Apathy sucks.
I’d start a campaign against apathy, but my give a damn is broken.
Just look at these people…
(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfqDVP_0O0c)
And me, I’m not even disgusted…
It’s about that time. Halloween… and what seems to be the family Halloween movie classic these days?
Sure, some people are sick of it, but c’mon… When’s the last time you watched it on DVD?
In what may be Bill Murray’s most sarcastic role ever, Dr. Peter Venkman goes down as a classic character in movie history. His pointed retorts, grandiose embellishments and perfect comedic timing truly made this one of the best comedies of the 80’s.
There is no pretense with this movie. It is what is. Fortunately, the Murray/Aykroyd/Ramis trio played off of each other — not to mention everyone else — perfectly, delivering some truly classic lines and insults.
“I make it a rule: never get involved with possessed people… ahh, actually, it’s more of a guideline than a rule…”
“No, I think you’ve got enough people in there already.”
“No, we’re exterminators. Someone saw a cockroach up on twelve.”
“Listen! You smell something?”
“We came, we saw, we kicked its ass!”
And lastly, my personal favorite…
“Everything was fine until dickless here…”
“They caused an explosion!”
“…came and shut down the power grid.”
”Is this true, Venkman?”
“Yes, sir, it’s true. This man has no dick.”
Now, the TV version of Ghostbusters? Sure, it sucks… But I’d still rather watch it than that sullen, little, bald malcontent in the orange sweater who can’t kick a football every friggin’ year…
(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pHVtaS0jHo)
Hey, sue me… Just because it’s blasphemous doesn’t mean it’s not funny…
This John Nichols guy is a special kind of asshat. His misdeeds span across a mutitude of levels, and a couple of different companies, namely his Mr. Transmission business (aka Mr. Transerv 100, Inc. dba Mr. Transmission / MILEX) & Rhino Linings of Knoxville. Knowing that another friend of mine, a photographer, has been repeatedly screwed by this, and knowing that in his Rhino Linings business he tried to screw me out of the hosting bill, I have no idea why I thought doing any sort of business with this asshat was a good idea.
Except that I need the business these days…
I know at least one person who works for Mr. Transmission on Clinton Highway in Knoxville, and so I dropped by last week to see if they could get the rusted clamp off my muffler since I didn’t have a die grinder or a dremel handy, and I knew they did. But when I walked into the office, John Nichols son, Scott, said, “There it is.”
“What’s going on?”
“That computer is all screwed up. Please fix it!” said Scott.
“What’s it doing?”
“It’s really slow, and its taking forever just to enter an invoice,” Mike replied. “So please do.”
“Ok,” I agreed. After the last billing fiasco, where John repeatedly blames Scott, he’d told me that if he wasn’t there, Mike was in charge. Mike authorized me to the computer, and so I went to work.
I removed several viruses, several bit of spyware, several trojans, a fake antivirus program, and did all the updates. During one of the updates, I asked them about the muffler. Fifteen seconds with a grinder, five seconds with a hammer, and the rusted clamp was off. They offered to put it on for me if I’d grab the parts. I took off just down the road and grab a couple of muffler clamps and a 2.25 I/D converter. That took fifteen minutes, but it was also during the time the system was doing a an antivirus and antispyware scan. When I got back, they said, they removed the old pipe from the muffler, threw the converter in, clamped it all down and tightened it all up. A whole fiften minute job. Couldda done it myself, but I figured I’d take the price outta their bill.
Once the computer was was finished, and I was satisfied that everything was in proper working order, I started writing up the final bill.
“Hey, Mike? How much do I owe ya for the muffler?”
“Ahh, man, that was nothing. Don’t worry about it, you don’t owe us anything for that,” he replied.
