23 November 2007

Because there a few things on my mind

I would normally attempt to keep the ranting to a minimum or at least focused on one topic, because I really am making strides in my rage. You don't believe me, I know, except that you didn't know me in my glass-door-breaking, metronome-throwing, roof-sitting days.

However, today is the Friday after Thanksgiving, and since I cling to my bohemian college days, I'm having a heard time accepting that I am at work. I should be on Fall Break, laughing at the football fans who got up early to drink Bud Light while I'm tucked away in my bed with feather pillows, loving that I'm asleep.

The only answer, clearly, is to blog about it.

I'll make it short since I am trying to be positive about today and catch up on all the things I can't normally do when everyone else in my department is here.

But here it is anyway:

1. It's Friday after Thanksgiving. I'm at work. Gross.

2. The reason I know it's gross is because I got the MARTA station at 8:25 and while I'd normally be parking at the end of any row because I'm running late, I parked in the first spot directly across from the escalator.

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2a. That means that the other 70+ cars that usually exist are sitting quietly in their driveways; drivers peacefully, horizontally dreaming of leftovers in their warm squishy beds.

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2b. This makes me jealous. Which makes me sad and angry.

3. I'm still sick. I drank glasses of Airborne for two days like it was my job. If I were smart, I would have stayed home at least one day this week, but as that girl who feels "obligated" - I came to work anyway. Poop on that.

4. Tonight is the night I call the Jury hotline.

4a. Tonight is the night I discover whether I have to show up for my Federal District Court jury summons on Monday. I can't say how thrilled I am to do my Civic duty.

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4b. That's not untrue. I really like juries; I like the concept; I like the idea that I can be a part of our justice system.

4c. The kicker is, since I'm not salaried, I won't get paid for any days I'm not at work. I could, worst case scenario, get on a federal case that lasts more than two weeks. It could last two months or more (worst case). I would not get paid for any of those days, except for the $40 dollars a day that the government feels adequately compensates me for my time.

4d. Joy of joys.

5. This reminds me that I have no financial light at the end of my tunnel, minus the light at age 29 1/2 when I'm debt free.

5a. This reminds me that 4 years is a long time.

6. Today is buy nothing day. Even though I'll be proud of myself when I put my nyquil-hazed head on my pillow tonight, I'll also feel a little sad that the five dollars in my wallet is still in there. I wanted to make use of it.

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6a. That is my (real) sickness.


I guess that's enough to get me going today. Now, on to that catching up business I was talking about.

07 November 2007

Because it's been a really long time since I posted.

I am the worst blog updater. In fact, it's so bad, I should really have a rant entitled: Because people never update their blogs.

Double in fact, because I believe my first post was about a kid who used up the page-name I wanted and only posted three times. Well, dern, I am that kid.

So I apologize to everyone for being a person I hate. And that you hate. If you care anyway.

I have a rant to share though. It’s awfully long though, so grab some popcorn and a coke. Actually, skip the coke, because you’d have to get up to take a whizzer in the middle, and that’s going to ruin the narrative flow.

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About three weeks ago, Wachovia called me to tell me that someone used my debit card number to buy $300 dollars worth of gas and groceries in California. Seeing as how I am now in debt management and my life is void of most (okay, some) spending, I was less than thrilled.

Okay, I admit it. I seethed. I vocalized in my cubicle. My coworkers pretended not to hear.

While I should be ecstatic that my bank called me to tell me about these fraudulent purchases and replaced my money over night (one point for the man), I wasn't. This is where the rant splits in two… okay, four.

If you want to learn how I feel about thieves, read ONE.
If you want to follow me down the path to total rage, scroll to TWO.
If you want to speculate on how the City of Atlanta can keep so many orange cone and barrels on hand for the amount of construction they do, scroll to THREE.
If you want to riff on lazy people who don’t stand in line but expect their spot to be there when they return from sitting on their asses, read FOUR.

If you want to hear it all, just keep reading.


ONE.
Nobody has as much funding as they probably wish they did. I understand that need often drives crime. You need some bread, you steal it. You need some gas for your car, you use my debit card to get it. You need some crack, you break in Jenny's car and steal her purse and CDs because she left them on the seat so you can hock it or barter for drugs. You’re Jenny and you need something to cover up said broken window, so you cut the corner off of my tarpaulin to fix it. Whatever.

I just hate that there isn't an * and footnote on my debit card number that says, "I'm poor too, please don't steal from me. If extra funding is needed please use card number XXXX, and sign 'Jenna Bush'" - or whoever it is.

