A couple of weeks ago, I switched over to a new appliance repair hotline system. The original hotline was strictly voicemail. The new hotline has the added feature of calling me directly. If I’m available, we’ll talk right then and there. If I’m not available, you can leave voicemail. And, of course, it’s still absotootly free.

Well, now it’s one bettah–it’s even free-er!

Yes! Now the appliance repair hotline has a toll-free number! Go ahead, try it out. All your other friends are doing it.

To All My Dear Grasshoppers and Esteemed Fellow Appliantologists:

Since announcing yesterday that I intended to delete the Appliantology Group repair forum, I have been flooded by hundreds of emails and phone calls from forum participants urging me to reconsider. After much soul-searching and careful deliberation, I have decided that deleting the Appliantology Group forum would be too rash an action. So, the existing content in the forum shall remain there, undeleted, as an eternal electronic monument to the selfless efforts of the many fine Appliantologists who have freely shared so much of their hard-earned wisdom with those Grasshoppers seeking answers to their appliance problems.

However, the Appliantology Group forum, as an interactive method of help, ended at midnight and new topics or replies can no longer be posted.

For several months now, I have been increasingly dissatisfied with the forum capabilities provided by MSN Groups. The most recent complaints galvanized me into finally ending this forum. Let me list some of its more onerous shortcomings:

• Posts cannot be edited by the original author or anyone else (yes, including me) for content, typos, whatever. Consequently, many posts, including my own, contain an embarrassing number of typos, sentence fragments, incorrect links, and other problems that either place a burden on the readers or, in cases of more grievous errors, require a followup post by the author to address the shortcomings in his original post.
• There is not a clear and concise way for forum readers to keep track of posts they have or have not read. Consequently, many posts get shoved down the list by newer posts and go unanswered–a frustrating situation for both the Grasshopper seeking information and Appliantologists seeking to provide that information.
• The forum has no means of searching for threads of interest. The best I could do was try to keep up a Forum Index of momentous threads. But this was a tedious task and soon became unmanageable. And since this is all done in my free time, when a task becomes tedious, I’ll always find something better to do, such as laying on the couch, drinking Bud and watching Gilligan.
• The forum often has an annoying tendancy to just hang, displaying only the top banner ad and nothing else for several minutes. This again becomes tedious and, once more, I’m back on the couch, drinking Bud and watching Gilligan.
• In general, the forum lacks many features and functions that are commonly expected in a forum environment: post icons, personal icons, signatures, etc.

I know, the bells do indeed toll for yet another free appliance repair resource that bites the dust yet I … wait, what’s that over there? Could it be? Why, yes! Great Emperor! Ladies and Gentlemen, Grasshoppers and Gurus, Boyz and Beans, er, nevermind that last, let me introduce you to my long-time friend, Moostafa Hakkahallah!

Moostafa runs the finest appliance repair forum this side of Mecca. I approached Moostafa several weeks ago and asked him if he would consider taking over the forum portion of the Appliantology Group. After much negotiations and graft, Moostafa has graciously agreed. Now, lest you go away shaking your head and thinking he’s just another towelhead with a smelly left hand, hoooooold on there, Bubbalouie, and let me introduce you to our dear, dear friend, Moostafa.

Moostafa comes to us from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where he leads a quiet life in his desert tent with his four wives and 17 children, tending his camels and yaks. When he’s not pleasing one of his wives or running his world-famous appliance repair forum, Moostafa keeps himself busy with various hobbies such as picking through rubble, searching for water, growing his beard, wrapping towels around his head, avoiding eating with his left hand, and praying to Allah that the Ameedicans, er, I mean, Americans will hurry up and build that damn pipeline through his country so he can finally get a job and feed his four wives and 17 children something other than camel leather and semen of yak.

I know, you’re probably wondering how Moostafa can possibly run an appliance repair forum if he lives in a tent in the middle of some God-forsaken desert without even rudimentary sanitary facilities, let alone electricity or internet access. Ahh, this is what makes our dear friend, Moostafa, very special indeed.

