Ooooh, shiny....

Dear Alt-Right or whatever you ignorant racists are calling yourself these days:

If you need surgery, I hope you get a businessman to perform the operation, instead of a surgeon and a nurse.

If you go out for a restaurant dinner, I hope you get a businessman to prepare the food, instead of a chef.

If you need a new pair of shoes, I hope a businessman glues them, instead of a cobbler.

If you need a new car, I hope it's welded and screwed together by a businessman, instead of assembled on the line.

If you need IT to fix your computer, I hope you call a businessman, instead of tech support.

If you need someone to administer assistance after you wreck your car, I hope you deal with a businessman, instead of EMS.

If you are mugged, I hope a businessman responds to your 911 call, instead of a uniformed officer.

If you get a burst pipe in your home, I hope a businessman shows up with a wrench and a bucket, instead of a plumber.

Because that is what just happened when you elected a so-called "businessman" as President of the United States of America.

Jesus Christ, Yahoo, do you have to slap a photo of some smug birther with two toddlers hanging from her teats on my main news page?

Guh

There is construction going on next door, and I can look out the window to see sometimes beautiful things. Like metal banding that I couldn't get downstairs in time to claim which would be perfect for corsets and panniers, but I digress. Today I saw a pile of old 4x4's and some smooth old planks.

I made an effort to get to the shop up the street, which is a terribly twee store that sells art and objects made of reclaimed wood. They have bands come in sometimes, and seem to specialize in wine racks. Yeah, that kind of shop. So I found a saleswoman on the floor, who looked to be of retirement age, but elegantly styled.

I asked if the owners/employees did the refurbishing, or if they bought from artists, and she looked shifty but said some of it was done by the owner, and some by the restaurant owner a few doors down.

I explained that I worked next door, and she argued with me. Technically, she's right, the building next door *is* empty, but damn. We finally got past that. I explained that there were some lovely pieces of wood being thrown away in a dumpster behind the buildings, and again she argued with me. Then she suggested that I go to the restaurant a few doors down, and tell the owner, if I wanted that wood claimed faster.

I finally said look, I don't care who does it. It's beautiful wood, and it's being thrown away. Your store claims to be ecologically responsible and this is being wasted. I have no investment whatsoever in this wood, and I don't care what you do with it, I just wanted to let someone in this store know about it. Thanks very much for your time.

Frankly, I think we were both irritated at the other, but WTH. If your store claims to be all earthyfuckingcrunchy, then BE earthyfuckingcrunchy, not belligerent and argumentative and obfusticatory.

Not that I could actually AFFORD to shop there, but I think I don't need to wander in there again, yanno?

Dear sneezing coughing child on the bus,

Please tell your momma to feed you less crap so that, after 18 months, you finally stop being sick, and to cover your mouth, and to turn the fuck around and STOP STARING AT ME.

Jeebus.

No love,
Me

Seriously?

Cuz if I wanted to be awakened by someone's car horn alarm going off an hour before the clock alarm, I'd move back to NYC.

http://antumbral.dreamwidth.org/164338.html?format=light

Please check this out. Grrrr...

Just got off the phone with Pennsylvania Power & Light (PP&L). Their final bill for electricity at the apartment was unconscionable, I don't care about rate hikes or any of that nonsense. We were there for 12 days according to their records, and 6 according to mine, and $130 is outrageous and obscene.

Several unsatisfying phone calls to PP&L, and I filed a report with the Pennsylvania Utility Commission (PUC) while waiting for PP&L to get off their asses and "call me back". That's right bitches, I have learned a little bit from working in a law office, and it ain't no big thang to report a monster like your local electric copany for rampant douchebaggery.

In the meantime, got a report from PP&L of 3 years of my account history, and I can point to actual dates now and say BULLSHIT CHARGES by their own hand. What a surprise to then get a call from PP&L saying "we sent you this requested report and can't help but notice that you filed a report with the PUC, what can we do to fix this, hem hem?"

I said I wanted the bill cut in half; and while I could have probably gotten it even lower (now that I no longer live there, they are barred from examining the property to verify usage, good to know), I feel that a 50% reduction on this bill is satisfactory. I got a call back shortly after that, saying that her supervisor approved my demand, and they'd be sending out an updated final bill. Thanks so very! Eventually the PUC will send me some paperwork and I will be able to blithely close the file with a wave of my paw.

So if you are involved in a dispute with your power company, phone company, gas, or other utility company, file a formal complaint with your state's utility commission. It gets their attention, bitches,a nd puts you in the position of power, and not being a helpless account number in their computer.

Just got some weird-ass email to the office account which seems to be confirming settlement date, but there is HTML and yammering and weirdness. Looks like graphics didn't translate well. I will take it as a positive that it relates to settlement.

