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Attempt to get the iPhone #1 - Fail [Jul. 11th, 2008|11:29 pm] [ Tags | angst, iphone, metro ] So, today, I failed at getting and iPhone. I couldn't even TRY. Not because of the lines or anything, but this was the plan: 6:00 - Get picked up at Metro, go to Fair Oaks Mall, assess crowd, ask if they fixed iTunes yet. if it's insane, turn around and go home. 7:15 - Sushi dinner 9:45 - See Hellboy II, hope I don't get paged. BUT... the Metro *broke down*! Yes indeed, it broke down as in power failure. Somewhere around 5:45, the Metro train stopped. And we waited. And waited. We waited somewhere in the tunnel between Ballston and East Falls Church. Finally the conductor came on and said the train ahead of us had to be evacuated due to a power failure in the system. But not to panic, we still had power (as indicated by the lights and working A/C). But he didn't want to move us until we got cleared. At about 6:10, the conductor said we were allowed to move to East Falls Church, but they were evacuating the cars. There was a power failure at Vienna, and they were shutting down the Orange Line until it was resolved. When we got to East Falls Church, the platform was so clogged, it was hard to get off the train. People we talking on cell phones and trying to assess the problem. They had announcements, but you couldn't hear a damn thing over the roar of the crowd and the white noise hiss of I-66 which is on both sides of that station. Finally, some people in orange vests said to leave the station. It took me about 10 minutes to get from the platform to the outer gates. That's when they said it would take 3-4 hours to restore service. They also said that they had restored the trains to West Falls Church, and would have shuttlebusses there. I went to look at getting a cab, but 2000 other people were ahead of me. East Falls Church is a small station, and it was swamped like an outdoor rock concert. I thought, "I grew up near here!" I know this place fairly well, there's a shopping center that-a-way!" There WAS a shopping center in 1986, but now it was a series of luxury townhomes. At least the Exxon was still there, and I got some water and Gatorade because it was 89 degrees outside and I was wheezing badly because of my asthma. I walked up and down around the area, but I couldn't find a shopping center or any business district until I followed Lee Highway where it crosses I66. I finally found the Econolodge near I-66, but takayla couldn't pick me up because of the traffic, so... I tried to get a cab, knowing full well that it may take a while. And it did, but not really because of the mass exodus from East Falls Church. The cabbie, a really nice guy from India, told me "We never pick up when people call from Metro Stations. Times like this, you got thousands of people leaving, how are you going to find a 'Steve' out of all that? No sir, the dispatcher will refuse, and say just wait of the next cab to show up. Today, however, traffic on 66 is terrible and we have a light day for cabbies anyway. They are all still sleeping, waiting for the business when bars let out tonight. You did good to walk a few miles away and call from where you did." Wise words. The cab ride cost me $65 from the Falls Church/Arlington Border to Fairfax, and it took a while because he didn't want to take 66, but the Dulles Toll Road. I got home at 8, and everyone had already left for sushi and the movie. Home alone, exhausted, wheezing, and depressed, I called stodgycat and found out that coincidentally, they were looking for a sitter to see our friend Paul perform tonight. I didn't even know Paul was in town. But he's with his new group, and so stodgycat and cheesy_reads went and saw him while I stayed with Scarlet, Kieran, and little stodgyspike. I stayed up later with Scarlet, who turns ten in a few weeks, and shares the same birthday as my father. So she's a Leo. I had one of the best talks with her I had with anyone in a while, and I still say people should hang around children and learn a few things. Sure cured my depression. Bonus: I tried to get Kieran to say in a low voice, I drink your milkshake! But no iPhone. Maybe I'll go tomorrow. link post comment

