Bits ‘n Pieces
Read the small print before not after you’re fucked
Ready for this scam..
So I go to upgrade my verizon phone because the one i have is as big as a full size brick and my little hands want to throw it against a wall far too often.
The 13 mini is $700 which seems stupidly high for a phone but maybe not.. I can't tell what anything should cost anymore... I figured to pay it off monthly but the guy at Verizon says.. hey, if you sign up for a 2 year contract, you get the phone for $158 (that includes all the taxes and startup fees...startup fees.. cuz that should cost money..)
I'm like... so my $50/month service comes with a $158 phone if I sign up for 2 years. "Yep." Well, shit son, sign me up.
My first bill is $108. WTF.. note to self.. call Verizon. Life got busy, without a post it somewhere, it doesn't exist and I forgot to call. Come my next month bill of $95 the hurt propelled me to write that post it. So I call these robbers this morning to discover that
The 2 year sign up plan, with the $158 phone, comes with a $25/month Smart Phone Data Plan Charge. What is a Smart Phone Data Plan Charge? Why would someone need a Smart Phone Data Plan when they have a $50 unlimited Text, Talk, Data plan? WHY is the question.
Without being told at time of purchase... it seems that if you want this 2 year plan with the DISCOUNTED phone price of $158, the small print explains that there is a $25/month charge called a Smart Phone Data Plan which over the 2 years comes to $600 which means there is literally zero discount for the phone, they've just spread the payments over 2 years. But they don't tell you this. They tricked me into signing up for a 2 year contract with the lure of a $158 phone only to slip in a charge that makes the phone full price. Which i could have gotten without a 2 year plan allowing me to leave these crooks anytime I wanted without the early disconnect fee.
They can't explain to me what is included in the Smart Phone Data Plan. They can't list the services, benefits, or any information at all about what exactly is the Smart Phone Data Plan. It's is literally just a fancy name for a charge to cover the cost of the DISCOUNTED phone they advertise.
so yeah... put that in your fucking pipe and smoke it.
TW: gross shit ahead.
Sunday night. Garbage night. Last week a guy took my garbage can. This happens a lot. I called recology to get a new can. They told me it would take 3 weeks to get a new can and to just leave my trash on the sidewalk for the truck to pick up. Hahaha.
Hi larious. As if the street folks won’t tear it to shreds and leave me to pick up the pieces. I told them if they won’t get me a can to credit my account. I had a can the next morning.
But that’s not the end of my story. I have locking cans that I pay a pretty penny for. Oh and side note… They actually wanted to charge me extra to re-lock the can after they dumped it. See if they don’t re-lock it, it turns into a free for all and my newly empty can isn’t so empty anymore.
They dropped off a new can but it isn’t a locking can. So tonight, tomorrow morning they’ll dump my trash and bring a new locking can. Ok. One night without a locking can.. it’s pretty well guaranteed it will be picked through, trash thrown to the sidewalk, and generally ravished.
Not more than an hour after I put it out I check the camera and it’s gone. I rewind and a guy took it across the street to the alley and is picking through it. I have to go get it as he dumped a bunch of shit out right in front of the theatre and i’ve got no where to put it. I cross the street and calmly say to the guy, hey man I need my can. He fucking rears up, having been half buried in the depths of the can and shouts at me to fuck off. I tell him dude, I need my can and as i move to grab it, he spits. It lands on my face and … in my mouth. (i swear to fucking god I’m never taking my mask off, ever again as long as I live on planet fucking earth) He starts moving towards me threatening me with a cane he had with him and is just rabid saying .. I don’t even know what.. I keep backing up and silently lose my shit that some guy just .. I can’t even say it again.
I walk back to the theatre and wash up and call the cops. When I head back out there the security guard from the hotel is verbally battling with the guy and trying to clean up the garbage. I snake my way in and get my can and bring it back across the street. The guy has a stolen rental bike and a shopping cart and heads out down valencia. The cops eventually show up and well.. what now.. Nothing. That’s what.
I can’t handle this shit, man. I’m seriously going to have to go to my happy place and make like this was a bad dream cuz I cannot handle that this happened. <shiver> Happy place. Happy place.
Fate Sealed
ya know when you wake up, a long day of work stretching ahead of you, a list of pretty cool things to tic off… you wake up your computer, a yawn, an eye rub and up comes your email.. you work through your inbox but while you’re working your computer is acting glitchy.. it happens. Probably should restart it once in a blue moon. As the reassuring apple sound we all take for granted serenades you, up pops a screen that you have never seen before. You quickly restart your computer again, refusing to let the easy morning smile fade from your lips, It’s just a glitch, you tell yourself.. glitches happen all the time but behind those hopeful words is the battering realization that your day is about to become shit, full of tech support and Shift Option Command R which, really, 10 fingers is not enough to make that happen, and try this and try that and here’s your appointment at the Genius bar… but hope is fierce and when that computer starts up again, your neck is inched forward, your eyes full of hope, your heart full of love for this amazing thing called technology (soft music is playing and a woman is running through a field of daffodils) when before you appears that same fucking screen that says… your fate is sealed.. suffer you mere human for I hold your future in my soulless grip… bend to my will.. tinker with my insides… your efforts are futile because I demand attention and I will damn well fucking get it. Sooo yeah… My appointment at the Genius Bar is tomorrow at 11am.
The Kids Are Alright
Omg you guys, ok I went to the Great Star Sessions show and that was Great and all that but next door, there’s this non-descript restaurant, with orange booths, the kind of place where your grandparents took you for brunch, a place without an upgrade in a century and down the long walkway with those booths on each side there is a staircase to a basement that was fullll of young punkers. I’m talking about the cutest bunch of kids …. I’m talking about you and me decades ago. Young, free, high, drunk, dressed in our spikes and leather and torn this and that… sweaty baby faces smoking rolled cigs. Walking down the middle of the street with their posse, strutting their… fuck you youth… all over the place.. omg I was lost, gone, dead… I wanted to scream “YOU’RE ALL FUCKING AWESOME AND YOU’RE GOING TO LIVE TO BE 50 AND MORE, I’M PROOF!!! I WAS YOU ONCE” but no kid wants to hear that so I just stared with the biggest stupidest smile on my face I musta looked like a psychopath. And they were all so sweet and complimentary and fearless and bold and talkative. I shed 30 years or more in those few minutes. Learning that we still exist in this generation… my mind is blown. I’m so in love my heart is exploding.
