Month: April 2012

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What I do when I’m really bored…

I’ve been signed onto the National Do Not Call list for a while now.

Telephone ch

in general I dislike people and am a disagreeable person so I’m doing telemarketers a favor!

I honestly can’t see that being on that list has done me any good at all.

I think that having the phone number unlisted was a far more effective solution. But like an idiot I believed that the do not call list would be all that I needed and therefore stopped paying Verzion the additional fees to keep the phone number unlisted.

Once the phone number was listed… there was no going back.

As a rather strange aside…

When I told the Verizon representative that I wanted to make the change allowing my phone number to be listed… They were obligated to tell me that my number wouldn’t appear in the phone book until the next printing. I clearly remember processing what the representative said… then my brain rebooted!

It was one of those moments when you wonder just how stupid people are. For Verizons script to have included this bit of nonsense they must have had people calling them asking why their phone number hadn’t magically appeared in the printed phone book!

I digress. I feel like I’m channeling Andy Rooney… Hey Ghost Hunters, exorcism on aisle 8…

Since registering on the Do Not Call system, I’ve seen absolutely no change in the volume of junk phone calls. What I have noticed is that most of the calls originate in India. There is even one persistent caller that is calling from a cell phone registered in India. Really? A Cell phone?

When I’m slightly bored I’ll go to the trouble of doing a reverse look up of these phone numbers…

(Hey, you can only masturbate just so many times in a day before it gets boring… Ok, THAT never gets boring… there’s always another melon or mango to violate…)

On the reverse lookup lists you find that a lot of people have very nasty things to say about the people calling from these phone numbers. Even more often people have nastier things to say about each other in addition to commenting on the marital status of the parents of the person making the call in the first place.

Some people answer these calls with air horns, whistles, screaming tirades, obscenities, or there’s one guy in MN that answers with the recorded sounds of sex.

Uhh… Somehow I don’t think that would make the calls less frequent. I rather think that the calls couldn’t come in because the switching station couldn’t handle the volume.

“We’re sorry, all circuits are busy please try your call again later“.

The guy in MN does get to have an uninterrupted nap, at least until the circuits clear.

My solution is a fax machine. Coincidentally that’s how I know who’s called and what I use to look up their phone numbers when the fruit drawer in my fridge is empty.

The calls start at 7:30 AM and continue until about 9:00 PM

These fall into a few general catergories.

Telemarketing

Scams

and

Bill Collectors.

The bill collectors are really funny.  Sometimes when I’m really bored I’ll answer the phone. Their first question aggressively stated is “WHO ARE YOU?” My response is “Dude, you called me? don’t you know who you were trying to reach?” Inevitably they demand my social security number, I demand their credit card number.

“You’ve called StudMuffins R US This is Adam and you’l be billed $9.95 for the first 5 minutes of our sex chat. We’ll bill you $6.95 every 3 minutes thereafter. So what are you wearing?“

This usually messes the caller up. They try to recover but they’re a lot more contrite about it.

During one of these calls I discovered that a young lady in San Diego was scamming a ton of stores. She’d open credit cards max them out and then move on to the next store or cell phone company. She apparently pulled a phone number out of the air for all of the applications… that number was mine. To further complicate matters, her name is similar to mine. With those two data points, a lot of collection agencies call me thinking I know the bitch. I don’t… but I do know another bitch that really deserves to be hounded, and I’m sorely tempted to give the collection agencies her number.

Nationwide,  bad debt is being sold to all kinds of low life, scum bag collection agencies. So about every 3 months a whole new flood of phone calls hits my poor fax machine because these collection agencies are trying to collect on debts that are deader than Tutankhamen.

Sterile latex surgical gloves

Most of these agencies are in India and I honestly think that they’ve been scammed.

I’d like to shake the hand of the Scum bag bill collector that thought to sell un-collectable debt to India. I’d of course wear a glove while shaking his hand… I mean you really don’t want to get any of that kind of scum on you!

Think about it, American debt collectors have a pile of un-collectable bad debt. They in turn sell it to an Indian collection agency for a couple grand and then the Indians try to recoup their investment. It’s elegant and turns bad accounts into cash… Unless you’re the company in India. Go Capitalism!

Which brings us to the scammers and they are inexorably linked to the Telemarketers.

“Hello I’m calling on behalf of the one legged, limp wristed blond African fund, our records show that you donated to our worthy cause last year and we wanted to know if you were interested in contributing this year.”

“What? You didn’t want to donate money to the one legged, limp wristed blond African fund? Oh you meant to donate to the Republican party? Certainly I can correct this problem for you. I’m so sorry for the inconvenience. I just need the credit card number that you originally used. OF course I’ll wait. Ok now let me enter the number… Ooops, I’m sorry that card number isn’t on file perhaps you used another card? Of course I’ll wait, you take your time.“

These folks are beyond scum. They prey on little old ladies from Pasadena. You just DON’T rip off old people… I’ve made the suggestion that a very special place hell be created for people that do. Tele-evangelists are included in this group.

Satan is running a focus group right now… (There were a bunch of engineers who were very bad people. They’re sitting in with the focus group… Hey it’s a twofer for Satan, and Hell for the engineers!)

