4 posts tagged “qotd”

What was your worst hairstyle decision ever?

Hmmm...you know, I've done almost everything to my hair, and I've never actually disliked anything I did.  Hair's just hair, after all. 

This is probably the worst my hair ever looked--center part when you dye over your premature grays only once every couple months is a BAD, BAD idea.  Also, you can't tell, but this also features what everyone I went to school with called the Old Maid Bun.  Last, but not least, my hair becomes a nightmare when it grows over my collar--it pretty much always looks stringy, or dirty (I used to wash it twice a day in high school and kids would still say it was greasy-looking), or frizzy.  I cut it all off, and all of a sudden people started complimenting my appearance for the first time in, um, ever.

Also, that shirt is so awesome Snoop Dogg wore it in a music video.  No lie.

If money were no object, which five luxury items would you rush right out and buy? 
Submitted by lorilyn.

1.  The biggest, flattest SED TV I could find.  We already have two 27" televisions, but hey, only one is HD-capable, and SED looks really promising as TV tech goes.

2.  An iPhone, duh.  I don't need it, the lack of 3G is a serious deal breaker, and I don't like to talk to people on the phone, but damn, it's cool.

3.  New game consoles.  I'd like to roll these together--if money were no problem, we might just get a Wii and a PS3 in a single shot (provided we could find a Wii).  Some of the titles coming to the Wii look really, really fun, and the PS3 has a lock on Tekken 6 (also, I'd love to play SSX 4 on the PS3...or on anything).  This would bring our total console tally to 9 (two Gamecubes, two DSs, a slimline PS2, a 360, and a PSP are all currently in the house...those are the working ones).

4.  A Nikon D80 with specialty lenses.  Currently, I'm gunning for a D40 at the $500 price point, and even though my current camera is about 4 or 5 years old (Nikon Coolpix 2500...the blue swivel camera), I've pretty much resolved I won't buy a new camera until I can afford to just go pro. 

5.  Construction Equipment.  I really want my own construction shop--I have visions of large countertops, toolboxes, and a sweet, glorious band saw set up in my garage.

Alternates:

-New stereo equipment.  This can take a variety of forms, but either a Bose surround sound home system or a networked home stereo system would suit me fine.

-A Squeezebox.  Why, yes, I'd love global access to my music, plus Pandora, on a dedicated stereo system.  There's even AM radio to satisfy my husband.

What were you doing one year ago today?
Submitted by CassandraMorgan.

This day last year I was on Spring Break, which was exceptionally welcome since I was directing a play at the time and didn't have much free time.  My old iBook had died out, and I was going through serious internet withdrawal.  A year ago today I went to pick it up from the Apple repair folks, and the story's amusing enough I dug this post out of my archives:

So, let me tell the saga of my laptop.  It's three years old and out of warranty.  Some time ago, I had to open the case up to take care of a semi-defunct disc drive.  43 screws came out, 41 went back in, and I managed to botch my battery so it never popped out manually.  I tell you this so you have some idea of why this all came to be so funny--clearly, it's going to cost me a lot of cash to get it fixed.  Lo and behold, that troublesome disc drive had shorted out, giving off the hardware failure sound on startup and locking the system, according to the folks at the Apple support store in town.  So, I knew going in that if I got my laptop back, it'd cost me everything in my bank account, and I wasn't pleased with the situation.  Now comes the funny part.  I went in, tested it out, everything worked and I steeled myself to pay for the damage.  When I went to sign, the cost rang up as $0.00.  I asked how much it would really cost me, and the woman said, "oh, since this is under warrantee, it's free.  Otherwise, $330.

"Oh," I replied.  "I remember now.  On a completely unrelated topic, I have to leave right now."

I don't care how or why my laptop turned up under warrantee, and right now, I don't care.  I have my notes, my journal, my perfectly legally acquired software back, and I can actually DO the backup I meant to a week ago.

I did get damned lucky with that.

What's the story behind a time when you got locked out?

Last year, Dan and I went to Lollapalooza/Chicago for about a week.  We ended up going back home a day earlier than we'd planned, on Saturday, just from sheer exhaustion.  Dan got called in to work almost immediately after setting foot inside the door, and so he left in a really black mood in about half an hour.  I had a craving for some soda and chips once he left, and I decided to run to the liquor store at the end of the block from us.  I still recall thinking whether or not I should bring my keys or cell phone as I was walking out the door, but thought "oh please, I'll be gone five minutes."

Five minutes later, I came back and noticed a man coming out of our side of the apartment complex and head for the street.  Twenty seconds later, I reached our door and discovered it was locked.  About two seconds after that, I heard a car drive off and I knew what had happened.

When planning our trip, Dan and I decided to have a friend of his from work come by our house every couple days to check our mail and make sure nothing happened to the apartment.  We had told him we planned to be back Sunday, instead of Saturday.  It didn't occur to either of us to call him and let him know we were back in town.  While I was out, through a miracle of timing, he came by to check the apartment, and faithfully locked up.

Dammit.

I sat down on the sidewalk and opened my chips and a Pepsi to ponder my options.  It was about 6:30 on a Saturday night, and I had no phone.  Our apartment office was closed, so no help there--I would have to find someone who had a phone and phone book so I could call Dan.  Our neighbors across the hall (who we casually knew) had moved out the week before.  Our upstairs neighbors were hard-partying Chinese exchange students, and after knocking on their door, discovered they weren't home.  Neither were the friends I had on the other side of the complex, or any of their neighbors--you try finding someone who's home on a Saturday night in a college neighborhood.  I supposed I could wait until Dan came home, but that was unlikely to be before 10 PM.

I remembered there was a pay phone next to the liquor store, and went down to try my luck with the spare change I had on me.  Naturally, it wasn't in service.

I tried all our neighbors again, and finally found a very nice elderly couple who let me make a phone call to Mediacom.  Dan's department didn't have a public line, so I had to call customer service and charm a representative into transferring me.  The kid I got on the line wasn't sure he was allowed to do that, and asked me for all kinds of personal info to prove I was who I said.  Then he put me on hold and went to ask Dan if he had a "roommate who's 23, has blonde hair but just dyed it pink for Lollapalooza, likes Pepsi and has an evil stuffed duck."  He probably also had a smoke, and maybe went to watch a Daily Show rerun, 'cause I was on hold for a long time.  When he finally came back, he said he'd go ahead and transfer me...

Then the moron dropped the call.

So I had to call back, go back through the menu to get to customer service, explain everything to another CSR, and she told me they were having problems transferring to dispatch, so Dan would have to come over to her phone to talk to me.  Special note here:  a TELECOMMUNICATIONS provider which can't get its own phone system working correctly probably isn't someone I want to do much business with (on the other hand, the other phone provider for Springfield switched our phone number with Papa John's by accident and didn't fix it for FIVE days, so there's not a lot of options). 

About two hours after the beginning of this ordeal, Dan finally got the message and a new problem arose--his keys were the keys his buddy was using to check our apartment, so he couldn't come home and unlock us.  To make matters worse, the guy who actually HAD our keys had just left work about 10 minutes before--once we got ahold of him, it didn't take much longer to get our apartment back open for me.  It was an exciting day.