LaserBlog.com

We got a new washer and dryer this week from Sears, it was delivered on Wednesday. It’s AWESOME. Clothes come out of the washer practically dry because they are spun so hard, and the dryer is real quick. I have done more laundry in the last 24 hours than I coulda done all week w/ the old set (where stuff came out of the washer sopping wet and the dryer didn’t dry after the first round of 80 minutes).

Some things were imperfect w/ the delivery, but I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. “It must be a hard job, they did better than I could have done.” “I don’t want to be a hard ass.” Whatever. But today the tally of unacceptable problems hit four:

1) I heard phrases like “piece of shit!” uttered by the installer. Nice, come into my home and insult my expensive top-of-the line purchase that I went into debt with your company to pay for.

2) The washer didn’t work when they left. Turns out the dumb-asses never plugged it in.

3) They ripped the linoleum in one spot and gouged it in 2-3 other spots.

4) They swapped the hot and cold hoses, so when doing delicates and darks, it was using HOT water, which could shorten the life of such clothes.

Each time I called Sears it was days before service could come out. Luckily I have handy ‘ol M who is every so handy w/ tools and much more limber than I am and was able to jump on top of the very tall equipment and hang over the back to do all the work that the asshole installers never did or never did right. If it weren’t for M, I’d be sitting for 7 days with brand new but useless equipment and a HUGE backlog of laundry.

And these jerks get paid good money to do this shit.

You know… I am no dog expert or dog psychologist or dog trainer. But I’ve read enough books and seen enough dog psychologist tv shows and talked to enough dog trainers and psychologists myself to know a FEW things.

Some dork posts to a dog message board and says (paraphrased):

“My dog won’t eat out of his bowl. He’ll only eat out of his bowl if we put people food in it or ice cream. He’ll only eat his kibble if we hand feed it to him piece by piece or put his kibble in his treat ball piece by piece. Anyone else have this problem?”

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME????????????????????????

If your dog DOES that it’s because YOU ALLOW IT. Put the kibble in and WALK AWAY. He WON’T STARVE. He may play games with you for days, but he’ll learn.

I am so sick of the pansies on these boards. They cater to their “babies” and then wonder why they piss and shit in the house and refuse to eat kibble or eat from their bowls. Fucking idiots. And then if *I* go and post and say “he does this because you allow it and you’ve trained him to do it” then I get flamed.

ANY decent dog trainer or dog psychologist will agree that you do NOT have to live with a dog who does these things. Just watch a few episodes of “The Dog Whisperer” and you’ll see that what the owner ALLOWS is what makes dogs do these crazy things. To use Cesar’s words, ‘he rehabilitates dogs, he TRAINS PEOPLE’. Without fail every time some “problem dog” is on this show (or in any case study in a book) you find that it’s because the owner allows certain behavior that the dog seems to go “bad”.

I’ve had it. There’s this rumor that “pugs are untrainable”. IT’S NOT TRUE! They may be a more stubborn breed, but it is BULLSHIT to reply to me on a message board when I ask about an issue and tell me that “pugs are untrainable, didn’t anyone tell you?” Well you know what? YOU just go on believing that and smelling piss and shit in your home and live like a f*cking pig. It’s YOUR life. But in MY life, my dog will be housetrained and well behaved. And you know why? BECAUSE IT’S POSSIBLE and acceptable AND IT’S NORMAL!

I had some message board asshole tell me that to expect a pug to be housetrained and obedient is “inhumane” and that trying to get him to be so is “abusive“! These f*ckers that get on these message boards are pansies. Just pure freaking panty-waste pansies. Unbelievable.

/me steps down

Babies are stupid.
They eat cardboard.

At M’s office, had to work late (8:36pm and still working) and on a conference call, the guy on the other end all of a sudden u hear a baby (real professional) and he goes “uh oh, my baby was just about to eat the cardboard box here”.

Babies are stupid.

I’m so sick of spending valuable time filling out forms online only to get stupid errors afterwards. People should make sure their sites work! Geez.

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server ~ ’80040e57′
String or binary data would be truncated.
/english/club/user_register_check.asp, C70

UPDATE: That site is a mess, THEN I get this after sending a trouble ticket via their web-form I get:
Your message
To: support@aiptek.com
Subject: ASK AIPTEK
Sent: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 11:17:59 -0700
did not reach the following recipient(s):
support@aiptek.com on Tue, 3 Aug 2004 11:28:07 -0700
The recipient name is not recognized
The MTS-ID of the original message is: c=us;a=
;p=aiptek;l=AIPTEKSBS0408031828C3A8XNH7
MSEXCH:IMS:AIPTEK:AIPTEKSBS:AIPTEKSBS 0 (000C05A6)
Unknown Recipient

Great, I wait over 3 months for my ipod mini to show up and then once it’s installed, my damn computer won’t talk to the network (where my mp3′s are). Nice. Not like I really wanted one more thing to keep me from USING my new ipod before it becomes old technology.

