If I didn't have bad luck, I'd have no luck at all...
The past two weeks have been a lesson in patience for me, as bad luck has been coming at me from all sides. Let's first start off with my car.
I've decided that instead of tracking down all the small issues that are causing the Christmas tree lights to go off on my dash, it's time to just bail on this 1997 POS. I've currently got a check engine light that goes on, an air bag light that started to go on randomly (turns off when I make a hard right), the radio sometimes shuts off for no reason...like totally goes dead...sometimes while still playing music (which I then can't turn off), the sun roof broke yesterday, my car alarm goes off randomly and without cause....should I go on? It's not just one little thing, it's everything. So I posted up the car. Now, I paid close to $11k for this thing....I have it posted for $9.5k....and I've driven it a whopping 4k miles. So...the return on investment is looking poor. If that weren't bad enough, I've gotten a single solitary email, which the guy didn't respond when I wrote him back. Oh, and the car started to shake at 50mph (stops at 60), and sometimes doesn't start as cleanly as it should....shuddering and feeling like it's going to stall unless I stomp the gas.
Anyway, so that's my car issue. I'm going to be taking a solid 2k hit by the end, I know it. Ugh. Oh well, I just want that thing out of my life so that I can get something more reliable. Lesson learned there, that's for sure.
Yesterday, I went to pick up my new Soyo 24" Monitor from the office. I had purchased it from OfficeMax online and had it shipped to my house. I was quite excited, and quickly set it up once I got home. Now, I'm not one to chastise UPS, as I know their job is miserable and yadda-yadda-yadda, but the box was so beaten up that I took pictures of it before I opened it. It looked like someone put it on the floor of the warehouse and kicked it to the truck. Really quite bad. I opened it up, hoping that everything would work, and the monitor itself looked fine, and I was really hoping it would work. Upon plugging it in, the screen flashed to life, filling the 24" screen with color and glamour, and then it died. No reason....nothing. Just a black screen. The blue LED on the frond turned to red and that was it. I figured it might be some issue with my video card, so I plugged it into a laptop....same thing.
So off I went to a regional OfficeMax store to return the messed up monitor. I was pleasantly surprised with the service at the local OfficeMax. They took my boxed up monitor and grabbed me a new one off the shelf. Didn't even open the box.
When I got home, I opened up the box, and it was perfect. No marks, no scratches, nothing. I plug in the monitor, DVI of course, and all seems well. It looks great. It's basking the room in a cool blue glow. I was very very pleased. Then I saw it. A single line of pixels about 4cm from the bottom of the screen.....all black. I pushed and pulled at the connector, at the sides of the monitor, changed the ports, even changed to a ...gasp...vga cable, and nothing. Monitor has a dead line of pixels. So I'm going to have to bring that back to OfficeMax today or tomorrow. Just another thing to do.
On a positive note, Melissa and I are going to be getting the keys to the house tonight, so that's really exciting. We'll finally be able to start the move in process, start to paint and start to get ourselves situated. It'll be quite nice, but I half way expect that something is going to go terribly wrong, as, like I mentioned before, I've not been having the best of luck.
Anyway, we'll see.