Tag Archives: things I hate

DEATH TO CLICKING

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Pamela

I’m in the process of updating my webcrap. I couldn’t finish today (long rant omitted) and I had to go back to my old theme or whatever b/c then new one does that thing where I’m supposed to click on every single post to open it up and find out what the hell it says. (I’m trying to find some stuff in the archives for my holiday wrap up). I can’t wait until I’m in charge of everything because things will be a lot less stupid.

Also, I think every youngster who designed one of the many tutorials and wizards I had to do today should have to sit next to me while I do it. They would be designed a lot better.

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Violent Pink Popcorn

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Pamela

This is cinnamon flavored popcorn that came in a giftbox to the office. Normally I’m all grown-up and formal about such things like we need to eat all the pretzels before we open the cheese corn. Not this time. We’ve opened every single thing and tried it, often before 8am and once after we ate a giant lunch. It’s never too early to start packing on the holiday handles.

I wrote out a long story about how my health insurance had been making me insane the past couple of days. But I think its too long to be interesting so I’m going to give the short version.

I need some basic information so I logged into the main website which was totally worthless. Then, anxious to share these feelings, I clicked on the Feedback tab. The Feedback tab wanted me to create a feedback account, which obviously I am not going to do, and then if I understand correctly, I was going to be posting my feedback on a community board.

In what Universe is that going to do anything?

Later I found a different URL and tried to login but it didn’t recognize any of my numbers that it asked for. (And zeroed out the form each time so I had to re-complete all the fields . Thanks for nothing.) It said if the numbers didn’t work to call the phone number.

I called the phone number and guess what? It was a phone tree that demanded the same numbers that didn’t work on the website. No work around that I could discover.

It took a half hour and a giant bag of chocolate-caramel popcorn before I could stop foaming at the mouth. I don’t want to talk about work here but there are good reasons I didn’t ask someone there first. But I finally did and got enough info to proceed.

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Monday Round Up

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Pamela

I’m going to regret putting all these things in one post later this week when I’m scrounging for things to write about. But I’m tired of looking at this post-it full of notes on my desk.

I would really like to take the person who decided that Word needs to default by putting a line between every paragraph and flog him or her to death. Why would anyone do this? Yes, I know I can change the default but that is completely not the point. What if they decided that the default was all-caps or Comic Sans 14 pt bold? I shouldn’t even put that energy out into the Universe. I actually collected notes for awhile about how much I hate Office 2010 but I stopped because I’m trying to focus on not hating things so much.

This weekend was my first time for rolling out the hot cocoa, one of my favorite cold weather treats. I lost my touch over the summer. The first one I boiled over and the second one tasted flat. I’m going to need more practice to perfect my execution.

How is it possible that Big Bang Theory is in its 5th season and I didn’t even know about it? I don’t even remember why I decided to watch one. Maybe an actor on the show won an award? That was about two weeks ago. I want to stay home and watch it all day long. Bob and I are watching it together. We haven’t had a live action sitcom in the rotation for eons. I love watching Bob squirm during programs where nerds are trying to get with girls.

This morning I woke up to a cover of Do They Know Its Christmas? which seems like something that should be at the top of things the world doesn’t need. Then I looked it up and it was Glee. There is nothing horrible out there that Glee can’t make a little bit worse? (Truth: I actually like the Do They Know Its Christmas? song *original*.)

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Pumpkins and Weenies

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Pamela

There’s been a mild panic going on here about the pumpkins.

Normally I would have had pumpkin vines all over the place by now, but between the long wet spring and then World Cup I never got around to planting much.

I had the front spot all ready to go and I finally threw a bunch of seeds in there and then nothing happened.

I had a spot in the back all ready to go and planted both pumpkin and lemon cucumber seeds.

Plus I had a few volunteers which is where this photo comes in.

I’ve finally got sproutage, but it’s so late, we’ll see how we do.

This the main garden patch which is mostly sunflowers, all volunteers. I did plant sunflowers once but the squirrels and birds make sure there are always lots of sunflowers.

There’s even a cluster of sunflowers on the other side of the yard now.

The garden is pretty pitiful this year. I’ve got 3 tomato plants and they’re doing okay but I don’t have high hopes.

Mostly the garden seems to be prime habitat for slugs and snails. There are a few greens and beets. Most everything has bolted.

I did pick another bowl of raspberries today.

I’m too tired now to do this story justice so here is the short-ish version.

The worst time to talk to me is the first 15 minutes when I get home from work. I need some time with no talking to look at the mail, or email, or empty my backpack, or change clothes or whatever I need to do to transition.

Today I was thinking about watering, trying to set up my laptop, pulling dirty Tupperware out of my backpack and changing out of my work clothes when the doorbell rang.

