Thursday, February 7, 2008, 05:59 PM - Dumb Happenings
I got passed over for a promotion at work -- again! I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt. I don't know why I keep getting passed over. I've only missed one day in two years (due to illness). My latest performance review was "exceeds standard", a 3.03 on a scale of 0.0 to 4.0. I am really unhappy about this latest development.
Yeah... I know I am a very strange person, and I have a rather unique outlook on things. But I do a really good job, I get along well with my coworkers, and I'm very reliable. So why can I not get rewarded for my good performance?
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( 2.9 / 1175 )Tuesday, July 31, 2007, 09:33 PM - Dumb Happenings
I have (or had) a friend who has refused to talk to me for a month because I didn't like his book. I really did give him a full month to "get over it", but yesterday he wrote to me and said that I failed the test of friendship (by failing to finish reading the dreaded thing) and that he now had "new friends and new priorities". I, apparently, am out of the picture because he won't forgive me for disliking his 500-page epic.
The trouble is this: the book is so bad as to be unreadable. The main character is a 16-year-old Jewish Gypsy orphan, who just so happens to be an international criminal/thief, a security manager at a mega-corporation, and your ordinary high school student -- all at the same time. The high school is so gang-infested that even the teachers and administrators are in gangs. One of the students is an elf, while another is a wererat. Yeah, right.
How is "Greyhawke" for a solid Jewish name? Yeah, right.
And the book just goes on and on and on. I tried for two years to finish wreading it, but it just can't be read. The book is just ghastly. The characters are paper-thin while the plot is labyrinthine. The diologue is stilted and the premise just cannot be believed.
it's okay to have hobbies. I've written a few books too, but I don't have any notions as to being the next J. R. R. Tolkien. Dana, however, acts like "Saga of the Knights" is the next "Harry Potter". Well it isn't.
I am really hurt that he would walk out of a friendship for the sole reason that I didn't like his book. It's not even a published book! He just publishes online. If you want to read the worst piece of literature ever, just go to www.tsotk.org and click "Possessor of the Book".
I am really pissed off!
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( 3 / 1453 )Sunday, May 13, 2007, 08:40 AM - Dumb Happenings
Well. . . Brothers Roofing gets a lot of hype on the local Talk Radio station, but I don't see what all the hub-bub is about. They built a new roof for my house about two months ago and it has been a thoroughly INCOMPETENT job.
So far, my roof has leaked heavily EVERY time it has rained. The company sent a repair team out twice so far and yet my roof still leaks. It hasn't even leaked LESS. In fact, the brand-new roof leaks just just as badly as the worn-out roof did. The difference, of course, is that I paid $5,000 for a roof with the understanding that it would actually REPEL water! What a novel concept!
After the second follow-up repair, Brothers Roofing had the nerve to send me a $500 invoice. Yeah, right. Considering that I had to drag buckets back into the kitchen last night, I don't think I will pay that bill. Besides, the roof has a 10-year warranty. I'm just hoping that they can get it to repel water sometime in the next ten years.
For the first two repair attempts, I had to make a dozen calls the first time and 8 calls the second time before anyone returned my call. At least they called back quickly last night. But the time has passed when I would EVER consider recommend Brothers Roofing to ANYONE. They just don't do quality work.
UPDATE: The VP came today and did a really thourough inspection of the roof. It turns out that the problem is likely a bow window that projects out onto the roof. He recaulked the window. If my roof stays watertight the next time it rains, I'll be pretty happy and will retract my dis-recommendation.
Update #2: (June-2-07) It's rained twice since the most recent repair and the roof has held up fine. Yay! I think third try must have been a charm.
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( 3 / 1269 )Sunday, March 25, 2007, 11:04 AM - Dumb Happenings
In the Old West, desperados used to rob banks. In the modern era, it’s the banks that do the robbing.
Provident Bank (and others) engineered a way to maximise the legal robbery of its customers through clever software manipulation. How does this work? Let me illustrate.