In a fit of optimism (as I said to edgeds) over lunch, I stopped by a local kitchen store that is going out of business. The fixtures will be sold with the business, but if the business does NOT sell, I have put my name on several very nice pine furniture items - shelving and a table. They could be free. They could cost some ridiculous amount and I will laugh and laugh and hang up the phone. They could be sold with the business and I will never see them again. WHO KNOWS??? dun dun dunnnn

Creepy child is creepy. I think she was raised in Italy**, cuz SHEESH. Little hispanic girl stared and stared and stared at me while I ate my fried dumplings. She'd glance at her brother running riot somewhere else, then go back to STARING at me. Kid, you're creeping me out like whoa.


** In Italy, staring is not considered rude. People will look until they get their fill, and they don't care how much it creeps out an American

ARGH ARGH SQUAWK BWAWK ELEVENTYWTFBBQALPACA ARGH WHAT THE HELL WERE THE JUDGES THINKING OH MAH GAWD

NICHOLAS? What the FUCK were the judges thinking to choose that piece of steaming catpuke? That dress was glued together, had NO personality, was NOT flattering or interesting, it had NOTHING over Epperson and Giordana's designs.

*kicks the crap out of the judges until they pull their heads out of their respective asses*






I have been informed that I am banned from TV until I stop shouting at the screen LOL

*kicks again on the way out*

We are staying at the Marriott in September, and really we have no other choice at this point (hotel rooms sold out in December) but THIS?? This makes me want to boycott Mariott, change my hotel reservations,a nd go on a damn crusade againt it. WHAT. THE. FUCK??

Blaming the victim has reached a new low.

My Connecticut friends? Feel free to do as you see fit and sign my name to it after yours.

+++

http://jezebel.com/5336871/connecticut-marriott-claims-assault-victim-was-careless-and-negligent Full article below.

Connecticut Marriott Claims Assault Victim Was Careless And Negligent
5:00 PM on Thu Aug 13 2009, 16,767 views

A Connecticut Marriott, which is being sued by a woman who was raped in front of her children in its parking garage, is claiming she "failed to exercise due care for her own safety and the safety of her children."

The Stamford Marriott Hotel & Spa, and the firms that manage the hotel and parking garage, have filed court documents arguing that the hotel is not responsible for damages even though the woman was raped on the premises because she was careless, negligent, and didn't exercise "proper use of her senses and facilities," according to The Stamford Advocate.

The 40-year-old woman filed a lawsuit against the company in May 2008, six months after Gary Fricker of Connecticut was sentenced to 20 years in prison for pleading guilty to aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, risk of injury to a minor and robbery. On October 10, 2008, Fricker approached the woman in the hotel's parking garage as she was loading her two children under the age of seven into their car seats in the back of her minivan. He stuck a gun in her back and she told him to take her wallet, but he demanded that she take off her clothes. He raped her and pointed a gun at one of the children and threatened to sexually assault one of them too. When another car pulled up she screamed and Fricker fled. He was arrested three days later in New York and immediately confessed.

As the Associated Press reported at the time, the woman is seeking more than $15,000 in damages against the hotel because she claims Fricker had been roaming around the hotel and parking lot for days and spent "many hours" looking for victims without ever being questioned buy hotel security. Other hotel patrons and at least one hotel employee saw him loitering in the parking lot and acting suspiciously, but no one did anything.

The woman's lawsuit claims the hotel didn't take reasonable security precautions to prevent the attack or train their employees on in basic security techniques. She said the hotel also should have known about a series of reported sexual assaults that happened in the area in the months and years before her rape.

In the papers recently filed by the hotel in preparation for the April trial, the defense claims they hadn't been notified about Fricker, that the attack was beyond their control, and that the woman and her children didn't properly "mitigate their damages." The hotel has subpoenaed several people who know the woman but were not aware of the attack, including family members, friends, a Pilates instructor, tennis partners, and a baby sitter. Attorneys for the woman, who was only identified as Jane Doe in court documents, say the subpoenas identified her to those people and were only filed in an attempt to intimidate her.

It would seem the decent thing to do (and the smarter public relations move) would have been for Marriott to cooperate with the woman from the start or pay her the damages. The defense could have just argued that no one but Fricker was responsible for the crime, but instead the hotel management is blaming the victim for endangering herself and her children. We can't understand how the woman was asking for it by buckling her two children into their car seats, but maybe the lesson to take from the defense's argument is that it's careless and negligent for a woman to assume those in charge of the Stamford Marriott will follow standard security procedures or behave in a decent, humane way.


Stamford Advocate http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/ci_13048639

AP http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2008/05/23/woman_raped_in_hotel_garage_files_lawsuit/