Tag: ranty rant

  • Open Letter: Neighbor Edition

    Dear Neighbors,

    Hi. I’m sure you’ve noticed that we’ve moved into your neighborhood. For one thing there was the whole giant moving truck thing. For another a couple of you come and stare out your windows at us whenever we are doing something in the front yard. For another thing, we clear our driveway and the sidewalk when it snows.

    The last time it snowed, it snowed only lightly, but we still cleared it. I’m sure that made some of you talk. Crazy people clearing now when there is so little of it. I notice that only one other person on the street bothered to clear theirs.

    The thing is? I’m from California and I don’t fucking like snow on the driveway, not even a thin layer. It stays there and then it freezes to a hard slippery layer, and then everything that we need to do on our driveway is more difficult to do safely, like walking, or driving.

    So, when your kids come and get into snowball fight in THIS front yard? And cause a bunch of snow to get in the driveway as they throw shit and make snow balls out of the snow piles we’ve carefully cleared from the driveway? It pisses me right the fuck off.

    And yes, it is important that the driveway be cleared off with the noisy shovels after 10 PM at night, because I don’t want to get up early in the morning to do it, and I don’t care if you don’t like the noise, and go ahead and keep staring at me out your window.

    I don’t want kids playing in the yard. I don’t want to be your friend. What I want is a moat and a 20 foot wall, but this is a rental.

    – Cranky, Un-neighborly, Unfriendly Me

  • Before You Call Me For Help

    Reboot the fucking computer.

    Also, repeating over and over (and over) “but… it was working just fine before” is not going to help.

    Thank you.

  • Do Me A Favor

    Let me make it clear. In general, I do not mind being asked to do favors for people.

    Some people think that I say yes too often, but what matters is what I think, and that is not what I am writing about today. I will take the time to point out that if I do, it is MY FAULT. I am not interested in blaming anybody else for a task I have taken on, as a favor to them. I am also not going to discuss why I say yes a large portion of the time. I know why, I don’t need help realizing it, and NO it is not because I am looking for validation. I do other dumb shit for validation. Favors are not a part of that. Having people rely on me does not make me feel better about myself. I am not saying it makes me feel worse, I am just trying to make it absolutely crystal clear that:

    A) In general I do not mind being asked to do favors.
    B) If I happen to say yes when perhaps I should not have, I do not blame the people for asking.
    C) My doing favors has zero to do with some need to be needed by vast quantities of people.

    Is it clear yet? I doubt it. Nonetheless, I will go on.

    When somebody is taking the time to do you a favor, take a bit of your time to grasp what the hell it is they are doing for you. Do not assume that because they do something well, it is easy. You cannot, will not, or choose not, to do it, which is why you asked for the favor. I get that. I am not expecting an intimate knowledge of the process out of you. However, you have asked somebody to take the time out of their life to do something in benefit of your life. It is just good manners to try to understand what level of time and effort are needed to go into completing that favor for you. You might even try to understand it and decide if it is worth that time and effort before having them commit to doing the favor.

    So yeah, my description of the problems inherent in the “little favor” you are asking me to do for you, might seem long winded and boring. It is taking far less of your time to listen to me, than it is of my time, to do the work for you. LISTEN. HEAR. ATTEMPT TO GROK. I was not speaking because I like the sound of my voice. I am trying to teach you something, so that you understand why you should not get yourself into the same situation over and over again.

    Go ahead, ask me to do you a favor. That is fine. Do not mistake my competence and work ethic for something being quick and easy. At least give the impression that you are aware what it is you are actually asking of me, especially when I have taken the extra time out of my life to explain it to you.

    Thank you.

  • Another Day, Another Annoyance

    Last week on Wednesday the 14th I ordered something at around 10 AM. I upgraded the shipping to next morning shipping. The place I was ordering from is 60 miles away from my house. Even shipping ground should have gotten it here overnight with no problem, but they also claimed that any order before 2 PM would ship same day if you paid for the upgrade, whereas ground orders would go out within 2 business days. I wanted to have it by Friday so it was worth it to me to pay the extra, because if they happened to take the full 2 business days to ship, I’d have to wait through the weekend.

    On the 15th in the afternoon I got an email that said it had shipped on the 14th and provided me with a tracking number. Now obviously if the order shipped by next morning delivery on the 14th, as it should have, I would already have it by the time this confirmation email was sent on the 15th. I did not have it. I was annoyed but not yet completely pissed off. I just needed the item by the 16th. I clicked on the link to the tracking information that was sent in the shipping email. It took me to the FedEx website where I got this message.

