What the Credit Card Company Giveth ...

The other day I got a single piece of mail in my mailbox. Normally, I wouldn't bother opening what was clearly an annoying mailer from my credit card company, but I was bored during the elevator ride upstairs so I opened 'er up.

Instead of the useless offer I was expecting I saw this American Dream crushing statement.

A few months ago we increased your credit limit because you are such a good customer. But since you haven't used the increase we assume you don't need it and so we are decreasing it again.

Upon reading this, this is what my face was saying: !&!^(#)!!

And this is what my mouth was saying: !&!^(#)!!

And no. I don't need a crazy high credit limit. BUT I WANT ONE!!! It makes my credit score better (at least according to Suze Orman, and she'd know more about that than I do). AND I can pretend to be a playa much better when I can throw down the plastique with confidence. But more importantly, I don't want them making arbitrary decisions for me based on what they think I need. How do they know that THIS isn't the month that I finally buy that speedboat I've been eyeing? They might think they are omniscient, but hey, newsflash credit card dudes, you're not.

Plus, isn't the whole point of being a good consumer to get good credit and be eligible for a high credit limit? It's like the best financial thing I've got going for me ... and they think they can take it away just like that? Harsh. Way harsh.

Obviously, this deserved a call to the Customer Service Center. Who promptly did nothing for me. They didn't even give me a good excuse like saying that they aren't interested in supporting people who pay their balance monthly and are therefore deadweight to their money grubbing business strategies. Nope, all they could say was that they might review it again in the future. To which I said, "Well, I am VERY DISPLEASED. And I will NOT be encouraging others to get one of your cards, jackasses."

And then I hung up and while still in a fury, promptly requested a copy of my credit report - just to see if there was something that they knew that I didn't know. If their meddling had caused any dings I would have been SERIOUSLY displeased. Luckily for them, my score was higher than ever. So suck on that, you sucking jerkface suckers.

The moral of this story is that if someone is willing to give you something you better use every last bit of it immediately or else it will be taken away. Silly things like responsibility and prudence are so passé. These days its all about Greed, baby, Greed!

Overheard Online

As seen in an online dating profile ...

I do not believe in sex before marriage and have been obstinate for 9 years now.

Although they clearly mean "celibate", the end result is the same.

LMAO

I recommend watching this on a repeated loop.



Nature is funny.

Report Card

So they were right when they said that online dating takes a lot of time. I've sort of gotten sucked into it. Sorry the blogging has been light, but I can only be clever for so long during the day. And, well, while I love you guys, none of you are going to promise to subsidize my lifestyle one day. A girl has to have priorities while distributing her charms, you know what I'm saying?

Overall, it's going pretty well. I've met quite a few normalish fellows, and even a few that are down right funny. Of course there are the straight-up crazies, such as ...

The guy who's first message said, "Don't you think we should meet?" And I was like, um, no.

Or the guy who's message was practically incomprehensible. Let me know if this makes any sense to you:

Subject: Hello Charming Princess ... [an auspicious start]

Stop searching is what everyone keeps on telling me ... so, stop searching is what I did. And on that day I sign on on the dating site , I encountered the sweetest smile I have ever seen complimented with such beautiful eyes. My heart skipped a beat,
I couldn't catch my breath and the only thing I could really say is, "Thanks, but I'm just looking around." [uh, you lost me on that one.] I wanted to say so much more than that. I will like to stare into your eyes and talk to your heart [sorry, i opted for the non-talking heart model.] but am not sure the way you will feel yet because I was nervous, so nervous I wanted to that i want to close your profile page . [by all means, please do.] But I stayed; and something tells me i have found love this is not a compliments this is what i felt deep down my heart ..pls give me a chance to get to know so that i can love you [no.] ... or you can add me to your Yahoo bubby[sic] or drop me your Chatting id. [no.]
Impatiently i wait
to hear from you... [hope you're not holding your breath]

[this is where it drifts into Text Message lingo, which in this case makes almost no sense to me.]