Exps12223 TH10101C68A

If I’m unlucky enough to get a call from one of these people and figure ’em out early enough, I’ll start having imaginary sex and talk dirty to my imaginary partner or melon whichever is handier…

About the time I’m saying “Ohh baby, lick the head, SUCK IT yeah, yeah, let me see your hole, you like that? Daddys got more for you. I’m gonna rip you open and eat you up, Ohhh baby you’re a little cold, this will warm you up!”

The caller has become either so embarrassed that they’ve hung up or they’ve become a total pervert.

Either way… I win!

I’m not bored for a while and have a new project in the kitchen…

Fruit salad anyone?

 

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Lady Gaga offends with innocent comment.

You have to be fucking kidding me!

The Huffington Post carried a story about offended fans of Gaga

Cheeseburger

Lady Gaga said in a tweet she’d just done two spin classes back to back and was eating a salad but dreaming of a cheeseburger.

She hashtagged the tweet with #popsingersdonteat and it looks to me like she was being funny.

Anyone who’s spent any time in a gym knows damn well that we eat the salad because it’s good for us.

But in our heart of hearts after burning a ton of calories our bodies are telling us;

“MEAT!  After all that work I want fucking mammoth meat and I want it NOW!“

Apparently organizations which deal with eating disorders and many fans took offense that Gaga might have said something TRUE about her personal state of mind.

Gaga demonstrated once again that she is a human being with a brain, wants, desires,  a sense of humor,  an understanding of irony, and apparently the ability to integrate it all.

The National Eating Disorder Association seems to have gone way out of the way to make a statement that I personally find moronic. They say in their twitter account;

“Huh? This is the same person who recently implored girls to stop dieting?”

What? Lady Gaga wasn’t making a blanket comment about people with eating disorders or anything else. Since when does not needlessly dieting equate to not getting off your ass and exercising?

Abraham Lincoln once said “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.“

I’m using a modernized variant “You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time.“

Frankly, I’m done with even trying to please anyone anymore. Accept me as I am, because as Gaga says… I WAS BORN THIS WAY!

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I’d really like to thank my prescription insurance provider …

I wrote this a few days ago. I’ve been waiting to post it for a couple of reasons.

I wanted to make sure that I still felt as strongly about it as I did when I wrote this peice.

I wanted to end this on a good note

Pills

My insurance provider has decided that they know better than my Physician.

In order to save .02 per pill, for an overall savings of 1.80 per prescription, my insurance provider ExpressScripts changed my prescription. You know… I’d have paid the 1.80 extra just so I didn’t have the hassle. Unfortunately, I wasn’t given that choice.

They assure me that the drug they’ve substituted is the SAME as the drug that I’ve been using successfully and with no problems for 3 years!

If it’s the same then why is the molecular structure different? Why is the chemical formula different?

I went on the new drug this morning. Less than 12 hours after the switch I’m feeling like shit.

My diastolic Blood pressure has climbed 10 points in the past 6 hours and I’m not doing anything.

I have a couple of questions to ask.

Why can my insurance provider execute “Step Therapy” without actually seeing me? STEP means we’re going to fuck you in the name of savings.

The FDA claims that if we purchase drugs from Canada, or Mexico we’re placing ourselves in danger.

At least buying from Canada and Mexico I’m actually GETTING THE DRUG that my Doctor prescribed!

Yet the FDA has no problem with prescription drugs being substituted without a Doctor exam, and in some cases without actually contacting the physician that wrote the prescription in the first place.

Why would you take a patient off a medication that was working just fine, with no side effects, and essentially experiment with them? I thought we outlawed that kind of experimentation after Joseph Mengele’s experimentation in the death camps came to light.

Sterile latex surgical gloves

Essentially, this phamaceutical insurance company has decided that it’s OK to have me start taking a drug which may … OR MAY NOT work.

They’ve done this in a situation where I am likely to be at work, or at home and the effect or lack of effect may be subtle enough that I won’t notice. By the time I figure out that I have a problem…   I could conceivably be on a gurney in the back of an ambulance.

Then it occurred to me, if I’m hospitalized it would not be their problem…

It’s MINE and can easily be covered up as a “Natural” event, NOT A DIRECT EFFECT OF ExpressScripts swapping my medication with ZERO SUPPORT.

As of today, almost 2 weeks after the switch I’m adapting. The initial 96 hours was very rough. I’ve been having good days and bad days however I’m returning to my normal self.  I spoke with the Doc yesterday, he wasn’t too concerned. He mentioned that new research had expanded the definition of “Normal” and that I was well within the range.

He also reminded me that I needed to come in to see him and that he had a rubber glove waiting with my name on it. DAMN!

You know… his fingers don’t look that big, should a prostate exam take 30 minutes and why does he dim the lights?

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I’m batting 1000 today.

As I was wandering through a social web site today I was struck by a few lines in an online profile.

The profile owner specifically says

“If you meet any of the following criteria don’t bother to contact me.”

The list was 6 or 7 items long and dealt with things like dugs, alcohol, disease, and phenotype.

