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!

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:

• It bans false or misleading header information.
• It prohibits deceptive subject lines.
• It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method.
• It requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender’s valid physical postal address.

     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.

     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!

Everyone knows that Wildcats come from Kentucky and they’ve heard plenty of Jeff Foxworthy jokes. BUT… if every single sentence on your blog contains the word “I,” you might be a narcissist. If every conclusion you make is about you then you definitely are.

Most people grow up eventually. But some people just start high school drama all the time.

But if I ever meet her I’m going to shake her hand. “Aww, it’s so nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you! Know how I did? Reading your DAMN BLOG!”

As for the Wildcat thing Mark made me put this picture here.

And says, “Your training is complete… Now join me an we will rule the Universe together!”

Anyone have any objections to me changing my name to Ann Steel?

Seriously… Any objections?

     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

     My tolerance for asshats is at an all-time low.  It’s probably a good thing, as it’s helping weed out a Hell of a lot of crap in my life.  It’s also keeping me from bottling it all up so badly.

     It’s apparently not enough that I’m getting my daily dose of death threats and slanderous screaming at me over and over from a bunch of gossip-mongering asshats.  It’s also not enough that I’m having to deal with way too many lawyers and police officers for no apparent reason as we’re all trying to figure out exactly what the Hell is going on in several instances.  Nor is it enough that I’m not calling these people, not screwing with them, pretty much minding my own damn business, and having to pick up the phone to this crap no less than eight times a day.
     And I can’t change a business phone, mind you, which is where they always call.

     Then, I get to put up with it from so-called “family,” as well.

     A week ago Friday, I got a phone call from my brother.  He was actually decent for a change — well, for a while, anyway.  Said my parents were going to sell the house, and he wanted me to have a share.  I thought, hey, cool, considering. 
     Of course, by Saturday, he’d twisted everything I’d said around into some insane, lunatic garbage again, going off — per norm — about me being a liar, that I am insulting, that I don’t care — and never cared, and hate him — about anything, and all sorts of pathetic bullshit.
     Thanks…

     He started calling again on Thursday, acting all apologetic and telling me how much he cared, and I was actually stupid enough to fall for it again.  It wasn’t long before he flipped it all around again… then there was an argument about something he said, which I say he didn’t, and that if I could prove it, he’d give me a thousand dollars!
     I thought, “Great!” and I sent him the voicemails he’d sent, and sure enough, I was correct… Of course,  after another rash of psychotic e-mails, he says that not only is he not gonna give me the thousand he promised, but he also talked to my parents and will “make sure they don’t waste their hard-earned money” on me.
     Thanks…

     “I just don’t get it. I don’t understand. We aren’t mean. We are just normal people. I’ll leave you alone Mark,” he says…
     …but I’m the one sitting down here minding my own friggin’ business and not starting shit?  And still I get more even after that?
     Thanks…

     Seriously, twisted toxicity.  It’s the same old abusive behavior my immediate family does, and somehow they’re able to twist things around to make them look like victims.  It does nothing but piss me off.
     And, of course, they know it, use it, and when I snap, they point it out to everyone as evidence of my bad behavior.
     Thanks…

     Any logic might show that, perhaps, since I’m so willing to give these asshats more chances, that it might not be me that has such a problem… save that I’m gullible enough — after many names, many states and many countries — to get sucked into their vicious bullshit again.

     Certain families just suck like that.  They suck you in, and suck the life right out of you, and then have the audacity to say that you were “playing” them the whole time. 
     I know at least one other person who’s struggling with kind of bullshit on a daily basis, and in her case, it truly saddens me watching her go through it.  I know exactly how it feels, and how damn difficult it makes everything.

     But basically, it comes down one simple truth that’s sometimes really tough to get through your head.
     Though there may be relation by blood, there is nothing those situations that even somewhat resembles “family.”  If they gave a damn at all, for all the love they profess, they simply wouldn’t be doing this kind of bullshit.  And after a while, repeatedly putting yourself in the situation isn’t the brightest thing to do.

