the tv saga continues... but with renewed hope!

so today . . .  i got an email back from samsung.

"Dear Samsung Customer,

We apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced with your Samsung product.

Your request for service has been forwarded to an Authorized Samsung Service Center who will be in touch with you shortly.

Please visit our web site to track the status of any service tickets you have registered with Samsung.

You can also chat with one of our agents to follow up with your service request.

Thank you for being a Samsung Customer

Sincerely,
Rajiv Mehta
V.P. Samsung Service Operations"

i think this is good news.  if they weren't going to cover the damage to the tv, surely they would have told us by now.  surely they wouldn't be kicking this on up the food chain just to finally tell us 'no.'  they've seen the pictures.  they read my letter.  i think this whole warranty thing is going to be the answer!

so i am encouraged.  i am starting to see visions of a 59 inch plasma tv on my family room wall.  without a big crack in it!  i am thinking that i might be able to read the information from shopping tv when i am cooking in the kitchen.  (ok, cooking is maybe a little bit of an exaggeration.  maybe it would be more accurate to say 'when i am preparing food...'  or eating food...)   i am hopeful that we will finally have a tv that is big enough to cover up the damage that the previous owners left on the wall over the fireplace, (which really doesn't matter, because i know that it is there, and one day i am going to have to spackle and paint it anyway... even if no one can see it behind the giant tv...)  i am grateful that i won't have to go back to walmart and try to convince a suspicious customer service person that i didn't impale that giant screen with an ice pick (because that is what it looks like, although it is probably damage from a forklift.)

so thank you samsung!  i look forward to hearing from you...

... i think.

if you throw yourself on their mercy, how can they resist?

so today . . .  i am like a dog with a bone.  i just can't let it go...

it's the tv.  the new tv.  the broken tv.  it was such a good deal.  there has to be a solution...

yesterday while i was sitting on the couch, eating the universal "i've been sick and i don't want to throw up ever again" food, watching the small tv (ok, it isn't really small, it just looks that way now that i've seen a monster tv up there...) on the big wall, i had a thought.  i'm not sure it was a good thought, since my brain hasn't had anything to eat for nearly 48 hours, but still, it was a thought.  "why didn't we buy the extended warranty on that tv?!"

and then i sat up!  (figuratively.  my brain sat up.  my body was still reclining.)  "wait a minute," i thought.  "we didn't buy the extended warranty, but it came with a one year warranty.  maybe the warranty will cover the cracked screen!"  so when rollie started talking about filling up the back of the prius with the tv and taking it back to walmart, i said, "let's wait until i can contact samsung.  maybe this will be covered under the warranty!"  he looked at me doubtfully, but since his least favorite thing on the planet to do is to return something (especially a giant plasma tv with a cracked screen,) he gave in quickly and left me to it...

i had a plan.  so i came home from school today and called samsung.  i talked to a customer service guy who kept telling me how sorry he was that we were having this problem!  he kept putting me on hold to go check on things.  he finally told me to take some pictures and email them, and he would transfer them on to the service center.  and again, he was so sorry we were having this problem with a samsung product!

 ok!  now i was getting somewhere!  the only problem was, we had already boxed the tv up so we could return it.  but unboxing it was a small price to pay to get it fixed, right?  well, yes, but it still wasn't easy.  that tv is heavy and bulky, and lifting it up out of the box, and worse yet, putting it back in, was no small feat.  but we did it. and i had my pictures...

i took pictures of everything!  and then i wrote an email, included the pictures, and ended with this--"we have always had good luck with our samsung products and are hopeful that this situation can also be resolved in a positive way."  surely, i thought, they would not be able to resist my hopefulness.  surely they would take one look at those photos and think, "what a terrible thing!  how quickly can we send these nice people a brand new tv??"

yeah, i know, i live in a dream world...

but you just never know.  stranger things have happened!  right?

i guess we will see...

so now we sit and wait.  they said i would hear from someone within 24-48 hours.  i am hopeful that when i hear from someone, it will be to ask me when i will be home so that they can bring me a new tv.  one without a broken screen...

... because i'm not going to lie.  i am not really excited about the idea of having to load that thing back into the prius and hauling it back to walmart and convincing the customer service person that i did NOT break the screen after i got it home...

it sucks to be sick... especially on the weekend...

so today . . .  i am sick.  as a dog.  and it's easter!!

i got sick friday night.  in the night.  you know what that means...  i spent all day yesterday trying to keep the stuff inside my body that belonged there, but my body was not very cooperative.  so i spent the day laying on the couch, unsuccessfully ingesting saltines and 7-up, and trying to stay awake.  because even when i am sick, i have a plan...

i had a plan for yesterday.  my plan was to get up early, go to the nursery and buy beautiful flowers to plant, come home and plant them, take a shower, and then spend the afternoon at angels stadium (collecting my free blanket giveaway and watching them win!)  none of these things happened, because i was sick.  as a dog.

