Live Help Update

Yep, I’ll be on live help tonight for as much as I can stand it. When I can’t stand it any more, I’ll be unavailable for live help but still hanging around the forum pretending to answer questions. I’ll probably go back and forth like this for a while until I just get so dizzy that I throw up and pass out.

 Later, brah.

Gear Review: The Kelty 50th Anniversary Pack

If you’re into backpacking, you probably couldn’t avoid reading something, somewhere, about the Kelty 50th Anniversary pack. Backpacker magazine kicked off the brewhaha when they picked it as an Editor’s Choice for 2002, touting it as a breakthrough in pack engineering, combining the best features of internal and external frame packs into one elegant engineering marvel. And for good reason: the pack is well-designed and boasts some nifty features like two shoulder straps, a waist belt, and a big sack to carry all your crap in.

But wait, there’s more! Kelty spent hours scouring the Philippines for just the right political prison camp to manufacture their ergonometric engineering marvel for them. Now, this is where the collective grey matter of corporations really shines through: you develop a new product, like the 50th Anniversary Pack, designed with new features, such as the Levitators®, but then you have it all stitched together by half-blind arthritic Filipino political dissidents and charge a premium retail price for it. This helps to assure that the stitching on the pack will tear apart during the middle of a wilderness trek (see the entry below this one) and gets people screaming your name from mountain summits. It’s exactly that kind of cutting-edge marketing that makes Kelty Numero Uno. Kelty, like its cohort, Backpacker magazine, has come of age and has learned what it takes to be a successful bidness in Amerika today. In recognition of this, we here at Fixitnow.com bestow the prestigious F. Walter Ellison Award for Bribery and Coersion on Kelty Corporation.

Congratulations to all the visionaries at Kelty Corporation, and especially the Accounting, Marketing, and Quality Assurance Departments!

Live Help Update

Yesterday was a surreal succession of things going wrong while pulling my gear together for the Fixit Boyz Hillstomp this weekend. It all began when I discovered defective mission-critical stitching in my new Kelty 50th Anniversary backpack.    More about that later. Oh, you can bet your sweet double-wide bottom there’ll be more. You’ll soon know all about my experience with the much-ballyhooed Kelty 50th Anniversary pack.  

But enough about me, let’s talk more about me. I’ll be on for live help from late afternoon right up to bedtime, which will depend on how good the brews are tasting.  

Live Help Update

I’ll be online most of the evening. I’m writing an Appliance Tip of the Day about the new GE IM6 icemaker, which I hope to post later tonight. I know, you wish you were me. Well, my leetle Grasshopper, if you take enough of the right medication, maybe one day you’ll measure up to me. Giddy up.  

Live Help Update

It’s a cold rainy pre-Fall day here in New Hampster so I’m at the ‘pooter doing web-work. I’m online now. But scroll down a little and read the user update entry before ringing me for live help.  

Fixitnow.com User Update

I get a lot of emails from folks wondering what it’s like to run the web’s most kickass appliance repair website. So, to help give you an idea of what I deal with, I did an analysis of my users and discovered that 93% of them are either:

• AOL users clicking the live help button and then not saying anything because, duh hee,   they’ve got AOL;
• the Great Unwashed Illiterati who can’t compose simple sentences much less read the information in the Appliance Repair Help Center that already has the answers they seek;
• boneheads who don’t know that it is rude and obnoxious to write any internet correspondence, and especially chat, with the CAPS LOCK ON;
• noodges who keep ringing me up for live help even though I’ve already told them to post their problem in the forum–but they ring back anyway, as though I owe it to them…or maybe they’re hoping to get a different person; 
• grubby Lower Slabovians who successfully repair their appliance with the help of this website, including live help and the forum, yet refuse to even buy me a beer through the United Samurai Beer Fund;

But not to give the goobers all the spotlight, here are examples of the other 7% who shine brightly among the heaving, drooling masses:

• MomWhoHatesColdBeer fixed her refrigerator with just a nudge in the right direction;
• I helped the Jeep Dude fix his oven and he bought me a brewski.

And there are others, they’re just a lot harder to find. But I think you get the idea…some of you do, anyway.

Fun Facts to Know and Tell

• We’ve just completed an exhaustive five-minute demographic study of our users here at Fixitnow.com and discovered that 91.7% of them live in trailers located under power lines. Now, from California, there’s some credible research linking electric power lines to brain damage. That explains a lot about our users.
• You know that slimy scum growing in your refrigerator and shower stall that you’ve been putting off cleaning for that past three and half years? Well, good news: don’t bother. Soon, you’ll be using it to power your home.

Mr. Appliance Fixit Boyz Hillstomp Update

Just to rub it in to you guys who backed out, here’s the itinerary for the Mr. Appliance Fixit Boyz Hillstomp in September. See you back at the coal mines.

Day 1: Friday, September 6

Everyone arrives at Brown Compound sometime in the afternoon. We’ll go through gear, make last-minute runs for supplies, as needed, and then adjourn to the Flying Goose Brew Pub for 16 oz. wrist curls where we’ll review the route and carbo-load for tomorrow’s hike. We won’t be out too late because we have to make an early start in the morning. Spacious overnight accommodations in the luxurious Jayco Hilton.

