on having a crappy week

i try to avoid these "recap" posts where i spout off on a bunch of different things, but there's no getting around it for this one. i haven't had one big post-worthy thing go wrong this week - no, it's been a bunch of little things.

first, last weekend i dropped my cell phone face-open on the floor and it shut off. it was then dead for a half of an hour, never booting up past the main screen until suddenly - it worked! it's been working fine this week so far but that half-hour of hell worrying about having to buy a new phone and being out of touch for a few days was enough to make me treat the phone now like it's made of glass or porcelain.

later that same night i managed to cut my finger pretty severely with a butter knife (yeah yeah, haha a butter knife - but man this thing was seriously sharp!). i was pretty close to going to the emergency room because it wouldn't stop bleeding after running it under water for 5 minutes, but i just decided to put a band-aid on it, hoping the applied pressure stopped it. it did, and it's healing now, but i've been wearing a cumbersome band-aid all week on my right pointer finger so my typing and mouse-clicking has been severely impaired.

even LATER that same night i noticed that the games i bought on my Xbox Live account weren't showing up on my main account (i had to purchase them on a sub account - long story - but it shouldn't matter where they're purchased from, they should show up on all accounts). turns out they hadn't been since i got the "new" 360, i had just never checked (told you i haven't been playing the thing that much). called support the next day and THANKFULLY the guy had a simple solution for me - i had to delete the games and download them again. once you pay for a game you can download it again and again. everything's fine now.

i made it through the rest of the weekend without incident. Monday and Tuesday were another story.

Monday i'm checking the status of a package that was supposed to be delivered late last week (a cable to hook up to my PS3 to my HDTV) and its status is "undeliverable." ??? later in the day they say "recipient moved with no forwarding address; returned to sender." WHAT?!?

so the last few days i've been back and forth with the USPS and the company i ordered the cable from and it indeed get shipped back but the company will send it back here for free. however, they can't change the address for legal reasons (i tried to have them send it to work so this doesn't happen again) so i'm praying they made a mistake when labeling the package because their records have my correct address and if something funky happened when they had the right address LAST time, what's to stop it from happening again?

i've lived here 5 months now and have had NO problems with packages or mail being delivered - unless the package is too large, at which point they leave a note saying i have to pick it up. they didn't do that this time, so something else happened.

i just want my cable. if it gets here when it should, it'll be 2 weeks late. IF.

and finally, the crappiest of all my stories.

Tuesday morning i'm getting a ride to the production office (not our office) with a coworker. we hit downtown and traffic is moving SLOW. while stopped at a stoplight, 2 police officers cross the street and my coworker says something about the amount of cops out. i agree. then they start looking right at me and walk over to the car, ask us to pull over. i realize (too late) that it's probably because of my seatbelt.

see, ever since i learned to buckle a seatbelt i've buckled it wrong when i'm in the passenger's seat - i put it UNDER my armpit, not over my shoulder like you're supposed to. later in life i've realized i do this and sometimes i catch myself and correct the mistake - maybe 50% of the time... that is, if i'm wearing a seatbelt at all (usually i do when i'm a passenger, as a courtesy to the driver, but not when i'm the driver).

so i quickly pull the seatbelt over my shoulder thinking he'll go "ok, that's what i wanted, thanks," like give me a warning or something. no, he still asked us to pull over. so we did, and he starts explaining how he HAS to give me a ticket because his chief told them to be on a lookout for ANYONE not wearing a seatbelt. i argue that i was, just improperly, and that i grew up doing it that way, maybe could i get away with a warning.

he said no.

i got a $92 ticket.

for wearing my seatbelt "improperly."

damn national "Click It or Ticket!" campaign.

it would be one thing if i wasn't wearing my seatbelt at all - then i think i'd buck up and pay. however, i WAS wearing it. so, needless to say, i'm fighting it - i just don't know how yet. first i'm going to ask my roommate (a cop) if he has any advice, maybe he'll just make it "go away." otherwise i have 2 options on the mail-in form - i can flat out deny the ticket, or admit i did it but with mitigating circumstances. i'm asking around to see which one is best.

this plays to a much larger issue - government control - that i don't like, and that's partly why i'm fighting it, but really i'm fighting it because they want me to pay $92 for wearing my seatbelt.

for the record, i don't think not wearing a seatbelt should be against the law, ESPECIALLY here - no motorcycle helmet law, and people can ride in the beds of pickup trucks. it's damn near hypocritical.

oh, and i'm against government regulating non-smoking bars and restaurants as well. let the free market take care of it. but that's a post for another time.

- kawitchate