Time Flies…
So it's that time of the year when I dedicate one post to this sorry excuse of a blog. Unlike certain people, I don't post much even though I ought to. With all the things that goes on in our lives, one of the best things to do is just write. Writing just feels good. You can use it for telling people things, telling people off, chronicling experiences, venting, and more. But I digress; this isn't an entry about pimping writing. It's to talk about a little thing that happened five years ago this day.
Five years ago (around May 7, I believe), a group of friends, my sister, her then-boyfriend, and myself went to Westgate Resorts over by Kissimmee, FL. My parents had a timeshare there and we had the place for a whole week. We had some interesting experiences and on this night five years ago a fun thing happened; I went to the hospital.
We were all hanging out during the day but at some point Sheila and Alex left to watch a movie or something. When nighttime arrived I took Ruiz back home since she wasn't staying that night with the group. On the way back I got a phone call from Mike or Jenn telling me that the following events had transpired:
- Mike and Jenn were hungry.
- Mike was craving the Cheddar Bay Biscuits from Red Lobster.
- Red Lobster was conveniently located near him, so Mike drove there.
- It was 10:30ish at night and Red Lobster was closed. No Cheddar Bay Biscuits for Mike.
- Mike wanted to go elsewhere, so he needed to leave the parking lot of Red Lobster.
- Mike was faced with a tough decision to make: either he would have to go through the vacant parking lot to turn his car around or he would make a u-turn where he was at and go through soft dirt to accomplish the same task.
I got a phone call from Mike or Jenn so guess what choice Mike made? You get to give yourself a pat on the back if you guess that he tried to make a u-turn through soft dirt.
Anyway, when I had arrived there I noticed a few things. The first thing I noticed was that there was sand all over his car and inside it. The second thing I noticed was that his car was low to the ground; the bottom of the chassis in the front rested on dirt. I asked Mike about it, and apparently Mike thought that to get out of soft dirt you just slam on the gas pedal. This accomplished two things: the car dug itself in deeper and sand got shot up in the air. How did sand get inside the car? The sunroof was open. After explaining to him that slamming the gas pedal when you're stuck is a no-no, we tried to find ways to free the car up.
Being that it was late at night and we weren't prepared for this, our solutions were limited. We tried to rock Mike's car back and forth but each time we tried to do that the car kept coming back and getting stuck resting on dirt. We didn't have anything to wedge under the front tires to boost traction so that the car could move, either. At one point it was decided that we needed to dig the car out. Again I stress that we had were not prepared for this kind of situation. This meant that we had to start digging the car out with our bare hands, like dogs. By this time my sister and Alex had shown up and my sister wrote "Mike sux" on the hood of his car with her finger. At the time she didn't know that the sand she wrote on would permanently scratch "Mike sux" on the hood of his car.
Back to the story: we were actually making some progress, albeit slowly, when it happened. My right hand smacked something, I felt a sudden shock surge through it, and I let out a yelp, or grunt, or something loud. Everyone turned toward me and asked me why I'd make a loud sound like that and when I held my hand up, they suddenly knew why. My whole hand was covered in blood. My blood. I've never seen that much blood in real life! I mean my whole hand was covered, and from what I could see was that it was quickly gushing out of three fingers.
I ran with Jenn to the nearby Taco Bell which was of course, closed. There were some people still working inside, presumably cleaning up or something. I had to go to the drive-thru window to grab their attention. When one of the guys came up to the window he kept saying that they were closed. I held up my hand to show him that I needed medical attention and he still didn't want to believe it. Finally I yelled, "I'M BLEEDING, I NEED TO CLEAN THIS UP RIGHT NOW!!" and he let us in through the back. I felt bad at the time because they had just mopped the floor and here I was, dripping blood everywhere. Sorry, guys! I got to the bathroom and washed everything off. The good news was that only one finger was cut, but the bad news was that I could clearly see my bone. Jenn came in with their first aid kit and we bandaged up the finger as best as we could.
