Recently in Rants and Raves Category
Yesterday I took few minutes between doing loads of laundry and cleaning an straightening up around the house to go through the pile of mail that had collected. I sorted all of the bills from the junk mail and set out the items that needed some type of action.
One of the "action" items was a set of replacement credit cards that needed to be activated. Whever I have activated new cards in the past, I have just called the number on the sticker, no had to talk to anyone and had a computer ativate my new cards. I figured I would just be calling in to an automated system to activate the cards as before.
Well, guess what? Credit card companies now take the opportunity while they have you on the phone activating your new card to try to "sell" you on services/products. The guy I spoke to was in India, I think- I could hardly understand him. He asked first if he could transfer any balances for me. I told him, no, I don't have any balances to transfer and that I am not interested. Next he tried to offer to send me checks with the "same low interest rate as the card" to which I also told him I was not interested. I was getting pretty irritated at this point because I just wanted to activate our replacement credit cards which we keep only for emergencies. Finally, he offered to sell me a plan to protect my finances in case I lost my job. I was really tired of listening to his spiel by then and hung up on him. Why do these companies have to hassle people all of the time to take their lousy credit offers?
This afternoon I went to the consultation for my upcoming liver biopsy. I am having it done on Monday and it shouldn't be too big of a deal. It is going to take up most of the day, but doesn't sound too scary.
On the way back, I decided against my better judgement to stop at Wal-Mart to buy a hair clip I wanted so I could do my hair differently tomorrow. Just a simple, brown hair clip. I used to like Wal Mart back around my high school years when it first came to our town. It was the first store of its kind to come around- vast selection of good stuff at low prices. I mean, there was always Kmart and all, but as Rainman said "Kmart sucks." Since those days when Sam Walton was alive, Wal-Mart has gone way downhill. I normally never shop there anymore because it is evil and populated by the world's most annoying people, but it was on the way and my dear Target was in another direction. I think it has been a couple of years since I had last been to Wal-Mart. I should have known it was a bad idea when an old lady almost ran over me in the parking lot as I approached the store.
When I got in the store I realized how much I dislike the idea of having a "greeter" in the front of a store. I just want to get what I need and be left alone. The process of shopping there is unpleasant enough as it is, I don't want to prolong it even a second more with any smiling or chit-chat. Wal-Mart was packed and its crummy narrow aisles were overstuffed with people and carts so that I could barely get through. I got stuck in a traffic jam behind an old man in a motorized cart that couldn't figure out how to drive it properly; he kept stopping and backing up. I finally got past him and wove my way in and out of people who were stopped with their carts in the middle of the aisles, nearly catatonic. I don't know what it is that happens to people in Wal-Mart but it is like their IQs drop to match the air temperature of the store as soon as they cross the threshhold.
Eventually I got to the section of the store that has the hair stuff. Amazingly, they didn't even have the simple little barrette I was looking for, and I was actually GLAD because that meant that I could just leave the store without having to go through the checkout line. I made a beeline for the exit and vowed that I would never again return to the hell that is Wal-Mart. I stopped at a crappy little drugstore after I got the hell out of there and they had exactly what I needed. So much for Wal-Mart's vast selection.
At least I reminded myself of my distaste for Wal-Mart so that I won't be tempted to go back for several more years at least. They may have low prices, but it seems that they are only a few cents below other stores around here, so it makes little difference. And with the annoyance factor of shopping in their stores I would happily pay twice as much or more just to not have to go in there. Sam Walton would turn in his grave if he knew what his company has become.
Andy came home from work early tonight- he is still on second shift and he wanted to be able to watchthe Florida vs. Ohio State football game. It is a big game here in this area due to our vicinity to the University of Florida, and also Andy is from Ohio, so he is somewhat interested.
I noticed earlier when I glanced out the window from our bedroom upstairs, that out on the lanai of the neighbor's house they had set up a TV. Great, so they are going to watch the game too, like everyone else. Only problem is, I can hear every fucking word they say when they are on their lanai or glorified back porch when I am in my bed, trying to sleep with all of the windows shut tight. And my dogs that are in the bed with me can hear every time they cackle, or scream or their big dog starts barking out there as they party in the middle of the night. And then they want to bark, making it impossible for me to sleep.
And this would all be fine- it is a special occasion, a game that doesn't happen all the time. But unfortunately, their partying does happen all the time, and it happened until the wee hours of the morning last night so I hardly slept then. I have to get up at 4:30 again tomorrow morning as always, so I am in no mood for their crap again. Damn old fogies who act like teenagers, they are. It makes me wonder what is so horrible inside their house that they MUST BE OUTSIDE MAKING NOISE CONSTANTLY LATE AT NIGHT.
