I can't believe Vanessa was the first one to leave American Idol! She seemed to be one of the most popular contestants, so I thought a lot of people would vote for her. But I think she has enough self-esteem that she won't be devastated by this. I will continue to vote for Clay Aiken.

ObsidianZebra is feeling incredibly relieved today :D

Originally posted by giancoli
and by the way, i would not sugest anyone ever use verisign!

I definitely agree with this. I used to have all my domains registered via Network Solutions (now VeriSign) and the service has continually gone downhill. There are far better registrars out there, such as OpenSRS.

Whats making OZ so happy today? :)

OZ, get the phone call?

Phone call?

Whointhewhatnow?

39 posts until 66,666.

Les Mis!!!!!! Oh my dear darling goodness!!! I saw the the traveling Broadway musical last year with my Intro to Theater class! I was so very impressed and yakked about it for weeks, and yet I can go through and tell you every little thing I didn't like about it. For some things, I just have a great a memory. I was close to tears during Eponine's song as she watches the lovebirds because I've been in her shoes so many times. (Errr, she couldn't afford shoes, but that's beside the point.)

Good news: my car doesn't need a new transmition. It was brakes and muffler issues that were apparently the problems.

Bad news: umm... do I have bad news about my car? Not right now. I'm just glad the only problems I know of are relatively inexpensive.

FWIW, I try really really hard to be the best customer service person I can. Customers frequently ask me questions, particularly at the small grocery store, and the politer and friendlier I am, the smoother the interaction tends to go. If they're annoyed to start off with, it won't get any better if I demonstrate just how long my shift has seemed or how yucky my week is going.

The dumbest question I was ever asked was, "Do you carry unsweetened sugar?"

Skylark, I'm not a mechanic... but I cannot understand how a brakes/muffler problem could be confused with a possible transmission problem?

Not a phone call, he showed up on yahoo messenger. Turns out that he was super busy, wish he would've told me anyway.. but I'm a forgiving person. Maybe a bit too forgiving.. Oh well.

Robert,
I don't really understand it either. The main symptom was that sometimes the car would temporarily refuse to go in reverse. This would occassionally occur after the car had been parked for hours with the emergency brake on, but at other times, I'd drive it for over an hour, have to turn around in someone's driveway, and it wouldn't want to back up for me at first. When this was explained to the mechanic over the phone, his initial response was, "It sounds like the transmition." Then the car was taken to him, he drove it, tested out the reverse, and then he said he thinks it's the brakes. The muffler is just wearing out, and we were expecting that. Well, we were also expecting brake problems, but if the car needed a new transmition, brakes, and muffler, I don't think we'd have bothered. There's only so much money you can put into a '91 Honda Civic Hatchback before it's not worth it.

Sometimes the transmission might "stick", especially if you put the car in Park on an incline. Sometimes in older vehicles, you just need to give the vehicle a little time to "warm up" and let the fluids circulate andlubricate the various components.

It just makes no sense that brakes or muffler would, or could, prevent a car from going into Reverse.

Interesting.

Yeah, that don't make no sense. :confused:

Still sounds like the transmission. Like Robert said, sometimes it will "stick" and loosen up as the car warms up.

When it happened after operating for an hour, what were the conditions like? Was the driveway steep? Did it feel like it was properly in gear? Any fluid leaks at any time?
How did you finally get it in gear? Any noise or "thump" when it finally went in reverse?

Car talk! Car talk! Get your beer and shop clothes! Car talk! :tame:

Oh, is it is automatic or standard shift?

Sometimes in a standard shift transmission, I've had cars where the synchros seem to be off which prevent the transmission from going into reverse from a parked position. But in all cases where I have encountered it, putting it in one of the forward gears first would line everythingup and easily allow the transmission to be shifted into Reverse.

Sometimes I have trouble sticking my Del Sol into reverse after it's been parked for a while - it's a manual shift too. I'm guessing this is "normal" for Hondas, as I think my dad had the same problem with his old civic too. So this is what my dad has told me to do when it refused to go into reverse - Try shifting it through all the gears and then try putting it in reverse again, or try putting it in neutral, step off the clutch and then on again and see if it'll go in. More often than not, that does the trick for me.
Please note that I know almost nothing about cars.

