Archives 2003

For over a year I have had a recurring, maddening intermittent metallic squeal that comes from under the rear of my truck. I have had it to the dealer 4 times. Each time they have not been able to reproduce it. Well this time I went out with the guy and he heard it! Loud and clear. Hmpphhh, I thought see, I’m not crazy, now they can finally fix it. I get a call later in the morning, “Mr Duffey, we have a diagnosis” GREAT, what is it? “Your driveshaft has a dent in it” What the? A dent? I have never been off roading with the truck, never had any sort of incident that could have possibly dented the driveshaft. So they can’t cover it under warranty since it is physical damage. That’s wonderful. I ask how much a replacement driveshaft is. $1600 BUCKS! Insane. So now I have to either live with it, shell out 2k to get it fixed or find a used shaft and/or have a driveline shop see if they can balance it. I think I will wind up trying the last option. What burns me up is they never saw this the other 3 times they looked at it.

More fun Spam for today:

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Check out the video of last nights frat party

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Copy DVD Movies to CD-R discs!

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Don’t Spend Another Valentine’s Day Alone!

Crazy.

34 degrees at our place this morning, we tried to cover a bunch of plants but by morning most of them had blown off from the wind. I still didnt wear a coat to work, keeping my streak of NO COATS IN FLORIDA alive. 🙂

Superbowl this weekend, blah blah. Eagles should have been there, bastards……

Nell Carter DEAD! I used to watch Gimme a Break… depressing…..

SPAM, I hate it, let’s cover some of the highlights from today’s 100+ spam messages I will receive:

Norton SystemWorks 2003 blowout sale – last chance

Copy DVD Movies – Free Software Included

Mooo

Superpool Jackpot – Bet Now on the Showdown in San Diego

Intuit’s Quicken Deluxe — FREE for duf@duf.net

Powerful Voice Recognition from IBM, U Talk, it Types

This is only a tiny sample of what I get in a day. SPAMMERS must stay up late at night dreaming about all sorts of ways of phoenetically spelling words so they get past our filters. They are the armpits of society. Can’t wait till SPAMMERS start goin to jail.

Homey broke his Zaurus by just tapping on the screen to calibrate it. Now Best Buy wont take it back cause they said he abused it. 🙂 Gonna be a tough sell. It appears Best Buy has made a lot of enemies. Look here. Homey DID reinstate my pixie, however it looks slightly different this time.

Here ya go, another former co-worker site.

Fishy my original beta has been acting lethargic. I hope he isn’t ready to kick the bucket. I changed their water and moved him to the west side hoping that a change of scenery might perk him up. Crossing my fingers.

True winter weather is supposed to be rolling in today. Tomorrow morning they are calling for low temperatures around 30 degrees! It has the potential to be the coldest it has been down here in 7 or 8 years! It’s a shame it is happening now because we have compnay Friday and Saturday. Too bad it is going to be so chilly. However, back up close to 70 by Sunday.

I heard back from the insurance company regarding my dead Buick. They are totalling the car, meaning I will be getting a check for the insured value soon. I did a salvage buy back, meaning I am keeping the car. I am trying to sell it to one of the Buick enthusiasts down here as a parts car or a restoration project.

Saw American Idol on tivo. Wow it was amazing to see how many people that are horrid singers tried out. Why? There is no way these people could think they sang well. It’s unbelievable how bad some of them were.

Homey still hasn’t reinstated my Pixie. I miss it now that it is dead.

Token blog entry. Feeling blah. Not sure why.

Still hearing GO BUCS comments at work, arghhhh.

Learned of a new language , HAXOR. Look it up.

Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT! The Eagles had their best opportunity in 20 + years to march into the Superbowl. All of the indicators pointed to an Eagles win. Tampa was 0-6 in playoff road games, 1-20something under 32 degrees, 0-3 in the playoffs against the Birds. The Eagles had so much emotion and energy from the fans before the game, you would think the Vet would explode. The Birds explode and get a TD in the first minute of the game. A PERFECT SCENARIO. However they respond to this tremendous start by going into a shell and playing cautious and soft for the next 2 quarters.

Donovan in a word was BAD. His inaccuracy was on display again, as well as his lack of pocket presence and tendency to hold onto a ball too long. The defense was SOFT. They abandoned the agressive style that has worked so well in the past for a rush 4 and play zone style that gave up tons of soft yards underneath. They only returned to an agressive D once they were down 2 scores. The running game was a NON-FACTOR. They only get yards on the ground when they run in obvious passing downs. They can not run the ball down anyone’s throat since the 2nd half of the season. The play calling was CONSERVATIVE. I am so tired of 3 yard passes when you need 10. Stretch the damn field.

The Eagles were able to single handedly stop an unreal surge of momentum. Instead of using the crowd’s energy to make plays, they played it close to the vest and let the Bucs become the agressors. It was their’s for the taking and they simply choked. A horrible loss that I will never forget. I can only hope they can go up from here but sadly I think this was this team’s crest. Down from here I would imagine.

A TOTAL, INEXCUSEABLE CHOKE! I need something to strangle…..

I got the prop for my plane last night. It is the folding variety so it should not break so easily. I installed it last night and then took it out before work today to try it. Yuk, it was all over the place, went into a tree and broke a bit off the aileron. Determined, I retrieved it and launched some more. I finally got it up but it was a mess in the air. I definitely have some adjusting to do this weekend.

I worked on my DVD burner issue again last night. I tried reinstalling the apps, going through the registry all to no avail. I was able to burn a dvd using Nero however. Very odd. I gave up. Then this morning I remembered the neato feature of Windows XP, system restore! XP automatically saves checkpoints at various times that allows you to roll back your configuration to that checkpoint. I picked a date back in December, let it run the sys restore and BAM, it all worked again! VERY COOL. One of those features you don’t appreciate until you need to use it.

We have a long weekend this weekend. However, Alison has to work Saturday and I have work to do some work in Sarasota on Monday. My plans this weekend include cleaning, working the bugs out of my plane, hitting my new golf clubs and getting some good xbox time in.

Sunday is the NFC championship! We will be glued to the set. I can only hope the Eagles will play as well as they are capable of playing. It is going to be a tough game.

Coldest weather of the year is supposed to blow in this weekend. Lows in the 30’s overnight and high only in the upper 50’s. Very chilly by south Florida standards. It could be worse, Tim said it was 9 up in PA the other morning.

See it isn’t just me. Wachovia ad’s DO suck!