Another fun day on the Metro [May. 14th, 2008|12:14 pm] [ Tags | angst, bad moods, metro, rant ] Today was a terrible day on the Metro... for other people. I was okay, but feeling uncomfortable as this sunny weather and what I considered happy weather seemed to anger everyone on the way in this morning. I am reading my book, when suddenly I hear a voice scrape across the air, "You know, other people don't want to hear your phone conversations." A quick glace showed a confrontation between two men. The man on the phone looked like a distinguished businessman with a very low voice; so low, I didn't even register he was on the phone even though he was maybe 3 feet away from me or less. That's the Metro for you. But sitting in a seat a foot away was the kind of guy you just want to punch on principle. An older guy with a bike helmet, a "Northern Face" jacket, shorts, and a messenger bag. But it wasn't how he looked that bothered me, but his patronizing tone to the businessman standing up in front of him. The business man said something which sounded like a gracious apology, but the older man just kept talking like he was condemning an errant teenager who just said the F-bomb in front of his small children. "A lot of people have to share the Metro, you can make that call at some later time." I wanted to stand up and go, "What the FUCK? How would YOU know? He can use his damn phone all he likes, and I wasn't even aware he was talking until your irritating anal-control voice slithered into my ear like oily barbed wire." But I didn't. I am not sure what the man said next, because again, he had a quiet, low voice. But the old guy kept shaking his head, "No. NO. You can make that call outside the Metro. Now hang up that phone." The business man decided to do so rather than fight, but the old guy lectured him for another minute or so. It took me a while to calm down in sympathy. What a prick! Then a little later, another guy started hassling this young woman sitting next to him. "Move your pointy elbows!" he said. The way he was sitting was seriously encroaching into her space because he had a rolling suitcase, a duffel bag, and was holding onto all of it instead of keeping it on the floor. The woman said something back, and his response sounded like, "Well, some of us weren't born rich and privileged." Finally, he moved to an empty seat, but when he made eye contact with me he shook his head and said, "Women can be so self-centered." Yeah, so can asshats with luggage. Then there was a really bratty private school kid with possibly his older sister. I see a lot of private school kids on the Red Line, and many of them are rambunctious and rude. In this case, the younger kid who looked about 7 or 8 was climbing all over the seats while he teenager sister was yelling at him to stop. All he did was mock her, laugh, and generally act monkey-like in his taunting. Finally, one of her attempts to grab him worked, and she pulled him across the seat, pulled down his pants, and spanked the hell out of him. The kid just said, "Oh yeah. Uh huh. I like dat! Smack my ass!" Her blows were weak and ineffective, and finally the kid wiggled away, even more hyper. He started doing a dance out of her reach, and then started jumping on the seats. Not two seconds after I thought, "God's going to take care of this one," the kid slipped and fell ON HIS THROAT over a handlebar on the back of the seat. His tune changed quickly. He started to cough and then cry. His sister came over to look at him, but he jerked away, gasping. Then they got off at Fort Totten, so I am not sure how badly he was hurt. But as they left, she was saying, "I told you not to do that. I told you you'd get hurt, but you're such a stupid ass you don't even listen to anything!" Fun day! link 5 comments|post comment

Things found in the office printer [Mar. 31st, 2008|09:33 am] [ Tags | angst, printer, work ] It amazes me, that people send stuff to the office printer and then just leave them there. I am not sure what goes through the mind of these people. This is how I roll: 1. I need to print this item 2. I send the document to the printer. 3. I go to retrieve it. 4. Task finished. This is the part I don't understand: 1. Someone says, "I need to print this item" 2. ???? 3. ???? 4. Punk finds it in the printer tray or next to the printer. If it's something generic like printing out a mail with directions to an office meeting, or a snippet of public code, no big whoop I guess. But far too often I encounter things in the printer tray that are far too sensitive for what I'd define as "public knowledge." And it's not like they were *just* printed, I have passed by the printer for days to see some of the following left out, waiting for someone to pick it up, at the various companies I have worked at: - Personalized medical instructions for some ailment ("Living with chronically draining pus...") - Gaming stats or scores ("Red wizard needs food badly; Valkyrie has shot the food!") - News stories of some random local event ("Local woman with wooden leg marries woodpecker") - Porn (usually pictorial, but also erotic literature, "Softly, he grabbed her hot thighs...") - Confirmation receipts of some on-line purchase ("Confirmation of your order from Dominatrix4Cheep.com: please keep for your records") - Personal identity info (W4, credit apps, bank statements, etc) - Sports betting pools (isn't this illegal?) - E-mail I wouldn't have shared with anyone else ("John, my doctor has informed me to tell my past few lovers to please go to a clinic right away...") link 5 comments|post comment

