Planet Walt

first month without a car

So it's been a month since I turned in my car at the end of its lease and decided not to get a new one. Riding the bus every day has been OK, especially since zipcars are easy to get when necessary. Also, one can observe a wide range of folks on the bus, as illustrated by the previous entry....

petitions on the bus

The other day a young White guy was asking riders of Metro Transit's #16 bus to sign a petition. I did not know what it was about until I was exiting; he was collecting signatures to try to save the TV Show Dollhouse. Dude: approaching peeps on an inner city bus about a cult science fiction TV show is not the best idea in the world, but I have to give you credit for your passion!

Sunday newspaper magazines

For years the Sunday edition of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune newspaper included the USA Weekend magazine insert. Recently they also started inserting the Parade Sunday magazine. I can see them replacing one supplement with another, but using both? Weird.

out of copies?

One of my favorite periodicals is American Legacy Magazine. Today I called subscription customer service to see why my Summer 2009 issue never showed up. The answer: the publisher did not print enough copies so they extended subscriptions by one issue for those who did not receive the summer edition. Really? I guess this is good in that they have a ton of new subscribers and took care of them first, so I won't suffer a repeat of a happening with another favorite magazine: Story went out of business back in 2000, right after I sent in a check for a 3-year subscription renewal. I never did get that money back...

impossible rewards

So the other day I received mail about my rewards credit card: "earn up to 4500 Points!" The first two items (for a total of 500 points) were easy: take a 5-question quiz, and test drive the rewards search engine. The third item, though, is crazy: spend $8000 in November and December and get 4000 points (!). There's no way that's gonna happen, but maybe I'll get some prorated points....

a new era begins

For the first time since I finished graduate school in June 1999 I do not own a car. When the lease on the latest car expired on Wednesday we decided to experiment with riding the bus for the daily commute to work, and use a zipcar for weekend errands. The first two days brought colder weather and rain. Of course, one can handle this for a few days; hopefully I won't rush out to get a new car after a month or so....

predatory sales tactics

Yesterday I almost got suckered by a predatory sales call to me at my University of Minnesota office. The caller said that he had a deal on printer cartridges available since another department cancelled at the last minute. He said it would fit the main office printer, and specifically mentioned where in the office the printer lives, and identified who sits next to it. "OK," I thought, "this must be our usual supplier," so I told him to send over the order. Later the department office specialist told me that this company is NOT authorized to sell us stuff, and that this was a scam. Luckily they called back later to verify our address, so I referred them to the department administrator for processing. This is what I should have done in the first place, but I think they count on getting unsuspecting department chairs to agree to what appears to be a good deal and then not going through the hassle of doing a return later. Man, capitalists can be so devious!

amazon.com author page

Amazon.com now has author pages, so of course I had to create one. Check it out!

why peeps hate phone companies

I recently received a bill from Qwest about a collect call: $10.31 for a 1-minute call (!). Actually, it was more like 15 seconds, as a transcipt would read like this:

"Hello."
"Hey, I left my cell phone at home. Can you come and pick me up?"
"OK, be there in 5 minutes."
"Thanks. Bye."
"Bye."

I called Qwest and was informed that the charge was not a typo. Wow!

service appointments

Today I had an 8:00-12:00 window for service on my kitchen range. I was shocked when the repair person showed up at 9:30, as they almost always show up in either the first or last 30 minutes of the window. Also shocking: $230 for 10 minutes of work to replace one little ol' part....

summer XXX9 movies

Today is Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer (Memorial Day-Labor Day). I think that the summer of 2009 saw me visit movie theaters only 7 or 8 times; normally I'm well into double digits. In 1999, for instance, I moved to Minneapolis in June and probably went to the movies every week with my buddy Tom, who was single at the time, as was I. That pales to the summer of 1989, though, when Tom and I saw 37 movies 46 times (!). Those numbers might not be exactly right, but I do know that the number of titles was in the upper 30s, and the number of visits was in the mid-upper 40s; we saw some movies more than once, such as When Harry Met Sally... three times (we saw this at least once at a unique old Minneapolis theater &mdash The Cooper &mdash that was later demolished for a cookie-cookie development). Those were the days....

latest ghost activity

The ghost who lives in my house pulled another prank last night: she pushed a glass to the edge of a shelf inside a cabinet, so that when I opened the door this morning the glass fell out and shattered on the counter. I can put up with little things like this, though....

iPhone adventures

In the surprise event of the month, today I received a new iPhone after taking the old one in for service (!). I went to the Mall of America's Apple Genius Bar after my old phone refused to accept the sync/charge cable until the battery was completely depleted. A slight variation happened a couple of months ago: phone would not charge when the cable was plugged into my Mac, but worked when plugged into the AC power adaptor. The tech dude could not find anything wrong with the phone, but gave me a new one anyway...even though the warranty had just expired!

I had an iPhone 3G, not the newer iPhone 3GS. I thought about asking if I could upgrade at a discount, but decided not to push my luck. I'm not currently eligible for anything other than a full priced 3GS but may look into it when my contract expires in a year. By then maybe a 4G will be out....

The last time I took the phone in for service was after the phone developed a habit of crashing if I plugged in the phone before receiving a "20% battery life remaining" warning. At that visit the guy said that he could not do anything since the diagnostic did not turn up a problem, so I fully expected them not to do anything this time either since the phone was working properly when I brought it in. I even thought about leaving while my appointment time arrived but there were still people in front of me. I'm glad that I was patient!

bus/train adventures

It was a day for unusual events on Metro Transit today: (1) the White driver of the #16 bus scolded a couple of college-aged Asian women for not standing close enough to the bus stop when he pulled up ("I could have driven right past you. You need to be next to the stop so that the driver can see you."); (2) the driver then scolded the pair for trying to push open the exit door too soon ("this ain't no stop!"); and (3) for the first time in at least two years I got on a light rail train that was boarded by police who checked tickets...this raised my blood pressue a little because I ran to catch the train from the bus, and did not re-swipe my Go-To card. Luckily the police just looked at the card and did not check to see if it had been swiped....

Gremlins

I think that I have an infestation of gremlins at my house. First, the oven goes out, then a garage door opener quits working, and now my cell phone has problems...and all three things happened this week! Some may have also been in my car, as it has been in the shop for almost 2 weeks (!). Anyone know how to get rid of these little beasties?