so i naturally went to plan b.  which was to lay on the couch with my computer and work on the wedding album i am designing, catch up on my emails, maybe learn how to use a few of the gazillions of apps i have downloaded onto my ipad.  because just because i was sick, was no reason to waste a perfectly good saturday, even if i didn't get to buy plants or go to the ballgame or get my free blanket...

i thought i would accomplish all of this while watching tv on the new tv we bought yesterday for the family room.  we decided if our tax return would cover it, we would get a bigger tv for the family room, so i could see it better while i am in the kitchen.  (yes, sometimes i am in the kitchen!  especially now when i can watch tv while i am in there!!)  and also because when it comes to tvs, rollie thinks bigger is always better.  in fact, i had to measure the space to be sure he didn't come home with one that was TOO BIG FOR THE WALL SPACE, because that was a real possibility...  but this morning when rollie unpacked the tv and prepared to install it on the wall, he found a big crack across the screen!  which means the tv probably has to go back, and now rollie is seriously bummed, because we got a really, really good deal on this particular tv (with the crack... could there possibly be a connection?) and there is no way we can afford an unbroken tv of the same size.  which means, we are going to have to go smaller.  but now that he has seen how a really, really big tv looks on that wall, anything smaller is not going to make him happy...

stupid crack.

i tried to do the computer stuff, but i had no energy and no brain.  it was taking everything i had to keep from being "sick."  ok, so on to plan c--catch up on all the stuff my tivo had been recording.  i settled in with the remote (only now it took two remotes to operate the tv, because the better tv that was in the family room was now in the bedroom, and the inferior tv was in the family room, instead of the guest bedroom where it was headed.  and if you are planning to someday sleep in that guest bedroom, you should know that it isn't a bad tv--it just doesn't play well with tivo.  and since there is no tivo in the guest bedroom, it will be perfect there.  but it isn't perfect in the family room...  especially when there is a 59 inch plasma tv just sitting there in a box... with a crack in it... stupid crack!)  i watched one show, but had to keep rewinding it because i kept falling asleep.  i finally gave up and just went to sleep.  but my phone kept beeping with text messages and facebook updates.  and yes, i could have just shut the phone off, but rollie was at the angels game, without me.  what if he needed me???  what if he got hit in the head with a foul ball and was unconscious??  what if he had an accident on the way home???  so i left the phone on and just dozed...

when rollie got home (safely) from the game, i was still on the couch.  he gave me the terrible news that the angels had not won, but the good news that our friend dan, (who graciously used my ticket,) had also graciously given me the free blanket from the giveaway (and by graciously, i mean with many sighs and talk of what a sacrifice it was...)  i decided i had been up long enough.  i trudged up to bed and finally slept.  and didn't throw up!  i thought that was a good sign. 

but not good enough for me to accomplish my plans for today.  since i hadn't been able to keep anything down yesterday, i figured my plan b for today was going to mostly consist of trying to eat and drink and not get sick.  no church (on easter!!)  no ballgame (which they lost... i think i might be the angels good luck charm.  they are 1-2 this season, and they won the game i was at.  so, yeah, i think they should be paying me to come to their games...)  and no orange chicken (which was my plan for easter dinner, which was going to be eaten at the ball park, in the more than warm enough sunshine.)

my weekend was pretty much a total bust.  why i couldn't have been sick on a tuesday and wednesday, or wednesday and thursday is beyond me.  in fact, i am seriously considering being sick just one more day...  after all, i accomplished NOTHING this weekend...

...well, except for collecting my free angels blanket.

 thanks dan ;)

friday, part 1

so today . . .  we went to our first angels game of the season.  it was so much fun!  we were so excited!!

and then our tax return popped into our bank account...

"let's go get a tv!" rollie said.

the first time rollie walked into our new house, before we knew it was going to be our new house, he said it knew it was the right one.  he said he just knew it when he walked in the door.  i sort of think he knew it when he saw the gigantic tv on the wall in the family room!  of course that tv did not come with the house, but i know rollie has had visions of a huge tv in that spot ever since that day.

but big tvs are expensive, and not in our operating budget.  income tax returns however, can sometimes cover non-budgeted and non-essential items like big tvs.  so the minute that return hit our bank account, rollie was ready to go.

i, of course, was a little slower to get with the program.  i kept thinking about all the other things we could do with that money.  rollie kept saying, no we couldn't, the money was for a tv--we had agreed.  and he couldn't understand why i wasn't more excited about it, since it was going in the family room which is where i watch most of my tv.  really, this tv was for me!

uh huh...

so off we went.  but our time was limited, because we had a baseball game to go to!!

he wanted to go to costco.  i wanted to go to walmart.  we decided to check out walmart first, then go to costco, then make a decision.  this is the way i shop.  it is not the way rollie shops, but for some reason, today he agreed to my methodology.  which turned out to be a blessing and a curse...

when we got to walmart, it looked like they were clearing out all their tvs!  the tv wall was half empty!  we had decided to get the biggest led tv we could afford.  it probably wouldn't be as big as we wanted, but we didn't have thousands of dollars to spend, so we would have to be content with what we could get!  we found a couple of possibilities to keep in mind as we went to costco.  and then, as we were walking out of the electronics department, we found a 59 inch plasma tv on sale for a ridiculously low price!  i whipped out my phone and started researching online.  rollie whipped out his phone and scanned the upc code.  his way was faster, and in a couple of minutes he discovered that this tv was selling for less than half of its suggested retail price!  bargain!  bargain!!  bargain!!!  but we showed great restraint, walked away, and went to costco to compare.

