Life, friends, family, opinions, and the occasional consumer complaint.
43 posts
I just got a call from the Chase fraud computer voice. He told me that somebody had just charged my card about $250 to a clothing website called ASOS.com. He asked if it was me and I kept pressing zero so I could talk to a person. I knew if I said it wasn’t me…
· Personal , Programming · Comments
Louisiana Tech just sent me a “reminder” email with my full username and password in there. That information is everything necessary to logon to the school student portal and get the rest of my personal information, full school transcript, etc. Not only do I not like them emailing my password, I don’t like that they…
Continue reading A Lesson in How Not to Conduct Website Security →
· Personal , Technology · Comments
Happy birthday to me! Also, Apple announced their iPad today. One thing I meant to mention in my previous predictions: I thought it would have at least a front facing camera for video conferencing with iChat and/or Skype. I’m very surprised it doesn’t have that. I predict this will be in the first hardware revision…
Continue reading Followup on My Predictions for Apple's Tablet Event →
My house is finally listed and on the market (as MLS #: N114783)! It’s been repainted, the yard has been mowed, and Amanda and I worked really hard to get the house ready to sell by cleaning everything inside. I am using Robin Ramsey of the Chris Hayes Team to sell the house, and so far I’m very satisfied with their work. This is a very important piece of my continuing quest to get out of Shreveport and move to Dallas. You have to search to see the listing on the Chris Hayes Team site, so I’ve linked to the data for the house on realtor.com. However, the pictures and captions Robin posted are linkable through their site. Here are the pictures and descriptions Robin wrote: Exterior Front: Character Galore! Privacy wall in the front that adds protection from the setting sun in the evenings. Nicely manicured yard and landscaping. This home sits on a very quiet street with unbelievable neighbors. There are more pictures and descriptions after the jump.
Happy 123456789 day! It just passed 12:34:56 7/8/9 right now in the United States (central time zone)! Hooray for arbitrary dates, but at least that one won’t happen like that for a while. For our friends almost everywhere else in the world, you have August 7th to look forward to for your 123456789 day.
Circle K always has way more employees working at any given time than the number of registers open. I believe they pride themselves on how long they can back the line up at the register. There were four employees there today, including the manager. I took the picture at the right today! I complained to…
There was a crane in my parking lot at work when I went downstairs to grab something out of my car! I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen one in real life before. Look at the pictures!
I really hate Comcast, a lot. I hated them before, and I hate them more now. Before anyone tells me to, I’m going to send this to Comcast Frank (comcastcares) when I’m finished. All I wanted to do was get the hours of the local office, but you can’t get that on their web site, because they have no "Store Locator" type function that every other business has. I thought I’d do the live chat option to find the information, but knowing the problems that my coworker Dave Anderson had trying to get the phone number for the local office before, I was very specific. I ended up spending 32 minutes, more than half and hour, and ended up with nothing to show for it. They first gave me the address of a grocery store that hasn’t dealt with Comcast in over 5 years and then gave me the address of a shopping center in Shreve City that has no Comcast there. I’m not sure what business they intended me to contact. Then, amazingly, they gave me the same information for Thrifty Liquor that they gave Dave before, except this time, I noticed they’re not giving the name of the business where they’re referring you anymore. Way to go on the changes Frank! She then tried to get me to leave the chat by telling me to call the "local" number because she’s in Canada. She gave me the wrong number to the local office, giving me an "out of service" message! Ridiculous! I knew far more about the cable locations and numbers than she did, which isn’t saying much. The reason I’m returning 3 cable boxes in the first place and canceling all of the digital cable is because of the absolutely horrible "SARA" software they put on the Comcast DVRs. The old "Passport" software wasn’t exactly TiVo, but it was completely usable, and actually intuitive. The new software "looks like an old Nintendo game" (actual quote), according to my girlfriend, and I completely agree. My father hates SARA. My mother hates SARA. All of my coworkers hate SARA. Two of my coworkers are canceling cable for their household because of SARA. Everyone I know hates SARA, but according to Comcast Frank, it’s here to stay, because of some contractual agreement with TV Guide. If you’d like to read the absolutely excruciating transcript with their support agent that took me over 32 minutes to make it through, please read on. She did end it with an amusing mistake: "I do apologize for the Chris."
