Who's Your 80s Movie Icon Alter-Ego? Find out @ She's Crafty

Hahaha.. HERE's the next Joker in the Batman movies!

Who's Your 80s Movie Icon Alter-Ego? Find out @ She's Crafty

Say hello to the newest employee of the Walt Disney Company. Yep, next time you go to Disneyland you will probably see me taking your ticket at the gate. Rock n' roll. This seriously has been a dream of mine ever since I was a kid. I'm excited. Thanks to Janelle for referring me!

Here it is.

-Rock With You - Michael Jackson (i had MJ fever BAD in the 80's. i even had a red jacket like the one he wore in the Beat It video. you don't even have to tell me how completely dorky this is.)

-One Thing Leads to Another - The Fixx (every time i hear this song i picture the video in my head. usually that's annoying, but not with this one.)

-Jessie's Girl - Rick Springfield

-867-5309 - Tommy Tutone

-You Dropped the Bomb on Me - Gap Band

-Jeopardy - Greg Kihn Band (major University of Arkansas memories!)

-Can You Feel It? - The Jackson's (this was a carry over from my Michael-mania, but i really liked the Jackson's Triumph album. i was torn between this song and Lovely One. still not sure i made the right decision, but i'll have to live with it.)

-Somebody's Baby - Jackson Browne (major Fast Times at Ridgemont High memories)

-Lady (You Bring Me Up When I'm Down) - Commodores (this was one of the 5 or so songs that were out at the same time with the name Lady. can you name the others?)

-Fire - Pointer Sisters (major high school cruising memories)

-Run to You - Bryan Adams

-If This Is It - Huey Lewis

-Cut's Like a Knife - Bryan Adams

*Biggest Part of Me - Ambrosia (very sappy, but i still love it)

-I Don't Want to Live Without You - Foreigner (ditto the above. I wanted my friend Tammy to sing this one at our wedding but she said she couldn't because it wasn't in her range - or some lame excuse - but she did another lovely song for us so it was all good.)

-Emergency - Kool & the Gang

-Walking on Sunshine - Katrina & the Waves

-Lonesome Loser - Little River Band

-My Sharona - The Knack

-Hold On - Kansas (this song would make the list on it's own, but it has an added allure. i was driving around with my first love in high school - major heartbreak, but that's a story for another day - and when this song came on everything stopped as he cranked it up and said, "My favorite song by my favorite band." suddenly it became my favorite song by my favorite band too. i go back on that drive everytime i hear this song.)

*Stay - Jackson Browne

*September - Earth, Wind, & Fire

-Photograph - Def Leppard (matt talked me into this one on the podcast and it replaced Sweet Child O Mine. i hadn't thought about Def Leppard but loved Pyromania when it came out so i checked it out after the podcast and decided it should replace Guns 'N Roses)

-I'll Fall in Love Again - Sammy Haggar (matt also planted the seed for this one. he kept talking about how Van Halen would be on his 80's list so we got online to see which Van Halen songs he would pick and i remembered this Sammy Haggar song. it came out the summer after breaking up with my longtime boyfriend and it represented a new found independence and hope for the future to me. it also just jams.)

This is going to sound very Stuart Smalley, but each one of these songs is special to me in it's own way. As you can see from my descriptions above, some of them take me back to a specific time and place. Some just remind me of my former self and where I was (physically and emotionally)at the time it came out. Many of them just make me happy when I hear them and I don't really know why.

The songs with an (*) actually came out in the late 70's but I cheated and snuck them in anyway. Not sure why they didn't make it onto the 70's CD but they're here now.

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that governments can seize individuals' private property for development as tax-revenue-generating businesses, someone from Freestar Media is trying to acquire Justice David A. Souter's home for conversion into a hotel. He intends to call it the "The Lost Liberty Hotel" and feature the "Just Desserts Cafe." That is hilarious.

