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| Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 | | 10:06 am |
Grace period?
WORK RANT INCOMING We frequently get people who call in upset about one fee or another, and their usual refrain for late fees or reinstatement fees is "I thought I would get a grace period!" How exactly did this way of thinking come about? As a semi-responsible mostly-adult, I know that my rent is due on the 1st, I have a 'grace period' until the 10th, after that there's a late fee (and likely an eviction notice, wouldn't know, never got that far along in the process). I know this because it was clarified at the time of signing the lease, not because I made a halfass guess at what "should be." My electric bill varies, sometimes due as late as the 16th, sometimes as early as the 6th. (People complain about their insurance bill date moving around by 2-3 days, too - come on, people. That's why you get a bill each month, we ain't sending these out for our health.) For each day past the due date, there's a 2% surcharge on the amount of the bill and probably a termination warning. And then the credit card, due usually the same day each month, no grace period, pay late by even a single day and there's a hefty late fee and a "omg yuo sux pay us everything raawr" notice. Given all that variation, I cannot comprehend why someone would assume that we do things a certain way without checking first. I can count the number of times I've been late - on any bill, in the last 5 years - on one hand. (...Maybe two :x) And usually it's due to either me not checking the due dates carefully to see they changed or me just being stupid, like the time I set up the amount to pay on the credit card and then I guess just wandered off without actually clicking "submit" - oops. I would not expect to avoid a late fee if I were late with a payment, and if I were late enough to actually cancel/get evicted/get shut off, I would know that it was because I didn't pay my bill on time, accept that I screwed up, and work to fix it, not whine about graaaace period. Fuckin' LIBRARIES have late fees, why wouldn't a for-profit corporation? And our "grace period" - yeah, that's the time we send out the cancel notice to the time we cancel your ass, minimum 15 days, you get a late fee assessed, and you're lucky we give you that long. Put up or shut up. Current Mood:  cranky | | Monday, December 7th, 2009 | | 11:06 am |
Zombieland
It was playing at the local "dollar theater" (actually two dollars, but why quibble?) and we heard it was good, so we went with a friend. I'm not a fan of zombie movies - or scary movies in general - and there were definitely some jumpy parts, but overall the story was good. HOWEVER (and I read some reviews and not one of them mentions this) ( Spoilery )Not bad movie, would pay $2...barely...would not pay $2 again. And word is they're making a sequel, blech. Current Mood: annoyed | | Friday, December 4th, 2009 | | 2:17 pm |
Are people really so bad with names?
Agents have always had a thing where they mix up Ellen, Bernice and Linda - citing the reason of "Oh, you all sound the same." True, they're all middle-aged black women, but the voices sound nothing alike, and a good portion of the time they take a call they give their name. When Julie came, agents started doing this with me, despite the fact that - yes, we are both white females - we don't really sound alike. Once people in the office started to mix up our names too, or refer calls that should have gone to me to her because "Oh, you're both in the same department anyway" though we have different job responsibilities, this I'm just having a hard time dealing with. I AM NOT JULIE. Agents, COWORKERS, just stop it. It's honestly getting very tiresome, even if it's accidental, especially if it's accidental, because I am not just an interchangable piece. Might as well save yourself your embarrassment and my anger by 1) getting it fucking right, it's not hard 2) asking WHO IT IS if you aren't sure, not just leaping to retarded conclusions (""Is this...Julie?" No. "Oh haha oops I mixed you up again teehee." Fuck you too.) or 3) going to hell. I've got a list of names ready, and any time someone messes up my name, I'll respond right back with something random. "Oh that's okay, Sheila, everyone forgets my name." This is Barbara... "Whoops! Sorry, Cathy!" -edit- RRRGH FUCK YOU INDIAN CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVEFuck your heavy accent, fuck your uselessness, fuck your endless stupid apologies. "I do apologize ma'am but" "I do apologize" "I do apologize that" "I do apologize ma'am" Don't apologize, just tell me which of your retarded customers sent us this check and did not feel the need to put a name, policy number, invoice number, address or any identifying information on it. I can give you the check number, account and routing number but nothing else. No, he has no other information on it. LOOK THE FIELD MARKED TRANSACTION NUMBER IS TOTALLY BLANK I DO NOT HAVE A TRANSACTION NUMBER TO GIVE YOU I SAID THAT THREE TIMES ALREADY. "Can I place you on hold ma'am?" "I do apologize ma'am but that is a generic check number and unfortunately we can't tell you who purchased it hurr durr" "I do apologize" "I do apologize" "I do apologize" "I do apologize" "I do apologize" "I do apologize" "I do apologize" "I do apologize" "I do apologize" "I do apologize" "I do apologize" "I do apologize" "I do apologize" "I do apologize" TAKE YOUR APOLOGIES AND SHOVE THEM UP YOUR ASS And what I actually SAID was "Okay, thanks for your help, I'll try to figure out who it belongs to. ^_^" Current Mood: annoyed | | Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 | | 10:36 am |
