Does India call everyone or just me?

Really, why do people from India keep calling me?

I can tell this outsourcing to other countries that every company seems to be doing lately is out of control when I come home each day and have three messages from people from India. Yes, from Inida, you can easily pick out that accent.. and yes, I already am on the no-call listing...

The funny part is, they seem to have no concept of what the hell an answering machine is. They seem to try to use it as a loud speaker, as if I am close by and will come running as they yell for me. Very odd.

The woman and I are planning to go see Corpse Bride this weekend. I am not much of a movie goer, I easily know the select few movies I want to go see in a theater. So, my woman jumps on the chance whenever I actually want to go catch a flick. It looks pretty cool and is getting great reviews. I am looking forward too it, though I hear it is not a very long film, just a bit over an hour.

Where does it say "Open 24 hours"?

I just ran across this article dealing with one of my most despised rivals - Oprah Winfrey. For those of you who may not have heard, apparently Oprah was in Paris shopping when she tried to enter a Hermes store.

Now, after perusing the Hermes website, I can see that they appear to be an "upscale" retailer that is happy to sell you neck ties for $145.00 and ash trays for $450.00... whatever.

Anyways, apparently the almighty Oprah was pissed off because she tried to gain access to the store after they had closed and was denied entry, even though there were customers already inside shopping. Wow, I am shocked! Just shocked! OK, I'm lying. Please friggin spare me!

Sounds like a pretty common retail situation there. Customers arrive before you close they get in and get to finish their purchases as you attempt to usher them out the door asap. When it's closing time, no one else gets in. WHY? Because those working folks have lives too! That's why the store actually closes! So people can end their day and go home! If you keep letting people in, you get stuck in a never ending loop and NEVER get to leave!

The worst part about this is that some poor Hermes representative had to go on Oprah's show and kiss her big ass to save face for the company. Cuz God help them if they were known as the store that refused to let Oprah go shopping, right?

Join the rest of us Oprah and just come back tomorrow when they open at 10:00.

A discount it was not

I found something interesting on Google.com the other day. MAPS! Yes, maps. The neat thing is they are not only the typical street maps you can find online these days, but also a satellite overlay map! Yes, images taken from a satellite. Like satellite mapping. For example, here is where my folks live!

Right HERE!

I am actually pretty sure that I will soon get a call from my mom. She will be upset that someone, somewhere, can look up an image of HER house from space! That's just not right!

Tigerdirect.com is still screwing me. Twenty days later, 4 emails, 2 phone calls, and still no refund. All I keep getting is "records indicate that your refund is currently in progress". Progress my ass! It's a Paypal account, works just like a debit or credit card account. You pick the refund option and send, for God's sake. Odd, how Newegg.com can process refunds in three days without a hitch.

So, Tigerdirect.com, kiss my ass! I will no longer deal with you. Will this really hurt their business? Probably not. But we all know it's the principal of the thing.

Oh, and speaking of bad business practices... (seems to be my week for them). I had replace a bad tire this week. I opted for one of the only games in town - Discount Tire. First off, $100 bucks for a tire is, well, kinda steep in my opinion. But hell, I don't know the auto business. But it's just ONE damn tire!

So, getting to my point on bad business. I say, no problem, replace the tire. The guy who helps me up front was very nice, actually. Says it will take about an hour. I am waiting and after a while I hear my car alarm go off. Ah, damn, forgot to disable it. Even with the key it still goes off if you enter the car. No biggie, I head out the door, as the car is like 10 steps from where I was sitting.

"Sorry about that" I say to the dude trying to get into my car. What response do I get?

"Yeah, no problem. It just takes me that much longer to get your car finished."

You have GOT to be fucking kidding me?! Screw you pal. You monkey ass, fucking tire changing low life! Do we as a society even teach social skills anymore? Customer service is really on the decline.

But the really sad part in this instance is, where ELSE can you go for tires? Like, you're not going to go to Sears, are ya? We seem to be getting down to the lesser of two or three shitty choices when it comes to retail.

The word of the day: headache

Today should have been a fairly nice day. I had a meeting earlier today which lasted until around 2:00pm. I figured, great, I can take a half day and go relax and do whatever. Apparently my allergies had other plans for me. My woman has been fighting hardcore allergies all week, particularly at night. They seem to have started affecting me as well. Huge friggin headache. The sinus pills are dulling it, but not getting rid of it like usual. This sucks ass.

Beyond that, my brain hurts too much to think of a more compelling post. So, in order to distract you from my unusual lack of post content, look at this cute puppy in a dress!!

Pleasant surprise

Well, I had an unexpected surprise today. My dad called me at work asking if I wanted to go to lunch with him and my mom. They were hitting this lunch place right next to my work called Flo's Asian Kitchen, or some such. I had not seen my folks in a while, so it was quite nice to meet up with them and catch up a bit.

Now, apparently they both like this place. So hey, that's good! The food though was kinda... well.. blah. I ordered some beef dish. The beef was pretty spongy and soggy. *shrug* So, the food kinda sucked, but the company was great!

I just got off the phone with Tigerdirect.com as I am writing this entry. Now, I normally order all my computer parts from Newegg.com. Newegg friggin rocks hardcore. These guys can't be beat. However, Tigerdirect had a special purchase on a certain video card. I ended up ordering two. They were only able to supply one to me before the item became backordered. (lots of people ordering I suppose). So, I just decided to cancel the order as opposed to waiting. (I'm impatient like that, see...).So, friggin five days later, still no refund. I email them and two days after that I get a response saying it will take another "3 to 5 days". So, now it's TEN days later, still no refund. So, time to talk to someone in person. I got a hold of customer support just now and honestly, the dude could not have sounded more bothered.