Note:I did like you to get back to me! with ur yahoo mail or email address and let me send you a mile with few pic of me i hate to post my pic on phote cuz f plz used ppl pic to scam..lol [whaa?]

A real keeper, eh! It's rough out here. Fortunately, so far the non-wackos are outnumbering the wackos.

And so I press on.

Desperately Seeking Gargamel

I bought some cute smokey-blue corduroy pants last week in preparation for my trip to Las Vegas (more about THAT later). I wore them on the plane ride home today, and overall I really like them. But there is one tiny little problem.

The dye bled all over me and now my legs are entirely blue. Really blue.

If I put on a white shirt, I am a reverse Smurf.



Hot. Super hot. Thanks a lot snazzy cords.

Email, The Modern Caveman's Club

To: Gretchen
From : Captain Underpants
Subject: Dinner?

Hey, would you allow me "take" you to dinner sometime this week? Or next?

Captain Underpants

P.S. If the restaurant isn't metro accessible, I'll let you provide the transportation. :-)

And here I thought chivalry was dead. Silly me!

Battles, on picking them wisely

You should know that …

1. I generally don’t favor the enforced regulation of things. It usually just complicates things that aren’t very complicated to begin with.
2. I realize there are usually good reasons for wanting to have things regulated. Chicken lip and lead content stays down, and honesty and human decency goes up.
3. I am a big proponent of people being responsible for themselves.

With that being said … have you people heard about the movement to ban (yes, I said BAN as in to LEGISLATE AGAINST) cupcakes? It’s true. Innocent, fun loving cupcakes. In other news, Christmas is canceled.

Alas, many school districts are banning cupcakes from schools in order to keep kids from eating so much junk.

As a friend of the cupcake I think this is an outrage! What did cupcakes ever do to you, besides being completely adorable little packages of sunshine and happiness? More importantly, why single out cupcakes? Why not regular cakes – especially those nasty sheet cakes with the grody frosting flowers? Those are disgusting; I’d happily see a ban against those. Aren’t they teaching discrimination by being sizists?

Moreover, if we’re SOOOOO worried about kids getting fat maybe we should make some health inducing changes rather than banning the poor little cupcake. Here are a few I’ve thought of, just off the top of my head:

• Math class could be turned into Mathercize. It’s brainy! It’s jazzy! Times-tables mixed with jumping-jacks; it’s a win-win!
• Make the fatasses run a couple laps around the building after the pledge of allegiance.
• Add an extra “Work Out Recess”. Any one standing next to the wall gets tazed.
• What about PE, people?
  

I’m no parent, so far be it from me to offer any advice for children, but we aren’t doing them any favors by banning a FOOD. (if the reaction to banned cupcakes is anything like the reaction to banned books, we’ll have kids sneaking into the backroom at bakeries and overdosing on buttercream and white cake.)

I love cupcakes, but I know that if I eat cupcakes I’m going to have to move my chub around a bit more than usual. It’s just the way it works. And if anyone takes away my cupcakes, or my future kid’s cupcakes, you better watch your back. If there’s anything I take seriously it’s cupcakes.

Verzion FIOS, Where Are You When I Need You?

OK, so you guys know that I don't really pay much attention to my finances ... right? I mean I pay attention to them, but I don't get all crazy with a calculator and a monthly budget. I'm more of a glance over my online statement a couple of times a month to make sure everything seems reasonable and that I'm not going to be in any trouble if I want to buy something extravagant like groceries, kind of girl.

So I'm browsing through my statement yesterday and I see that my cable bill is $20 more than it was last month. Since it's Comcast, which at my house I lovingly call The Money Grubbing Spawn of Satan, I immediately fly off the handle: TWENTY DOLLARS?! WHERE THE HELL IS MY TWENTY DOLLARS YOU THIEVING BASTARDS!! You know, that kind of thing.

