Morning all,

 

Well, it's been a while since I had a chance to write something here, and as usual now that I have a chance, there's nothing to add. It was a busy summer, with fun and larks aplenty but nothing worth making a blog entry about just yet. Maybe some Chucky Reports incoming, time permitting.

 

Enjoyed two weeks with my parents (once you get used to the fact that my dad only listens to the first four words of any answer you give in response to his questions, it all goes smoothly), two weeks with my sister and her family (entirely too active, but definitely fun and now I know where the nearest lake and water-park are for next summer), and my 10th e-nniversary* with Mrs. Hatboy.

 

And there was much rejoicing.

 

Had a few parties, really got our money's worth from the barbecue, and now the summer is winding down. Getting cold again in the mornings, et cetera.

 

Yeah. My CD burner died, so I went to Verkkokauppa (buy faster, buy wiser) to pick up a DVD burner. Since my backups are now spread across about eight CDs and erasing and re-burning them can take a whole afternoon, I thought it was time to get with the program. It started out really easily, I got the burner and set it up, installed it and everything. But of course the burn process failed. Contacted a few compu-savvy friends and established that they could get it to work but not (even on a Linux OS) without errors, so I took it back.

 

Verkkokauppa gave me a new burner, of exactly the same make and model. And what do you know, it had exactly the same problem as the last one.

 

I should take a pause here to explain that Verkkokauppa is not exactly on my way home from work. It's a round-trip on the Metro and a few blocks of walking out of my way in fact, and it's not something I have time to do every day.

 

So anyway, I took it back yet again and asked them to swap it for another label, maybe. They refused to do that, but they took the burner and assured me they would get it checked and see if there was a problem with it. Now, either there's a problem with the entire product line, or there's no problem except with my OS and the OS of my compu-savvy colleagues. And guess if Verkkoraiska are going to give me a trade-in if it turns out to be the latter.

 

Now I'm just waiting for them to get back to me and say "hey, there was no problem, you'll have to buy a new burner". Which I could have done almost a month ago. See if I ever buy anything from them again. In fact, I may just have to pick up a new DVD burner from somewhere else. Fuck those guys. Fuck those guys up their stupid arses.

 

I just don't know what's wrong with the world.

 

On the topic of ethics, I promised to share my "painted roadkill" shot, so here it is. I liked it so much, I made it into a Motivational. There's something very inspiring about this sort of carelessness. With years of diligent refusal to give a shit, Verkkokauppa could one day aspire to this level of greatness.

 

I have a new phone, and as soon as I get the MMS and interwebs working on it, that'll be great too.

 

Ah, it has been a summer of great renewal and change.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Like an anniversary, but celebrating our first online meeting: August 27th, 1999.