We got back to the group and decided to hell with Mike's car; we're gonna go to the hospital instead! We arrived at the Mickey Mouse Hospital (Celebration Hospital) walked inside, and wow, no one was really there. If you walk into the ER here in Orlando it's always full. The lady who took me in started to ask all these questions since we were all covered in dirt and I was bleeding. One question, and I swear I'm not making this up, was, "So were you guys like, grave-digging or something? I mean, cause if you were, I don't mind." I just looked at her with a, "Wait, WHAT?!" kind of expression on my face because she didn't just ask me if we were doing something lawfully and morally wrong; she said she didn't have a problem with it. Seriously, WHAT?! Once I was rushed into a room, I was greeted with Chappelle Show Season 2 Episode 1 (the one with the racial draft skit). Then the doctor came in, gave me a tetanus shot, and stitched me up. Fun!
So what happened to Mike's car? The following day he, Jenn, and I went to it and we spent some time trying to figure other ways to get it out of the dirt. One guy tried to get us out with 2x4s (wood) but that didn't work out; I think one of the 2x4s broke. Then another guy pulled up and without saying a single word, hooked up a cable to his tow-truck and Mike's car and yanked the car right out. We thanked the guy, he said "you're welcome," and he left. All the crap we went through the night before and for what? Cheddar Bay Biscuits. Biscuits we never got to enjoy.
Oh and after today I'm no longer immune to tetanus.
I Live!
Stupid FastCGI! Not sure what happened when I upgraded the server but yeah, the blog was broken for over a week. Oops.
In other news, I went to Puerto Rico and I'm back. Um, I'll try to blog it later!
Rest in Peace, Xbox 360
And so it finally happened:
This is the 360 that I've had since December of 2005. I'm probably one of the few people who had an Xbox from that time and has not had to replace it until now. Man, this sucks too... I wanted to play Rock Band on drums to piss my neighbors off. So much for that idea!
Tasty Tidbits That Tantalize the Tastebuds
So yeah. Did you know that a prominent fast-food taco chain brought back their Cheesy Beefy Melts? Oh God, yes. They're back and my body is hating me for it. See, in the world of Vortech Hosting (and I assume geeks and nerds in general), fast food sustains all life. However, every now and then you run into a morsel so tasty, so good, it becomes the druggie's equivalent of crack.
That said, Cheesy Beefy Melts are our form of crack. It's cheesy! It's beefy! It's great. It's hard to believe, but once you eat one you'll want them forever. However, said prominent fast-food taco chain pulled them from the market, possibly to help us poor, addicted, CBM Addicts. Unfortunately, the demand was too great and they're back, ready to wreck havoc upon our souls.
So why are CBMs so deadly? Well for one, it's fast food. Fast food of any kind'll kill ya. That's right, even that salad you bought at a prominent fast-food burger joint is downright killer. Second, the fast-food taco chain's food is known to cause horrible bowel movements in one's body. That and the gas. Oh, that gas is horrible! CBMs are deal worse damage than your average "mexican" fast-food meal. In fact, certain people have been known to go on smoke breaks just to get rid of the smell and taste of the thick, noxious fumes that can cause severe injury or death to small children and pets. Lastly, the cost of a CBM is substantially higher than your average fast-food item, which means that already-light wallets become even lighter. You know how they have counseling for gambling addicts? Well, there should be counseling for CBM addicts as well. Enough said.
So why do we eat them? Cause they taste great. So remember kids, if you see someone eating a CBM or two and you don't have a gas-mask, get the hell out!
Kindly do the needful, ASAP
Yeah, I haven't blogged much for some time now... I really have to start working on it! However, I wanted to put in this quickie of a blog post.
To all of you out there who feel empowered by saying "Kindly do the needful," or "Please do the needful ASAP," or some other phrase that essentially sounds like that, GO FUCK YOURSELVES. I don't know if your English came out of the 1940s or something but that phrase is downright derogatory here in the 21st century. It's the equivalent of saying, "Get off your ass and DO something!" Kindly do the needful by brushing up on your modern-day English. Dicks.
Update (5:51am) - Here's another fun phrase I see: "Reply as soon as." Reply as soon as what? As soon as I'm done punching you in the face? Seriously...
Oh nom-nom-nom!