I tallied…
Service (Onsite) - 10/15/2008
[systemname] Not Working - System slow and uncooperative
Infected W32.Magistr, W32.Backdoor.Gen, W32.Sality (not AA), W32.SDbot.ETA. Malware/Trojan ScreenView, HexBinAdWare, Virtumundo.Gen(Smitfraud). All Removed Manually, then re-scanned with Windows Defender & Spybot 1.6. Re-Enabled Regedit & Task Manager. Removed Damaged Malware / Fake Antivirus (Antivirus). Removed Damaged/non-working antivirus (Symantec Antivirus 2004). Removed Fake AntiSpyware (Spyware Blaster, RemedyAntispy). Software Updates installed (XPSP3, All Windows Updates, Spybot 1.6, Adobe Acrobat 9, Codec Pack)
Two hours, at $125 an hour — that’s what I’ve charged for years. $250 seemed steep given the assistance with the muffler. And for that trouble, which Mike claimed I “didn’t owe anything” for since they ‘didn’t provide any parts” or “have to do any major surgery,” I knocked a half hour off and gave them a final bill of $187.50.
On Friday, October 17th, John Nichols called me up cussing me out, telling me that he had already told me that his son, Scott, was not authorized to make decisions for his business. I told him Mike authorized it, and John began screaming that Mike wasn’t authorized, that every bit of business we did had to go through him, and he wasn’t going to pay. I cussed the guy up one side and down the other for calling and yelling at me and cussing me out. He’s a lousy piece of shit that way.
I printed out the bill, and at 2PM, I went over there. I recorded the conversation for posterity. John says he’s not paying, and that we’re even since they installed a muffler. And that he was the only one to authorize any work or bills.
I told him that he had said in his absence he had authorized Mike to make those decisions, and in a moment of severe WIMP-ASS, Mike tells me, “No, I didn’t authorize it.”
And so, Mike, too, is a damn liar. He didn’t authorize it? He just told me what was wrong with it for the plain hell of it, and said, “See what you can do?” And didn’t charge me for a muffler job, said that I didn’t owe anything? Cool. Mike’s won’t stand up to John.
“Well, tell ya what, I either get a check, or you get a warrant.” And I left. And I was pissed.
Ya see, that’s where our first fiasco happened. Back a few months ago, John himself asked me to register their Rhino Linings domain and put up a splash page, offer e-mail, and prove to him that I could do SEO. I offered to do that for him on the basis that he paid for the domain, $25 a month in hosting and agreed that we would do the final website in a content management system for around $2500. He agreed, but his bill got up to $103.75 at the beginning of October because he hadn’t bother to pay for any of it. I subsequently pointed the domain at this site for a couple of days for non-payment.
On October 6th, he called me up screaming that his son had no authorization to setup that site, and I screamed right back at him that his friggin’ idea, and then went and picked up my check for $103.75. He was apologetic, didn’t remember the deal we’d made (right), and told me then that if he wasn’t there, Mike was the only one who had any authority for any business we would do, that his son Scott would have no say whatsoever. And that’s fine, I agreed, and he agreed to retain the website for an additional year at $25/mo., and eventually use us to build the final site at $2500.
Now, this Scott thing is kinda pertinent, because this asshole goes off on Scott every second when I’m around, and I’m sure it doesn’t stop when I’m not. He’s a beligerant asshole to his son, seeking to mock and belittle him in front of customers, other businesses, friends, etc. John Nichols is a total piece of work… if you can call it that.
It’s no surprise, of course, that earlier today, I received a bill from Mr. TranServ 100, Inc., dba Mr. Transmission / MILEX, owner, John Nichols.
For work completed on 10/17/2008. On a 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais.
Shop Supplies, $3.51
Hazardous Materials, $3.99
Install Muffler, $187.50
Sales Tax, $18.40
Total: $213:40
Sorry, WHAT THE FUCK? That won’t even stand up in court. No work was performed on my vehicle on 10/17/2008, which is clearly printed on the invoice. I do not own, nor do I know anyone who does own, a 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais. No parts were supplied, hazardous materials handled, or mufflers installed — however, on 10/16/2008, on an entirely different car, a muffler converter was installed because the pipe had rusted through, and the job took 15 minutes, and Mike assured me that I owed nothing for that. And I removed a half hour from their bill?
John Nichols clearly wrote this invoice to avoid paying his bill. I mean, CLEARLY — who the Hell charges $213.40 to install a muffler that wasn’t purchased there and no parts were purchased for?
Only you, John.
You think this is over, you are sadly mistaken. I consider this a breach of our contract.
See ya in court, deadbeat!
