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Below are the 11 most recent journal entries recorded in
Viridian5's House of "...What?"'s InsaneJournal:
| Wednesday, October 11th, 2023 | |
| 6:59 am | Upset The epic story of my car and Hyundai's crapsack oil-burning engines and crapsack policies took a new twist this morning that has me trusting Koeppel Hyundai's service department even less than I already did. Having run up my most recent 1,000 miles, and with my car engine having more struggles to accelerate up to highway speeds and having those little engine kicks trying than usual the night before, I brought my Elantra to Koeppel Hyundai service at 7 a.m. for an oil consumption check and top-off, the second one since I got the certified Hyundai oil and filter change in July that started the mandatory warranty process needed to try to get Hyundai's approval to replace my oil-burning engine. But unlike my first 1,000-mile visit in August, suddenly there are problems! The service department woman who checked me in during my July visit, who's no longer at Koeppel, supposedly hadn't sent in the approval request to Hyundai she was supposed to and somehow the maintenance records and title showing my ownership of the car she took copies of in July weren't in their system at all. Imagine my anger and incredulity. Paranoid kitty that I am, I happened to bring the maintenance records with me today even though I shouldn't have needed them but not my title because why would I? Their system didn't list me as the owner of my car, even though I gave them proofs and came in to Koeppel for a recall thing before this current situation, and even though Hyundai recall orders for Elantra stuff come to my name and address. I had the same service woman I did in August and somehow she didn't know what she was doing. I was hearing bs about maybe I'd have to start the 1,000 miles, 1,000 miles, 1,000 miles thing all over again, and that it was perfectly normal for a car to burn half a quart of oil over 1,000 miles like my Elantra had during the last visit. ("Like hell," my mechanic said when I called him today for a second opinion. Also, the owner's manual says my Elantra should be able to go 6,000 miles or 6 months without an oil change.) Today's service woman didn't think burning oil was my car's problem and that I should have them check my car's engine. "Maybe it's the O-ring!" she said as I was wtf-ing over it all. As I briefly put my head down over my crossed arms in frustration and rage, woman says there's no need to get upset over this. My last my-mechanic's invoice didn't list the burnt two quarts of oil, just that he did an oil change, which made me promptly say that I could call him right now and was sure he'd provide a written account if I asked. But before we did any of that, they would check the oil. I said I wouldn't approve them looking into--and charging me for looking into--my car's engine for other stuff before that. They said I could leave the car, I told them I was staying right here, hoping that would help light a fire under their asses. As I waited, I called a family member to let him know what bs was going on, then my mechanic for a possible reality check. Both of them were incredulous at this whole thing. My mechanic suggested I call Hyundai corporate since Koeppel was looking so sus, and when I called a Hyundai service department in Jamaica, Queens in August (when I couldn't get Koeppel service to answer the phone or call me back during my five phone calls over a week) they said that since I started with Koeppel I'd have to go the whole route with Koeppel and couldn't switch to them. Hyundai corporate is on Pacific time, so nobody was taking calls there at 8:10 a.m. Eastern time, which meant a call to corporate would have to wait. When I was at Koeppel in August, they didn't finish the oil check and top-off until I was in the ladies' room, so I went in today with the smirking thought that maybe that would work twice... and it did! When I got out the service woman was looking for me, and when she saw me said the oil thing was done by 8:20 a.m., my Elantra had burned a whole quart of oil this 1,000 miles so they were taking the oil thing more seriously, they'd topped off the oil, they would send an application to Hyundai about the warranty and I would hear something about it within 24-48 hours, and I could go home with my car. I asked for an invoice and she said I wouldn't get one yet because the case is still open. With topped-off oil, my Elantra is driving better again. Tired and drained, I rested the rest of the day, then called corporate at 7:10 p.m. Eastern time (4:10 Pacific), telling them all the bs and suspicious stuff I dealt with at Koeppel and what was going on with my car's performance. The woman at corporate looked to see if Koeppel had put in the request application yet, and they did