11 posts tagged “rant”
I have like, 3 minutes to type this before I have to get ready and run to class, but I couldn't resist expressing my disgust over this one.
I just went to movietickets.com to check out movie times for tonight, and I noticed that what apparently is the biggest movie out right now is something I haven't even heard of. I clicked on it to read a synopsis, and above the synopsis I see:
"Prefer to listen to the synopsis instead? Just click on the "LISTEN" button and begin listening!"
...What. The. Hell. Are people really incapable of reading ONE paragraph to learn more about the movie? I could go on this rant for awhile, but I'll stop there.
Who says people don't read anymore? Oh, wait...
Yes, Amazon, your convenience and general reliability make you a dear friend of mine. I can overlook the tens of thousands of annoying e-mails you send me when you think have some item that will be of interest to me (side note: you never do).
What I cannot overlook is that three hours ago, you told me that ordering certain items with standard shipping would be guaranteed to get to my house by Christmas Eve if I ordered in the next 15 hours (or some large number like that). And now that I've made my final decision to get these items, you tell me my items will arrive after December 25th unless I choose two-day shipping... which eliminates any savings I would've been getting.
What. What?
I'm slightly stressed, because I know I can get one of these items in town (for a little more expensive, but it evens out when you consider the cost of two-day shipping). I'm not sure about the other one, however, and for all the hell I know, by the time I figured out if I could find this other DVD, Amazon will have declared next-day shipping the only possible way for me to get my items on time.
Sigh. =( I had such a freakin' successful day of Christmas shopping today, and now things start going wrong as I try to wrap it up. (Erm, no pun intended.) What to do, what to do.
Edited to Add: Wow, there are some majorly gross grammatical errors in this entry, not to mention crap that doesn't make sense? Apparently I'm more tired than I thought. Too lazy to care or correct anything.
Edit #2: Ah, okay, I now see what happened. I'm not sure what the hell the 15-hour countdown was that Amazon was giving me, but apparently my ability to get crap to me by Christmas via standard shipping ended at midnight--I must've been checking on things right before then. I might stab myself. I just might.
Edit #3 it's-madness-i-can't-stop: I did two-day shipping. I feel like if there's one thing I've learned from The Year 2007, it's to shell out extra cash if (a)you can, and (b)it will bring you peace of mind. I actually can't shell out extra cash right now, but that's the magic of credit cards, eh?
About two to three weeks ago, as you might remember, I came down with some form of illness. My doctor bestowed upon me some Lovely Pillz, and eventually I started feeling better--although for whatever reason, I kept getting a fever at nighttime for several days after being on the pills. Life has been fabulous since then! ...Except that I woke up Thursday with difficulty swallowing again, and quickly realized that I was about to start having the exact same whatever-illness-I-had again. Anxious to prevent this from making me feel like utter crap again, I called my mom, who was nice enough to have my doctor call in a (stronger) prescription, then bring it up to me that night.
That was Thursday. I have been on antibiotics for three days, and yet... I seem to be getting worse, if anything. I mean, prepare yourself for TMI, but... By the looks of it, you would think something was colonizing my freakin' tonsils. It's like a whole new ecosystem going on in there. And up until today I've felt fine besides the extreme annoyance of a swollen, painful throat... But of course now I find myself getting those you're-gonna-have-a-fever-soon headaches and feeling exhausted. I'm going to have to miss work tomorrow afternoon (for the second time in three weeks--no bueno) to go to a doctor's appointment, and today I had to skip out on my church-singing gig because I didn't want my throat to explode.
I am becoming most aggravated by this. Because this next week is supposed to be delightful, and full of pigging out and cuddling and all the good things that come with a visit from ye olde boyfriende. But if I am unable to swallow comfortably, and if I am cranky beyond reason due to general ickiness, I will not be able to enjoy these things. And then, frankly, I'll be tempted to perform a DIY tonsillectomy, and that's not going to be good for anyone. (Especially me.)
So now I've whined, I've consumed some delicious and not-painful-to-eat pudding, and I think I shall take a nap, expecting to magically wake up with a happy throat and all my piano pieces memorized.
"Grace is a female detective working in a man's world.
[insert clip of Grace saying, "If I was trying to harass you, I'd do this," then punching a guy]
...But that's how she likes it."
Excellent. What a splendid message. "Girls, sexist attitudes in the workplace shouldn't be worried about. Just be violent, and no one will notice you're female."
