Broken Internet

It feels like the internet is broken right now...

 

Sure, my email works and I can access most sites, but it just feels broken with the number of sites not working properly.  I guess I should say that the instant communication and social media internet is broken?

 

For whatever reason, gchat doesn't work on my work computer, and through meebo, I keep getting that annoying "Could not IM buddy" after every message.  It (so far) appears to be ok through AIM, but who knows.  Facebook has errors every time you click and Twitter has been down most of the morning.  I feel so disconnected!

Dawn

Welcome, dawn of a new day.

Time for me to go to bed.

At least I liked the project I was working on...

Oops

I made a mistake on Seamless Web tonight and didn't even realize it until it was way too late. I still feel really guilty about it.

Usually, when I order from a restaurant, the tip section fills in automatically with a certain percentage of the bill amount. I don't think about it. Ever. It just has an amount, I go to the next screen to enter payment details, and it's done. I have ordered so many times at the office over the past few years that I usually just pay attention to my order and the total, and never look at the taxes, fees or tip amounts.

Today, I ordered from somewhere new. When I went to pick up my order, the guy told me there was no tip. I was confused, even when he showed me the paper, because I hadn't done anything different when I ordered. I certainly hadn't gone in to eliminate their tip because I would never do that. And since I just did the same thing I always do, why would there not be a tip amount? I was really confused and told the guy that the tip always got added through the system. I thought they might just be new...

I went back to my receipt when I got upstairs and couldn't find the tip. How could that be? There's always a tip there! So I went back into the system and tried re-running the order to see what happened, and it said the tip was $0! I felt SO guilty. But I also couldn't understand why it would say that, after the hundreds of other orders I had done where I was fairly sure there had been a tip amount...

So I experimented. I tried a different restaurant, and the tip filled in automatically there, so it wasn't a uniform change. I tried going back to this restaurant, without re-running the same order, and it said tip $0! It must be something in their settings. But I don't think I have ever come across this before. Usually it's just filled in!

I couldn't believe it when I realized that it really didn't give them anything for tip. Was that a setting that they selected to not have a default tip amount? Why would they ever do that? People order so quickly on Seamless Web (especially at work), and I'm sure a lot of people are like me and never take a second look at the tip section because they figure it's automatically done.

Anyway, there's nothing I can do now. They only reimburse us at the office up to a certain amount, and since I didn't realize tip wasn't included in the total at the time, it would be over the limit now. It's a place in our neighborhood, so I guess I can go there some other time and maybe tack a little extra on each time we go there to make up for it. I'm sure we'll go there at some point so that's not the issue. I just feel so guilty because I would never not tip the delivery person! And I really thought I had, but I didn't. I feel terrible!

But I have learned my lesson. I will check the tip section on the order form before I finalize the order next time. I have just done this so often that I don't look anymore, but I will from now on!

So... if you're a Thai restaurant in New York and this story sounds somewhat familiar... please add the tip default so that someone else like me doesn't do the same thing. And I'm really, really sorry about the mix-up and will make it up to you!

Hmm

So, the DVR seems to be working better on the new machine, but are the Music Choice channels really broken or is it just the box? That could be disastrous...

Progress

We made progress on the wedding today.

We booked our mini-moon.

I guess that's not so much "wedding" progress. On that, we've done nothing for awhile...

I can't believe it's already August... yikes.

Funny

How did I not watch this until now?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4AcJ5YEKNw

Hill Country

Tonight for dinner, A was thinking BBQ so we finally made our way over to Hill Country. We had wanted to try it for awhile, and it was fairly well recommended from some of A's Texas friends, so we decided to give it a shot.

I'm glad we got there early, since we didn't know it was like cafeteria style ordering (wait on line, order, take it back to your table, pay on the way out). The lines weren't that long when we were there, but we were there before 6:30. I can only imagine how bad the lines get at peak time.

I tried the beer can game hen (which the guy recommended because he said it was all white meat, very tender and flavorful) and A got the pitmaster combo (which was beef rib, pork rib, lean brisket and 1/4 market chicken):

The meat was OK. I didn't find the chicken to be all that flavorful. It was definitely moist and tender (for the most part), but it was kind of bland. At one point, I started dunking the chicken into the baked beans sauce and that was really good, but mostly thanks to the baked beans. The verdict on A's combo was that the pork rib was the best of the lot, but he probably would not get the combo again. He thought it was ok, but nothing spectacular.

However, the sides were pretty good. We discussed how next time maybe we should just order all sides (since there were more we didn't try, like chili, that could work for a meal):

We got 5 sides total (clockwise from top left) - potato salad (summer special), campfire baked beans, longhorn cheddar mac and cheese, collard greens with bacon and white shoepeg corn pudding. It was difficult to rank which ones were the best, but they were all good, and when we tried to rank all the stuff we ate tonight in order, all the sides came out above the meat. So, maybe next time, we should stick to the sides!

We were pretty full afterwards, so we walked down to Union Square and to Trader Joe's, and then stopped to pick up some mini cupcakes from the Cupcake Stop truck. Yum. Can't wait to try the Boston cream!

DVR

5 minutes until we find out if the new DVR works...

I hope it does, because going down to the cable office and waiting there in that crowded mess is such a pain.

Lost Programs

I'm trying to figure out what we lost in the DVR crash of 2009. This list is really just because I will forget if I don't write it down... At least I think this is it...

Missing, but thank goodness for Hulu and/or cable repeats:
Fringe (many eps)
Burn Notice (1 ep)
Royal Pains (1 ep)
Top Chef Masters (1 ep)
The Philanthropist (3-4 eps)
In Plain Sight (1 ep)
Kings (2 eps)
Glee (1 ep)

Missing, but probably on DVD sometime:
Kyle XY (1 ep)
Eli Stone (3 eps)

Missing, and who knows when we can see it?:
Virtuality (the 2 hr special)
Reaper (maybe 2 eps)
The Unusuals (maybe 3 eps)

Don't know where to put the last ep of Flashpoint. Also, it's unclear to me whether Hawthorne or Leverage are online or repeated. TNT doesn't seem to repeat as much as USA. USA is awesome.

Trying to remember if there is anything else...

DVR Saga II

It happened again. Sigh.

Last night our cable and internet were down. They went down around 9 pm and never went back up before midnight, so I read some Harry Potter and called it an early Friday night (as usual, I am so fatigued by Friday night).

Originally, when cable went down, I thought that if we couldn't watch live tv, at least we could watch the DVR! And we had so much to watch, it could last us quite awhile. But then A checked the list and it said September! I was really worried that this was happening again, so we unplugged the unit so it would restart again later (although we were not that optimistic). Then we thought we could just watch a DVD, but forgot the TV was plugged into the DVR.

Sadly, the DVR has decided it is September 2008. All of those programs have since been erased. What I don't understand is why it seems to keep imprints of old lists of recorded shows, and how it can revert to those lists when those programs no longer exist. Last time, it was May 2008 and it reverted to February, so there were (sadly) still programs we had not seen. The technician who came out told me that our DVR box was dying and that I should take it in to be switched once we had watched everything. Needless to say, we have never watched everything. This time, nothing remains to be watched, so into Time Warner we shall go.

At least in the meantime, there is a Burn Notice marathon. I was really looking forward to watching the new Burn Notice episode last night, so this will have to do for now!