I immediately rummaged through my pile of mail to see if my bill had arrived so I could get to the bottom of this mystery. But .... it was no where to be found. So I tried calling them. Now, just to give you an idea of how often I have to call the Money Grubbing Spawn of Satan for whatever reason (snowy picture, randomly dropped channel, no picture etc.) I have their local number stored in my phone. (I don't know if this is unusual for most people, but I only store the numbers of people I call a lot like my friends or Baja Fresh.)

So I dialed them up. But - oh what a surprise - they were not taking calls at this time .... whatever THAT happens to mean. So I get on the internet machine and look up the national number. But that TOO dropped my call. I was livid. One good thing about me is that even when livid I can still be rational. So I decided I would just try again tomorrow.

Today, I called them up ready to raise hell.

To protect the innocent I'll call my customer service representative Erica. Because that is her name. And if she wants protection she can ask her Money Grubbing Spawn of Satan employer.

I explain to Erica that I have a mysterious $20 charge, and could she please let me know what it is for? She sleuths around for about 15 minutes while I jam to "Don't Cry Out Loud .... Just keep it inside .... and learn how to hide your feelings" on muzak. When she returned she said that the charge for $19.95 was for a technician call. At some point in August my picture had disappeared and now I was being charged $20 for them to send someone to fix it.

She informed me that I could purchase Service Protection for just $4 a month to keep me from getting these $20 charges if my service fails and someone needs to come out and reinstate it.

At this point my skin peeled back from my face and flames shot out of my eyes. "NO! I am NOT going to pay $4 a month to make sure that you provide me a service that I pay SIXTY dollars a month for you to provide! Doesn't that seem completely ridiculous to you, Erica? Doesn't it? I mean, if you aren't selling a service, what are you selling? Why do you need to sell insurance for your service? Shouldn't service be PART OF THE DEAL?"

Erica agreed. As anyone with even half a brain would do when faced with such irrefutable logic. And she offered to refund the charge, thankyouverymuch.

I'm telling you, as soon as Verizon FIOS is available in my area I'm going to drop The Money Grubbing Spawn of Satan faster than they can say Competition-Infringing-Monopoly. And FIOS may suck, who knows. And really, who cares? Its not about getting FIOS, its about dropping Comcast on its fat corporate ass. Oh and about getting more channels at a better rate on 14 spectrums of light. That'll be cooool.

Resetting the bar

Radio DJ: That was a concerto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He wrote this particular piece when he was just 18.

Me: Nicely done, Herr Mozart.

Radio DJ: He'd written two concerti before that. Isn't that surprising?

Me: What, that Mozart was an overachiever? Yeah, shocker.

Radio DJ: You would have thought that he'd have written a lot more by then. But no, only two.

Me: You make a good point. What a slackass!

Take Your Toolbox Out of Your Car, Just in Case

I have to drive this route almost everyday if I want to get anywhere valuable.



Seems pleasant enough, right? Let's look at it more realistically:



Welcome to Bonifant Street. The Evil Super Villian of Silver Spring. If you venture down it, be prepared for nothing to make sense anymore. Goodbye Farfegnugen. Forget what you learned in Driver's Ed. It will only confuse and anger you. On Bonifant, your only goal is to get out of there as soon as you can, and in one piece.

As the Evil Super Villian of Silver Spring, Bonifant's main power is a crippling Mind Suck. I've seen it a million times. A car turns purposefully onto Bonifant, only to slow confusedly to a stop. The driver then looks around frantically like, "WTF am I going to do NOW?" Then one of two things will happen. They'll either double park. I call it "double parking", but usually that term entails making some effort toward getting near the first row of parked cars. Here it's more like stopping in the middle of the lane, turning the car off, getting out, and then stumbling around in the middle of the street. The second option is for them to roll down the window, hold out their hand to stop any traffic, and make a U-turn. This is best done with a cell phone pinned to the ear. As an Evil Super Villian, Bonifant is indeed powerful.

To me it seems like a pretty straightforward street. No funny signs or one ways or anything. Just drive straight, avoid a couple of potholes, and that's about all there is to it. So I'm not quite sure what the problem is, but my excellent sleuthing skills have caused me to deduce that the global moronification has something to do with a lack of parking. (FYI, I'm pretty much a genius at figuring out what other people's problems are.)

