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From George:

This Post Contains 100% Pre and Post-Consumer Complaining

First I want to pat myself on the back: I completed 62 credits since Summer 2006, have three classes on my plate now, and just one more stands between me and graduation. There's no doubt I'll be done in Summer of 2008, perhaps forever.

School has wadded me up and thrown me in with the dirty laundry.

Working a new, full time job, and taking three classes at night (Mon/Wed/Thu), my schedule is pretty rigid. I'm pretty good at keeping track and getting everything done, but unexpected events throw me for a loop. As soon as I get a syllabus, I add any tests or assignment due-dates to my calendar.

My Monday class is led by a professor I had last semester. He's a bright guy, and he really wants his students to 'get it' (by 'it', I mean an STD), but he's very disorganized and a little scatter-brained in his examples. He tends to dribble out homework assignments, give an unrealistic due date, then change the due date. I would rather that he either (1) post assignments AND due dates at the beginning of the semester, or (2) at least post due dates at the beginning of the semester, so I can PLAN well in advance for an assignment. All our assignments are done in groups, and everyone in my group HAS A JOB. He handed out our first on February 11th, and we were certain it was due Wed, 2/27. In fact, it was due 2/20, and we found this out when he gave us an extension to 2/21. That gave us only one day to collaborate and pull this thing together.

P.S. -- the assignment itself: asinine.

Of course we pulled it off and submitted it before midnight, but here I am: instead of doing my job, paying attention in another class, or sleeping, I'm trying to half-ass some assignment he half-assed himself. I'm paying for the pleasure of your unpreparedness.

Wednesday night was Business Law, where our professor (who works for DOJ, and used to be a DOJ trial attorney) scolded us for the grades on our first exam, and suggested that the lower quintile might want to consider dropping his class. I originally had high hopes for this class, but aside from some small legal details (understanding citations like 497 F.3d 955), it's been American history. Judicial review 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803) gives you a boner: I get it. I'm comfortable with the Bill of Rights, not just because I paid attention in 8th grade social studies, but I go to George Mason University. Dude may have been 5 feet tall WASP, but he was all BOR all the time. Blah blah blah.

Thursday nights are my required Systems Analysis class. Forget that I took a 200-level Systems Analysis class as a CS major (which was more difficult), or that I've done this professionally for the past 10 years, there is no mechanism in SOM at GMU to let me waive or substitute it. My professor is an adjunct who works for Oracle, and everyone who works for Oracle is a sales person. This is the first class I've had where the professor will be getting all 0s on his evaluation. I like Oracle's tools, but I don't need a 3 hours sales demo every week.

I'm at the end of the road, and I will finish, but I am exhausted, and it's pointless. I don't care about my professors, I don't care about my course work, I don't even care about my grades as long as I pass. I want out.

And...I'm sad because I want a puppy, but it would be lonely and die with my schedule. Most week days, I leave the house by 9:00am, and I'm not home until after 10:00pm. I'd rather have a puppy than school. George's new puppy, Maggie, is cuter than words:

Tell me: would you rather have that sweet face, or a business law test?

I thought so.

Subjugating Desires

Just for the sake of argument, how long is one expected to make the trade off between something they want to do and something they should do?

In such a case, how long before it's expected that they will:

• Lose the ability to control their temper
• Make trade offs in other aspects of their life that are not positive
• Say "fuck it" and give up on what they should do
• Have a breakdown and end up in an asylum

...

It's just an ATM

Would someone please tell the Chevy Tahoe in front of me that you cannot h@x05 the Gibson from a Bank of America ATM?

You've had your 15 minutes, brother...give somebody else a chance.

McGraw-Hill's Homework Manager is a cunt

I'm taking my last required account class this semester. Our professor requires that we do our homework online using McGraw-Hill's Homework Manager. For very simple home assignments (especially things like matching and some basic journalization of transactions) it's pretty slick. Beyond that, it blows.

We did not have class this past week because of Wednesday's snow storm; our professor sent an email and told us that the due date for this homework assignment was extended another week.

Vaguely remembering this email, I came home tonight a little after 9:30pm and checked homework manager to be sure the due date wasn't midnight tonight (like it always is). Sure enough, it said assignment three was due at midnight.

