What A Fucking Waste Of Time

Ran out of talent

Posted on April 6, 2008, by wafwot, under General.

I went to Bellevue yesterday (I’ll tell you about that in a minute) and stopped by Krispy Kreme on the way home. Later that day, while feeling the effects from a little help from my friend, Tina and I found this particular donut outrageously comical. The custard filling has to get in the donut somehow, and some of it inevitably drips from the “injector” on withdraw. That leads to jokes about her gay brother, and felching, and other such imagery that’s always so damn funny at moments like that. When a donut is this funny looking, you just have to take a picture of it and turn it into an animated GIF, flashing between the donut and a more vulgar anal leakage image for only a few milliseconds. Who would be the first to notice the subliminal message? But when I saw the results of googling “cum oozing ass hole,” I just couldn’t do it. Not that I find stretched quivering whale eyes dripping with man goo terribly disgusting, NOR… Nor do I find them terribly enjoyable, either! No. I just didn’t want to spend 20 minutes looking at one, forever associating Krispy Kremes with drippy balloon knots of doom for a stupid inebriated giggle about a donut. Beside, I think the picture is funny by itself.

Bellevue, yes. When I bought my new truck., the dealer didn’t have two ignition keys, the 5-digit code to the keyless entry pad on the driver’s door, the remote key fobs, or an owners’ manual. In fact, all they seemed to have was the truck itself and nothing that went with it. Anyway, after emailing the dealer they said they couldn’t find any additional items for my truck. To hell with them. They’re a nice bunch of car salesmen, for what that’s worth, but I can find the shit I need/want for my truck on the Internets. For about $65 total, I bought a manual from helminc.com, two PATS keys from some entrepreneurial locksmith on eBay, a 34-page 2005 F-150 dealer brochure from some entrepreneurial brochure collector on eBay, and five remote key fobs from another entrepreneurial alarm installer on eBay. If you’re wondering, five fobs were cheaper than two — I just have three extras now. The 5-digit code was found on the VSM behind the rear seat, mounted on the back wall of the cab. I found that small tidbit on the forums at F150online.com. It was a 90 minute project to recover that code.

The only thing I still needed the dealer for was my license plates and programming the PATS keys. PATS keys are special keys that have a transponder chip molded into the head of the key. If the truck doesn’t recognize the key, it disables the fuel pump preventing the vehicle from starting. Normally, I would have been able to program my own keys IF I had two working keys. But, since my truck must have been repossessed by the bank, or traded in by a crack whore, I only had the one key and lacked the ability to program my own keys. This is where the dealer comes in.

I drove my truck to Seattle last Thursday, and during lunch drove to the dealer in Bellevue. I picked up my license plates, and asked if they could program the keys so I could save a trip. Some old grizzled salesman overheard my conversation with the kid that sold me the truck. He told us it takes about 45 minutes to download the data in order to program keys. Forty five minutes? Damn! I asked about their Internet connection speed, joking that I could download the entire ECU with a 28.8 kbps modem faster than that. They either didn’t like my humor, or didn’t understand it. Either way, it meant I still had to make the nearly hundred mile drive to Bellevue on Saturday. Excellent.

So, on Saturday, I left the house around 10:30am. I had several errands around town to complete before I could head south, including going to the locksmith to get my PATS keys cut, going to the bank to make my first payment on this truck, and making a deposit at another bank. Finally heading south, I stopped to get the truck washed at the Blue Cow and a tank of gas at the Indian Chevron station — casino Indians, not Slurpee Indians.

Oh my god, something I learned about this truck a few days after I bought it… The first time I filled it up, I had $100 on me. I knew gas was $3.299 a gallon and figured the tank was the standard 27 gallon variety available in 2005. A bit of quick math in my head said no more than $80 in gas (since I was just under a quarter tank) and I could use the change to get the truck washed. Well, I watched as the pump went past $80… then past $90… and I had to stop at $100! What the fuck? How does 30.3 gallons of gas fit into a 27 gallon tank? Remember that 34-page brochure I bought on eBay? It told me there was an optional gas tank available. My truck has that optional 37.5 gallon tank. Sonofabitch! Fill-ups cost me over $120 at today’s gas prices. Back in the days B.A. (Before Asthma), $120 was enough to keep me high at nights for six weeks. Now it only takes me approximately 575 miles. Oh, how being a responsible adult sucks the balls of so many goats.

Anyway, back to my trip to Bellevue. I got the to dealer around 2:00pm. They had me pull into the service bay, and told me it would take 90 minutes. What?! I thought it was 45 minutes! So much that old salesman knows. Fucker. I had a seat in the “lounge.” It consisted of a TV with the channel selector glued to CNN, a coffee maker, a leather couch with a mother and her kid seated on it, a leather chair, and leather love seat. The chair and love seat had been turned into some foreigner’s mobile office. He had his laptop and papers all over the love seat as he was sitting in the chair, talking to someone on a cell phone in some foreign terrorist language. My first thought: “Someone who thinks he’s this important drives a Ford?”

My bladder said, “hey, you haven’t pissed since 9am, empty me!” Being here for hours on end when I bought the truck in February, I knew the toilets were just through a doorway in the lounge. When I returned, the Sultan of Couchoffice was gone, and Mom was going through the motions of gathering her shit. I didn’t get the impression they were together, but maybe. I took a seat in the Sultan’s throne, and read the news via my phone.

