We Suck.. Buy Our Product?

The other night I answered the telephone at my mother's house. The caller ID said "Razmus Marketing" or something along those lines. A young male caller identified himself by first name and said he was with the Morning Journal, an area newspaper which is tossed into my mother's driveway every morning because she pays for that service. He started out by saying that they had received several calls over the past few weeks from people in my area saying that they had not been receiving their newspaper regularly and wondered if I had been receiving mine?

This is the point at which I was expected to tell him either "Oh, yes, our Morning Journal has been arriving just fine" or "I don't subscribe to the Morning Journal" at which point Joe Blow from Razmus Marketing would proceed to list all the benefits of being a subscriber to the Morning Journal and try to sell me on home delivery of the paper. Hmmm, let me think about this for a minute... "Our customers have been calling to tell us our service sucks, and oh, you don't already pay for that service? Would you like to begin paying for a service we've been receiving complaints about, and here are the benefits of doing so???"

I simply stated "I think we would have called you before now if we hadn't been receiving our newspaper for several weeks, thank you" to which mumbled a reply of "oh, uh, sorry" and hung up.

Do people really fall for this shit and order subscriptions when they get a call like this?

Tommy Wazney is 63 today...

Happy Birthday to my old friend Tom Wazney!

If you see him, please tell him about this post!

This Will Be Brief...

I keep hearing about polls that have determined that Americans strongly want the country to be "heading in a different direction" and somehow relating that to the 2008 presidential election, which is now but a year away. Here's my feeling on that:

I do not want to wait until after the next presidential election to see a change of course in this country. I want the fucking pussies in Washington, the ones we all elected, all of us across the country, in that big sweeping lets-take-back-America-now campaign a year ago, to get off their ineffectual self-serving asses and do something to change the course of things now. Do something about cutting off funds for and ending this fucking war and the other wars we seem about to jump into. Do something about the crooks who are running this war and hold them accountable, all the way up to George Bush, for the crooks who have stolen millions from the American people and murdered who knows how many across the globe with their contracts to protect, rebuild, etc. Stop them from throwing our money at a useless war on drugs while flying tons of those same drugs around the world, selling them, and perpetuating a drug crisis in this country and others in order to fund their secret weapons and torture projects. Get and give us back our freedoms, take care of our people, hell, take care of other people's people too, educate our children (and adults), and so forth. Nope, I don't have any answers as to how all of that should start happening now, other than to say that's their collective job, they should have started a year ago to do what they were elected to do, and I see no reason that we should wait another year for yet another damned election in order for them to get the ball rolling.

While I'm at it, let me say that I AM A DEMOCRAT AND I DO NOT WANT TO HAVE TO VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON for president. I already know this, I've felt it for months, and my feelings will not change. If she's what ends up on the final ballot, as a loyal Democrat I will be flipping that lever while feeling like I'd rather be coughing up a hairball.

That said, don't forget to get out and vote on November 6th!

Exploitation

I fully intend to exploit my friend Veronica's dog Rudy, for cash, of course. She now has a blog, please see it here.

Tonight, in a different way...

Good Luck, Sil! We'll miss you!

Overnight, friends saying goodbye...

Another Message...

I like this guy... it's hotter than hell out and he's standing there with his heavy sign...

Smart car, again!

My friend Katie and I went to test drive the smart car in Cleveland last Friday...

I loved it!

One Voice...

Thank you!

NOW do you believe me?

About 20 years ago I drove down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras with some friends. On the way, I saw a pig as big as a Volkswagen Bug. Everyone else in the car was sleeping, and nobody believed me. Today I see a story about a kid somewhere down south who killed this thing...

NEWS FLASH!

This just out on Yahoo! news at almost 11:00pm on Friday night...

Bush official linked to call-girl probe...

LOL!!!

POP! Goes the Weasel...

I had my day in small claims court last Friday. The former landlord brought a bogus statement full of lies from a third party, but in the end the judge decided that I was entitled to part of my deposit back anyhow. He opted not to double the amount that was withheld from me, and it would have been sweet to get what I originally asked for, but it is deeply satisfying to know that the weasel has to write me a check for $200 plus my costs to file the claim. It really was a matter of principle to me. He thumbed his nose at his legal obligation to either return my deposit or tell me why he wasn't doing so, and now he has to pay me. Maybe I'll buy the dogs some steaks with the money... :)

Demolition of my bathroom wall has begun, and I discovered that it used to be the exterior wall to the house, which I had sort of thought was out a few feet more, but the window frame and siding behind the drywall changed my mind on that... I'm hoping to get the rest of it taken down this weekend, if I have the energy. Having lived in the previous shithole for so long, I can tolerate a partially destroyed wall for a couple of weeks, maybe even months or ... ?

April has actually been pretty busy. It was lots of fun shooting scenes from Ryan Trecartin's next film a couple of weeks ago! Ryan, Lizzie, Kenny, Taya and Megan were at my house for several hours one night, during which I got to stab a bunch of holes into my walls with a rather large knife. My character, Mayfly, is a little erratic in her behavior, imagine that... A couple of nights later, we had a blast shooting some more at Ruth's house (after a fabulous dinner made by Kenny) with several "ladies" in attendance. Anyhow, I'm so glad Ryan included me and came all the way here from Philadelphia, I love you guys!