Also, loot priority question
Non-WoWers may now flee in terror. The way I do loot in my 10-mans is Group Loot, Need for main spec upgrade, Greed for off spec upgrade, Pass if you don't want or can't use, with the additional caveat of "don't be a dick" - ie, if you win 3 things and someone else wins nothing, you are welcome to keep your purpz, or if they really could use an upgrade and you want to be nice and foster guild togetherness, you're welcome to share what you got. I never FORCE people to trade - shit drops again, it's no biggie - but I also want to minimize loot drama, and I trust people to know what is good for their class without me babysitting them. Two examples of problems I've faced: say a hunter and fury warrior are rolling on Reckoning. The fury warrior wins. I'd say it's better itemized for a hunter, with agi instead of str, but it's still good for either. I don't adhere to the "melee weapon priority goes to melee dps, ranged weapon goes to hunters" philosophy, since both benefit whether it's a real weapon or a stat-stick. I find out later it's actually the warrior's second Reckoning and he's dual wielding them (with proper enchants, so it's not like "oh hey look at me I got yer weapon nyah nyah"). Does him getting two of the weapon before the hunter gets even one considered breaking "don't be a dick" - given that he actually used it and didn't, say, vendor or shard it? I don't know. Two mages and a resto shaman roll on Chalice of Benedictus - even with the hit, it's an upgrade for all of them, two of whom are using Faces of Doom still. The shaman wins, but I do intervene on that one - one mage says grats, one mage says "but that has hit". EVEN THOUGH it has hit, it's an upgrade for the healer (and one could argue the spirit on the book is also useless for a shaman), but it's also an upgrade for a dps caster, so I rule it's not a main spec item, upgrade or not. The heal shield drops for the shaman from Anub, he passes the offhand to the next highest winner, so the problem is avoided - for now. But how to handle that in the future? If no dps caster had needed it, I would have no problem with him taking it until something better dropped. I'd have the same problem with a plate-wearer rolling on cloth or leather or mail IF a cloth or leather or mail-wearer was in the group and needed it, or a dps rolling against a tank on a tank ring because of the str and hit or expertise. Sure it has defense on it, it's still an upgrade from what I have! Exceptions I can see are if the best-in-slot literally is proven to be a cloth/leather/mail piece and there is nothing better, which is more Blizzard's failing than anything else. But until they start making heals able to miss, things with hit should go priority to people who actually can use that stat. Tham, surprisingly, agrees with the shaman - an upgrade is an upgrade, according to my own rules, and I never mentioned anything about who requires an item more, else I should be doing loot council not free roll. I had thought that was covered in "don't be a dick" though! Should I redefine the rules to add "and is appropriate for your spec and role" to the conditionals? Or am I just being overly harsh in expecting people to pass on "upgrades" that aren't ideal to people they are more made for, and should just let people take whatever? | | 9:03 am |
Everything breaks :
So, I'm biking home from another long, only-me-in-the-department-ever-since-the y-fired-Harold-and-moved-Julie-to-Commer cial-so-I-get-to-do-a-two-person-job-by-m yself-whee day. About 1/3 of the way home, I shift into a higher gear and hear a baDUMP-fump-fump-fump and the bike gets hard to pedal. I've just moved onto a sidewalky bit, and did just shift up, but that doesn't feel like it, so I get off to check. My back tire, which was fine coming out, is now completely flat, and no amount of pumping with my little mini bike pump will reinflate it. Marvelous. So I give up, get back on and proceed - very carefully - home. Halfway there, I hear a small *ting* - it could NOT be me, but knowing my luck I didn't screw the tire cap back on good enough and it popped off. No, that's not it, back looks fine aside from being totally useless, so I guess it wasn't me and continue on. A third of the way home, I hear a much louder *ting* and actually SEE the piece that has fallen off - the quick-release pin for my front wheel. That first noise must have been the endcap to that, which means the wheel is now being held on by gravity. I WALK the bike the rest of the way, find the apartment door locked, haul out my wallet which usually has my keys attached to the zipper, to find the zipper has broken off and the keys are somewhere in my pocket. I hope. I'd be okay with saying "hey, maybe the warranty on my bike ran out which is why it suddenly self-destructed" but what about the warranty on life?  Current Mood:  stressed | | Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 | | 2:15 pm |