Continue reading Comcast Sucks and is the Worst Company Ever →
Update: It’s back up, 24 hours later, but the auto payment still isn’t posted. I use Wesla Federal Credit Union as my credit union. I don’t actually use it as my primary checking anymore, although I used to. Today when I tried to login, I was greeted with what you see on the right: "Could…
Update 2: The local news covered it. More gross! Update: Kevin Messenger, my coworker, commented and said that they are Mayflies! Gross! What are all these ugly bugs in Shreveport? They were all over our stairs this morning, completely covering them at work. Jenny’s girlfriend said that when she was crossing the bridge into Bossier…
Those radio commercials are pretty ubiquitous. Every car dealership wants to know: Do you have a job??? Do you have $149??? Then you could be approved for a brand new Kia from Elkins Kia! What occurred to me the other day was that a person that doesn’t have one or both of those might get…
It’s been 161 days since my last blog post, far too long. Lots of stuff has happened in my life since then. The anniversary of my birth has passed once again, and I’m 25 now. I’ve loved. I’ve lost. I’ve been things in between. I’ve been sick. I’ve had a tooth pulled out. My car…
After ice skating last week, Chris, Jen, and I were going to go to Dallas to The Galleria to go ice skating there on a better rink. Jen sent me a link to a nearby place, where you can do all kinds of fun things that involve jumping from high altitudes, called Zero Gravity Thrill…
Today, at 3 PM at the Randle T. Moore Center, Joey and Natalie got married! I got to witness it all, and it’s pretty weird to think about "Natalie Wall", but I’m extremely happy for them both. I’m sure I’ll add pictures to this post later when I have some. I didn’t bring my camera…
My work allowed all employees to sign up for two free tickets for the Independence Bowl. I’m not normally into football, unless it’s LSU playing, but I figured it was free, and I’ve never actually been to a football game in real life. It was pretty fun. It was Alabama vs. Colorado. Apparently, I’m supposed…
· Personal , School · Comments
I finally had my graduation ceremony Wednesday, December 19th. Some friends and family went with me to Buffalo Wild Wings afterward, and that was fun. I had a lot of leftover wings though, and against Bill’s advice, I ate them Saturday for lunch. I think I might have gotten food poisoning. Last night, I went…
· Personal , School · Comments
Firestone has just made my shitlist. Tonight, after work, I drove all the way across town away from my house to get my hair cut. I wanted to look "presentable" for pictures tomorrow since I’m graduating tomorrow night. After I did that, I drove way back over to the Time-It Lube on Bert Kouns to…
· Personal , School · Comments
It smells like rotting flesh in my house. It’s absolutely horrible. I’ve been through this before. Some animal has taken it upon itself to crawl up inside my attic and die. Then my house smells like death for a week. You’d think I’d have to do something about it, but I’ve ignored it in the…
Continue reading My House Stinks and I'm Almost Done With School →
I normally don’t post “Dear blag, here’s how my life is going” posts, but I haven’t posted in a while, so I suppose one of those is better than none at all. Last weekend was pretty busy, so here goes. On Friday (10/19/2007), I helped Jenny move a bunch of heavy stuff from her old…
Tonight was Joey ‘s birthday dinner. He and a friend, who I will mention later, were celebrating the same night at a Japanese restaurant named Kobe. After the food and tip, it cost me $30. Chris and Jen went with me. Jen has already written a blog post about the night. I knew it would…
Today, Chris Leon, Bill Porter, and I took Jenny Roe shooting. I think Bill put it well when he said that taking someone else shooting is one of the most fun things you can do in shooting. I took a bunch of pictures since it was Jenny’s first time and put them on facebook and myspace. The videos of her shooting a .45 and a 20 gauge shotgun are below.
This has been the best summer ever. Summer usually sucks because it’s so hot and walking outside makes me feel like I’m melting. However, last month (July 2007), it rained 18 out of the 31 days and all the other days it was cloudy. This has to be the coolest July I’ve ever experienced in…
I have had intermittent allergy problems since I was a child. I knew that I was allergic to cats, dust, and feathers, since that’s what my parents told me, and I knew from experience with cats. I’ve never had an adverse reaction to Chris Leon ‘s cat, however, and Darwin rubs all on me when…
I just got back from the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area on Sunday. I left Friday, May 18th and got back Sunday, May 27th and I stayed with my friend Mike in Grapevine, Texas. I had a lot of fun, which was mostly due to Six Flags Over Texas. I purchased a Season Pass here and Courtney, Mike, his girlfriend Heather, and I went there on various days. In total, I probably spent over 48 hours at the park.