I've taken a few side trips this month, one to Columbus, and the other to the new Presque Isle Downs casino in near Erie, PA, where I lost all the money I had, and then some. I'm still living without cable, and haven't turned the television on at all for a couple of weeks except to watch some dvd's. The news if so horrible lately I don't think I could stand to watch it anyhow. The shootings at Virginia Tech on Monday. In Iraq, more than a hundred killed yesterday, nearly two hundred today. I can barely read beyond the headlines these days without crying.

Looking forward to some warmer weather...

smart!

I've reserved a smart car/passion model with the "panoramic roof"... they are expected to be available in the US during the first quarter of 2008.

How much cuter could a car be?

Happy St. Paddy's

I was going to post a picture of a stack of Mexican drug money (US $206M) but I would have been stealing it and don't want to infringe on anyone's copyright. Instead I'll post a picture I found in my phone mailbox today of a guy who lived around the corner from me last fall. He was a friendly guy, but somewhat of an exhibitionist.

Frozen Treats with G...

Is it live, or is it... ?

The other day I passed a possum laying in the road and I wondered --

is it dead? or is it... playing?

:)

Don't feel sorry for Scooter today -- the whole experience has probably taught him who his real friends are, and Bush will pardon him on his way out.

Entirely unrelated personal news -- I've been doing Rosetta Stone language courses for free online through my local public library's web site. French and Spanish. I tried the Hindi and Arabic but it's a lot more difficult when you can't read the writing that goes along with it. Besides, doing the Arabic lessons will probably bring the government swooping down on my house or something. Or at the very least, have them monitoring my activities. [Sari, if you are reading, I know what you are thinking, and I will not do it here/now!] After French and Spanish I will move on to Italian and Portuguese, I think.

Looking forward to going out to dinner with BP II ladies back for spring break...

PSA: Don't forget to change your clocks this weekend!

Sadness...

It's so hard to get through a news story about what is happening in Iraq. It's so sad to read daily reports of dozens of people being blown apart. When is this going to end? How can it end?

Window Shopping

So wrong... and yet, so right.









Donald J. Pliner.

One small step...

North Dakota issues the nation's first hemp permits!

Goodbye, South Park! Hello, Small Claims Court...

So, today is my day off, and I've been running errands. I put in the order to cancel my cable television service, effective tomorrow. I'm going to try living without it for awhile. There will probably be a short period of regret and/or adjustment, but overall I don't think I'll miss it very much. I'll watch PBS on regular television. We'll see how it all goes...

I also consulted an attorney about filing a case against my former landlord, who failed to return my security deposit to me when he sold the house I rented from him, and didn't transfer my deposit over to the new landlord as part of the sale. I didn't realize that was the case until I moved several months later, and the new owner told me he said I never had a deposit. Lying bastard! I wasn't sure if it was simple small claims case since Ohio law allows for recovery of twice the deposit amount if a landlord fails to return it within thirty days. I thought that extra money might be considered punitive damages which would mean it couldn't be filed in small claims court, but that turns out not to be the case, it's just statutory allowance or some such shite. (Thanks, Barry Eckstein, for the free legal advice!) Anyhow, once I found the proof that I had indeed paid a deposit (a copy of my check, my bank statement, and the original lease showing that the date I moved in corresponded with the check date) I called the old landlord to ask for my money, and he didn't return my call. I sent him a letter requesting just the deposit amount plus a year's interest, and he didn't send it. So now because he's being an asshole about it, it is no longer just about the money. It's become a matter of principal. I really won't mind getting twice my money back from him, so I'll file the claim against both him and his wife for double the amount of the deposit plus interest on the entire (doubled) amount. He'll either pay me twice the amount of my deposit plus interest plus court costs, or I'll get a judgment lien on the big house they own. Dick.

Hibernation time...

Colder than heck outside, isn't it? I'm getting ready to disconnect my cable television and try to find my entertainment on the internet for awhile... television pretty much sucks, and there will only be a few things I'll miss on a regular basis.

Speaking of the internet, my heart was racing while watching this video which I found through a link on BoingBoing.

I hope winter doesn't last much longer, the woodchuck says it won't...

Ringing In 2007...

Because it was reported that the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq reached 3,000 just before the year 2006 came to an end, shortly after midnight I decided that it was important to read -- not just scroll through -- the entire list of their names. It's a long list, far too long, but I did it anyhow, and it took over an hour. You can find it here, or see related statistics by using the link to Iraq War Stats in the "My Recent Bookmarks" list on this blog.

I began at the "bottom" of the list, with Therrel Shane Childers, who died nearly four years ago on March 21, 2003 -- yes, it's been almost four years now that this has been going on. Scrolling up from there, I stumbled over the pronunciation of some names in my mind, or noticed that some days or weeks multiple soldiers with the same given or middle name were killed and thought it was an especially unlucky week to have that particular name. I saw "famous" names like Nick Nolte and Michael Jordan. I imagined that when three female service members were killed on the same date they must have been in the same support unit and died together, though I didn't check the details.

I don't know how often I'll go back to that list. I hope it stops growing soon. I think George Bush should read it, or have Laura read it to him. I trust (?) that he is at the very least informed of the number of deaths on a regular basis, but I wonder if he bothers to find out the names? I don't know if he personally offers his condolences to the families of each of these people, but I doubt it. At this moment and after reading the entire list, I believe that should be a job requirement for him -- to personally have at least one conversation with and apologize to the parents, wives, husbands, children, brothers and sisters, friends or other loved ones of every single soldier who has died in his war.