Just then, some older gentleman came in from the service bay and took a seat on the couch. He was on the phone, talking to his wife, I’m guessing. He told her they were able to fix the “flasher lights.” It appears he had his vehicle in for repair because his hazard blinkers were broken. Whenever he pressed the hazard button in, the lights came on, but didn’t stay on. Ford “fixed” his problem by showing the old codger that you pull UP on the button to engage the hazard lights. Apparently, this poor bastard didn’t get a manual with his vehicle either. I couldn’t help but laugh! How much did that cost him? When the old man looked at me, I turned my phone to him and pretended that a bus load of kids tipping over on I-94 in Minnesota was something to laugh at. What does he know? He can’t even operate hazard lights! Ha ha!

By 2:50pm, they were done programming my keys and kicked me free. It actually did take them 45 minutes to program those keys. I guess that old salesman did know what he was talking about. Will wonders ever cease? I was northbound on I-405 by 3, and home with dinner in hand before 5. In all, programmed PATS keys was so anti-climatic, and hardly worth all the blog space I’m giving it here.

And if you’re wondering about the title of this update, it a reference to NASCAR. Apparently, when these hillbillies crash their cars into walls or other drivers, and some retired hillbilly racer in a cowboy hat shoves a microphone in their face to find out what happened, their response is, “I ran out of talent.” So, when you wonder why ol’ Jim hasn’t updated his blog in 6 weeks, that’ll be my answer. “I ran out of talent.” Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?

4 Comments

New Truck v2.0

Posted on February 25, 2008, by wafwot, under General.

As you will recall, I recently put a lot of money into repairs and the transmission of my ‘94 F-150, and realized I needed to get out of it before it really shit the bed. So, once again, I spent the better part of a month searching the Internet for just the right truck. I was as indecisive as a drunk nun with an extra set of rosary beads on Fat Tuesday. When I finally settled on what I wanted, it became a delicate balancing act of age, features, mileage, price, want, and need. After an endless amount of running my hands through hair that’s not there, I had narrowed the list down to three trucks.

One thing I learned this time about the process of car shopping — never ever give your phone number to a salesman. Jesus Christ. Every other day I got a phone call from some “saresman dat coudn’t speak goodly engrish.” I was (and probably still will be) getting emails from aggressive salesman that couldn’t wait to get me to commit to a test drive. Time to set up a message filter, I reckon. Damn, that kind of behavior drives me fucking crazy, man. I don’t need you hounding me, like some screaming four year old whining at his mommy for some toy at Wal-Mart. When I worked sales at Radio Shack in a former life back east, I was attentive, but never pressured people.

So, with all the crap cleaned out of my old truck and my three choices in hand, I headed out of town on Saturday. I stopped by Blue Cow car wash in Anacortes and spent twelve dollars to wash my trade in. I was totally amazed at Blue Cow. They gave me a wet paper towel for wiping down the dashboard, and an air freshener to mask the smell of feet and ass funk. When it was my time to go through the wash tunnel, they took the radio antenna off, pre-soaked and brushed the truck with sudsy water. In the tunnel, they used all Rain-X products. I was soaped up twice as brushes and hangy-raggy things danced over the vehicle. Then my undercarriage was washed, I was rinsed, clear-coated, and made spot-free. Near the end, I was blown like I was never blown before. When I exited the other end, a couple of Blue Cow employees wiped me down, removing what little moisture was left… on my truck. I pulled over to the vacuum cleaners, and when I got out, I wondered why I was getting rid of the truck. It looked fantastic! I put the radio antenna back on and vacuumed out all the grass blades and pebbles from the carpet. Simply beautiful. The truck looked better than the day I bought it.

Back in the truck, I fired up TomTom on my phone and headed south. I drove down I-5 to I-405 to Bellevue to look at my first choice. I had my three choices prioritized. I was going to make a “loop” around Lake Washington — down I-405 to Bellevue for my first choice, further down I-405 to Burien for my second choice, then up I-5 to Everett for the final choice. But when I got to Bellevue, my plan didn’t work out.

I got to the Ford dealership in Bellevue at 2:30pm. They were busy as hell there. It was like they were giving away free handjobs with every test drive, or something. Normally when you walk onto a car lot, you’re accosted by salesmen before you can pull your foot back to kick a tire. But the weather was fantastic — sunny and warm — which made for a great day to go car shopping.

After about 10 minutes of walking around, I finally met the salesman I talked to via email. He showed me the truck which was parked at the back of their lot, past all the employee cars and the vehicles in for repair. It hadn’t been washed or detailed, and had a thin layer of dust and dirt on it. You’d think a big time dealership could wash a truck before they toss it online. I think the salesman was a bit embarrassed. But, he gave me the keys and a voucher for $20 worth of gasoline. “You know where the ARCO station is up the street?” I told him, “No. but I’ll find it.” After signing a copy of my driver’s license, he sent me on my way and didn’t expect me back for an hour. I was surprised they would let me take the truck for so long.

I made my way up the street to the ARCO station, but pulled in with the fuel door on the wrong side. I tried turning around, but some snatch in a U-Haul truck pulled up behind me and left no room for me to back up. “Thanks, honey. You bitch.” The place was a tiny inner-city gas station, so I bolted from the ARCO station to make a u-turn somewhere up the street. Heading back, I couldn’t make a left turn back into the gas station (thanks to a median curb) and had to turn around again. This time I was in a Lexus dealership, and I literally laughed at two different salesmen that headed my direction but stopped when they realized I wasn’t slowing down. Like I would ever buy a luxury Toyota. Please!