I wish I could find a decent photo to accompany this post, but if you do an image search for the Dirty Dozen, you can come across a lot of boring pictures of army buddies that have named themselves after the dozen guys in the movie. This is the best I could do.

The premise for those who don't know: WWII. Lee Marvin plays a soldier who is put in charge of a mission to train 12 army prisoners (guys who are good at scheming) and infiltrate a German retreat mansion where many important German leaders stay on a regular basis.

This movie was a lot of fun. It managed to deal with the war light-heartedly without feeling too flippant. But that's not what matters. What matters is the teaming up of these 12 odd guys, their dynamics, their methods of doing things, and the cool last half-hour or so in which they go on their mission. Heavy use of explosions and shooting included.

Very entertaining, especially with the celebrity-packed cast.

In case you haven't seen it:

Tom Kills Oprah

It's a big pic (1 MB!) so I'm linking to it instead of putting it up here.

So the opportunity last night turned out to be a glorified multi-level marketing scheme. Nuts to that. I don't feel like losing all my friends right now even if I might rake in the big bucks. So that's a bummer. I'm getting ready to head down to Disneyland in a few minutes. Janelle gave me a referral there so hopefully something will work out. I figure I can work there at least through the summer and then maybe start subbing when school starts up again. I could do both for sure. I seriously have no aspirations to be rich. I just want to pay the bills and have enough left to hopefully get things going at PopVox. We're going to be starting distribution with CD Baby in the next few weeks so hopefully that will take off. That's all I got right now. I'm going to see Godzilla: Final Wars on Friday in Hollywood with Mike so I'm pretty excited about that.

Who is the greatest American in history (according to Discovery Channel viewers)? Is it Abraham Lincoln, the man who freed the slaves and held the nation together during a civil war? Or maybe Martin Luther King Jr., the man who united millions of Americans in a civil rights movement and demonstrated the power of non-violent resistance for obtaining freedom? Or is it George Washington, the beloved founding father and first president?

Nope. Apparently, the greatest American in history is the modern champion of deficit spending, nuclear proliferation, and covert South American terrorist training and armament: Ronald Reagan.

Lego Star Destroyer -

Saturday night Michi and I finally assembled my Lego Star Destroyer. It took us close to 10 hours (we started around midnight). We let my webcam take a picture every five seconds and made a stop motion video out of the pictures (over 7000 of them). The video turned out really cool. It's a little over 4 minutes long and you can download it here.

(via Digg.com)

We dollared this one with Brendan last week. I'm glad I dollared it and glad I saw it.

I'm glad I dollared it because the first half hour was pretty weak. Enter Mike Ditka, and the movie started getting funny. Robert Duvall and Ditka's great personalities added to Ferrell's performance. One thing filmmakers need to realize is that his SNL-esque bits aren't funny and just lose them once and for all. I don't need to see his exaggerated facial expressions and body movements as he hyperventilates.

This movie is pretty much offensive to Asians, Italians, and lesbians, and probably a few other people as well. But despite its stereotypes, it still manages to be funny. From quotes like "I've got balls!" (in a sporting goods commercial) to "Prima le carne" (as a butcher's mantra) to "Way to go, Bing-Bong!" (Ditka's praise of a kid named Byong Sun), I definitely had a few laugh-out-loud moments.

Rent it, dollar it. It has its moments.

What Kind of American English do you speak?

I speak 75% General American English, 15% Upper Midwestern, 5% Yankee, and 5% Dixie. I like #3, which is something I definitely noticed on our trip to David's wedding.

I feel bad that I am neglecting you guys but I have good reasons, I swear. I don't have my own PC with me. I have a new laptop that was given to me that should be on the way and my PC is sitting at Mike's house right now. Hopefully by the end of July I will have my own place for all of it to sit in and be happy.

Now that that has been said there are some big things happening. I have an interview this evening with Citigroup and it sounds really promising. It is a management position. Yeah, holy crap. So be thinking of me this evening, please. I'm totally ready to finally catch that break after almost two months of searching, interviewing, rejection, and all that other junk. I'm ready to settle in and start that next chapter.

