Friday, December 05, 2003

Fri
5
Dec
2003

This is Scary

A coworker sent this to me. It frightens me a little that something like this could happen in the not-too-distant future if we're not careful:

Operator: "Thank you for calling (insert pizza chain name here). How may I serve you?"

Customer: "Hi, I'd like to order."

Operator: "May I have your NIDN first, sir?"

Customer: "My National ID Number, yeah, hold on, eh, it's 6102049998-45-54610."

Operator: "Thank you, Mr. Sheehan. I see you live at 1742 Meadowland Drive, and the phone number's 494-2366. Your office number over at Lincoln Insurance is 745-2302 and your cell number's 266-2566. Which number are you calling from, sir?"

Customer: "Huh? I'm at home. Where d'ya get all this information?"

Operator: "We're wired into the system, sir."

Customer: (Sighs) "Oh, well, I'd like to order a couple of your All-Meat Special pizzas..."

Operator: "I don't think that's a good idea, sir."

Customer: "Whaddya mean?"

Operator: "Sir, your medical records indicate that you've got very high blood pressure and extremely high cholesterol. Your National Health Care provider won't allow such an unhealthy choice."

Customer: "Damn. What do you recommend, then?"

Operator: "You might try our low-fat Soybean Yogurt Pizza. I'm sure you'll like it."

Customer: "What makes you think I'd like something like that?"

Operator: "Well, you checked out 'Gourmet Soybean Recipes' from your local library last week, sir. That's why I made the suggestion."

Customer: "All right, all right. Give me two family-sized ones, then. What's the damage?"

Operator: "That should be plenty for you, your wife and your four kids, sir. The 'damage,' as you put it, heh, heh, comes $49.99."

Customer: "Lemme give you my credit card number."

Operator: "I'm sorry sir, but I'm afraid you'll have to pay in cash. Your credit card balance is over its limit."

Customer: "I'll run over to the ATM and get some cash before your driver gets here."

Operator: "That won't work either, sir. Your checking account's overdrawn."

Customer: "Never mind. Just send the pizzas. I'll have the cash ready. How long will it take?"

Operator: "We're running a little behind, sir. It'll be about 45 minutes, sir. If you're in a hurry you might want to pick 'em up while you're out getting the cash, but carrying pizzas on a motorcycle can be a little awkward."

Customer: "How the hell do you know I'm riding a bike?"

Operator: "It says here you're in arrears on your car payments, so your car got repo'ed. But your Harley's paid up, so I just assumed that you'd be using it."

Customer: "@#%/$@&?#!"

Operator: "I'd advise watching your language, sir. You've already got a July 2006 conviction for cussing out a cop."

Customer: (Speechless)

Operator: "Will there be anything else, sir?"

Customer: "No, nothing. Oh, yeah, don't forget the two free liters of Coke your ad says I get with the pizzas."

Operator: "I'm sorry sir, but our advert's exclusionary clause prevents us from offering free soda to diabetics."
Fri
5
Dec
2003

Now What Have I Done?

Current mood: bearmood — angry frustrated
Once again I have totally screwed up my archives. I noticed a couple of hours ago that the permalink and the calendar pointed to the wrong archive type. So, I've been trying to fix it and all I've managed to do is make it worse. *sigh* Now I have to go to work and all I want to do is solve my blog problems before I forgot what I've done already. Stupid work.
Fri
5
Dec
2003

Damn

Current mood: bearmood — sick sick
It's not fair. I've got time to get my house ready for the holidays and I get sick. Booooooo! I don't have the flu, luckily. It's just a flare-up of the viral infection I've had for the last couple of weeks. I have no energy, I can't breathe. This sucks. Oh, well.

I tore the backspash behind my kitchen sink apart. I should've taken pictures of what it looked like before. I thought we were getting tile backsplashes. They even had me pick out a tile color. Anyway, we ended up with these laminate things. That would be fine except that they didn't caulk them right and they're made out of pressed board. The laminate didn't stick, water got up in there and the board has been slowly disintegrating (plus the mildew that has been growing). The other day when I was wiping the counter down, most of the front piece popped off. I decided it was time to do something about it.