I have one of those "noise" machine things, that plays like different nature sounds such as a stream, or crickets or waves crashing. I use it to try to drown out the noisy neighbors, but they are exceptionally talented. I can't turn it up high enough to cover the noise they make. Yes, they are that bad- it must be the wine.
So, I was glad Andy came home for the game. That way he will be downstairs watching the game and the dogs will mostly hang out on the couch with him, where the TV will mostly drown out the noise from next door and I will be upstairs trying to sleep. I will still hear the neighbors but hopefully our dogs will not hear them and want to bark in my ear. Wish me luck!
Yesterday I had to call Apple for the first time due to problems with my year old 20" iMac. It has been acting strangely as it pertains to internet connectivity and I wanted to get it cleared up. I have the "AppleCare" three year protection plan, and though I dreaded having to call, it needed to be taken care of. I have logged many a day on the phone or on hold in the past with Dell for my previous computers, and was not at all looking forward to the experience.
The first difference I noted was that instead of going through a ridiculous number of menus on the phone like I was used to, I got two. One where I selected "technical support" and the next one where I chose the product, "iMac." That was it. And then as I settled in to my seat prepared to wait forever to get to talk to someone, I was pleasantly surprised to wait only a few seconds before I got in touch with a representative. At this point, I was used to being required to give out boatloads of personal information, service codes, express service tags, order numbers, customer numbers and so on with Dell, but all I had to give was my name, phone number, and serial number of the iMac. Sweet.
We got right into troubleshooting, and there were several notable differences. I was not talking to someone in India and having to struggle to decipher a heavy accent, the representative did not transfer me EVER during the duration of the call, and he did not try to insinuate that what was wrong with the iMac was because of something I had done to it- yes, Dell actually tried to blame technical problems on me, even when the item was malfunctioning when brand new, right out of the box. With Dell, they always wanted to blame something else for any problem, for instance, since the problem I had this time dealt with internet access, Dell would have been certain that it was the modem, or the router or the ISP, even though we have three other computers connected to all of those that are working fine. Then they would have told me that they don't deal with third party equipment and would have directed me to the router manufacturer or something. The fact that the other computers on our network had no problems accessing the internet from that equipment was enough for the Apple reps to isolate the problem to the iMac. Also, the rep did not seem to be just reading from a script, he actually was on a Mac, doing the same actions that he was telling me to at the same time, so he could direct me accordingly with whatever screens came up.
The rep I was talking to was not a specialist in the area of the problem we were working on, but he apparently had instant access to a specialist and was able to relay the information to me seamlessly. In the past when troubleshooting problems with Dell, even if I told the rep I had already tried something, they would always talk down to me and say "well, let's just do it again anyway." The Apple rep would just move on to the next thing if I had already tried something, rather than treat me like an idiot. The very last thing we tried involved a process that took 45 minutes or so, and while it was running the rep gave me a case number and told me that if it didn't work, I should call back and give the case number. We hung up and after a while the operation completed. Unfortunately, it didn't fix the problem, so I had to call back.
This is where I was very hesitant. When dealing with Dell in the past, there were several times I was forced to call back. It would be infuriating, because I would always have to wait on hold forever, sometimes after they had "accidentally" hung up on me in the middle of troubleshooting- I think they do that at Dell when the rep is in over their head- and then once I got a new representative on the line, I would have to give ALL of my information, address, and numbers all over again even though they should have been in their computer already, and would have to start troubleshooting all over with each new representative, going through the same crap I had just done. They would never listen to me that it had already been done, even when I had a case number and they could look it up and see what was done.
But once again I was pleasantly surprised. I got right through to a rep again, and all they asked was my name and if I had a case number. I gave them the number and they took a couple of minutes to read through the notes and told me that since the problem had persisted after all we had done it seemed like a hardware problem and we made the arrangements to have it serviced. It will be sometime next week, but it will be taken care of. Whew.
So, I have to say, there is a HUGE difference in customer service between Dell and Apple. HUGE. Talking to tech support at Dell made me wish for death at times, and talking to the Apple reps didn't even phase me. They were courteous, pleasant, didn't talk down to me, and took care of the issue in a reasonable manner. When dealing with Dell, I used to feel like they wasted days of my life, but with Apple it was just like handling any other small household task. Not something you really WANT to do, but it has to be taken care of, so you do it, and you don't end up any the worse for it. Dell could take some lessons from Apple on the whole customer service thing.
I will admit to feeling a little ass whipped lately, as it pertains to life on the internet. People always seem to have to ruin a good thing. Two of my favorite things online, blogging and eBay have been nearly ruined by spammers and scammers. Lately it seems that it takes SO much effort to rid my blog of junk comments and spam. I have tried several approaches to this, but I haven't found a solution yet that doesn't also hinder people that I WANT to comment. I don't want to have to force commenters to type in a little gibberish word or script, because a lot of them won't bother. I hate that word verification crap; it is annoying. So instead I am forced to constantly clean up junk off my blog and to block IP addresses from some of the worst offenders. What a pain.
