Mikey's Birthday and More

First things first, I know I should have posted this sooner but I have been having problems with my video card. It used to only manifest itself playing WoW (bad frame rate drops here and there) and got progressively worse till I couldnt raid anymore (you cant do anything at 1-2 fps.. you just cant).

Then there were the frequent times my monitor just went out. That sucked.

Turns out it had gotten so hot the fan on my card had melted off.. well the two pieces securing it in place had. I zip tied it back on (no laughing.. just dont). But it still had problems. I found out it was barely running. And sometimes flat out stopped.

I ended up buying a small personal fan and pretty much setting it right ON my video card. Amazingly that has done the trick so far. I have been able to raid again but I have been careful being on during the day. See this is pretty gheto and I can't afford a new video card right now so I am hoping this holds out until I can.

THAT'S why it has taken so long to post this.

Moving on..

Mikey's birthday was pretty low key. Since Mikey is such a stickler for celebrating ON the actual birthday, we took him to Chuck E Cheese. We hadnt been in forever and Jason's Mom had sent Mikey some birthday money So away we went. Mom met us there with some cupcakes and we had a very good time. Mikey got some new clothes from Grandma, and we had a good time playing games and eating pizza.

Afterwards we took Mikey to Toys R Us and let him pick out some toys. He got two new light sabers and a new Bionicle. Of course we had to buy Heather something too so we got her a new ball she wanted.

Then we battled traffic back home so Jason could get to work.

Here's some pictures both of CeC and Mikey's awards from a few weeks ago

And in other news. I hate my bank. They just took $100 from us because of that stupid rule about holds and authorizations. Let me lay this out for you and you tell me what you think.

Thursdays we had two things go on hold, for CEC and for gas. They considered that money gone even though TODAY they still have not actually hit my bank.

Thursday 3 things actually did hit my bank. Which we had the money to cover. But since those OTHER two things were on hold they bounced all three of them. Two small things, one big, of course they took the big one first.

So I got charged $100 for things that had they money to be covered if they werent considering my 'on hold' items already gone. ANd like I said, those still have not actually hit my bank (and since Jason got paid Friday, there's money for them now too).

Does that make ANY kind of stupid sense? Do we really have $100 to lose. No. Jason got some OT this week luckily and I thought "hey some extra money" for like.. maybe a video card (more than likely would have gone to the kids but I can dream). But now, no extra money.

Yeah, we got food, we got bills paid, we got gas... but shit $100 is a lot to us. However this has spurred me to find a new bank. One that doesn't consider the money out of your bank account till it's actually out of your bank account. Doesn't that not seem fair?

I got a postcard last week about getting $100 if you open a checking account and add direct deposit with Washington Mutual. I threw it away cause I wasn't expecting to hate my bank so soon. I am gonna call them tomorrow, see what THEIR policy is on holds and perhaps I can get in on that deal and make that $100 back.

But if you have one of those cards by any chance and wont be using it, I would love to have it just in case they need some code to make it happen.