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Got a repair guy coming out today to look at the couch. February of '10 I bought some new furniture and I had saved up to do it right, or least what I thought was right. I got a what looked to be a nice reclining couch from L-Az-Boy (from here out referred to as LAB) and since they had a sale going I bought a recliner as well. Being LAB it was a bit pricey even with the sale, but I figured it would be worth it in the longrun. Wrong.

Now as you know I'm a big guy. I pointed this out to the salesman as well, just in case he didn't notice. :) Because of the sleep apnea I have to sleep sitting up so thats where the recliner comes in. I probably don't have to do that, but being that I've almost died many times while sleeping laying down I prefer not to take chances. So a concern I had was that being a big guy and using the furniture probably a bit more than normal, I wanted to make sure it was sturdy and wouldn't break down a few years down the line. I was assured it would be ok, and anyway there was a lifetime guarantee on the framework. For the record the recliner was one of those real big jobbers, so I felt ok with it.

I needn't have worried about it breaking a few years down the line because it broke 9 months down the line. And the bitch of it was I wasn't even using the recliner as much as I thought I would, since I was still having issues with the thyroid and many times I would crash out on the couch without ever making it to the recliner. When I say "it broke" I mean the base broke, as well as the springs. All I was doing was sitting on the damn thing, its not like I was participating in the sex olympics or jumping up and down on it. That was very disappointing, considering the supposed quality of LAB stuff.

And it wasn't only the recliner that took a crap, the reclining mechanism on one of the footrest pieces for the couch bent as I was setting it back into normal position. This actually happened before the recliner broke. So I had to call them and they set me up with a repair company. I was told the parts would be sent to me (what?) and once I had them all I should call them to set up an appointment. Well the parts began to arrive and since I had no idea what I was waiting on I scheduled an appointment. The first time the guy shows up and it turns out I'm missing boxes of parts for both pieces so he can't do anything. And an hour after he left the last 2 boxes I was waiting on showed up. I should mention that the appointment I received was 2 weeks out from when I called.

So I called back to reschedule, but I was a bit hamstrung by work so I had to wait 3 weeks for the guy to come back out. 3 weeks! So he comes out and fixes the recliner, but when he goes to fix the couch it turns out the main mechanism piece that was shipped to me was broken. BROKEN! So he had to order me a new piece and couldn't fix the couch. A month went by and I hadn't gotten anything as far as parts go so I called LAB. They looked into it and told me that the part was out of stock and they weren't sure when it would be back in. That didn't set well with me so I requested they outright replace the couch. That didn't set well with them so they told me they'd look into it and get back to me, which they never did. Long story short it took 7 more weeks before I got the part, and finally today the repair guy is showing up. Hopefully everything will go ok and this will be done with.

This isn't the repair company screwing up, its LAB. All the repair place does is send the guy out, and thats not been a problem aside from them being busy. Its a contracted shop not affiliated with LAB. No, the cheap quality and parts fiasco was all LAB. In retrospect I could've gone to Value City for the furniture, spent 1/3 the money, and gotten identical or even better results. Live and learn.

Videos for today...being hump day this requires something harcore and driving. We'll do some of Bruce Dickinson's solo stuff, I think. For those of you who aren't into Maiden you should still check these songs out anyway, they're really good. The songs are from the albums Accident of Birth and Chemical Wedding, both of which were recorded with the participation of Adrian Smith. In fact its when Adrian joined forces with Bruce that the latter's stuff really took off, and many (including myself) consider these albums to be superior to the 2 Maiden albums released in the same time frame with Blaze Bayley performing on them. So enjoy!

Accident of Birth

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gynGahcm6d0[/youtube]

Man of Sorrows

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgIowTMIQf8&feature=related[/youtube]

The Tower

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WphxWLalr3M[/youtube]