And then there is eBay. I first wrote about the Nigerian Ebay scams over a year ago- here and here- and they are still running rampant. These assholes bid up your auction to ridiculous amounts and then send you fake PayPal notifications that the item has been paid for and want you to ship it to Nigeria immediately, even when you said in the auction that you would only ship to U.S. Addresses. These scammers have nearly ruined eBay. I have had to list items multiple times because they have bid my item up and then do not ever pay. There is now a feature that allows you to block bidders from countries that you do not ship to, but these scammers register as U.S. buyers and then make up some story as to why they need you to ship to their son or daughter or whoever in Nigeria. I swear, that entire country must be filled with degenerates, because I have never seen anything but scams and fraud come out of that place.
Why do people have to go and ruin a good thing? I an only imagine the things they could accomplish if these people put as much energy towards doing something productive as they do scamming people.
I am getting increasingly frustrated with phone calls. Not the useful ones that I want, it is the junk calls that are getting to me. What in the heck is the point of having a national do not call list, when all of the charities and financial institutions can still call?
Now don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of charities, but I believe I should be able to choose which ones I want to donate to without being badgered in my own home on a daily basis. I am strongly committed to the charities I support and a big advocate of groups that go out and have events and fundraisers rather than just calling and begging people for donations.
I am not talking about a couple of phone calls here either. I am talking about a couple of phone calls PER DAY. I know, I know, we should screen our calls. Well, with all of the house stuff we are working on, it is nearly impossible to get some people on the phone, and if they call, I want to be able to answer it instead of remaining in perpetual phone tag hell. A lot of times you can't tell by the caller ID if it is a legitimate call or not.
And then when I answer, I have a hard time hanging up on people because I am just not rude like that. But EVERY ONE of these people has the VERY SADDEST story in the world about DYING CHILDREN, or POOR FIREFIGHTERS, or STARVING VETERANS and they are always SO DESERVING. I was so worn out by one of them one day I told her that exactly. I said "Yes, I know that yours is the most important cause ever, and kitty cats and small children will die without my help, but you people are killing me with this crap every day- I will freaking lose my house if I give money to you all, please stop calling me."
Of course the next day there were more calls. Last night one of them called after nine and I was already half asleep. Andy yelled at them for calling so late. They don't abide by the laws at all. I just fail to see what good it does to have a do not call list, when it doesn't keep this from happening. Maybe it should be a national call list, and if you want people calling and harrassing you for money in your own home you can put your number on that list. I'm sure it would be very popular.
If I didn't invite someone to my home, i.e. a solicitor, am I obligated to open the door if they see me inside? My thinking is, if I didn't invite them that I am not required to go to the door, regardless of whether they know I am home or not. Sometimes I am busy and have the bird out of his cage or am trying to keep Cody out of the other dogs' bowl so that he doesn't spoil his diabetic diet, and answering the door just to get rid of a solicitor isn't in my plans. I think I just need one of those doormats like Boris and Natasha on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show had that says "GO AWAY." What do you think?
I regret that the national do not call list did not affect charities. I just don't want to talk to these people on the phone, and it seems that they call all the time. We get at least one call a night from a charity wanting money, and even if we donate, they just call us back in two weeks and want more. If we tell them "no" most of the time they will send the pledge notice anyway in an attempt to trick us into donating. I answer the phone even though we have caller ID, because I am never sure who it is calling, and I don't want to miss an important call, but I think I am just going to stop answering altogether, because no matter how much we give, they always want more. All I want is to be left alone in my own home and to be able to choose my own charities to donate to without being hassled all the time.
In spite of this, I feel bad about saying no to these people, and tonight I even hung up on one because I just didn't have the energy to deal with it. Does an unlisted number keep you from getting on these people's lists or do they find you anyway?
I just got off the phone with a typical pushy sales guy who called to "save me money on my mortgage." I told him a refinance wasn't going to happen because we are building a new house and selling this one (and our current rate is low anyway), but that wasn't enough to discourage him. He said he could put us on a 12 month plan and he could save us XX,000 dollars. I was laughing at him and told him he was smoking crack. I told him there was no way he could save us XX,000 dollars because we don't even pay that much on our mortgage in a year. How could we save more than we spend? He persisted and wanted to run some numbers and I told him not to waste his time. He kept bugging me, and I finally asked him, "Are you going to pay us to live in this house? He said "No" and I told him "Then there is no way you can save us the amount of money you are talking about, even with no origination fees or application fees or closing costs. He said "Well, we only charge a couple of thousand for origination" and I just started laughing like a maniac. I said "I don't know what kind of new math you are using that you figure we will even be able to make up the extra fees in one year, let alone save anything in the long run. Forget it!" Sheesh!
