Archive for the ‘Obscure Failure’ Category

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.

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?

A Fraud

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

Just One Day Without Failing is approaching its 1-year Anniversary so I put in the order to renew the domain name for another year. Sadly, this $9.69 purchase was detected as fraudulent by my credit card company, sending me into a few days of credit card tedium. I suppose the credit card guys though even I wasn’t dumb enough to waste money on something named Just One Day Without Failing but boy were they wrong.

Purchasing Power

Friday, April 30th, 2010

I have none. I decided to make two major purchases this week and so far have failed at both.

The first was replacing my 5-year-old free cell phone with a new iPhone – my first foray into smart phones and into Apple products I actually own. So far fail. My wonderful girlfriend and I decided to add a line to her family plan for me and just pay with my credit card. The sales rep ran it through and everything seemed fine but a day later there was still no confirmation email. We called back to find out using my credit card wasn’t working and myriad other things were screwed up. Hopefully the phone arrives by the end of the week.

The second purchase is my own reseller hosting account so that I can provide hosting for my clients. Once again, there seemed to be a problem with using my card and the process was delayed a day. Now that it’s clear all of the login links they sent me seem to fail.

I may make a third major purchase soon – a new bike to replace the one that insists on breaking down on me every single week.

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.

Losing the Man Card

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

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

Wrong Button

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

Over Christmas weekend I borrowed my mom’s car so that I could actually get around to all of the various activities and errands I needed to do. The weather was not terrible, but the windshield washer was refusing to work so after only about 5 minutes of driving I’d have to start squinting out of the few unsalted spots on the windshield to see. I bought new fluid figuring that it was empty but when I looked under the hood I saw this was not the case. I managed the rest of the weekend by splashing cleaner from the surplus bottle right onto the windshield any time I got out of the car.

When I returned the car my mother kindly pointed out I’d been hitting the wrong button to activate the perfectly functioning washers. Way to go me.

Not Going Back There

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

The bus made me look  like a fool again. I really thought I had the schedule all figured out so I stuck at home for an extra 10 minutes this morning to time the bus perfectly. Well, as I was approaching my stop I saw my bus flying down the road so I sprinted to it and boarded in the middle of the intersection. The bus driver then told me I had to get off since he wasn’t going back to the stop. He was an old, retired looking guy and the way he said “I’m not going back there” reminded me of every cheesy Vietnam movie I’ve ever seen.

Thankfully, the bus that was going to my stop arrived 2 minutes later getting me to work on time albeit confused.

That Just Hurts

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

My mechanic has a better website than any one we’ve ever created at work: http://www.riversideautomotive.com/

Bang Boom Crash

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

So, after losing the upstairs of our apartment I moved my drumset into the basement but have not been able to play it since because it’s simply too loud. I have a set of mesh practice heads which I’ve been meaning to put on but was unable to do because I lost my drum key at some point. Well, I finally got a new drum key and got all excited to put the practice heads on and start playing again when I remembered that the practice heads are actually for a drumset one size too small. Awesome. I’ll have to find some new practice heads or devise some stupid muting system involving old t-shirts or something. Boooo.