Just another rant

i understand that it is our right, nay, our duty to peacefully protest our government when we believe it to be unjust. sometimes i sympathize with the mob for what they are protesting, however does this have to happen when i am trying to get home from work? does this also have to happen on the busiest street in bellingham? and when you put the two together, does this have to happen on the busiest street in bellingham when i am trying to come home from work?

when i am on my way home, i just want to get home. i am driving from a good distance away and i see lots of flags, people and signs which say something to the effect of "stop spending my money." and one kid had a sign that said "i am too young to be in debt." my guess is the kid could give a crap about why he is there, he is just thinking, "my parents are making me hold this sign that i don't give a crap about on a day where i can actually be playing outside."

now, the guide meridian i would say rivals any of the busiest streets in anytown america. mostly for the fact that the traffic is only for about 6 blocks, yet can take about 20 min. to go from walmart to the freeway. all i wanna do is go to Joe's, see if they will fix my tennis racket, check out their "going out of business sale" and come home. normally i realize this is going to be a nightmare because joe's is on block 3 of this 6 mile clusterpoop of a street.

so i am driving, i see the protest (which lines the guide for a good 4 blocks) and i think to myself "shit, this is really going to suck." it takes me 10 min. to go the first block. i am frustrated, my blood pressure is rising. people start to honk in acknowledgment to the sign holders, people cheer. i get to the road i need to turn on to get to Joe's, an old man wearing a fluorescent jacket, jumps out in traffic like he is a traffic cop, to let people cross. i realize that the lights suck, but you know what, as a motorist, i hate those lights too. cars are blocking intersections because this douche bag is stopping for people to cross. why they can't use the crosswalk button like everyone else, i don't know. after everyone crosses, my light turns RED! i am pissed. "screw these retarded protesters, i don't give a shit, your message will not be heeded by the government, i promise you that." one lady decides to cross the guide when people are finally allowed to turn left on to it (and believe me, those people get screwed the most because that particular green arrow lasts 30 seconds). she waves her sign and the guy going to hit her, she smiles, he gives her the bird, she crosses with an angry face, "you deserved it" says i. my turn arrives, i finally get to go.

my beef is this, i know you want to be seen so you go to the busiest street. i am sorry but you don't get my support because i want to get to were i am going and get home. i don't want to see your signs, i don't want you to get in my way, now i am pissed and would not side with you if there was a vote tonight. maybe this is all very self centered and conceded but damn it, when i wanna go home, i wanna go the F home!

one last thing. let me paint a picture. if you have to go to the bathroom really bad, the line is long and it crosses a hallway. you are stopped at the hallway and people are going in front of you to get through the line. all of this while 2 people are talking to you about the meeting they just came from. you are aware of the meeting but weren't involved so you understand the most remedial points but beyond that have no understanding or feeling one way or the other. now the line is moving, you are grabbing your crotch, one thing is on your mind, and these people keep talking to you and want you to be part of the conversation. they want you, of course, to be on their side. you are getting angry now because you have to wait for a long time, yet you know that there is an empty bathroom on the 2nd floor but didn't think you would make it in time and are now wondering if it would have been faster to just go there rather than wait in line, plus these jerks keep bothering you about the meeting. (i thought about taking a different road but thought it would take longer. this is of course before i knew about the protest.) can you tell me that you would really care about what these two people are talking to you about? wouldn't you have that feeling of "some other time guys, i have one thing on my mind"? i tend to go to the place where i think "you guys are pissing me off, i don't care what you are saying and probably just to show you my frustration, would side with whatever you are against." (would i really do this? probably not but that is how i feel).

Customer service

(Foreward: i have called the lady and she was the sweetest person. i didn't get 9 words into my phone call when she stopped me to tell me, "oh yes! i charged you too much i am so glad that you called. after you had left i realized that i charged you too much and i got out the phone book to try and find you to tell you what happened." she actually called all the simon's in the phone book to try and find me........i feel like a real horses ass. i still have bitterness towards the first 3 on the F-U list, but artwood is vindicated. i am glad i have small feet and a relatively large mouth, makes it very easy to shove it in there. so i am redacting what i have written about the lady.

now i have to warn you, you read, this email will have foul language. no matter how hard i will try, an F-bomb is most likely to be dropped. having said that......

what the fuck is up with customer service around here anyway? i mean, for fuck sake, if you are not doing your job, you get fired. i have just discovered that i got charged twice as much as i should have for this wax finish for our counter top. i just looked at my receipt and the hand written on says $17 and change, and the printed out one says $34 and change. not only that but it's not like she hit "x 2" on the register or anything because it is not exactly twice as much.

this is why my blood pressure is high. i swear, there is a "lets fuck with because he is too nice" sweepstakes. if i go into the place and they don't give me the difference back, look for me on the county jail website under disturbing the peace. i am at my wits end with people fucking up the most remedial tasks. i am concerned that i will knock something over, if nothing else, i will be yelling if this doesn't go according to plan.

instead of going on and telling exaclty what happened with other companies in the past month and a half, i will write a short F-U list.