Only 6 members away from having 666 members here :eek:

My car is stick shift. That was one of the factors that the mechanic cited in his corrected diagnosis- when he said "transmition problem", he was thinking the car was an automatic.

The time that I drove it an hour and then had a failed reverse attempt was on a flat driveway in nonremarkable conditions. There's nothing about the external forces that I know of that would have caused the failure. I shifted into a couple of other gears and retried reverse, and then it worked. I was paying close attention then, so I know that when I first tried reverse, it felt like it was firmly in gear. I didn't notice any leaking fluids. When I successfully went in reverse, there were no thunking, clunking, or otherwise unusual happenings.

Hey, a kind of car talk that's interesting to me! This is kind of cool- it's relavant to me this time.

Skylark, then that sounds like the synchros. It's just a little off is all and not really a problem. It's more an aggravation than anything else. Basically, the gears (Reverse gear as compared to Neutral and forward gears) are a little out of synch when you first start the car. Just remember that if it sticks, it just means the gear is a little "off" and by nudging the shift into a forward gear will line the gears up so that Reverse may be selected more easily.

I would not bother getting a trasmission job on a 91 Civic over it.

thanks Robert. yeah i can understand how customers can get into the frame of mind that the sales person they're talking to is the one at fault, i've been there myself, i admit it. the most frustrating part is that the guy isn't even my customer, he had bought his phone off my manager and she was off that day so i happened to be the one there when he called.

today started off good, i sold lots, but had to turn someone down due to credit issues which i hate doing, and he's sooooo nice so i felt awful. then some kid came and bought a pager and any issues i could possibly have, i had, making it a really long drawn out process to get him the stupid pager. then some other junk happened putting me in a bit of a bad mood, but i was ok til my manager popped in on her way home and started yelling the second she came in the door, saying 'why the hell didn't you answer the phone, i thought you weren't here or something, it rang and rang and rang... etc etc" she was pissed. but i didn't leave the store for any reason at all, i even take the phone into the washroom with me if i have to take a break (it's a cordless. don't worry i don't talk on the phone in there, just if it rings at least i hear it and am more likely to catch it before they hang up)

anyway what happened was the cordless died so i was on the fax line talking to customer service at roughly the time she called, but she seemed to think i was lying, she thinks it would give her a busy signal rather than ringing if phone A were dead and phone B were in use. i can't explain why, so i can't really say anything to make her believe me.

then to make matters worse the pager i sold was one she'd ordered for someone so she's really pissed that i sold it to someone else on her. heh.

that thing you mentioned about untrained sales staff? well yeah, i think i'd screw up a lot less if she'd bothered to take the time to train me properly rather than take on the "you'll figure it out when the time comes" attitude and then get frustrated when i have to phone her on her day off to ask how to do something.

roommate's girlfriend's dog is barking up a storm in the basement. they all went out to the bar but i can't go cause i work in the morning and am going to bed in about 5 minutes, so the dog is in his crate, but he won't shut up. considering our house has floor vents in every room the sound carries real well from the basement, i hope he'll shut up :(

and then someone the others work with might be staying here on the couch so he doesn't have to drive home from the bar, so when i get up in the AM for work i'll have to totally abandon my usual morning routine so i don't wake him up. i might even leave half an hour early just so i don't have to tiptoe around the house. that means i can't have breakfast but i'm out of bread anyways, so i figure i'll use the extra time to go to tim hortons and get a muffin. but they're not vegan :(

my whole day will be shot i just know it. you know how it is when your morning routine is disrupted, the whole day you're thrown off balance

Originally posted by LadyFaile
and then someone the others work with might be staying here on the couch so he doesn't have to drive home from the bar, so when i get up in the AM for work i'll have to totally abandon my usual morning routine so i don't wake him up.

Hehe, some chance I'd disrupt my routine for someone staying in my house cause he's too drunk to drive home. I wouldn't do it. He had the choice of coming to your house and he certainly cannot expect everyone else to readjust their schedules to suit him. Truth be known, if he were really responsible, he'd have made arrangements to get home (via taxi, dedicated driver, etc).

I say get up and be yourself, even make extra noise :)