I am so GOD DAMNED MOTHER FUCKING SICK of people!

Why is it that when I ask a simple question on a message board that always gives reasonable answers to everyone ELSE, *I* get my asshole ripped open by some psychotic low life? All I asked was what other photo travellers have bought for a rolling camera backpack (the kind w/ padded compartments designed by camera manufacturers like Canon to carry cameras and gear), and this is what I get in reply:

“Wait. Are you even remotely aware that the camera you place in your pack is a delicate electronic instrument? Why on earth would you subject it to the bumping and jarring that it will inevitably experience as your little wheels roll over every conceivable pebble and crack? A person who fails to think things through this far should by no means be allowed to purchase delicate electronic instruments. What, pray tell will you do if you ever have a child? Drag her by the hair?”

I wrote back:

“You’ve REALLY got screw lose, you know that? What part of PADDED don’t you understand? What part of BAG DESIGNED FOR CAMERA don’t you understand? They MAKE rolling camera bags, so I guess all camera bag manufacturers are stupid then? And you know more than they do? Canon makes these bags. Are you smarter than Canon? Oh and by the way, if we DID get pregnant, I’d have it aborted, so there.”

Motherfucker.

I forgot to post this before, but I took this photo around July 4th, I’m pretty sure I took it on July 5th actually. What is it? It’s the employees at Hallmark putting up CHRISTMAS CRAP!!!!! IN JULY!!!! IN EARLLY JULY!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

I’m sick to death of people who continually put pictures of their freaking offspring on photoblogs with the pretense of it being for a photo theme, or under the pretense that it’s artistic. I don’t want to see your damned baby pictures when I’m surfing for good photography! Call it what it is, a BABY BLOG and keep it off photography lists. Pictures of your stupid offspring do not qualify under the “cool” category of this week’s photo friday. Pictures of your ugly, squirming, blood-covered, fetus being “born” does not qualify for photo friday’s “father” theme. Baby blogs are baby blogs and they DON’T belong. The world does NOT revolve around your stupid offspring, the photography community DOES NOT CARE. Baby pictures should be shared w/ friends and family only, they’re the only ones who give a shit.

It’s in the 90′s, so I’m basically in HELL, and then I go to the internet cafe and for some unGODLY reason, they are playing COUNTRY MUSIC! KILL ME! KILL ME NOW!

IS IT JUST ME?!?!?!?
Or do these two sentances JUST NOT GO TOGETHER!!?!?

From the local news tonight:
(man kills himself in park because he’s accused of molesting some kid)

“And those close to [name deleted] tell nbc2 [that] evidence from the state attourney’s office reported by the media in the past few days may have proven too much for him and lead to his suicide. NBC’s [name deleted] continues our team coverage.”

HOW can you recite those two sentances one right after another and sleep at night????

You might as well just say “we killed him with our nosy news coverage and we’re just gonna KEEP DOING IT until his ENTIRE FAMILY kills themselves!“

I hate people.

I don’t believe this.

My uncle won a trip to Ireland. A newspaper gave him the trip. He gave the trip to my mother and I. The newspaper wants us to sign a release form releasing them from liability. Fine. But on that form they want my social security number. I do not want to give my social security number to a newspaper. I have no idea if they will lock that piece of paper in a vault or leave it lying on a desk. I have no idea what kind of people work at the newspaper. I have no idea how safe my SS# will be if I release it to them. Identity theft is on the rise BIG TIME and I’m not about to throw that number around. They have no legal right to demand that number, NONE.

But if I refuse, and then they refuse to let me go on the trip, my mom will NEVER forgive me.

I’m going to call a lawyer first thing in the morning and find out my options.

I will just sh*t a gold brick if I’m not allowed to take the trip because I refuse to give them information that they have no right to demand.

F*ck! Why is there always a fucked up catch? Why!

UPDATE: I always write these rants and then the next day wish I didn’t curse so much. I just get so mad. If I use fake numbers for the social, I forfeit the trip. It says so right on the form. I wonder if they even check it though. I’m making some phone calls today about alternative ID’s I can use and/or how securely they are going to store that form.

Oh god, SPARE me!

Some dog food, DOG FOOD, is advertising on national tv that is has the “lowest carbs of any other brand of dog food”.

IT’S TOO MUCH! TIME TO STOP THE MADNESS!!!!!!!!

It never ceases to amaze me how stupid people are.

When a person asks something on a forum, or shares their experience, is it NECESSARY to be condescending and sarcastic?

What this STUPID person doesn’t realize is that when people read his post, they will learn not to listen to him, they will learn not to respect his opinion.