    Not found
    No information for the following shipments has been received by our system yet. Please try again later or contact Customer Service.

    There was also a link in the email to contact customer care if I had any questions. I tried filling out the form there, but it refused to submit properly. I tried to call, but they were already closed for the day. I tried looking up my order on their website. It claimed to have shipped on the 14th and also linked me to the same tracking information with the same result.

    The 16th arrived and my package still did not. I had a very busy day. I tried once to reach them by phone but the hold time proved beyond my ability to wait through from home and my call was dropped by cell. Their customer service was closed by the time I made it home again and had a chance to breathe and think and make another phone call. I checked the tracking info again and got the same result. I tried submitting the web form a few more times. They were closed all weekend.

    I called this morning, and waited on hold until I was able to speak to somebody. I gave my order number and explained that I did not have my package and FedEx claimed to not have my package either and that I was not exactly pleased with the situation.

    The man explained to me that the tracking number was for DHL, not FedEx.

    “Umm, you do see that the email I was sent and the account information on your website both say FedEx?”

    “Yes, I think that is just a programming error, but the package was sent by DHL, so let me look that up for you…”

    (In the meantime I look it up on DHL myself.

    Tracking summary
    Current Status Processed at DHL Location.
    Est. Delivery Date: 3/15/2007

    Tracking history
    Status
    3/14/2007 10:25 pm Processed at DHL Location. Riverside, CA
    3/14/2007 6:54 pm Departing origin. Fullerton, CA
    3/14/2007 4:18 pm Picked Up by DHL. Shipper’s Door)

    “…Okay, it tells me that DHL still has the package, so let me give you the tracking number and the contact number and you can call DHL and see what the problem is. Once you have your package, call us back and we will credit you back the difference for the upgraded shipping.”

    *deep breath*

    “I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Why do you want ME to contact DHL?”

    “It shows me that they have your package still. There might be some problem with your address, so you should call them.”

    “I bought this from you. I paid you for it. It is your job to get make sure I get it. I did not buy it from DHL.”

    “Yes, but DHL has your package and there might be a problem with your address.”

    “Well I am looking at my confirmation email from you and you have my address correct in that email. I provided you with the correct address. If DHL has something wrong about my address, it is between you and DHL. Why don’t YOU contact DHL and find out what is going on?”

    “DHL has your package.”

    “Yes, but I bought this from you. This is your problem. I don’t understand why I should be expected to do work to solve this. Why should I be on hold with DHL, you are the ones who pay DHL. I paid you. Why should I wait on hold again to talk to you later in order to get a refund?”

    “I can escalate this to customer concerns and they will email you back.”

    “When will that happen?”

    “Within 24 to 48 hours.”

    *really deep breath*

    “On the 14th I paid for next morning shipping because I needed the item last week. I don’t understand why I now have to wait 24 to 48 hours for you to contact me back and tell me what you are going to do about it.”

    “That is just an outside estimate.”

    “When are you going to contact DHL?”

    “I will escalate it to customer concerns and they will contact DHL.”

    “When will they do that?”

    “Within 20 minutes.”

    “Then why will I not hear back from them for 48 hours?”

    “That is an outside estimate, in case DHL needs to get back to them. DHL may take time to look up the information. If they have lost the package then we will need to ship you a new one. That will go out tomorrow, so it will be 48 hours.”

    “If somebody is going to contact DHL within 20 minutes, why can’t they contact me then to give me a status report?”

    “DHL might have to get back to them.”

    “Can I speak right now to the person who needs to contact DHL?”

    “I need to send the report first to escalate it, but they will get to it as soon as possible.”

    “Within 24 to 48 hours?”

    “That is an outside estimate.”

    “You are less than 2 hours away from my house.”

    “Yes, I see that from the address you provided.”

    “But it might take 48 hours for you to get back to me about how I will get a package that I ordered for next morning delivery, last week?”

    “They will get to it as soon as they can.”

    “Why don’t you just ship out a replacement order today, so I can have it tomorrow. You and DHL can figure out what to do about the other package?”

    “Yes, we will do that.”

    “So I can expect my order to be here tomorrow morning? Whether it is a second shipment, or the original, I will have my order tomorrow morning?”

    “Yes.”

    “And, you’ll be refunding me the difference on shipping?”