I've often thought about posting about the ridiculous driving and parking behavior on Bonifant, but poor driving is so common here that it really didn't seem worth it.

Until, Edward Banya decided to take the problems on Bonifant into his own hands. His own civilly disobedient, hand tool wielding hands.

Apparently, Banya grew tired of waiting for someone to pull out of their parking space. So he got out of his car and proceeded to help them out by stabbing them repeatedly with a screwdriver in the hand and torso. (No word on if the screwdriver was a Phillips or Flathead). The other driver wasn't seriously injured, but that didn't stop the ENTIRE Silver Spring Police force from coming and closing the street down for four hours. [When I walked by 2 hours after the incident, there were still 10 police cars and a whole lotta standing around. Of course I rushed home to write out a big fat tax check to support their efforts.]

Now, I don't want to be seen as condoning violence. That's not me at all. In a Fight or Flight scenario all you're going to be seeing of me is my receding silhouette running away from you as fast as I can. But some part of me is giving Banya a high five. Who among us hasn't wanted to throttle an idiot driver? I certainly have. And parkers on Bonifant Street have achieved an extra special level of DUMB.

Frankly, something had to be done about it. I'm not really sure it needed to involve hand tools. But perhaps it did.

Perhaps it did.

Filipino Thriller

I'm a little behind the times on this ...

But have you heard about or better yet, seen this "Thriller" recreation done by Filipino prison inmates? I just learned about it during Wait, Wait .. Don't Tell Me's Bluff the Listener segment. Mo Rocca did a v. clever and v. funny description of this prisonyard stomp. Starting with "So you think you can shank?" and ending with this Vincent Price-esqe poem:

And though you'd like to be set free
Your body starts to quiver
For no mere inmate can resist
This Filipino Thriller!

Check it:

U-G-L-Y, You Got Yourself an Alibi!

In my research on associations, I uncovered a society that definitely merits an entire post dedicated to it, and it alone. I won't waste my time coming up with clever witticisms about this association. The entry in the Encyclopedia of Associations says everything I could and more. Oh so much more. Before you read this, I just want to emphasize that I did not alter this entry in any way (except for removing the contact information.)

Uglies Unlimited (UU)
Founded: 1973
Members: 100
Description: Unattractive individuals who are vexed by discrimination against "uglies." Purposes are to: serve as the guardian of ugly human beings; encourage society and employers to accept people for what they are instead of what they look like; assist members in finding a new self-image. Solicits more exposure for uglies in mass media advertising ("Uglies can sell products too!") Pickets, boycotts, and files complaints with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Conducts public awareness program. Holds Ugly Stick competition (prizes are awarded by a "select committee of washed-out judges of past beauty pageants.") Compiles statistics.
Awards: Ugly Stick
Frequency: Annual
Type: recognition Recipient: for promotion of discrimination awareness based on appearance. Committees: Ugly Stick competition Conventions/meetings: Annual meeting -- always October. 2007 Oct 23-27, Portland, OR. Avg Attendance: 50.

I'm already booking my ticket. My only question is, if you receive the Ugly Stick is it poor form to use it to beat the living hell out of the person that gave it to you? Because I have an inkling that would be my first impulse. I'm just sayin.

High Society

In days of yore humans were hunters and gatherers. Now that we rely on the grocery store for the hunting, all we have left is gathering. So we gather. We associate, we counsel, we socialize. And that's how we got Associations, Councils, and Societies. duh.

Living in Washington DC really takes this to the next level. Every time I turn around there's some new "National Association for ..." moving into the office next door. The truly amazing thing about all of these Associations is their specificity. I continually find myself saying, "Can you believe there's an association for that? That's just weird!"