Anyway, I finally got my twenty bucks worth of gas (at $3.329 a gallon!) and took the truck for a real spin. I drove it up and down the major arteries of Bellevue, romping on the gas when I could and braking quickly. The truck seemed responsive and had a nice, smooth ride. After ten or fifteen minutes of that, I ended up in an empty parking lot of a Banner Bank. I got out and looked at the engine, checked the tires, looked underneath, and made sure the truck looked straight. I got back in, called Tina, and starting playing with all the bells and whistles. I already knew the power seats and power mirrors work before I left the lot. It has a power rear sliding window that I was fucking with that knocked the dealer license plate down. Oops. The heated leather seats work great, and will probably give me a fantastic case of swamp-ass on those really cold mornings. All four power windows roll up and down, and the power locks work, too. I played with the steering wheel controls and fiddled with the radio and climate control. Fantastic! Everything works. I really liked this truck. It was first on my list for a reason; the price was low for a 2005 Lariat trim package, and has less miles than other, older Lariats I saw and was “scheduled” to see that afternoon.

Here’s a long list of cool features this truck has: a 5.4 liter 3v Triton V8 engine, four speed automatic transmission with overdrive, on-the-fly four-wheel drive, four wheel anti-lock power disc brakes, power steering, adjustable pedals, eighteen-inch alloy wheels, two rear suicide doors, AM/FM/CD changer that plays CD-Rs of MP3s, Rhino Linings spray on bed liner, hard tonneau cover, leather power bucket seats with two memory settings, electronic climate control, cruise control, digital compass, mini message center that displays all kinds of cool shit about the truck, tachometer, dual air bags, fog lights, turn signals indicators on the side mirrors, intermittent wipers, electrochromatic rear view mirror, power mirrors, power locks, power windows, power rear slider window, remote keyless entry, tilt steering wheel with radio and climate control buttons, towing package, ultrasonic parking assist so I know when to accelerate over the neighbor’s cat, faux wood trim like an old man’s luxury car, 12V power points, HomeLink which is like a universal remote for garage door openers and RF light switches, and probably a few cool things I know I can’t remember.

I don’t know Bellevue. It was my second time ever in the town, and only had a vague idea where I was after spending time circling the parking lot of that bank. TomTom to the rescue, and in no time I was back on the main road to the dealership. I pulled in and parked in that rear lot where we found the truck. I played around more with the message center — the computer that maintains fuel economy, miles to empty, the trip odometer, the compass, vehicle status, etc. — until the salesman came over.

“So, you like the truck?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“You want to write it up?”
“Yeah, I do.”

Yep. I made him work for that commission. I already had my mind made up on an eleventh generation F-150, and I already decided I wanted a Lariat first, or an XLT second. When I found several candidates online, it was just a matter of making sure the truck was worthy. The other two trucks I was going to see didn’t have a chance when it came time to pull the trigger. There wasn’t any coaxing to be done by the salesman, I was sold.

I had my financing lined up before I left the house, but the salesman gave me some bullshit line about filling out some form that was mandated by the Patriot Act… because we all know that terrorists are financing Ford Focuses, stuffing them full of diesel fuel and fertilizer, and driving them into government buildings. [Ding] “Play artist: ‘Soldiers of Allah‘”

So, I filled out his form and he ran my credit. They didn’t want to use the financing I already had set up, even though all but $699 of the final price after tax, licensing, registration, and documentation would have been paid for. After an hour, the salesman comes over, extends his hand to shake mine, congratulating me on my new truck purchase. When he showed me the offer, I literally laughed. He wanted two grand down, and the monthly payments were almost $600. I told him no fucking way. The financing I brought with me didn’t require any down payment as I would write a check for nearly the entire final price of the truck, and my monthly payments would only be just over $350 a month. The salesman wanted to see this fantastic financing I had, so I showed him. He took the paperwork to his finance manager, and they came back with an offer that exactly matched my pre-approved financing. That’s better! We shook on the deal, and we started the process of filling out all the paperwork.

By this time, I’d been at the dealership for four hours. I sat in the 2008 Shelby and looked at a 2008 F-250 Super Duty that was in the showroom. I went down stairs to their “lounge,” which consisted of a coffeemaker, a bench seat, and a TV tuned to CNN. There was a much-needed restroom in the lounge, too, but watching a repeat of Billary and Osama’s last debate was about as much fun as sticking my cock in a brake disc turning lathe.

Finally I was called into the finance manager’s office. I felt like a rock star, signing my name on every sheet of paper thrown in front of me. There had to be a forest, an entire goddamn forest of old growth trees used to make all the forms I had to sign. Jesus, why is there so much paperwork? What the fuck was it like before 1980? Damn!

When I was done, I had to wait for my new truck to leave the detail bay (they wanted to make it pretty for me to drive home). As I was waiting, talking Seahawks with the salesman, the finance manager came out and asked if I wanted lower monthly payments. What a stupid question. That’s like some hot blonde chick asking, “May I please suck your dick?” What am I going to say, “no?” C’mon! I went back inside, and they were able to lower my interest rate by one and a half percent. Six more signatures later, I was out the door again and into my freshly washed new truck.

Before I left the lot, I loaded a couple MP3 discs that I removed from the old truck into the changer, adjusted the seats and mirrors again, and plugged in my phone charger. The cockpit of my new truck is pretty fucking sweet; there seems to be more little green lights than a Christmas tree. After a few right turns, I was finally headed north on I-405. The clock on the radio said 8:10. No way! I checked my phone and sure enough, the clock of the truck was wrong. It was 10 minutes slow. It was 8:20pm. Sonofadryhumper! Nearly six hours at the dealership. The trip home was nice, though I had the music turned up, and I got a chance to really open things up. Trying to create separation from “pacers“, I got the truck up to 95 miles an hour on I-5 between Mount Vernon and Burlington. It didn’t even feel like I was going that fast. It’s going to take a while to acclimate myself to the feel of this new truck.

