SCORE!

I've recently been buying things from www.drugstore.com. It's like Amazon, but they sell drugs.

Prescription drugs! Jebus, what do you take me for?

But they sell other things too. Well, the great thing is that, like Amazon, they don't charge tax on your orders. And, like Amazon, they offer free shipping with orders $25 and over. The one drawback is that delivery takes about a week. But, unlike Amazon, drugstore.com gives you a percentage back from your order redeemable on a future purchase. And boy do they want you to spend that credit!

I received, just about every other day, a reminder email that my credit was expiring soon. Seriously. Like bugging me serious. So I went and browsed the site to see what I could buy in order to spend my $1.27 credit. I found a few items that could be useful: a Clorox Toilet Wand, deodorant, a lint remover roller, a toothbrush.

When they arrived today, I found a nice surprise! They had accidentally included a FURminator deShedding Tool! As the product page describes, it "reduces shedding up to 90 percent by removing the loose, dead undercoat without damaging the topcoat. This tool is recommended for medium dogs and cats."

I'm totally taking this as a sign. I've been waiting a very long time for this. I'm going to finally rid my back of that pesky back hair. It's so bad back there that it's entirely matted.

Plus, I think I'll get a dog to help me deShed those hard to reach aureolas.


I'll be back,

Ricky

Little Victories

All my life I've felt like a pushover. It never seemed like a personal thing; I honestly believed that it was a trait that came with being Asian. I know that sounds incredibly racist considering I know many Asians who aren't pushovers at all, but that's the way I generally feel.

I've told the following story so many times already, in a venting fashion, so I don't even really want to take the time and energy to type this out. But in order to historically document this event for the future race of living beings in the year 2362, I have to suck it up and put fingers to keyboard.

Leading up to the completion of our house, we found that our cabinet drawers (all of them save for one or two) were damaged. The upper right corner of each drawer face was dented in or pounded in or something; they didn't have a point as all the other corners did.

So we complained. And the following week, the drawers seemed to be fixed. However, upon closer inspection, we noticed that all they did was remove the wooden face, turn it around, and reattach it. So now the bottom left corner was the damaged one. Pretty brilliant lazinism. But it gets better. Knowing we would immediately see the damaged corner relocated, they tried to cover it up with some cheap wood putty; a nice gray-green wood putty creating a rounded point.

We cried foul. Unacceptable!, we submitted. And we waited another week till our initial "final" walkthrough.

During this walkthrough with the Field Manager, he pointed to the "fixed" drawers and said that they had spent a lot of time working on the corners to make them right. "They're not flawed," he claimed. Admittedly, the corners did look better, matching the stain of the original wood.

After raising issues twice, I could see that this was all he was going to do about them and we would have to live with it. Mother Routes agreed to accept them, but Timotei did not.

While talking over this entire story with co-workers, they agreed with Timotei. The claimed that the wood putty is a laughable solution; that we're paying for a brand new house and should get shiny new fixtures; that the wood putty has really nothing to adhere to and will fall off after a couple years of drawer slamming use.

Now convinced that the drawers were unacceptable, we were told that we have all the bargaining power to get what we want. The time was coming to sign our loan papers. So we held that hostage.

Timotei and I conference called the sales office and told them that the cabinets need to be replaced. "This is a deal breaker for us if they are not switched out," we threatened.

Later that day, the Field Manager called back and left me a voicemail. He said that he had his boss come out to take a look and that they were looking real good and so there's nothing they could do about it. And then that magical, horse-shitty excuse again: it's not like they're flawed.

But we weren't going to take that. We called back the next day to the sales office and told them, "The Field Manager and his boss say the drawers aren't flawed, but we obviously disagree. They would not need wood putty if they weren't flawed. Bottom line is, we will not sign any loan documents nor off on the house until these cabinet drawers are replaced."

The next day came and we received a call from our Loan Officer wondering about the status of the loan signing. We told her that we weren't signing anything until our cabinet drawers are resolved.

Here's what I believe happened. Our Loan Officer made a call out to our Sales Agent and told her the situation. Our Sales Agent then pressured the Field Manager or his boss to do as we demanded because they did not want to lose this sale.

Our Sales Agent had called me the following day and said that she went out to our house and saw what we were talking about and agreed with us that their fix "was crap." She was going to either demand that they be replaced or that we get some sort of compensation for the damages. But then she tried to bargain that a fix might take a while so can we sign the loan documents in the meantime. I told her I would think about it, but never intended to do anything of the sort. A couple hours later, she called back with good news.

Apparently the Field Manager's boss had a change of heart the previous day; inspected the drawers and agreed that they needed to be replaced. He counted twenty-seven (!) damaged and placed an order for replacements. The same day she gave me the good news, the Field Manager called me and said that they had been working on replacing the drawer facades all day. Apparently they took the stock from another worksite. Supposedly the ones ordered for our house would go to that worksite, but who knows.

But anyway, his real reason for calling was to say that they couldn't find two of the drawers that were identified to be replaced and to see if we could come out and locate them. Fuckin' lackadaisical bitches. We went out there and not only found two drawers that needed replacing, but a whole slew of stuff that needed to be patched up.

