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In which we turn the bus into our personal taxi.

26 Jul

My friend Liz was in town from Atlanta last weekend, so her sister Lisa hosted a small get-together Friday night. Since it was a white wine tasting party, Holly and I decided to take the bus there together so we could enjoy ourselves without wrapping a car around a tree having to worry about driving.

We both have been exploring the bus system and marvel at how surprisingly convenient it is — once you know where you’re going. The maiden voyage to any single destination can be a bit of an adventure, however, because not all of the stops are included on the bus schedule and the drivers exhibit varying degrees of customer service.

We used WMATA’s “trip planner” and deduced that we needed to get off at Ward Circle. On the way there, I started to have second thoughts, so Holly walked to the front of the bus and tried to ask the driver. “We’re trying to get to Chesapeake Street,” she explained. “Is Ward Circle the best stop?”

His response? “I don’t know.”

WHAT? You’re the bus driver! Presumably you drive this route every day. How do you not know if Ward Circle is the best stop for Chesapeake? (For the record, Chesapeake is cross street, allegedly with its own stop – though it didn’t show up on the schedule – so that’s why we assumed he would know.)

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A little story about irony.

19 May

Something interesting happened while I was in London: my credit card was declined. I was trying to buy a watch for Alan for his birthday and the cashier held up the transaction slip for me to review: DECLINED.

What? I knew I wasn’t over my credit limit, so I asked him to run it again. Again, declined. I had just purchased rail tickets with it successfully the day before and – oh wait – I realized the problem: my card had been flagged since I used it overseas without alerting my bank.

It’s odd – I’ve been overseas dozens of times and never had my card put on hold. I’ve been with OTHER people when their cards have been put on hold, but mine has always been fine. And I’ve always defied conventional wisdom and never alerted my bank. This, however, was a new card, supported by a new bank. With apparently stricter security protocols.

I growled for a moment when I realized what happened, thankful that I had another card with me that was tried and true. Had I just been limited to the one card, I would’ve been pissed.

Fast forward to when I returned to the US. I was sifting through my mail, processing bills, when I remembered I needed to call to get the hold lifted from Card #1. I grabbed both my credit card statements and something from Card #2 caught my eye: an $11 transaction fee. Huh?

It may seem ridiculous to get distracted by an $11 fee, but this is a card that I always pay off, in full, ahead of deadline. There shouldn’t be a fee on it.

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I think I’m ready to start a new blog.

31 Mar

Tonight, while stewing in annoyance (the most bitter spice), I realized I need to start a blog to vent about it.

My new blog will be TOTALLY anonymous (unlike this one, which is pseudo-anonymous) and it will be called “Don’t Get Me Started.”

Oh wait. I just checked for that domain, and someone already owns it. But isn’t doing shit with it, as evidenced by the “Under Construction” landing page.

Don’t get me started. People who buy up domain names then camp on them, hoping someone somewhere will invent something requiring their name so they can profit? Totally lame.

[Side note: Out of curiosity I just googled “expensive domain names.” As of 2010, the most expensive domain in the world was Insure.com, for which cost some company I’ve never heard of $16m to buy. To the donkey dick who first called dibs on insure.com: I could say “well played” or reference the irony of your domain choice, but — don’t get me started.]

[Second side note: Any guesses on the other nine most expensive domains? Two are general business words (funds, business); two others are direct goods (diamonds, toys) and four of them – not surprising – are vices (sex, porn, beer, casino). The wildcard in the Top Ten? Israel. Anyone think a wealthy Palestinian with a sense of humor is responsible for that?]

Revised new domain idea: pissandvinegar.fml

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I guess I’m too ADHD for the movies.

28 Nov

I can count on one hand the number of times Alan and I have gone to out to a movie in the past year. In fact, even if I accidentally reached into a operational garbage disposal at the wrong moment, I’m pretty sure I’d still have enough digits left to represent our movie tally for the year. We just rarely do it, even though I have a stack of free movie passes from my credit card’s reward program.

Anyway, last night we decided to check out the new Harry Potter movie, and I realized: I am horrifically out of practice of viewing a movie in a public place. I’m just not good at it.

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I got balls: a case of too little, too late.

16 Oct

Anyone who has followed my move knows that while I love my new place, I’m less than thrilled with my upstairs neighbor’s squeaky floorboard. On Monday I got the best news possible: Michael stopped down to tell me that he was having his floors replaced this week!

Sweet, right? I practically did backflips. He went on to say that he’s going to get carpet in his bedrooms, so that should also help with the noise. Fabulous!

But after he left, I got to thinking about it. He mentioned that he was having the floors ripped out in the living room and hall, where he was replacing them with new wood, but didn’t say anything about tearing them out in the bedroom before carpeting. The next morning, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling as it squeaked – to a rhythm that makes me believe he must have been jerking off – I realized it was time to be bold.

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