Awwww... crap [Aug. 27th, 2007|01:44 pm] [ Tags | angst, chocolate ] So, Fresh Fields had a sale on Icelandic chocolate. I loved Icelandic chocolate when I was last there in 1996. So I got a bar from a box labeled "Milk Chocolate." When I opened it back at my desk and bit into it, it tasted terrible. That's when I looked at the wrapper and it said, "Baker's Chocolate: Bittersweet." See, I dislike bitter chocolate. Don't debate with me about it, either, because every time I say that, I meet some dark chocolate aficionado who tries to convince me it's superior to milk chocolate until I pummel them with my meaty fists like a gorilla on a gas can. It's apparent I didn't read the wrapper when I pulled it from the box, and this variety has a plain butcher paper wrapper where almost all the bars look the same except for small text below the logo. I hope the asshat who put the wrong bar in the milk chocolate display box eats some spoiled food and spends the rest of the day wondering if they are going to throw up.... no wait, maybe not... oh, yes yes yes... OH MY GOD... maybe not, okay... if I just sit here... As a closet wiccan, I feel the curse must match the crime. link 9 comments|post comment

FW:Mother-f$*king tourists on the subway! [Jul. 2nd, 2007|05:50 pm] [ Tags | angst, metro, subway, tourists ] Man, like I know tourism brings in money to our fine city, but all these people visiting for the Fourth of July are screwing up rush hour flow something fierce. Gawk somewhere else, Zeke and Betty-Lou! Not at the top of the escalator! MOVE!! [TxtLJ doesn't like my phone] I posted that with TXTLJ, which rejected the first entry I tried, and then split the second into two posts. People walking into metro cars and then STOPPING IN FRONT OF THE DOOR SO NO ONE CAN GET PAST THEM also seems to be the new fad among the flip-flop elite. Some out-of-towners seem non-plussed they have to stand, and look around at the various seats trying to find empty ones so they don't have to sit next to someone whom they don't know. I am so sorry Granmama had to sit next to the colored fella, Mr. Buzzcut with the "Kansas is God's Country" shirt, but can you get your skinny-assed preteen daughter's sweatshirted arm off my face as she presses against me to read the map? Maybe if she didn't wear soccer shorts that say "SWEETIE" across her ass, and had some meat on her bones, she wouldn't be so damn cold all the time. link 4 comments|post comment

I hate being the bad guy [Jan. 10th, 2007|11:03 am] [ Tags | angst, medical, tech, work ] Increasingly, it requires being the bad guy just to get anything done in this world. “We’ll call you back,” seems to be completely meaningless as a phrase more and more often. It’s like a casting call, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Being nice just gets very little done when you are facing a huge wall of apathy. The medical industry is a classic example. There’s a huge nursing shortage, and thus, it’s an employee’s market. You don’t have to be a good nurse, you just have to have the papers, and you’re hired. It doesn’t matter if you’re a bad nurse, or a mean person, or smell bad, or possibly have a questionable background: they need you like a warm body. This isn’t to say all nurses are bad, or any percentage are bad in particular. It varies from town to town, hospital to hospital, although I am willing to believe hospitals in larger cities probably have more bad nursing staff than those in smaller towns due to turnover. Administrative staff is just as bad. So are doctors, although I think a lot of really incompetent people are weeded out through all that schooling (sadly, being a jerk does not disqualify you from being a doctor). The technical support industry is heading the same way. Companies want to pay as little as they can for support, and many do not achieve through through the obvious: make the product easy to use, well documented, and free from bugs. Over time, I have discovered that this is more of a problem with companies that merge or get bought out. I have never been in a position where a company I was having a contract with got better after a buyout. Often, they get far worse. And then I have to be a dick. I loathe being the bad guy. It’s not in my nature at all, and is one of the pivotal failures I have in dealing with the human race. It’s not in my nature to yell and scream and throw tantrums to get what I want. I despise those who do such things, and I don’t even have the resources within myself to bring myself to this level. What does this mean? It means that I don’t get physical therapy for my ankle, despite dozens of calls. It means that I have to pay $384 to Tigerdirect.com I didn’t make because my credit card can’t find anything I mail or fax to them stating I didn’t make this purchase. It means that a problem I am having with my system redundancy software at work doesn’t get resolved, and I get reprimanded for not being pushy enough, even though I have left voice mails, been on hold for hours and get hung up on, and escalated like a paper tiger up a chain in India where I deal with layer one drones who open tickets that never go anywhere. I am tired of this shit. I am tired of having to be the nagging one. I am tried of the lies, phantom callbacks, unanswered voice mails, ignored e-mails and faxes, recursive department phone forwards, blame shifting, powerless escalations, and people who claim they haven’t gotten anything from me when I sent it dozens of times and they act like I am lying. I fucking hate it. link 2 comments|post comment

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