I spent the next two hours rushing through the assignment to make sure it was in on time. Keep in mind that my book and my notes are at the office, and I'm trying to do this from home.

I finished with less than five minutes to spare, and my grade comes back a 74%. Considering there's a chapter of material we didn't cover, I thought this was actually pretty good. Then I looked at the side-by-side of my results and the correct answers and realized why I lost so many points:

• I denoted negative amounts in parens ($1000), which is a convention in accounting, instead of with a negative [-$1000] sign
• I miscalculated formulas I have not yet learned (that I dug up on the Internet(s))
• I left three digits after the decimal instead of two (more precise == more wronger), and
• in a five part question where everything was done in order, I did not going back twice to earlier parts of the answer and update the T-Accounts in part one with changes that happened in parts three and four (which the instructions never told me to do, and makes no fucking sense)

I emailed a nastygram to my professor and told her I was not amused that I rushed through that and spent two hours to get a 74% when it wasn't even due. I should be able to redo the homework for a higher grade (we typically get two chances) once she fixes homework manager, but clearly it's going to take at least an hour to redo since it has about a million fucking parts to it.

What a fucking donkey show this class is turning out to be.

All's quiet on the frustrated front

Forgive the lack of funny this week, but I'm having a miserable couple weeks at work (this week being the worst). I spent my entire workday yesterday toiling in misery, only to be asked at 4:30pm to produce a CYA email that took 40 minutes to write (for barely 9 paragraphs). Today is equally frustrating.

I had class last night, and when I came back to campus I was surprised to find my lecture hall evacuated with the fire alarms going off. We were outside in the cold for 10-15 minutes when I started to fantasize about the building actually being on fire, and the fire engulfing the entire campus until only a crater was left.

Which, from what I gather, is the same way the entire city of Boston reacted to a few Lite Brites that were setup to promote Aqua Teen Hunger Force.



Tom Menino is such a fucking douche. If only he had died in a fiery car accident while vacationing alone in Florida...

VV Day: Victory over Verizon

Consumerist has been hot on the trail of Verizon since they notified customers of a change to their service agreement. Basically, with or without a text messaging plan, you're going to have to pay for text messages to and from international carriers (which the current plan covers), and the rate for them is going up from $0.10 to $0.15 per message. That means if Guapo in Honduras spams your phone with a text message from Donkey Cellular, you're getting a bill.

Since I love any opportunity to play hardball with the Ivan Seidenberg gestapo, I decided to make an issue of this and see if I could get a better deal on a contract extension. Instead, they rolled over and waived my early termination fee so I can go elsewhere.

Thank you for contacting Verizon Wireless through our website. My name is April, and I am happy to provide you with the details on how to port your number out. However, we value you as a wireless customer, and would like the opportunity to retain your business.

I regret to hear of your decision to cancel your service with Verizon Wireless and port your wireless number to another service provider. In the event that you do chose to port your number out, you will not be billed an Early Termination Fee.

Now that I got exactly what I want, I need to figure out what I'm going to do about it. I mapped out my usage for the past six months:



I keep coming back to the same judgments I made a year ago when I switched to Verizon (in order from best match to worst match):

Selection of phones: 1.) Cingular 2.) T-Mobile 3.) Verizon
Quality of service: 1.) Verizon 2.) Cingular 3.) T-Mobile
Service plans: 1.) T-Mobile 2.) Verizon 3.) Cingular

fucking ::sigh::

Huh...I wonder what kind of truck that is??

Hey look! It's the Honda dumbshit!

Your car's model name is on your registration, and it's 18 inches to the right of your license plate. Did you really need to pay $10 extra a year so it's on the plate too, asshole?

Did you??

"My Asian Girlfriend"

I suspect the first 88 drafts before MYASNGF went something like this:

"Hello my fellow caucasian friends. Though I am white, 5'6", weigh 145lbs, and enjoy both Mountain Dew and fluffer nutter, I would like you to meet my girlfriend, Sookuntra."

but that was taken, so then he tried:

"Sup dawg? Check it -- I gots me some yellow fever!"

but that was too long, so the next attempt was:

"Recognize: Crooked Pussy."

and DMV was like, "nuh uh". So homeboy bought her an Orange RSX and ordered those up on dmvnow.com.

This is a tragedy that makes Dafur look like a bake sale.