I haven’t had a chance to take any of my own pictures, but here’s the images from the dealer’s web site: front view, rear view, driver seat, rear seats, dashboard, gauges, radio, grille. I’ll get some nicer pictures on Whidbey Island’s next sunny weekend.

5 Comments

Sucker Tuesday

Posted on February 5, 2008, by wafwot, under General.

Balack Osama. Ha! Get it? Alright, maybe it’s not as funny as my photoshopped picture is, but I chuckled and thought you would, too.

Anyway, are you as tired of all this political horseshit as I am? This ceaseless parade of ass-kissing and back-stabbing started back in January of 2007. January of 2007! Jesus Christ, that’s fully two years before the new President takes the oath of office. Are you kidding me? Lately, it seems that there’s always an election going on. If it’s not local, it’s state, congressional, presidential, or American Idol and Big Brother. Someone make it stop before I photoshop again!

Of course, everyone has jumped on Obama’s bandwagon even though the bandwagon has no destination. “C’mon people, jump on board! I’m fired up and taking this bandwagon straight to the White House!” The White House… oh, the irony of it all. I think people like him because he’s not a Bush or Clinton. Think about it. The 18 year olds voting in this election were born in 1989 or 1990. King George I was in office from 1989 to 1993. Prince William the Adulterer from 1993 to 2001, and King George II since 2001. I’m chalking the popularity of Osama up to being someone different than the past 20 years. A change…

However, I’ve been saying it weeks before Super Tuesday, and people are finally starting to see it for themselves — the man doesn’t say anything! Oh, words do come out of his face, and they are eloquent words. He has a natural knack for talking that makes people listen… but so did our first black president, Bill Clinton. He talks about America needing change. What? Are we panhandling? Jingling a tin cup on the street corner of Earth? What fucking change are you talking about, Mr. Osama? The country needs a new direction. Two words: TomTom. He’s fucking fired up for some reason; I still haven’t heard why. I just want him to give us a plan. Scribble it on a napkin. Send us a text message. Something! Maybe if he’d share his presidential agenda I could grow to like him… if I could just see past his Muslim-sounding name.

But if not Osama, are democrats supposed to choose Billary? I actually like some of what she’s saying… but she’s a Clinton… She’s Hillary Rodham Clinton. She can’t be bargained with. She can’t be reasoned with. She doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And she absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead… and that’s when it’s not that time of the month. I have to admit, putting a gun to my head and forcing me to choose a democratic candidate, I’d have to pick Billary… if for no other reason than to hear the introduction, “Ladies and gentlemen, Madam President and the First Gentleman.”

I think South Park said it best; douche or turd.

And with all this jaw-jacking out our ass about change, I can’t help but think we’re going backwards. The economy is tanking, but The White House refuses to use the “R”” word. It sure feels like were inching closer and closer to our past: gas prices are high because of “shortages,” the president’s approval rating is in the porcelain poop catcher, and Knight Rider and American Gladiators are on television. What the fuck, people? Did my soul-crushing commute cause me to drift into an anti-Rip Van Winklesque sleep, where I awoke in the past? I swear, I was flipping channels on the satellite the other night and found the Harlem Globetrotters playing basketball. Not a repeat of old Globetrotters games. Oh no. A brand new batch of players, and they were playing the Washington Generals! I’m not making this shit up! If Welcome Back, Kotter makes a comeback, oh my god, I’m gonna crap my pants. I know the writers are on strike, but seriously, do we really need to see Knight Rider again? It was a terrible show to begin with. No amount of Ford muscle car is going to make it any better. Give it a rest.

Well, it’s kinda short… but I’ll have another update before the end of February.

2 Comments

Out with the old…

Posted on January 5, 2008, by wafwot, under General.

…in with the new as we move from 2007 to 2008. As I’ve done in previous years, I like to recap the past year in late December of early January. I used to do this each year in a Christmas letter to my family when I left Pennsylvania. However, some family members are no longer with us and other family members have joined the Information Age, so I do this annual recap online now.

I lead one helluva boring life. It’s the same old shit every day, but I’ll try to whip something together here.

In January 2007, nothing happened. Oh, terrible shit happened in January; Microsoft released Vista and Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the House, but nothing interesting happened to me. But in February, The Company bought a domain name registrar. We were officially in the seedy underworld of domain registration, with the likes of GoDaddy and Network Solutions — but on a much smaller scale. Out of 856 domain registrars, we ranked 130-something. It took a lot of my time, and it was a constant battle with domain registrants before we sold the registrar to some other sucker! I learned a lot about SRS and how domain registrars operate. Would I want to do it again? Fuck no! The domain name administration isn’t bad, but the people who register domain names suck ass. I was never so happy and relieved when the web server, mail servers, name servers, and phone numbers were finally transferred to the new owners.

In March, I was back in the ER with pneumonia. Surprise! It’s an annual event anymore, like the return of the Swallows to Capistrano. I had a temperature of 103.1°F (39.5°C) and missed seven days of work while I laid in bed dying. After all the visits I’ve made to the hospital, you’d think they’d have a clue what was wrong with me…

April and May brought the Virginia Tech massacre and the death of Jerry Falwell, but it was boring for me. Not until June did I get pulled over by the Washington State Patrol for not wearing a seatbelt and I blogged about how stupid the seatbelt laws are. Not wearing a seatbelt doesn’t risk anyone on the highway but me. Of course, a seatbelt violation is a primary offense in Washington, where we had to wait until January 1, 2008 before text messaging while driving became a secondary offense. Awesome. Governor Mudcutter must be proud.