costco had a lot of tvs, but the one we would have wanted was about $400 more than the one at walmart.  we debated between plasma and led.  we debated the difference in price.  i did some more online comparisons, and we finally decided to get the one at walmart... if it was still there.

and it was.  now we were excited!  we paid for the tv, declined the three year extended warranty, and waited for a store employee to bring the big rolling cart so we could get that thing home!  rollie kept saying, "we are going to have to call diandra and have her come pick us up in the rodeo.  this will never fit in the prius!"  but i knew it would.  i had measured it!  they rolled it out to the car, and the walmart employee took one look at the prius and just shook his head.  "trust me," i said, "it will fit!  i measured it!!"  they both looked at me like i was a crazy person, but when dealing with a crazy person, i guess it is best if you give them what they want... so they picked it up and tried to put it in the car... and it wouldn't fit.

"no, wait!" i said, "you have to put it in straight, not at an angle!"  they still weren't convinced.  i could see it in the way they rolled their eyes.  but i knew it would fit.  did i mention that i had measured it???  so i went over to one side and helped them lay it down flat, and guess what?  it fit.  perfectly.

well, nearly perfectly.  we thought the back might stick out a little bit, but rollie moved a few things around inside the car and found us a couple of extra inches which is all we needed to get the back of the car closed.

while he was doing that, i was dancing around on the sidewalk, giving myself a thumbs up, and saying to anyone who would listen (and even some who didn't quite know what to think of me, including the walmart employee) "oh yeah! listen to the girl!! oh yeah!  listen to the girl!!"

we had bagged and tagged our tv!  and successfully put it in the freezer!  (not really!  it's a hunting expression!  it was actually sitting in the entryway...)  but since we had used my method of shopping (check out every possibility before making a decision,) rather than rollie's method of shopping (buy the first one you see and go home,) now there was no time to install the beautiful new tv...

..because we had a game to go to!

the drama of daytime tv

so today . . . i was home sick. yes, again. it came on suddenly last night, and i still had a temperature this morning, so there was no way i could go to school. i woke up long enough to realize that, and call my school's director to tell her that i was not going to make it to school because i was sick. yes, again.

i've been sick a lot this year, as you all know. and you also know that i blame my students who come to school sick. even today, apparently one of my little dumplings came to school and told the substitute he had already thrown up four times! "then why are you at school?" she reasonably asked. "because my mom has to go to work," was his answer.

see, i am not kidding you--this is why i keep getting sick.

but this time was different. this time i spent the day in bed. i did not get up and eat breakfast (i could not even imagine ingesting food!) i did not get up and plop myself on the couch with my puppies and my computer (although my loyal pooch did keep me company--the chubby one chose to ignore us . . . ) i stayed in bed and tried not to move for fear of irritating my upset stomach or my aching head. i slept as much as i could, but there came a point where i couldn't sleep, i couldn't get up, i couldn't read, so my only other option was--duh, duh, duuuhhhh--daytime tv.

yes, daytime tv.

i don't watch daytime tv much anymore. usually i am at work during the day, but even in the summer i find that if i have free time, i either watch shopping tv or stuff i have tivoed or i read a book. and today i realized why.

daytime tv is a desert.

i haven't watched soap operas since i was in college--i have plenty of drama in my own life without getting involved in the fictional drama of fictional people who inhabit a fictional town. and who, btw, ALWAYS make the wrong choice. always. every decision they make makes their lives more complicated. maybe if they had to go to the grocery store or the post office or balance a checkbook or do laundry or punch a time clock or put a toddler to bed, they wouldn't have so many problems. of course, then no one would probably watch . . .

so my choices were daytime talk shows (more drama and bad choices,) news (real life drama and unsolved mysteries,) or court shows (real people and ridiculous problems.) i chose news and judges. i decided it didn't make that much difference since i wasn't really watching anyway--i planned to doze. the tv was just on for white noise to distract the pooches so that they wouldn't bark everytime they heard a noise outside. so i chose a channel, turned the volume low, and settled in to sleep.

but i didn't sleep--not much anyway. i kept getting sucked in. to the commercials. i heard the same commercials over and over and over again. there were commercials for technical and trade schools, commercials for debt relief, commercials for weight loss systems, commercials for personal injury lawyers, and commercials for depression studies. over and over and over again. apparently advertisers think that if you are home watching tv during the day you must be unemployed, in debt, over weight, and depressed. and if i was home watching this programming every day, i don't know about the rest of it, but i would certainly be depressed!

so i guess even though i HATE getting up in the mornings, and my students are trying to slowly kill me with germs, and i never seem to have enough time to do everything i need to do, i am glad that i have a job. because daytime tv would turn me into a jelly donut.

if i ever lose my job, i will have to get cable . . .