Say you have $50 in checking, and you make six $9 purchases. Logically, you would think you would be facing a single charge for the last $9 item. But it no longer works that way. The bank would see $54 in debits on a $50 balance for that day and then charge an overdraft fee on ALL SIX items!
It gets better. Last week, Provident held 12 transactions in “pending” status for over a week (for some unknown reason). I could see the transaction values, but it did not deduct from my available balance. I made an arithmetic error for $10, so my last two minuscule purchases should have incurred a fee. Well... apparently Provident’s software was waiting for an overdraw, since the nanosecond my account was negative, the system posted all 12 transactions to my account at the same time and declared all 12 transactions to be overdrafts, despite the fact that the real value of the overdraft was about $10 and consisted of 2 transactions. The net effect was that the bank basically stole my whole paycheck since their fees totalled $440.
The banks weren’t this greedy under Clinton.
And the “financial analysts” on the talking-head shows wonder why the average American has trouble building up a savings account.
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( 3 / 1216 )Saturday, March 24, 2007, 05:05 PM - Dumb Happenings
I just don't seem to have the same luck with computers that Doug does. He can buy a laptop computer and use it every day for 3-4 years and never have one iota of problem. For me, I end up having to do a reformat/reinstall about every six months. Why? Because every computer I own gradually gets slower and slower until it gets to the point that it takes 15 minutes tio restart and when it does start, the applications load so slowly that I get [NOT RESPONDING] errors in Task Manager.
This is the 4th time I've had to do a root canal on my TabletPC. Fortunately for me, I do frequent backups. My game and my novel are located on my website and I back up all my music to an external hard drive. Still, this is a royal pain in the neck.
It's not just computers either. My T-Mobile Sidekick has slowed down to the point that it's nearly useless. My PDA seems to run out of memory all the time, despite having only two non-standard applications installed. My cell phone has to be power-cycled because the Bluetooth function keeps becoming non-responsive. My wrist watches keep stopping (and the one Doug loaned me actually started counting backwards.)
What the hell is the matter with me that the electronic devices around me just "give up" after a few months?
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( 3 / 1139 )Saturday, August 26, 2006, 12:08 PM - Dumb Happenings
There are few things that bother me more than being in a restaraunt and hearing some ill-mannered brats screech at the top of their lungs the entire time I'm sharing a meal with my partner. For the most part, I loathe children. They are generally greedy, selfish little monsters that have a high probability of becoming criminals when they mature.
I had the idea that the parents of the screaming rug rats need to be penalized for the behavior of their offspring. In a restaraunt situation, I think the following fees should be imposed:
-- $1 per shrill, goblet-shattering scream.
-- $5 per incident of a toddler running loose in a restaraunt.
-- $10 per incident of a toddler or other child running loose and coming to another patron's table.
-- $20 per incident of a child throwing something from a table and having said object land on another patron's table.
Fees like that would discourage these SUV-driving, white-trash breeder families from hauling their ill-behaved monsters out into public.
Me being a rogue, made the comment while paying for the meal, "The food was great, the screaming was not." The mother of these ceratures said, "Why don't you get a life and shut your mouth!" I replied, "Why don't you control your kids!"
Well, I can see where the kids get their manners from. There's nothing like cheap, white, breeder trash.
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( 2.9 / 1415 )Sunday, August 6, 2006, 06:38 PM - Dumb Happenings
I was at the gym this morning and the TV there was playing some Preacher/Informercial in which some "reverend" was hawking a prayer tape that was supposed to "channel God's blessings to the listener" so that his/her finances would improve. Of course, there is a catch: for the prayer tape to remain effective, the listener has to "pledge" $58/month of "seed money" to the good reverend's sacred ministry.
Egads. The last time I checked, Jesus was not in the business of using independant preachers for the creation of magical artifacts. Nor, do I think, Jesus ever promised anyone financial wealth (spiritual fulfillment, yes, but not a 790 credit score).
The prayer tape wasn't even a VHS tape. It was some 10-cent white autiotape with a 2-cent Label Maker PRO label affixted to the top. Geeeez!