The Lawsuit of the Rings - New York Times

Jackson is saying that New Line underpaid him as much as $100,000,000.

(via ./)

http://www.uweboll.com/

I saw spinners on a minivan today. I Lol'd.

Holy crap. Wil Wheaton is playing in the World Series of Poker next week. Good luck man.

I've created a new photo album with pictures of the garden, the cat and Emma. You can see that my greens have gone to seed, but my tomato and cucumber plants are blooming. Also, check out Emma's new tattoo.

Erika and I saw Garrison Keillor's Rhubarb Tour on Saturday. It was a lot of fun. We were sure that we would be the youngest people there, but we saw at least a dozen other couples that were under 50.

Mr. Keillor was very friendly with the crowd. At the beginning of the show, he walked all the way from the stage, down the center aisle, and to the very back of the lawn, all while telling stories and singing. Before and after the show, and during the intermission, he was kind of enough to stop, greet people, and sign autographs. Luckily, we brought along a copy of one of his books for just such an opportunity:

Monday again. The weekend felt both busy and boring at the same time. Friday night we all went out to celebrate the 01321-birthday a week late. We ate at El Torito, where the service was horrible, but the food was good. I watched Wendy for an idea of how much to tip. Since we all ordered after having to flag down employees who didn't seem to think we wanted to eat, and we were eating spicy food with no drink refills, we decided 10% was good enough. I had a fun time anyway, since we got to hang out with the Neals sitting across from us (and Connor stealing my menu, pushing my water, and grabbing for my rice). It was kind of fun to hang out with Wendy outside of her natural habitat. ;)

After El Torito, a few of us went to Bananas, a little dive of a place in Fullerton. I guess the Karaoke machine wasn't on, so it was pretty low-key, which was okay by me since I was tired after a long week.

Saturday I did laundry, watched The Dirty Dozen, went out to eat with Ric, bought a Wheel of Time companion book (which officially makes me a nerd), and we spent some time reading in the coffee shop at Borders.

Sunday we went to church and then I literally did nothing but read for the rest of the day. I was bored out of my mind. (Miata should be ready for pickup from the shop very soon!) At least with all of this reading, I'll have the next Wheel of Time book done in time for the release of the new Harry Potter book. At the rate I'm going, I may even have time to re-read book 5 to remind myself where the series left off.

Last Wednesday night I got to the Troubadour at doors opening time for the first time in ages. I've become such a lazy concert-goer. I remember when I first started going to shows, thinking that the people who showed up late all just thought they were too cool to stand around until the headlining band came out. As it turns out, we all get older, and it can hurt our poor little backs and feet and knees and shoulders to stand around for so long.

At any rate, I got there early and actually found the opening bands more of a pleasant listen than I've experienced in quite some time as far as opening bands go. First was Augustana, a young group just about to release an album. I liked the way their songs began simply and grew complex by the end. Three of my suggestions would be: don't have your music play automatically on your website and back off the mic when playing at the keyboard (seeing a string of spit going from a singer's mouth to the mic is not pretty), and open your eyes more often to connect with the audience. Otherwise, good job. The second band was Long-view, from Manchester, whom I had heard of but had never heard. I liked them as well. Can't find a website for them.

I don't know if I mentioned it, but we were front row, center, no barrier (I love small venues). My sister sat on the stage in between bands. As it turned out, being that close was almost a disadvantage when the lead singer of Embrace found that he could stand in between two speakers, right in front of us. RIGHT in front of us, as in we needed to back our faces away from having them look right at his "special area." The mic cord kept hitting my sister in the face whenever he stood there, which made me laugh until I was dodging it as well. Nevertheless it was a lot of fun to be up front and make eye contact with the band.

Embrace are an energetic bunch, and thanks to the Troubadour's newly expanded balcony, that energy led to some athletic climbing and hanging from the balcony while singing.

