Well, I went and ordered my new Mac today, since an acquaintance had a spare developer discount and it was more than I could get by using my Megacorp ID. I spent a bazillion dollars on a MacBook Pro and that just makes me wonder what I’m supposed to do with my old computer(s). I have to get rid of some of them, especially the old boring ones that aren’t even put together.

This also reminds me that I sent another three emails to unsuspecting women on fastcupid.com. As usual, they matched me with five stars and I knew they really weren’t looking for an Asian guy, so I sent them random, but coherent, emails. I think one person got my description of Little Giant Ladders, and another got a description of how many books I had checked out from the library. That probably makes over a dozen women I’ve sent emails to on fastcupid.com

I sent less random emails on match.com and on okcupid.com (and I think friendster and orkut) and you can guess how many of them wrote back. Goose egg is the operative term here.

Ah, well. I just remembered that when I first moved to Japan, I’d send out a couple letters a day and most of those people never wrote back, either. Bastards.

There’s a chance I’m getting a new Mac soon. Discounts, you know. But other than that it was just another day at work. You know how Mondays can be.

I could have been hung over today, but I doubt I’d feel THAT bad. I only had four drinks over four hours, so I’m guessing that the headache, upset stomach, and chills were something else. I did take two enjoyable naps today.

And that’s about it. Nice, huh?

It’s my buddy Greg’s wife’s birthday today. I tried to get him to buy her something, but he’s too stubborn. Heck, I warned her about this before they got married years ago. We ended up fixing another friend’s bulldozer and then hanging out.

But I guess I should try to be more of a “man’s man” about this. At the suggestion of a woman from work, I bought “The Complete A**hole’s Guide to Handling Chicks.” After reading a few chapters, I realize what I should have bought instead, “A Pathetic Loser’s Guide to Never Believing Amazon Ratings and Not Buying Really Bad Books that Prey on his Loneliness.” Hahaha.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it, paying for two torture sessions a week. I enjoy it for a few reasons. I actually look forward to going to the gym because my life is rather dull (and the women are better looking than at work.) I feel better after working out (probably from a lack of oxygen to my brain). And I can tell when I’m doing something because I’m sore the next day.

There was something else I was going to mention but I can’t remember what it was. One of the cuter women at the gym had this odd tattoo on her shoulder. One of the trainers asked her about it so I figured it was fair for me to ask what it was. Turns out it was just a ballpoint pen drawing of her husband’s name. I personally thought it was the outline of a marshmallow Peep. (Yeah, you see, that’s my excitement for the day. Looking at a fake ballpoint pen tattoo of a dude’s name that I thought was weird Easter candy.)

I guess it was Fat Tuesday and being neither Catholic nor Christian, I just went to the gym. Afterwards Dave the torturer and I went for dinner at “La Villa” in Portland. They’re a Lebanese and Brazilian restaurant that I’d strongly recommend. The odd combination comes from the cook, a woman who is married to a Lebanese electrician. She, however, is from Brazil.

Until recently the menu was completely Lebanese, but she added a few Brazilian dishes. The shwarma sandwich Dave had was grilled. I had a Brazilian stew-like dish that tasted a little like curry. It was supposed to come with fish, but they ran out and I had it with chicken. She also brought us some pita bread that was sweet and fresh and a taste of the meat for the gyros. It was tender and juicy, unlike some of the fast food gyros I’ve had. I am completely stuffed but my mouth is watering as I think about the food.

Yay for Carolyn at Apple. She got my warranty straightened up. Time to jump through more hoops. I called Applecare but they told me to make an appointment with the local Apple store and take it there. Well, guess what? They want you to use their web site to make an appointment and won’t take appointments over the phone. THE WEB SITE DOESN’T WORK WITH THE BROWSER I HAVE AT WORK. Genius. Fortunately they were a little more understanding at the store after I got through their maze.