(Heh, 34 minutes to go and I'm free!)
This might be a little late, but Happy New Year, people!
Here I am typing away at another little blog update. Of course, if the other updates were little then I'd hate to see what a big update would look like, eh? So yeah, the last few days were interesting. My three-day "weekend" was split due to the New Year's Eve that I had "the opportunity" to work. I got to work from home so it wasn't too bad, and I still got to leave to go home and participate in the count-down with my Mom, Grandma, sister, and Lynette (she was on the phone). Dad wasn't available since he was bedridden with this stupid cold/flu/whatever that's been going around, but we woke him up right afterwards anyway. ^_^ I didn't get to spend the countdown with Lynette in person because we felt that it'd be best if she was with her parents for the countdown, but that idea backfired when she got home and found that her parents were already in bed.
My "weekend" was spent watching movies, watching Lynette play Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (epic win of a game), me playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma (man it's difficult and I can't believe I'm as far as I am!), bowling with friends (including one I haven't had a chance to hang out with in some time), and just loafing with Lynette. (In case you don't know what loafing is, it's where I just sit on my ass all day, do nothing, and like it. Oh, and I wanted to use the parentheses one more time, so HAH!)
But that was about it -- other than that it was fairly uneventful, but it wasn't stressful either. One other plus is that the weather has finally gotten colder. I mean it actually feels a bit like winter now, minus the snow and ice. One minus is that everyone around me is sick. My last blog update had a lot of negativity in it and I didn't even get to write about a good chunk of other things that happen. Of course, it's not gonna happen here either because I'm not letting this update get bigger! However, I do want to leave you all with this last one -- I think I'm finally getting sick. Thanks to all of you who made this possible, as this is exactly how I should spend the beginning of the new year! O_o
One more thing -- the title is meant to sound like I'm enjoying eating something. However, I haven't eaten anything since the lunch Lynette and I had. Yeah Lynette, I lied about getting food. I guess I wasn't in the mood for more junk food or something! That cereal is going to rock my pants off when I get home. ^_^
Oh! 17 minutes to go and I'm free!
zOMG a Post!
Wow, so this is probably gonna be a really long post since I haven't written to this blog in forever... better to write now than wait some more and have even more to write eh? So that said, I broke everything down into "mini-blogs". It's new the craze. You take a huge blog post and break it down. It's so awesome I should patent the idea. Ah hell... too late, cause it's out in the open. Fail!
SNAFU
When we last left our heroes at the end of October, around the 24th, to be exact, I finished packing everything up. I was really excited cause I was moving into the apartment on the 25th. Clayton and I planned on going to the office at 3pm on the 25th to sign the final paperwork. You know, to close. At 10am I got a phone call from someone at the office "reminding" me (as if they ever told me before that) that they were going to close at 2pm for a company-wide meeting. That kinda threw a wrench in the operation cause Clayton had worked the night before and was already at his house in Daytona sleeping. And when Clayton sleeps, especially when he's tired, good luck waking him up with a phone call. Hint: it's not going to happen. I called him a bunch of times and didn't hear from him till almost 1:30pm. He definitely wasn't going to make it as it takes 40 minutes to get here from Daytona if you drive like a mad-man. I went to the office and talked to someone to see if Clayton could just fax the signed documents and of course, they said he had to be there. So I complained about the fact that we weren't told about this and they said that all they could do was credit that day. Fail, but at least we weren't paying for it.
The Failure That is Comcast
It took a little while to adjust to everything at the new place. For one, it was silent. Don't get me wrong -- it's fairly quiet at the house, except for when the TV in the family room is on or the dogs decide to bark for whatever reason. Second, no one was picking up after me in the kitchen and bathroom anymore. Lucky for me I tend to become a clean freak when necessary so I've been okay. Third, I've had to adjust to the suckiness that is Comcast. Yup, I'm saying it: Comcast sucks. Horribly.