I have to admit I've listened to the new album a lot at work, so I knew the music really well while not knowing the lyrics all that well, so I felt kind of dumb when everyone else up front was singing along and I was pretty much reduced to a hum, but it was a lot of fun anyway. The band asks the audience to get involved and get jumping, and so we all got really into it, except for my sister, of course, who looks so funny when she's the only one standing there doing nothing in a sea of pogo-ing fans.

We stayed a little bit after the show. Apparently my sister's boyfriend knows every Embrace fan in town. He and my sister had already been to the in-store performance at the Virgin MegaStore that afternoon, as well as a few other shows, and he also went to the Jimmy Kimmel show performance as well. So we waited around while he chatted, and good thing we did, because we caught him a drumstick. Cool.

Fun times. And I've finally found where the free parking is around the Troubadour, so I'm all set for the future. Yeah!

FOXNews.com - Views - Iraq: Bush Myths vs. Reality

I could barely believe my eyes when I saw this article. Could Fox News really be fair and balanced after all? On the same page I saw a link to another: President's Stubbornness Delays Social Security Solution. But wait, both articles come from the same author: Martin Frost. Frost is a Texas Democrat who served in the US House of Representatives for 26 years until 2003 when he lost after some redistricting forced him to run in a Republican-friendly district. Frost then lost his bid for DNC chairman. I guess we can add Frost's name to the short list of liberals that work at Fox News. Now Alan Colmes* has someone to talk to at the water cooler.

*Actually Alan Colmes is more of a moderate than a liberal.

Fox News apparently doesn't mind hiring a liberal or two as long as they meet three out of four of the following criteria:

• Lost recently
• Funny-looking
• Not actually very liberal
• Jewish

I did a bit more reading and I was surprised to learn that Wesley Clark now works for Fox News. He comes close to meeting my requirements. He lost in 2004, he is fairly conservative and he has a bit of a Jewish heritage. But there's no denying that he's a handsome man.

I've been spending a lot of time working on the B2evolution project lately. I upgraded brendoman.com to the newest version of it, then I had to reapply the hack I had made before. I'm working on rewriting it as a plugin that will be easier to install and will be able to survive upgrades like this. The project needed some help sifting through antispam reports and maintaining the central blacklist, so I volunteered to do that. And I submitted a skin to the skins repository. I have another one under development now. And I've been reading through my new book: Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP and MySQL by Kevin Yank.

That's the boring, geeky stuff I've been up to. Yesterday morning Sara and I flew with Dad to an airport in Kansas. We ate breakfast at the restaurant at the airport with some of his pilot friends that meet there once a month (including Private Pilot Magazine writer Leroy Cook). The day before that I went with my sister to the Apple Store to help her pick out an iPod Mini. We got an FM transmitter for playing music in the car, but the quality was really terrible and we could hardly find a place on the dial that wasn't getting interference from other stations. I think we can come up with something better.

I am the ultimate master of everything forever. Well maybe not.

I went to church tonight, and well I didn't get home until late because I helped tear everything down.

Ahh the joys of going to a church plant.

I had chicken noodle soup for dinner it was delicious.

I can only write about one line at a time.

Perhaps I should lay off the caffine.

The other day I had a good date, well that was saturday.

We went hiking.

Next sunday I will be going to a movie shoot by the makers of Napoleon Dynamite to be an extra.

YAY great fun.

I need a job.

My parents are taking a vacation to the beach, and I will go with them for a while.

Huzzah.

The other day I had an epiphany, but it went away.

I am the son of an Engineer, sort of.

I can't write a paragraph.