The hard part was getting the board off. They used liquid nails to attach it to the wall. I only ripped the wall board in a few places. I've been using "Goof Off" to get the liquid nails and caulk off the wall. I used wallpaper glue to secure the tipped paper edges. If I feel up to it today, I'll go pick up my tiles. I should be able to put them up tomorrow afternoon. The toughest part has been finding tile that I like that I can still afford. I had an idea of what I wanted, unfortunatley, that's not in style right now. If I had money, no problem. I could order just about anything I can think of from the tile stores. Sadly, I'm on a Home Depot budget. I'm still torn about buying these tiles that have fruit on them (2.49 /ea) or buying plain white 12 cent tiles and painting them myself (do I have time, will I actually finish them?) or puttng some decals on them that are on eBay. I'll probably make that decision when I'm out actually buying the tile. I wanted blue tiles. A Lowes I went to had a few remnents of a discontinued tile in the color I had in mind. Of course, not enough to do my kitchen (eventually I'll have to do the other counters so they'll all match). I checked out all the Lowes nearby and none of the stores had any of these tiles left. Oh, well. I think I'll do a green tile instead. I'll post a picture when I finish it.

Wednesday, December 03, 2003

Wed
3
Dec
2003

We Just Wanted Some Soup

Current mood: bearmood — sad disappointed
Marcus and I have had a very frustrating evening. This all started last Sunday when Marcus and I were going to stop in at the Atlanta Bread Company for some soup for dinner (we had to do errands at CompUsa and Target). It was about 6:10 pm and of course they closed at 6:00. We ended up going to Chili's instead. They had some good broccoli cheddar soup. Well, he got home earlier than I expected this evening, so I asked him if he wanted to go try to have soup again. We got over there, decided what we wanted (cream of broccoli soup in a bread loaf), he went to get in the coffee line and I got in the cafe line. Nobody came to help me for a long time, then I was informed they were out of cream of broccoli. Argh, this happened the first time we tried this place. Marcus wanted a turkey panini and they were out of turkey. So, I called Marcus over and we decided on chicken and dumpling soup instead. We were sitting at a table waiting and drinking our coffee when the pager thing goes off. Marcus goes over there and is informed that they are also out of the chicken. We could either have tortilla soup or there might possibly be enough French onion. I personally can't stand either one of those. Marcus was totally pissed off at this point, so we got a refund and left. Now it was almost 9 pm and places are closing. Where does one go in this town if all you want is a decent, relatively inexpensive bowl of soup? We need the soup nazi like they had on Seinfeld. Anyway, we ended up at Applebee's and Marcus got some baked potato soup, but I spent way more money for dinner than I had intended. They don't have just soup there. Oh, well. Marcus and I will probably give them one more chance before they end up on our boycott list. He's going to write them a letter, though.

Monday, December 01, 2003

Mon
1
Dec
2003

It’s Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas

Current mood: bearmood — excited excited
For the first time in a looooonnngggg time, I'm actually feeling a bit of Christmas Spirit. Even though I don't have much money this year, I think it's going to be a good holiday season. I'm so excited that I'm actually going to get to decorate this year. It's been so long since I've seen most of my holiday stuff. My stuff is in storage alot closer now than it used to be. When we lived in Byers, my stuff was stored in Bennett (12 miles away). Last year we were in the middle of moving the house and the year before that I was in a funk because I had just graduated from CollegeAmerica was so depressed about the whole experience. I think we only put up a tree that year. So, we're going to cut the tree on Saturday, Dec 13th with Dave, Mike and Nina. That's always fun and pictures will follow.

I only have class one day a week this module and the heavy duty work for this class really begins after the holidays. I forgot that this class requires me to buy a portfolio case, lots of supplies and some outside printing costs that I totally spaced out about. So, this afternoon I'm putting in an application at the Starbuck's where my friend works. I'm going to need more money coming in than I've got now or I won't pass this class. I also need some Christmas cash. It became blatantly obvious yesterday that I'm not going to get more hours at my delivery job. I told my boss at work that I was available anytime for the next 12 weeks and he schedules me two days this week. What the hell? Also, all of a sudden, I'm everyone's confidante. It seems everyone there wants to unload all of their problems on me. Why do they seem to think that I care? I don't want to know all this personal crap about all these people. I don't like any of them and I don't want to know how sick all of their relationships in that store really are. I think I've finally had it.

OK, I'm going to try and upgrade my photo gallery. Wish me luck.