Just got around to finishing Friday’s strip this evening – belated, but I think it’s one of our better strips to date. Enjoy…
A Lease is a Lease
http://www.l7comix.com/comic.php?id=64
Chase can go eat a dick…
(…and my advance apologies to Sara’s mother, who’s been known to read this from time to time, or anyone else for that matter who happens to stumble upon my blog for the first time and is greeted by this lovely rant of customer service inadequacy, but this time they’ve just gone too far…)
So Chase declined my credit card while we were grocery shopping at Wal-Mart this evening. We’d been out shopping all day and used the card several other times without incident, but with a shopping cart full of food and other necessities on the line, they decided to reject the purchase back without a reason code and then furthermore wouldn’t answer the phone when the cashier called to verify the charge manually! I tried calling in myself to find out what the problem was, and after first getting disconnected “on accident” by their brilliant IVR system, I finally got through to Marcus who informed me that their systems were down…period. Nothing he could do, and didn’t seem to give two damns about the fact that I was sitting there with a cart full of perishables wondering how they were going to get paid for now that the credit line that had been so graciously thrust upon me…at 23% interest, but that’s another rant altogether…was suddenly not available to me because they were having “system problems.” He claimed that the bank systems were fine and that wasn’t why my card was being rejected, but the customer service systems were updating and that’s why he couldn’t tell me what the problem was. “Just call back in two hours – we’ll be happy to help you then…” Thanks, asshole, but I’m not sitting around Wal-Mart for two hours waiting for your systems to play catch-up…
Sara and I had an interesting talk about disaster recovery and just corporate liability in general the other day and as far as I’m concerned, when you’re one of the largest freaking banks in the world, something’s not right when a simple software update can bring your system to its knees. Just like companies in the Bay area here have to have sufficient disaster recovery plans in place to support their businesses in the event of the unthinkable, the same applies elsewhere and for some reason, I’ve got my doubts that Chase’s $50,000+ credit line holders weren’t getting turned down for their purchases an hour ago.
I’m done with this bank. It sucks because they’re currently the oldest credit card in my wallet – almost 8 years – and I know that something like that can have a positive effect on your credit report, but regardless, I’m tired of being dicked around. The interest rate that they’ve got me paying now in no way indicates that they have any respect for me as a “valued long-term cardholder,” I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with their customer service reps when I have had to call in, and I’m just tired of it. In the past, I’ve always been stuck with the account because it had such a high balance and I didn’t have anywhere else to go, but times have changed and I do have options now. Tomorrow they’re getting a call and regardless if I have a place to transfer the balance to, the account’s getting closed. I don’t even care that they’ll look at it as just one drop in the bucket because I don’t hold a corporate account with them – the bullshit stops here.
Movie Talk – Cars
I know a good chunk of my writing has sort of been absent from the Internet for quite some time now and while I’m not quite ready to bring things back just yet (…still waiting on the new site…), I do have a couple of favorites here and there that I’m going to be posting over the next several days in an effort to get myself motivated enough to finish the rebuild for comedic-genius.com. In the meantime, I hope this will suffice… 🙂
A word or two before I begin – I truly mean it when I say that I can’t say enough good things about this movie. Sara and I went to see it only two nights ago and we probably would’ve turned right around and watched it again, if it hadn’t been for that having to go to work the next morning thing. The soundtrack was acquired merely hours later and we’ve both been listening to it pretty much religiously to and from work each day ever since – it’s just a really, really good film. Seriously – if you’re only going to go see one film this summer, or even if you’re really cheap and don’t like to spend the extra money to go out to the movies, this one is by far worth the ten or fifteen bucks that it’s going to cost you for a couple hours of movie magic. If you wait ’til you see it on DVD, you’re gonna wish that you’d sprung to see it in the theater, so just go already!
Walt Disney’s Letter to the World of 2006
This is pretty cool, in my not-so-humble opinion. Fifty years ago, Walt Disney was asked to submit a letter predicting the future of entertainment to a time capsule that would be opened in 2006.
It’s quite the insightful letter, not only speculating about the progres of human interest and the need to be entertained, but also hoping for a world that has outlawed war and created the ideal world for man to co-exist with himself and everything around him. Truly a visionary of his time, even if we’ve probably actually grown farther away from such a concept since he first wrote it.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think there’s still a thing or two we can learn from the man and his mouse…
http://craphound.com.nyud.net:8080/walts1956letter.pdf
A couple of cool Photoshop challenges…
Roadsigns
http://b3ta.com/challenge/roadsigns/ (the hidden dip one was my favorite!)
Merit Badges
http://www.worth1000.com/cache/contest/contestcache.asp?contest_id=10806&start=1&end=10&display=photoshop#entries
thought of the day – “Excuse me…”
Parents – no matter how cute your children are, please stop teaching them that “Beep beep!!!” is an acceptable substitute for the phrase “Excuse me.”
…especially when they’re right about to run into me on their bikes, not to nitpick or anything… 😛
storm update – Alberto
So we’ve officially ushered in the 2006 Hurricane Season with lots of rain and wind…and that’s about it. The most impacted we’ve been thus far was pretty much not being able to buy Sara her drinking water the other night at the store because the shelves were completely bare, but other than that, it’s been pretty tame…
Honestly, I’m not really that concerned about the season itself this year. I don’t live in a flood zone, so there are no mandatory evacuations to worry about, and although I know that you don’t have to live on the beach to be impacted by a hurricane, we can’t very well just pick up and leave, so there’s really not much else we can do other than be prepared, anyways. A poured-concrete building stands little chance of actually blowing anywhere, so aside from worrying about something coming through the window or needing to dig out my snorkel to make it to the mailbox and back, it’s really nothing that some extra food (just in case) and a stack of books (in the event of a power outage) can’t handle. I know, I know – rough life.
