loose thread i. never
wove into the pattern. am
dangling, frayed, tensile.

Recently, our much beloved Kenmore front load washing machine seemed to have died. I’m not kidding about the “much beloved” part. Best washing machine either of us has ever used. Sadly, it seems it’s mission was to seduce us, and then commit suicide, forcing us to pony up for another high-end machine. When we called Sears Home Services to fix it, here’s what happened:

On December 9th, my wife received a service call from technician number 0000497. I was working and wasn’t available at the time to examine our malfunctioning Kenmore front load washing machine, and we agreed that the quoted $129 fee was a reasonable price to pay to have the unit examined and possibly fixed. We understood that this was a minimum fee and would not guarantee a repair.

When I got home that night, I was presented with a $129 bill and a repair quote of $692.74; a price seemingly designed to force us into buying a new unit. The “Parts Required” list on my quote reads:

1 SUB CNTRL-EL             $292.01
1 SUB CNTRL-EL             $228.77
Parts Sub-Total                 $520.78
Net Parts                             $520.78
Tax on Parts                       $ 42.96
Total Parts                          $563.74
Estimated Grand Total    $692.74

Since I had nothing to lose, I went ahead and performed the repair myself. 40 minutes and one square inch of sandpaper later, I had a functioning washing machine that has already lasted a month and a half and completed dozens of wash cycles. At this time I am confident that my repair was successful. Note that the trained repair person quoted over five hundred dollars in what he described to my wife as (to my recollection) “control boards”, complicated electronic assemblies which had absolutely nothing to do with the actual problem. The correct repair involved removing and disassembling the mechanical locking mechanism for the door, removing a bit of carbon buildup on a set of electrical point contacts, and reassembling the machine. That’s it. No parts needed whatsoever.

My first complaint is that the repairman who visited us was either tragically ill-trained, or his job was simply to bully us unto replacing a unit that required nothing more than simple maintenance which easily could have been completed in the time he spent “diagnosing” the machine. I wouldn’t have objected had his quote included the correct parts assembly, but he wasn’t even in the ballpark. I did spend a few minutes examining those boards, and there was no reason to be confident they were the point of failure. There was no reason not to investigate the mechanical mechanism.

My second complaint regards the physical construction of the locking mechanism. Such a mechanism should be mechanically dead simple, and require at most one moving part. The assembly as implemented had at least a half a dozen moving parts, arranged in an extremely overcomplicated fashion, the only rational explanation for which is to provide a point of failure on an otherwise beautifully designed machine.

Finally, the technician had not properly remounted the control board casing to the frame of the machine. In his defense, the retaining clips were not sufficient to the task, and some had already broken, either during or before his work. If I hadn’t remounted the casing, I’m certain the movement of the machine would have caused further damage.

Finally, I would like to add that my wife and I both love our Kenmore front load washer model number 11045862400. (Seriously, it needed that many digits?) It has been the best washing machine either of us has ever used, and we are glad to have it back in service. We’re expecting our first baby in April, and there’s no way we would have been able to afford a machine of this cost any time in the near future. I substituted the word cost for the word quality, because I truly believe that this machine was designed to provide a great user experience, and then to fail.

I am requesting a full refund of the $129.00 that we paid on Service Order Number 82838365 from Sears #: 0008078 on December 9, 2009.

Regards,

Joseph T. Manning

PS: This message will be submitted to consumerist.com, along with whatever resolution comes of it. -JTM

Yup. It was a typo. We got an email back this morning clearing things up. We’re on our way. Pictures and video will be posted when available. Woohoo!

Let me preface this by saying that these come to me because I’m still on the mailing list for the Marijuana Policy Project, with whom I applied for a network admin job about a year ago. I’m not a militant pot smoker, it just pisses me off when I see my tax dollars wasted.

Here you go.

Another marijuana legislation petition.

You should sign this petition. Here’s my take on the subject:The misbegotten “War on Drugs” continues to drain our treasury, criminalize huge numbers of non-violent offenders, and shift public attention away from genuine threats to our nation. It is time to stop treating drug use as though it were an active threat to the public. It is not use, but sale, trafficking, and artificially inflated prices of drugs that cause harm to the public.The legalization of marijuana for personal use is the first step toward a sensible national policy on drugs. By shifting enforcement resources away from senseless harassment of recreational drug users, those resources are freed to focus on the aspects of the drug industry that are genuinely harmful.Looking forward, it is easy to foresee a day when domestically produced legal recreational drugs overseen by the FDA will easily supplant the illegal toxic slurry that currently seeps across our borders despite the best efforts of our impossibly tasked law enforcement agencies. When other drugs are taxed and regulated in the same manner as alcohol and tobacco, there will be no incentive for the violent and determined drug traffickers who for so long have profited from our shortsightedness and scapegoating.The white house drug policy page makes much mention of the relationship between drugs and other crimes, but let’s look a little deeper. Violent crime related to drugs is about territory, supply, and money. In a regulated environment, this competition would be supplanted by simple commercial competition between various brands, and instead of being expressed with weapons and violence, it would be expressed with logos and advertisements (as regulated). The many property crimes which can be traced back to drug use, stem from a lack of money to pay for what is perceived as a need. With market based prices, drugs would no longer be so ridiculously inflated in price, and your average drug user could afford to support their habit without resorting to the old standby of theft, or the more desperate instances of violent crime. Even the risk of overdose would be sharply reduced by the simple expedient of accurate potency information on the package, and the use of safe inactive ingredients.Lastly, with the decriminalization of drug use, addicts would face an easier route to treatment and recovery and those capable of truly recreational drug use would be supporting a legitimate and profitable system, rather than a deeply corrupt and criminal one.It’s time to stop being hypocritical. We allow hundreds of drugs from nicotine to oxycontin to be used for purposes ranging from recreation to pain relief to the treatment of myriad illnesses. It’s time to admit that chemical compounds are not made inherently evil simply by their appearance on a government list. It’s time to take the staggering profits of the recreational drug industry out of the pockets of foreign criminals and put them into the pockets of Americans, who would rather be profitably on the right side of the law than at risk on its wrong side. Though I have my doubts about conglomerates like Philip Morris, at least they wouldn’t overtly sell their products to children. There wouldn’t even be a motivation for a personal use grower to wrongly dispose of marijuana. With the profit motive sensibly managed, nearly all of the harmful effects of the drug industry can be mitigated or eliminated altogether.Feel free to copy and paste that when you sign the petition here.

