“Those Retards!” Or Why You Should Avoid UPS Always.

Toronto

This is a UPS rant.

I know they suck. I’ve heard the Crank Yanker tapes and seen the UPS 1-800 phone hijacking site, but do you think I listen to reason? Good lord no! They’re in my neighbourhood and closer than a post office (where the hell are the post offices these days?) so I used them to ship two identical boxes to Mike in Vancouver.

Two weeks ago. Two boxes. Identical. Going to the same address. Same day. $60+tax. 5 buisness days later, I get a call from the store on the Danforth saying that there was no door call number for Mike on the package. I email Mike for his buzz code. “It’s on the entry panel under my name,” he says. I can hear him roll his eyes from here. I call the Danforth UPS store back with his phone number and buzz code. Two days later, I get an email from Mike saying he has the delivery.

Wait 4 business days. Yesterday I get a call from an unidentifiable UPS store. The box I sent came back unaccounted for. Huh? I email Mike. “Were there two?” he asks. I can hear his eyes scrape the back of his head, they’re rolling so hard.

I call the UPS store.

“Hi, Ted here, I got a message from one of your staff saying a box I sent to Vancouver came back unclaimed?”

Pause.

“Can you help me?”

“I could if I could hear you,” says the cheery voice.

I repeat myself louder into the phone. “I sent two on the same day, to the same address.” I finish up. “He got one.”

“Those retards!”

I”m beggining to think that I am on an episode of Crank Yankers.

“You’ll resend, I’m assuming?”

“Yeup!”

“Do you need a phone number and buzz code for that box? I! Bet! You! Do!” I add sarcastically.

“Yeap!”

I give it to him. “I’ll email my friend and tell him to expect the box!”

“I’ll get right on it,” says Dan the cheeriest UPS voice, ever.

I fear that Mike will never get this box. I have tossed the receipt the day I got Mike’s first email thanking me.

Kids, always go with your gut. As soon as I walked into that store I knew I was going to have a problem. But then I thought Naaaah. That’s just a funny tv myth.

Back Off!

Personal Bits

I’m too young to have searing back pain!

I guess I pulled my back while I slept. I hate the fact that I didn’t (consciously) experience the thing that made me feel so stiff right now. I feel like a walking back pain ad.

I dreamt it was the day after what I knew to be a failed one night stand. The guy I slept with was totally into me and I was totally trying to gnaw my arm off to escape. I’m sure you’ve experienced the “I should have cut and run but I passed ou/fell asleep instead of getting dressed and going home and now I have to have breakfast with him/her” syndrome. It was kind of nightmarish to see myself try to make excuses to go. And in the dream I kept finding things in this person’s room (a composite of a childhood friend and a certain Muddy York rugby player) that was setting off alarm bells: dirty laundry, weird torn posters and roommates sleeping in the same room.

Then the dream changed and I was a record producer trying to sign a alien lizard act to my company. We were dancing on elevated platforms and mine went 30 stories too high. I think thats where my back went out.

Is It Wrong

Work

…to be hating work so much right now?

There’s no real specific thing I’m hating. I’m just screaming in my head every time I get an email or paper plopped on my desk.

This morning I got an email asking to put a link on a site. The request came with no copy or title, just a PDF. And one rule: The link wasn’t to go on any site: “It’s not to go on XXX.com.”

I fire off the reply: “Well. Where is it going then?”

“On YYY.com!”

“We closed that site a month ago,” I respond.

“I know. Its on XXX.com but in the YYY.com part!”

Kill. Me.

New Writer for Deadrobot.com

Amy, General

I find that I am stymied on how to review the ever changing political/social landscape yet stay within my rule I have about blogging in a non-partisan kind of way. So I have enlisted a new, bright, up-and-coming writer to my site. Please help me welcome Amy to our little online hoedown.

(You might remember Amy from the 1995 Frank Marshall movie: Congo. Amy played the sign-languaging gorilla with the voice chip in a glove she wore over her “talkin’ hand”)

Today, Amy will be discussing the new Ontario Liberal budget! Take it away Amy!

Amy! Hide! Lliberal! Banana!
Amy! Touch! Amy! Take! Yes! Amy! Pretty!
Amy! Conservative! No! Dirty! Conservative! Mess! Leave! Yesterday! Dirty! Conservative!
Amy! No! Stupid! Amy! No! Amy! Good!
Amy! Farmers! Dirty! Touch! Farmers! Love! Amy! Farmers! Sad!
Amy! Learn! Baby! Amy! Baby! Dirty! Touch! Bad!
Banana! Now?