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I guess I'm not really saying to steal from the first daughter, but the point is, why target someone who spent $10 at a liquor store or $18 at the grocery store or where ever you picked up my number? At least go after the middle aged guy with the pension and 401(k) and the Christmas bonuses who bought a new stereo at best buy or something... he might not even notice.

Okay now it sounds like I'm saying that it's okay to steal if you take it from someone who can afford it. That's not necessarily true. Well maybe. I don't know, the point is, please don't steal from me.

TWO.
Why does Wachovia have to be such an infinite time suck? You spend hours on the phone with them, answering questions, requesting documents, following up to make sure that documents have been received, etc.

You check to see if you can have your replacement debit card expedited, and they say it costs $16 to expedite it, but we can't do yours anyway because we already sent it and that turns out to be a lie. If you take all my money and my time, shouldn’t that in some way pay for debit cards to always be expedited? Who in the world wants their card to show up 10 days after you need it?

Great. Perfect. Seven to ten business days. You call on business day 8 and they tell you to wait for the mail on Saturday. Of course it doesn't arrive. You finally get the stupid thing in Monday's mail and you do a little dance and make up an impromptu song about how stoked you are about participating in America’s consumer culture once again, as is your birthright!

Nevermind that I haven't been able to hold cash in my hands for two and a half weeks because someone stole from me (see ONE.), I finally get the card in hand and am expecting mounds of cash to spew forth from the ATM (so that I can get change and use 65 cents to get a drink from the vending machine) and all it does is beep nastily and blink "You have not entered your correct PIN".

At the time, I didn’t have my cell phone, which meant I had to walk back to the office and up the stairs to my desk to use the desk phone, because me and Wachovia’s time suck are like this.

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A very perky woman confirmed with me that my PIN had not changed; it is a “customer selected number”. Which is positive because it's been the same for seven years and if it had changed, I might explode from having to remember a new number. She clicks me over to the activation line and conferences in so she can hear me do their bidding.

I go through the menus, use said PIN of the anciennes, and it still says it’s incorrect. At no time does the woman admit fault. Banks incorrectly encode cards all the time. But she doesn’t say that. She says, “I can send you a reminder card, or you can go to a branch and change your number.”

I opted for the branch, because I don’t particularly feel like waiting seven to ten business days for a letter to arrive at my house containing four numbers I already know, which have been rejected by the system four times already.

And thus began the walk.

THREE.
Can we talk about how much midtown blows right now? Construction on Peachtree from 10th to 13th, because we need another condo. Construction at Peachtree and 15th because we obviously need to cut down old growth trees so we can have a fountain and a roundabout in front of Colony Square. Construction on 14th between Piedmont and Peachtree and again between W. Peachtree and the highway for God knows what.

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Midtown is a giant jackhammer ringing behind your eyeballs. Throw in 20 union workers on strike, spread evenly between 13th and 12th, each trying to hand me a piece of paper I already agree with, and you’ve got a walk rivaling an afternoon stroll in the seventh circle of hell.

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It’s bad enough for the people in cars. But every one of these streets has also managed to close the sidewalks. On 14th, they’ve closed the entire right side of the road and turned it in to a one-way down to Juniper from Piedmont. You can’t take 14th to Piedmont and go north anymore. That obviously sucks for drivers. For pedestrians, it isn’t much better.

You can walk on one side until you get to condo number XYZ, and then they’ve torn up that side of the sidewalk too. So you have the privilege of walking 20 feet in the road because obviously, we need whatever bullshit they’re putting in there to go along with our new new condos and roundabout.

Obviously, the stroll to the bank was not exactly pleasant.

Back to TWO.
I get to the bank. I get in line and when the woman ahead of me stops flirting with the branch manager, a woman who had been seated stands up and gets in front of me.

FOUR.

Okay, I see that you were here first. But if you’re too lazy to stand in the line for the duration of the wait, which is the point of the line, then I don’t think you should have the privilege of actually being next. For all I know, someone else is helping you. Or you work here and are on break. Or you are waiting for your roommate to set up her IRA. I don’t care. You are not in line. You are not next.

TWO.
The snooty guy at the special non-teller desk fixes my card. He makes no comment as to whether they made a mistake in the situation. He just does his thing and let’s me pick a new PIN. I told him he would know if it didn’t work because I would be at the ATM outside and if I started crying, then we’d have a problem. He didn’t laugh.

It worked. I got money. I wanted to do a little dance, but I was still trying to be angry about it. No thanks to Wachovia! you know.

Done. I go back to work via the 10th St. Caribou and the Piedmont Willy’s. I decided since it took so long for me to have funds, I might as well blow them all in one day.

I survived. I just hated every second of it.
Like you do.