We, er, I, was leaching a wireless Internet connection from a hotspot named "Pussy Galore" (a 007 reference, in case you didn't know). During this time I made that small post and wasn't online much. Problem was, Comcast, in its infinite suckiness, has no idea it services Orlando. Seriously, call 1-800-COMCAST, enter a local number, and talk to someone about getting service where Comcast provides service. The typical response will be, "Sorry, we don't service [Orlando or Orange County]. I can forward you to a local office. Are you near one of the following: Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Naples, or Miramar?" To which I'll say, "Um actually, you do serve [Orlando or Orange County] and none of the locations you named are remotely close to me." And then they just give up, or give me a phone number that is no longer in service.
I gave up and ordered the stupid Comcast kit online since that was the only way I was going to get service. I bought my own cable modem off of NewEgg and hooked it up. I followed everything in the welcome kit only to find that the provided account number was no good. There were three phone numbers that came with the Kit. All three served the same purpose: to get support. The first two gave me the same stupid response I mentioned earlier, while the third number I tried was the one where they knew they serviced Orlando. The guy set up my account and I was good to go.
One week later, our Internet connection was cut off. I became furious with Comcast. I called up the number that worked and talked to a lady who said that the package I added (Internet!!!) wasn't there, and she didn't know what was going on. She said that in order to create an account or add/change services I needed to contact the local office, too. So, I asked for a phone number to a local office. She didn't have a phone number (what the flipping hell) but an address, and I went with it. Vineland Road, she said. Yup, far away from here, but still technically Orlando. I went with Clayton and Lynette, ready to raise hell.
The lady that helped us there told us that the account was canceled. Yup, canceled. Because Clayton and I totally did that during the time we were both online. We created another new account and I gave her the MAC address to my cable modem so that I could actually use the damn Internet connection. I also got the local number so I could call them if anything else came up. Problem with Comcast solved.
As an aside, never in the many years I've had Brighthouse/Time-Warner did I have these kinds of problems. They are more than happy to take my and my parents' money when we want to create an account or add a service, but Comcast seems to have an aversion toward making money. Obviously this must be the case if it took two weeks before they got it right.
The Meeting
We had a meeting at work sometime in the begining of November. Boy, that was an interesting meeting. None of the issues Clayton and I brought up to Brad made it to the meeting, and that was why the meeting was created in the first place, we thought. The only important thing I need to bring up about the meeting was that Clayton was thrown onto days (yay!), Kevin was thrown onto days (huh?), and Josh and I were thrown onto nights (fail!). I wasn't too happy about that. See, something everyone's forgotten is that when I interviewed this job one of the first things I said was hell no to working nights. When a certain someone was fired I volunteered to work nights for a short time only until they found a replacement night shift guy. I was put back onto days before nights became a real issue for me. I still have no idea how Clayton was able to do it for nine months, but more power to him.
But being put back on it was a slap to the face and it's really affecting me. I'm still on the night shift and boy, it's just not working out. I dozed off for almost an hour last night and I have no idea how it happened. I was looking at the screen and then I just... woke up. It was so weird! But between being really tired and having no life I'm already ready to give up this night shift thing.
SunTrust? Fail? No way...
Yup, SunTrust failed on me a few weeks ago. On December 5 (a Wednesday, yay), I deposited a paycheck from work at the bank. I got home and went to SunTrust's Online Banking so that I could schedule a few bills to be paid within the next few days. Last I checked I had a few hundred dollars available, but I was going to schedule the bills to be paid after this check posted (midnight). So I logged on, double checked my balance, and saw almost -$600 as my available balance. What the eff?! At least the check I just deposited would negate that negative balance so I'd be okay, but still, what the hell happened?
Naturally, the first thing I did was call up SunTrust to find out what the hell was going on. The customer rep told me that I attempted to make a deposit or tried to cash a check for $678.33, and the check's account had insufficient funds. Believe me, I don't make that in a week, so I told her that. Other than saying that the attempt was on November 30, and that the check bounced on December 5, she was useless. She tried to get a hold of Operations and they were allegedly closed at 11am EST already. What the hell?! They based overseas or something?
I called Brad to see what the hell was going on, and after some brainstorming I realized that I probably made that amount when Kim accidentally gave me more hours in one week than I was supposed to get. They looked up the amount and sure enough they cut me a check back on August 7 for that amount. That was when they had Bank of America and before they switched to Washington Mutual in the middle of October.
