Why am I up at 348am? This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

OK, it's 452am as I start this post, because before hand I

• checked my credit card receipts against my statements, 
• made a post over at the Panthers Hockey Message Boards, 
• filed my medical receipts for the week, 
• had a drink of water (twice 4x), 
• turned on the TV looking for something and found the last bit of an episode of the Office (UK),
• posted to Facebook  
• exchanged IMs with Suzie-Q.

So, on to the blog post. The Panthers won, which pleased me, almost as much as the fact I felt healthy enough to go to the game. They were lucky because the first period they didn't even show up. Stupid Panthers. Before the game we three (John, Liz, me) ate at Stevie-B's and it was tasty and as a bonus was real, solid food. Stevie-B's does kill you on the add-ons to the food. So while nothing on the menu is expensive (everything we had was $8 or less) it was still over $65 plus tip for three of us. I hate nickel-and-diming like that.

I got home from the hockey game and took my temperature -- 99ish which is just about right. Took a nice, hot, scalding shower because my muscles really hurt from all the hacking. I'm still hacking. Sometime in the small hours -- the early part of the 3am block somewhere -- I woke up to pee. With all the liquid I've been drinking since I got sick, this is not an uncommon occurrence. I got back into bed. I realized some time later I was wide awake. So I got up and did the above errands.

So I figured I should blog because, you know, there are a quarter of a million of you just dying to know what time I wake up to pee. I get e-mail about that all the time. If you believe that, you're an idiot :)

There's more on the Nucor case. Lots more. First of all, I'd love to go on about most of it, but for legal reasons I can't at this time. I am going to send a formal complaint to the ITC and US Department of Commerce and ask this man's testimony be stricken from the record due to apparent perjury and am also pursuing a libel case against him and will also find the state in which he's registered with the bar and request he be disbarred. There is a national publication in which he said something untrue that not only offended me, I can prove it was a lie, he could have and should have known it was a lie, and was just too damned lazy to bother to check -- much like all of his other research.  If anyone out there knows how to find out where an attorney is registered with the bar and how to file a formal complaint (as an individual and not a company), I would love to know. (A perjury charge in front of a Federal inquiry is absolutely, positively grounds for being disbarred, and since i have a copy of the testimony, a magazine article, both with the same approximate statement, the magazine has already apologized, I have concrete proof, I'm itching to do the right thing.)

The Nucor thing has been admitted but is panelled for review with a decision date of 6 November. There was a lot said, some of it good, some of it not so good. They were clearly surprised at the number of objections. Some heavy hitters spoke out. I've also received two letters of thanks from Chinese / Taiwanese suppliers saying I'm a hero to the industry. One was from someone we do business with, the other from someone I never heard of. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. What I am very pleased at, though, is the amount of ill-will Nucor has made for itself. They are going to be unpleasantly surprised at how many people will not buy from them even if it means paying more money to go elsewhere. They will have spent a great deal of money to help their competition. It shows, of course, that some very large companies don't think very hard and, as I alluded to in the company's formal complaint, if you don't know your customer, you will not succeed.

It's funny. Interstate is a very low key company and we never make waves, just trying to do our thing, make our customers happy, and so on. We rarely make public waves like this. In fact this is only the second time. The first was a public safety issue where we ultimately were able to have a product we felt unsafe recalled nationwide over the manufacturer's objections. It took lawyers and lots of money to have it done, but people's lives were in immediate danger. This is just as important, thousands of American jobs are in danger, maybe tens of thousands., entire companies are in danger, but apparently Nucor feels their jobs are more important than our jobs. We (and I) beg to differ.

(Oh, and a special fuck-off to Phil at Nova who outright plagiarized my formal objection to the ITC and literally copied the entire first draft of the letter typos and all and filed it. He got an incendiary letter from me as well.)

Enough about Nucor. I really want to say a lot, but I simply can't right now. Please be patient. If you are interested in the public transcripts, filings, and whatnot. I have all of it already. If you email me at work, I will share with you all the public documents (boring as hell) to save you the trouble of requesting them and such.

I took my temperature just now (518am) and it's 98.1 which is too low but I'm feeling okay. I'm just not tired. Which sucks.

This weekend proves to be exciting if I can keep up the pace. Saturday -- oh, right, later this morning -- I am planning to see Wild Things with Karen and Liz. Then off to the art museum because they have an awesome looking exhibit (Liz sent me a picture and I was, like, I must see this.)

Sunday AM I am going to the flea market with Timmy. Then I am going to go to the arena to pick up my season ticket holder gift which is, allegedly, a lawn chair. They also have open skate for those who participated in the Fanatic Early Renewal package. So that will be my attempt at exercise.

A few friends are ignoring me, and I am sad over it. When I have more strength, I suppose I'll have to deal with that.