I have a real-life neighbor who apparently enjoys the band Fall Out Boy. So much so, in fact, that he feels compelled to listen to at least a few songs off the CD multiple times a day at a ridiculous volume. This would not be nearly as bad if not for the fact that I cannot stand the band, and I have a low tolerance for sound systems that are way too heavy on the bass. Normally I can just deal with all this--if only for the fact that his attention span apparently only allows him to listen to a few songs at a time--but today I'm just too cranky to deal with it. I have no stereo, but I've turned my computer up as loud as it can possible go and I'm blasting some music that, imho, is actually not annoying.
It's been nearly a month since my last Vista update. Which is great, because that means it's been nearly a month since I've had any major problems! Of course, that kind of peace isn't meant to last.
Here's something unfortunate I've now learned the hard way: Unlike Windows XP, Vista does not automatically create system restore points every few days or before big system changes. Actually, I'm wrong; apparently it will, you just have to tell it that. I'm not sure if I told XP System Restore to do that and then I forgot I did so, or if that was the default setting on XP, but either way--when I discovered some weird problems this morning that I felt certain a good system restore could take care of for me, I was cheerfully informed that I have no restore points.
So now, due to some problem with either a USB port or my webcam or Yahoo Messenger or Vista or my computer itself or some combination of any of those (insert side thought here: what were those things called in math? those things you used to figure out the number of possible combinations... and it would look like "5!"--funny in itself, i might add--but it meant 5x4x3x2x1... wait, am i remembering that right? are there really 5x4x3x2x1=120 possible combinations of trouble spots my computer is experiencing?)
...Wow, I went on such a long mental aside that I forgot what I was saying. My point is, my webcam is working only sporadically and I've gotten the Blue Screen of Death two or three times this morning (and I'm still wondering how on this new OS that Microsoft is promoting as beautiful and streamlined and blablabla, they haven't managed to come up with a better way to display "HELLO YOUR COMPUTER IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE AND DIE HA HA HA").
Of course, now that I think about and research that, I learn that early versions of Vista in fact had a Red Screen of Death, and I'm grateful that I didn't get anything like that. I think if I ever saw an error message in any color besides blue, I would be terrified and most likely hide under my bed. (Unless it was like, lavender, and then I'd probably want to cuddle with the error message BECAUSE IT WOULD JUST BE SOOOO ADORABLE.)
This turned into a lot more talking than I meant to do. Really, I'm just trying to avoid figuring out how to fix this problem. Another fun nugget I'm facing is the existence of a desktop shortcut that won't allow me to delete it because since I've uninstalled the program it goes to, it can't find itself. ...I'm not even going on that rant.
Major Problem Numero Uno:
My sound has just. Stopped working. Earlier it stopped working, and I could find no reason for this--according to my computer, everything was working fine. I got home, plugged the bad boy in in hopes of that magically returning sound--but it didn't. I noticed updates were ready, one of them involving my sound card mo-bobber (highly technical term), so I said, "Update away!"
In addition to that particular update FAILING (giving me an error number that magically was not listed in the help file), my computer now boldly declares I have no audio output device installed. Fantastic. I'm told I have no driver installed for my sound card; my computer can find the driver online, but for a reason unknown even to it, cannot install it; I'm getting an error message informing me that my "Driver Installation Module Has Stopped Working"; and I just found an entire message board thread full of people with HP Pavillions bitching about how their sound/drivers/whatever aren't working on Vista.
I don't understand computers, and I am not qualified to fix this, but by George, I shall. I shall.
I suspect this is the beginning of a long, homework-less evening. And not the good kind of homework-less.
Update: three hours later. Definitely a long evening, but problem solved (at least for now). I spent almost two hours dicking around with stuff, trying solutions I found on a forum, downloading an audio driver from the HP website. After this I gave up and called HP tech support while also waiting for a tech support person online, waiting to see who I got to first. After 25 minutes (!) they both responded almost simultaneously; I closed the Internet window and continued with the nice Indian woman whom I couldn't really understand. And then as soon as I explained my problem, one of our phones cut out. Tears ready to burst forth from my eyes almost as much as the profanity was from my mouth, I uninstalled and deleted the audio driver in a rage, re-downloaded the one from the HP website, installed it, restarted, and... ! Startup music! Amazing. Probably a very simple solution that anyone would've known to do, and it took me nearly three hours.
At least I feel like I learned stuff. I feel like I actually acquired knowledge and skills that may help me in future situations. If nothing else, I sort of know what a driver is now.... ~is pathetic~
Because I need to get it out.
I'm sorry, but who decided that it needs to cost an obscene amount of money to fly in an airplane? And who decided that the obscenity of that amount increases just about every day closer you get to the day you want to leave? Edit: Or perhaps I'm wrong. Magically, I could fly out tomorrow (Sat.) and return a week from Sunday for just $10 more than it would cost to do the exact same trip in March. Grr.
