My Looking Glass

A Miss and A Hit

Okay, so my work computer situation spontaneously corrected itself today. I had two tech support guys from the hospital helping me yesterday (and they were remotely logged into my computer working on it, so I know it wasn’t me), and they couldn’t figure out why my SRA connection kept timing out. As a diagnosis of exclusion, they decided that the problem lay in the fact that I had upgraded to the latest version of IE which is apparently known to not be compatible with our intranet/internal hospital system. No one was strongly convinced that this was the culprit considering I had upgraded the browser upgrade 8 weeks ago. So I got up early today in order to take my computer in and get a browser downgrade. I decided I’d try to log in one last time before lugging it downstairs to my car, and sure enough, everything worked perfectly. Go figure. Mercury is retrograde which astrologers believe causes anything communication-related to go on the fritz. You know what? At this point, it’s as good an explanation as any.

So this weekend was busy. I celebrated my birthday with various people in my life. I also went to see models of a new construction condo complex in downtown Long Beach. When I got there, I discovered they had only one model even though there are six different layouts and sizes of condos in this development. Furthermore, the sole model was a mock-up in an unrelated building a block away from the actual construction site. WTF? Of course, they were urging everyone to disclose all their financial information, get prequalified, and sign on dotted lines. All the while, I’m thinking “Fuck you. You mislead everyone into coming down to see the ‘grand opening of the models,’ you show us a sole bogus unit in a building we won’t be living in, and now you want us to sign our lives away? Eat me.” Of course, I uttered none of these thoughts. I merely smiled benignly while inside I seethed with rage. When I got home and started reading the packet, I saw that HOAs are going to start at $500/month for the least expensive (yet still pricey) smallest unit. Let’s just say due to lack of interest, I’m no longer on the “interest list.”

On the flip side, a unit I’ve wistfully had my eye on in the Villa Riviera just came down $45,000, placing it at the excruciatingly stretched high end of my budget. This is an improvement from the unequivocally unobtainable status it was a few weeks ago. It’s lovely. Check it out. Note the black marble floor in the entry.

posted by LA @ 12:25 PM