Broken...

 
I think my blog is broken. Or at least, it has seemed like it this week. Trying to post comments on blogs resulted in missing posts, missing pages, missing blogs, missing people. It's frustrating to know that it's not going to get any better. Yahoo has said they will abandon 360 in lieu of a new better platform, so what bugs there are now will stay. (I know, I know MkChippy you hate the Yahoo talk, skip this paragraph and go to the next, I swear it won't just be another rant on Yahoo,lol).It did give me food for thought when trying to post a comment to a blog, instead of their blog page loading with my comment it took me to MY page on setting up a blog. I then wondered just how secure is anything we have listed with Yahoo. I wanted to mumble under my breath that Yahoo must be another one of those things that is made in China and needs to be recalled....but then I got to thinking that might not go over well with Yahoo's CEO... Mr. Yang.... Sometimes I can put my foot in my mouth with the greatest of ease, if only everything else was that simple.

This week has seemed like a week of things broken. Yahoo, blogs, my lawnmower, and a lamp. I don't know how the lamp was broken. But there it was when I looked closer today, a big crack. I can't remember ever knocking it over, dropping it, or abusing it in any other way, but it's broke. It's not that noticeable til you look it over carefully, but I know the crack is there, and I am sure the crack will grow bigger. I am still using it though til it is of no use and beyond repair or until I get tired of my cracked and imperfect lamp.

Things do that though, they break all of the time. Case in point, a new lawnmower bought in June of this year. Last month a part broke underneath the decking....two weeks past the guarantee from the place of business it was acquired from (grrrrr)... Upon numerous phone calls to that place of business I was given another phone number to call which only lead me to their webpage on the internet. After reading and rereading the owners manual and their website, I found out the lawnmower was under warranty.....(insert happy face!)......but it must be taken to an authorized dealer which isn't listed within a 50 mile radius of me.....(lose the happy face). So I looked up the part on the web on their on-line catalog. It would be around 70 bucks including shipping. Grumble,...grumble,....grumble... I ordered the part. Figuring in the gas mileage to drive to a dealer so far away to drop it off, go back and pick it, and the additional fees that might be charged (according to their website) it was easier and I felt cheaper to buy the part.

It was a week or so ago that I got the part delivered by UPS, and not til yesterday that my kind hearted neighbor was able to replace it. When he was finished he handed over to me, part of my new part. I had to order the whole assembly in order to get the part I needed that was broken. My neighbor told me that the mower was back in perfect working order but that part of my new part was faulty. The four holes where it screwed onto the decking weren't threaded, it hadn't been tapped. Thinking more about that mower part today, I was starting to get a bit peeved. I didn't need the whole assembly but it wasn't being offered seperately in their parts catalog...I had to take what I could get...

This morning I gave them a call....After finally getting thru to the parts department I explained my problem. I was then informed that the part was not faulty at all but that they have self tapping screws that you buy for the part. I could order them thru their on-line catalog or go visit one of their dealers, (you know, the one that lives outside of my 50 mile radius) to get the special screws. I mumbled okay, all the while feeling I was already being screwed, in that I had to buy more parts for my new part to replace my broken part. We were about to have a parting of the ways when out of curiosity I asked about the wholeness of the part. In their catalog it wasn't listed, but could I just buy the part of the part that I needed. Yes I could....but that would require him to go to the warehouse to break down that part and he wasn't sounding too thrilled at the prospect. I wasn't thrilled with it either or any part of the whole deal.

I guess we have to take the stuff we don't need and sift thru til we get what we want. Sometimes all we want is just the simplest of things to life's problems. I would have preferred being able to walk right in and take what I needed off the shelf. Instead it took phone calls, web surfing, another call to find out what I needed and more depositing of funds. It's a rat race this life of ours. Little things that give us pleasure like blogging seem to be becoming more difficult and I know for some of you it hasn't been as much fun as it use to be ....but hang on. Sift thru those parts and people you enjoy and stick the rest back in the blog or box they came in. You never know when you might need the rest of it.....


*sidenote to those of you following Yahoo's product blog. I came across this webpage when googling for a picture of something broken. It's an article on Yahoo being worth more if it was broken up.... some days I just have to giggle on the irony.

** another sidenote to Judy E...I promise an update on Stinkpot coming soon...