When Khiem, our awesome IT guy, started setting up our new monitors at work I was drooling. My boss got the first set and they kicked ass. 20" flatscreen HPs. I've been mulling around the idea of two screens for some time. Really, since Bane stayed with us. He was able to chat and work at the same time. It was kickass. Unfortunately I didn't have the space for two monitors on my desk. I talked to Khiem about these for a while and he mentioned being able to use the company discount. Added to that was an $80 mail in rebate ($40 for each) and I couldn't pass this up.

I ordered them on Wednesday and was told to email the next day for a tracking number. The guy who I spoke with was an absolute doll. When I emailed him he responded right away... with tracking number and news that it was going to be delivered that day! Now THAT'S cutsomer service. I called the apartment manager so he could intercept UPS. No answer. Fuck! The UPS drivers are known for leaving boxes, so I left work at 2:30pm in hopes of beating them to the delivery. I walked up the stairs and sure enough, I had three boxes leaning against my front door. Bastards... Two were clearly marked HP. I had to pee really bad and was relieved to be home. That is... until I realized Jake hadn't gotten me a duplicate key for the extra lock yet. Traffic was solid around his work and no one was home. I decided to pop the screen. I reached in, placed my purse down and clicked the lock. Easy as pie. I put the screen back and brushed off. I was pretty damn proud of myself until I tried the door. I had just locked myself out. I yanked off the screen, reached unlocked the one lock and reached for the bottom one. No dice. Fine. I climbed into the window, hooked my foot on the sill and fell on my ass... nearly toppling over the cat furniture with two freaked out cats on top. At least I was in.

The guy said the stand was semi easy to put together. That meant it was going to be a bitch for me. It took me fifteen minutes to figure out why they needed the bent metal stick to be poked into the slots. I finally turned it over and saw two screws. That was step two... Needless to say I ended up waiting for Jake to come home. After some minor adjusting I had two brand spanking new monitors to bitch about. I still have to get used to the new look. Oh well, it was worth it. At least I can say that I helped put the stand together. I put the stick into the hole and screwed it. Now THAT I'm good at. ;)

I have a feeling it's time to start looking for another hosting company for my dedicated server. I pay $209 a month for a server that's over 3 years old and they just hit me with a $150 charge for restoring my databases 2 times when I fucked up.

When I first searched for a good hosting company I looked at numerous consumer review sites to see how the ratings were. I must have gone through at least 50 to get a feel for who was really bad and if anyone was good. Ventures Online stood out as a great choice. I moved to them and was so happy. The support was great, the prices were low and everyone I spoke with was personable. They even offered to pay lower prices as my server got older. Then it happened... They merged with another company, Data393. It hasn't been the same since. I used to get responses as fast as 30 seconds later. Now it can take hours. When I left messages I NEVER got a return call. Bottom line: I don't think this is the company for me... but now I have to do the searching all over again. *sigh* Anybody have some suggestions?