At work the other day my friend Julie and I were talking. We are pretty much the only women working in that area, so we have bonded. She was saying how one of the men we work with said something the other day that really bothered her. It went like this:
Julie walks into the logistics building and says to Clyde "It is really cold out there!"
Clyde says, "I can tell"
Julie says "You can?" And instantly it dawns on her that he is talking about her, um, chest.
She says she realizes now that he was probably always looking at her boobs before, but now since he said something about it it really skeeves her out. I told her to just get used to the fact that ALL men are looking ALL the time and just get over it. I mean you have to really put things like that out of your mind when you work with a bunch of men.
The big thing here is, if you are a guy and you are looking at us, don't blow your cover by making a rude comment. We are able to deal with you on a daily basis knowing that you are probably looking, but when you go and confirm it, we tend to think of you as a perv, and don't want to be around you because you are skeevy.
This is a little bit of a rant, so be forewarned.
I love to go walking in my neighborhood and in the two neighborhoods that adjoin it. I do not so much love the way people treat their sidewalks, often forcing me to walk out in the street.
A few simple rules:
Do not park your vehicles in the driveway so that they block the sidewalks. This is not just my opinion, it is a county ordinance! Even worse are those who park straddling the sidewalk or ON the sidewalk. This defeats the entire purpose of even having a sidewalk.
Do not place your trash, lawn clippings, branches, boxes, Christmas trees, etc. on the sidewalk. This is not the place for them, thankyouverymuch.
If you have trees that produce round hard fruits, remove them from the sidewalks. There are a couple of houses on my regular walking circuit that have this kind of thing going on, and trust me, it is like walking on marbles. Someone could get KILLED.
Do not allow your children to position their portable basketball hoops, bicycle/skateboard ramps or other toys on the sidewalks. Once again, not the place for them and dangerous to pedestrians.
And of course there are other more minor transgressions, such as letting the grass grow completely over the sidewalks, letting sand pile up on the sidewalks, leaving dog poop on the sidewalks, etc., but the ones listed above are the major ones.
Please. Practice a little sidewalk etiquette.
Last year I had a horrifying experience with a new Dell laptop that I ordered. It dragged on for months and I went through five motherboards and three complete system replacements. It was extremely inconvenient as repair techs had to come to the house four times, Dell reps in India called our house in the middle of the night (2:30 am) twice because they didn't understand the time difference. The wrong parts were sent several times, other parts were found broken inside when techs were replacing things, and various other shit happened. I vowed never to buy another Dell, but Andy needed a new laptop, and after much searching and review reading, etc., he ordered a Dell, and then waited two weeks to receive it. He finally got it today after obsessively checking the tracking number for days, and the damn thing has a big problem. The power button does not work. The only way he can turn the thing on is to pop the battery out and then back in. I tell you, Dell might have been good at one time, but their quality has really gone down as of late. I mean really, they supposedly check all of the computers out before they ship them; how could they have possibly missed the fact that it won't turn on? Poor Andy, now he is going to have to deal with Dell's horrendous customer support. I sure hope they can clear this up quick and send him a new one. We have the worst luck sometimes.
We have a real problem at our house lately. It has been going on for a couple of months, but the frequency has increased. You see we get these phone calls in the middle of the night, and when we answer, there is only a slow soft beeping; no one is there. It is not like the beeping or screeching of a fax machine, we have a fax line too and it doesn't sound anything like that. I have described it to people who have told me that it sounds like a computer auto-dialer. It calls about three or four nights a week, in the middle of the night anywhere from ten at night to three in the morning and it always calls twice, spaced exactly five minutes apart. It shows up as unknown on the caller ID, and the number can't be blocked because it is unknown. I have contacted the phone cpompany several times to try to figure out what to do to make it stop, and at first they suggested their service that will not let any calls through unless they are identified on caller ID. We had this service a while ago, and had to cancel due to the fact that we were not getting some important calls because they were blocked. So, we don't want to do that again. They suggested call trace, which requires you to dial *57 after the offending call and it sends the trace to their annoyance call center. After three traces, you can turn it over to law enforcement. The guy at the phone company assured me that you can trace any number.
Well, as I found out last night, you can't trace any number. At around 11:40 last night when I was awakened by the usual call, I tried the trace feature and it said "We're sorry. The star feature cannot be used to call this number, trace this number or add this number to your list." Dialing *69 gives the same result. I was livid. I called up the phone company again today and asked what was going on. The crappy lady on the phone said "oh, they must have blocked the number." Well, no shit lady, but what the hell is the point of having call tracing when the shit doesn't even work on a blocked number? She was most unhelpful and graciously offered to change our phone number for us for free. Woo hoo. Then all I have to do is call the two million places and people that have out number and change it with them, and order new checks with the new number printed on them and order new tags for my dogs' collars with the new number, etc. No thank you.
