Survivor and more!

I love reality shows. Hold up, I love "reality" shows. We all know most of these shows are as much about reality as pro wrestling is the real deal. Does that make sense? Whateve, you know what I mean. I'm guessing it's about 60% real. I'm watching the current season of Survior and I'm really rooting for Team Awesome (Kota). The reason I bring this up is because I follow the recap of the show from TWoP, written by my new best friend Sara. She who I've never met, has never met me (far as I know) or even knows I exist. But that's o.k., we don't have to know each other. I really just love reading her recaps and blog. But there is one flaw in my new BFF. She's rooting for Team Not-So-Awesome (Fang) and also thinks that Jeff (TV Host) is against them and is only assisting with their downfall. That may be true. But in my defense (because somebody is attacking me right?), I've been cheering for Kota from day one. I think I'll do my own recap of the show. Kota won both challenges, Sugar went to Exile Pond and Ace got the boot. If I know one thing about Sara, she's as happy as I am about that. Oh, and the look on Mattys face was priceless. Like, banana: .50. green ball on my work desk: 1.00. Matty after he knows his only pal was duped by his fake girlfriend: priceless. Oh, and Dan who my wife thinks looks like Nick Lachey, also got the boot in a surprise double eviction! On a side note, Bob is awesome. I'm also a hockey face. The Wild lost last night 2-1, bummer. ha! I really meant to say hockey fan, but somehow typed out face. I'm keeping it there, my simple giggle for the day. Once my work day gets jumpin' there won't be many more. Undress and Possess

Where are my dollars going?

The dreaded pledge drive is in full force this week on Minnesota Public Radio. They are really hurting this time, the hosts are practically falling out the their chairs trying to get you to pledge. Maybe they should start adopting Howard Stern type stunts. Like maybe Gary Eichten can juggle midgets if we contribute just $10 a month!

Anyways, the point of all this is...I was listening to the radio and one of the programs was being sponsored by PBS. How weird is that? So, if I gave money to PBS, am I really supporting PBS or MPR?

I bested Best Buy

Don’t expect an entry this long very often. My life usually doesn’t lend its self to such tale very often.

My wife H (yeah, that’s her name, not legally, but most refer to her as such) had been meaning to clean out the inside of her camera. Took the lens off and started puffing air around using one of those baby nose mucus things. She then had the bright idea to clean the plastic part that helps you focus and frame your shot through the viewfinder. We took that piece out to get the few fuzzes and hairs that have gotten in there through the last couple of years. First of all, she couldn’t get it 100% clean. It would either have streaks on it, or water spots would show if we tried to let it air dry. After about 15 minutes, she got it to “good enough.” She gave the piece to me to put back in the camera. I end up dirtying it up again, and also made a good couple of scratches on it. That was bad.

H is now upset with the whole situation, questioning why she even started to clean it in the first place. We have the warranty on it, which also includes accidental drop coverage. Per the Best Buy website: We don't fix it—we replace it. I take it to Best Buy and speak to the folks there. They don’t want to replace it for me, they want to send it in for a repair, and it would be out for 3 weeks. That’s no good. H has two shoots lined up. So I take the camera over to a camera repair shop and they tell me that it would cost $250+ to fix the little plastic piece. Mind you that the newest model of this camera is only $799.

I tell H the news and she says that she’ll live with the scratches for the next two shoots then bring it in to Best Buy.

It’s about 6:30p now and H is off to her father’s 50^th birthday party. I get this great idea to try and take apart her camera, so I can damage it from the inside. I only plan to “damage” it in such a manner that I can fix it if my scheme doesn’t work. Unplug a few wires or something like that. I work at this for about 45 minutes. I can’t get all the screws off, and everything else looks like its pretty solid. No getting into it with out really breaking it.

