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So we were at the wedding of a cousin recently and this is what my teens were doing. Cell phones and PDAs in hand, they were having a roaring time challenging each other to games, much to the disapproval of an elderly gentleman sitting nearby!

If there’s a way to tear a teen away from their cellphone, I’d like to hear about it. Honestly! Lately we’ve even had laptops on the breakfast table. I had to put an end to that, pronto!

Raine (grabbing our Panasonic Lumix GF1): I’m off to the park and I’m taking this to take pictures of Tyson (our baby beagle).

Me: But that camera’s not even working. I tried to take a picture with it the other day and all I see is this square box.

Steev: What square box?

Me: The one on the screen. I can’t see anything and I’ve tried turning all the knobs.

Raine: Did you take the cap off?

Steev: Yeah, did you take the lens cap off?

Me: OMGosh, is that why I couldn’t see anything?

Okay, so I had the lens cap ON, not my thinking cap!! What can I say ?

Would you believe it? My new microwave oven finally arrived. That means Mom’s cafeteria is officially back in business! And about time too!! Can’t imagine how we survived so long without roast chicken and potatoes, pies, lasagna, chocolate chip cookies and all that good stuff.

I would’ve bought one sooner if not for a few minor technicalities. There’s about 20 different models out there for this one brand alone, almost all the same yet slightly different. One can microwave and steam, another does combination, yet another has oven bake but not convection bake, you get the picture. And I just had to see every single model there is before I can make a decision. I’m OCD like that!

Not all stores carry all models and it was near impossible getting a straight answer from the salespeople about the features of each. Finally frustrated with this runaround, I decided, to heck with it, shortlisted 2 or 3, closed my eyes and picked this one.

A Panasonic steam inverter grill oven, whatever that means ! The stainless steel finishing is so shiny I almost need safety glasses just to look at it. Beautiful, makes my kitchen look almost chef-y!

The entire adventure took, oh, 6 months, with the procrastination factor thrown in, of course. It felt more like planning a tactical military operation than buying an oven. Glad that’s over! Now I can spend the next 6 months figuring out how to operate the darned thing .

Okay, I can’t keep this to myself any longer. When I first noticed that my newest follower on Twitter was Martha Stewart, I thought my eyeballs needed Battery replacements. bad!

There’s just no way a big star with 1.9 million followers would be following a tiny speck in the universe like moi! But guess what? It’s a verified account so it’s really her, not some impostor. Man, I must’ve done something right. So stoked !

Here she is on my twitter page. I’m a big fan of her cooking site. Listen, if you would like to follow me on Twitter, I’d be just as thrilled .

In the continuing saga of my washing machine woes, I’ve decided to heck with the store that sent over the young technician who charged an arm and a leg to fix my washing machine by trial and error. I’ve spent the better part of this week comparing prices at other stores. That’s when I came across the store my folks used to buy our household appliances from.

There’s a new store owner now. The previous owner handed the business over to his son who happily gambled it all away, so the story goes. The new store is a no-frills mini warehouse that doesn’t even display the appliances but I popped in to have a look anyway.

And to my pleasant surprise, I found they offer some of the best prices in town. Must be my lucky day ! Yes, for the savings of a few hundred bucks, I didn’t even mind running to another store to view and select my washing machine before calling them back with the model number to order for me.

My new Electrolux washing machine arrived yesterday, the very next day after I ordered it. What great service! So it’s happy days!!

About two weeks ago, my washing machine stopped in the middle of Spin Dry. I guess it couldn’t handle the girls’ 2 pairs of pants that are as thick as tree barks.

I called the repair man from the same store where I bought this washing machine 3 years ago. They sent over a young guy who didn’t even bother to troubleshoot. He simply replaced the capacitor, snatched 100+ bucks out of my hand and was on his merry way not 5 minutes after he stepped into my house.

It worked for exactly one wash and then died again. Said young tech came over again on a Sunday, turned the knobs and miraculously the machine started up again and he was out the door in 3 minutes. As soon as he left, it died again.

So I waited till Monday to call him again. He mumbled something about the timer needing to be replaced, that it would cost me big bucks and that I should consider buying a new machine – from him! Oh, and that he would discount what I’d already paid for the capacitor. How generous of him!

Somehow I didn’t like the sound of that and decided to call the manufacturer who said they would charge a freaking 70+ bucks just to have someone come over to take a look. And what if they can’t repair it? Okay, so now what? We need a quick and dirty decision.

Should I buy a new machine from said young tech just so I can get back what I paid for the capacitor? Or should I take a chance on getting it fixed (or not) by the manufacturer? Or should I just bite the bullet and buy a new machine from another store since this machine is already rusty in a few places? What would you do?

Steev was asked to repair a computer notebook at work today. This is probably the first time and a half that he’s actually opened up a notebook. And the result was disastrous…

While one of the techs was busy unscrewing the casing, Steev sat beside him, watching intently in the hopes of remembering which screws came from where. There was a myriad of screws, in all shapes and sizes, and black and silver ones too.

By the time the notebook lay like Humpty Dumpty on the workbench amidst a heap of screws, Steev had lost track ! The tech promptly vanished for a meeting, leaving Steev to replace the broken screen and put the notebook back together.

Putting on a new screen was easy, Steev said. But he couldn’t get one of the wires to reach where it was supposed to go. So he kept pulling it and tugging it till it lengthened and thinned out so much it almost snapped !

Next came the jigsaw puzzle of trying to fit the screws back where they belonged. Only problem was Steev had no idea which screw belonged where! Finally when he thought he had it all together, he discovered he didn’t have enough screws to get the back of it back on!

Not enough screws! But there were so many to start with! But like it or not, he was still short. So he undid everything and went back in to free up some screws ! Now instead of four screws on the back casing, it only has two!

The final word from Steev:

See, Mom, that’s why I always say I should never be a surgeon. Or at least if I were a surgeon, you wouldn’t want me to be your surgeon… because your stomach might end up in your brain and your brain might end up in your bladder !!

Ouch!

Anyone has a computer that needs to be repaired?

Or destroyed?

I was sitting at a cell phone service center when a woman walks in with a cell phone that her child had flung to the floor. And just the week before, Steev was telling me about some guy’s laptop suffering the same fate in the hands of a small kid.

Um, I was like, since when did electronic gadgets become kiddy toys? Or have kids become so brilliant that they can’t be fooled by fakes any more? What do you think?