MotiveGrounds.com - I don’t live in my sister’s basement dammit!

(Shamelessly stolen headline from The Consumerist)

http://consumerist.com/consumer/mergers-and-acquisitions/gateway-acer-packard-bell-to-merge-form-voltron-308637.php

Now, when I was about 15 I bought my first computer (of my own, I had been using computers since 3rd grade) which was Packard Bell (Or Packard Hell as it was most commonly known) with a Pentium 60, 8mb of RAM and a 850mb hard drive (And 1mb of onboard VGA!). This was about enough to play Mechwarrior 2 and Warcraft 2, and with an upgrade of another 8mb of RAM (for about $50 at the time, and you had to have 2 sticks of the same size or it didn’t work) I was flying. Oh yeah, and I had a blazing 14.4 modem too.

Even though it was a decent machine for it’s time, the PCs they made later on REALLY sucked. I know my machine had it’s own problems - I had to smack the case to get the CDROM to turn back on, and the wonderful “tree card” for the PCI slots died and required me to swap out the board. Pretty much after the other PC manufacturers got their game together (HP, Compaq, and later on, Dell), Packard Bell went down the tubes.

My friend Jon’s first computer was a Gateway. I can’t vouch for how well his worked, though he did have it for awhile. But I do know that from other’s experiences (a co-worker’s chat log of his support nightmare), their technical support is lacking in both intelligence and professionalism. Add to that their failed attempt at retail stores for their PCs (Who the hell wants to order a PC at a PC retail store and wait WEEKS, instead of picking one up that same day?), and you have a vortex of suckitude.

Acer leaves much lacking in their laptops from personal experience - They also enjoy breaking at the AC adapter solder point, which requires a new board; Acer should take some tips from Panasonic and their Toughbook line - make these a separate daughter card! 

So, it seems that these 3 companies are going to merge into the shittiest computer manufacturer on the entire planet. Still, there’s 5 lions that form Voltron, so for the legs I’d choose E-Machines and Alienware.

E-Machines I chose for their blatantly shitty line-up of PCs and laptops - This is what happens when you design a PC at the lowest cost possible with no consideration for it’s long term use. My co-worker had an E-Machines laptop that overheated constantly, as the design was flawed and did not dissipate heat properly. Their PC line is also poor, as I’ve swapped out many a defective part on a E-Machine desktop that was less than a year old.

As far as Alienware, they’re just shitty because they charge too much for a machine that they claim is way overpowered, but could be built for far less than they charge (And they could STILL turn a profit). Maybe you’re paying that premium for the ugly ass case and the smugness you can freely exude at a LAN party, which won’t help your game at all. And if you ever paid them to “fine tune” your drivers, you are a retard. Yes, I know Alienware is now part of Dell, but they still blow - It’s like ricing out an old ass HP and putting some mods on the chassis, and expecting it to make you perform better.

Actually, scratch that - I don’t want to taint my childhood memories of Voltron kicking robot ass. 3 poorly performing companies with crappy products all getting together does not make their products any better - they just produce 3x as many crappy products.

(Thoughts Aside)

The installation of norton antivirus is very useful in providing the safety measures against the increasing threats of virus attacks. There is diversity of web server software for processing the different forms of data of World Wide Web. The utility software is a kind of software which is applied for the implementing of various tasks of computers and finding the solution of the technical faults of computer hardware and operating system. The software data is applied for the retrieval of data in the case of the systematic fault of the computer. The manufacturing industry of software is pursuing to develop useful software for the computer clients, facilitating them with the multidimensional features of the latest software.

When Monica and I first bought this house and got all of the projects finished and we settled in (after the wedding), we had a nice little surprise the first day we came home from our mini-honeymoon: A backed up floor drain in the basement. Ah yes, it’s such a special moment to share with each other as you see toilet paper and floaters in a pool on your basement floor. I was pretty pissed, as I figured it was roots, and my parents had problems with that at their old house; Let me tell you, it’s a neverending fight with tree roots. You can pour whatever you want down there, and they’ll come right back.

