Who Ate My Donut?

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4th May 2012

Stupid People, Example #611

My roommate Joe and I had just wrapped up some Call of Duty, and while grabbing a late night glass of water, Joe mentions a car that’s stopped down the road. If you’re not familiar with the road we live on, it’s one lane going each direction, with room on the sides for parked cars.

Anywho, this car is stopped in the driving lane with its hazards on. There are a few cars parked normally next to it, but no more than 10-15 feet away is lots of room to park on the side of the road. Meanwhile, other cars who are trying to drive normally are forced to go around into oncoming traffic.

Joe and I go outside to ponder what the situation is. The headlights resemble a police cruiser - is it an officer investigating something? (They like to park wherever they damn well please, so why would this be any different?) Did the person break down badly enough where the car can’t be moved further?

Some people - college-aged kids from our guess - then come out of a house nearby and head towards the car. As they open the doors to get into it, we see four large, yellow letters on the side of this mystery car - TAXI.

Yes, that’s right. A professional driver - someone who not only gets paid to drive properly, but has their company information emblazoned on their vehicle - decided to block the normal flow of traffic on a single lane road in order to avoid parking 10 feet away from his pickup.

It’s such a shame that the majority of what I have to talk about lately consists of idiotic people. Luckily I did have a lovely birthday this past Wednesday, in which I got to spend time with some of my favorite people. So no complaints there. :)

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2nd May 2012

Apparently I’m 16

Vicki and I ran an errand to Michaels today to buy some supplies for a cake she’s making me (yay!). I happen to be wearing my Nuff Said shirt that says, in large, bold lettering “YOUR GIRL LIKES THIS.” The gentleman cashier remarks “And regarding your shirt, the answer is no, she doesn’t. Which is probably a good thing, because you’re probably like 16.”

Just to be clear, the guy is around my age and he’s just joking because of what my shirt says. Anyway, Vicki and I start giggling and I say “Not quite.” He asks how far off he is. “About 11 years.” The guy’s face was priceless. After mentioning that I turned 27 exactly today, he didn’t believe either of those claims. So out came my newly renewed driver’s license, and that was that. :D

The women at Cost Cutters yesterday were also surprised by my age. Can’t say I’m complaining at all. Hopefully it sticks around for a while.

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1st May 2012

Some Business Owners Scare Me

I had a Subaru SPT branded hat on my Watch List on eBay for a few days. I ended up not buying it, and no one else bought it, either. So I messaged the seller to see if they still had it, and if they’d be willing to relist it for a few bucks cheaper, at which point I would pick it up.

The seller sent me two messages back:

1) Sorry I no longer carry this item.Will refund

2) Sorry I sent the wrong message.You hat is on the way 1Z[BLAHBLAH] tracking#

The seller not only completely missed the point of my original message TWICE, but then gave me someone else’s shipment number (the package is currently at a Lexington, KY sorting center).

These are people that run businesses, and handle your personal information. And raise children. Yikes!

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21st April 2012

How to make sure I will not buy from your eBay store.

I am trying to buy a wideband sensor kit for my car. I find one on eBay for a pretty good price. The seller also has the Best Offer feature included. Great, looks like I can save a little more money.

I always test the waters with Best Offers by lowballing. Isn’t that how haggling works? The Buy It Now price is $148. I submit an offer for $120. Sometimes these offers are automatically declined if they’re too low (the PROPER way to set them up). This one was not.

I receive a counter offer for $145 - three dollars less than BIN. The seller claims “Due to the high eBay fees, we can’t offer further discounts through eBay. And we can’t suggest going outside of eBay either. eBay doesn’t like that. That’s all we’re allowed to say for now.” Well that’s cute. Subtly hint that I should buy it on your website while giving me a bogus offer. So I check their website - the kit is $30 more than the eBay BIN price. (sigh)

I counter-offer back $135, attaching the note “Why use Best Offer when your minimums are mere dollars and cents off your BIN price? And your website is more expensive than here. Work with me and I’ll purchase this immediately.”

My counter offer is simply declined, with no note or counter. At this point I’m pretty sure the seller thinks I’m an asshole customer, but the price is still the best out there. So I try to settle. I send a third and final (eBay limit) counter offer for their original counter price of $145. Because at this point I really don’t want to give this douchey seller my money, I attach the following note: “As annoyed as I am with this best offer nonsense (if you aren’t going to accept offers, don’t make it an option), this is the best price I can find.”

Declined. Suit yourself. I can find the same thing for about $10 more, and I’d rather give that $10 to someone that doesn’t dick around with their potential customers.

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20th February 2012

Mountain Dew Allotting

So I’ve recently created some self-imposed limits on my consumption of Mountain Dew. My method is simple: to start off, a limit of two sodas a day. Never more than two in the fridge at a time. Once those two are gone, can’t have any more that day. If I drink both, I don’t refill until the next morning - this also helps to make sure I don’t drink it immediately when I wake up, which is a related bad habit.

So far I’ve been pretty good with it, even though I do cheat a bit on weekends if I’m out goofing off with friends. But it’s a start. We’ll see if that doesn’t help my overall health a little bit. Now to wait until the weather gets nice enough for tennis.

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23rd January 2012

2011 Cities

The cities I spent at least one night in over the course of 2011:

• Wisconsin Dells
• Las Vegas
• Kula, Maui
• Lahaina, Maui
• St. Louis
• Five normal cities here in the Milwaukee area.

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20th December 2011

Unknown-Number-Of-Days Challenge Entry #2

Back in August I did the first entry of a “30-Day Blog Challenge” list that I had found on the web. This is number two: 5 things that irritate you about the opposite sex / same sex. I’m actually going to shorthand this one a bit since I had a hard time coming up with five reasons overall. Maybe I’ll append some later as they happen, but here’s what I’ve got.

I’ll start with the opposite sex.

1) Their ability to hate other women for either no particular reason, or a small, inconsequential reason. I understand that sometimes we’re just irked by people for whatever reason, sometimes ones we don’t even understand. But women just seem to take this to another level sometimes. Be it jealousy in denial to stealing their high school boyfriend, it just causes drama and it can be real aggravating.

2) The all-too-cliche overly emotional and dramatic. Perhaps a root cause to number one, women have a superpower to manipulate a situation in their head into something far more substantial than it likely needs to be.

3) Combo answer: dishonesty and/or silence. I’ve seen women who hate each other pretend to be BFFs in each others’ presence. I’ve also experienced women who claim to be “fine” go berserk in frustration just minutes later. Quit being in denial or letting things go, because that tumor in your head is going to give you headaches (heh) later on. It’s not worth it.

And I’ve got only one real big one with guys…

Douchebags. Those cliche, muscle-bound, gel-slicked hair, Jersey Shore air heads. Dumb as hell, jerks to women, confrontational drunks, giving normal guys a bad name. I’ve got a perfect story about two retards who challenged me and a friend to fight them at a local bar because my friend innocently called one of their girlfriends pretty on Facebook. Yeah, exactly.