    “Yes.”

    “Okay, I will look for that on my credit card.

    “Is there anything else I can help you with today.”

    “No, I really don’t think so.”

    Along with my general joy over the order, I also have to wonder… What is with DHL? They have in their system that it has an expected delivery of the 15th, it is past the 15th and that is it, just no further updates? I am not convinced that I would necessarily call that package tracking. If they got something with an incorrect address, shouldn’t there be some sort of procedure for getting the correct address from the shipper? They did pick it up from the shipper’s location, so they know where THAT is. They could just go take it back.

    I am tired. My 3.5 hours of sleep did not give me enough energy to deal with this. I wonder if I will get my part tomorrow. Somehow I rather doubt it.

    Oh yeah, for the curious, I ordered from Targus

    .

    Targus Group International, Inc. pioneered the notebook carrying case category, partnering with corporations, retailers, and OEMs to provide the best possible protection for notebook PCs. Targus continues to define and shape the market for mobile computing cases and accessories. As the leading global supplier of portable solutions, Targus has offices on every continent and distributes in over 145 countries.

    Impressive.

  • People Make Me TIRED

    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.

  • Open Letter: Naked Flickr Folks Edition

    Dear Flickr Idiots,

    In my past two visits to MY Flickr start page I was treated to a man sitting naked, spread legged, with his penis front and center, and a badly lit, out of focus, manually spread vagina under the “Everyone’s Photos” section.

    I do not wish to see these things. Yes, you are allowed to post bad photos to flickr. Yes, you are allowed to post nude photos to flickr. However, you are not supposed to post nude photos to flickr visible to the public stream. Don’t do it.

    DON’T -Upload photos that include frontal nudity, genitalia and/or “intimate moments” between consenting partners in public areas of Flickr If you do we’ll make your photostream private and remind you of this Guideline. If you don’t heed our warning and continue to make similar content public, we’ll terminate your account without warning. This applies to your Buddy Icon as well.”

    Learn how to use privacy settings as well as the “hide this photo” option.

    What does the “hide this photo” link on my photo page do?
    If you’re uploading something that you probably wouldn’t show your mum, use the “hide this photo” link to make sure the image won’t come up in public site areas. This is desirable behavior. :)”

    Please pretend you have a societally normal relationship with your mum while you are determining this.

    I promise that if I want to see your nakid bits, I won’t be shy about asking, but in the meantime keep your vagina off of my start page.

    Also, learn to take better photos of it.

    Thank you.

  • More On How I Feel About the Medical Industry

    First I will start with the general.

    I do not like the medical profession laying their personal, or societal opinions on an individuals medical care unless they are specifically asked, “Well, what would you do?”

    Then I will move onto a story about somebody I knew.

    There was a woman who used to clean my house. She was nice enough, but unfortunately was entirely too chatty. As the result I know a lot more about her than is reasonable. Now you will know it too.

    When I first met her she was barely 22 years old and had just given birth to her third baby. Her first one she had when she was 16. The first two were with one guy, this third one was with a different guy, but she still considered the father of the first two “The love of her life, that she knows she is meant to be with again someday.” She swore that they were using birth control for all three pregnancies. She told me that during pregnancy number two she kept telling her doctor she wanted her tubes tied when the baby was born. Her doctor insisted she was too young to make such a decision.

    Prior to baby number three being born, one of the other girls suffered a severe head injury and became disabled. The woman was 20, no reasonable education, unmarried with two children and one of whom had extra educational and medical needs. During pregnancy number three she again repeatedly told her doctor that she wanted to have her tubes tied. Again she was told that she was too young to make such a decision. When baby number three was less than a year old she became pregnant for the fourth time, again swearing that they were using birth control (who knows if they’d ever been given decent instructions on HOW to use it).

    A doctor finally agreed to sterilize her at that point, two kids after she started requesting it.

    Finally we will get on to the personal.

    I have one kid. I am pro choice. I meant to have that kid. I was not absolutely positively certain that we would stop with one kid.

    We waited. We thought about it. We talked about it. We were pretty damn sure. We waited some more. We talked about it more. We decided. This took place over the span of years, not days.

    I went and saw a doctor and told them that I was done. She laughed and told me that I would change my mind. She did not want to refer me to anyone. Nothing. She just said I was too young (which I think “they” term as under 30 with 0 or 1 kid) to make that choice, and that (I kid you fucking not, she said this to me) “It isn’t right to have your daughter grow up so lonely.”