Man, what a great weekend. I spent Saturday afternoon at the Westwood Secret Stash hanging out with the VA crew. Kevin was really great and I actually got to just chill and talk with him for a bit. He recorded a promo for the podcast which will be unveiled on our next show. Hopefully that will be recorded as soon as I get some permanent digs so I can use my PC and such. One really interesting thing he told me was that I'm in the Q&A session of the Mallrats X DVD quite a bit since I was sitting right below the mic for questions. Check that out in August when it comes out for sure. More pics are on the MoBlog. Get the feed for that here if you've been missing out. I've got some more pics to put up too. Everyone at the store was super great, especially my man Christian, the new head guy there and mod for the VA Board. It was great to finally meet him. I'm just getting into Degrassi: The Next Generation, so I didn't buy the box set to get signed, but the two stars of the show that were there were really nice. The fans really seemed to enjoy themselves.

Saturday night was dedicated to gaming. I headed over to Phil V's and we did some serious Cube action with Donkey Konga and Mario Kart: Doubledash. Donkey Konga is seriously my new favorite game. When I get my first paycheck I'm buying my own Conga Controller. I had so much fun. It's a blast with four people. We also played some 8 player Mario Kart well into the night. Excellent party game. I had so much fun. Today was church and I really, really enjoyed it. The sermon was about taking time to focus and not giving up on your dreams. I definitely needed to hear it. I'm super excited about my new possible career that hopefully will be starting tomorrow. I also love helping out with the Jr. Highers. Today was our first Sunday with new sixth graders. They were so small! They had tons of energy though and I'm really excited for them. We played some cool games and they really got into worship with a live band for the first time.

One of our normal routines is going out to lunch after church. That was great. Phil bought me lunch because I agreed to be the new PopVox webmaster. Good times. I love my friends. Now I'm headed back to Jon and Grace's for the week and the week after that I'll be at Phil and Janelle's. Hopefully by then I'll have enough money saved to get a place. Thanks so much guys for all your encouragement. I seriously appreciate it. Hope you all had great weekends as well!

Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP and MySQL by Kevin Yank

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou - Criterion Collection

Timeless: Hank Williams Tribute

Here are the links for show #12 and #13.

Yeah, it doesn't tell us much. But who's exited for the planned Wolverine and Magneto spin offs?

Q. Where does Google keep all that GMail space?

A. Here.

Plain View #13 6/24/05

http://feeds.feedburner.com/searscast

I have lost our lists, but I believe it went a little something like this:

-Jesus as Lonejack
-Mare's 80's list
-Baseball, it's time to let it go
-Students making me crazy

Holy crap, what a day. So it turns out I signed a document saying I would not use the internet at my assignment. I have no recollection of doing this and I didn't think it was in effect since my boss showed me some websites yesterday. Then today I get a call from my temp agency saying that my assignment was terminated because I used the internet (not used it too much, just used it period) and I needed to leave the building. Wow. Just wow. But my boss at the temp agency reassured me that it wasn't a big deal, it's my first assignment and sometimes these things happen. Before I can even go meet here to try and get another assignment for next week, I get a call from a lady at Enterprise Rent-a-Car and we have a phone interview for about an hour. End of story: I am going in on Monday to fill out some paperwork and have a sit down and if it all works out she said I could start on Tuesday. Dang. I don't know what else to say but that.

As I mentioned in my previous installment, Alan Moore brought a level of sophistication and intelligence to his writing that was unheard-of in mainstream comics at the time. He is personally responsible for inspiring a new breed of talented comic book writers, the greatest of whom is undoubtedly Neil Gaiman. Gaiman’s first attempts at writing were in traditional prose, but he was initially unsuccessful. His association with, and appreciation for the work of, Alan Moore led him to begin writing comic books.

Read more »

Today's theme: Fuck Japan!

http://uqmgp.hp.infoseek.co.jp/

So we just received a memo from the boss reminding us that the dress code for short Fridays here at the university is "business casual."

Uh... I thought that's what we were Monday-Thurdsay. It's not like we wear suits around the office here. Now I'm wondering if the memo means "Dress the same as the rest of the week," or with the word casual included, "You can relax a little bit." Basically I have no idea what the memo means.

Oh well, it doesn't really affect me since I wear skirts every day anyway.

This morning I heard about the Supreme Court's recent eminent domain decision and I was dismayed.