In July I turned 41, and August was uneventful. Sometime during the summer, we lost one of our carpoolers. He started working from home because The Company needed techs to answer phones at 5:00am… and there were also benefits to LDriver’s vehicle and my sanity that perpetrated the decision.

Ever lose your wallet? I did in September. It was teh sux! I had to replace debit cards, credit cards, my drivers license, my insurance card, the proximity card to gain access to the building in which I work, and other such things that reside in one’s wallet. It was a major pain in the ass, and I don’t recommend it to anyone.

Also in September, we lost a second carpooler. There was a she-bitched, he-lied, she-said event at The Company that would rival any plot line of Desperate Housewives. When the Astroglide dried, one employee was fired and the other was allowed to work from Oak Harbor (and no longer in the carpool). I was — and am still — highly pissed at the situation. The one thing that all of us carpoolers from Oak Harbor want is to work in our hometown so we don’t have to do the soul-crushing commute twice a day.

Then in October, The Company moved from the Westin Building to the Active Voice Building. This move was directly next door. The telephone companies needed the space in the Westin, so the Westin management offered another space in the building next door for a lot less rent, and they would pay to move us. Packing up my office shit twice in one year is not my idea fun, and the new space is much smaller than the space in the Westin. People that had offices in the Westin were forced into cubicles in the new space. Can you guess who those people were? I’ll bet you can!

I started feeling the onset of pneumonia again in October. This time, I went to a doctor instead of laying down on my death bed then heading to the ER. The doctor listened to my lungs, gave me a hit of his albuterol through a nebulizer, then told me I have asthma. Can you believe that shit? He gave me a prescription for a ProAir inhaler, which worked not so well. I may as well have been huffing fumes from the tailpipe of my truck. When I finished that canister, he put me on Ventolin, which is better. It works, but could be better. I’m also on Qvar. Ventolin is a rescue inhaler, Qvar is a preventative inhaler. Puff puff pass!

I got another new mobile phone in the fall, too. This one is the shizznit! It’s like the continuum transfunctioner, but without the oral pleasure (dammit), and its mystery is only exceeded by its power, baby! It’s got a faster CPU, faster internet connection, more RAM, more ROM, does GPS… and it’s definitely become the most useful phone I’ve ever owned. I’ve even registered wafwot.mobi to create a mobile-friendly site for the phone.

In November, I bought new tires for my truck. The old kicks were getting a bit thin in the tread department, so I figured I’d better bite the bullet before the winter weather rolled in. I went to good ol’ Les Schwab for the tires, and $800 later, my truck was sporting new rubber. A couple days later, it was time for a tune up — the first tune up since I bought the truck. It got new plugs, new wires, a new serpentine belt, new distributor cap, new rotor, and it was tuned and scoped. That took a $450 bite out of my wallet.

Oh, but my truck wasn’t done yet. Less than a month after it was in for it’s $450 manicure, the lower radiator hose blew open like John Ritter’s aorta. I limped the truck home, not letting it get over “H” on the temperature gauge. Several strenuous and painful hours later, LDriver and I had the new hose installed. The older I get, the more I hate working on cars. I promised I wouldn’t work on the truck, leaving the maintenance up to the professionals. But, it’s too fucking expensive!

The holidays were quiet and uneventful. Tina and I spent Thansgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day together, not going anywhere. We just stayed home and watched football.

And that was my year. Told you it was boring.

A note from wafwot: I wrote this while watching the Seahawks beat the Redskins on January 5, but completely forgot to wikify it and publish it! Holy hell! It wasn’t until I went to spout off about the New England Patsies losing Super Bowl XLII that I discovered the old draft. So, that’s why you may notice it appearing on my blog in February but having a January date. I’d apologize, but you already know I’m a lazy bastard that needs to type/write more often.

1 Comment

Goddammit!

Posted on December 30, 2007, by wafwot, under General.

Woopty fucking doo. The New England Patriots finished the 2007 season undefeated; only the third team in NFL history to do so. Before we all get giddy and vote Mr. Belicheat coach of the year, or Shady Brady athlete of the year, remember they were caught cheating! They are cheaters and will always be cheaters! Cheaters shouldn’t be rewarded!

On top of that, they’re not the greatest team ever, no matter how much ass felching Madden, Collinsworth, Michaels, Buck, ad nauseam, does. The Colts in week 9, Eagles in week 12, Ravens in week 13, and Giants this weekend showed that the Patriots can be beat. The Giants played a really good game Saturday. Did you watch it? Fuck, it was simulcast on three networks like a goddamn Presidential speech, and had six hours of pre-game coverage (no kidding) on the NFL Network! That matches the longest-ever pre-game coverage of a Super Bowl game! Collinsworth and Gumble were fawning all over themselves, clearly biased towards New England. You could almost hear their gagging as they gobbled up Brady’s cock and caressed his coin purse like a five-hundred dollar whore. I so wish I could have muted the television and listened to a New York radio broadcast. Everyone in broadcasting and the NFL brass wanted New England to go undefeated for the season. Most fans wanted to see justice for spygate. The almighty dollar wins again. I’m hoping they suffer a meltdown in the playoffs; the Patriots are due for a loss…

