Meow Mix

Hatred for Facebook & Local News

I hate how the local morning news tries to "integrate" social media into the newscast by including random people's facebook posts.  Really?  Like this morning, they were talking about the Apple announcement later in the day for the iPad three.  The usual, they have a reporter on scene in SF, show some b-roll of iPads, give the basic information as it is known at that point then throw it back to the anchors.  Then, the dumb anchors say shit like "we've been following our faceboook page and want to share with you what some of our viewers have to say about this."  Then they show the facebook posts on the screen and read them.  "Sheila B. in San Leandro says, 'i have the original iPad and I've been thinking about upgrading.  I'm going to wait for the announcement today and if the features and the price are right, I think I'll be buing one!"  REALLY?  You have to read that shit ON THE NEWS?  Random people's "thoughts" on thte topic?  WHO THE FUCK CARES!  Why do they think this is interesting?  It infuriates me to no end.   And they feel compelled to do it every day.  It provides no interesting information, and is not even entertaining in any way.

Have You Had Your Coffee Yet?

I hate when people are idiots and use the excuse "I haven't had my coffee yet."  This exchange was overheard this morning at the bagel place on Townsend:

Guy:  I'll have a Number 3 please

Bagel lady:  What kind of bagel

Guy:  Number three

Bagel lady: On what kind of bagel

Guy:  Number three, the ham and cheese

Bagel lady:  what kind of bagel do you want it on?

Guy:  What?....  Oh, sorry.  Sesame.  Sorry, I haven't had my coffee yet.

Please just pay attention people.  Seriously, if you are that stupid without your coffee, you have a problem.  And if a cup of coffee takes you from that all the way to smart and aware and with it, I want to know what kind of coffee you are drinking.

And the other day at work.  We have this coffee maker in the kitchen that makes individual cups. You stick this little pouch in the door and it makes your coffee.  Every once in a while, the drawer that collects the empty foil packets has to be emptied.  So the other day, unnamed coworker comes to me and says "the coffee machine is not working, can you come take a look at it."  So I look at it, and the display reads "Waste collection drawer full.  Please empty waste collection drawer." Now I understand if someone is seeing this for the first time and doesn't know what the waste collection drawer is.  But this is a person that I have showed the waste collection drawer to in the past.  So I say, the collection drawer is full.  Then proceed to pull out the (very obviously located and easy to remove) collection drawer, empty it and slide it back in.  She says "I thought that's what it might be."  Wait, you thought that's what it might be, but instead of trying to figure that out, or pull that memory of the last time I showed this to you from the recesses of your brain, you decide to walk all the way out to find me and tell me "the coffee machine is not working."  Then of course, she says, "Obviously, I haven't had my coffee yet!"  Lady, if the shitty coffee that comes out of the machine works such a miracle on your brain, you are seriously in trouble.

I understand that your first cup of coffee in the morning might be a little pick-me-up that gets you a little more ready for the day, but seriously, is it really powerful enough to bring you back THAT FAR?

State of Frustration

Let me just get this off my chest:  Fuck You State of California!!!!

I have been dealing with the State Board of Equalization for three years over a tax dispute.  When I was remodeling my kitchen with no money to spend on it, I went in search of the cheapest kitchen cabinets I could find.  A google search led me to ModularKitchenCabinets.com.  The cabinets were cheap and looked pretty good so I figured out what I needed and put an order together.  They would arrive in 4-6 weeks and I'd have to assemble them and install my own handles and drawer pulls, but again - cheap!  The total I spent for all my kitchen cabinets (and I have a big kitchen), was $1,806.00

That was in October of 2004.

Flash forward to 2007.  I start getting bills from the State Board of Equalization saying I owe them $1216.00 in sales tax on the kitchen cabinet order.  So I start dealing with Todd, who tells me the information reported to them by US Customs says that my cabinet order was actually $14,712.00.  This begins a long and frustrating back and forth with "Todd" at the State Board of Equalization. I go through th painstaking process of trying to get a reciept for my original order, which the cabinet company is eventually able to dig up from their computer and email me.  Then Todd says he also needs the paperwork for my order from the customs broker that handled the shipment.  That starts another long and frustrating process trying to get the customs paperwork for an order from three years before.  I finally get them to fax me the paperwork.  Its a bunch of pages of copied, crooked, faded, illegible numbers, pallets, wieghts that really doesn't make any sense to me, but I fax it all to Todd, along with another printed receipt of the original order from the cabinet company that shows my order was $1800, not $14,000.  And I hear nothing back. I figure, ok, it took them three years to send me the first bill, it will probably take them a while to reprocess it and send me a corrected bill.  I'm expecting a new bill to come for the sales tax on $1800, which is what, about $160, $170? 

Jump to August, 2010 and what do I get?  The bill is now up to $1900 with late fees and interest and it is a FINAL NOTICE saying they are going to either put a LIEN ON MY HOUSE or garner my wages for that amount!  The letter says to call Crystal Casey to discuss.  I tell Crystal that I had faxed everything to Todd three years ago.  She says Todd is no longer there, and can I fax to her what I faxed to Todd.  Ok.  But what happened to everything that I had faxed to Todd?  Isn't in my file?  Whatever.  So Crystal calls me back and says the email receipt is not acceptable proof of what I paid since I could have "doctored" it and that the paperwork from the customs brokerage is not for my order.  Furthermore, at this point there is no way I will be able to get the correct customs paperwork, since they are only required to keep records back 5 years.  The only way that I can prove the actual amount of my order was $1800 was if I can provide them with an "original" hard copy of the order, not just an email.  Which Modular Kitchen Cabinets cannot provide.  The only record they have in their system of my order is the electronic copy which they had already emailed me.  So I printed out this email thread between me and Joshua at Modular Kitchen Cabinets and faxed it all to Crystal.  Called and left her a message.  Oh, I forgot, I could also provide proof if I could show them a credit card statement showing how much Modular Kitchen Cabinets had charged me.  I don't know which credit card I put it on, and all the cabinet place could tell me was that it was a Master Card.  So I called and got records from both of my Master Cards from October 2004 (which was not easy either), and of course, no charge for the cabinets on either one. So I must have used one of the credit cardsd which I paid off and cancelled back in 2006, for which I have no records or numbers.  So I am waiting to hear back from Crystal on that front.

THEN...

I get my DMV renewal paperwork in the mail yesterday, and it says I have $1500 in unpaid tickets that I will need to pay to get my renewal.  Now I know what those tickets are for.  They are $77 "fare evasion" tickets from an issue with my FasTrak transponder.  The credit card that was linked to my FasTrak transponder, and which they use to "refill" my transponder when it gets low on funds, apparently hit its limit and was declined when FasTrak tried to add more funds.  Of course noone from FasTrak calls or emails to tell you that.  You just start getting $77 fare evasion tickets in the mail.  Then you just call, give them a different form of payment, they erase all the fare evasion tickets (and just charge you the $4 tolls).  Well, apparently the last time I called to give a different credit card, the lady never applied it to my past toll evasions.  So now I have the pleasure of dealing with the DMV or FasTrak, and probably both.  And something tells me this is going to be hard to make go away.