I called SunTrust back on Thursday because I knew they were at fault. The account was finally affected by everything and I was even hit with a $10 "inconvenience to SunTrust" fee. You know, the one where they find out you gave them a bad check and you need to pay them to make them happy... But yeah, all the guy could tell me was that Bank of America said that the check's account had insufficient funds. Well duh, Brad didn't use them anymore. I asked him why the hell a check would be processed almost four months after being cut, well past the 90 day deadline, and he had no good answer to that. He also tried to get a hold of Operations and they were closed again. To this day I'm convinced that "Operations" is a non-existent department. He was able to get a hold of the Research department, and I was told it would take seven to ten business days to figure out why SunTrust took my money. That was nice of them, right? Take almost $700 from me and then have the damn nerve to tell me that I need to wait almost two weeks for their screwup.
Furious, I went in person to a SunTrust branch the next day (Friday now) to get to the bottom of this. I wasn't going to wait two weeks. I was already paying a few bills over the credit card because I only had around $20 in the account. The lady there was extremely helpful! I showed her the check images Brad gave me proving that the check was deposited on August 8, not November 30. She kept calling around to find out what was going on and got the Research department to hurry the hell up. I was supposed to have an answer on the following Monday, but when I called her she said they hadn't found anything yet. She credited my account the almost $700 that was owed to me and told me that if they found that I was at fault (fat chance), they'd take the money back. I told her okay, hung up, and told myself that the first thing I'd do is get an attorney if they took the money out again.
A week later I got a few letters from SunTrust. They sent me proof of their screwup. One set of transactions, dated August 8, shows my deposit slip, the check image, and the cash box ticket because when I deposited the check I cashed $200 of it. The other set of transactions is dated November 30 for what I assume was cashed out (no proof about it, but I never saw the money either) and had a check image to go along with it. And guess what? SAME EXACT CHECK. Man, if I could use a check more than once to get money and not get in trouble, that'd be great! So, I'm thinking that someone at SunTrust was looking to make a quick buck at my expense. So far, everything appears to be fixed, except for the fact that SunTrust kept the $10. Assholes.
Aw, It Ain't So Bad...Right?
Lots of negativity here, eh? But to be honest, other than those issues, things haven't been so bad. Yes, I hate the night shift. A lot. It's killed my chances at going back to school until I get off of it. It's killed my life -- I live to work right now. The days I'm off I can't get shit done, and the few hours I'm awake and not working I'm too tired to do a damn thing. Yes, I loathe Comcast, but it's working right now. Yes, SunTrust screwed up, but I have my money for now. It had better stay that way!
The only remaining issue is what my future holds. As long as I work the night shift, I can't go back to school. If I can't go back to school, I can't get a BS or MS degree. If I can't get those degrees, I can't expect to make a lot of money, ever. If I can't make a lot of money, I can't move on with my life, get a house and live comfortably, which leads to another issue. Someday I would like to get a certain someone a ring and get married. Unfortunately that won't happen cause I don't have the resources (time or money). Yeah, the car was an unnecessary expense and I didn't have to move out so shame on me, but I also wasn't happy and needed to make myself happy first. And I'm happier, although things like the night shift have been taxing me as of late.
I don't want to be on the night shift making less than what I should be making. Especially not if I intend on getting married and starting a family. I hope that I get put back on days soon, but only time will tell. As for that ring, I need to hurry up... this certain someone is graduating soon and I know she's not gonna wait for me. So many things to stress and worry about... but yeah, I wanted to write in my blog and get some of that out. So there. Maybe next time I'll be a bit more positive and maybe funny again. Till next time!
Whew!
Boy, I have a lot to write about, but I really don't have time at the moment. I'm writing this from work because we still don't have Internet access at the apartment. I found a wireless network I could leech from but the signal's a tad too week.
Anyway, long story short, we moved in yesterday because of a SNAFU on the apartment company's end and I'm really, really tired. I'll be updating the Gift List as well, in case anyone decides to buy anything from there. O_o