She told me that my only other option was to contact law enforcement and see if they will do anything about it. It is considered harassment when someone calls you like that. Doesn't it seem crazy that the phone company can't figure out who is calling me? What if I was receiving bomb threats or something? I bet they would find out in a matter of seconds where the call came from, blocked or not. And what is law enforcement going to do? Don't they have to go through the phone company as well?
Before you ask, we have considered other options, such as turning off the ringer at night, but I would never remember to turn it back on, and there is the fact that Andy works second shift, and if anything were to happen I want him to be able to reach me.
I find this crap to be really infuriating. I get up at around 4:45 each morning and therefore have to go to bed early to get enough sleep. When I get these calls in the middle of the night, they disrupt my sleep and startle me so much that a lot of times it takes hours for me to fall asleep again. Lately with it happening more and more frequently, I am so ticked off when I am awakened by one of these calls, so fuming mad that my general pissed offed-ness keeps me awake. I feel like I want to reach throug the phone lines and grab someone by the neck! Solutions anyone?
It is my birthday today, and I worked so much earlier in the week (going in to work at 3 am) that I have the day off, so I am hanging out with the dogs. I just went out to check the mail a few minutes ago and in addition to a couple of birthday cards there was this official looking mailing, you know the kind that means something is wrong. It was one of those forms where you tear the stub off the end and peel the first layer back. On the front of it it said "WARNING: $2,000 fine or five years imprisonment or both for any person interfering or obstructing with delivery of this letter U.S. Mail TTT.18 SEC.1702 US Code." My heart started racing as I walked back to the house. I got inside and carefully opened the correspondence, only to find out that it was JUST AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR A MORTGAGE COMPANY! These people should be shot. They have devised more and more ways to give me heart failure when I check the freaking mail. Don't they realize that if they kill me I won't be able to respond to their damn ads?
I try to eat very healthily pretty much all of the time. I eat whole grains and only good carbs and no sugar and no caffeine. My one little thing is that I like to chew sugarless gum because the allergy medicine I take makes my mouth dry. Well even my sugarless gum is out the window now. Someone brought in to work an article from the internet that they had printed out about the dangers of the artificial sweetener aspartame. The article can be found here. After reading about it, I will never consume aspartame in any form whatsoever again- it is some scary stuff. And it doesn't even seem to help with weight control either. In one study the article states that a control group converted to an aspartame-free diet lost an average of 19 pounds. So now I can't have my gum anymore. I swear I am headed toward an all natural macrobiotic diet one of these days. My mom is the same way- she and her friend are even milling their own flour and all. What next?
There are some days I really love bloggers, and there are some days I hate them (not all of them, just a few). Today it is the latter. On the subject of the administrator of NASA completely betraying the space program, well there are a lot of opinions out there about it. According to Technorati, there are 1,407 posts found using the search terms "Michael Griffin NASA" and from the ones I read, they are mostly just parroting the damn news media, and adding commentary that shows that they know absolutely NOTHING about what they are posting about. Here is a perfect example I found on one idiot's blog:
"In fact, many parts of the STS are no longer manufactured, some engineers have had to go to places like Radio Shack at their own expense, to buy some small parts - its that dangerous a system."
I have no idea where this person got their information, but it is so completely untrue it is ridiculous. NEVER has anything remotely like this happened, and to post something like that as fact is downright irresponsible and morally wrong.
The same blogger went on to say:
"The failure of the STS (Space Transport System) is the same as its triumph. It's the most over-engineered piece of machinery that has ever been put together. Quite simply, it has always been a death trap. 14 deaths in about 130 flights - that's unacceptable for even military "X" planes."
Hmmm, I don't know what the acceptable rate is for military "X" planes, but I am willing to bet that this guy doesn't either. Only two failures in twenty-five years of the program, in an inherently dangerous business of space travel is actually fairly impressive. And take in to account that the Challenger and the Columbia disasters could have both been avoided if it were not for high ranking officials in NASA that refused to listen to the concerns of the engineers below them. People in postions like Michael Griffin is in. It was a well known fact that the O-rings on the solid rocket boosters would fail at low temperatures, but due to being pushed to launch in time for that evening's "State of the Union" address, the shuttle was launched anyway. And if Linda Ham had listened to her engineers, high resolution photographs of Columbia's damaged wing could have been obtained, and a possible rescue could have been organized.
So, I say all of these jerks that are tearing up the manned space program, I bet none of you have witnessed the power of a launch while standing in the shadow of the Vehicle Assembly Building feeling the earth shake underneath your feet. I bet none of you has felt the excitement of sitting in the Commander's seat of the Orbiter. And certainly you have never met any of the fantastic brave explorers that are our country's astronauts. So to all of you who are just talking out your asses, please stop, because it is making me sick. Do a little research before you go spreading lies.