I now know what I must do. I have to actually break this camera, so that is shows physical damage. I take a moment to syke myself up. I get dressed into my normal out-of-the-house wear and head down to my apartment parking lot. I stand by my car, trying to build up the courage to drop the camera. That takes about 10 minutes. I try and I try to let it drop out of my hand but I keep asking myself, what am I going to do if this doesn’t work. What happens if Best Buy doesn’t replace it for me on the spot? First, I would be a dead man. Second, I would never be able to live this down. I would be the worst person who ever lived. Then it happens. It falls out of my hand and lands on the asphalt. But it doesn’t break. I mean there are some nice gouges in the plastic case, but no broken parts inside. I guess that makes sense, these digital camera don’t have many moving parts, and I didn’t have the lens on. The hard part is over. I drop it a few more time and still nothing. I then take it and just start smashing it on the ground. The plastic lens that started all of this pops out but that’s about it. I decided to keep that part as a souvenir.

I think it looks pretty beat up now. As I head on over to Best Buy, I’m rocking out to my music, using the camera as a club to hit along with the beat. My heart is racing because I still can’t believe what I just did, and still wondering if I’m going to be able to pull this off. On my way there, I feel that it looks like it’s still just a few scratches. So I pull into a parking lot near Best Buy and look for something in my car that I can inflict further damage. I find my windshield scraper. That will do. I take the end of it (end of the handle, not the scraper) and just start jamming it into the digital screen that’s on the back. A couple of blows later the screen cracks. Success!

I walk on over to the Geek Squad desk and tell them “You gotta help me out guy, I was fucking around with my wife’s camera and when I was changing the lens, I dropped it from our third floor apartment. I need this fix tonight because she has a shoot tomorrow.” The Geek kid had this look on his face like he’s been there before. He started going into his speech about sending it out for repair. I thought I was fucked at this moment. I tell him that I talked to Best Buy customer service at their 1-800 number. 1-800 lady said that you would do this for me tonight. (Not true, she said it was up to the tech at the store, but he didn’t have to know that part). He’s like, “Oh you did? Why don’t you talk to our customer service people?” So I walk around the other side and tell them the same story. Poor kid there has no idea what to do. He gets a supervisor over to help out. She starts in with the repair speech and to send him over to Geek Squad. I step in here and say I’ve all ready spoke to them, they sent me here. I’m also stressing that I have the accidental drop coverage. I then bring up the talk I had with 1-800 lady. She starts talking to a supervisor for the Geeks. She then starts talking about getting a comparable SKU. I think my luck is picking up! She asks if I have the accessories and the lens. There’s only one reason why she would be asking for that right?! I head out to my car to get the other things. As I get back into the store, I see the box for the new camera. I’m super giddy at this point. I can’t believe I pulled this off.

I head on home, with the new camera. Open it up and put it in her camera bag. She calls me on her return home from the party. She’s going on and on about how much it’s going to suck with a scratched up viewfinder. It was hard not to tell her what I did.

She gets home and I tell her that I think I fixed her camera. She opens up her bag to find the new camera. She wonders how in the hell I did that. I told her “I beat the shit out of your camera.” She wants to throw up. She was telling me to stop telling her all of what I did. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to scold me, or hug me for getting the new toy in the manner that I did. I’m now a superstar in the house. I wonder how long I can ride this out?

The only thing I regret is that I didn’t take any pictures of the beat up camera.

The meaning of all this

O.k...so I decided that I'm a blogger. As of right now, this is just a test blog. Questions I'm hoping to answer with this are:

• Do I have enough to say each time I post to keep even myself interested in continuing the blog
• Does anybody else care? (I have the answer to this one, hoping for a surprise!)
• Can I keep up with it. As in, can I promise myself that I can post to this on a somewhat regular basis.

If I can answer these questions with a positive, I'll keep it going. If not BELETED! (not a typo, Strongbad, google it).

Special Moments

What to do when I'm bored...

My life is a bore, and not very interesting...so I think I'll just start making things up. Such as, I own 4 cars, all driven by my flock of geese.