    I did not kill her on the spot. I hope somebody is as amazed by this as I am. As far as I know, she is still alive and practicing medicine. I never saw her again. If anything happened to her, it was not me.

    Now all I was going to do was talk and get pamphlets. We were still strongly leaning toward him having a procedure rather than me having something done, but I was not done researching. At that point we knew one person who had a vasectomy that they were not happy with. We knew several who had them who were happy and felt it had been no problem at all.

    After a bit of time (as I have mentioned before we tend to avoid doctors whenever possible) we finally got to a point where we set foot into a medical setting again. This time we let him try. We got a little bit further. They were willing to give him a referral, after he attended a class. This pissed me off to no end. I was furious. We are supposed to have medical privacy and being forced by insurance to go to a group class on any sort of medical condition or procedure as a condition to getting the care that you are requesting was completely beyond acceptable to me. I began throwing fits left and right and before we got very far with that our insurance coverage changed. Yes, I am choosing publicly to talk about this NOW, but that is my choice. They were holding the procedure hostage in order to force public discussion on it.

    By the time we got back to the subject yet again we knew two more men who had vasectomies who were very unhappy with the procedure and the outcome. (chronic pain, decreased sensation from orgasms, etc) I know that the vast majority of people have no problem, and a lot of the medical community discount the complaints out there, but these were people who I did not think were likely to be having psychosomatic complaints. I needed more time to research.

    Then I got sick. I’ve talked about that before.

    Finally I was ready to look into everything again and this time I found Essure. That looked very interesting to me. First I contacted a retired gynecologist who happens to be a friend’s father to ask him what he knew about it. It had come about after he gave up his practice, so he contacted colleagues to get opinions and got back to me. He also helped me formulate some questions that he felt any decent doctor should answer.

    I took his questions, did some additional research and added questions of my own. Pulling a list of doctors listed on the Essure website that happened to be covered by my insurance, I contacted fifteen of them. Fourteen by letters and one by email. The one who responded by email responded quickly and was great, but I was not thrilled with his answers to my questions. I liked very much that he communicated effectively by email, and I also liked that he was giving up the OB portion of his practice because that would make him a more effective doctor for me. However, he just had not performed the procedure enough times and with enough success that I was comfortable seeing him in this case.

    Thirteen doctors ignored me completely.

    One other had his nurse call me to give me the answers to my questions. I wasn’t thrilled with having the nurse call, but the answers to the questions were decent. I booked an appointment to meet him in person.

    I arrived on time to a fairly empty waiting room. I had to wait for 40 minutes before they took me to a room and another 20 minutes for him to appear. We spoke and were okay with the responses to each others questions. He remembered the letter and we talked a about his history with the procedure. He actually wanted to know if, should I go ahead and use him and do the procedure, whether I would be willing to be filmed for the local evening news. We also decided I should get a shot of Depo because that gives the best chance for the procedure to go well (condition of the cervix and endometrial lining) and we worked out when the right time for the procedure would be. Sounds good, right? Then it turns out the do not have the Depo in their office and I have to go downstairs to the pharmacy to get it. They write a prescription and send me down. This eats up more of my day as I have to wait.

    In the meantime I called my husband to discuss this television news idea. On the one hand I despised the idea of having a camera anywhere near me. On the other hand it seemed like the doctor would work extra hard not to fuck it up if a camera was there. Also I very strongly believe in getting any and all reproductive choice options out there for people to be aware of. We decided it was creepy and we were not comfortable with it, but that assuming all the details, as ironed out, worked for us, we should go ahead and do it.

    When they finally had the prescription filled for me they tell me insurance will not cover it. It is ridiculously expensive. Insurance won’t cover it because they will only pay for a 30 day supply from a local pharmacy and it lasts for 90 days. They will only cover it if the doctor has it in their office and it is used as part of the office appointment.

    *sigh*

    So I paid the exorbitant fee for the liquid and returned back upstairs because, of course, they only give me a little bottle, no syringe. I give the pets vaccinations, surely I could give myself a damn shot. Diabetics do it all the time. Instead I went back upstairs to the doctor’s office and was forced to wait again in the waiting room. Finally they stuck me back into an exam room where I waited some more. Eventually a nurse showed up and gave me a shot.