31 May 2007

I must have been calming down

... because I haven't posted in months.

But I finally found something.

You know those people who write on blogs, e-mails, MySpace comments, Facebook profiles and come off like total ree-rees? I'm not talking about "OMG Becks, U R the KEWTEST, KEWLEST GURRL EVVAR!!!11!!11234!!!". I'm talking about the ones who lead normal, functional lives, but don't actually know English.

Examples:

If you are curious about something, it piques your interest.
Peaks are for mountains, rooftops and occasionally, tits.

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If you are trying to make a transition, you are making a segue.
I know it sounds like segway but it doesn't mean the same thing. Unless you are making Freudian hints toward your desire for one of these pig-transporters.

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Other examples:
Capital/Capitol
Principle/Principal
Perspective/Prospective

I mean, really. The list goes on and on, and likely resembles one you received in elementary school during the homophones unit. They teach you that stuff for a reason, kids.

Obey.

e

10 April 2007

Because colleges discriminate

... against lower-middle class white girls who rely on financial aid and just want to take some damn art classes.

Apparently, if you already have a bachelor's degree, you can't have anymore. That's all you get. You already had your cake.

I asked if I could enroll as an undergraduate again, and use my last degree to cover my core classes as transfer credits. I didn't think it was a ludicrous suggestion, since I got my degree at the end of 2004 and if I had made this decision one day before graduating, this would have been what they recommended.

I was actually told by a Georgia State (Georgia State!) adviser that doing so would be "having your cake and eating it too." I was under the impression that universities existed so that people could better themselves. Whoops.

Excuse me for seeing the "Post-Baccalaureate" program for what it is: A steaming pile.

Just for already having your cake (i.e., working your ass and bank account off for your previous college degree), you now have to enroll as a non-entity.

You are ineligible for financial aid, because the college doesn't actually owe you anything.
You get last dibs on the list for registration, because the college doesn't think you're a student.
You have to pay student fees, even though all evidence points to your non-student status.

You're probably wondering why I don't just get a Master's degree. Well the whole issue is that I don't have the pre-reqs for the programs I'm interested in. And while taking a Modern Art Survey class at the Institute of Art Chicago might sound spectacular, it's a lot less peachy when you realize that you have to pay graduate tuition for that undergrad class. Probably. I haven't looked into it, but you know that's what they'd do. And I don't have 3 grand laying around. Which is what a survey class would probably cost. (3 hours at 1100 per credit hour... I'm being generous.)

[edit: i looked it up. graduate per credit hour is $1075. undergrad is $965. So... my survey would actually only be $2,895. I apologize]

This GSU adviser, who up until this point had been very nice and helpful, actually suggested that if I really want to be an undergraduate again, that I could apply and enroll as an Art History major if I wanted to take all my core classes again.

No, guy. I already had my fill of Psych 1000 and Elementary Statistics. But the thought is really tempting.


06 April 2007

Because "rantastic" was taken

...by some pre-teen who posted four times between October 2001 and January 2002.

Shouldn't blogger have some sort of purging system? I am upset enough that my admittedly not-terribly-original blog title has actually already been taken by a child, but this could make me reconsider my blog-move.

I scream pretty frequently about unnecessary things. I've been trying to curb this type of activity, which explains this blog. By expressing my fits of rage in a two-dimensional way, maybe I can experience some sort of life-altering change.

Okay, that's a load of shite and I know it. But still. I am tired of LiveJournal. Are they serious?

I am going to see what I can do in the way of archiving older LJ posts that fit under my new rant theme. It's probably just about all of them anyway, so it should be cinchy. That's what I like: Things to go my way. With ease.

It's how I roll.
e/b

Excerpts from my DeadJournal Pt. 1

Oomuhloo's Journal
Tuesday, September 3rd, 2002

Date:2002-09-03 08:33
Subject:Middle School??
Security:Public

I hate my skin!! It seems like most everybody had bad skin during that whole pubescent acne phase that I managed to slip through unharmed. Little did I know at the time that it was lurking around the corner for AFTER I LEFT MY TEENS!!! How unhappy does it make me that I see people with really nice, even, smooth skin, and I actually think, wow they have great skin ... hmm, it's a shame I have splotchy zitty skin!! GRRRR. In the words of Alana, it makes me want to just ;lasjfio;rf asndfas;diofl;khj!!!!! And I know it's totally not that big a deal... but what if it NEVER GOES AWAY!?! Then what!? huh!? THEN WHAT!??!?!
I guess step one would be to stop being superficial... but I kind of like me this way.
Oh well... I guess I'll just start wearing foundation or something, and exacerbate the problem.
e

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