I'm guessing that the folks who send this con artist money are the same ones who voted for Bush twice.
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( 3 / 1543 )Tuesday, June 6, 2006, 09:11 AM - Dumb Happenings
If there's ever a tired old nag that needs to be sent to the glue factory, it's the racehorse called "Gay Panic". And yet, Bush seems to trot out this nag every time his poll numbers hit rock bottom. Since his latest approval rating was in the mid-30s, it's no surprise to me that he's choosing NOW to once again "get tough on gays".
I'm really hoping that the Religious Reich isn't as stupid as Bush seems to think they are. Let's look at the Bush resume again:
-- Huge tax cuts for the rich that actually ended up with higher taxes (on the state/local level)
-- Huge deficit spending (because he has not issued a single veto in six years).
-- Terrible foreign policy that has not only alienated our allies, but severely weakened our influence in world affairs.
-- A losing, incredibly costly two-front war that has not only made America LESS SAFE, but has given nations like Iran and Syria carte blanche to develop super-weapons.
-- An immigration policy that is nothing but amnesty by another name. It's just another way for Bush's Big Business Buddies to get cheap labor and avoid paying payroll taxes and Workers' Comp.
-- Energy prices: a 245% increase over six years.
-- And he gave $40 billion to ExxonMobile as a pork-barrel gift (our money, of course).
-- He makes people DISAPPEAR, thanks to the Patriot Act.
-- He taps our phone conversations and reads our emails, thanks to the Patriot Act.
-- He gave Dick Cheney's Haliburton many no-bid exclusive contracts worth billions of dollars.
-- He has built 600 secret prisons in the United States that can house 1,500 people each. They're empty for now...
-- He has abused his vacation privilege to a ludicrous degree.
BUT THE Religious Reich is supposed to forgive all that because Bush just reminded them all that he still hates gays. I really hope they don't ride this tired old nag a third time.
I can see it now: "My son's dead in Iraq, I lost my farm because I can't afford the diesel fuel to run my machinery, my power bill's tripled, and some corporation is stealing my house by using 'eminant domain', but since Bush is going to protect me from the gay agenda, I guess I'll vote Republican... again."
I desperately hope that the Red State folk aren't really that stupid.
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( 3.1 / 1169 )Monday, May 15, 2006, 08:07 AM - Dumb Happenings
Well, apparently there’s a REASON why military suicides are at the highest rates ever. Back in 1997, Congress ordered that all “front line” personnel be psychologically evaluated to ensure that they could handle the stress of extended, full-time, theatre of war. When Resident Bush took over, he suspended this programme.
Only 1 in 300 soldiers get the required evaluation before being sent to Iraq. Moreover, soldiers with deteriorating mental health are mandated to remain in place instead of redeployed to a less stressful assignment.
This is pretty typical of Resident Bush, however. He doesn’t read books and doesn’t believe in science. He’s never served in combat. He doesn’t watch the news or read the paper. So why would he give any credence to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or any other war-related mental illnesses?
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( 3 / 1418 )Sunday, May 14, 2006, 06:05 PM - Dumb Happenings
I want a new phone. Actually, I want a new phone like Doug's phone. If I had a Sidekick, then I could junk my ancient Blackberry pager that's running on the old TDMA system and now gets only intermittant reception.
I tried bidding on Ebay, and I've been finding that the used Sidekicks sell for 80-90% of what a new unit costs. No thanks. I then called T-Moble customer care and the told me (and I'm not kidding), "The Sidekick is so popular that we can't waste these phones on upgrade customers". Oh.. I see... So only brand new customers get to buy the cool phones!
What a crock. I am very disappointed. It also seems like major corporations do very little to retain their customers once they've secured them under contract. All they seem to care about is grabbing the "new" customer. And that doesn't even make any sense. After all, you KNOW if your existing customers are paying their bills. A new customer is an unknown quantity. They could opt fot the "free" phione and then never send the company a dime in service fees. I've seen it happen that way all the time when I sold phones for Cingular.
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