I'm suddenly very itchy and have been drinking tons and tons of water since I work up.

I still get regular blog hits for "Rock Beach Grill" -- the restaurant I reviewed some time back. You know, one would figure they'd have contacted me to at least apologize for my experience and hope I'd write something nice. No, they'd rather close to 3,000 people so far read that review and leave it as one of the top matches at both Yahoo and Google. BTW, if you're ever in Pembroke Pines, don't eat there unless you like spiders in your drinks and then still get charged for those drinks (see review).

Lastly, and it's almost 6am, so I should try for a nap, I ate at Tony Roma's again recently. It was not my choice as I vowed to never return because Tony Roma's sucks donkey balls (link to review). Two and a half years since my initial visit and five attempts to get a reply (documented all over my blog) have yielded not even the courtesy of a phone call. But, a client insisted so we went. I am pleased to report that (A) the service was horrific, (B) the food was horrible, (C) the restaurant wasn't clean, (D) they still charge for the bread. Now, "B" concerns me here because that's never been a problem. How the hell does a rib place screw up the ribs. I had St Louis and my client had Baby Backs. Two different kinds of ribs. They were not moist, not fall off the bone, and quite nasty. Neither of us finished. The client has vowed to never return. Because I am very friendly with this client I was able to get away with an "I told you so" :)

Yeah, let's try bed. I expect to fail, still.

Companies That (Still) Suck and Movie Reviews This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

First, special venom today for Winn-Dixie (previous post) for case 790762 which on 3-3 and 3-11 they promised me a reply from their "District Office" and which hasn't happened. At least we know why they've been bankrupt once already.

Second, even more venom for Tony Roma's (previous post) which still hasn't replied about my issue from 4-16-08, 4-24-08, and 5-23-08. Hell, it's been a YEAR and they haven't given me the promised response. Apparently "Karen Weinberger" who is going to call me is a bit behind. I haven't eaten there since.

And I and am mystified why Rock Beach Grill hasn't checked on their company's name. It's always good to Google your company's name. When a complaint appears above your own company's page, it's good for the complainer's page and not so much for your own. Some companies must love negative publicity.

The day started with the typical OPH breakfast, followed by skating. We went skating at Pines though "skating" is a relative word as the chillers were broken and the ice was the consistency of a Slurpee™ and we were making Bow-Wakes at the far end due to the 1/4" of standing water. Still we had fun and got our exercise in. Johnny and Liz didn't join us for the movie and lunch.

Next up, we saw Monsters vs Aliens. Was more excited about seeing trailers for Wild Things, Ice Age 3, Star Trek, and Up than I ended up about the movie. The movie wasn't bad, it wasn't good, it was just sort of there. It was funny -- much like the second Shrek -- but I didn't actually GET anything out of it. Ice Age 3 will be much like that, too, but I'll go just for a dose of Skrat. Star Trek looks abominable and dropped so far down my "must see" list that it isn't there any more. Wild Things is at the very top of that list now. Up looks amusing.

Today's Cracker Barrel experience was typical. We all had fun, but the service at the Davie branch is always sub-part. The wait today was especially atrocious -- we planned on a late lunch and ended up with dinner. We had a party of 8, and there were people who arrived, were seated, ate, and left before we were seated. But the food was passable and we didn't go for a dining experience. I bought Bottle Caps candy on the way out: FLASHBACK. They no longer have lemon-lime flavour though :(

Shane and Lizzie wore me out. Wow. What a long, rough day.

Art, Drives, and Stuff you don't care about This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

Platform For Art: it's one of the many things to love about the Tube (or the London Underground, or even subway for you leftpondians.) Every now and again I just have to throw in a plug for my favourite transit system of all time -- BART comes in second for inquiring minds. When I go to London, I often check out Platform For Art. I would encourage those of you who visit London to check the referenced URL and see if there's something that interest you.

I got a form e-mail from the president of Western Digital today. It was clearly a form letter and said he was concerned and was sending it to a vice-President and hopes they will make me a happy customer again. I am not holding my breath, mind you, but it was at least a reply. Hopefully it won't be like Tony Roma's where I got an auto-reply and never heard back again. (For more see Western Digital tags below). Speaking of Western Digital, I got a refurbished replacement drive today. I haven't installed it yet, but I will within the week. I resent getting a refurbished drive to replace something new. Legal but not right.

My shutter company came yesterday to replace the damaged shutters. They had all sorts of problem so now the half-working shutter is removed permanently but no new shutter has taken its place. A real problem. More on this next week.

Next week I'm also going to try to get a real driver's license as opposed to my current one. Nothing wrong with it except it's the old kind (3 iterations ago) and the picture looks like I was still a freshman in college. That's probably because I was still in college when it was taken. One day I'll have a real airport hassle. It's time.