Most of you have probably heard me discuss the Of By For web site I plan to start some day. Well, I finally got off my ass and bought the domains of-by-for.com and of-by-for.org. I’ll explain more about why they will be separate sites with separate aims soon, but I’ve afflicted myself once again with a great many plates to keep spinning, and until I have the time and resources to do something about it, I figure I shouldn’t be making any promises or predictions. I went ahead and bought the domains for 2 years, which gives me some time to get in gear.

13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher is a book I’ve been waiting to read for months, and it absolutely did not disappoint. As all the other reviews I’ve read promised, I was almost compelled to read the book in a single sitting. There are a whole bunch of ways this book could have gone wrong, but Jay has managed to avoid them all, so far as I can tell. 13 Reasons Why deals thoughtfully and honestly with issues of teenage suicide, rape, and issues of identity. I want to tell more about the book, but I hate to spoil any details. I will say that though not happy, this book is uplifting, and tremendously powerful. I would recommend it as required high school reading, but that would almost guarantee that no high school student would read it. Parents, however, are encouraged to make sure their kids’ library has it in stock, and on prominent display. Perhaps the highest praise for the book is that though I know Jay, that fact slipped my mind so thoroughly that I was surprised to see his face on the back cover both midway through when the book slipped, and again when I’d finished it.

If your’e reading this, chances are you’ve heard me pimp this book at least once before even knowing it hadn’t yet been published. Well, now that situation has been remedied, and I wholeheartedly resume my pimping. Go out and get a copy (The Barnes & Noble in SLO has autographed copies, of which I now own two.) and clear an afternoon for an gripping read.

I’m so, so, so sorry to post MySpace crap on the big people’s web. Really. You have my humblest apologies. But this kinda tripped me the hell out, so bear with me.

K. I could give a shit about these things, but damn. This seemed weirdly accurate to me. Probably an indication of my worsening narcissism and self-delusion.

J: makes people laugh
O: Has one of the best personalities ever
D: Is a freak in bed
Y: loved by every one

J: makes people laugh
O: Has one of the best personalities ever
E: Freakin Beautiful eyes

J: makes people laugh
O: Has one of the best personalities ever
S: good in bed
E: Freakin Beautiful eyes
P: Popular with all types of people
H: Easy to fall in love with

T: great kisser
R: good bf/gf Husband/Wife
I : Loves to laugh
M: makes dating fun
B: Loves people, Really easy to fall in love with
L: BEST SMILE
E: Freakin Beautiful eyes

M: makes dating fun
A: gorgeous
N: Can kick ur Ass
N: Can kick ur Ass
I : Loves to laugh
N: Can kick ur Ass
G: Never let people tell you what to do

D: Is a freak in bed
O: Has one of the best personalities ever
D: Is a freak in bed
D: Is a freak in bed

Analysis:

1) I swear I did not manipulate this. I cut and pasted as I saw it posted. Wouldn’t have bothered, except I did a bunch of it in my head and wanted to do the whole thing. So I’ve put up every name I’ve ever used so all the combinations are available.

2) I looked at it first as Joseph T. Manning, which is what I formally go by, but decided to do the whole thing.

3) These are things I hear frequently, and often in about this concentration.

4) I would appear to have been destined to have rage issues. Note: “N: Can kick ur Ass” comes up three times.

5) It’s a little odd that “D: Is a freak in bed” comes up three (or four) times, while “S: good in bed” only comes up once. I’m going to make myself feel better by deciding that S counts way more because it’s so close to the beginning. Weirdest thing is that When I was a virgin nearly the entire time I was known as “Jody Dodd”. That’s a whole lotta perv in that name there. Probably scarred me for life.

Strange to me how close this comes to the way I really see myself. I know that probably makes me sound like a jackass, but WGAF? I know a lot of this stuff is conditional, and I know a lot of people have seen me in ways deeply and broadly varied from the way I see myself. If anybody cares to, I’d love to get some feedback. how do you think this fits?

A: gorgeous
B: Loves people, Really easy to fall in love with
D: Is a freak in bed
E: Freakin Beautiful eyes
F: People wild and crazy adore you
G: Never let people tell you what to do
H: Easy to fall in love with
I : Loves to laugh
J: makes people laugh
K: Really silly
L: BEST SMILE
M: makes dating fun
N: Can kick ur Ass
O: Has one of the best personalities ever
P: Popular with all types of people
Q: A hypocrite
R: good bf/gf Husband/Wife
S: good in bed
T: great kisser
U: gets blamed for everything
V: Not judgmental
W: Very broad minded
X: Never let people tell you what to do
Y: loved by every one
Z: Lives life for fun

This is rather interesting, no? How appropriate is it that a pill designed to allow a woman to put an end to her period (and presumably to PMS) should be named after the avenging spirit of wronged womanhood? I’m not going to comment on political or social, or even possibly theological interpretations of this story. I just thought it was kinda funny. Hooray, Anya!