| | Thursday, November 26th, 2009 | | 11:51 pm |
| | Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 | | 10:37 am |
Thanksgiving soon
My family lives 1000 miles away and has for almost 10 years, so going home for the holidays is hard. Since I got out of college, I've only been able to spend one Christmas and one Thanksgiving there. And there's 5 of them and only one of me, plus animals, so I can't really demand they trek all the way down here "to be fair" because it wouldn't be logistical. For the last 5 years, I've often gone to tham's family for their holiday celebrations, but it's just not the same. The food is different, the people are different, the traditions are different. They're not BAD, but...I'm not willing to completely give up what I grew up with for pretty much a radical shift in almost every aspect of the event. I'm no Ruth, no "whither thou goest I shall go" type of person am I. And the differences are enough that it really bothers me, but I can't show it because "YAY HOLIDAYS" *happy face* I'll have to go to their dinner on Saturday, because it'd just be selfish and would look bad not to, but goddammit, I'm having my own Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday with MY family's food and I'll call them and spend like $20 in long distance and joke with my mom about the time I first cooked a turkey and couldn't find the giblets and was elbow-deep in the wrong end oops haha and I will eat on top of a sheet on the living room floor so to not get food on the carpet and watch old movies and it will be like it used to. Goddammit. *cry* Current Mood:  depressed | | Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 | | 9:08 am |
I'm bored :(
Did a ton of laundry and washed the dishes yesterday, that's how bored I was. I did get into an Ulduar-25 FL only run on my warlock, hoping to get the offhand there since I had nothing at all. It dropped, I lost the roll, used one of the boe inscription books just to have something. We went on to XT, the wand dropped, I lost the roll. Raid falls apart. Ah well, at least I got some badges from it, and a nice helm from HToC. I realized I've been aiming for the wrong rep this whole time though XD I had on wyrmrest to go for the dragon, should be working toward kirin tor for the helm enchant. Ah well. I got the Horde capital cities feasts, all are easy except for UC. Silvermoon and Org don't even require you to flag, TB does but it's only momentarily and nobody's ever there anyway. UC's is inside the city walls proper and they know it. Died repeatedly on my mage getting in, had to eventually leave my body close enough to one table to lure them to wait there, wait for another alliance to come in and commence getting raped, rez, sit, die. My paladin put up much more of a fight, but three of them eventually took me down. And, again, go to a different table than the one I died at and wait. But no alliance came for a long time, the pvpers wandered off, I got bored and decided to just go for it. Released, sat in the chair, got the achievement, hopped out and kneeled in front the 80 orc death knight nearby (hey, why prolong the inevitable?)...he saluted me. Knelt by a level 12 blood elf warlock, she cheered at me. Knelt in front of an 80 tauren warrior, he waved. Understandably confused, I hearthed (not bubble-hearthed, just plain) and none of them attacked. To be fair, I don't attack any horde in our capitals that aren't actively killing people, but given the resistance I had getting in, I'm very surprised I got out in one piece. XD Current Mood:  bored | | Monday, November 23rd, 2009 | | 10:43 am |
Onus is such a funny word.
( ToGC, third raid: )
( Lock hit 80! :D )
( Thanksgiving event )
Went to a ToC-25, ended up getting passed lead because I had vent and knew what the hell I was doing (rl was like "I was hoping to pass lead to someone after I got it started, I don't have mic and don't know the fights too well lol o btw u sound hot"...marvelous.) Server hiccups caused wipes on champs and anub - as tham put it, "Someone needs to replace the hamsters in Alleria's server" - but we did eventually down it. I'm thinking of going to '1 trophy, 1 main spec epic, crusader orbs saved until the end for roll on people who didn't get loot at all' since there's a LOT of people who don't roll on trophies because they're saving for a particular item, it doesn't drop/does drop and they lose the roll. The biggest thing, though - why do I always gotta lead raaaaids T_T It wasn't even mine! *cry* | | Thursday, November 19th, 2009 | | 11:33 am |
Emeril can suck it.