     For my part, at this point, I am anything but Rodney King about it.  I am under enough stress, and simply do not need anyone around to compound it.

     And with a little luck, I hope she’ll come to a similar conclusion, although, a little less painfully without the finality.  But sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do for your own sake…

     I am stressed, and I do not need this.

     No more.

     Not today, not tomorrow.

     Not in the year 2011.

     You can only beat an old dog for so long before it bites you.

     Be warned.

     One of the things I really enjoy is people threatening to sue me.  That has happened so much the last few years, mostly from people who refuse to pay their bills and I take some action against.  They claim they’ll be suing me for defamation or some crap like that most of the time, not that I ever go talking about them to anyone except courts or police.  It costs me too much money to actually sue them and get nothing from it, so I just make the motions as necessary and let it be on the record.

     The particular asshat, however, doesn’t really have a dog in this fight.  I wasn’t trying to screw her over in any way, but since her asshat boyfriend felt it was okay to not show up to court, leaving me in a serious bind, I simply felt it was a good idea to stop allowing him to screw me out of $175 a month for all the sites he hosts on my server for the price of one.  And then he doesn’t pay his bill properly, at that.
     Her email was down for a grand total of four hours in the mess, and instead of either of them calling and asking that I turn them back or making any attempt to try and resolve the situation, she starts running her mouth.  Estrogen abuse!

     As I said, her email was down for a grand total of four hours and then I realzed, “Wait, she might actually need that, and it’s not her fault her boyfriend is a dick,” and I turned it back on.

     But apparently, even going that far wasn’t good enough.

     She’s threatening to go to the Better Business Bureau, having her father do the same (yeah, Asshat hosts sites for a bunch of his friends, on my servers, which I pay for, for free!), and then bitches and complains that if I don’t transfer all domains over to them by 12PM, worse things will happen.  Oh, if I don’t burn all their data to DVD and mail it to them by Monday, they’re going to sue me.

     Customers are responsible for their own data backups.  Asshat’s known that forever.  They have the data — they put it up there!  It ain’t like these are friggin’ dynamic, data-driven sites or anything!

     And her, she can’t even figure out how to do a Domain Transfer.

     Sorry, dear, but you don’t DEMAND anything of me.  If you’d asked nicely and either of you had even attempted to be civil, this would’ve turned out a lot different.

     So you people go ahead and go to the BBB — that requires that you were actually doing business with me, which you weren’t.  You all never paid for hosting, anyway.

     And go ahead and sue me — it’s so baseless, that I’d represent myself, and you’d still lose.

     As for the other allegations that I owe him money and crap like that?  You better take that up with your asshat boyfriend.  I don’t owe him a dime — he was paid up with interest and it’s easily proven.  And hey, when I did all that cooking, I bought half the ingredients.  How ’bout that?  And how many times have you people called me for help with everything from moving to car repair to even helping you two sort out your personal problems between each other, what did I do?  I was always right there.
     I asked for one friggin’ thing.  And waiting til the Zero Hour to back out like you both did — and maybe he didn’t bother to tell you, which is his fault, not mine — is pretty reprehensible.

     So much for being my “friends.”

     When you know someone for twenty four friggin’ years, you expect them to show up in court to vouch that certain events happened when they were around two and half years ago.

     I think it’s a pathetic as Hell that at the Zero Hour, I’m told, “Nope, won’t be there.  Don’t worry about it!  You don’t need me there.”

     Yeah, I damn sure did, too.  It was “required” for my case, and I certainly appreciate the way you just cast me aside at the last minute, claiming I never gave you a date — which I certainly did two weeks ago, and then mentioned it again on Saturday.

     I really appreciate you.  That’s a Hell of a way to end a friendship.

     The Wildcat won’t be there, either, apparently.  But at least has somewhat a more reasonable excuse.