From what I’ve seen, this is the only page on the Internet that actually answers this rather popular question, and it’s out there on the ‘net about a million times…
“How do I get my screensaver to take up the full screen on the A920?”
If you have a miniSD card with a converter, you can easily size your background image to the perfect resolution of 176×220 (the screen’s natural resolution) on your computer, pop the card in the phone, select the image, assign it as a screensaver and that should make ‘em full screen, right?
Oh, hell no. It’s much more convoluted. You’ll end up with white bars at the top and bottom of the screen, and the vertical res cropped, thus destroying your picture and making your phone’s desktop look like total crap.
The fix is easy, although convoluted.
Hit the “Camera” button, then hit “7″ for “Settings & Info.” Select “3″ for “View Mode” and set it to “Portrait.” The phone will probably power off at that point, but when it comes back up, the white menu bars at the top and bottom are gone.
I have no idea why the hell they’d drop it under Camera Settings…
And, the fact that it crops photos in landscape mode when the vertical size is bloody well larger that the horizontal size is beyond me.
And, why they insist on calling a background image a screen saver is totally messed up…
It’s no friggin’ wonder everyone keeps calling their XP background a “screen saver” these days. *shakes head*
Quirky, at best. And for sure, it should be filed under “annoying stuff to piss people off.”
REO Speedwagon: Smilin’ in the End
(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niTL-DIcrY4)
I have a good post about a local “businessman” but I’m gonna wait til Monday for his dumb ass to make it right.
Obama recently went off on McCain for his lack of technical prowess. Meanwhile, Obama has “his people” set up a blog, a twitter, a MySpace, and bunch of other Web 2.0 garbage that I am 100% certain he has no idea how to use, himself. And it really ticks me off, because it is then used to harrass and annoy people who don’t want it.
(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ2I0t_Twk0)
And this right here is where’s it’s an issue. Obama keeps going off that McCain is “out of a touch” with technology and living in a world of twenty-there years ago, and yet Obama is out of touch with the very laws he’s being paid to help to shape and mould — and even then, doesn’t show up for work most of the time.
Federal Statutes have declared that Campaign E-mails soliciting for donations fall under the category of “Commercial E-Mail.” I have received no less than three of these e-mails per day for the last month — all from Barak Obama. Despite my having opted out. Multiple times. To no avail.
Here’s the basis of the Federal CAN-SPAM Law:
And it appears that there’s only one of those items the Obama campaign hasn’t broken!
Oh, and it carries with it fines of up to $11,000 per violation, raking in a conservative estimate of nearly ten million dollars that Barak Obama owes in fines, plus State Recompense and the FTC-Imposed Civil Fees, which means that Barack Obama owes me $45,900.
So McCain is out of touch with Technology … Obama is out of touch with Law, and the spirit of it.
Which one’s the bigger sin?
No way in Hell will I vote for someone who’s as notorious as Sanford “Spamford” Wallace.
So seriously, Mr. Ospama, stop adding me to MySpace! Don’t follow me on Twitter! And first and foremost, quit sending me these damn e-mails! And get out that check book — I could really use it right now, so I’ll settle for an even $45,000.
I never expected this… I prayed for it… every day… for years… moreso over the last several months…
You can say, “Nothing else matters,” and believe it, but when it comes right down to it, some things do. And yet… Nothing else matters.
We’ve made our choices… Some bad, some good… Sometimes you have to think how much it’s worth… what’s the price you’ll pay… what have you done… what have they done… how much can you both overcome?
But when you come to same conclusion over and over, you have to ask… Like she did…
Anyone have any objections to me changing my name to Ann Steel?
Seriously… Any objections?
…and hope for the best.
I already vowed my life as her husband, she as my wife. We’ve both messed up a lot.
But I love her.
And I hope beyond hope that that date sticks and we have the chance to show each other the promises we’ve made and make good on the ones we’ve broken.
I’ve had a lot of time to think the last couple days, and realized… if I can’t follow my heart with her, then I might never have had one to begin with. The Devil’s in the details, and I don’t feel like going into them. We both deserve better than what we’ve been dishing out to each other.
All I can say is, the love I have for this woman, and the family she gave me, is unconditional.
Whatever it takes, it takes.
