Bye Bye View

Our office is located on the 5th floor of an office building 2 blocks from the bay. That gives us a very very nice view of the water. One of the perks of my job. Still haven't figured out what the other one is.

Well now developers are planning a 30-something story condominium building right in front of us. Jerks. Now, I personally don't have a view of the bay from my office. I don't have an office. I have two walls. Ok, they're not even walls. I have two barriers which hold my desk up. But my boss has a nice view of the bay, and I need something to stare out at while he's rambling on about mistakes in my work.

So these new condos apparently aren't cheap. They start at over $1,000,0000.

Where the hell does all this money come from. I'm thinking if I had a million bucks to spend on a 2000 sq ft condo, would St. Pete really be the place I'd blow my wad?

Of money, sickos.

Anyway, I really hope whoever moves in is really interesting, because if I can't stare out at nice blue water and that boat where they shoot porn, then trust fund granny better learn some moves.

Of transmissions and automatic toll collection

Running an engine at 5000 rpm in 2nd gear usually tells you one thing: You're retarded. With an automatic transmission, this is known as a "catastrophic transmission failure". I've had my car for 4 1/2 years and up to this point it's had a pretty good grasp of this shifting concept. Not anymore. Who really know what caused this change of attitude. Maybe it's fed up with doing all my shifting for me and for once thinks that I should get off my lazy ass and change gears my own god damn self.. I can understand, but I really think it would have been this decision would have been more lest costly back at 30,000 miles.

Meanwhile inside my brain, thousands of useless bits of unrelated data continue their eternal swirl with the lost hope of ever being utilized. For bit #64325 this will all change. You see bit #64325 was generated four years ago, an eternity in my brain, where bits older than 15 minutes become orphaned and forgotten. The purpose for this particular bit was to store some sort of information about a warranty extension.

I quickly, well after I grabbed a sandwich, looked up any sort of recalls or warranty extensions related to the make and model of my automobile. Yup, there it was, full transmission coverage up to 100,000 miles.

And you know, the text of the warranty couldn't just have been plain text. It was littered with footnotes, asterisks, pound signs, references, revisions. This turned out to be a big problem as I would have to read this thing carefully.

And there it was. "¹Full coverage provided vehicle has been properly maintained". The catch all clause. "Oh we're sorry Mr. Grasso. Our records show that you brought your car in for 15,000 mile service when you actually had 15,023 miles. You clearly failed to maintain your vehicle properly which means that we are not obligated to fulfill the warranty".

Ok, so that really didn't happen. Actually I called up the serviced dept, got Joe, and was all like, "Oh yeah, sounds like a transmission problem, bring it on in"

"When's the earliest time?" I asked.

"How about 7:30 Monday morning?"

"Sure", I said. At that point, memory bit #6252324 which is responsible for calculating the drive time between Apollo Beach and Clearwater and the probability that I will actually get my ass out of bed early enough to get there in time, perked up, traveled down to my memory retention center, and deposited my high score for Galaga.

Actually, I showed up early. Not early for the appointment, early in the freaking morning. So I'm an hour late. Joe didn't seem to mind. "It's going to take a week"

"A week?"

"A week"

Not too big of a deal seeing how the dealership pays for a car rental. So I'd have to drive a Hyundai Peesoshit or a Saturn Whathefuckisthisthing, but at least I'd have a car. I have to admit, I was a little more than surprised when I was handed the keys to a brand spankin new TSX. Joe wasn't as thrilled as I was and kindly asked me to stop humping his leg.

The TSX thing was great. Nice car. The first thing I did with it was blow through a SunPass lane without my SunPass. The truth is, I actually had my SunPass in the car with me, I just forget to hold it up to the windshield.

Now most of you irresponsible jerks would just forget about it and let the dealer handle it. This means they would get a $100 fine, and then charge you for both the fine and a $150 "inconvenience" fee. Not me. You see, I have a strong sense of civil obligation. I called up SunPass and explained what happened. I learned several things in that conversation:

1. I'm a freaking moron
2. You don't have to actually have your transponder with you. They take a picture of your license plate, search their records, and charge your account if the plate number is associated with an existing account
3. The whole SunPass thing is a scam. None of the equipment actually works, and nobody has any clue if you drive through the SunPass lane without a transponder.
4. You'll get a violation if you use your SunPass in a car that is not registered.
5. #3 is not true.

So there you have it. My life experiences for that last week. Oh, the TSX has XM satellite radio, So I'm in no rush to get my car back.

The email address says it all I just got an email from a very christian woman asking for help, husband's dead, she's in a hospital in Kenya, Has $3.5M in the bank that she can't use and would like me to have. Sounds lovely. The response email is assitmeliloveworld@yahoo.co.uk ass it me?