The moral of this story is to stand your ground; never back down; and never buy a new home. It's a pain in the arse. And also, enjoy those little victories that get you through your day. Ain't that quaint?

If all goes as planned, we sign off on the house soon and the loan docs and stuff and by the end of the week, we'll be homeowners! Broke homeowners! Is there any other?


No money : (

Ricky

I Can't Belieb I Did Dat

I can never show my face on the train again.

You think snoring or snorting loudly is the worst thing you can do on a train full of regular commuters? Try this on for size...

I was listening to the Jamie, Jack, and Stench podcast (I'm about 3 months behind) when I fell asleep with my head in my hand, propped up like a bicycle. I don't remember falling asleep or even nodding off. All I remember was the moment my arm flew out from under my head and my head hit the table in front of me.

My head went boom and made an owwie. God, it was embarrassing. I didn't make a big fuss about it really though because I knew that would only make me turn red. I laughed at myself with Mother Routes who was cracking up next to me. I buried my face in my arm for the rest of the way home. My head didn't really hurt; more just a bruised ego really. Mother Routes said that the guy next to me witnessed the entire incident and cracked up.

So. Fucking. Embarrassando.

In other more wonderful news, ANGEL WING JASMINE IS ENGAGED!!! I am so happy for her. She met a really cool guy who treats her great and makes her happy. I just realized that I don't have a nickname for her fiancé. I suppose Coxsmith will do. That's a Scrubs reference by the way. They're getting hitched in September which means... ROAD TRIP!


Made of honor,

Ricky

New House Smell

I want jya'll to look at this:


¡Mamma Frijoles! Kin joo belieb it? The house is done! ¡A la casa sé terminología, te voy! Well, I can't believe it myself. It seems like only yesterday we started, but soon we'll put away our books and pens. In maybe two weeks time, we'll be out of this house that I've called home for 26 years. This is a huge change! ¡Cambio! It's good though. Time enough at last.

I have no pictures. I have video footage, but I won't be throwing anything together for the site. What will be happening is a lot of work in the next coupla weekends to make the place livable. That'll be something that I cover.

Till then though, I'm just pissed that NBC ain't plugging Scrubs. But what else is new, ay?


Building towards a beautiful mañana,

Ricky

Mushrooms & Broccoli

It happened with dairy... and now comes another reminder that I'm getting old.

We always used to pity my mom because she was unable to eat mushrooms nor broccoli. These food items gave her bad stomach cramps.

Two weeks ago, I had some mushroom chicken and noodles for lunch. From the time I boarded the train, through the evening, and up to the time I went to bed, I had the most excruciating stomachache. I was pretty much immobilized. I wondered that night if it could have been the mushrooms. But I loved mushrooms! How could they ever betray me?

Flash forward back to yesterday. I had a Subway breakfast wrap for breakfast, a chicken teriyaki bowl for lunch, and a apple-blueberry-raspberry smoothie for snack. When boarding the train, it hit. The cramps! But Jebus Crisco, what could have caused it? At first I thought it might have been the chicken because it tasted a bit... different. But if it was some sort of food poisoning, I would have been puking as we speak.

Then I remembered... there were two small broccoli pieces in my chicken bowl. Could it have been? Et tu, Broccoli? The pains were all too familiar. But as the night progressed, the pains became magnified. If you were at my house, you could tell by the loud constant foot stompings coming from the upstairs bathroom. I'm telling you, it was bad. Worse than giving birth to a baby bad! Trust me. I know.

I washed up and forced myself to sleep. By morning, I was fine. But what's the point in living if I can't enjoy mushrooms in my spaghetti or broccoli in my teeth?

This whole thing just bites the whole hog of hamster hell.

UPDATE 4/9/08: You can add cheese to this shit list.


Fartbox,

Ricky

The Housing Development

Okay, so you probably guessed that my last blog entry was an April Fools gag. A poorly executed one at that. Our loan didn't fall through. It's actually perfectly processing right now and just needs one more thing for final approval. We've also locked in our loan rate.

But not all is happy-go-lucky on this house-buying venture. It's a lot of pressure getting the best deal. And as if paying for a house isn't a big enough deal, you have to make sure it's built correctly! And as of now, to me, it looks like since our house is one of the few that's already sold, the builders aren't being as careful with it. We've got a lot of cracking in the stucco, our flooring isn't cut straight, and a shattered step in our stairway wasn't fixed before carpeting over. This shotty work is really pissing me off. All I'm saying is that the house better be to our high standards or heads will roll at Centex.

Hopefully things will go smoothly. If they don't, I don't know what.


Chicken butt,

Ricky

Funny Thing

I guess that's it. We're officially out of the obligation of buying the house! Jebus, after months of planning and selecting options and stressing and house planning and such and option choosing etcetera and picking stuff, our loan fell through and we are no longer moving.

I'm a little more than upset, but I guess things happen for a reason, you know? I mean, with the house market dropping like flies and recession fears mounting and forclosures at an all-time high and the President being extremely lousy and that stupid Life Water Thriller dancing lizards commercial, I'd say this is actually a good thing. We may have just saved ourselves a ton of money. Maybe we can live forever in our parents's pad. No bills FTW!


All 4/1,

TRicky