Anyways, I figured there was nothing else I could do but try to unclog the damn thing. I tried everything - A borrowed metal snake tool (which would strangely get to a certain point and stop), some kind of unclogging solution that made the basement smell like sulfur (and flowed upstairs, much to my wife, brother-in-law and sister-in-law’s delight) and a huge plunger, which would only make the water swoosh back out of the drainpipe. I seriously thought I was fucked, and would have to shell out cash for RotoRooter or a professional plumber (anyone but H. Jack Langer, though). Until I got a great idea:

I’d use the ShopVac!

I got this beat up ShopVac from my brother-in-law, as it had some problem with the switch and would turn itself off. I hooked that bad boy up, and first tried blowing air into the drainpipe to loosen the clog (The hose end fit right into the drain hole perfectly). However, all that ended up doing was making a sewer geyser that sprayed all over me. It was one shitty situation. If you’ve stopped reading now, I don’t blame you.

My wife came downstairs to see what was going on, and just shook her head. As I’m usually opt to do, I told her I’d come back upstairs when I got this taken care of (and I probably would have been down there until 4am if need be - My dad and I are crazy like that). So I took ShopVac hose and started using it to suck up the water in the drain pipe. I emptied the water into the utility sink (which I plugged) and noticed these pieces of cloth. I thought to myself, “Who the fuck is flushing pieces of cloth down our toilet?” I finally got the clog out, and spent about an hour scrubbing the floor with a deck brush, soap and bleach, and then hosed it all down. I then took the longest shower ever and used probably 3x as much soap as anyone ever should. For it’s courageous efforts, I then christened the ShopVac as the ShitVac. I would never use it that much for anything else from that point on. And definitely not for a car.

A couple months later, the same thing happens, and the mighty ShitVac prevails. And months later, when I got home after going to a movie during Monica’s baby shower, the SAME FUCKING THING HAPPENS AGAIN! It’s really wonderful to come home to a backed up basement drain, let me tell you. Once again, those cloth things are sucked up, and I figured out what they were - Kandoo Flushable wipes.

In case you didn’t notice it on the box, that frog is wiping his ass. Classy.

All I have to say is, FLUSHABLE MY ASS. On the box, it says to only flush 1 or 2 at a time. Ok, that’s fine then - We thought it was one of the guest’s kids who used a bunch of them, and I told Monica that I didn’t think we should be flushing these down the drain. She told me that it was perfectly fine and that it couldn’t be the wipes. From then on, until today, I’d see evidence that the basement backed up, but it would always go back down, and I’d always deck brush/bleach it just to be safe. I kept thinking that maybe it was a combination of roots and the wipes.

Well, today I go downstairs to do laundry, as I’m pretty much whipped and do the clothes every weekend. This time the basement is backed up just like the first time, and I was filled with joy. I should add here that the ShitVac had been seeing some rough times, as it was making some weird noises with the motor and spewed a little smoke when I used it to suck up some sawdust and drywall mud dust from the closet I worked on (The attachment was never used in the basement). I went downstairs and did the usual, and the water started going down. However, the ShitVac had seen it’s final crap collection and started pouring out smoke, setting off the smoke alarm upstairs almost instantly. At least if there’s a fire in the basement we’ll know right away!

I looked in the container, and noticed one of those goddamn Kandoo’s again. We have another drain area near the wall of the basement, that goes from the house to the street. I took the cap off of there and looked in with a flashlight, and saw some grey stuff. Since the ShitVac was history, I had to go buy another one (But since I’m using the same hose and container, it’s not so bad if I use a different hose and container to, for instance, clean out the car, as long as I disinfect the suction piece).

So I went off to Lowes and grabbed the same type, 3HP, 6 gallon. I sucked up whatever that grey shit was and realized it was A TON OF KANDOOS. At the end of the drain for the basement there were about 10-15 Kandoos. I told the wife about this, and said that we were never again going to flush these down the toilet. There’s no way I’m doing this again if I can help it. Apparently they never biodegrade and actually expand in the sewer drain. If you need more evidence of why you shouldn’t be flushing these down the drain, check the following links:

http://www.amazon.com/Pampers-Kandoo-Flushable-Easy-Use-Splash/dp/customer-reviews/B0007CO7UU

http://mommysavers.com/boards/preschoolers/10471-kandoo-wipes-beware.html

This is kind of a funny one - http://fromthemorning.blogspot.com/2006/09/kandoo-cant-flush.html

If you have kids and you use these, take my advice - Don’t flush them. Ever. If you don’t have kids and you want the same experience, take a thick cotton T-Shirt and cut it into small 6×6 strips, and flush 2 of them down the toilet every day. Make sure you keep the number to your plumber handy, and enjoy putting his kids through college.