Nonetheless, it did rain like the dickens for the last two days, which was probably actually a good thing because it’s just been devastatingly dry around the area recently. It was also nice not having to water my plants over the weekend, but the most remarkable thing (…not that watering plants is all that remarkable…) was last night as we lay in bed…trying to sleep. Mind you, it poured on and off all night, but what was really weird was the racquet made by all of the frogs and toads in the nearby woods, just a chirping and croaking like it was the end of the world! I guess you always hear stories about how animals are so in tune with nature, but I swear, I’ve never heard them as loud as they were last night. And I wasn’t the only one, either, as I learned today at work that another lady noticed the same thing – mainly because she and her husband hadn’t hardly been able to sleep all night, either! You could even hear them over the rain itself, which was pretty impressive at times, but ultimately, I suppose I’d be a little irritated during a tropical storm if I lived outside, too…
One down, who knows how many to go … but no matter how wet and blustery it ever gets, it still beats shoveling snow in my book. 🙂
ugh…
I realized tonight on my way home from work that since we’ve moved from downtown (25 mi from home to work) to our new building ( <5 mi from home to work), I've actually spent a heckuva lot more time working late than I used to…that sucks. I used to get home 7:00-7:30-ish, but now sometimes it’s closer to 9:00pm. It’s really getting ridiculous…
I’m so stressed out at work these days, and no one with the authority to do anything seems to care. Only a handful of us stay late to do the work, and the rest go home to their families and hobbies on the dot at the end of their shifts. I keep telling myself that I should just do the same, but I’m not that kind of person – it’s just not ethical and my job still beats sweeping warehouse floors. But still, it’s not fair for me to have to (try to) carry the weight of my deadbeat co-workers, either.
It really irritates me because three months ago, it only affected me (and on Thursday nights, the comic) when I worked late, but now I’ve got someone to come home to and its not fair to her, either, that I’m always coming home tired or in a bad mood because of work. I know it’s getting to her, too, but what am I supposed to do? I want my time with her, I want to get back to pushing my writing, and I want to eventually even bring Just Laugh back online sometime this year. 5 or 8 hours a week may not seem like much extra when I submit my weekly timesheet, but when it’s time that I could be spending on these other things, it’s important to me, damn it.
I have an interview on Monday for a lead position within my department, which really could go either way at this point. The extra money would obviously be nice, and a promotion after three years would certainly be earned, but if there’s not a plan in place to shift my workload if I get the new job, I’ve got to say that it really wouldn’t be worth it to me. And that’s sad, because I really do think that I’ve seriously earned it at this point, but an extra five grand a year (or less) for an extra 10 hours of work each week just does not sound like fun.
Nope – no fun at all.
Weekend Update – Short Version
(More to come soon, but for those anxious for the highlights…)
- Went to Disney’s MGM Studios on Saturday – stayed pretty much the whole day and went on a ton of stuff. The Aerosmith Rockin’ Rollercoaster was by far the coolest for both of us and is the only rollercoaster thus far that I officially “enjoyed.” Didn’t see nearly as many gay folks there as I’d hoped, but there were certainly some characters and I don’t mean Mickey and Minnie…
- Ended up staying at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort, which probably cost a lot more than should’ve been spent, but it was totally worth it and we both had an absolute blast. Lots of cool pictures were taken at the resort itself and I’d definitely go back again … that is, if we don’t end up choosing another area to explore instead.
- Sunday took us to the Magic Kingdom with Sara’s sister, and much fun was had by all. We did end up sort of getting stranded inside Splash Mountain for about an hour during the thunder storm, which kinda sucked, but the rain finally went away and we surprisingly even ended up staying until the park closed at night. Wishes, the fireworks show, was a little weak because we weren’t able to get in front of Cinderella Castle before the start of the show, but we had prime seats for the electric light parade later that evening and I got a few really cool shots of the floats.
Overall, it was a great weekend. There’s a lot more to be said and I’m actually going to be putting together one of my famous hilarious travelogues on the trip later on this week, but in the meantime, I’ll leave you with this…
whew…
Even only being a four-day week, it felt like this one was never going to end. I think I put in nearly 40 hours at work without counting the holiday, which lead to a very tired, and often cranky, Scott. I really don’t feel like I got much of anything done this week, even though I’ve been itching to really dig into the Just Laugh redesign that I’m finally making some creative progress on. I did get a couple of simple mock-ups for the magazine side done and they’ve got me pretty inspired – now to just find the time to put them into action…
Saturday & Sunday, I think, are going to serve as a good, little mini-vacation, if you will. It’ll be good to spend some time with Sara just having fun, without work / stress / etc… hovering over my head because I know that I’ve taken some of it out on her over the past week and I certainly didn’t intend to. Time to just leave everything in Tampa behind and enjoy being away sounds good right now! We’re going over to MGM on Saturday, and probably spending Sunday with her sister at the Magic Kingdom … don’t really know what’s happening in between yet, though. We’re strongly considering just getting a hotel and staying the night, rather than bother driving home Saturday night and back again Sunday morning, but ideally we’d like to stay on Disney property and nearly all of the resorts – at least anything under $200/night – are completely booked. I think Sara’s going to try calling again in the morning to see if anything has freed up, but if not, I’m looking at possibly one of the hotels around Downtown Disney instead … anybody have any comments on those? It’s not the same as staying with the Mouse, but I guess that’s what you get with less than a day’s notice.
And on that note, I should really get to bed. I did have some other things that I wanted to post about – dogs, cockroaches, thoughts on the upcoming Ink, Paint & Tears… book, why I’m just about done with trying to make my own salads … but it’s late and I really don’t remember in detail what exactly I wanted to say about any of those topics anyways. Bah – I’m getting old… 😛