Archive for the ‘Catastrophic Failure’ Category

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Worst Day Ever

Saturday, August 21st, 2010

It’s been a while since I’ve posted I realize, but I’ve actually had real things to do so I haven’t had the time to post every little thing I mess up on a day to day basis. However, this last Sunday was such a monumental day rife with failure I just have to tell you all about it.

The day started with moving a car-load of things to my new apartment, the one I started renting July 1st. The place still isn’t fixed up. The kitchen is a disaster, the carpets aren’t clean, and they stopped painting half-way through the place. Wow. A great start to a Sunday.

I then drove out to Mayfair Mall to replace my DVR which failed at installing an update last week. They gave me a new one and I headed home.

Or so I thought, but the traffic to the Brewers game had other plans.

45 minutes later, I arrive at home with the DVR, I plugged it in, and it read “Illegal Cable Box” or something to that effect. They gave me a number to call, but it only took me to the unpaid bills office, which was closed.

Wow, a terrible day so far, so it was time for some lunch. My roommate decided it would be awesome to make fried Limburger cheese sandwiches. What do you know, the cheese known as “stinky cheese” is capabable of making an entire apartment smell like death once heated, and frankly, the sandwich was so pungent it was barely edible. 2 days later, our house still reeks.

Due to the smell and the fact that we are moving and need to clean anyway, we went out to buy paper towel and other cleaning supplies. We somehow forgot to actually buy the paper towel though, so wow.

Ok, it was time to take a shower and just stop trying to do things and relax for the night, right? Oh right, the hot water heater broke on Saturday, so it was an ice cold shower for me.

Wow, I could at least fire up the grill and slowly roast that brisket, right? Out of gas. Literally the last day I ever planned on using that grill it ran out of gas. But wait! We had extra charcoal sitting in the basement… sopping wet due to the recent rain.

Fine, onto video games. Oh, they’ve been moved already.

Just sit and do nothing, the only way I can’t fail.

Posted in Catastrophic Failure, Compounding Failure, Inconceivable Failure, Lingering Failure, Obscure Failure | No Comments »

Server?

Friday, May 21st, 2010

Yesterday I endured a fairly long and combative meeting with a client regarding design aesthetics on a nearly-finished website and was really hoping to put things to rest with a demo of the CMS and a removal of the “coming soon” page. Sadly, after 45 minutes of arguing to keep the design as it is the server decided to crash so I spent the next 15 minutes pointlessly clicking around. We decided there wasn’t anything left to do so we’d have to meet again next week. Quite literally as I was walking out the door I checked the site from my phone and it was back up. WTF?

Posted in Catastrophic Failure, Inconceivable Failure, Obscure Failure | No Comments »

Perfect Timing

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

As you may know by looking at my posts from last August my landlord and his family moved into the converted attic above us last year. It made our apartment considerably less awesome and was one of the major contributing factors to cause us to look for a new place this year. This morning, the day after I turned in a check and application for another apartment, we get a note on the door that he’s moving out. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH. I just want to be done with the apartment hunt. I’m curious to know what their plans for the converted attic are since it’s not really a place of its own. If we were to stay, would it be vacant? If we were to move, will they just find the next lucky batch of 4 people to live there? Most importantly, why couldn’t this have been made known about 2 weeks ago?

Posted in Catastrophic Failure, Uncontrollable Failure | No Comments »

Another Terrible Commute

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

So, recall that yesterday I made it a mile into my bike commute before having to turn back because I forgot a change of clothes to wear at work. Today I made it to pretty much the same spot before a screw fell off the bike, presumably from nearly a month of hitting enormous potholes, and my bike rack and saddlebags fell into the back tire. Once again I had to turn back, this time picking up my girlfriend’s bike and then return to work, arriving 30 minutes late.

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Damn those 88s

Friday, April 16th, 2010

I’m playing through Brothers in Arms again in my spare time, this time on the more difficult setting. I died instantly about 10 times in a row at the exact same part where I had to run across a road with my squad while an 88mm cannon was pointed directly us. Boom. Death. Sad.

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Financial Fail

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Despite getting an unused–vacation-bonus from my old job in December, earning higher wages at my new job, getting some money for freelance projects, and a bit of Christmas/birthday money, I still somehow drove my checking account down to $80 last week. Time to stay home and not spend any money!

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Gutter Ball

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

My team made it to the semi-finals of the office Wii bowling tournament and ended up losing by 2 pins. The worst part is that I somehow managed to throw a gutterball on a should-have-been-easy spare pick up in the ninth frame. I then left the tenth frame open too after what had been a pretty decent game. I was on course for a 200 or so, but instead got a 176 and lost it for the team.

Posted in Catastrophic Failure, Inconceivable Failure | No Comments »

Hot Caramel

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

I decided to make myself some bananas foster french toast and bacon yesterday morning for a nice lazy Sunday brunch. I cooked the bacon on the back burner, the french toast on the electric griddle, and put a small sauce pot on the front burner for the caramelized bananas. As the bacon finished and began to burn I moved it off of the burner and then went to add brown sugar to the melting butter in the sauce pan. In a brief moment of sheer stupidity I actually plopped the plastic bag containing a full pound of brown sugar on the hot burner where I just had cooked my bacon. I realized my mistake before I even fully set the bag down but the damage was done. The bottom of the bag instantly melted, pouring a pound of brown sugar onto a 10-inch wide hot surface. The smell of burning plastic and sugar was awfully but the cleanup was surprisingly easy. I would have taken pictures, but time was of the essence as I hustled to salvage most of the sugar.

Maybe I was still a wee bit too tired to be cooking. Maybe I’m just dumb.

Posted in Catastrophic Failure, Preventable Failure | No Comments »

Losing the Man Card

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Last night I lost a bowling game to ballerinas. I wish I was kidding.

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The Whole Shebang

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

So, here’s the full story of the car:

Making a right hand turn out of my work parking lot on Tuesday evening the car suddenly came to a stop and then started making an awful engine revving like a jackhammer noise. I tried for a second or two to pull over to the curb but the car was not moving and it was making god-awful noises so I shut her off. Some coworkers and I then pushed the car backwards into the parking lot where it sat for an hour waiting for a tow. It was clear at this point that the right tire was about 6 inches from where it should have been and that the engine was not engaging the drive axle at all. When the tow guy arrived he was poking around to see what was wrong with the car and shouted “Oh SHIT! Shit, man, shit. Wow… shit” when he looked behind the tire at the carnage document in the previous post.

The car was towed home where it sat for two days. On Friday it was towed to the local mechanics who thought it might be a fairly quick repair. However, after they got the car into the shop and looked around at everything they realized the problem was far worse than originally thought AND they could tell it was about to happen to the other side. The estimate for the repairs was over $1200 so I think I will call them tomorrow to say that we’re just going to junk it.

Considering that the car has a junky muffler, leaks water into the carpet and smells like mold, has some pretty beat up tires, and is in need of a major oil change and tuneup anyway, I think it’s probably wise to take that $1200 and invest it into a much newer used car.

Well, I better get to bed so that I can get up early enough for my hour-long commute.

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