"Your Hard Drive Has Been Corrupted..."

Well thanks a fucking lot Dish Network. Fucking pricks. My DVR started acting up yesterday. Basically, it didn't work, and gave me some bullshit message about data not being available. So I "reset" the receiver, which did nothing. Today, I got home from work and went to watch PTI, and it gave me same message. After turning through the worthless help website (No fucking way am I sitting on the phone with those pricks), it said to unplug the receiver and plug it back in, which I guess is different than resetting it. Whatever, I did it, and it came back with a message telling me that "I may have difficulties pausing and recording live shows. And I needed to unplug the receiver" No shit Sherlock. So I did it again. And this time I got the "MY DATA IS CORRUPT" message and that the only option I had was to delete everything from my hard drive. If you don't have a DVR, you are Amish and probably also don't have the Internets, so I'm not sure why I included that phrase, but if you don't have a DVR, you don't understand what a problem this is. Because people that have a DVR tend not only to record shows that they really like and watch religiously, but they tend to get a little adventurous and record things they might like, or are curious about (midget cake fetish porn). Also, the "season passes", or the timers for every fucking show you've ever cared about watching, some of which have long been cancelled but you are too lazy to delete, disappear. And those take a long time to accumulate. Not unlike terrible posts on this blog. So those have to be rebuilt from scratch. Inevitably, you will forget one, and miss like 4 episodes of a show and never see them again.

Also, in my accumulation of shit, I had the entire series of "Breaking Bad" that I was four episodes into. And the entire season of "Justified" that I just watched pilot for. 5 or 6 random movies I recorded off of HBO a year ago that I was probably going to get to at some point, and the last 30 for 30. All of them are fucking gone.

So what am I going to do about it other than bitch? Probably nothing. My contract is another year I think and I have to pay like $10,000 to get out of it. I guess I could call and threaten them and hope for a discount or something, which usually works by the way, but I don't have any real leverage because I can't just quit and go back to Time Warner (which I still hate). So probably I will convince my wife that we either order Netflix or she will be forced to watch the Brewers trip over their dicks for another 80 games or so.

UPDATE: And I just restarted the receiver after deleting the hard drive (allegedly) and I can't even look at it. What the fuck.

2ND UPDATE: After 20 minutes on the phone, I was informed that the receiver had to be replaced, and they would mail us one, blah, blah, blah. Then I asked when my contract was up. The guy asked why? I said because I just lost 50 hours of shit on my DVR because your equipment sucks. He said it was up in April....And then he didn't offer me shit. What. A. Prick. Time Warner, which again is terrible, would've offered me a shitload of free shit to stay. They almost convinced me to stay when I quit them two years ago, their offer was so ridiculous. Fucker. Well, wait till my wife finds out. She will be PISSED. I can pretty much guarantee she will be on the phone within 5 minutes and will not get off until she gets in a shouting match, gets free shit, or cancels the service. She is scary.

To be continued....

Toothless, White-Trash, Rednecks

So the saga continues. Karma continues to rear its ugly bitch face. I would think I've built up some good karma with the various shit that has happened over the course of 2009 (and obviously I know that whatever has happened, it could have been worse). But I must be a fucking terrible human being. I guess thinking and speaking various bad thoughts is just as bad as actually acting on them.

But onto last night....The wife and I go to the grocery store to get much needed sustenance. We are getting down to emergency meals (i.e. the ones you only eat when you have no other choice). We spend like 45 minutes getting all sorts of shit, and actually it was a fairly large trip. We double checked before we went to the store that the bank would let us write checks due to the whole stolen wallet thing and security flags and such. We were assured that it wasn't a problem. So the wife writes out a check for $153.42, and the motherfucker gets denied. Few things are embarrassing as the whole chain of events:

1) We are writing a check. We NEVER write checks unless it is to some other person. We always use our credit cards and pay them off online. AND to make it more ironic, I am always the asshole standing behind the old person/neck in line behind the person writing the check wanting to kill them as they take ten minutes to write the stupid fucking check and THEN refusing to leave until they make the entry into their god(Sports Bottle's)damn check register.

