Drew Burden » fail http://www.drewburden.com A nerd showers you with his opinions. Sun, 04 Jul 2010 13:14:38 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Vehicle maintenance is the devil http://www.drewburden.com/2008/12/28/vehicle-maintenance-is-the-devil/ http://www.drewburden.com/2008/12/28/vehicle-maintenance-is-the-devil/#comments Mon, 29 Dec 2008 02:26:06 +0000 Drew Burden http://www.drewburden.com/?p=434 …and that’s even more so when you’re pretty much broke. I think the bottom half of my car is about to fall apart. I’m fairly sure that the alignment is WAY out of whack and I desperately need a brake job. I’m surprised I can still stop the car. On top of all that, my vehicle registration expires this week. I’ve noticed that when I make a left turn you can feel the car shift as if the entire front passenger wheel assembly is loose. And it is. The guy at the tire joint told me so when I got three tires replaced a couple of months ago. I may as well make a list of the things I need to fix:

  • It burns oil.
  • BRAKES, BRAKES, BRAKES.
  • Aforementioned alignment issue.
  • The A/C does not work. It never has. The first summer I had my car, the compressor would activate but this past summer it did not.
  • Either the blower fan is on full blast or it’s not on at all.
  • A few paint chips with underlying rust here and there. (I fixed a rusted dent near the rear of my car with some 650 grit and a can of Krylon, you can barely notice now. Methinks it’s time to do it here as well)
  • Engine knock upon acceleration. (I’m starting to think this is a summertime problem, I haven’t noticed my car doing it lately. Maybe I should start using octane 89 or 92 in the summer?)
  • This is more of a cosmetic thing and relatively unimportant but the headlights are getting cloudy and I hate that.

There you have it. Don’t get me wrong, I love my car… but it’s giving me a few problems and problems are frustrating when resources are tight. Anyone who is well versed in vehicles is welcome to offer suggestions on pinpointing some of these problems and/or what I should do until I can sink some money into the car.

edit: I also just noticed I should give my car a good scrub so it looks like it did when that picture was taken.

]]> http://www.drewburden.com/2008/12/28/vehicle-maintenance-is-the-devil/feed/ 0 Apple fails http://www.drewburden.com/2008/07/11/apple-fails/ http://www.drewburden.com/2008/07/11/apple-fails/#comments Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:53:34 +0000 Drew Burden http://www.drewburden.com/blog/?p=327 The iTunes Store is down, no doubt getting slammed by all those new iPhone activations today.

People can’t activate their new iPhone 3G and current iPhone/iPod touch owners can’t upgrade to 2.0. I’m one of those current owners. In lieu of going in the other room to a computer running Windows to keep trying myself, I have Summize doing the work for me. Here are some interesting tweets that I will see and post until it’s back up:

rem: Re: iPod Touch upgrade – “The iTunes Store is temporarily … FAIL”
pauld: Darn it, iTunes store! Let me give you my $9.95!
smykes: The iTunes Store really is available, really, let me download 2.0 Apple.
scarmen28: ‘s phone is at home without her, forever trying to access the iTunes store. Was late for work, and now I feel naked and scared.
uuill: laughing at the irony of the legitimate path — his iPhone is now unusable (timing-out trying to phone home to the overloaded iTunes store)
dsecrest: iPhone in hand, but not activated yet. NO ONE has activated their phones yet. Accessing iTunes Store…
mattcraig: iPhone OS update requires contact with iTunes Store. iTunes Store down. My iPhone has been bricked. EPIC FAIL. Thanks Apple. Good thinking.
pauldwaite: Until iTunes can contact the store, I can only use my phone for emergency calls. I tried the police. They said this isn’t an emergency!
tompohl: the iTunes store needs a fail whale :)
This is taking too long. I give up.
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