It came to my attention one year ago today, I started blogging. I find that humorous, considering the anniversary of my post about how I hate Overstock.com has its anniversary three days from now. The reason that’s humorous is that I just got done ordering some Christmas gifts from there. I suppose I can’t just…
According to this CNN article, Steve Irwin, better known as the “Crocodile Hunter”, is dead at age 44. Australian media reports say Irwin was diving in waters off Port Douglas, north of Cairns, when the incident happened on Monday morning. Irwin was killed by a stingray barb that went through his chest, according to Cairns…
I came down to Metairie, Louisiana for the New Oreleans Secular Humanist Association. In case you’re not familiar with it, here is an article on Humanism. Dell Brennan, one of the founding members of the Shreveport Atheists to which I belong, was coming down here to the meeting and also to her daughter’s husband’s 50th…
OK, that title might have been slighly inflammatory. They probably weren’t trying to kill me, but they sure did almost do it with MSG. Today, in a rare break from my normal tradition of not eating out for lunch, I went out to eat with my previous coworker John Morrow and friend Seth Gholson who…
Tonight, I attended a Shreveport Mayoral forum with most of the candidates for the Shreveport mayoral race. It was hosted by the Political Action Council for Equality, a group that supports and attempts to extend rights for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender people. One of the officers and “focus group facilitators” is one of my…
Well, I’ve been caffeine free for about four and a half days. I had Diet Coke at Chick-fil-A when Chris and I went there before seeing Clerks II on Friday. To get off topic for a second, that movie was great. Go see it ASAP, unless you’re easily offended that is. I’ve been wanting to…
If you read my blog or know me, you know I quit my job at Highland Clinic about a week ago. I also mentioned the CareerBuilder post they had up to replace me. I linked to a saved version of the post in case they changed it. They did change it. The new version (locally…
Today was my last day at Highland Clinic. It was not unexpected, and if you know me well, you knew about it already. I gave only two weeks notice because I didn’t know whether or not they would flip out and fire me immediately, and I wanted to at least be able to have my…
Tonight, Chris Leon and I went to Whataburger to grab something to eat before we went back to my house and watched the DVD of The God Who Wasn’t There. We were talking in the car and Chris forgot about the Whatabuger by my house, so we ended up at the one in southeast Shreveport.…
· Personal , School · Comments
Yeah, so beside that last blog post about Wal-Mart that I just published, I had not blogged since February 8, 2006. That’s quite a long time to go without explicating my thoughts or the reasons for not sharing them. Let me now tell you why I had not been sharing anything lately in an unordered…
If you want the quick answer, skip to the last sentence. Otherwise, read the dramatic tale of my first taste of Coke Zero below. Tonight, after my quiz in CHEM124, while waiting for the other students to turn in their quiz, I hurried downstairs to grab what I believed to be a delicious Diet Coke.…
Continue reading My Review And First Impressions of Coke Zero →
I turned twenty-three years old on Friday (1/27/2006). I also own at ping pong. In other news, I now have my own MySpace. You might have noticed it linked on the right hand side over there. You didn’t? Have a look now. Yes, my MySpace has a song playing in the background. You know why?…
Meefaw Inc. Volume 3 The future is now; it’s 2006. I had lots of fun last night and didn’t wake up today until about 2:30pm. I didn’t get to go to sleep until about 6:30am. More on that later. Josh finished editing on Meefaw Volume 3 while ago, but it’s finally all online in its…
Mucophagy The Top 10 Craziest Science Stuff you didn’t know has quite a few awesome facts. For instance, regarding eating your boogers (mucophagy): Some research suggests that mucophagy may be a natural and even healthy activity, which exposes the digestive system to bacteria accumulated in the mucus, thereby helping to strengthen the immune system. I’ve…
Continue reading Eating Boogers Each Day Keeps the Doctor Away →
Greg (Facebook) was in town for Christmas and brough Alan (Facebook) to my house. We played Xbox 360 for a while and then watched part of Trading Spouses from episodes that my roommate had downloaded. It was the one with the crazy christian lady who’s screaming “SHE’S NOT A CHRIS-CHUN!!!” and “GARGOYLES!!!” and “DARK SIDED…
Well, I had fun this Christmas. I got that neat Galileo thermometer that is over there on the left. My mom said something like, “I wasn’t sure how it worked, but it looked pretty nerdy, so I figured you’d like it”. I didn’t get much else in the way of presents except cash, gift certificates…
I just got back from Jennifer’s (Facebook, Myspace) apartment. She has game night on Wednesday for friends and other people. I got a Christmas present!!! Jennifer gave me these pictures in a frame. Christmas came early this year! We played Apples to Apples. If you’ve not played this game, I think it is probably one…
Update: They did sell out of that stupid thing I bought. I wouldn’t have been able to believe that I could hate them more. They gave me a $5.00 coupon toward a future purchase, but even including that, I had to spend $15 more in order to get an item similar to the one I wanted to buy. Sure, Overstock might lure you in with their ads featuring a seductive austrian woman prancing about in a white wonder world of online commerce, but what really awaits you on the web site? I hate Overstock.com. Don’t get me wrong, I shop there, but I hate it the same way I hate Wal-Mart, and I hate it too, but for different reasons. Read on to see why I hate Overstock.com.
If you know me well, you might know that I love banana flavored anything, and I especially love Budget $aver Banana Popsicles. This company is great; they make one product, popsicles. They have a nice history writeup of their company on their webpage and little sob story on the back of every package: You are…