I don’t take (pathetic) bribes, not even on Twitter

And I don’t work for free. (Although, to illustrate my point I will be breaking this rule a teensy bit and giving away some free and undeserved attention.)

Down with this kind of thing:

MTV wants me to advertise MTV and ZYNC. They want me to spam my Twitter followers and Facebook friends. They want me to subject myself to a deluge of marketing. On purpose. They want me to tell you that I like it.

Do I look like a bitch? Then why you try to fuck me like a bitch?

This isn’t a good bribe. There is approximately 0.0000001% chance of any real payoff. You want me to annoy and to be annoyed for (almost definitely) absolutely nothing? I do believe I will pass.

I believe it’s true that everyone has a price. But if I ever do sell out (and as a big fan of Andy Warhol, it’s one of my ambitions in life), you can be damned sure that you won’t be buying me so fucking cheap. Free is way the fuck too fucking cheap. Tweets aren’t worth much, but they’re not worthless. And you know this if you’re trying to trick me into selling them to you.

I do not “RT to win”, and if you need to use this kind of persuasion to get me to promote your product it probably sucks eleventy-seven penises.

I’m all for shameless self-promotion. I’m promote things I’m actually interested in all the damned time. But my personal endorsement is expensive. Even my “this is awesome, *winkwinkIknowyouknowI’mdoingitfortheprize*” endorsement. Fuck the fuck off. If you want me to contribute to your brand recognition, you’re going to need to cough up.

And my dear followers… don’t be Twitter whores. Have confidence. You’re worth enough to be classy Twitter escorts.

Redundant Isses

This is a post about something that drives me insane. Aren’t they all posts about somethings that drive me insane? I’m posting this mainly to ensure that you, dear reader, go mad with me.

Have you ever noticed that people often insert an extra “is” into sentences containing wording similar to “the thing is that”? Well, they do. Almost every time. “The thing is is that”. I wouldn’t even say that the “that” is totally necessary, but the double “is” is infuriating.

Yep.

Zombie Christ is a greedy bastard

Look. I think it’s perfectly legitimate, if you’re resurrected, to adopt a new (re)birthday on the date you became one of the undead. But if you’re going to do so, as far as I’m concerned, you forfeit your original birthday.

So what’ll it be, Jesus? Christmas, or Easter? You can’t have both. I know you’re just in it for the extra presents (everyone knows that people with birthdays near Christmas get stiffed), but fucking shit — whether you came back from the dead or not in the first place (and you didn’t, because that’s impossible — but supposing you might have), you’re dead as a doornail now. Considering this, you probably don’t merit even one birthday party a year.

I really don’t think that it’s fair that your worm-eaten ass gets to inconvenience those of us that choose not to form deep personal relationships with corpses (seriously, people, that’s pretty morbid) by closing down everything but IHOP multiple times per year. All I got to do today was sit around and stew about my ruined weekend plans.

Could you bastards at least arrange to hold your borrowed pagan fertility festival on the same day each year? For those of use who aren’t Christians (or at least, for me), it’s pretty easy to lose track of the precise date, on account of it holds absolutely no meaning whatsoever.

This is why we [couldn’t] have nice things.



pigs 1, originally uploaded by mariacaridad.

Sean and I are so over filthy, deadbeat roommates. We’re doing the post-filthy, deadbeat roommate cleanup this weekend. Pro-tip: do not live with filthy deadbeats! Even if they are (ostensibly) your friend, and they’re suddenly desperate for a place to stay. You will hate your life. Definitely don’t do it three or four times in a row, either. Fuck, don’t live with friends, period. You let them slip once, because they’re a little short on rent and they’re your friend, after all… you’ll never see a single cent on time again.

Actually, don’t live with anyone. Hell is other people. So true. Sartre knew what he was talking about.

We’ve rented a steam cleaner to prevent weeds being able to grow in our carpet due to the layer of topsoil that has accumulated. (I still don’t understand the whole American shoes on in the house thing. Is this attitude somehow perpetuated by Stanley Steemer?)

Last night I washed, dried, and then bleached the walls in the empty room — and they’re still grimy as hell. Looking forward to paying to have this place repainted when we move out.

Just a while ago, I started (but could not finish without a sand-blaster) washing the sink full of dirty dishes that was lovingly left for us, all with food baked on and burnt on. Hadn’t even been soaked. Awesome!

(Side-note: I grew up with three siblings, and these days I don’t have many possessions. Both of those factors make me very aware of the things I do own. In doing the count putting those dishes away today, the missing items are as follows: two plates, a bunch of spoons, the lid to a sugar bowl, four shot glasses, quite a bit of Tupperware, and exactly eight forks — including every single dessert fork I had).

I’m about to go clean out the fridge, because it’s full of crumb-filled, squished-up margarine wrappers (ew, can’t believe I even let that filth in my apartment in the first place), “mystery” items, and coffee grounds. I hate everything about coffee. Especially the smell. Especially the taste. Especially cleaning up the coffee grounds from every inch of the kitchen, and the coffee ring and splatter stains on the counter (with bleach — the counter is white). But I won’t have to do it every single day anymore. So one last time only makes me mildly livid.

All this BS (plus cleaning the bathroom, floors, and well… everything else, all the time, because nobody else was ever going to do it), and we still haven’t gotten October’s rent. Definitely worth the hassle… I’m so happy we won’t have to deal with this anymore! And I’m so happy that now that I’ve got a job, I’ll be able to spend some money on buying nice things to put in our apartment without having to worry about them being ruined. Hells yes to no longer living in an apartment that looks like a dorm room!

