word!

I have always had a special place in my heart for Corvairs. Ever since I was a lil’ un, we had a ’61 Corvair 95 as our piggy truck (Namely for hauling lil’ piggies to market, but that’s another nursery rhyme.)

For those without a clue, Corvairs are wierd ducks in the vehicle world. Both the cars and trucks have their motors in the ‘trunk’ area. These motors were 6 cylinder, in 3 flat, with an aluminum block and air cooled. The trucks were more so unique that they had a ramp on the side to load them, with the engine beneath the truck’s bed.

Unfortunately, Ralph Nader detested the fact that Corvairs were somewhat unsafe vehicles, mainly due to the way they often lost control when roads were wet and the disproportionately heavier back end would start going it’s own way, leading to some nasty crashes. But by doing so, Ralph launched himself to national prominence as a safety crusader and never looked back.

But to see running one is a thing of beauty. Unfortunately, ours died after a repair mishap and hasn’t run since, dispite an extensive attempt to try to revive it in 1998. So, I’ve been scouring the internet and eBay, hoping to find something. But they are becoming a cool antique to have I think.

Just today I saw D12/Eminem’s video for ‘My Band’ with a Corvan in it. I’ve seen the Spice Girls with a Corvair 95 in one of their vids, but the name escapes me. Also them boys from Everclear have a video where they play a song from the back of a Corvair 95 pickup as well.

It’s a knack I have for recognizing such a odd duck at the wierdest places you could find it. But it’s the search that’s half the fun!

I’ve been spending a few years on the internet now and in that time have been using online auction houses with little trouble. It’s easy to see why people love eBay, because you can buy anything on it. I’ve boughten many things on it and have even bought my first computer and two monitors from it’s electronic competitor Ubid. So I was prepared to buy my brother his first computer after such good, solid experiences. But what happened next made me doubt the auction houses themselves.

In the end of October 2001, I found a decent price on a computer that was decent for the money. So I bid and eventually won. Little did I know that at this time Ubid was implementing a new processing system. So after one week of no action with regards to my winning bid, I tried contacting them. I emailed, called and wrote letters in the next month and a half, but to little avail. The emails would only be auto responsed or vaguely worded that they were working on processing my order immediately. Phone calls were a little better, I could at least get to a person, but the messages they gave me were as vague as the emails, yes they were experiencing problems and things would be resolved shortly. But after a time, their phones were DISCONNECTED! (Due to the customer’s overwhelming outrage with their bumbling of this system) Letters were sent but never responded to.

After the middle of December, it looked like they wouldn’t even start to dig themselves out of this mess by Christmas, dispite the fact that Ubid still continued to operate at full scale and with full auction listings. I called after the holidays, in early January 02, to try to finally get this resolved. By that time I had bought a great computer pre-built to our specs from iBUYPOWER .

I finally got a hold of someone that could resubmit my winning bid, yes, a whole 2 months after the bid had won the auction! But this was after I was told I should have just canceled my order. Within the next week, I finally recieved the beige box that I had worked so hard for.

But Ubid still wanted payment. Having used a credit card for payment through Ubid, I at least had some options. I first cancelled the orders on my end, eleviating actually paying for something I didn’t recieve, especially in regards to their user policy. I also wrote to the Better Business Bureau about this erroroneous situation,due to the fact that the BBB logo was prominently displayed numerous times on Ubid’s website. Through all this, Ubid only offered a $50 forgiveness on the computer and free shipping, but only if I accepted that they hadn’t erred.

Excuse me? After 2 months of waiting and constant correspondence on my part, that’s all they could do? Forget it. I continued to balk at their attempts to retrieve payment for something they erred on and wouldn’t stand behind. So without a paid credit card billing, they’re the ones out a computer, not me.

But to add insult to injury, the disputed computer was pretty much a lemon. The modem, DVD drive, fan, power button and hard drive have all failed and have been replaced since it was acquired. Sure glad I didn’t pay a cent for it, because it wasn’t worth it. At least my sister has something to bang out an email on now. And I hope it makes it the rest of the school year without me having to fix something else! GOOD RIDDANCE!

It seems that whenever I pick up a magazine of any sort lately within 5-10 minutes of reading an article or excerpt on someone, the TV is highlighting that certain someone again. The questions are eerily the same and lately it seems that these famous someones just keep rehashing the same stories about their life and what brought them into the limelight recently.

I think it’s insulting to always repeat known information to the same audiences, say 3-4 times. But some people just get paid millions to rehash the same drab existence that the media claims is compelling.

Maybe it’s just the celebrity entertainment worship in this country that’s getting out of hand and boring. Heck, they even hype reruns of FRIENDS as the greatest episodes ever! I don’t think so, I’ve already watched them and read about them and heard all the cute, little stories ‘behind the scenes’.

Enough already!
weiter lesen …

I find it amusing that in the age of computers and the internet, people are scared of the basic technology that can make their life easier. Within the past few years numerous tasks that usually involved standing in a long line for obscene amounts of time have been computerized or have been moved inpart online. No more needing to be insulted by the hooligans at the DMV for their own ignorance and stupidity, you can cuss at your computer in the sancity of your own home for problems it causes you.

As for banking online, is it too scary to consider using the internet as a banking tool either? I’ve been banking online for some five years now and have yet to have the same type of problems I’ve encountered with the local banks I’ve previously done business with. Sure it may be more ‘self-service’ but how long has it been since a bank teller smiled or said hi to me lately with it feeling forced or offered me some helpful financial advice without charging me for what I already know. Plus the depositor must always play the time game with all the local entities that are never open when you could actually need them to be. Heck, banks and credit card companies have been electronically communicating to each other for years, what difference is it if they push around the ones and zeros instead of the person whose money it really is?

It’s a shame that some that understand the technology cry wolf because someone they know may have been ripped off because they have any ‘only online’ credit card and that damn internet defrauded them on some seedy site they probably shouldn’t be looking at anyway. These mavens think it’s their God-given right to scare away those that might be curious to be accessing their own information, thus confirming all the unfounded claims of those who are scared to embrace new technology.

I will defer some people are ignorant or unwilling to change due to age, but it really makes you wonder how these people can function in a world today that if was without electricity, they would litterally default into chaos.

A day that happens every four years. Odd, definitely odd. I suppose with a dumb trip around the sun being some 365.24 or so odd days, something goofy was bound to happen. Those crazy Romans created this screwy calender we use and then for some odd reason someone moved the beginning of the year back to the first of January, when March 1st signaled the start of spring and the planting season. Wierd huh?

What about all those poor bastards that are born that day. When the rest of their friends are age 8, are they only 2? I guess they actually get their birthday on the 28th or 1st depending on how they really want it to all play out. I’m up for celebrating this uniquely unique day, but I reckon it’ll fall on deaf ears. Maybe I’ll give the ol’ black book a try and see how this day plays out.