We have a problem where we simply cannot remember which spaghetti sauce we buy. Is it Prego? Ragu? Pretty sure it's not Newmann's Own, but is it meat flavored? Extra mushroom? We add both meat and mushrooms, so it could be chunky vegetable, but no, that can't be it, it has peppers. WHAT THE HELL DID WE GET LAST TIME?! XD So, tham said, since we can't remember, it must not matter, just get whatever. So he picked Emeril's "Roasted Gaaaahlic", plus or minus a few a's. Way, way too much gaaaahlic for my taste. Open the jar and it's like bam, garlic. Also, the ingredient list contained not a single BAM. Disappointment. I forgot until I was halfway through Icecrown's starter quests that I was totally planning to start in Storm Peaks to unlock Hodir crap. Oops. Got to 78, at least. 2 to go! | | Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 | | 9:53 am |
Eeks...
I was tempted to put "Dun dun dun-dun-dun...another one bites the dust" as the post title but that might be a bit heartless. Anyway, they fired Harold yesterday, which means Julie gets to cover commercial department and I get to pick up the slack on cash ops. What slack? We were already both a leetle bit strained as it was. x_x So, no more morning breaks to update this thing; probably no more morning break at all -_- Was planning to do both ony/tocs in one day and completely free up friday for togc, but we didn't even have enough on for one (pugged one, finished both in 1.5 hours, said "screw it" to the second run). I can't even blame the time change (move raid1 back 30 minutes to allow for screwups and to have raid2 start and finish sooner) as we pushed it back to the regular start time and still only had 9 ten minutes after "start". Tham is of the opinion that when that happens, my response should be "obviously people don't want to raid, calling it" but I highly disagree with that for multiple reasons. I can pug a dps, it's no big deal, tanks and healers are more of a risk but it's doable. You're not punishing the people who didn't show, you're punishing the people who DID. And that's bad. I suppose I'm going to have to do an attendance percentage or something to stay above nonraider status, with "raiders" taking priority over "nonraiders" in spot choice. I can totally see why 75% of the guild and raid leaders I've been with so far have gone insane. SPAGHETTI TONIGHT Current Mood:  worried | | Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | | 1:13 pm |
Argh
Hay guys you should make an awesome block set it comes in handy in lots of places Oh I forgot to mention all the best block pieces are from 25s sorry I keep wanting to make something involving artichoke hearts, but I have no idea what. Tham's cousin, at the last family gathering, did a dish involving hearts, orzo, some kind of cheese, I think asparagus...it was really good, but not really for a normal dinner-type dish. *contemplates breaking out the recipe books, becomes bored, wanders off* | | Monday, November 16th, 2009 | | 2:15 pm |
Kinda wish I hadn't have read that. :
Levelled my warlock to 77, 3 to go! Used the awesome voidwalker powaa to tank several group quests both in Northrend and in Nagrand (helped a guildie with the elite quests in Nagrand. Durn the Hungerer has a knockback blast that interrupts channeled spells like "oh shit vw low, heal heal hea-"...did you know that? But eh, we scraped by :p). So I do the Wrathgate quest, because I always do the Wrathgate quest, and I'm watching the video and getting all sniffly like usual, little hearts for Bolvar fluttering around and whatnot. And today on my lunch break I found out about one of the Icecrown Citadel bosses, and who he used to be. </3 | | Sunday, November 15th, 2009 | | 1:27 pm |
| | Friday, November 13th, 2009 | | 11:11 am |
Eee :)
I did good, kinda :)Trouble is, now that I got my scanner working, I have more stuff to draw than I have time. D: Got fully caught up on the Neo plot for now. I'll be honest, I used to not like the comic format they changed to, my mouse was finnicky closing out the panels from one to the next so it was tedious to navigate them, and I liked the "everything laid out" design more as I read very quickly, and waiting for a mouseover to load slowed things down a lot. But, they CAN do much more with the flash format that wouldn't really be possible in a traditional format, and the art HAS greatly improved. Kinda makes me want to dust off my old comic arc idea, reinstall Flash (again) and see what I can do. Aaaand, imo they've humanized the characters way too much lately. Clothes are okay, I suppose, and specific body alterations for personality, but to pull a little Orwell here, TWO LEGS BAD, FOUR LEGS GOOD. Hair on characters