Filling up with gas earned me four whole dollars this evening. Someone dropped their cash on the ground by the gas pump, and it is now mine.

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I decided earlier this week to take it upon myself to change the oil in my car myself. This is not something I normally do, primarily because it is worth the $10 overhead not to do it myself. (more…)

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I finally decided to bite the bullet this past weekend and purchase some new tires for my car. I had decided to go with Michelin’s HydroEdge tire, mostly because I’ve been very pleased with Michelins in the past, and it seemed to be a better tire than what I already had (the X Radial). I did a little research at the Web site of my preferred tire retailer, and discovered that my chosen tire is a special-order item, so I went ahead and placed an order. Since the order was being shipped to a store for me to pick up, I didn’t have to provide any payment info, just my login/membership details. This felt weird to me, but it really makes sense, since I hadn’t yet committed to actually receiving the tires. Delivery time was estimated at 5 to 10 business days - reasonable enough, and I was in no big hurry.

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Stopped by a Time Warner customer counter at lunch today to pick up a high definition DVR. The lady behind the counter asked me if I had a work order for it. When I told her no, she said, “We’re really not supposed to give those out without a work order. Oh well.” So now I have a shiny new 8300HD, and I can honestly say that I love it. It is substantially more responsive than my standard definition DVR, and it is absolutely wonderful to have a better signal path into the projector. Even analog SD content looks better.

And, of course, I’ve already had the case open. The two things I noticed almost right away were the change to an 80-pin IDE cable (my old DVR was 40-pin) and the addition of a security sticker between the hard drive and the mounting frame. I’m assuming this is to prevent people from swapping the drive out with a cheaper one, keeping the 160GB drive for themselves, then returning the box to the cable company. Hell, sounds like something I’d do.

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600 miles, and even more fun…

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I saw this stupid quiz on my roommate's LJ, and I went ahead and took it and decided to post it here. Sounds about right for me, too…

Category X - The
Changeling
Witty, amusing and a bit weird, you're welcomed
into most social groups, even though you don't
'fit in' perfectly .

What Type of Social Entity are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

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I figured I'd do this for fun

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So I think this evening might be a great sign of my geekdom or something like that. I'm getting so frustrated with a commercial software package I'm currently testing/using that I'm actually gaining the drive to write my own software to do the same thing, but better. And it's not even software that I actually ever need to use myself. I just need to be able to integrate with the back-end systems. But the front-end user interface just has me so irritated that I can't stand it. On the other hand, it does have some damn cool features. The software in question? Microsoft Retail Management System Store Operations (http://www.microsoft.com/BusinessSolutions/Retail/Retail%20Management/Modules/retail_so_overview.mspx).

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So I finally made it up to Derrick's to retrieve all my stuff yesterday. I'm always amazed at how much crap I own. At least the bulk of it was still in boxes from when I moved up there almost a year ago. But between all the lifting and the moving and the bad posture I had while driving back, my back HURTS! And it is annoying tension muscle pain that won't go away. And there is a van full of stuff out in the parking lot that all wants to be moved in here, but I'm not physically capable of doing much. I am displeased to say the least.

I am now off to the Time Warner office to attempt to get another cable box for the projector, now that I have it again.

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This is my first post to my LiveJournal. I feel so “special”.

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