It is truly amazing to me that there are so many people in this world that still think the earth is their trash can. I was driving behind someone in a Bronco on the way to work the other day, and they had apparently finished off their fast food meal and threw the entire balled up bag of trash right out the window. We were on a bridge so it fell right over the side and into the water. I know this person is not alone either; I am forever seeing trash on the sides of the roads, on the beaches, in my neighborhood. Where have we failed as a society that people cannot learn to throw trash away properly. How hard is it? I have never had any problem doing it, but it must be really challenging for some people.
Just the other day someone at work was laughing about how they were throwing their beer bottles around in the water when they went jet skiing. All I think about is that someone has to clean those up, or they will be there forever. Cigarette smokers that throw butts on the ground are doing essentially the same thing. Do they think that those butts just melt away? One of the worst though, is people who throw gum on the ground. If you have ever stepped in gum, you might agree with me on this one. I see people do it all the time and I just don't understand, especially because I chew gum a lot myself. I have never had a problem throwing it in a trash can, but for some people it is just not important, I guess, or their time is too important to take those two extra seconds to do the right thing. If someone can explain to me why littering is okay, please feel free because I just don't get it.
One of my co-workers had a horrible thing happen to him yesterday. He has a lot of health problems, such as diabetes, neuropathies and some other things, but he can still walk around pretty much okay most of the time. He has to miss work fairly frequently due to his health and he he has no feeling in his feet at all. Well, he has a handicapped permit in his truck, and he really loves that truck and babies it like nothing else. Yesterday he pulled into a handicapped spot in front of the grocery store and walked up to the ATM to get some cash. By the time he got back to his truck, someone had keyed the hell out of it down to the bare metal. He is absolutely sick about it. Our assumption is that somone saw him park in the handicapped spot and then walk away, assumed that he was not handicapped and keyed his truck to make him "pay for it." I can't believe someone could be so cruel.
Okay, I just want to start by saying that I know a lot of people will disagree with me on this, but it is my blog, and I will say what I want.
We went to the grocery store this morning as usual, and I was irritated to see a group of tiny beggars outside of the entrance. You know what I mean; a group of kids that stands around the front of a store and begs for money for their activities such as cheerleading, scouting, or whatever. This is the absolute lowest form of fund raising ever, if you ask me. Hassling people who just want to go to the store to buy necesstities without being bothered. Now, I have nothing against charities and donating to good causes, but we choose our charities carefully each year, and we prefer to donate to established charities where the donations are tax deductible. We are constantly slammed with people asking for money over the phone, in the mail, on TV, in magazines, etc. and it starts to really annoy me when I can't even go to the store without being bothered. If we donated to everyone who begs for money, we would lose our fucking house! It is completely out of hand. Besides all that, what are we really teaching these kids by doing this? That if they want something they should stand around and beg for it? That is a really nice thing for them to learn. That way they will be well prepared for life on the streets. It is no wonder that we have so many problems in society with children who feel that they are "entitled" to anything they want.
Now I understand that these groups that beg have to raise money, because some of the parents can't afford for their children to participate otherwise. Well, have a car wash, have a bake sale, something, anything, but not begging! I really don't even like the bell ringers standing outside of stores during the holidays. I actually applaud Target stores for removing them, and then making an enormous donation to the Salvation Army that well exceeded the amount the bell ringers would have collected. Target seems to understand that shoppers don't want to be hassled every time they enter or exit the store. I would happliy make a much larger donation to the Salvation Army if they would not accost me in front of stores. Agree or disagree with me? Let's hear it!
All week long, I was planning to take the day off on Friday. I had a very important training session that I couldn't miss on Monday, Tuesday I had a task to complete, Wednesday I had a meeting I had to go to, and I was scheduled for a training class that night, but since I am no longer on second shift, I rearranged it to take someone's place in the same class on Thursday morning, still leaving Friday clear. Or so I thought. Until Thursday morning when I checked the training schedule and saw that the class was actually on Friday, the wonderful day that I was going to take off. So, I dutifully went in to work, and wouldn't you know it, I forgot my damn tortillas for my wrap sandwiches AGAIN! I am completely losing it. Then later, I got home and thought I would go for a nice swim, and after getting in the pool and skimming all the junk out of it and testing the chemical levels in the water, it started thundering and lightning to the point that I had to get out and go inside or risk a lightning strike. Then it proceeded to rain 1.14 inches in the next half hour. It is just not my day.