Earlier in the day I tried to get some information on my mom’s IRA and, of course, they can’t tell me anything. I distinctly remember asking them to automate my mom’s minimum disbursement, because if she doesn’t withdraw it, the government TAKES IT ALL AS A FINE. Can you believe the government preys on old people like that? Oh, and I called the local B of A and their telephone maze routed me to VIRGINIA. Oy.

I could add a comment on my run-in with IT at Megacorp, but you can guess that didn’t go well.

I am seriously considering cancelling my Amazon VISA card. I used to go online to download my statement into Quicken and then use Quicken, my saved receipts, and the mailed statement to balance the account. Tonight, when I tried to download my statement, Chase Bank tried to get me to cancel my paper statements. I had to make a choice between seeing any information on the web and having a paper statement. I chose the paper statements.

With the credit card companies showing themselves to be only slightly trustworthy and since they can’t seem to keep your private information secure and since they don’t really seem to care about identity theft, shouldn’t I have the ability to double-check my account? Is this really unreasonable? And I can’t be the only one who has checked a web page and found information to change when it shouldn’t, even things like bank account information.

Oh, well.

I just spent half the day watching Celebrity Fit Club. Actually, I had it on in the background while I did my taxes. I can’t believe my refund is half of what it was last year. I guess we have to pay our tribute to King George somehow.

Not that I do that much. My buddy Greg decided to go flying instead of going out to breakfast this morning, so that left me time to run odd errands. Took my mom to her acupuncturist appointment, got my hair cut, went to local bakeries to see what bread was available (and found out that Three Lions Bakery had moved into the neighborhood), etc. Nothing exciting. My stomach still isn’t 100% and that kind of threw me off at the gym. That plus Dave was hung over. Well, we made a pair. I know I wasn’t doing that well because my heart rate was so high and because I was dizzy going in and out of the shops this afternoon. Well, the lightheadedness could have been because of the Peets coffee I had, too. That stuff is strong enough to take the enamel off my teeth.

My $100 per pill medicine makes my stomach hurt from time to time. I have it pretty well worked out how to keep it from hurting my stomach. Eat a little oatmeal in the morning and wash it down with warm tea or water. I’m not sure why cold water makes my stomach hurt all day long, but it’s not an experiment I try to repeat. Today I found out that eating chocolate covered espresso beans after I first get to work also seems to make my stomach hurt all day long. That’s another experiment I’ll try to avoid repeating.

I did get through to Apple today and got someone on the line who actually had me send a fax to her directly, so it’s not a nameless department I’m working with now. In any case, it looks like my newest Mac is close to being out-of-waranty soon. I wonder if that means I need to buy a new one?

OK, so I’ve been incredibly tired this whole short week. Work at Megacorp has been odd, since the project lead hasn’t been screaming about things that need fixing “yesterday”. He only has been coming up with minor fire drills that take an hour or two to fix. The only downside is that his fire drills usually start at 5PM and make me late to get home. That leaves a lot of the day to “research” and that’s hard to do when you’re working to keep your eyes open.

Here’s what I found out from Apple. I faxed them a receipt (to confirm when I bought my laptop to prove it’s still under the Applecare warranty) on Monday the 13th of February. I called them back on Thursday because they said processing would take three to five days. They told me to wait some more and it was really five to seven days. I called them on the following Monday and they said their computer was down. I called a day later on Tuesday and they said give it a couple more days because of the Monday holiday. I called today (Thursday), seven business days after the initial fax, and they told me it takes seven to ten days for processing and, by the way, the FAX got chopped off and I had to send them another one. Hell, couldn’t they have told me that on day one?

OK, so I don’t know what that was about. I forgot what I was doing last night, except perhaps looking for something to watch on TV. I just can’t stand watching the Olympics because it feels like it’s being shoved down my throat with added advertisement and cheese. I do remember trying to figure out how long I should wait before calling Apple back since they still think I bought my laptop three months before I did. My warranty should be up in April, not in January. They need to fix my latch. Like anything, though, it’s probably going to take a dozen more phone calls before they do anything.