Category: hate

I Hate Phone Books

August 20, 2008 / / 1 Comment

This is a great idea. It’s a service that allows you to opt out of receiving telephone books. I’ve gotten three or four unnecessary, unwanted, unsolicited phone books in the last year. I walked all but the last straight of them to the recycling bin behind my house without ever taking them into my apartment. (I was in a bad mood when the last one showed up, so I just hurled it on the sidewalk and left it there.)

Here are a few facts that I think phone book printers ought to be aware of:

  • There’s this new thing called the “Internet” that’s updated more than once a year.
  • The majority of the people I know only own cell phones, so they wouldn’t be in a phone book even if I didn’t already have them in my contact list.
  • If someone is under 40 years old, it will never even cross his or her mind to look in a book for a phone number or address.  That’s what the Internet is for.
  • I consider phone books to be a step down from litter.  At least with litter, no one paid money to compile, print, and deliver it before I throw it away.  Phone book manufacturers, on the other hand, killed a few dozen trees in order to leave me their trash.  Way to go.

There’s no national “Stop Leaving Your Garbage On My Doorstep” list, so it’s voluntary for the phonebook manufacturers to comply with the request.  I’m hoping it works.

ByteMarket.com – Swindled

April 30, 2008 / / 0 Comments

One of the hard drives in my system started throwing errors last week, so I needed to replace it ASAP. While I was at it, I figured I’d do a minor upgrade and add redundancy for all the file systems on the box.

I removed both of the old crappy hard drives from my system, only to replace them with two other crappy hard drives. That hadn’t been my intention–I’d actually gone out of my way to purchase new Seagate drives because they come with five year warranties. The site I purchased them from, ByteMarket.com, listed two refurbished 40GB drives for a good price, so I bought them.

Since I only needed 40GB drives, I was fine with getting refurbs–drives reworked by the factory but are essentially new. Most importantly, they’re covered by the manufacturer’s warranty. That’s not what I got. In fact, I didn’t really get anything I’d wanted in this deal: there was virtually nothing about this purchase that ByteMarket didn’t fuck up.

  • The drives I received were system pulls–drives pulled from old computers and resold. They both had Compaq stickers plastered on them and were covered in scratches and dents. One hadn’t even had the original mounting screws removed.
  • They were shipped in a box that was twice as big as it needed to be, giving them plenty of room to bash around into each other during the shipping process. They were, however, in bubble wrap.
  • I specified shipping to my work address (where my server lives), and they were sent to my apartment.
  • I paid for 2-4 day shipping, and it took more than a week for the drives to arrive.

Since I needed to replace the bad drive in my system without delay, I had no choice but to install the drives anyway. I’ve been testing them, and they’re both working fine–but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m pissed. I’m calling tomorrow to see what they’re willing to do for me, since both drives are in use and can’t be sent back. I’m hoping for a partial refund or new drives. If I don’t get some sort of compensation, I’m going to sic The Consumerist on them.

Little Bitch

December 12, 2007 / / 4 Comments

I just got a really strange voicemail…

Hey yo, what up, Marc, my name is Steve and I took, uh, Tae Kwon Do back in Madison not too long ago. Uh, you gave me your number and everything so maybe some time we could hook up or whatever, uh, the new movie I am Legend is coming out and I wanted to see if you wanted to go see it. Gimme call a back, you should know the number, I gave it to you last time we met.

Normal to that point, right?

Anyways, looking forward to fucking you in your asshole again, you fucking faggot.
:: laughter in background ::

The fuck?

While I do know of a guy named Steve who has a legit reason to hospitalize me, this wasn’t him. I would have recognized his voice. This guy called and left a voicemail from a blocked telephone number, then insulted me with something I haven’t heard since high school. If he had any balls at all, he would have called from a traceable number, or at least identified himself.

As such, I’m mostly just amused by the call. Calling from a blocked number and leaving a prank message? Please. What a little bitch.

The strange thing is that Little Bitch knows the city I live in, my phone number, and that I practice martial arts–though I practice Tae Soo Do, not Tae Kwon Do. I’ve never taken Tae Kwon Do anywhere but Whitewater, and I rarely give out my phone number to anyone, and definitely haven’t done so recently… so I’m at a loss as to Little Bitch’s identity.

Update: Mystery solved. A friend of mine was apparently on a podcast radio show… thing… and they pranked me. More info in the comments.

The Awful Show