Le sigh. I'm trying to go to CA for my spring break, and of course, the absolute cheapest thing I can find--checking round trips, checking one ways, and a million combinations of days--is $378. Southwest has this amazing deal going on for $89 one-way; unfortunately, the dates this special fare is offered are just a week or two shy of the dates I need, and I'd have to fly into LAX (something I'd rather not do).
Anyone have any advice on how to find and procure cheap tickets? My strategy in the past has been to use services like Expedia, Travelocity, Cheap Tickets, etc. to find cheaper airlines, then check out the airline's individual website in hopes of saving a few bucks. Usually the only airlines I can afford are Southwest and Continental, but this time the cheapest I can find is American Airlines (which I've never flown). If I don't find anything cheaper soon, I'm just going to have to use ye olde credit card and ask the parental figures for some loan-age.
SO! Your assignment, if you choose to accept it: 1. Do you know of any good travel places than will take pity on me and give me cheap rates? 2. Have you ever flown American Airlines, and if so, did you dig it?
So in spite of this week's (month's? semester's?) persistent negative attitude, I tried to be positive and cheerful and not puke on things that are vomit-inducingly sweet. And then I get on Vox, and look at the picture on the This is Good: "Your Life Has Meaning."
Further justification for my last post.
Ok, to be honest, I'm in a good mood right now. But I was seriously hoping that somehow, they would update the This Is Good to be full of pessimistic nuggets of negativity.
Thought Inspired by a Typo: If someone slapped a bunch of people and stole only a few bucks each time, would they call it "muggets"? Just wondering.
Hope my neighborhood is doing well.
Alright, maybe I'm just feeling overly cynical today (or perhaps I'm just being a bitch right now--it's hard to say). But there are a few things about Vox that drive me just a bit insane. Don't get me wrong; I love Vox and it didn't take me long to prefer it to Livejournal. I love that I've made such cool friends already (there's not a person in my neighborhood that I don't look forward to reading, you crazy interesting people!), and I love that it's so easy to just make a few clicks and find someone new to read about or talk to.
Mental Note/Brief Digression from This Rant into Another One: Why the hell can't you end a sentence in a preposition? I love English and grammar and all that crap, but this drives me insane. Because I know that rule will be dropped in the future, and going out of your way to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition--e.g., "I love that it is so easy to make a few clicks and find someone new about whom to read"--will make you look like a silly archaic-pants. Digression complete.
But here's what tends to bug me about Vox (aside from the fact that I don't get e-mails notifying my when someone has responded to a comment I've left in their Vox): it's so freakin' sunshine-and-candy-and-flowers happy all the time. Now I wouldn't prefer something so dark and morbid as deadjournal (although when it first came out I could not stop laughing about it), but still... when I'm in a mood like I'm in today, or even when I'm just not in an over-the-top happy mood, some of the more bubbly aspects of Vox leave me feeling a little nauseated.
I know I'm not the first person to feel this way (see Doc Paradox's QotDs That Will Never See the Light of Day, for one hilarious example). But sometimes I see that occasional picture on the "This Is Good" front page that screams "I spent hours strategically planning this shot (and secretly hoping that Vox would validate my existence by declaring it 'good')," and I think... If you're not a professional or at least semi-professional photographer, stop trying so hard. Or, like today, I read something featured on the "This Is Good." I read it, and I VOMIT. Because it's so obviously fiction. It is clearly someone who sat down to write something touching or inspirational and pass it off as something that actually happened to them. But unlike such "Glurge" as the story of Robby, there are no obviously incorrect bits of information to definitively prove that oh wait, this story was made up to look nice.
The point of all this bitching is this: Call me a mean person, but I wish there was a [this is crap] option (or some equivalent). Something, anything, so that when I read garbage like
When I was 6, my parents gave me an adorable puppy named Sunshine Bubbles for Christmas. While walking Sunshine Bubbles down my perfect suburban street, I saw a homeless man, crying. When I asked him why he was crying, he responded, "Because I have no one to love, and no one loves me," and right there I gave him Sunshine Bubbles, which licked the homeless man (who smelled like flowers and not booze) all over, and the man began to laugh. Today, that man is Bill Gates, and he says if it weren't for Sunshine Bubbles he wouldn't be where he is today. Sunshine Bubbles is 30 years old now and still going strong!
and I see thirty thousand [this is good]s attached to it, I can slap a [this is crap] or a [get a life] or an [are you kidding me?] on there and feel better.
And speaking of [get a life]... after typing all of my bitterness out, perhaps I should go practice what I preach.