It might bother a lot of people to know, but I’d rather be broke and living under a bridge with her than have everything in the world I need without her.
And that’s the plain, damn sober truth.
Ya know, it’d be nice to ignore the son of a bitch — ya know, the “brother” who “loves” me, but continues the ridiculous contact despite my repeatedly asking him to fuck off.
When he’s saying he recently loaned me $1000 and e-mailing me that he’s sure I won’t pay it back… It just gets ridiculous, and I cannot help but take the bait to crap like this:
Go ahead and act like we didn’t meet, and I didn’t give you anything. So typical of you. Everyone in the family knows I loaned you money. They know you take advantage of me and you play me. And mom and dad as well. They were going to give you five thousand from the house. I was nice. I called genuinely concerned about you. You twist words, add words, everyone knows it. You said you “wish I was dead”. and I still loan you money I didn’t rip you a new ass with mom and dad YOU DID. All I did was show them the things YOU WROTE ABOUT THEM. You cut your throat. And as far as the thousand, I knew you wouldn’t pay me back anyway. You need help, but I’m not the one. All you do is try to hurt me. Your nice till you get what you want then you try to hurt me. Everytime. I won’t fall for it anymore. It like what’s Mark’s relationships and the 700 billion bailout have in common????? They won’t work.
Pretty funny, considering I haven’t laid eyes on the son-of-a-bitch since that court date a year and a half ago. Hadn’t laid eyes on his dumb ass in at least a year before that. And, they know he runs his fuckin’ mouth where I just stay the Hell away and keep mine shut.
Hey, Dickhead — if you’d loaned me money, maybe I might have been able to get out of jail on my own. Asshat! Thanks for the Bail — NOT! Truly a lousy cocksucker calling yourself my brother, but what a perfect example of Christianity you portray!
Just wanted to let you know I wrote a poem on poetry dot com and they are going to publish it. You inspired it. I have also decided to create my own blog. Look for it coming soon. It’s called blogilude dot com.
Good luck with your blog, you lying sack of shit! Even my Wildcat knows where I’ve been 24-7, so when did this happen, or should I post the rest of your emails, fuckwit? If you lost a thousand, maybe your wife might be interested to know where — judging by your insanity, and your blog-a-lude, I have a pretty good guess.
And seriously — “Everyone in the family knows I loaned you money” — how would they know that except from you running your mouth trying to get out of paying me the money you bet me that I proved that you still haven’t paid?
Lousy cocksucker. Go rot in Hell!
One of the things you learn to stop doing when you move to another country is bitching about politics. You’re an immigrant, an outsider, and in most cases, you can’t hope to understand the nuances of another country’s politics.
Unless you’re an extremely astute bastard, like Craig Ferguson.
(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdRVQ4xwwmQ)
He also re-iterates a point I’ve made a billion and a half times: if you didn’t excercise your Right to vote, then you Lost your Right to Bitch. e.g. if you didn’t vote in the last election, no one cares about your disdain and comdemnation — STFU!
Plain and simple.
Oh … And if you’re a Senator who didn’t even bother to show up and vote on all the Resolutions you were supposed to vote on because you’re too busy blazing a campaign trail, you’re a total Asshat! Not only do these Senators have a responsibility to vote on these issues, it’s their duty and their job to do it — especially when it’s a bill that’s at the heart of their campaign promises.
And it’s interesting to note, when you go down the Voting Records to see that the Head of one of our two major political parties pretty much hasn’t voted on anything in like … eight years? Apparently, the Jackass that represents him is a little more personal…
Tip: The astute voter and Patriot, Mushy, at The Silverbacks
Right now, we’re at the bottom of Page 7 in the “Most Obnoxious Blogger” Category in the Blogger’s Choice Awards.
Hell, I’m not even sure which one of us it should be directed at … but for those who have met me and said, “Man, you’re more obnoxious in person than you are on the blog,” I’ll leave this button out here for you to click. 
Click & Vote, or I’ll post another pic of the Wildcat and I for Half Nekkid Thursday.
“Shit,” says the Wildcat. “Now nobody’ll vote!”
“Yeah, baby, just because they like to look at you. Unfortunately, the younger incarnation of Robin Williams over here destroys the view.”
*snicker*
.