Yet people continuously act this way. The anonymity of the internet allows them to be rude with no guilt. But it is they that look bad in the end.

Stupid motherf*ckers.

M’s car got it’s FIRST ding the other day. Sad. What is WRONG with people?!?!? We go through aLOT of trouble to park far away, to avoid other cars, and yet people still manage to fuck our cars up. How selfish. Just because you are mad at yourself for buying that fucking square Camry, or angry that you now live the mini-van life surrounded by screaming, sticky, smelly rugrats, don’t take it out on ME and MY CAR! Fuck you! Maybe it’s not spitefulness, but just carelessness, or ignorance, or flightyness. I don’t care. You’re still a pig for damaging our car and leaving the scene. All of you who cause damage to other people’s property and don’t give a shit or lose any sleep over it. Drive your sport ute thru the first three feet of my lawn. THAT’S OK. I didn’t have anything better to do with that several hundred dollars worth I’ll need to spend on sod! Ding up the perfect, brand new, beautiful blue Nissan 350z! I didn’t like it perfect ANYWAY!

/rant

You’d think that they’d at least TRY to get it right, especially when doing a story about how the public schools are doing!

I hate Florida. I hate Florida. I hate Florida. I hate Florida. I hate Florida. I hate Florida. I hate Florida. I hate Florida. I want to move to Toronto. I’m sick of the heat and the bugs and the rain. It used to be that every single day around 4pm it thunderstormed but then ended in no time. Now it rains at random times and it can last and last. It’s like living in Seattle. I got up early to BEAT the rain so that I could run my errands without soaking, but no, as soon as I’m about to leave the house at 11:30, it starts. I’m sick of it. I hate Florida. I hate being surrounded by nothing but OLD people. I’m sick of there being NO CULTURE here at all. I’m sick of there being NOTHING TO DO execpt go to the beach and sunburn, go on a boat and sunburn (I hate beaches and boats), going to bars and getting drunk. I hate Florida. I hate it I hate it I hate it! I want to move up north. I love snow, I love cold, I LOVE cold, I love snow, I love cities, there’s SO much more to do in Pittsburgh, New York, Toronto. The meetup.com meetups actually HAPPEN. There’s more to do besides getting drunk and sunburned. I know I’m griping but hey, this is my blog, it’s my place to vent.
P.S. I hate Florida.

No, not the day, the restaurant. I go there, order my fav steak sticks, and am told I CAN’T have them med-rare or rare. They can’t be liable for illness. LIABLE?!?!? Then make me sign a damn release but GIVE me my medium-rare steak?

Laywers are going to RUIN this country!

(are “going to“???)

Why is it that people can hear your words and take it 180-degrees wrong from what you SAID?

I mean, you say something, and your words at face value, I guess, are meaningless, because you can intend one thing and have the listener ‘hear’ a completely different thing than you indended. I just don’t get it and it drives me nuts. And inevitably it seems to be that it’s usually people whom you would not be friends with by choice, but they are in your life whether you like it or not.

[[ nevermind]]

It’s like being in a bad dream. Or on the Twilight Zone. Or on a bad reality show. It’s the feeling you’d get if you said to somebody “good morning” and they turned around and said “well it’s not MY fault it’s raining”. I mean, you’re like HUH?????

I should just stop freaking being nice to people.

Mad at technology today. I’ve had SO much trouble w/ audible.com. It totally froze up my palm pilot (clie), lost ALL my data. Luckily I’d just hot-synced. But I wrestled w/ sony tech support’s VOICE PROMT SYSTEM (read: NO HUMAN HELP) for over an hour, cursing and screaming into the phone (some systems are programmed to pick up on profanity and volume, no, seriously, they are. Yes, they are.) because if I didn’t get help NOW (it’s almost 4am) my batteries would die overnight and before that I’d get screen burn-in because it was frozen.

I am SO mad. I mean, we can put men on the moon and robots on mars but we can’t make audio book software that WORKS RIGHT?

I joined Audible.com and am surfing the site to find books I want to maybe read (hear) later. I find that ALL the pages have the SAME title at the top (browser window). All sections of the website, and all books. So every time I try to bookmark a book, I have to go into my bookmarks and modify the bookmark to reflect which book I just bookmarked.

Well, NOW I go back and find that each bookmarks brings up a TIMED OUT page, even though I am still logged in.

I guess they want you to use their “wishlist” of “books I want to purchase later” INSTEAD of bookmarks.

Who gave them permission to CONTROL my surfing behavior? I did not grant them permission to control me, I did not grant them permission to BAN me from my own bookmarks list. This REALLY irritates me.

I REALLY HATE when websites either do stuff WRONG or try to control their viewers. Cookies are bad enough, and now this!