There is a teen who is tasked with managing the dishwasher.
How many dirty dishes do I need to find in my cabinets and drawers before it becomes acceptable to stab the teen with a dirty butter knife?
I mean, just a little flesh wound, not aiming for a vital organ or anything… Yet.
and all is not well…
First of all the furnace in the RV is not working and it is fucking cold. I am worried the fish is going to freeze to death. They (RV rental people) say they will try to get somebody out to repair it in the morning. They also say that I can go pick up a space heater at Walmart and they will reimburse for it. This was not possible as there is no 24 hour Walmart here.
Tried to sleep anyway, despite it being fucking cold. Luckily, I have a warm blanket, a light blanket and a comforter. Xander was so cold he joined me under the covers to sleep, something he never does.
We got 2 hours sleep before Willow came over and peed all over me. She soaked through all my bedding. After I killed her (okay, I didn’t really do that) I checked the pamphlet for the campground. It has a 24 hour laundry room. I bagged up all my stuff, took things so I could shower too, since, umm gross. Hauled my ass and tons of stuff over there and found a sign saying that as of Nov 1, the laundry room was closed from 10PM to 8AM.
I squatted on the sidewalk and cried quietly, so as not to wake the other campers.
I am cold and exhausted and have no place I call home. This 25 foot box is physically stressful to drive. My back and neck are killing me. I smell like cat piss, and I have no blankets to keep warm. I can’t even begin a load until 8. Who knows when somebody will come to fix my heater or how long that will take. I am already a day late and at risk for missing the movers on the other end. Check out time is noon, so if they can’t fix it by then… Well I won’t have slept anyway by then.
I would toss all this bedding and buy new stuff so I could sleep, and a space heater… except, yeah, no 24 hour Walmart (or anything else).
Xander has refused to use the kitty litter since setting foot in the box on wheels too, so perhaps we’ll have an encore soon. If not him, I’m sure Willow will do something. She hates me.
The fucking Walmart can’t even bother with an answering machine that lets me know what time they do open.
Somebody just forwarded me an email with 3 attachments, a pdf, a pub and a wps.
Can you open these? I can only open the pdf file. I have no idea what to do with the others.
I opened the non-pdf ones, created pdfs from them and sent them back. Not a huge deal.
Here’s the thing. Also included in the forward was the email, a portion of which says:
If you have any trouble opening any of these let me know and I will see if I can fax it to you or send it in another format.
Why exactly is the first impulse to send ME an email telling me about the trouble opening them? I can imagine that they might think getting it in another format won’t go smoothly, but I know for a fact that when this person is sending me an email they are sitting right next to a fax machine.
Also, the original sender is a business, trying to get a new customer. Why are they sending their information out like this? Not only are they sending three different documents (each one page only) in three different formats. They have also named them full sentences with spaces and periods, as in an extra . before the .extension. Surely this creates problems fairly often for the people they send them to. Why don’t they ask somebody what they should do instead? They totally overcharge for their services, they could afford to learn how to do it correctly.
A couple of weeks ago I made a black & white 8 X 10 ad for somebody to use in some dumbass program they were buying an ad in.
Last week they contacted me wanting to know if I still had a copy, and wanting me to send a PDF of it to another email address. They were purchasing an ad in a new program. Let’s not even address the fact that the first ad was personalized to the program it was being printed in.
I asked, “You are getting another 8 x 10 ad?” (It is an usually large ad.)
He asked, “Does it matter?”
I tried to explain to him that it did. It turned out he didn’t KNOW what size ad he was purchasing, just that he had agreed to spend a certain amount of money, so he was going to ask and get back to me.
He got back to me and told me that it was a 5 X 7 program and he was getting a half page ad. “Can you just reuse the old ad?”
“No, I really can’t. I’ll make a new one.”
Now, is the half page adspace 5 X 3.5 or is that the size of the paper, with the adspace being a bit smaller? Of course I have to wait to get the answer to that because he doesn’t know.
