The Airing of Grievances

F You, Verizon

I have been trying to get a new phone from Verizon for THREE F-ING MONTHS. 

THREE MONTHS!

LeBron Owes Nothing to Me

Wait a second...did I ask him for something?

I've been told on more than a few occasions that LeBron doesn't owe me anything. And I agree...he doesn't. Did I get drunk and ask him for $20?

We Aren't Friends, GEICO.

That's what real lizards look like. They don't stroll into your office and speak about your auto coverage in a British accent. Hells no. They climb onto rocks and SCREAM AT YOUR FACE!

I mentioned last week or so that I took a Mensa test out of curiosity. As it turns out, I qualified for it and was faced with the choice of paying $60 to join a club full of pretentious douchebags that explain how they can solve life's problems because they are gifted and how they like to relax by playing the fucking flute in the study, or simply telling them to fuck off and go about my day. Well...what tipped the scales in the "join" direction was the partnership they had with GEICO. HEY! I have GEICO! They insure my Ferrari Altima! Perfect. I had to call and get that added to my record.

And while I hate talking to "Rick from India" for all of my customer service needs, I think I may actually prefer that to the new, friendly-to-the-point-that-you-feel-raped service that GEICO is providing these days. It's too much.

"Hello sir and thank you for calling GEICO! How may I help you? Can I lick your balls? I bet they're smooth as eggs!".

He'd be right.

Maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, but that's how I felt after he was done. The beginning wasn't so bad outside of the overtly-peppy voice inflection that this homo was using, but the ending was. Oh, the ending was bad. Listen, GEICO, I'm done. I did what I needed to do. Don't tell me that your goal is to provide me with great service and that you hoped that you accomplished that and that if there is anything else you can help me with you'd be more than happy to do so and it would make your day and you hope that I have a great day and you hope that this call was a good experience for me and SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP. I just want to get off the phone. Fuck.

He mentioned that I may receive a survey and that if there's anything he could do to make my experience better please let him know and that I would be asked to rate the service on this survey and guhhhhhhhh. I would have probably given the standard 5 5 5 5 response before all of this, but now I'm inclined to let GEICO know that they are just too fucking friendly. Stop it, GEICO. I'd almost rather talk to an Indian.

GEICO isn't the only company that can learn. I was reminded by a GMail search that I bought a warranty on my car last June. I was reminded of course because I probably need to use it, which sucks. Anyway, they congratulated me upon the purchase of my extended warranty.

Congratulated. What the hell is up with that?

Listen, bitches. Don't congratulate me because I was able to spend money on your gay warranty. Why don't you thank me for doing so? The cashiers at Publix/Giant Eagle/Kroger's/Vons/Wegmann's/Fuckbasket/whatever grocery store you frequent do not congratulate you upon your purchase of frozen peas. Or your purchase of a whole Italian sub. "Here are your Crest Whitestrips. Congratulations on your purchase!" Fuck you too, car insurance company.

I recently received a quote in the mail for car insurance through All-State. $39.83 a month. Looked wayyyyyy too good to be true, but f it. I'll call. What can it hurt? So I called. The dude answered in a normal voice. I told him the deal. So I gave him my coverages, and he came out with a quote of $143/month.

Fuck All-State.

I mentioned the letter and he really answered it truthfully and you know what, that was great. It ain't his fault. And I knew it wasn't going to stand.

Then, he didn't tell me that I might receive a survey or read a paragraph wishing me a great day and fruitful life. He just hung up the phone like a normal person.

It would almost be worth paying the extra money for All-State insurance.

Lay-Offs...

...all around me. I keep looking for a trend but there's just nothing. SVPs, directors, managers, individual contributors, people who I consider friends, people who are really good at their jobs, people that aren't so much, people who just had a child, people who just had a grandchild, people who've been here for 25 years, people who've been here for one. It's just a whole day of whispers and tears and every time you hear an office door shut, it sends a chill down your spine. Someone else just got thrown into an empty job market. Mix all that in with the anxiety caused by the fact that at any given second, the tap could be on my shoulder and this is truly the epitome of surreal.

I can't believe it's only 10:27.

I'M GOING TO FIX YOUR FINANCIAL CRISIS

HI MY NAME IS NEEL KASHKARI AND I AM THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO BE OVERSEEING THIS $700 BILLION BUY-OUT THAT YOU MAY HAVE HEARD ABOUT. IT'S NOT SOMETHING THAT YOU COULD HAVE MISSED WHILE BLINKING, OR AT LEAST THAT'S WHAT I'M TOLD AS I HAVE NEVER BLINKED IN MY ADULT LIFE.

I'M GOING TO GET THIS ALL STRAIGHTENED OUT SO THAT WE CAN GET OUR FINANCIAL SITUATION BACK TO NORMAL. I'M GOING TO THINK REALLY HARD AND USE A LOT OF BRAIN POWER. THIS WILL MAKE MY HEAD GLOW. AVOID ME AT THESE TIMES, EVEN IF I STARE AT YOU. I'M REALLY NOT LOOKING AT YOU, IT JUST APPEARS THAT WAY. I'M ACTUALLY JUST PROBABLY PRETENDING TO BE AN EAGLE. AWWWK AWWWWK SWOOOOOOP AWWWWK AWWWWWK. PEOPLE TELL ME I LOOK LIKE A BALD EAGLE. THEN I TELL THEM THAT I USED TO BE A VP AT GOLDMAN SACHS. WHAT KIND OF EAGLE WORKS AT GOLDMAN SACHS. NO EAGLES DO IS THE CORRECT ANSWER. BUT YOU PROBABLY WOULDN'T KNOW THAT BECAUSE YOU WEREN'T A VP AT GOLDMAN SACHS LIKE I WAS.

LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKING AT YOU.

 

NO TRADERS OR EXECUTIVES ARE GOING TO REVERT TO THEIR OLD BEHAVIOR DURING THIS PROCESS BECAUSE I AM GOING TO BE STARING DIRECTLY AT THEM THE WHOLE TIME. YOU CANNOT HIDE FROM ME UNLESS YOU HIDE IN MY EYEBROWS AND I WILL MAKE SURE THAT NO ONE HIDES IN MY BROWS. DO YOU HEAR THAT WALL ST? I'M NOT GOING TO ALLOW THIS TO FAIL. YOU CAN WRITE THAT DOWN ON A WRITING SURFACE WITH INK OR BLOOD OR SOMETHING ELSE SEMI-PERMANENT. IN THE MEANTIME PLEASE EXCUSE ME BECAUSE I HAVE SOME WORK TO DO AND I HAVE TO FIX THE FINANCIAL CRISIS. OK BYE.

Chiles Looking For Bailout Lowdown

The kid is overseas and, very thankfully, the kid has not been following the news at all. That said, the kid is quite interetested in this bailout stuff. What's the lowdown? What happened? How should I feel about my portfolio? The kid did try to do a little personal diligence but You Go Girl!!! Sarah! did not help. What's the dealie Greivers? (Gracias, Ocho)

Lightening the Mood with some Gayness

From LiveLeak.com via ESDBS. Hey, Jackie, you haven't added the 365gay.com tag yet. Come on, man! Get on it.

I tried embedding the video. It didn't work. Someone help me out!!!!!!! SOS!!!!!

Hey Look...Irony!!!

Good news if you're a surfer out there who occasionally has visions of Jaws sneaking up behind them. For a mere $645.00, you can now ensure yourself the freedom of surfing without having to deal with those pesky shark attacks! I give you... The Shark Shield. It's a device that attaches to the bottom of your surfboard and sends out electronic waves that induce spasms in the shark's nose. This was almost enough to get me to surf but unfortunately there's one minor glitch.

Whilst being tested in South Africa, under the supervision of the Natal Sharks Board, a female great white ate a Shark Shield device that had been attached to a float. This has been the cause of speculation that the electrical fields designed to repel sharks might in fact attract them. The manufacturer claims that the device does work but that due to the design it will only be effective while a surfer is stationary and waiting for a wave.

Awesome. She ate the shark repellent. Thank god for quality control because you'd have to think that having a product on the market designed to repel sharks that actually attracted them could ignite some fairly serious lawsuits down the road.

This sort of reminds me of the time that my cat had fleas so I had my wife hold her down and I grabbed the bottle of flea spray and completely doused the thing while it was having a tantrum. Turns out the bottle I grabbed wasn't the flea spray but a bottle of cat repellent that you spray on furniture to keep the cats away. The stuff is so repugnant to cats that you just need to spray a little on your couch and they won't go within 5 feet of it. We gave this thing a bath in that stuff. She must have wanted to kill herself.

Alright, it's not really like that at all but regardless...that cat fucking hates me to this day.

Why Do You Hate Us?

I was watching The Wire on HBO this past weekend. The whole "Wire" thing is confusing the hell out of me because I thought it was supposed to be some intense urban drama and now it appears to be a documentary on the journalism industry, or does HBO have two shows with the same exact name that have nothing to do with each other? I honestly have no clue and google didn't clear anything up for me either so I'll just digress.

The basic premise of the show is that the newspaper industry is declining as it's cheaper and more convenient for people to obtain their product from the internet (at least that was the premise of this particular show). I think it said that about 3% of people between the ages of 20-35 get their news from newspapers. Most newspaper journalists seem to think that they dropped the ball by providing the news for free on the internet. What I didn't realize was the complete and utter disdain that newspaper journalists have for bloggers.

Shave and a Haircut?

I like my barber.  He does a good job on my hair (and this is something that is nearly impossible).  However, I hate the chit chat.  I try to answer each question with one word answers, but yet he doesn't get the message that I don't want to talk.  At the same barbershop, I notice other customers in in-depth conversations, chest bumping, and giving intricate handshakes with their barber.  Is there some interpersonal relationship that I'm missing out on here? 

Furthermore, the barbershop is really racially mixed.  However, white people only get their hair cut by the white/latino barbers; while black people only get their hair cut by the black barbers.  One time, when I was in a hurry, I thought I could get my haircut before an interview.  When I showed up, there were no white/latino barbers to cut my hair.  I wanted a haircut, and I really didn't care who did it; as long as my hair was cut.  I was the only person in line, yet the three barbers were really taking their time with their current customers.  I felt like they were trying to go as slow as possible because they didn't want to be the one to cut the white person's hair (example:  one guy had a shaved head, yet the barber was still fiddling around with it for 20 minutes).  After over an hour of waiting, I ended up having to leave after because time was short.  I left angry; but after I thought about it, I wondered if they didn't want to cut my hair because they weren't sure how to style a white persons hair.  Anyway, let's say I go back and have the time, and there are two barbers available: one white (not my barber) and one black.  Should I go with the white person under the assumption that he/she is trained to cut only white people's hair?  I'm not sure on the etiquette here.