The Virgin Queen said it best:

Our government has just declared that the inalienable right to own property is now subject to the whims of the mob and those who have more money and power than you.

Vox Day says:

This effectively ends all pretense of American property rights, since state and local governments now have the ability to hand over a desired property to anyone with the requisite political influence.

Sandra Day O'Connor said in her dissent:

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of
another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

A very sad, frightening and unfortunate decision, indeed.

If you look in the left column, you will notice a nifty MoBlog provided by Buzznet. Danny is working on adding an MMS feature to b2e so I (and others) can post pics, videos, and sound clips to the blog via MMS. Sweetness.

Link: http://www.brendoman.com/dbc

I upgraded our b2evolution install from 0.9.0.11 to 0.9.0.12 today. There was a little bit of downtime and I'm still catching some of the things that got mixed up. I lost some of the hacks I had made to our RSS feeds, which means if you use Bloglines, you'll probably see some posts multiple times. I think I have it sorted out now. I still haven't reapplied my hack for adding Amazon.com links and images, and I'll probably try to rewrite it as an actual plugin rather than a hack. So, it might be a couple of days.

In other b2evolution news, I submitted the Reflection skin to the b2evolution skins repository. I'm working on another one now. I also volunteered to help out with the b2evolution antispam blacklist. So I've been spending some time reviewing what users have reported and deciding what goes on the blacklist that goes out to all b2evolution blogs.

http://www.prestonidaho.org/shop.htm

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (Widescreen Edition) by

We rented this one last Saturday night and it was the best movie I've seen in a long time. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet are both excellent. After a bitter break up, Jim Carrey (can't remember the character's name) decides to use the services of a company that can erase specific memories from your brain. We watch the memories of the relationship along with Carrey as they're being earased from his mind while he's in a deep sleep. We start with the most recent memories so first we see the ugliness their relationship had disintegrated into. But then as the memories get more distant we begin to see why they loved each other and how it had all been so sweet at one time. Carrey realizes this too and tries desparately to wake up and stop the process because he doesn't want to lose her completely. The movie gets very funny and bizarre at this point, but it's also still very gripping. I won't ruin the ending for you. Usually when I love a book or a movie, the ending will come along and ruin it for me. Not here. The ending is perfect.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1469&item=5591163987&rd=1

So freaking bloglines is the newest casualty to the ban filter. Suck. But Danny is currently working on enabling posting to the blog via MMS on my phone, so that will be sweet.

Honzo just asked a question over at the forums that I will answer here.

What is your living situation?

Have you moved?

Right now I'm couch hopping. Last week I was at Grace and Jon's, this week I'm at Jeric's, and next week I might be at Phil and Janelle's. I'll cycle around until I have enough money to get a place. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later. Work is good. I am looking for a permanent job, but if nothing comes up I'll just stay on with the temp agency. I have decided I would rather have a regular job and volunteer at my new church. All my friends go there and help out with the Jr. High. It's super fun and fulfilling. So that's where I'm at right now. Hopefully I'll have either my PC or my new lappy set up so we can do some online gaming!

Very Funny "Switch" video.

Make the Mac Switch today.

Via Digg.

Whatever happened to the crazy sign guy who sat around at intersections giving us things to think about (sometimes because we couldn't decipher what the signs meant)?

I heard the news today (oh boy) that my sister's boyfriend's work is sending him to Japan for at least a year. He is a tall guy, bigger than Bill Murray, so I'm sure he'll be identifying with the above picture in no time. He's leaving in just a couple of weeks, selling all of his things, and isn't certain when he'll be back, except to visit for Christmas. Apparently he and my sister are going to try the long-distance thing. We all know how that often goes, so I'm just hoping they'll be an exception to the rule, but I do worry.

So I've got two goodbyes today: to my piano teacher and to my sister's boyfriend when I meet up with them this evening to see Embrace at the Troubadour.