On a completely different subject, but one that still pisses me off, is Washington State’s new cell phone laws. During the holidaze, the WSP has been running television ads about drunk driving and seat belt, calling it their “emphasis patrol,” which is a politically correct way of saying “you will comply or we’ll rape your ass.” I’ve ranted about seat belts before, so I won’t cover it again. This time I’m peeved at the incongruity of the State in which I live. A new cell phone law, RCW 46.61.668, which goes into effect January 1, 2008, states that you can only be busted for text messaging as a secondary offense. This means that you have to be breaking some other traffic law before you can be fined for text messaging. This is completely stupid when you compare it to the seat belt law which is a primary offense. Somehow, the State feel that text messaging isn’t serious enough to make you stop doing it, unless you kill someone… then they’ll only fine you $124. How can Washington make text messaging a secondary infraction, but putting your arm around someone while driving or not wearing a seat belt a primary infraction? The logic escapes me! I personally watched a woman text messaging in stop and go traffic roll right into the back of another car on Interstate 5. LDriver and I busted up laughing because we watched the whole thing happen. I even directed LDriver’s attention to the impending incident as the woman was coasting; “Hey, watch this… {crunch}”

Let’s put this in perspective, shall we? If you’re not wearing a seat belt, which is not putting anyone in harm’s way, you can be pulled over and fined $124 in Washington State. However, some teenage twat, continually taking her eyes off the road and risking the lives of everyone in her immediate area of the highway (in both directions) while she text messages her slutty girlfriends about Ryan Seacrest, or some such shit, is perfectly acceptable? Great googly-moogly, man! How does that make sense to anyone? Only if Miss Snottybitch is going too fast, or swerving in her lane, or not indicating a turn will she be pulled over, then she be ticketed for both infractions. Yeah. This makes total fucking sense. Thank you RCW 46.61.668, I feel safer now. U R my BBF, LOL.

Even Washington’s new hands-free law (effective July 1, 2008) is a secondary infraction. Why is the harmless act of not wearing a seat belt a primary offense, but threatening the lives of others with a Scion xB hurling down the highway at seventy miles an hour, with a Hello Kitty cell phone glued to your head a secondary offense? Stupid retarded lawmakers. Maybe if Governor Mudcutter's Continental gets broadsided by some jackoff on a cell phone both new laws will be changed to primary infractions.

This very blog update is the 28th update in 2007, and the 158th since January of 2005. Actually, there were a few updates in late 2004, but when I upgraded to WordPress, I left the 2004 updates out. This is probably the longest and most active my domain name has ever been in its 10 years. It started out as a cock-waving novelty. In 1997, not many people had real domain names for their home page. Most were stuck with a home page at theirisp.com/~username. Having your very own domain name roxx0r3d, and was an indication of your l33tness! Okay… maybe that was all in my head.

I was working at an ISP (Galaxynet) at the time, and hosted wafwot.com on their servers. I eventually moved the domain name to its own dedicated server at Galaxynet before moving it to a hosting company in Florida, a virtual private server (VPS) in Renton, and finally a VPS in Seattle. Now I own wafwot.net and wafwot.org, along with wafwot.mobi and several other domain names.

Yes, wafwot.com turned 10 years old this month. I registered it on December 17, 1997, back when the only domain name registrar around was Network Solutions and domain names cost $35 per year. Today, Network Solutions still exists, but there are almost 900 different domain name registrars and domain names can be as low as $5 per year. This got me to thinking about how far things have come since I registered wafwot.com.

Microsoft Internet Exploder 4 and Netscape Communicator 4 were in a browser war, and Windows 95 was the OS that most of us used. Windows 98 was only in beta testing in December 1997, and my i486DX-33 was running OS/2 Warp 4 for the “superior” multitasking capabilities. Yes, I hated Windows even in 1997.

Speaking of wars, modems were king of Internet connectivity in 1997 (for consumers), and USRobotics and Rockwell/Lucent were in a battle to break the 33.6k barrier and deliver 56k speeds over a copper phone line. I was running a Bulletin Board System (which is why I ran OS/2 Warp) in 1997 on that old i486DX with a 33.6k modem. The fastest CPU available was the Intel Pentium II, which ran at a blistering 300 MHz, and an 8MB x 32bit SIMM of EDO memory was over $100. Those were the good ol’ days!

Many people had no idea what an MP3 was in 1997, but thanks to a new program called Winamp, we all learned quickly. No one knew what an iPod was, and in fact, Apple was in serious financial trouble in 1997 before Steve Jobs stepped (back) in to save their happy gay rainbow ass… and look at what the MP3 did for Apple!

There’s plenty more Internet and computer history from 1997, but I’m tired of typing, and should actually go to sleep. Four in the morning is only six hours away. I’ll Wikify this nonsense at work, which better be a short day. If you remember your computer or the Internet from 1997, tell me about it in the comments section. See ya next year!

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Kissmyass Time

Posted on December 20, 2007, by wafwot, under General.

It’s the most shittiest time of the year. It’s the crap-crappiest season of all. All the kids and their crying; impulsively buying more shit at the mall… It’s the crap-crappiest season of all.

Some people really don’t like the holidays, and I’m one of them. No, I’m not Jewish, or Arab, or part of any other non-Christmas celebrating sect. As a child, I loved Christmas. The anticipation, the excitement, the lights, the tree, the music, family, not going to school for two weeks. It was fanfuckingtastic! More stimulation than a child should have. Maybe that’s why I’ve grown to despise late December. I totally understand why my paternal grandfather always called it “Kissmyass.”