not. Hyundai corporate knows I own the car as its second owner. (She also said she doesn't get her own car's oil changed at a Hyundai service department because it's too expensive!) She said that given everything that was going on and for how long, she would try to expedite the request, gave me a case number, said they'd be in contact with Koeppel, and told me a case manager would contact me within three to five days and that if I had any concerns or Koeppel was doing anything I found weird, I could call the corporate service line, give my case number, and report. She seemed to take the situation seriously. (  grey853, the 1,000 miles, 1,000 miles, 1,000 miles thing has been confirmed by corporate as a real thing the engine warranty requires.) |
| 5:28 am | I Don't Even Know I Dont Know How But They Found Me has a new song, "What Love?", with a music video out on YouTube... for an album, Gloom Division, that won't come out until February. Though for now you can buy just this one song as an MP3 on Amazon.com. What are they doing? If they intend to make their fans buy song after song individually until the album comes out--and then also buy the album, step 3: Profit?--I'm not going along with it. Just another way Dallon Weekes is trying my patience. Though at least the music video is nearly a music video, as opposed to Depeche Mode's "music video" for "My Favorite Stranger," which is just one of their wives lightly disguised as male while taking a walk in black and white. |
| Tuesday, October 10th, 2023 | |
| 1:53 pm | Tell me why.... I was so happy I didn't have any appointments to go to Friday because New York City was a mess from the rain. A lot of rain in a short amount of time, overwhelming the subway system and many roads and highways. It killed my head with pain, and I kept waking up that night and morning from the barometric pressure changes in the air. So glad I live on top of a hill. Like, NY1 News' Pat Kiernan had to go home from his job for a bit when he got the call that his house's basement had 18 inches of water in it. +++ Suddenly I'm seeing a ton of gray cars on the road. A lot of them don't even a sparkle coat to give more shine and depth, just flat grays beneath the shine of a clearcoat paint. I hope this trend ends soon and we can see fewer depressingly colored cars around. +++ My local oldies radio station is currently playing a lot of '80s and '90s music. When it recently played Michael Jackson's "Bad," my mind immediately went to Weird Al Yankovic's "Fat," then, to my amusement, it followed up right after with the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way" that immediately turned into Weird Al's "eBay" for me. |
| 1:53 pm | |
| 1:53 pm | Cloudy with a Chance of Photos We've been having dramatic clouds in Queens this week. Here's a combination of storm and sunset clouds.   Shot at First Calvary Cemetery.  |
| 1:53 pm | My cosmos is mine  I have about 29 new window display photos from Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale's, and Kleinfeld Bridal, as well as three shots of family cats Treble and Kiwi Herman, up at my Flickr. Kleinfeld Bridal again had a concept that it took me a bit of thinking to understand--the embedded thumbnail is of one of their two windows--but then I looked at the painting in the purple box and got it. She's painting Ken, and these mannequins are in Barbie doll boxes. +++ I borrowed Depeche Mode's new album, Memento Mori, from the library and I'm loving it, to my relief. When they performed "Ghosts Again" live on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert they'd looked and sounded old and tired, so I worried, especially since an original band member, Andy Fletcher, had died in May 2022. Hilariously, Colbert released a clip of them doing "Personal Jesus" live on the same show only to YouTube, and there they sounded and did great. For those wondering, Memento Mori is kind of in the vein of their 2013 Delta Machine album, rather dark and with a lot of bass, full-bodied, synthy and with some industrial touches. I hear a bit of 2017's Spirit at times too. If someone had me in the 1980s that I'd still be listening to and enjoying new music from Depeche Mode 40 years later, my mind would've been boggled. |
| 1:53 pm | "Interruption" Saiyuki slash: Interruption [@ AO3] RATING: PG-13, Gojyo/Sanzo. SPOILERS: the Shot 4: Kouten arc and chapter 22 of Saiyuki Reload Blast. SUMMARY: Gojyo looks after people he cares about in his own ways. NOTES: Thanks to akira17 for the beta. |
| 1:53 pm | Here I am I saw dine doing a 'show your age by sharing a music video' thing and decided to go along. This song was in the top 10 on the day of my birth. Though Reservoir Dogs forever shaped my feeling of this song.... +++ Urgh, the scar on the back of my head has been itching on and off today. The fact that this still happens sometimes almost 17 years after my surgery, even if it had been brain surgery.... |