Moostafa powers his iMac off a camel dung and lime juice battery that he designed himself and connects to the internet via an old Soviet military satellite uplink system that he acquired while he was a Mujahadeen in his youth. It’s exactly that kind of Afghani know-how that makes Moostafa such a valuable appliance guru. So, come, kick off your sandals and gather ’round the carpet with the Ayatollah and learn how to wage Holy War on your infidel appliances.

Welcome to our new Repair Forum!

Link ==> Free Appliance Repair Hotline

So, I’m doing an ‘xpearmint with a new appliance repair hotline system. This one isn’t toll-free, but it’s more than just a voicemail system, too. With this system, if I’m available, you’ll talk to me real-time when you call. If I’m not available, you can leave a voicemail message.

The purpose of the Appliance Repair Hotline is, and has always been, to help you find the resources here at Fixitnow.com Samurai Appliance Repair Man so you can fix your appliances. I can point you in the right direction in your repair and give my opinion on what the problem might be. If it turns out you need detailed instructions on an appliance repair problem, we can continue our discussion either in the repair forum or in a Live Help session.

Here’s how the new Appliance Repair Hotline works:

• Call the Appliance Repair Hotline Number: 1-775-244-6321.
• You’ll hear a greeting telling you you’ve reached Fixitnow.com Samurai Appliance Repair Man and to leave a message.
• Just start talking, as though you’re leaving a voicemail message. If I’m available, I’ll pickup the phone while you’re talking and we’ll talk about your appliance problem.
• If I’m not available, continue leaving your message.
• Your message can only be one minute long, and I get lots of voicemail, so please keep it short and sweet:

• Name. First name is all I need and don’t bother spelling your name–that just wastes time.
• Phone number. Say it twice and only give one number. Your phone number is the only thing you should say twice in your entire message.
• Type and brand of appliance. Don’t waste time leaving the model number on voicemail. If it’s a cooking appliance or a dryer, state whether it’s gas or electric.
• A brief problem description.
• A poetic expression of your great love and adoration for the Samurai, preferably a haiku rendered in traditional 5-7-5 meter. This is entirely optional; however, four out of five dentists agree that it does expedite my return call to you.

I’ll try new this system out for a while and, if it seems to work well, I’ll replace the present toll-free voicemail system in favor of this one. Ok, talk to you later.

In his relentless efforts to feed his Grasshoppers the exact grains of appliance repair wisdom they seek, the Samurai has installed a new and improved site search utility. It’s powered by Google and it works extremely well. The option to search Fixitnow.com is pre-selected so all you have to do is type in what you’re looking for. Yea verily, seek and ye shall find! Go ahead, try it out:

	Web Fixitnow.com

If you’re reading this post, that means you’ve pulled this page off our new, zippy servers in Boston and that the DNS change has propagated throughout the internet…or at least your neighborhood of the internet. Welcome to the fast lane!

Things might be a little glitchy around here for the next several days as we migrate Fixitnow.com Samurai Appliance Repair Man from our present crucible here in Hong Kong to our new servers in Boston. Our excellent web hosting company, ICDSoft.com, who we’ve been with for over a year, is based in Hong Kong and recently opened a server center in Boston.

Oh, I know what you’re saying, “Excuse me, Thrice-Blessed Samurai, but there must be more web hosting companies here in Ameedica than there are defects on GE appliances. Why then, pray tell, O Gracious One, didn’t you simply host with a U.S.-based web host to begin with?”

A reasonable question, Grasshopper, and respectfully posed. The short answer is because, just like GE appliances, U.S.-based webhosts SUCK! This website has been around since 1996–by internet standards, it’s paleolithic (for those of you in Bagdad, Kentucky, that means “reeeeel freakin’ old”). So we’ve had more than enough time to become intimately familiar with the slimy, seedy underworld of web hosting. Prior to finding ICDSoft.com, we dealt exclusively with US-based web hosting companies–mostly because we didn’t know any better. We had already been through over a dozen web hosts before we finally found ICDSoft.com. Finding them was like taking a hot, soapy shower after wallowing around in a lumpy cesspool of steaming pig manure.

Anyway, the address for the new domain name servers (DNS) for Fixitnow.com Samurai Appliance Repair Man will take several days to propagate throughout the internet. So if things seem flakey around here for the next few days, you know why. Just be patient, everything will be back to normal by mid-week.