Author Archives: Candice

One big Ponzi scheme.

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When did the internet turn into a combination of a bad self-help book, an infomercial, a get-rich-quick-scheme? It all leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. I don’t want to hear from self-proclaimed, critically-acclaimed, experts in expertise about positive affirmations, efficiency tips, monetization techniques, optimization approaches, best practices, self esteem, keyword research, passive income, active participation, proactive marketing, secrets of happiness (least of all “the” secret), life hacks, usability measures, productivity skills, synonyms of synonyms of synonyms. I’m pretty sure those are all alternative terms for Fucking Gay, anyway, and yes, there is something wrong with that.

I don’t care about your iPhone. I don’t care that nobody else cares about your iPhone. I was sick of Web 2.0 five minutes before I ever heard of it, and I’m sick of hearing about how sick everybody else is about hearing about Web 2.0, and about how ironic it is that everyone, in talking about how sick they are of hearing about Web 2.0, is contributing to the overabundance of bullshit on the Web 2.0 about Web 2.0. I’m not going to attend the Web 2.0 panel at the Web 2.0 conference, and since I’m not cool enough to attend anyway, I’m not going to use Web 2.0 applications to experience it vicariously, because I’m too cool for that. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to read Tweets about your lifecast while watching you read Tweets about lifecasting on your lifecast. Lifecast is a misnomer, anyway. There ought to be more lifecasts by people who actually have lives.

I don’t want to read eight million blogging blogs about how to blog about blogging about blogs about blogging. I’m pretty sure the best way to start a money-making blog these days is to make sure it tells other people all about the best way to start a money-making blog. I’m not going to read your blog carnival of blog carnival carnivals, and that is one carnival I would certainly not spend an afternoon. I’ll stick to the sort where they serve funnel cakes, thank you. The only thing I can be paid to post about is how lame it is to be paid to post. This shit is self perpetuating. It’s cheesy. It’s phony. It’s boring. You’re all a bunch of big, fat, boring, cheesy phonies. I can’t wait until this non-industry crashes, or at least evolves into something else that I can rant about with renewed vehement vigour using whatever new overrated emerging technology emerges. Until then, ceiling cat is watching your circlejerk, jerkoffs.

When did cynicism, sarcasm, snarkism become negative things?

P.S. “Negativity can be treated by several types of intervention strategy, including cognitive-affective stress management and progressive muscle relaxation.”

P.P.S. I do have one productivity tip to offer. Stop reading so much about productivity tips. You’ll find you’ve got at least 17 extra hours a day to devote to figuring out where to stick your widget. (I have a few tips about that, too.)

Reddit ready for the summary? Suck my Digg dick.

Guess who’s having trouble with Comcast again…

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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!

Dab a little Trump Vodka on your wrists.

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Vodka sculpture, originally uploaded by Allison McCarthy.

I’ve always thought that vodka tastes just the way I imagine perfume would. So it’s appropriate that Trump Vodka comes in a bottle that reminds me of an elongated version of Chanel No. 5.

Flip-flops are never acceptable footwear.

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Unless you’re at a gym, a pool, a spa, or maybe the beach. Tacky, tacky, tacky, tacky. Tacky. When they’re nice enough looking that they could be called “thong sandals”, I’m willing to let it slip, especially if they’ve got heels (I own a pair or two). But otherwise, quit it. And walking with someone whose feet keep going “smack smack smack smack smack” is definitely high up on my list of things that I could do without. Also, say hello to:

  • Sore arches and heels, which can progress to chronic conditions, including inflamed Achilles tendons and plantar fasciitis, inflammation of the connective tissue between the heel bone and the toes.
  • Heel calluses (from the pounding).
  • Hammer toes (from the gripping).
  • Irritation between the toes (from the toe thongs), which can lead to nasty fungal infections.

(From Trouble afoot with flip-flops – USATODAY.com)

(Sorry, I was just outside, and saw one too many pairs of ugly-ass feet with fallen arches and ragged toenails. At least remove your chipped nail polish?)

Re: Vagisil Screening Kit… Women, stop being idiots.

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I keep seeing commercials for Vagisil’s new yeast infection screening kit. It includes two screening wands that you’re meant to stick up your cunt and watch for a colour change, and a colour guide to match the wand to. Depending on what colour the wand turns, the instructions indicate what sort of an infection you might have. The kit costs about $15. Which is retarded. Because I can buy a container of 100 pH test strips for about $1.50. But then, I’d probably have to touch my vagina. Oh. Em. Gee. Or I could pay my $20 copay to go to a doctor in order to get a proper diagnosis, but that might be embarrassing.

Seriously. If there’s something wrong with your cooch and you’re unsure enough about what it might be that you’d buy Vagisil’s crap on a stick, you need a doctor. Go to a frigging doctor.

At least until someone in the states comes out with a useful test, like this Savvycheck: DIY Yeast Diagnosis doohickey that I found while searching for Vagisil’s hunk o’ junk. It’s actually pretty cool… It contains anti-yeast antibodies that react with infection antigens, if they are present, causing the test line to turn blue. There ought to be more home testing kits like this. The cost of going to a doctor and then having lab tests done is ridiculous — and this Savvycheck thing apparently has 90% accuracy.

Unlike a pH testing wand that may or may not indicate that it’s kind of sort of possible that you have some type of infection, maybe, and it might be a yeast infection, but it’s not absolutely certain, so you just wasted your $15, now get yourself to a doctor anyway, like you should have done in the first place.

Whining about MySpace

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In any case, have I told you lately how much I hate MySpace, Internet?

I rarely get any personal e-mail directly to my lovely spam-filtered, totally-controlled-by-me, easy-to-access-from-anywhere regular e-mail address anymore. Everyone I know sends messages to my MySpace account instead. Which means that if, say, I’m reading my e-mail on my cellphone, all I get is a notification message with a useless link (because there’s no way I’m ever going to bother checking MySpace with Opera Mini on a freakin’ Razr).

Even if I’m checking mail on my home computer, I still have to go through the otherwise unnecessary steps of clicking through to MySpace, logging in, and finding the message in a jumble of spam. Pain in the fucking ass. Why do people actually prefer sending messages through a third party, when it’s at least 74 times easier, by my calculations, to send a regular e-mail. Especially when you consider that that third party seems to be experiencing “unexpected errors” more often than not, making communication impossible. At least use OkCupid or Facebook or whateverthefuckelse guaranteedtobebetterthanMySpace nomatterwhatitis.

Everyone hates MySpace, right? Guess the internet has a lot of masochists. I’ve been so tempted lately to delete my account, but I’m pretty sure I’d cease to exist to a good chunk of the people I communicate with online.

Oh, rite. Relevant link from Slap in the Facebook: It’s Time for Social Networks to Open Up. Yes, plz.

Messing with AdSense

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I stuck some Google ads on top of my right sidebar (which you can see, if you’re not reading a syndicated version of this post). I get a ridiculous amount of irrelevant hits to a number of pages on this site, so I figured it couldn’t hurt. Ads won’t show up to logged in users, but at the moment, the only logged in user (or user, period) is me. I’ve just set WordPress to allow registration, but I have no idea how susceptible to spammers such nonsense is (I’m guessing… very?), so I’ll probably end up messing with it.

Oh, and I guess this post also serves as a test for MySpace and Twitter crossposting plugins I’ve recently installed.

La dee daaaaa!

Shit list

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$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.

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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.