    I asked her when the procedure will be scheduled for. She told me that the scheduling person wasn’t in, but that she would call me within the next 10 days. She said that if I didn’t hear from the woman within two weeks, I should call.

    Now, here is the thing. They are running a business. They get real money to do this procedure on me. They actually have a woman who gets paid specifically to schedule procedures and book the operating rooms. That is her job. I am the customer. I already reached out to get the process rolling. I do not want to be having to chase people down to convince them to do their damn job.

    I explained to the nurse that it is very important that the scheduling person call me, because I will not call back. I point out how many years it had been since my last pap. They needed to call me. She said that she usually calls and she’d be sure to mark my folder correctly and put it in the right pile.

    I told her that I had spoken to my husband and we were willing to do the TV show, so she said the doctor would speak to the PR person from Essure and they would get back to me on that with the details and paperwork.

    I left. I had been there for four hours. 4. Not, 3 hours – 4 hours. I had to go home and load the car and drive to Seattle. Really, no problem I don’t mind it taking four damn hours to spend 20 minutes interacting with the actual medical people.

    They never called.

    I’ve now switched insurance, so I can’t go to him anyway unless I want to pay it completely out of pocket, and why would I want to when their office staff can’t fucking get it together enough to call and schedule me an appointment. They had months in which they could have. This is when I was willing to do them the favor of being their promotional poster girl on the evening news!

    But wait, the reason I am writing this is that I was reminded once again when I got a past due bill from them. They need $80 from me for giving me the injection (which I only got because I was supposed to have the procedure) which my insurance would not cover because they were injecting something that was not supplied by their office. They want 80 fucking dollars to have some fucktwit put on latex gloves, tear a package with a syringe in it, stick the syringe into the vial, draw the liquid into the syringe, and then stick a needle in my ass and depress the plunger. It took her less than a fucking minute.

    So there you have it, yet another example of why I am always so aggravated whenever I even think I might need to deal with anything remotely medical.

  • One More Thing I Don’t Understand

    We went out for lunch today at a quick casual restaurant. There were five of us. When we were finished ordering and wanted to pick a table, we had a difficult time. There were a lot of tables and booths available. They were all for three or four people. Every single five or six person table or booth was taken. All but one of those was taken by only one or two people. One was being used by a party of four. What makes a single person think that they should take up a six person table? It just would not occur to me.

  • I have an idea.

    When I order something from you online, do not sign me up to receive your dumbass paper catalog. I do not want your catalog. I will not shop from your catalog. It is going to clutter up my mailbox, my house, and my recycling bin. It will aggravate me.

    I shop online. I proved to you that I shop online by placing an order online. That is where you got it into your fool head that I was interested in your products. I found you online. I found the product online. I purchased from you online. I gave you my address so you could send me what I wanted, not so that you could harass me forever with pounds of paper. Yes the catalog has instructions on how to stop the mailings. That takes up my time and effort. I need that for other things. I do not want to jump through hoops to cancel your catalog, only to have you sign me up again if I am stupid enough to ever buy something from you again online.

    Guess what? I know how to request your catalog should I want a catalog for some reason.

    Stop the waste. It wastes your money, paying for the catalog, paying to ship the catalog… Who pays for all that bullshit in the end? That would be your customers, assuming you know anything about business, which is somewhat questionable to me since you are making the mistake of targeting me as a catalog customer. I do not want to pay extra for your crappy items because you don’t know how to spend your advertising dollars correctly. If you piss your advertising dollars away, next thing you know you need to throw more money into that budget and you raise your prices. Also a good way to keep me from buying. Plus, paper is a resource. It does not appear by magic. It does not simply vanish the second I do not want it.

    You want to drive me really crazy? Send me things that look like catalogs, when you don’t even do mail and phone orders. (What is with Amazon sending me multipage advertisements of the crap they only sell online? Do they think I might forget how to type a m a z o n . c o m if they don’t send it to me? They would be wrong.)

    I have too much to do already, I do not want to be dealing with a mountain of your catalogs that will do me no good ever. They are printed on glossy paper, so they aren’t even good for absorbing pet piss and shit.

  • Rated F’d

    We watched This Film Is Not Yet Rated this weekend.

    The subject matter irritated me to no end, as everyone who knows anything about me knew it would. The movie itself, well I wish it had been a bit better. While the content was something I care about, it definitely was not one of the stronger documentaries I have seen.

    I do not like the MPAA. Actually I heartily dislike the entire system, and that is not all the MPAA’s fault. From the TV networks, to the theater owners, to the studios, to the big chain retailers, they all irritate me.