He was like, "yeah, we are taking care of that".
To which I was like, "Yeah, great, you said that 10 days ago, when is the credit going through, fuckstick?"

Supposedly this will be taken care of by Monday or Tuesday. We will see. But I am swearing off Tigerdirect.com. Friggin screwballs. Newegg is where it's at.

How black can you get?

Alright, this is a quickie but a goodie. I heard this earlier today and was lucky enough to find it posted on the net already

It is audio of Wolf Blitzer from CNN descbribing the Hurricane survivors in New Orleans.

Now, honestly, if this was said by Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, there would be cries of outrage and demands for an apology. As it happened on CNN, I doubt we will hear anymore of it in the news. Kinda one sided, don't ya think.

Regardless, this clip had me laughing out loud for quite a while.

Click HERE for laughter.

Half a decade

Wow. It has been FIVE years! This weekend marks the 5th anniversary since the woman and I first started seeing each other. Hell, some marriages don't even last that long! Yes, indeed. Five long, arduous, gruelling years. hehe.. Nah, just kidding. We have certainly had our ups and downs, but who doesn't? Overall though, I would still choose my woman!

We went out last night to The Keg for dinner. She had a cute little steak and I had Salmon. Very good dinner. The bread rocked. (I love bread). A nice time was had by all! OK, well, just us two then, but you get the idea.

I have also managed to get two days off in a row! (yesterday and today). This almost never, ever happens. But since it was the holiday weekend, the store was going to be slower for the past few days so I managed to throw myself a bone. Enjoyed them thoroughly I have!

Lots of hanging out with the woman, relaxing, and playing World of Warcraft (with the woman, of course!) I think today will be more of the same, except with the additional viewing of a downloaded copy of Family Guy: the Movie! as well as a taped Battlestar episode that the woman missed last week.

Moving along to the most news worthy topic of late - the hurricane. Of course, you knew some shit would be pulled by these folks. When will she and her husband just disappear already? Oh, sorry, I am talking about Hillary and Bill Clinton! Hillary, apparently, is calling for a 'Katrina Commission' to "probe the government's response to the hurricane".

C'mon for God's sake. I think we all watched what went down on the news. It pretty much went like this: Hurricane, things seem ok, levys break, uhoh, mass flooding, big trouble, and within two days... TWO DAYS!... the Cavalry is there. I am sorry, but it takes time to mobilize and two days to get a full force of military, support personnel, vehicles, food and supplies to an area is pretty good in my book.

You know what kind of probe I want to see? I want to see a probe into why some of the human race in this particular city fell into complete barbarism within a day. Looting, pillaging, murder, rape, lawlessness - in one day from the disaster taking place and these people seeing an "opportunity".

Some people are saying that it is a disgrace that the United States could not mobilize support faster (once again, as if two days is a LONG time under these circumstances). Personally, I see a disgrace in the way a certain element of New Orleans acted during this tragedy. So thanks to those New Orleans, for making your city as well as the United States look like a bunch of savages.

To end on a high note at least. A non sarcastic thank you goes out to those countries who have supplied aid and support without being asked:

Kuwait: $500 million (now that is a nice "Thank you", ain't it?)
Qatar: $100 million
South Korea: $30 million
Sri Lanka: $25,000 (from a small country that just got hit a while back too, that's impressive)

Save me from society

Ah, it has finally happened. A miracle, almost. Many of you who read this site have probably noted my total revilement of the US Postal Service (which also reminds me, I really need to update the "Things that Suck" section!). Well, this past week, a "postal outlet" store opened up right down the street. Now, I am not sure how this works out, but it's a privately owned place that sends out US postal items at regular postal prices. Not like those bullshit Postnet or Mail Boxes Etc joints that charge you double the going price for services.

So, my immediate advantages:
1) close by
2) same pricing
3) no waiting!
4) holy shit, someone smiling at me when I come to do business!

So, one more thing I can cross off my list of annoying god damn things.

Now, back to the subject of the day, the chaos in New Orleans. Death of a city, if the truth be told. A lot of blame already going down about how things got so out of control so fast. However, I feel the finger needs to be pointed right to the heart of the city, though. The mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, and his and the local governments lack of control over the city. You have a local government in place, police forces, national guard, etc - yet nothing seems to have been organized or executed properly. They new this thing was coming. The city is below sea level. They did nothing to minimize the impact what was coming.

Beyond that, lets talk the population of the city itself. I have been seeing some news services point out that the issue is because the majority of the left over population are black and low income levels. Ya know, that "high crime" element. But really, does it not come down to people with low morals, lack of ethics, and low values? I think that is the heart of the issue with the lawlessness going on at the moment. Does race factor in on this? Not sure. Not sure you can say that is part of it or not. But the fact that these folks have a lack of principles and values and have seen an opportunity to take advantage of the situation.

That being said, there is one thing that I am personaly taking away from watching the scenes from the aftermath of this natural disaster (besides thinking about purchasing a weapon for my defense). That when it comes down to something like this, if it ever happened to me or my family, you can rest assured that I will be trusting and guarding no one but myself and those close to me. As it seems, we as a race can not rely on our fellow man to necessarily be compassionate and caring in times of need.