Thursday, February 21, 2008

Weird Random Stuff...

Random thoughts that have been randomly bouncing around inside my head. You've been warned...

  • As a result of losing weight, I've also managed to lose an entire ring size. I had stopped wearing my wedding band after it started literally falling off my finger, and after stabilizing and maintaining my "goal" weight for nearly a year, decided it was time to get it re-sized. Boy, was I ever surprised to find out that my finger has literally shrunk an entire ring size - I went from a 10¼ to 9¼. Amazing there was that much fat in my fingers. Then again, I also lost a whole shoe size as well. I was, quite literally, shrinking. Just weird.

  • Sirius satellite radio is really starting to piss me off. The free one year trial that came with my new truck expires at the end of the month, and they have been calling me several times a day to get me to sign up. Very pushy, and very bad from a sales perspective - they are about to lose a customer and gain an enemy...

  • So John McCain is being accused of dippin' the ol' wick where it doesnt belong. Really. By the NY-fucking-T. The same NY-fucking-T that told us, over and over and over again, ad nauseum (literally) how it was "just about sex" and "between two consenting adults" and yadda yadda yadda when Bubba was dipping his quill in interns. It's a-fucking-mazing how things have turned around in under a decade, eh? Suddenly, experience doesn't matter, neither does military service, and vague hints of sexual dalliances are newsworthy again (as opposed to credible reports of rape, but that's just me throwing down my RWW street cred...). Amazing how things can change depending on the party of the persons involved.

  • Trying to decide what the Mrs. next car is going to be. The Accord is still running fine, and we're going to try to eek another couple of years out of it, but it never hurts to be looking ahead. She wants a Honda Pilot; however they're just a little too pricey for my liking. I'm trying to steer her towards a Toyota Highlander or perhaps even a Saturn Vue. I'm a little leery of getting into ANYTHING made by GM, though, as they seem to be teetering on the edge of oblivion lately...

That's about it. More if I have a moment later...

5 comments:

TOTWTYTR said...

My wife has a 2007 AWD Highlander and loves it. If you can get one that's a low mileage certified used Toyota, you'll be very happy and save some money as well.

Gary

Thus Spake Ortner said...

Congrats, XM, story is complete horseshit (I am a lobbyist), Jeep Wrangler.

Go Umass.

SpeakerTweaker said...

Wow, you think ortner's in a bit of a hurry?

;) Nicely put, though.

XM will do the same thing. They'll call you as your free trial ends, but they will NOT call you when your next service period ends (which I rather prefer). Just make DAMN sure they get your information %1000 correct. I didn't get my first three XM bills and my radio went TU. I finally told them to transfer me to someone that spoke clear, concise, and FLUENT conversational English (as they do the whole tech support in India thing) to clarify my info.

I'm still a GM guy. I wouldn't call them on the brink, as it was only recently that Toyota ended GM's reign as Top Dog; even then Toyota only tied for the throne. I'd say the old GM boys still have quite a dog left in the fight.



tweaker

Jay G said...

Gary,

That's actually what I was thinking - find a Highlander off a 2 year lease. In the past, I've been reluctant to look at used SUVs, as I've seen FAR too many Exploders towing 35' boats to trust in a used truck. However, the smaller class of SUVs is unlikely to have ever driven off-road, with the possible exception of parking on the soft shoulder near the soccer field... :)

TSO,

Pithy. Appropos. Good.

Tweaker,

I don't *WANT* any extra. If I want to be bothered with attaching another device to my truck, I'll drop a little cake on a larger iPod and plug it right in. The radio in my truck is connected for Sirius, and came with a 1 year plan gratis when I got the truck.

These sonsabitches are calling me 2-3 times a day - on my cell phone - to get a service I never signed up for.

RW said...

They'll call you as your free trial ends, but they will NOT call you when your next service period ends (which I rather prefer).

Very true.

If you purchase a year's subscription from XM, they'll automatically renew as soon as you let it run out, without notifying you & then try to get you to pay for the partial period (that you weren't aware of) if you call as soon as you find out that they'd done so & taken money from your account. Took me four phone calls, one ending with me telling the guy "hey, listen close, your company SUCKS" before I came across someone who was polite, to the point and immediately took care of the situation in a matter of minutes.

Seriously, I was yelling at the first dude, who was a moron & deserved it.

These sonsabitches are calling me 2-3 times a day - on my cell phone - to get a service I never signed up for.

The phrase that finally worked for me was "if this isn't handled immediately, not only will I make sure that I never - ever - use your product in the future, but I'll inform everyone I know about this situation and I'll try to convince them to use your competition, instead.".