I bought a roomba. If you dont know what a roomba is, its a small disc shaped robot that will vacuum your house for you!

I just installed wood floors in my house. If you have wood floors you know that they get dusty pretty fast. The roomba seemed like the perfect solution to my house cleaning situation.

I let the roomba charge up for a few hours then I let it do its thing. The roomba started to spin in a circle about 5 times before it took off in a straight line. Roomba is not the smartest, it goes until it bumps something, then it turns, repeat several hundred times until the floor is clean. It sounds lame but its actually amazing and works well.

I was bummed that my dogs wernt more scared of it though. They could care less about the thing. I was hoping that samson, my littlest tea cup chihuahuas would at least ride on it. no such luck.

I got the roomba discovery edition. It comes with a remote control so you can drive the roomba. The dogs arnt scared of it, so chasing them isnt half as fun as I thought it would be. The roomba discovery also come with a charging unit that the robot is aware of. When roombas batteries run low, he goes back to his charging station and docks until he is needed again.

All in all, I love my roomba. its a freaking robot that cleans my house! I just wish my dogs wanted to fight it.

Another thing that I love about roomba is that its hackable! So its a robot that cleans my house and I can program from my computer… pure gold! why havent I gotten one of these earlier? Why haven�t I haved it yet!

Last week, I placed the finishing touches on my house, finally! I installed the pergo laminate flooring that I bought over a year ago for my living room.

I originally thought that it was only going to take about a month to finish everything. WRONG. It has been 1 year and 8 months that I have had keys to my house.

Quick run down of all the things that I have done to my house:

• Removed a cabinate in kitchen, making the dining room and kitchen connect now
• Replaced all florescent lights with recessed lights in the kitchen
• Added pendent lights to the kitchen
• Added over head lighting to the dining room, master bed room, and office
• Added recessed lighting to the living doom (dimmable)
• Primed and painted every interior wall in the house
• Ran coax cable to every room through the walls
• Replaced every light switch and wall socket
• Replaced all the plumbing fixtures (toilets, sinks, faucets, shower heads, garbage disposal)
• Replaced the kitchen window with a huge 72 x 48 x 18 garden window
• Replaced all the crappy pink and green tile in my house with high quality, stylish ceramic tile
• Replaced the kitchen counter tops and wet bar with black granite
• Replaced the fireplace tile with black granite
• Added a black granite back splash to the kitchen
• Replaced every single door knob and door hinge with brushed nickel equivalents
• Replaced every door in the house with new 6
• panel molded doors
• New thresh hold on the front door
• New refrigerator, stove, dishwasher (all stainless steel)
• Refaced all of my cabinets in cherry wood.
• Installed about 1000 sq feet of laminate wood flooring in my living room, office and master bedroom
• Removed the acoustic popcorn ceiling in the master bedroom, living room, and dining room
• Painted all the stair railing and banisters
• New door jambs downstairs
• Replaces sliding closet doors in the bedrooms
• Replaced shower and tub doors
• New custom vanities in all 3 bathrooms
• Replaced the door bell
• Replaced the thermostat
• New baseboards through out the house
• Replaced the water heater

Im sure that I am missing more things that I have done/replaced. Basically what it boils down to is the fact that I took my house down to the studs and rebuilt it from the inside out. I dont think there is anything that I havent replaced/updated/fixed in the entire house since I bought it.

Its my first house, and I feel really attached to it. Its cost me a lot of money and time to get it to this point, but I have had a great time doing it. I think that its increased the value of the place a lot. I know that it looks worlds better then it did when I moved into it. Ive also gotten a lot of sweet power tools along the way.

So I realized that I forgot to pay my car insurance bill on time. I called up "Triple A" (my insurance company) to pay the bill with them over the phone.

After waiting on hold for 10 minutes I reach an account agent that makes me verify every little thing about myself. I dont understand why that needs to be done if im trying to pay the bill. You dont need any identification at a bank to deposit money into an account.

After I give the lady on the phone everything but a DNA sample to identify myself, she tells me my balance, and I tell her that I would like to play it. She then informs me that the only way to pay the bill is via check!

First off its 2006 who uses checks? I think that checks are basically antiques. I do almost all of my banking electronically. I pay my bills online, I have direct deposit from my work into my bank, I buy stuff using paypal via my cell phone! I rarely carry cash, I use my debit card, for large purchases I use my credit card. Overall I rarely handle cash. I write one check a month, to my home owners association, because they are a bunch of old people who dont have any sort of electronic system set up for me to pay the monthly dues, and I hate it.

So yeah, Im talking to this lady on the phone and she is telling me that I can only pay by check. I dont carry my check book on me. Im at work, my check book is at home, locked up. How dumb and outdated is the payment system that AAA uses? I am trying to GIVE them my money. You think that they would have all sorts of channels available to for people who want to hand over their hard earned cash.

Maybe Im a minority in this situation, my parents and older people I know dont do any electronic banking. Im 26, fairly young. True I am a computer professional but I think that in the short future, as the "myspace" generation starts to get some more responsibilities and cash, out dated systems like this is have to change, or people will move to competitors.