My praise of Washington Mutual appears to have been premature. Some mental midget down there decided that my report of product dissatisfaction was actually a report of credit card fraud and they shut off my account while I was out of state. Yup, no gas for Jerry to get home because his crappy bank shut off his card in error and the department that can open the card isn't open until Monday. The people at the call center actually suggested I should just stay in Arizona until Monday when I can call the card services department and see if I might be able to talk them into opening the card. Of course, when I asked how they suggested I pay for a hotel since I had no credit or debit card, they were at a loss. Needless to say I went into a branch on Saturday and removed all of my money. They refused to close my accounts claiming that the computer just wouldn't let them and that I should try some other time. When? Who knows.
Believe me people, this crap is not unusual. It's a family curse.
Let me tell you, this project to set up a 125-gallon aquarium has been a nightmare from day one. Every single step of the way has been marred by defective products, impeded by inclement weather, and topped off by rude retailers. The latest issue is the fact that a stand I paid over $600 for is too small to fit my aquarium. I ordered a stand for a standard 125-gallon aquarium. I received the stand, spent several weekends sanding it, patching knots, and painting it. When the tank is delivered and ready to put on the stand, it's 1/4" too short in both dimensions. It never dawned on me that I should have to check up on the stand maker to see if they actually made the stand the correct size. The retailer is denying any responsibility at all. I had to contest the charge with my credit card. This led me to sit down and add up my costs so far on this project. Since I use Quicken and categorize everything, it should be pretty easy. Here it is:
| 9/9/2005 | 135G Acrylic aquarium | $841.21 |
| 9/23/2005 | Reverse Osmosis unit | $166.00 |
| 9/24/2005 | Down payment on aquarium stand | $300.00 |
| 9/24/2005 | Acrylic polish | $10.80 |
| 9/24/2005 | Refund on acrylic polish | -$10.80 |
| 10/6/2005 | Final payment on aquarium stand | $349.50 |
| 10/8/2005 | Paint and supplies for stand | $34.00 |
| 10/12/2005 | Return acrylic tank credit | -$763.50 |
| 10/12/2005 | Paint sprayer | $21.64 |
| 10/12/2005 | Air compressor oil | $2.10 |
| 10/14/2005 | Two reflectors | $72.49 |
| 10/14/2005 | Two Icecap ballasts and Iwasaki bulbs | $391.40 |
| 10/14/2005 | Supplies | $4.32 |
| 10/18/2005 | Electrical components for lights | $19.99 |
| 10/20/2005 | Wire | $3.25 |
| 10/21/2005 | Shipping ballasts to Icecap | $10.85 |
| 10/23/2005 | Paint & supplies | $26.00 |
| 10/23/2005 | Supplies | $5.73 |
| 11/1/2005 | Down payment on glass tank | $225.00 |
| 11/1/2005 | Spray paint for hinges | $4.32 |
| 11/1/2005 | Hinges for stand to match paint after spray paint doesn't work | $16.61 |
| 11/15/2005 | Shipping Icecap ballast back to retailer for refund | $7.90 |
| 11/19/2005 | Final payment on glass tank | $238.68 |
| 11/19/2005 | Refund on Icecap ballasts | -$250.00 |
| 11/19/2005 | Contested charge on aquarium stand | -$649.50 |
| TOTAL | $1,077.99 |
All that money and all I have is an empty glass tank, two reflectors with Iwasaki bulbs in them, and a reverse osmosis unit. I spent $114.72 on paint, supplies, and hardware getting that freakin' stand ready, and about 30 hours of labor, just to have it be too small; I lost $77.71 on the acrylic tank; and I spent $18.75 shipping defective ballasts back and forth. That's $211.18 lost because of crappy products so far and people wonder why I am grumpy sometimes. I take some responsibility for putting all that work into the stand without checking it, but would you have really measured a stand that was ordered for a standard size tank?
I spent a couple hours playing with bleach and hydrogen peroxide yesterday. I don't know if that means I'm a nerd, or stupid :) Anyway, if you have any chemistry knowledge, and you're not the kind of 'tard to kill yourself by playing chemist without any understanding of what's about to happen, it's something that is fascinating and entertaining. If you try it and hurt yourself, I take no responsibility for your stupidity.
Another thing: whoever wrote Internet Explorer should be shot. I have spent the last 2 hours trying to figure out how to add an event listener to an object with IE. Could they do it the standards way? Nope. They have to do it some stupid proprietary way. So, do they do it better? Nope. It's worthless. With attachEvent, you have no possible way of knowing which HTML element triggered the event. Ugh! With Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc., I can create onfocus and onblur events for all form elements on a page with a couple of lines of script, but it won't work in IE. I hate IE.
This past Wednesday I spoke with David Jones of Hatch Transformers — the manufacturer of Icecap's 150-watt metal-halide ballasts. He told me that the Iwasaki MT150D bulbs were not on the list of bulbs approved for that ballast. What he had to say was very interesting given what I had been told be the retailer and Icecap. Both the retailer and Icecap had stated that the Icecap ballast would successfully run the Iwasaki bulbs. Don't get me wrong, the bulbs did light, but then they made this noise the entire time. I don't blame the retailer or Icecap though. Apparently the Iwasaki bulbs used to specify that they were ANSI M102, but they have changed to M160. According to Yoshi at Eye Lighting (Iwasaki), the only electronic ballast they recommend for that bulb is the Aromat M15012CK-3EU.