I am concerned about Scooter because she's not eating enough. I'll give it a few more days because maybe she's going through a phase. A shout-out to Adrian who had his wisdom teeth removed, making him less wise I suppose :)

I stopped liking Jimmy Carter after some things he said last year. I won't go into that. I still admire his work as a humanitarian, but I no longer contribute to his foundation. He's free to mouth off and piss me off, and I am free to cut his funds off. It works well -- and after my missive to the Carter foundation, they don't even ASK me for money anymore. I mention him only because I read a good article about his energy policy where tried to wean us off foreign oil. The Reagan administration killed it and every Republican since has done their damnedest to sell our country's soul to offshore interests.

Lastly, some ass stole parts of my blog post about Tom Petty. I know this because they were kind enough to copy the typo I had in the post too. I'd like there so you could bash him, but I won't bother. It's one of those SEO sites that thrives on links so I won't support them.

I fixed the one of my outside lights today which involved turning off the power and sitcking a pair of pliers into the socket to remove a broken bulb.

At work we upgraded FASPAC to version six. I volunteered us to be a Beta site. They probably aren't happy they chose me. I submitted eight bug reports today including one three minutes into my first attempt to use a new feature. They've fixed two of the bugs I've reported and in doing so broke something else. I enjoy this stuff. They took quite a few of my suggestions from the previous versions over the past ten years and finally USED them. Woo-Hoo. FASPAC is awesome, it runs under UNIX and is relatively stable.

I itch. Everywhere. Damn it, man.

I miss some people today and am thinking of them. I hate this part.

Why I won't return to Tony Roma's This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

Today I had a great meal and decent service, but a really bad experience. I live near Tony Roma's Doral. I've been eating there regularly since they opened. I've been eating at their chain since the very first one opened in North Miami Beach back in the 1970s. Yeah, most people don't know it started right here near my Grandma's house -- a dark, dingy place up against the railroad tracks; but long since closed. Mighty good eating at fair prices.

Over the years they have continued to jack up their prices but I still go. You know what? It's all about the food. If the food's good and the place is clean you can forgive a lot. But I can't forgive being insulted as a customer. They've managed to do it.

So we (me and a business associate were there) ordered our drinks, then when they came, our food. My associate asked for the bread right away because he was hungry. We were told that "bread now costs a buck." The entrées are now $16 to $22 each -- just raised recently. Our particular entrées were $18. I bumped in and asked specifically why they would do that to which our server had no answer. He was hungry so we paid the buck (and were charged) for the bread over my strenuous objections. It's not the buck, which I can afford but the principle of the matter.

They could raise their prices a little more and still give the bread away. Or they could serve it on request? I was offended at how cheap they were. Our tab was around $60 for two people and they wanted that extra buck really bad? Maybe the should have charged for that last minute glass of water too. Cheap bastards is what they are.

I wrote them (in their itty-bitty feedback form box) a short note. I wonder if they shall reply. I don't much care because if they don't change their policy, I won't ever go back: and I hope none of my loyal readers go to any of their restaurants any more.

Here's what I crammed into that itty-bitty box if you're curious:
I've been a loyal customer of yours since I was young. I used to eat at your original NMB store and now eat regularly at the Doral location. You raised your prices again and I understand that. However what I don't understand is how you can raise your prices and ALSO charge me $1 for bread that every restaurant gives out for free. I objected when told, but they say it's been that way for a few weeks. I won't be returning until you change this policy. Shorty's BBQ is just down the block. Not quite as good but they don't insult me by charging $20 for an entrée and then another buck for bread. Nice work -- you should be EMBARRASSED.

4-24-08 Update:

I received an e-mail reply on 4-16-08 which was CC'd to 6 people:

Dear Mr. Seiden:

Thank you for contacting Tony Roma's Guest Relations. Please accept our apologies for the disappointment you had at the Doral Tony Roma's in Miami, FL. Each guest plays an important role in helping us maintain the standards by which we operate and we appreciate your feedback. Your message is being forwarded to Karen Weinberger, Executive General Manager. Management would like to discuss your visit to Tony Roma's and will contact you at the earliest opportunity. Thank you.

Martha Killion
Guest Relations
Romacorp, Inc.
(Phone redacted)

Having not yet received a reply from ANY of those people as of 4-24-08 548pm:

Dear Everyone:

Judging by the lack of any further contact, I must assume this to be entirely untrue. You sent this email to quite a few people. Nobody's made any effort to contact me. (I don't specifically care, but this certainly does make me just a bit more ticked off than I was). "Earliest Opportunity" implies some level of urgency. The time elapsed has indicated there is no sense of urgency.

Peace Out.
-- E