Today I get email that says:
they said to make it 5 x 3.5 and they will modify the size as needed.
they may enlarge the size to 8x 10 because kinko’s may do their
printing for free.
That, my friends, is why when you see ads in programs for dumbass little events they always look like total shit and the logos are completely stretched and distorted.
I HATE that, so I will email them a 5 X 3.5 design and an 8 X 5 design. I know it doesn’t matter, because they will no doubt use the wrong one for whatever fricken size they end up with. As long as nobody ever ever ever shows me the finished product, hopefully my head will not explode.
ETA: To be clear, yes I mind a little that he doesn’t just get the fact that an 8 X 10 ad can’t be used as a 5 X 3.5 ad, just because it means I have to work a bit to keep THAT tone out of my voice when I answer. I accept the fact that if most people feel like they “have somebody” who understands “that stuff” they call before they think. Also, you go to some portrait studio to have photos taken and they show you the proof and give you check boxes to selects photos in a variety of sizes. It is presented as if all these sizes will be the exact same visually, but in a different size. With photos they typically handle the aspect ratio problem by cropping and a lot of people won’t notice the difference. With print ads they usually distort to handle aspect ratio differences, the look of which drives me completely crazy. Or they maintain the aspect ratio and shrink to fit and create useless whitespace while a client is paying for a certain amount of advertising space.
What really pisses me off are the people on the other end. I don’t care if they are just volunteering to help some organization raise money and this isn’t their real job. If they are asking people to give them money in order to print and distribute an ad, they should make an effort to give those purchases a chance of having the best had possible. They should have an instruction sheet detailing out everything (preferred format, resolution, various ad sizes, type of color, b&w or grayscale, bleed, etc). If the purchasers are too stupid to follow the instructions that is one thing, but don’t just plan to do a half-assed job from the get go and then have the nerve to have people pay their hard earned money for your shitty nonchalant services.
For the people selling the ads and giving the instructions to say it should be made as a 5 X 3.5 and they will just resize it if they change to an 8 x 10 sheet (and notice they plan to resize it up, not down which will increase the quality issues) just irritates the crap out of me.
Senate Panel Slams Abusive Credit Card Practices
Credit cards can be used to the consumer’s benefit. Credit cards can be abused to the consumer’s downfall. They can be used in a great many ways in between. The fact that the majority of Americans use them poorly says a lot more about our education system and lack of parenting in this country than it does about the credit card companies. They are in business to make money. If people cannot be bothered to read before entering an agreement that can seriously impact the financial health of their family, they are the ones who need fixing.
Here is an excerpt from the article about one of the people who testified at the hearing:
Wesley Wannemacher, a Lima, Ohio resident who testified at the hearing, was one of those consumers.
Wannemacher described how he had maxed out his $3,000 Chase Bank card to pay for his wedding, and found himself falling further and further behind in payments as he had more expenses to take care of. Despite pleas to Chase to work with him, the bank continued to pile on late fees and penalty fees.
“Debt seems to invoke a feeling of hopelessness unlike any other problem I’ve encountered,” Wannemacher said. “When a debtor calls you on the phone and you make a minimum payment, you know that you’ve made no real progress and that in a month, they will be calling again.”
Eventually Wannemacher ended up owing $7,500 in interest fees, late payment fees, and overlimit fees on an original debt of $3,200.
Even after making payments totaling $6,300, he still owed $4,400 in fees. Wannamacher had contacted Levin’s office, who invited him to testify. Right before he did so, Chase agreed to forgive the balance on his account.
WTF, seriously? This guy decided to put on a wedding more lavish than he could afford. He did it. He got the goods. He overcharged the amount of credit that he had. Guess what, that is against the terms, and they assess fees for that. It says it in every terms of service pamphlet I have gotten from a credit card company. Also, there is this thing called interest. The credit card companies charge interest when you borrow money from them. They charge interest on the interest you owe them if you don’t pay it off right away. They charge interest on the late fees if you don’t pay those off right away. Also, if you start screwing up your account, they raise your interest rate. Those pretty rates are ones that they offer to financially responsible people.