The girls are home now - We went out to dinner last night, but before we did that we stopped at the house. Monica loved the new kitchen floor, and didn’t expect anything else until I took her up to the bedroom and kind of nudged her over to the closet. She let out a little gasp because she kinda knew then what I had done. So project Vacation Renovation was a total success! I’m pretty sure she’ll have other ideas for the closet, but that’s why I got an extra kit anyways.

We went to Applebee’s on Buffalo Road, and holy crap was that backed up. I went down 26th to Peach and noticed the line of trucks (we had no idea what was going on until we got to Applebee’s) and I turned down to 18th. At 18th and Broad St. the trucks were coming again, and it took about 15-20 minutes to get from there to Applebee’s, which should only take about 7 minutes or so. At least it wasn’t so bad coming home.

Monica’s relaxing at home, and Aubri is chilling at home with Mom just for today. Kaitlyn is going back to daycare today - We gotta get these kids back on a schedule now.

I’m done!

This morning my dad and I put the finishing touches on the clost organizer, and I took all of the scrap metal to Lincoln Recycling (Got $16, not bad for some junk). For a comparison, here’s a picture of the way the old closet was:

And here’s what it looks like now:

Now I can finally walk into the closet without having to duck under freaking 3/4 inch black pipes!

The bedrooms are swept and cleaned, the junk is all either taken to the dump or put away, all of my tools are back where the came from, and I’m eating a sub from Barbatos. And I’m finally done with everything. Looking back, it did take me about 2 1/2 or 3 days, but those were full days (18+ hours), and I ran into little problems that I didn’t expect, so that made things take a little longer.

The wife and kids come home tomorrow, so let’s see what she thinks when she sees everything! :)

Edit: I was going to put this as a comment to Kodera, but it was pretty long so I’ll just put it as an edit.

Kodera,

Thanks! It was a learning experience, I’ll tell ya. I read through my old post, and I realized that I didn’t even explain what really happened with the electrical problem.

In the master bedroom, where the old light was, there were 3 wires. 1 had one wire nut on it, and 2 others were together in a wire nut. I didn’t think anything of it when I capped them and put them into the wall, and covered it with drywall and mud. When I looked into the closet I noticed the the new light was out, and I immediately thought “Oh shit, those wires needed to be together!” (That’s what not eating lunch or dinner will do to you).

I dug out the small bit of drywall and mud, and found the 3 capped wires. I shut off the main breaker (just in case) and put two of them together, went back down and turned the breaker on, and the light still wasn’t on. I repeated this a few times until I had each wire combination (hence the running up and down the stairs). 

I thought it might be the light fixture wires, so I  took that out, and they were fine. I go downstairs and notice that the breaker for the upstairs was flipped, and when I flipped it back, it would trip again. I tried different wire configs with those 3 wires and each time the damn breaker would flip. I uncapped the wires, took a voltmeter and figured out which two were hot, and realized that those would trip the breaker when I touched them together and they sparked. I had no idea what the hell I was going to do, as the entire upstairs outlets, the bathroom lights, and that closet light were on the same breaker. (Note: I have older wiring in most spots upstairs and only a few downstairs, and while I have a 120 amp breaker box, I need updated wiring one day).

I sat down, wondering how the hell I was going to tell Monica that we no longer had power in the sockets upstairs or the bathroom, because I obviously had no idea what I was doing. Then on a whim, I decided to undo the 3 way switch upstairs, and connect those two wires in the bedroom wall again. Eureka! I obviously didn’t put the 3 way switch wires on properly (and they’re still not on right (the light in the upstairs hallway only turns on from the downstairs switch, but that’s for another day) and that kept tripping the breaker.

And that took me almost 2 hours, including the time to dig the wires out from behind the wall with a small hole in the plaster, and putting the drywall and mud back on again. Talk about a waste of time.

(Thoughts Aside)

The coordination of exterior house colors with the interior shades is very confusing one for the exterior designers. The concrete driveway is built with the concrete material which is really very solid kind of driveway, especially designed for patio garden or garage. The picket fence is used around the domestic boundaries for the decoration and safety purposes.