8 posts tagged “rant”

I hate it when people post cryptic status updates.  They're just begging you to ask what the fuck they're talking about, then when you do ask for some details, they reply with another cryptic comment.  WTF???  I thought the whole point of FB was to communicate with friends and family.  This is just teasing, not communicating. 

P.S.  Everyone, please stop beating me up and stealing all my money in Mafia Wars.

The IRS announced today that it will allow victims of Bernie Madoff to claim a tax deduction for most their losses.  I lost $10,000 to a Nigerian prince who promised me millions if I would help him get his money out of the country.  Where's my tax deduction?  The point being, while I feel sorry for the people (and especially the charities) that lost money at his hands, at some point you have to take responsibility for your own actions.  You can't entirely blame other people or circumstances for your plight.

Same goes for the huge government mortgage bailouts going on right now.  These people spent hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on homes they knew they couldn't afford, but could get anyway.  Who cares about future rates; I can get a McMansion!  Now the shit hits the fan and the government bails them out.  What does that say to people like me, who bought within their means, who have a reasonable mortgage and have been paying it on time for years?  I play by the rules and get nothing.  Instead, the government rewards the cheaters.  That gives me no incentive to do the right thing in the future.  Fuck 'em.  I'm going to be Tony Sopranno from now on.  Take what ever I can get and run.  Is that really the message the government wants to send?

I'm slowly coming to the realization that maybe I shouldn't be driving.  Or should be driving less, as I'm becoming an increasingly intolerant driver.  Or maybe just an impatient one.  All these dilwads going 20 mph down the street need to get the FUCK out of my way.  Seriously.  If you don't know where you're going, pull the fuck over, consult a map, then you can drive again.  Otherwise you're just pissing off me and the ten other cars behind you.  I've got places to go and people things things to do.  Move.

Oh, and if you're going to make a turn, please signal BEFORE you slow down and enter the intersection.  By the time you're half way through the turn, I've figured out what you're going to do.  No need to signal now. 

Henry Rollins has a great routine on Think Tank called Airport Hell where he goes off on the stupid people at airports who can't follow simple directions from the flight attendant (he suggests changing the lighted sign overhead in airplanes to "sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up") and hold up everyone else in the line.  He wants to sue them not for financial damages, but for the time they've wasted.  You should be able to get back those fifteen minutes spent waiting for the idiot ahead of you inline to find his/her ticket.  Guaranteed, or your wasted time will be refunded.

I'm exhausted beyond reason and just in a pissy mood today.  Thank you for your indulgence.

People are maddingly inconsistent.  I was looking through my iTunes genres, most of which were either automatically generated when I ripped the album, or generated by someone else when I "found" the music somewhere on the Internets.  What exactly is the difference between rock, rock & roll, rock/roll, and rock/pop?  And speaking of iTunes & iPod (or is it iTunes/iPod?), why are genres case sensitive?  When I browse by genres I see Rock separate from rock, and Alternative separate from alternative.   Not to mention alternative rock and alt/rock.  Isn't this just splitting hairs?

P.S.  While I'm dissing iTunes, why can't you change the naming format when it rips songs?  Why does it have to be "# track name"?   Even Windows Media Player lets you pick any combination of artist, track number, track name, album name, AND you can specify the delimiter -- dash, space, etc.  Way for Microsoft to have one up on Apple.

Dear Panera kitchen employees:

I love your restaurant.  I really do.  Especially the Tomato & Fresh Mozzarella salad.  With fresh basil.  Which should look like this:

It has leaves and is green and tasty.  Unlike the salad I was served the other day, which had little brown sticks.  They're called twigs:

So I'm having lunch at my favorite Panera bakery downtown.  Nothing fancy, just a small, quiet place to hang out and have some soup late on a cold, Friday afternoon.  I'm relaxed, reading my magazine, when suddenly a loud metallic clicking sound intrudes on my consciousness.  Then again, and again, in a regular pattern every couple of seconds. 

I know that sound well, as I hate it with a passion.  Years ago, a co-worker of mine would sit at his desk in our communal office space and start clipping his nails.  After a while, the sound drove me nuts.  Nice guy, but I wanted to strangle him.  Go home, for fuck's sake, and do it in the bathroom or over a garbage can like rest of the civilized world.  Not at the office.  And certainly not while sitting across from me at a restaurant!  That's disgusting.  Didn't your mamma raise you any better than that?

Sorry for the long silence.  I've been busy, and haven't had an overwhelming urge to say anything.

Today I'm pissed at all the little shit.  Like I've been calling the fertility clinic's business administrator since last Friday trying to get some idea, even approximately, what our charges for the aspiration two weeks ago were, so we can figure out how much insurance money we have left.  And to get her to contact my insurance company, because it turns out we might get some coverage that way.  I didn't think I had jack shit for infertility coverage, but it turns out I do.  Except they need a letter from my doctor first.  I've left three messages and she hasn't called me back.  Tomorrow I stop being nice.

I have an appointment Friday with a new doctor, a general medicine guy, since my primary doc moved to Ann Arbor a year ago to chase coeds (ok, not literally, but he is a highly eligible widower).  The new doc wants my medical records from the old doc.  I faxed over the release form two weeks ago and they still haven't sent the files over.  First it's, Oh, we only transfer records once a week.  Now they can't find my records.  WTF.  You're supposed to be professionals.  Get it together, people.

Oh, and I finally solved a nagging issue with Quickbooks 2007.  The client has it installed on two workstations and their server.  They created the data file on a workstation, and want it moved to a secure share on the server.  No problem, or so I thought.  I won't bore you with the technical details, all the time I spent researching and testing solutions (let's just say it was large, but not obscene), but I finally found a solution that worked.  The amazing part to me was how many people are having problems with QB 2007, and how many different solutions there were for three or four similar problems.  The take away is that I was proud of myself for resolving the f'ing thing.  Plus, I can finally submit a time sheet.

Now it's 1 AM, and I still haven't eaten dinner.  There's nothing in the fridge.  Actually, that would make a good question of the day -- What's in your refrigerator?  Submit a verbal description, photograph, rap song listing the items, or oil painting.  The freezer has a gathering (according to MS Word, that's a synonym of "bunch," a word I over use) of Amy's frozen dinners.  Today's randomly selected winner is the Indian Paneer Tikka.   "Bake for 20 minutes, remove foil, bake for an additional 20 minutes."  I DON'T THINK SO.  "Nuke for 4 -5 minutes."  Eminently more reasonable.  Just add wine and it suspiciously resembles food.

1. What's with the Girls Gone Wild thing?  Seriously.  I don't get it.  I enjoy the female form at least as much as the next guy, but just buy a fucking porno (excuse me -- adult erotica).  The only thing I can think of is that maybe they're slightly more socially acceptable to have lying around on your movie shelf then porn, but that's a pretty poor excuse.
2. Somehow I got on the mailing list for the Playboy catalog, a 40-page glossy picture book of artificially-enhanced women that looks like a cross between Victoria's Secret and Frederick's of Hollywood.  This so-called catalog is the best laugh I've had all day.  Most of their apparel looks like bad 80's slut clothes.  Although I will admit that their use of Flash (or whatever) to zoom in on the pictures on the web site is very, umm...creative.  
3. Big props out to a blog I just found, thebitterlinguist, for having a blog worth reading and listing "bemoaning my fate" among her various interests.