    I do not like to be told what I can and cannot watch. I do not like to be told what my kid should and should not watch. Most of all I hate for the general public to be relying on a largely arbitrary “stamp” to determine what they let their children watch. It completely infuriates me when they won’t even pay attention to those stamps and then want to complain because they don’t like what their kid watches (or plays). The nanny state does not protect children, it destroys society by relieving so called parents of their responsibility to actually parent.

    One of the useful things about the internet is that there are several sites that do provide detailed content information about films. G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17 and unrated mean nothing to me when it comes to deciding what I am comfortable allowing my daughter to watch. I want to know about themes. I want to know about scenes and the context of the scene. One of the sites that I used to check quite a bit, before they made it so incredibly broken and ugly for non-subscribers was screenit. I actually appreciated it enough that I did subscribe, but again, that was when it worked better for non-subscribers and then subscribers had perks. Now they make it rather unpleasant if you won’t subscribe, and I just preferred to support the old attitude.

    Anyhow, they have the following categories

    • Alcohol/Drugs
    • Blood/Gore
    • Disrespectful/Bad Attitude
    • Frightening/Tense Scenes
    • Guns/Weapons
    • Imitative Behavior
    • Jump Scenes
    • Music (Scary/Tense)
    • Music (Inappropriate)
    • Profanity
    • Sex/Nudity
    • Smoking
    • Tense Family Scenes
    • Topics To Talk About
    • Violence

    Which they first list off as mild, moderate, extreme, etc. If you see something that that makes you immediately certain you wouldn’t want to watch it, or let your child watch it, you can stop. If you are uncertain you can click down for detailed information. Which swear words, which body parts and how many, etc. Of course is you are looking for films with lots of full frontal, such a review can be useful too.

    This I find useful. PG-13 I don’t find useful at all.

    Now they could label a movie however they wanted and I wouldn’t care, except how they rate it affects me. If it is NC-17 a lot of theaters will not play it. They can’t place ads for it in many places. Walmart and Blockbuster won’t carry it. This means that they won’t be able to make nearly as much money, so there is a big push to cut it to an R. Instead of letting the actual consumers decide, the entire system is standing between artists and consumers and making choices on my behalf. Now they often release an unrated DVD later, but that just isn’t the same. For one thing, I have to wait until much later to see it. I do not have a giant screen and spectacular sound system in my house. Not only that, but in many of the cases the unrated DVD releases are no doubt different than the film they would have created if they had just been left alone to tell the story they wanted to tell. There is now added marketing pressure to make more of a difference between the R and unrated version. Then there is the other direction. Getting a G rating is a kiss of box office death if your core audience is about the age of 6, so they add a little extra crap (most often bodily function “humor”) to films to get at least that PG. The assignment of these ratings is affecting the films, leading us to a world with more product and less art.

    I won’t have anything to do with Blockbuster at all because of their policies on NC-17 movies. Their business, and they can run it their way, but I won’t give them my money. Actually I once quit a job over a policy shift along those lines at another video store, but that is a different story.

    Movies should all be rated R anyway, why should kids go see anything without a parent or guardian? Who is going to make them sit down and shut up and stop kicking my seat if they don’t have a parent with them? Oh wait, the parent will probably just be chatting on a cell phone, no doubt calling loudly to complain to a friend about how horrible it is that the movie showed a nipple. I hear so many parents complaining that a PG-13 movie had very objectionable content and should have been rated R. How many times are they going to fall for that PG-13 label and not do further research? Apparently over and over. Is every 13 year old they know the exact same maturity level as every 16 year old they know?

    I don’t even have the energy to start typing about how twisted it is that we seem to be so much more comfortable with violence in this country than we are with nudity. I did enjoy Darren Aronofsky’s assertion that bloodless, exciting, glorified, big action film violence should be for adults only, and lower rated movies should have to show painful, bloody, consequence filled violence instead.

    The MPAA is talking about making some changes, but small DIY improvements are not going to turn an outhouse into a mansion, or even a bathroom. Something is rotten in the state of asinine, power hungry, god fearing, we know what the world should be watching, homophobic, sexual repressed, braindead, holier than thou stupidity, but they are not going to do me the pleasure of bloodlessly cutting out the diseased whole.

    Netflix currently has Jesus Camp on the way to my house for my next viewing displeasure.