Every Sunday morning, Andy and I read or at least skim the through the local Sunday newspaper, Florida Today. One of the sections we always look at is the real estate section, just because we find it interesting. There is a book review article each week written by a man by the name of Robert Bruss, which is always a review of a real estate related book. As the last sentence in each review, he always says, "On my scale of one to ten, this book rates a ____." The part that bugs me is that the guy rates almost every book as a ten, with at least three in the last two months rating as twelves. Now, to me, twelve is not on a one to ten scale, so I think this guy is really mixed up. And not every book could possibly be THAT good. The only time I recall seeing one of his reviews that was not a ten or higher, was one time when he rated a book as a seven. If HE rated it a seven, it probably isn't even good enough to use as a doorstop! I don't know why this bugs me, but it does. Andy always gets to the paper first and will yell to me "he gave it a twelve this week" or whatever the review score is for that week. It is like a running joke for us. By the way, today's book was reviewed as a twelve.
I only have a short amount of time to post before I have to go to work today, so I will have to make this quick. Fortunately, I am going back to first shift in three more weeks. I like second shift okay, I just can't get over feeling like I am rushed in the morning, instead of being able to relax on my time off. Andy will still be stuck on second shift for quite a while longer, so that will suck, but we will manage.
The homeowners association crap that Andy and I are having to deal with is starting to be a real pain. I guess it always is this time of year. I think that we are the youngest homeowners in the neighborhood, and we have to be the ones to make people pay their lousy $120 a year dues. People will actually go so far as to having liens placed on their houses before they will pay up sometimes. It is a wonder that these people don't default on their mortgages. I am starting to tire of these grown men and women that act like children. If they can't be responsible, then they shouldn't be homeowners.
It seems like this post has started to turn into a rant, and that wasn't my intention. I just have gotten increasingly frustrated with dealing with idiots and people who don't return phone calls, etc. I know I sound like I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, but I didn't. I just let other people's stupidity get to me too much. I'll work on it. I hope everyone else has a nice day.
I just had a pleasant surprise. I called the customer service department of a company and had the most painless conversation ever. The FM transmitter for my iPod, called the iTrip made by Griffin Technology has been behaving strangely lately, and has something rattling around inside of it. I purchased it from Mac Mall online about eight months ago. I e-mailed Griffin last week about it and they e-mailed back to call them during business hours and gave a number and the times. I had been putting it off, because normally whenever I have to call customer service it is a complete nightmare and I get nothing accomplished (See post Dell is Hell). This time however, the rep asked what was wrong with the iTrip, what model of iPod it was for, what my address was, and said a new one was on its way and there would be instructions on how to return the defective one in the same box the new one would come in. To this I said, "That's it? That was too easy!" I was quite pleased and will happily recommend Griffin products from now on. A company that stands behind their products- what a novel idea!
This morning I listened to the messages on the answering machine, and there was one from an angry homeowner in the neighborhood who just received his notice of past due Homeowners Association dues. As the secretary/treasurer (my husband is the president), I sent the late notices out on June 1st, and he was angry because he said he never recieved a first notice. I sent those out over a month ago, and one was addressed to him, and it was not returned to us, so I assume it was delivered to him and he threw it out or something, who knows. I called and left a message, and he called back almost immediately and proceeded to be one of the biggest assholes I have ever spoken to. He wanted to know why we hadn't come to his house and introduced ourselves, why we didn't check in on him after the hurricanes last year, why we didn't come down and tell him his dues were due instead of sending a letter. I explained that by law we are required to send letters, as it is the only way that there is any record of it, and that we do not have the time to go around knocking on people's doors and chit-chatting. There were seventeen late notices I had to send out, and I crtainly have no desire to track down all those people. Most people (myself included) would see it as an invasion of privacy to have someone constantly coming around knocking on their door, interrupting their dinner, etc. It is not part of the job either, which, by the way is an unpaid volunteer position which we are doing because no one else wants to. We did walk around the neighborhood after the hurricanes to assess any damage- there wasn't much to speak of, even though it is not our job. I am not going to knock on someone's door (who is an able bodied person) and see if they are okay when there is one shingle out of place on their roof. The guy kept up, kept going on about his old neighborhoods and how they were (not like I care) and I wanted to tell him to move back there if it was so great. I was getting really mad at this point because he kept cutting me off, wanting only to hear himself piss and moan. I told him that we are not a welcoming committee, just an association and we have our meetings every year in May, as posted at the front of the neighborhood, and he is welcome to discuss it then. He got even more assholish and said he was going to have to talk to the president or the vice-president about this, and I said "You want to talk to the president? HERE HE IS!" and I gave the phone to Andy and walked away. He was still yapping when I handed the phone off. Andy is better at dealing with jackasses than I am, because he was in the Army and because I just want to say "Fuck you, you fucking dick" and hang up. The guy bitched to Andy for another twenty minutes and got the same replies from him as he got from me. Go figure. He is supposed to come down here to drop off his check later and I would like to take all of the Association stuff and throw it at him and say "Since you know so much about how things should be done, here- it is your job now. I QUIT, YOU FUCKING JERK!!!!" See if you have time to go prancing around the neighborhood knocking on doors. See how many get slammed in your face! Mine will!