2) It is 8 p.m. so there is one open land and about 12 people behind us with two items.

3) They reject the fucking check and treat us like criminals.

4) We make them call over the manager and she is a bitch about it.

5) We act like assholes.

6) We spend like 30 minutes on the phone with the bank while our ice cream melts.

Our bank informs us that they think the problem is with the third party company that grocery stores pay to approve checks for them. Of course, the bank give me the wrong one so I spend the next 15 minutes arguing with some (expletive deleted) woman about whether or not I can read the number off the bottom of my check, and whether I know my own social security number. Finally, we figured out that the grocery store uses a different company to do this job. We call that company and we get a recording telling us that they won't approve it because we are "high risk" and that we can't talk to a real person. Eventually we give up and tell the manager to have fun putting away our groceries.

Upon getting home, we finally fucked with their robot on the phone enough that it gave up and gave us a person. Person tells us that the check was not denied for the theft, or that we are dirtbags, but because WE HAD NEVER WRITTEN A CHECK TO A STORE BEFORE. Which, by the way, is likely true. But it is insane that they won't take a check from someone just because they haven't written it before. Someone I know that went to law school informed me that a CHECK IS A MOTHERFUCKING NEGOTIABLE INSTRUMENT. IT IS FUCKING LEGAL TENDER. IT IS A NOTE THAT ENTITLES YOU TO FUCKING MONEY. LEGALLY, IT SHOULDN'T BE A FUCKING OPTION ON WHETHER YOU WANT TO APPROVE IT OR NOT. We were told we had to write smaller checks to "establish a history". After fucking with the chick for awhile (i.e. Asking her if I could write 75 $2 checks to the same place) we eventually gave up. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go sign up for food stamps because those, unlike FUCKING CHECKS WHERE THE FUCKING BANK ASSURES YOU THERE IS FUCKING MONEY, are never used fraudulently.

OTHER OKTOBERFEST STUFF I REMEMBERED LATER:

- Our old roommate, lets call him Bill, showed up out of the blue. Comments associated with said meeting included: "Now I know where my 40 pounds went." and "I was afraid Bill was going to eat me." and "I love his tits."

- I had not been quiet when saying these things, which is strange because after 25 drinks, I'm usually like a church mouse. Anyways, the conspiracy theory is that he in fact, stole my wallet. Which would not surprise me in the least.

- My wife, my brother and Mark went "Snout Hunting" Which is the meanest thing ever.

- My wife accidentally sent a text to Richards ex-girlfriend that said "I luv u."

I'm sure some other things will come to mind.

IN OTHER NEWS:

I am already sick of He Who Shall Not Be Named v. Packers talk. If we don't win this game I might kill myself.

Are we in Russia?

So I headed over to purchase my gametime beer. Shopko Express if you don't know, is almost exactly like Walgreens. I had a coupon for $10 off of a $20 purchase due to the amount of money we spend there. I thought: "Great. I'll stop in and buy $20 worth of beer and snacks, and I can have my own Super Bowl party."

First of all, I have been buying the "build a six pack" at this place for the past two years. Typically it is $7.49, but occasionally it will be on sale for less. Today, I noticed that they raised the price to $8.49. That is ridiculous. I refuse to pay $8.49 for a six pack of beer, when I can buy a non-mixed one for $6.99.

So I load up with some beer and chips and shit and I get to the counter and she says "Oh, I'm sorry, this coupon doesn't apply to alcohol." I was pissed. I'm a fairly non-confrontational person when it comes to customer service situations, because typically it is either not that person's fault, or because I know I'm going to give them a shitty tip (should it apply). My immediate response was: "Where does it say that?" Clerk: "It doesn't, its just a policy." Me: "Well how am I supposed to know that?" Clerk: blank stare. My choice was either, leave the shit on the counter as a matter of principal, or buy it and bitch about it. I think you can probably tell from this post, what I did. The way that trip went, I'm glad the Packers aren't playing today.