You've got my attention.

If you guys haven't heard... Microsoft is coming out with an iPod killer. It's called the Zune.

I have been holding off on buying an iPod because of thier INSANE price. I mean give me a fucking break. $300+ for $120 worth of hardware?!? How greedy are you Apple?

Anywho...

Now they have competition. Microsoft is coming out with the 30GB Zune for $229. Check out this article:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/portable-media/zunes-final-price-22999-msrp-202066.php

I admit it. I vowed to never buy an iPod quite a while ago. They are just soo darn overpriced. BUT now that almost every car stereo manufacturer supports the "iPod Interface", it is getting hard to resist. And now with a pending $70+ price drop... This may be my Christmas gift to myself.

How much is your freetime worth?

My manager asked me the other day about a new service that we want to offer customers. Our service department wants to have a 24/7 emergency line. That means that one service technician would have the "emergency" phone on them at all times during their assigned week. They would need to answer all calls and be ready to run to the shop to get tools to go to a customer site at a moment's notice.

Right now my manager is offering an automatic 4.5 hours of overtime per week. That is for doing absolutely nothing. If nobody calls I get 4.5 hours of OT added to my check no matter what.

BUT

I can't do anything during that week. No drinking, no working on my car. Or anything else that would leave me without transportation, incapacitated, or out of phone contact for that week.

I also have a problem because there are only 3 service guys. 2 of which have families. Guess who is the only single guy? Yep, me.

I'm guessing that because of that I will be "encouraged" to either help out the other two guys or to do twice the amount of duty. Me taking two weeks a month and the other two guys taking one week.

All for $92 per week. (4.5 hours of OT minus 30% for taxes.)

That isn't much incentive. In theory it's an extra $2392 a year which is the equivalent of a $1.15 per hour raise. But is it worth the hassle?

Something good needs to happen.

I'm friggin' broke. I hate being broke. I also hate it when I have unexpected expenses.

I noticed last Monday that both of my rear tires were down to the steel belts. (This is extrememly bad.) That means that either tire could have blown at any time. I HAD to buy tires ASAP. There wasn't an option. I'm still not confident enough to drive my manual car in everyday traffic and I need new tires before winter anyway. BUT I still wasn't planning on having this happen RIGHT FRIGGIN NOW.

It was just another kick in the nuts. I was hoping to send that cash to my VISA card. I was also hoping to have my insurnace claim finished tonight. After spending 2 hours and 50 minutes at the stupid tire place(!), the claim still isn't done.

Coming home to no HTPC, no HDTV, and my slow ass laptop is no help.

...and my laptop's tiny harddrive is full. It keeps screaming at me that it is full every 15 minutes.

Fucking shit!