Day 2: Saturday, September 7

We’ll leave Brown Compound around 0700 hours in two vehicles: Fishnutz’ rental and Mr. Grant’s Pickem Up truck. First stop is Wildberry Bagel Shop for morning eats and bean juice then off to the Whites. I wanted to do the AMC shuttles so we could all travel in one vehicle, but their shuttle schedule is not compatible with our route plan…or anyone else’s that I could tell. We’ll drive straight through Franconia Notch to Crawford Notch where we’ll park Mr. Grant’s Pickem Up truck at the AT trail head–our hiking route destination. Then we’ll double back to Franconia Notch to the Old Bridal Path trailhead parking lot, our beginning point. We should be on the trail at about 1000 hours for 12 miles of the meanest, nastiest, orneriest trail that mankind has ever had the misfortune to set boots on along the Franconia Ridge. We’ll arrive at the Galehead hut right about sundown, bedraggled, beaten down, limping, bleeding, and gasping for air. BOOYAH, now we be having fun, yo! After a hot dinner at the hut, we’ll commence massive consumption of pain-relieving fermented beverages while re-playing the three 4,000 footer peaks we bagged (Mts. Lafayette, Garfield, and Galehead) and the spectacular section of the Franconia Ridge we traipsed. We’ll pass out on a bare bunk mattress at about 2100 hours wondering if it’s really possible that life could be any better than this.

Day 3: Sunday, September 8

We’ll wake up to strumming guitar music, gorge on sausages and pancakes and be on the trail at 0900 hours. During this section of the hike, we’ll bag five 4,000 footers: South Twin Mountain, Mts. Guyot, West Bond, Bond, and Bondcliff. We’ll arrive at Zealand hut sometime before midnight, hopefully still carrying most of our gear. And there was much rejoicing.

Day 4: Monday, September 9

Today, we hike out. Depending on how everyone is feeling, we can either be he-men and bag a couple more peaks or we can be little girly-men and take the wussy way out. Y’all already KNOW what I want to do so call the ball. We’ll get back to Mr. Grant’s Pickem Up truck and do that shuttle thang, waa-waa-waa, all the back to the renta-beater on the other side of the range. Then we adjourn to the Flying Goose Brew Pub for a post-hike debriefing. Accommodations again at the luxurious Jayco Hilton. Tuesday morning the Third Annual Fixit Boyz Hillstomp officially adjourns until next year…in ALASKA!

Samurai-Cam® Live Update

Here is the artistic interpretation of a live Samurai-Cam® shot recorded earlier today showing the Samurai valiantly helping himself at a convenience store. Click the thumbnail for the full-size view.

Artist: Ivey Brown

Live Help Update

Saturday nights are usually pretty slow at the website what with most of my users out getting drunk and thrown in jail and all. That also makes it a pretty safe time to be online for Live Help this evening.

Stuck at home on a Saturday night? Bored, nothing good on TV and you’re looking for something fun to do? Well, here y’go, Hoss, just click the purple Pass It On button below to tell a friend or four about this website. It’s guaranteed to be moments of pure, belly-ticklin’ fun!  

Live Help Update

So, I’m getting my hiking gear together this morning for another self-torture session in the White Mountains to break in my new hiking boots when I noticed Ouzo, my canine hiking bud, was standing by my van with one eye swollen almost completely shut and one side of his mouth puffed out like he was holding a ping pong ball. Apparently, he stumbled onto a yellow jacket’s nest while foraging for those savory feline droppings so highly prized among dogs of superior breeding and refined taste.

A trip to the vet and a shot of cortisone later and it was too late in the day to head to the White Mountains. But my loss is your gain since I’ll be staying here today, off and on of Live Help, a beacon of light in your dark hour of appliance despair.  

Live Help Update

Heading over to some friend’s house tonight for burgers n’ brews.    If I do Live Help at all tonight, it’ll be later in the evening. Ciao, baby.

Boot to the Head

My hiking boots are the Asolo FSN 95 GTX. I bought ’em last summer and it’s been a joyous podiatric union: lightweight, highly water resistant yet breathable, and required no break-in period–they fit my feet perfectly right out of the box. After about a year of frequent hiking in the White Mountains, the tread on those puppies has worn almost flat. Since it was such sweet bliss hiking in those boots, it was a no-brainer to buy another pair of the exact same ones. Yesterday, I went for an easy little 6-mile break-in hike up Mt. Ascutney with my new replacement pair and a hotspot on my right heel made me pretty miserable. Paradise lost. I’ll keep doing self-abuse hikes in them and hope things improve before the Fixit Boyz Hillstomp in September. Yes, these are the weighty issues that occupy what precious little real estate remains inside the Samurai’s skull.

I’m sorry, did you have an appliance question?

Word Up to Mr. Appliance Franchisees

The Mr. Appliance Fixit Boyz have planned their Third Annual Hillstomp for September 6-9, 2002. This year, it’s easy street: we’re going hut-to-hut in the White Mountains, traversing the Franconia Ridge. Lots of you guys talked about going with us but it’s still just the four: TomScat, Fishnutz, Huh?, and yours so very truly.

Yeah, uh huh, y’all talk a big game but then back out. Well, check this: next year we’re backpacking in Alaska. Who’s with us? I can’t hear you! Ok then, start gettin’ your tool-slingin’ butts in shape now!

Live Help Update

I’ll be online for live help after dinner tonight. I would be on earlier but it’s just too nice a day to be playing tippety-tap at the keyboard. Yes, today is a time for doing things with cosmic significance…like tossing the frisbee with the dog and teaching my son how to ride a bicycle.

Later for you, baby.