Everyone and their goddamn great uncle’s cousin twice removed is in your pocket. Food banks are begging for food for the throngs of hungry homeless; the Salvation Army of bellringers clanging at every department store, grocery store and post office in an eight thousand mile radius; Christmas Seals apparently needs money for more cigarettes; it’s an interminable stream of pleading for money. Here’s an idea: Give the gift of get off my fucking back. Everywhere you go, it’s “save the starving, feed the dying, make the guy with a credit card feel guilty.” I’m just tired of it all.

And while I’m in a pissy, bitching mood, what the fuck is up with the stores? Jesus H. McChristmas, people! I went to Wal-Marché last weekend to get my inhaler prescriptions filled and pick up a few things we needed at the house. I think every fat Navy wife with their waterhead kids in the entire Pacific Fleet was in that store… and they’re rude as fuck! I’m going to write a book. “Wafwot’s Rules for Shopping in Modern Civilization.”

Rule #1: When pushing your shopping cart, move to the side of the goddamn aisle! I don’t know how many times I’ve headed down an aisle only to be aisle-blocked by some elderly Flip comparison shopping, trying to save that one tenth of a penny per pound of rice. It’s rice! You need to buy a ton to save a nickel. Pick up a box and move the fuck out of my way! Nothing pisses me off more than using another aisle to bypass a ailse-blocker, only to discover they’re now blocking the other end of the aisle!

Rule #2: Don’t talk to your friends in the middle of a high-traffic aisle. Yeah, yeah. We get it. You haven’t seen Steve since 1982, when you stole a bottle of Bacardi 151 from your daddy, got drunk, and sodomized the barnyard animals of old man Kotter’s farm. Catch up on your own fucking time, or take the conversation to Arts and Crafts, or Women’s Underwear. You’re creating a cart traffic jam for the entire store with all that jaw-jacking!

Rule #3: The rules of the highway pertain to shopping carts, too! If you’re in a store in the United States, and you’re pushing a cart down an aisle, keep right motherfucker! The only time you should be on the left side of the aisle is if you’re heading the other direction, or you’re passing some inconsiderate shit-eater who’s breaking Rule 2. I can’t count how many times I’ve got stuck between end caps, waiting for some supersize black woman trailing a bus load of crying children, like Mother Goose with a gaggle of goslings… one after another.

Rule #4: Pick up the pace! How many times have you been stuck being some crippled old fuck that’s shopping as they walk? They’re moving at the speed of smell, molesting every product they pass. If you’re 65 years old or older, this rule states that you’re only allowed to shop Monday through Friday between 10:00am and 4:00pm. Us faster moving folks will be at work, so slap on that wig and push that walker all you want during those 30 hours.

Rule #5: If you can’t control your kid, or your kid is acting like the spawn of Satan, screaming and crying to beat the band, then we as a shopping public have the inalienable right to bitch slap the fuck out of you and your misbehaving uterine litter. Congress should pass a law giving the public the ability to legally punch spoiled little brats in the throat as to crush the larynx, preventing further noise from their chocolate-coated faces.

It’s a short book, but I’ll leave it open-ended so we can add amendments to it. It’ll be a living document. If you have any additions, add ‘em to the comments below.

Okay, enough Kissmyass for now.

With all the money I sunk into my truck in November, you’d think it was in tip-top condition. However, you’d be wrong. It’s not a major tragedy, but I was sitting in a fast-food drive-through Tuesday night, and I heard what sounded like pouring water. It sounded very much like a circus animal urinating on pavement. Possibly a lengthy emesis of an intoxicated teenager splashing on linoleum of a high school hallway. Since it was raining out, I didn’t think much of it. However, I kept an eye on my dashboard gauges just in case.

I got my food and the temperature looked okay. About a mile from the Jack in the Box, the temperature was climbing, and I knew something happened to my damned cooling system. Sonofabitch! I was only about a mile from home, but I wasn’t going to make it that far. The gauge got to “H” at the top of a hill, and luckily, I was able to coast down the other side and let the December night air cool the engine down enough for me to make the final hundred yards of my trip home. The engine got as hot and steamy as Tommy and Pamela, but never went above the “H.”

The next morning, Tina and I went out and looked at the damage. We found a long messy gash on the underside of the lower radiator hose. Just as with women, long messy gashes are not good. I wasn’t taking the truck anywhere without replacing that hose, and I had an 11:00am doctor’s appointment. LDriver came and gave me a lift to the doctor’s, then we hit the auto parts store where I picked up a hose and a new thermostat. When I got home, I realized I asked for and bought an upper radiator hose, when I needed to replace the lower hose. Goddammit. Three hours would pass before I could get another ride to the auto parts store for the correct hose.

Once I had the correct hose, LDriver and I worked on taking the blown hose off my truck. I swear to fuck, there’s hardly any room to work in that engine compartment. It’s nothing at all like my old Mustang. You’d have more room to work if you were fingering a nun. No shit! On top of that, the hose just didn’t want to come off. We worked on prying that bitch off the water pump for more than an hour! It finally popped off with the help of a broom stick. The right tool for the… job. What the shit, man? Putting the new hose on was a bit easier, but not much. I coated the inside of the hose ends with oil, and LDriver and I tried to shove that hose onto the water pump. Only a priest raping a fourth grader would have a tighter fit. After another 30 minutes, it was finally good to go! I tightened down the clamps with a socket wrench, and filled that bitch with water.

My ass is fucking beat! I look like I was beat up by twenty three 5-year olds; scrapes and knicks on my knuckles, bruises on my arms, a deep fat bruise on my leg. Fuck, the hood latch left about seven bruises on my stomach. I look like I was caught in the crossfire of rubber bullets. I ache all over and feel like I was rolled by a ‘ho and her pimp, left for dead in a Motel 6. This getting old shit sucks ass.