Random things getting on my nerves at the moment

  1. Misspellings: Coller and conceded (instead of conceited) (I’ve been complaining about people whose online profiles claim that they are “not conceded” for at least 5 or 6 years now).
  2. All icons from FastIcon.com, but especially that fugly ginormous RSS icon.
  3. Not being able to sleep due to mold, weeds and our lack of air conditioning.
  4. Adobe Illustrator’s refusal to stop giving me a “can’t save the illustration” error every time I try to save an EPS file, no matter what I do.
  5. It’s laundry day again. Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. Remind me never to live anywhere with a shared laundry room ever again.

This Is Pretty Stupid

Look, geniuses. The words “tips” was not originally an acronym for “To Insure Prompt Service”. For one thing, it would have to have been TEPS, because the proper word is ensure, not insure. For another thing, you’re not going to ensure prompt service by giving someone a tip as you’re leaving. See how that doesn’t make sense? If that was the purpose, you’d tip at the beginning of the meal.

You now have no excuse for ever saying this to me again, Internet.

Answers. Nwo!

Okay, I’m too lazy to figure this out myself right now, because a quick Google search didn’t instantly turn up the answer (if there is one). Is it possible to get StumbleUpon to stop showing me stumbles that consist of a single Jpeg? Because I really don’t care for them, and it ruins the entire thing for me. 2 out of 3 stumbles are images. Lame!

Guess who’s having trouble with Comcast again…

Our DVR destructed a couple of days ago, so we had a tech come down with a replacement this morning. Everything was working fine while he was here. The menu loaded, the program guide loaded, the channels were working, and the On Demand intro ran just fine. A little bit after the cable guy left, I went back into the bedroom, and the screen was showing me a delightful “this channel should be available shortly” screen, which is absolutely a lie, every time. So now I get to deal with their customer service. Great.

I prefer to use their web chat service for support for several reasons. a) No thick accents to deal with, b) I can easily save a transcript, c) if I get transferred to a second person, they can see my full transcript, so I don’t have to repeat myself, d) I still have to wait on hold, but there’s no elevator music. I already went through this process once, and had a “hit” sent to my box, which did absolutely nothing. The analyst tells me that it could take 15 minutes to work. Which is BS, because I’ve gone through this 77 times. The box resets almost immediately — it’s the loading of the menu and guide that take time. I mention that my box was doing nothing, but get booted from chat anyway, and told to contact them again after those 15 minutes. So now I have to do it all over again. I’m number 34 in the support queue. Kill me.

**UPDATE**

I’ve had a lot of hits to this entry with search terms that seemed like others were having the same problem. I began to suspect what was wrong immediately, and 5 or 6 chats and phonecalls later, it was finally verified and fixed. The installer hadn’t added the serial number of the new box to my account, so the signal was blocked. No one at Comcast suggested this to me, I had to suggest it as a possibility to them instead, so you might want to ask about this, if your symptoms are similar. A few of the agents I spoke to were able to see that the serial number wasn’t registered, but pretended that they weren’t able to fix it from their end, or that they’d need to send a tech. Not true, they were just clueless. Call back until you get someone who knows what they’re doing (it might take you a while!)

Shorter description of the symptoms of this problem: Upon first connecting the box to your cable outlet, everything will seem to work perfectly. After the box communicates back and forth a bit with Comcast (I was able to get the menu loaded and On Demand running before I had a problem), all channels may begin showing a message reading “Not Authorized” and “For ordering information, press info”. If you unplug the box and plug it back in, all channels will probably show the “This channel should be available shortly” message, because Comcast will not allow a signal to be sent to an unauthorized cable box.

I hope this helps somebody! Good luck!

Shit list

$370 to replace a lost green card! I thought $290 was excessive, but I hadn’t noticed the additional $80 biometrics fee. What the fuckity fuck? That’s it… The USCIS is now officially at the top of my Asshole Organizations I Have to Deal With shit list, which is as follows:

  1. USCIS
  2. NSLSC/OSAP
  3. UPS
  4. Comcast
  5. Microsoft
  6. Dell
  7. Capital One
  8. Wells Fargo
  9. Wal-Mart
  10. AT&T

Okay, fuck. It’s time to eliminate pennies.

No Change For You: AMC Theaters “Doesn’t Carry Nickels?” – Consumerist

Apparently, AMC doesn’t carry nickels (uh, duh, see the headline above). Presumably, then, they don’t carry pennies, either. And why should they? When a teensy tray of nachos costs $8, and you’re already being ripped off (fer fuck’s sake — maybe get rid of the 9,823,745 flat screens showing a static menu, and charge a bit less), why would anyone care about five cents? And why the hell would anyone care about one cent? They fucking wouldn’t.

There are a number of people passing through my apartment on a regular basis, and three or four or five people here on a regular basis. These people obviously don’t care about pennies at all, because when I go to vacuum (and I’m the only one that ever does it, by the way…), there are 982,734 pennies on the floor. I have to stop every time I find one to bend over and pick it up. The value of a penny is now less than the amount we’d expect to be paid to bend over. Seriously. If someone was to ask me to bend over, I’d demand… at least a quarter. And if you ask me… any denomination of currency that the average person can’t be bothered to reach down to the ground to pick up… That denomination has no sense existing. The sooner we eliminate the penny, the sooner my back rejoices.