1. Comcast (who just blatantly steals)
2. T-mobile (who actually stole from us)
3. Travelocity (who tried to steal about $700 from us, however Alaska Airlines understood. thank you molly :) )
4. Lynden Dutch Bakery (unintentionally tried to steal from me, but at least the girl straightened it out.)
5. and Artwood (for just straight fucking up. they are yet to be vindicated)

i am sure that everything with Artwood will work out, i have the receipts, but i am extremely pissed that i have to go all the way to fairhaven to straighten this shit out........ugh.

p.s. one time, about 8 years ago, i went to a cash machine in a gas station. the cash machine only had denominations of $20. i punched in $40 and the machine gave me a twenty and a ten.............the guy behind the counter didn't believe me, he said i must have pocketed the twenty and slipped in ten then voiced my complaint. the exchange after that went something like this;

me, "did you see me leave the store? you watched me right?'
him, "i did watch you"
me, "when did i supposedly slip this $20 into my pocket?"
him, " i don't know. the machine doesn't carry anything other than twenties."
me, "i agree, that is why i can't figure out why it gave me a ten. do you think this is some scam that i have, i go to gas stations and try and take them for ten bucks at a time?"
him, "i don't know."

i think i eventually got the money, but i had to wait for the owner of the ATM to come, and that was a lot of the same. anyway, just wanted to share that little nugget

Magic Bullet Express

as i type this, i am watching an infomercial for "The Magic Bullet Express." this is the same set up as the "Magic Bullet" infomercial. you have the host and the english inventor guy in a kitchen. around the kitchen island you have 2 couples and an old lady. couple number one is the hip young couple that likes to eat out because cooking at home is too dificult. couple number 2 is the middle aged couple with the fat husband that wants to eat everything. now this old lady is more grandmotherly than the old lady from the "Magic Bullet" infomercial. you know, the old lady wearing her bathrobe while smoking a cigarette. this old lady is the one that has all the cooking experience. oh wait there are 2 old ladies now. the new one looks like estelle getty in the golden girls. she must be the old lady that doesn't believe in new fangled products.

i love the cheesy responses to the question posed by the english inventor guy. "who likes chopped salad?" young hip wife "i love chopped salad but it takes to long to make it at home." the guy throws a bunch of salad shit in the food processor like machine, and bammo! chopped salad in 30 seconds.

new developement. "who likes cheesecake?" everyone in unison "i do!" of course the host asks the grandmotherly old lady, aparently her name is martha, "how long does it take you to make cheesecake?" she begins talking and telling him "about 20 min." and while she is talking he makes the crackers and filling for the cheesecake. "gee martha i just made a cheesecake ready for the oven in 30 seconds."

they begin to run down all the food they have made and as they do, the fat man shows up in the kitchen, "wow, when can we eat?" and goes for the food right away. the fat man i noticed sitting in the "living room" watching a sports game for most of the infomercial. the last time we saw him, the host pulled nachos out of the oven, passed it around, everyone took a chip, then the fat guy grabbed the whole thing and said "these are delicious, when are we having more." and takes the plate of nachos to his seat in the "living room".

now i have to say, even with the horribly hilarious acting, infomercials certainly do a good job of making you believe that you need the product. my favorite is when they show people trying to chop celery as if its like trying to saw through tile or something. what i wanna know is if you can use it for multching leaves and branches. why don't they show that? the ginsu knife can cut through a shoe and saw tile, then still be able to cut a tomato with precission. would you actually do this? probably not, but why not show the strength of "The Magic Bullet Express" by throwing in some branchs or maybe some portland cement mix and water. if they did that, i am buying it.

I have a problem....

so the purpose of rating all my music is so that i won't buy anymore cd's/music. i have discovered it cannot be helped. i have bought; the new pearl jam "ten" rerelease, AC/DC "tnt", the donnas "bitchin' ", and i think there is another but i can't remember.....oh yeah, a John Williams classical guitar album (yes the guy who wrote the score for star wars). it has taken a long time to do the rating thing so maybe it couldn't be helped. i had to do it. the other problem that i have found, yet would seem all to obvious, is that i am doing it at work. therefore it is difficult to bust out the pad of paper and calculator. the boss is gone until next wednesday so if i get a lot of work done by tuesday morning, i will tally up what i have. done and done.