Don’t get me wrong, I know the credit card companies prey upon the weakness and stupidity and fucked up sense of entitlement of the masses. They advertise and advertise and try to lure people in and it gives people the false sense that they should spend money they probably shouldn’t spend. I am not a fan of the credit card companies for a pile of reasons, from their marketing practices (quit offering pre-approved cards to my dog, thank you very much), to their constant mailings because of the changes in the terms of service that happen every 5 days, to their complete lack of decent customer service. Those are just more reasons to read the application carefully. Then if you choose to apply, read all the damn paperwork they send you. If you don’t agree cut up the card and close the damn account. If a chance is made to the terms of service after you already carry a balance with them, you can quit using the card and notify them in writing that you do not agree and you pay off the debt according to your old terms.
The credit card companies are not getting people into this situation. The people are getting themselves into it. It isn’t really their fault though, at least that is what my government is telling me. I guess a government that can’t balance the fucking budget would have to believe that. I wonder how much this hearing cost our nation?
I am tired. I have grease smudges on my face. My hands hurt and two nails are broken. Not in that “eek I broke my nails” way, that isn’t really my style, but in that ripped down “fuck THAT hurts” way. However there are now two working headlights on the car. Unfortunately I didn’t finish the work early enough this morning, so my car is gone for the day again. Not a huge deal, but it is in need of an oil change so I’d rather it not make the longer commute. My commute down the hallway in my jammies is much easier on the car.
The manual said to remove six clips, which I did. This allowed me to remove the “engine cover” some dumbass plastic piece of limited use. This I also did. The instructions up to that point were clear and things were okay. Next it points out that on the “right side” by which they mean the passenger side there are some extra steps. I was working on the driver’s side, so I skipped those steps. I removed the connector. Then came time to move the bulb cover, an annoying rubber thing. I tried and tried, but there was no way that I could. There was not enough room for my hand, and my hands are not huge.
So I removed the fuse box cover, not a suggested step, but it gave me a little extra room to maneuver and messed with it and messed with it and messed with it until I got the outside ring of bulb cover. Yay? No. The cover refuses to come off. The rubber is still firmly attached to the bulb and it is putting pressure on the bulb and moving it instead of coming off.
The manual just says to turn the cover counterclockwise and remove it and goes on to the next step. It makes it sound pie easy.
I turn to the internet and discover other people complaining that the driver’s side is a real PITA. Okay, little manual writing monkeys. Here is an idea. Do not reserve your extra instructions for the side that is easier. While I found plenty of people complaining about it, they were complaining about the step before where they were trying to get the outside ring to detach. I resorted to posting on a forum requesting more details. Nobody responded. I could post a photo of a naked tit and get 100 comments in the first 5 minutes, but getting a useful response to a problem is a whole different story.
Eventually I go back outside and channel my father and just decide I do not need to be careful about the fragile glass bulb and instead I should go ahead and force it. I force it, and it eventually gives. The rubber has threading on it to help it grip very tight. It is never going to come off breezily. I still have not won because there is a clip shown in the manual, except I cannot see the fucking thing, and it is difficult to feel and they just say to remove it and don’t give any more detail on how. I fiddle and fiddle and finally get it undone. It is at the clip stage that I rip the two nails.
I replace the burnt out bulb with the new one. I reassemble the headlamp portion and test it out. It works.
Next it is time to put the engine cover back on. This goes smoothly except for dropping one of the clips. Of course I cannot drop it in an area where it will fall easily through to the ground. I drop it where it is caught in something out of site and out of reach. The cover is now secured by five clips instead of six.
I hope the neighbors enjoyed all the swearing.
In other news, the move to the other computer has gone more poorly than I was even expecting and I am very slowed down on all my projects because of it. I am typing this as I try to get some other things copied that I did not expect to need to move in this particular fashion.
Oh yeah, and the worst thing about doing car crap first thing in the morning, is that I have to put on pants.