Update: Well, I found it. Here is why the Nigerians were so interested in purchasing my cell phone.
New Twist on Nigeria Scam Targets Ebay and Other Online Auctions
28 FEB 2003
Courtesy of the Direct Marketing News: Scott Hovanyetz; Senior Reporter
The Pennsylvania Attorney General's office yesterday urged people who sell items online through Internet auction services to beware a new Nigerian scam aimed at fooling them into wiring money abroad.
Three victims in Pennsylvania already have lost about $26,000 to the scam, the state Attorney General's office said. The attorney general of Idaho issued a similar warning earlier this week. The scam targets people selling big-ticket items online such as boats, cars and motorcycles. The seller receives an e-mail from a "buyer" in Africa expressing interest in purchasing the item offered.
Later, the buyer concocts an excuse to send a bank cashier's check in excess of the purchase price if the seller agrees to wire back the difference. The seller receives the cashier's check and, assuming the offer is legitimate after the check clears, complies with the request to wire back the money.
One to three weeks later, the seller learns from the bank that the check is counterfeit. The bank demands the check amount be returned in full, so the seller loses both the purchase price and the money that was wired to the buyer, who then cuts off all contact.
In one case in Pennsylvania, a woman lost $12,500 to the scam after a man in Lagos, Nigeria, offered to buy her car. The Nigerian con-artists even targeted a deputy attorney general in the Idaho Attorney General's office, who recognized the scam and did not wire money.
Interestingly, one of my auctions was won by someone who e-mailed me this:
hello
I'm Pleased to be a winner of your auction.I live in US, Flushing to be precise.I'm relatively new to Ebay as you can see,I have never bought anything on this site. I heard its very convinient and easy thats why i'm trying it now.This item is a gift for my fiance......... who is currently in Ibadan..Nigeria, I'm buying it for his for his up coming graduation (Masters). I will be paying you.......for this deal to be conclude very fast from my Bidpay account and payment will be deliver to your contact address within 2-4 working days of payment confirmation. Please let me have the total cost plus shipping down Ibadan Nigeria,I'll be paying for the cost and I will like you to send it through DHL/UPS service,if you dont have any courier office near you then i will want you to use a secure postal service.
And please get back to me with your names in full and contact address with a secured email address...so that i can pay you at once.
Of course I said "No way!" and it turns out that the person is no longer a registered user with eBay anyway, so i sent a "second chance" offer to the next highest bidder who is not in Nigeria!
For those of you looking for more information, see my original post about these scams by clicking here.
I am selling a couple of my old cell phones on eBay as I have mentioned in an earlier post. I keep getting these crazy incoherent e-mails from people in Africa trying to get me to send them the phones without them bidding on the items. I wouldn't do it, of course, because I am pretty sure it is some kind of scam, but just look at these crazy e-mails:
"""Hello seller, my name is MR scott i saw your item much inevitable to what i need in my store i will like to know the working condition of this item, I will also like to know the working condition which is needed to my client in africa and i dont mind making an additional $100,I'm ready to PAY you Cashiar Check,on buy it now price/reserve price for this item after the check clear you will deduct for your item and transfer the excess the shipping company that will do the pick up though money transfer which will responsible for the pic up without givig you any much problem, so if my mode of payment is axceptable let me no, and kindly provide me with your name and address to make out the cashier check in that name also send your mailing addressand your phone number for easier communication.expecting to hear from you. Regard""
***Hello seller i am intrested in buying this item to my store in africa and i will be making payment of $250 for the item via Western Union Auction Payment(www.BidPay.com).okay and the item is very urgently needed in my store and i will like you to ship it out as soon as the payment is Confirmed and Approved from Western Union Auction Payment(www.BidPay.com).okay payment for the shipping cost together with the item price okay. you will help me to ship it out. via DHL,UPS or FED-EX . pls if you agreed with this send me your address and fullname for the payment today so that you can ship it out today when the payment is Approved from (BidPay) okay..........GET BACK TO ME ASAP***
"Dear seller,i'm smith folly & i'm interested in the immediate purchase of this item and so i will be making payment via western union auction payments(BIDPAY)MONEY ORDER, i wish to send this to my freind in Nigeria whose birthday is coming up shortly so i will want to confirm with you if you will be able to ship the item upon recieval of confirmation and approval notification from western union auction (bidpay)payment. if you will be able to do this, pls get back to me with your final asking , Contact Name, Address and Telephone Number so that i can proceed with payment.i will be self handling the shipment to Nigeria with my FEDEX shipping account. pls reply ASAP"
It has crossed my mind that these are all from the same person although they came from different e-mail and eBay accounts. My question is, why do these people in Africa want these phones so badly, and if they want them so much, why don't they just bid like everyone else? I have seen some strange things on eBay before, but this is one of the strangest. The auctions can be found here and here and they end in a few hours.