whose species usually do not have hair there, vast growth spurts...it's like puberty! Given that that's what the main demographic of the site seems to to be, it's not surprising, but still. So, the mail room woman is out. The fax/refund processor is out. The underwriting supervisor was here, but left sick at around 9 AM. One of the other underwriters is leaving at 3 for an out-of-state trip. So I get to do faxes, refunds, lockbox payments, unapplied cash, Barry's reports, onsite deposit, the weekly EFT sweeps and the reconciliations/reimbursements. HLEP -edit- omg I forgot the auditors are coming Monday. SHIT SHIT SHIT Current Mood: OH GOD WHY AM I ON THIS THINGCurrent Music: I SHOULD BE WORKING | | Thursday, November 12th, 2009 | | 9:40 am |
Rain rain go away
I need to go shopping and you are making it VERY DIFFICULT to muster the energy to do so. Heh, some of our agencies in the area are reporting flooding and closing early. NOT US THOUGH. Tham and I are trying not to do any sidequests in Borderlands playthrough 2, as apparently when you beat that, the quest rewards and boss loot increase to level 50 versions or something. This means we're consistently 2-3 levels below the things we're facing, if not more. After we both wasted several inventories' worth of ammo trying to take down one guy to get him to maybe 75%, and on an optional boss could barely scratch it while it easily killed one or the other of us in one shot - the other would resurrect, the dead one would immediately strafe after getting up, letting the resurrecter eat the breath attack and die, rinse and repeat - we eventually managed to escape with our lives intact, if not our dignity. Response: Cruise around Dahl Headlands cleaning out bandit camps for leevelz. And he got a Double Anarchy off a random bandit dude...yes, the gun he'd farmed New Haven several days for and never found once. Current Mood:  wet | | Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | | 11:03 am |
Oh my god that is way too much onion
Like whoa I probably should have only used half but I definitely wasn't thinking and chopped up the whole thing so I had to use it Damn (it was still good stroganoff though) And now it is raaaaaaainy T_T | | Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 | | 8:49 am |
COMMISSION DAY.
Sigh. They're almost done, at least; once they are, I reserve the next few hours for passing-out time. Feeling so tired and blech lately; would be better if I COULD throw up, might help clear out whatever I ate that's making my insides wither away.Really should get up the energy tonight to clean, cook and actually get some work done, but blah. I did finally finish that image I was working on, and we beat Borderlands and are halfway through playthrough 2, but tham only ever wants to farm New Haven to try and find a specific gun. He won't even come and level a bit, even though all the ones he's finding are 2-5 levels higher than we are. XD Now I can either work more on Borderlands, start the second image I have to do, or head back to WoW and hope my guildmates haven't forgotten me. Decisions, decisions. Current Mood: rushed | | Friday, November 6th, 2009 | | 8:57 am |
So, I finally reinstalled Photoshop.
Tham introduced me to the pen tool, which I had previously avoided like the plague because I didn't know what the hell it did and the one time I tested it to see if I could figure it out, it scarred me for life. So...so many loops and tangent lines...*twitch* I think I got a much better handle on it now, and it's surprisingly awesome for curves; however, I still get more success by just doing the lineart with...well, the line tool. I don't need anything fancy like brushstrokes, so I'll just be using that for the time being. I'm even considering digging up the info to my website and getting more into the art stuff again, considering of the two people I showed this and some older stuff, both of them were like "zomg you are really good" - lies, all lies, but hey, everyone needs a hobby :p Tham has been obsessing over the autotuner, he's made some music with it and another compilation program he got and it's actually really good. He also wants to spread around the "Autotune the News" series, which he has been listening to endlessly, so, here you go, one of the ones I liked. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDOYN-6gdRETotally been neglecting WoW, sigh. Bad Guild Leader. I definitely remember what happens when the person in charge goes absent for extended periods of time, and with the maturity level of some of these people, "extended periods" would consist of "Hey I didn't see you yesterday what's going on??" |
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