              Lucas, doing his best impression of the ugliest cat you'll ever see.~Kelly

Scrapbook Extension

I have not had a chance to try this out at home, but this extension looks like anexcellent way to do research for posts or papers.

The extension basically takes scraps of pages you want to save and indexes them. Very cool.

Check out what I'm up to during a weekday here. I mean, um, during nights and weekends. Yup. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Micrsoft.com: How to Remove Linux and Install Windows on Your Computer - One of my favorite parts:

"Windows and Linux can coexist on the same computer. For additional information, refer to your Linux documentation." (Cause we're sure as heck not going to tell you how to do it.)

(via Digg.com)

New USB Drive

This is absolutely hillarious! A thumb drive that looks like a thumb.

via Digg.

FrozenTech » Articles » LiveCD Boot Benchmarks

Gotta a fast lappy? Slow Desktop? Wanna know boot times and other bentchmarks on Live Linux CDs? Here you go...

via Digg.

Considering that I daily get multiple hits at my blog from people searching for the trailer for Mirrormask (a little movie by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean I may have mentioned once or thrice), I thought I may as well post a link to the latest trailer, purely as a public service. You're welcome.

Update: On 8/12/05 I received a call from the Better Business Bureau letting me know that Philips would give me a full refund. If you've also been stuck with this defective TV, know that there is a way to make Philips pay.

Marvel at my eloquent phrasing. Admire the variety of word choice. Imagine some executive sitting in his office, thinking, "Look at this guy's masterful command of diction. We should not have messed with him."

Filed against:
Philips Consumer Electronics
One Philips Dr P O Box 14810
Knoxville TN 37914

Complaint Description:
On December 18, 2004 I paid $301.97 for a TV set manufactured by Philips, model number 27PT6441/37. On January 3, 2005, the TV would not turn on. I called Philips' customer service line (ref # XXXXXX), and they told me this problem is normal, and that if I unplugged the TV and then plugged it in again, the set would work again. Again, they assured me this was normal and gave no indication that there may be something wrong with the TV (I would like to point out that the set was still under full warranty at the time). I unplugged the TV as instructed, and plugged it back in, after which it began working again. On June 14 2005, the power on the TV set stopped working again. I tried what Philips had recommended the first time I experienced the problem, but the TV still would not work. I called customer service (ref #XXXXXX) to report the problem. At this time, the TV was only under a parts warranty, and I was informed that I would have to travel 58 miles to the nearest authorized service center to have it repaired. I said I can not travel that far to have the TV set repaired, and the customer service representative (Mike) told me he would try to get approval to have the set repaired at a local shop. He also said he would try to have Philips cover the parts and labor necessary for the repair. For seven days I waited to find out what, if anything, Philips would do to fix my TV. I called several times to check their progress with my problem. At one point, a separate customer service representative told me that if Philips could not find somebody nearby to fix the TV, they may offer me a refund or replace the item. Today (June 21 2005), I received a call from Mike informing me that Philips will neither cover the cost of labor to fix the TV, nor will they cover the cost of parts if I choose to have the TV fixed at a location near my home or help me transport it to an approved repair shop. I have researched this model of TV on various websites, and have heard numerous complains similar to my own (such as those at this website: http://www.coxesroost.net/journal/2004/12/11/television-repair). It is clear that Philips has sold me a defective device, which they will not take responsibility for, now that it is past the 90-day warranty period.

Given that the problem I have encountered with my television is common to hundreds of other consumers across the country; and given that while the product was still under warranty, Philips advised me to ignore the problem rather than fix it, assuring me the product was not defective, I believe that Philips Consumer Electronics owes me one of the following:

1) A full refund for the cost of the TV set.

2) Coverage of the full cost to repair the TV set, including parts and labor, AND a guarantee that the same problem will not occur again, within a reasonable time period (at least one year).

I passed my exam last night, so now I am a CompTIA Network+ certified computer technician. It's no big deal. If you ever need to know the maximun segment length for a 10Base2 network*, you can just ask me.

*185 meters