when you search for terror alert. It comes up ahead of the Dept. of Homeland Security.
That page is also the second result when you search for just the word terror. The second result, for a single word that’s all over the place these days. That’s just nuts.
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