File Under "douche bag"

Mary shared this article in today's Rocky Mountain News about a sad little man who thinks that Lady's Night discriminates against him:

A self-proclaimed "agitator" against feminism declared ladies nights at Colorado nightspots dead Friday after prevailing in the first stage of a civil rights complaint against the Proof Nightclub in southeast Denver.

Steve Horner learned Thursday that Colorado's Division of Civil Rights for the Department of Regulatory Agencies sided with him in his complaint that men were unfairly having to pay cover charges and higher drink prices than women at the Proof's ladies nights.

"Ladies night is now illegal," said Horner, a 59-year-old corporate speaker, who says he's been on an anti-feminist crusade since his wife left him with two young children several years ago.

At this point you're thinking, "That seems like a really douchy thing to do, but maybe he's just one of those touchy-feely Colorado residents who eats too much hummus and has read the writings of Betty Freidan one too-many times". Then you get to this quote which proves that Steve Horner is a complete fuck-face:

In the meantime, Horner plans to catch any club owners who continue to offer women special deals.

"This is now a violation of law. I will now make it a point to visit as many ladies nights as I can every week. I'll have my rights violated, then I'll sue them in county court and collect my $500 (the maximum penalty in county court for each incident of discrimination)," Horner said.

"I feel it could net me $3,000 to $4,000 a week easy, and I'm going to do it," he added. "It takes me five minutes to be discriminated against."

At which point you realize that the only left for you to do is drive to Colorado, kidnap his children, cover their faces with dirt, and smuggle them to some 7th world country where their next meal will come through UNICEF donations. Anything is better than growing up in a household with an asshat motivational speaker as their role model.

My "When I finally meet the Microsoft Word Development Team" to-do list

1.) Buy a 50 gallon drum full of Cancer on eBay
2.) Tell TSA when getting on the plane that it's really 50 gallons of personal lubricant (cause my gears squeak like a rusty hinge)
3.) Drench each and every motherfucker who every wrote or revised a single line of code for this useless application in delicious, thirst-quenching, butt-cancer.

I mean, have these fuckers ever tried to format a multi-level bulleted list in Word? Are you fucking kidding me? This isn't god-damned Office 95, you faggots have had 11 cunt-punching years to make this work.

Some serious bullshit right here. Ass cancer for each and every one of you, your children, and the Starbucks employee who makes your day a little brighter. There's nothing wrong with your Q/A skills that a scalding gallon of free cappuccino in your useless eyes couldn't fix.

My ideas for the next Woot-off

Those of you who know me are familiar with my penchant for streams of consciousness. Many times when chatting me, it's like chatting with a poorly written AI-bot (I have canned dumb answers for even stupider questions like "What's up?"). To make up for that, I like to reserve the tiny thinking part of my brain for those times when I can throw everything in the mental wash with a big cup of bleach and wash on hot until everything turns pink.

Barry sent me this article about Anne Coulter blasting 9-11 widows right before Mike IMed me about a Woot-off:

Mike: Woot-Off !!!
theAlphaJohn: christ
theAlphaJohn: is there a vial of AIDS on there? I want to throw it in Anne Coulter's face
theAlphaJohn: or maybe a bucket of cancer
Mike: you'll have to stand in line.
Mike: what a bitch
theAlphaJohn: i'd like to throw a water balloon full of herpes on her stupid gash
theAlphaJohn: not that it would matter, no one is sticking their dick in that mess
Mike: lol. for sure.
Mike: actually, I think she has a dick.
Mike: albeit a little tiny one.
theAlphaJohn: what are you buying me on the woot-off?
Mike: already got you a couple of really neat electric air fresheners.
theAlphaJohn: :/
Mike: lol
theAlphaJohn: why arent there Real Dolls on there?
theAlphaJohn: or child-killing robots?
theAlphaJohn: or trannies?
theAlphaJohn: something i can use, or at least be entertained by?
Mike: your interests must lie outside the general public's interests. Imagine that.
theAlphaJohn: i doubt it
theAlphaJohn: i'm zero sigma from the mean
theAlphaJohn: which means i am the mean
Mike: I'll have to check that.
theAlphaJohn: and, ironically, i'm just plain mean
Mike: now there's something that makes sense.

If Calculus was an STD, and you were infected...

I still wouldn't suck your dick, you crazed Fox News fembot.