| 1:53 pm | Oh no, what have we here? Turns out this is a mask somebody put on the passenger seat headrest. Scared the crap out of me. I wonder if he uses it for the carpool lane?  Who put this on an exterior fence post of All Faiths Cemetery and why?  |
| 1:53 pm | Wait, don't hold your breath for goodness' sake All the bs I've been going through I haven't been talking about here.... Here's one. I've told you about the issue with my Hyundai Elantra burning more oil than it should be and the warranty conditions Hyundai put me under to get a shot at them replacing the engine parts for free the way they damn well should since it's a known issue of their crapsack engineering. I hit the 1,000 miles! Time for an oil consumption check and topping off of whatever oil the Elantra had devoured, especially since it seemed to be shaking a bit more lately. And I left a voice message or two for the Service section every day from Wednesday through Saturday--I didn't Sunday because they're not open--and didn't get a single call back to my desperate requests for an appointment that made sense. I say "make sense" because I could reach scheduling and they said Service couldn't see my Elantra until September 13! Best offer, I show up September 2 at 7 a.m. as an "emergency." I told them it had to be around 1,000 miles to fulfill the warranty conditions and I couldn't stop using my car for a month. Were they going to give me another car to drive for free all that time? I doubted it, and I was correct. They absolutely did not care, and since this was just a scheduling person and not a Service person there was nothing she could do so there was no use in talking to her about it. With Koeppel Hyundai Service being an absolute neglectful bastard, I called another Hyundai dealer Saturday to see if I could transfer my case to them... and found out that I could not. But! The actual Service person I was on the phone with from Empire Hyundai suggested I just show up Monday at 7 am as an emergency since I would have to start this whole process all over again if I went a hundred miles over that 1,000. Having to pay $85 once for Hyundai-certified oil and a filter was enough. I'm glad somebody told me. So I did that. Showed up at 7 am with my Elantra, when asked if I had an appointment explained why I didn't, and they took my car and did the oil consumption check and topped off the oil while I waited there for over two hours. I'm glad that worked, though I was nervous Sunday about what hell they might try to put me through for it. Especially since I ended up being over 30 miles over because I had to keep driving my car while Service ducked all my calls for days. The blue post-it paper I put up shows the mileage I had when I brought the Elantra in this time, so I know what number I need to hit 1,000 miles again. The label above it is what Hyundai put on July 1 when I got the certified oil and filter.  By the way, it turned out that my Elantra burned half a quart of oil this time, better than the two quarts on regular oil but still far from normal. +++ A recent drive in which I spun I Dont Know How But They Found Me's Razzmatazz and sung along to the full album reiterated to me that I am far from being in performing shape. Here, part of it is the propulsive way idkHow's Dallon Weekes sometimes shoots syllables and interjections out and how high he sometimes pushes his voice, but I no longer have the diaphragm/muscle strength/control I once built into myself. My chest started to feel somewhat hollow by the end. It doesn't help that I was singing the whole thing sitting down while driving, since I "pull" the higher and more difficult notes up with my arms or from my legs as I stand when performing. I'm glad I was able to put the disappointing live show footage behind me so I could enjoy this album again. I'll let Razzmatazz mean what it means to me without bothering with whatever they choose to do or not do in live shows I won't go see in person or look for online. |
| 1:53 pm | "Lost Like Me" and "Push" Andromeda slash: Lost Like Me [@ AO3] RATING: NC-17, Harper/Tyr. SPOILERS: Bunker Hill, Mad to Be Saved, Shadows Cast by a Final Salute, Soon the Nearing Vortex, The World Turns All Around Her, Immaculate Perception, Phear Phactor Phenom, Chaos and the Stillness of It, and The Heart of the Journey Part 2. SUMMARY: A freshly kidnapped Harper has to deal with his captor, Tyr, trying to convince him to cooperate and work with him. It doesn't help--or does it?--that you could cut their sexual tension with a knife. NOTES: Sequel to All Thats Mine in the A Lot Like You series. Thanks to akira17 for the beta.Saiyuki slash: Push [@ AO3] RATING: PG-13, Hakkai/Gojyo. SPOILERS: Burial Gojyo and Hakkai and Be There. SUMMARY: Sometimes Hakkai just cant help himself. NOTES: Thanks to akira17 for the beta. |