For example, if you would like to only talk to really really REALLY smart people then you should join the Mega Society - a group for people who can prove that they are 99.9999% smarter than the general population. No more will your discussions on the Hoyle-Narlikar Theory of Gravitation stumble into done-to-death references to Newton. That is like so 1965! If you're a member of the Mega Society you don't even have to bother to invite members of the One-in-a-Thousand group to join your discussion. One-in-a-Thousands are only 99.99% smarter than the general population. So the Mega Society is like Too Mega Smart for them.

The Mega Society is plainly 99.9999% elitist and .0001% ridiculous. And ridiculous things intrigue me. Since Associations are clearly a hotbed of silliness, I figure it's high time I knew more about them!

Flexing my Librarian muscle I decided to do a little research and see if I couldn't find the most preposterous Association name. (Using those hot muscles) I heaved the four large volumes of the Encyclopedia of Associations off the shelf and started browsing. I was looking to see how granular each section was likely to get. The short answer is "pretty damn granular". I could easily see why some things had associations. Hobbies, historical trusts, famous persons, those promoting work standards, and anything that might at some point need to be lobbied for I considered valid. But there were a few that seemed just too specific to garner more than a handful of members. And if your entire membership can be fed and watered on a six-pack and a bag of Oreos I don't think you really need an association. Do you? The entire research project made me wonder how much pull in society the following groups could possibly have.

• National Frozen Pizza Institute (membership entirely constituted by frat boys, of course.)
• Neckwear Association of America (note that this group deals specifically with ties. Not scarves or any other type of neckwear. Just ties.)
• Underfashion Club (for you pervs out there that want to talk about underwear all the live long day)
• Coalition for Non-Violent Food (its dangerous work, but someone's got to keep food from fighting.)
• Be Somebody, Be Yourself Institute (membership: 1)
• Parents Against Tired Truckers ('Bout time someone besides Smokey was against Truckers. Damn convoys.)
• Clutterers Anonymous; Messies Anonymous (no word on if you can have dual membership in Clutterers AND Messies Anonymous. But if so, I hope they give you a complimentary trash can.)
• Good Bears of the World (Sadly, this is about collecting Teddy Bears. I originally thought it was to help distinguish the Good Bears from the Evil Bears. A much needed service!)
• National Remotivation Therapy Organization (I'm thinking of joining this one myself, they promise to help motivate you. You think they could get me to the gym?)
• Butter Pat Patter Association (Must I point out that this group is not even dedicated to full sticks of butter? Butter pats, friends, butter pats.)
• Cow Observers Worldwide (aptly acronymed as COW)
• AAAA - American Association Against Acronyms (ok, this one is fake, but all the others are real I promise.)

And then I found The One. The Ultimate. The group that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that if this is a legitimate organization then any gathering for any purpose, however farcical, can be legally codified and bylawed.

And so, it is to you, National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, that I present the award for being my Most Favorite Ridiculous Association. You are the Yin to my Yang: I reject, and you accept. There is harmony in the world because you exist. And so, The Honor and (gratefully) The Fat is all yours.

An Unfortunate Name

Read a story about creative television commercials:

"'We all need to become more creative in how we incorporate sponsors into a program,' said Ed Swindler, executive vice president for NBC Universal ad sales."

Ed, perhaps you should have chosen a line of work that didn't involve persuading people to give you money.

Serial Barfer

On my walk yesterday from the Bethesda Library to my office (about 5 blocks) I noticed three blobs of nasty on the sidewalk that looked suspiciously like throw up. Of course I didn't inspect them closely, so I can't be sure. But that's what it looked like to me, and based on the comments of those around me, that's what it looked like to them.

I was surprised to see three blobs. All similar in color and content (again without really looking too closely). Three seems like a lot. Especially in one short walk along Bethesda Avenue.

This morning on my walk from the Metro to the office there was another one! Again, similar color and content. Of course, given the frequency and similarity of the sightings this can mean only one thing: There's a serial barfer loose in Bethesda!

Bethesdans, in light of this crisis, you should consider wearing goulashes until this foolio gets himself a bottle of Pepto and stops littering our streets with land mines of yucky.

(Consider this a Public Service Announcement. Too bad I don't need to do any community service, this would totally count.)