My SpamFu Grows

General

I’ve been spam attacked in the last couple hours from the Ukraine. (yes I said “the” Ukraine) so I’ve added Spam Karma to my already impressive armor. If you have a problem leaving a comment, contact me above…

I recommend it for anyone using WordPress. It’s very robust and takes an extremely organic, anti-robotic (gasp!) way of looking at content spam as well as providing a heavy handed THUNK directly on offending IP addys.

Things I’ve learned in the last 48 hours:

Personal Bits, Toronto

Trash wanders through Cabbagetown. The city does pick up large trash if you call them and ask specific direct questions. And if you put a bag of plastic hangers outside your door, it will dissapear within minutes. However, for every item you put to the curb to magically make dissapear, an equal mass of cigarette wrappers will wind up inside your front hall vestibule, making a vaguely cute a tornado swirl every time you open your door.

I am in a mortal war with food packets. On my trip down to Miami last year, I nearly doused myself and Sharkboy with Marinara sauce for my Air Canada sandwich. If we were sitting in regular seats and not the emergency leg room row, we would have covered our nice “travellin’ duds” in red sauce. Last night the enemy attacked again, spraying vinegar all over my backpack instead of my fries. At least I smelled clean all during improv class.

My company hates me. 2 days ago I found a pre-print draft of our consumer newsletter with the following amendment from a contest we were running: “Sorry! Our web designer forgot to put one of our packages in this contest on our site… (bla bla bla)” Of course, I had nothing to do with this and wasn’t presented any web amendments regarding upcoming contests. I brought this up with my boss and he promised to change it. He joked that they were going to put this as the main story, front page. “Great! OUR WEBMASTER SUCKS! in war-time font!” I said, sarcastically. His phone rang and that was that.

My coworker likes me. Today my print layout coworker taps me on the shoulder and shows me the offensive retraction showing our clients how much of a forgetful jerk I am. “Nothing like the blame game, eh? Did you know about this?” she asks. I said I knew of it but wasn’t responsible for the upload error. I didn’t mention that our boss was going to change it. She turns to her keyboard and removes “our web designer” and places “We” instead. “That’s horrid.” she says. She went right over someone’s head doing that. And I thank her.

More Mons!

Toronto

Carlton Streetcar, 6pm.

At Sherbourne two teens dressed in similar, well kept shirt and tie combos climb onto the half full streetcar and start to make their way down the aisle. My iPod is on but I can see they’re engaging everyone they pass. Howdy! Hello! Good day to you!

Good lord. Mormons!

I gaze intently at the outside whizzing by as Mormon #2 passes and smiles at me. I don’t respond. Mormon #1 is trying to speak to someone near the front while Mormon #2 sits himself down beside a gay man by the rear doors. I turn my iPod down. I’m not going to miss this!

“Wonderfull weather today!”

“Yes.” Curt. The gay guy knows whats coming.

“My name is (bleh),” he says and extends his hand to be shook.

The gay guy shakes it and does this bizzare thing after. Dissmissive, flippand, his hand does a “no more, please” up in front of the Mormon’s face. The Mormon gets the hint. He gets up and wanders to the back.

As I’m leaving I make eye contact with the gay guy. I roll my eyes. He rolls his.

Moving Day

Personal Bits

I’m all in at House RoboShark after a nearly uneventful move. I say nearly because it seemed like all day I was deflecting things that could have made the day …interesting.

Like the two dimwits who showed up at my door, sent from the moving company I usually call. They had about 4 neurons between them left (years of pot smoking, I’m sure) and had to be told 6 times (three each) that “this pile is going to the locker, this pile is going to the new apartment”. This is my third move with this company (think of their name as having a couple numbers in it, a gender, and an organ) and if I use them again, I will ask that I get persons who can retain a thought longer than 43 seconds.

Or the super who wanted my apartment key the moment all my stuff was out of the apartment a week before the end of the month. “Sure!” I gleefully say, “I guess that means you’re going to clean the place and repaint that one orange wall.” Her face went lemon-sucked. Nope. Dang.

Or the elevator to the storage locker that died as soon as we arrived. I looked at the storage manager with saucer eyes when he said that he would have to call in a service tech and I pointed to the stoners in the van: “These guys are hourly. And they’re not completely on the same page as us, if you get my drift.” After some fiddling, the elevator worked for 2 out of three loads down. Whew!

Sharkboy and I hung shelves and art and then reorgainized closet space with minimal griping. Lordy that man has a lot of clothes. I use to think my dad was clothes crazy. Meesh was goodwilling fluffy cow print shirts and shiny slinky dress shirts (thankfully) left right and centre.

At the end of the day, comfy cozy in my our bed (we tossed Sharkboy’s 20 year old matress for my 5 year old one), drifting off to sleep, Sharkboy mumbles “Welcome home.”