All’s well now… or is it? I didn’t have a chance to replace the antifreeze in the system, and the temperatures are going to drop below freezing tonight. It fucking figures. Since I have to drive to Seattle on Friday, I’m going to have to go out tonight and get some antifreeze. Shit! It’s 10:00pm as I’m typing this.

I need to trade my truck in for a new(er) truck…

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I am the slacker, goo goo g'joob

Posted on November 29, 2007, by wafwot, under General.

I know, I know. It’s been more than a month. Excuse the fuck out of me, I’ve been busy! Okay, I’ve been lazy. Sometimes I don’t feel like writing, or I’m just too distracted. Some stuff has happened in the past month — none of it really that interesting — but here goes.

The image here is a screen capture from a new page on wafwot.com. My new cell phone has a GPS chipset in it, and I’m running a cool little program that automatically uploads my current position to a database on my web server. The web page then plots the points using Google Maps or Google Earth. It so totally kicks ass! You can view my latest trip, or previous trips, or even see my current location! I don’t always have the program running on the phone, however, so the web page may not always show my latest position. The program is called TrackMe, and was written by Luis Espinosa. The web interface was written by jcleek/Slacker, also of the xda-developers forums, and I’ve even contributed a tiny bit to the web code. Check out my GPS tracking at gps.wafwot.com. If you have Google Earth installed, load up my KML file at http://www.wafwot.com/gps/routes/wafwot.kml. It’s pretty damn cool.

As I mentioned, I got a new phone. I’m such a technology whore when it comes to phones. My last new phone was only April of this year, but I was using it for so much, I was getting frustrated at the slow speed of the phone and the Int0rn3ts.

My new phone is an AT&T Tilt. Here’s another picture. This bitch smokes! It’s got more gadgets than Sean Connery and Roger Moore combined! Windows Mobile 6 Professional powered by a 400 MHz Qualcomm processor, a 65k-color tilting TFT touchscreen, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 802.11b and 802.11g Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth 2.0 with support of up to 6 simultaneous pairings, a 3 megapixel camera with 10x zoom and autofocus, built-in GPS, quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, 3.6 Mbps tri band UMTS/HSDPA (that’s right, 3.6 megabits per second, baby), 256 MB of flash ROM, 128 MB SRAM, and a microSD expansion slot with support for 32 GB memory cards. I currently have a 4 GB card in the phone, because they don’t make 32 giggers yet. (My god, look at all them Wikipedia links!)

Oh, and it’s a phone, too! Imagine that.

The GPS chipset and large microSD card lets me run TomTom Navigator on the phone for voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation. I was amazed at how accurate TomTom is, at least on roads that have existed for more than a few years. It’s the dog’s bollocks, man! Of course, we drive the same route day after day after day after day after… but it’s nice to have for those trips around accidents, or the rare time I get lost. I’ll be fucked by starving Pygmies before I’ll stop and ask for directions! I’m a guy, damn it! We’re not supposed to ask for directions or the monkeys will fly out our asses, and we can’t have that.

It’s a beautiful thing when I can be secure shelled into work via VPN, chatting on a jabber server, live tracking my journey on Google Maps for the world to see, and surfing the web at DSL speeds — in the palm of my hand — while doing 75 miles an hour northbound on I-5. Don’t get your panties in a knot, I’m a passenger at those times. If I was driving, I’d be text messaging, too! Ha ha!

Okay, enough about my geek toys. What else has happened? I had some work done on my truck. Early in November, I had Les Schwab put on four new Wild Country tires. I bought the truck with the old tires on it, and they were getting a little thin in the tread department. The new tires are nice and quiet, and with winter on the way, it feels good to know my ass (and LDriver’s ass) will safer… because we all know how I worry about LDriver’s ass.

Just before Thanksgiving, I took the truck to Hilltop Texaco here in Oak Harbor. The soul-crushing commutes to Seattle on Fridays were taking their toll on my engine. After doing a hundred miles — forty of which are at 70+ miles per hour — the truck was running rough and felt like it needed a good tune-up. So, during lunch on one of the three days of the holiday-shortened week I worked from home, I took my F-150 to Hilltop. I sat in their waiting room for nearly four freaking hours, tortured by FOX News and watching people shovel popcorn down their esophagus like their name was Moses and they just got back from his little pow-wow with God in the mountains.

Anyway, the mechanics at Hilltop put in new spark plugs, new wires, a new distributor cap, a new rotor, a new serpentine belt, and tuned and scoped the engine. They also checked the electrical system and the brakes. The truck passed all it’s tests, but still runs rough at idle once it’s up to running temperature. Damn it all to hell, I hate vehicles, sometimes. Nearly five hundred dollars, and I still have the “trouble” I took the truck in for. It rides much nicer, sounds better, and even shifts gears smoother… but what the fuck, man?

Speaking of Thanksgiving, Tina and I had a nice holiday. We didn’t go anywhere, or do anything special. We’re boring like that. But, I had a nice nine-day span of being at home, coupled with turkey, stuffing, cranberries, and football. It was a relaxing weekend work-from-home four-day weekend string of days. I wish I could do that more often! Like once a month! Fuck, think of the gas (and money) I’d save. As it is, I spend more than $90 a week in gas.

Okay, there ya go. Not so great, but it catches you up a bit and prevents me from going the whole month of November without an update. December should be a little chattier.

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