I went to the peep hole and it was a guy with shiny hair and a clipboard together with a girl with shiny hair and a clipboard. AWESOME! My favorite.

I don’t know why I just didn’t ignore them.

Turns out they are from a security company — he pointed to a logo on his shirt — and their company was going to be doing work on the land lines in the neighborhood and they needed someone to do them a favor and keep a small sign advertising the company in the yard to help them out. They were only picking three houses on my block to do this and they picked mine! And in return for this terrible inconvenience they would compensate me by putting a FREE security system in my house. Free.

I told him to take a hike. But he wasn’t finished. He went on and on, the story making less and less sense as he went along. And he was one of those humorless wanker guys with lots of teeth, I hate to use this term because it’s overused these days, but he was a textbook douche bag.

I finally said if he had information I’d look at it and see if I was interested and he said before he could leave anything he needed to make sure I was the actual homeowner and make sure the home wasn’t in foreclosure or anything. I had to take three calming breaths so I didn’t punch my fist through the screendoor and rip his face off.

I had to close the door on his face because he wouldn’t stop talking. That guy made me mad.

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Phones on a Plane

Posted on November 3, 2006 by Pamela

I did Illustrator class this morning and when I got home, still fired up with the spirit of Adobe, decided to try a fun and easy tutorial and let’s just say that after an hour and a half it was neither fun nor easy. I got to the bottom of the tutorial and noticed that I was only on page 1 of 8 pages.

Enough tutorial for today.

Consumerist reports that by 2008 many airlines will be offering cellphone service to their customers.

Kill. Me. Now.

Two of my most detested sounds in the Universe are strangers talking on their cellphones and the sound of a TV unless it’s a show that I’m watching. Airports are a wonderland for these two sounds. That horrible airport in Minneapolis has a huge TV hanging from the ceiling every 10 feet. If you must have them, why so many?

One of the things I love about airplanes (the other being that it’s faster than walking because to be honest, I don’t love airplanes) is that the phone doesn’t ring. You can sit there with your book or iPod and you don’t have to do anything else because there’s nothing to do.

I admit, I can understand the appeal because some might consider it dead time, why not catch up with a friend or conduct a little business? But I can’t even comprehend what it would be like to sit there listening to someone yammering away completely oblivious to how loud they are or how their conversation is intruding on someone else’s space. It’s not that easy to tune out people talking. I hate hearing it in the waiting area. My only defense is earplugs or a white noise track on my iPod.

Consumerist says it could cost as much as $3 a minute. Maybe no one will think it’s worth it.

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Never Like That Before

Posted on August 10, 2004 by Pamela

Okay, I’m over my Darth Vader bad mood spasm from this morning. Phoned health care and apparently they have some new convoluted system that’s designed confusing so as to maximally screw over its customers. Why be anonymous: it’s Pacificare. My appointment may or may not be covered depending on its code but I have to wait until the bill wends its way to the Portland Clinic and if still screwed up, I can then commence mouth-frothing and so forth. The notion that this appointment *might* still be covered cheered me up. Not like my employer hasn’t paid like $30 K in premiums over the past 10+ years when I’ve averaged less than one appointment per year. They should want me as a customer. That’s free money. All they have to do is slit open the envelope and run to the bank.

The unauthorized visa charge looks less promising. I called the company to ask about the charges because it’s not unheard of for us to charge something for “X” and then see a credit card charge billed as “Y” and be confused as to what we bought. I had to leave a message which doesn’t bode well so if I can’t speak to a live person tomorrow, I’m calling the credit union.

Onto the Chronicles of Riddick (very cool website, massive stuff to download, probably skip if don’t have speedy connection and/or patience of 8 year old boy). I have wanted to see this movie since I saw the trailer way back whenever they started showing it. It’s connected to Pitch Black — I guess a sequel but I thought I read somewhere it was a prequel. Whatever, not important to this discussion. It’s one of those movies that isn’t nearly as cool as it should be. But I still liked it. It’s one of those epic all over the universe sagas with Vin Diesel who I can’t help liking and one of the villians is Karl Urban (Eomer from LOTR).

The better story is about the place where I saw it. I went to the $3 theater at the Portlander Inn which is a truck stop center at the last exit before the interstate bridge on the Oregon side. They have food, mini-mart, bar and live music, a TV area with tables, chairs and a snack bar and stuff like FedEx and lottery. I saw the movie with a room full of truckers. Since I’m the kind of person who watches all the Lord of the Rings and Dune and Star Wars stuff — I’m used to these strange otherworlds and massive info-dump in the first 5 minutes of the film type movies. The funniest thing was when the movie was over and I overheard a guy saying, “I’ve seen lots of strange things but I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

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