The lines that leapt off the screen at me were these;
Granturismo sport209
“If you drive a BMW or Mercedes Benz or SUV” or “If your’e a Republican”

This gave me pause.

Perhaps it’s because I have an SUV parked in the drive and a BMW in the garage. Perhaps because while I disagree with the Republican stance and agenda with every fiber of my being… I’m still at heart a Republican leaning towards Libertarian.
2012 lamborghini aventado 14 460x0wThen I thought “WOW” this person is restricting their social interactions to ONLY like minded individuals and on the one hand saying how Kumbaya, progressive, and inclusive they are WHILE they’re judging other people on the basis of ephemeral things like the car they drive or the dysfunctional political party that they belong to.

I almost sent a message asking “What’s up with that?” but I refrained.

I must admit that I too judge people, in fact everyone does. 

For instance it’s unlikely that I’m going to hang out with a bunch or 18 year olds. I’m going to make that choice because I know that I don’t have a lot in common with them. 

It’s nothing personal it’s just that my values & experience are so radically different that we’re not going to have a lot to talk about.

I suppose that this profile owner is saying something similar and it’s their prerogative.

My mind though, goes to the absurd.

Is the owner of the profile saying that Democrats who own Ferraris or Maserati, or Lamborghinis ARE acceptable? And if that is what they intended to say doesn’t that imply that the profile owner CAN in fact overlook their contempt for affluence and hard work if the trappings of that affluence have an estimated value of over $100,000?
KiaSoul
After due consideration I’ve decided to modify my profile to read.

“Don’t contact me if you own a Kia, or Scion. I, in general find drivers of these vehicles to be poor drivers and have no desire to know anything about them.”

“If you’re a member of ANY religious organization don’t contact me. Religion is a poisonous, hate filled abomination and I’ve decided to eradicate it from my personal world view.”
ScionFRs“If you make less than 50K a year I’m also not at all interested. Contact me when you’ve gotten to 100K and I’ll re-evaluate you… Oh and I’ll need to see your W-2 or paystub.”

That should cull the riff-raff!

Of course, I’m likely to be going to the movies alone, But it’s worth it so that I don’t have to be bothered with “undesirables”.

The owner of the profile I’m referencing, often states that they’re lonely…

I wonder WHY?

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Ms. Manners asks How Rude are you?

How rude are you when commenting on someone’s blog, or on an article you’ve read?

I remember some of the FLAME Wars that would erupt on the IRC channels. Those would get downright vicious and sometimes so brutal the IRC channel would be killed because people simply got tired of reading one venomous message after another.

I’ve seen Flame emails start and persist for DAYS at some companies where I’ve worked.

The best of these usually revolved around someone accidentally sending a message to “ALL” then all hell would break loose.

Often some “Kind” soul who knew much better than anyone else how the email system was to be used, volunteered to tutor the miscreant who dared to send to ALL.

I actually looked forward to these events because they were a great way to figure out who in the company to avoid at all costs. I mean if people are wrapped so tightly that they over-react to a simple mistake, it’s probably best that I not interact with them EVER.

The funniest part of these flame wars was that inevitably the “Kind Hearted” superior soul would chastise the miscreant and would do it BY REPLYING TO ALL.

This would lead to a furball where a bunch of other people would get really snippy and hostile. Particularly if they were part of the effete corporate Blackberry class. Apparently, the folks the company provided with Blackberries were simply TOO important to turn the machine off when they went to bed.

The strangest part of the intra-corporate flame war is that there is no anonymity.

A corporate directory will tell you exactly who someone is and who they work for. And yet all sense of decorum would fly right out the window.

At one company, the CEO sent a message to ALL that said simply, “This is the last email about this subject, the next one of you that hits REPLY ALL is fired!”

I’m sure some idiot hit REPLY ALL after the CEOs message.

If people in a corporate setting where there is no anonymity are willing to flame each other publicly I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at the verbal violence we see when people can comment anonymously.

I used to think that rude comments and flame wars were a function of the “newness” of the media being used. All of us have sent one of those ill consid

Angry old woman 1

ered emails at least once. Usually we learn

Lately, I’ve been reading lots of blogs, and newspapers online lately. People not only HAVEN’T changed, I think they’ve gotten worse.

A blogger that I read with some frequency posted a very eloquent article recently about this issue.

His blog describes events in his life. These events are in his past, EVEN if the event he writes about happened only two hours ago.

He’s apparently received highly caustic comments regarding his life choices, relationships, and sexual proclivities. People feel the need to sit in judgement of him while they’re reading HIS blog where he’s voluntarily sharing his life with the world. It’s not like these folks don’t know what they’re going to read about. They’re not being coerced in any way to read what he has to say.

This blows my mind!

I’ve occasionally opened my mouth metaphorically in newspaper or blog comment sections. I have also attempted to refute some of the most hateful statements others made.

Most recently, I opened my mouth on a newspaper in Miami. The article was about Marine kiss in Hawaii. I was astounded at the things people thought were appropriate to say. Then as I read further, I couldn’t help myself… I opened my mouth. Several people took offense at what I has to say and I responded politely to their concerns.

I’ve been wondering lately if this really is getting worse or if its my perception.