Music

i think i have a problem, i can't stop buying music. i haven't bought anything new since the Franz Ferdinand one, but i have been having a difficult time not buying more. i have decided to take a step back from buying new music, and evalute the music that i have on my Itunes at work.

you know how you can rate each individual song with a 1 to 5 star rating? well i have decided to listen to my Itunes on random and rate the songs individually. what i plan on doing is coming up with a list of the best albums that i own based on those ratings. this is how it will work:

1) rate all the songs 1 through 5. (since i tend to be generous, 3 will be a good song that i will listen to when i am in the mood , 4 will be a great song that i will listen to 75% of the time altogether (mood or no mood) and 5 stars, excellent song that i cannot get myself to skip even when it was not the song i was expecting to hear.)

2) after all is rated i will come up with an average star rating (ASR) for the album.

3) list that on here. (maybe even facebook)

i don't think i needed to list out the steps, but hey, it makes it feel official. now this is only to decided which album is the best that i have on my computer (at work). this list will not tell you which is my favorite band ( this is mostly a disclaimer to myself because i know that some bands will not score as well (ACDC) even though they are one of my favorite. the reason they will not score as well is because Bon Scott is the man and i only have one of his, and i don't have Back In Black as a whole.) however, i fully expect my favorite bands to be somewhere at the top.

so, this may take a while but i look forward to posting the results. ( i am very interested myself........that should go without saying, otherwise i wouldn't do it :) )

CD's

I was once an Itunes guy, now i am back to CD's. I love having a CD collection, but the main reason is that when you buy music or whatever (i do have a few audio books) from Itunes, you don't actually own it. You have to "authorize" a computer to play the song, and even then you only get 5 computer authorizations. I understand this is probably to keep people from pirating music, but seriously? I think it is a little over the top. There are times at work where i can't help myself and have to buy the album right then and there (Guns N Roses: Lies, was the last one). I like to listen to music while I working and sometimes I just can't control myself.



However, Itunes does have it's uses when you are a CD buyer. You can listen to the quick snippets of songs on an album that you are considering buying and decide from the snippets if you would actually like to purchase them. Sometimes I wish I would do this all the time. I bought the new Franz Ferdinand CD today solely based on the song on the radio. After hearing the song on the radio on my way home from work, I decided to stop by the neighborhood Best Buy and if they might have the album. (side note: to be honest, i went in thinking i was going to by the Nirvana box set if it was at a favorable price. but i was thinking about possibly picking up the Franz Ferdinand album. I went in, found the Nirvana set, it was $50........i decided that since i don't like Courtney Love, i didn't feel like giving her that much money. so alas i found the FF album, it was $13.) I found it, bought it, drove home to listen to it. (home is only about 2 min. from BB and i didn't want to fumble around with the stupid cellophane.) I toss the album into the DVD player, plop on the couch, press the play button, and start reading my GQ about LeBron James.



I was glad to hear that the first song on the album was the one on the radio. I like it, I bob my head, things are starting well. 3 songs in, I am thinking "OK, not bad, not great but not bad." I was waiting for the "next radio hit" to reveal itself. 6 songs in "OK, i think this is one long song, sounds like it's been on for about 15 min." 10 songs in "I am done with my LeBron article, I don't want to listen to this song anymore."



Question: Why is it that i always get sucked into the radio song that makes me want to buy the album only to find out that the rest of the CD A) sucks or B) has 2 songs, the one i like on the radio and then another song that for some reason lasts for about 45 minutes and has pauses every 3-5 min.? For the record, i have bought albums much worse than this one. i could actually feel pretty good about playing this album in the background while i through a party or do some stuff around the house. i am not even going to say that it is a bad album, but i will say it's not that great either.


(i didn't have time to proof read, hopefully it isn't as bad as some of mine on here.)

Riddle me this.....

as i have been somewhat listening to the speeches of our presidential candidates, i start thinking about all the cliches that are said. i can't help but wonder if any of what they say they will do actually gets done. there are two quotes that i found, in succession, from Rudy Giuliani on MSNBC that got me thinking.

Giuliani promised that McCain would “lower taxes so our economy can grow.”
“He will reduce government spending to strengthen our dollar,” Giuliani said.

-"the conventions" MSNBC.com

doesn't McCain want to continue the war on Iraq? now i am certainly not one that understands the economy very well, but i have to pose the question; how can you lower taxes, reduce government spending and fund a war? like i said, i am no expert but does this mean he is going to pay for the war with his own money? if that is the case, then i might have to reconsider.