Archive for March, 2005
International News
Thursday, March 31st, 2005My high school buddy Brandon Meyer felt compelled to join the Marines and currently is surviving boot camp. Before he left to become one of the Few and Proud™, he asked me to update his blog. I receive a letter every few days to keep his family and friends updated. Brandon mentioned that he was considering the Marines over Christmas. While I do not understand why he would join, updating his blog is the least I can do to support his decision. I filed this under International because the fate of every marine involves deployment overseas at this time in history.
Several of my Emerson friends travelled to Cambodia over Christmas break. Their documentary on Western influence and child adoption (among other issues) in Cambodia is rapidly being edited. The accompanying website is also being developed for a simultaneous release. Machines for Living’s website is one of my latest sites to use WordPress. I cannot speak enough praises of WordPress for allowing rapid, standards-compliant team web development.
UNcool
Wednesday, March 30th, 2005Slashdot: UN Wants To Regulate Internet
That’s right, the morons who helped
with Dafur, Rwanda, Sudan, and Oil for Food now want to control my beloved internet. The day the UN takes over ICANN is the day I start a rogue network.
Web Cam
Monday, March 21st, 2005
Go Google Jeremiah
Sunday, March 20th, 2005Excluding the television show, the prophet, and the doctor with a first name as a last name, I am the most popular Jeremiah on Google.
Banking Hell
Monday, March 14th, 2005I typically love my bank. The customer service representatives are friendly and useful. But I just accumulated $375 of fees during the past week. How?
My Visa debit card is linked to my checking and savings accounts. Because of a business transaction that I am preparing to make, I have been depositing only into my savings account. There is no real differentiation between accounts, as they both accrue the same interest.
I used my debit card for purchases during spring break. For each purchase, I was charged a $30 fee because of my bank’s protection
plan. This protection
transferred money from my savings to my checking account in order to pay Visa. For this value added service, I paid $30 per transaction. I could understand such a fee if this service existed to allow small overages, but I have thousands of dollars in my savings account. The transfer made between my accounts was automatic and completed electronically with no human intervention. Yet, I was charged $30 to access my own money, under one account number, but in a different account type.
The shift manager at my bank said that he would refund half of the charges, but he could not refund them all. Being that I accrued so many fees, I obviously was unaware of this bank policy. The protection
did not actually involve any human effort to provide, so basically my bank is profiting over a hundred dollars because I incorrectly accessed my own money. This is pure incompetence.
Mel Gibson’s Sin City Recut?
Sunday, March 13th, 2005
I wanted to see The Passion Recut this evening, so I opened Apple Sherlock to check on movie times. When the movie information loaded for The Passion Recut, the Sin City trailer loaded. Is this some sort of cruel joke?
Web Cam
Saturday, March 12th, 2005
Foreign Food
Saturday, March 12th, 2005Coolidge Corner in Brookline, MA boasts many great authentic foreign flavors. Two of my favorite restaurants are Rani Bistro and A New Taste of Asia. One can always know if the food is authentic when there are two versions of the menu: one in English and one in the respective language of the restaurant’s food. Even better is when the wait staff speak broken English. Even better x2 is when there are grammatical errors on the menu. I like not having to worry about MSG and I like that I am scoffed at for asking about egg rolls. Yum!
Back in Kerry Country
Friday, March 11th, 2005I am back from an amazing visit with Arthur’s family in San Antonio, TX. Boston was kind enough to greet me with a wintery mix upon return.
This was my first and last trip on Northwest Airline. The cheap fare is not worth full flights, rickety planes, my knees rubbing the seat in front of me, lack of V8 juice, and no vent or air conditioning on the first flight.
The trip overall provided much needed relaxation and an opportunity to catch up on all the sleep I missed during mid-terms. I saw Cursed and wished I hadn’t. I ate at so many restaurants and can understand why San Antonio is one of the fattest cities. Arthur and I cruzed roof down in his mom’s Thunderbird. I bought a few cheap Tex-Mex souvenirs at El Mercado. Because I was with Arthur’s family, I also had the unique experiences of attending a color guard competition and the opening of a renovated hospital wing. Life is random. Enjoy the uncertainty. (I promise that the iPod Shuffle has only had a little influence on my life outlook.)
Why Boston Sucks
Thursday, March 10th, 2005After a few days outside of Boston, I am reminded of why I miss not living here.
- It’s REALLY cold here and Bostonians have a God-given right to b*tch about it.
- Expensive taxis. A ride starts at $8 before your bum even moves an inch away from the airport.
- Big Dig Access. The most expensive public works project in US history closes at night, so you are stuck with old roads. Only Boston engineers would build a 10 lane bridge that merges to 2 lanes underground and ends in a traffic circle. Besides being billions of dollars over-budget, scaled back, and late, all Americans are paying for this project courtesy of federal funds. Why do all dollar bills blow east? Because Boston sucks.
- Bostonians aren’t necessarily rude, they just think that their opinion is always important enough to share with you… especially on baseball and curses, football and dynasties, politics and being insanely liberal.
- Boston built the nation’s first subway and its lack of maintance and management are there to remind you of this fact every time you are 15-minutes late to class because a track switch froze. It’s damn cold here (see #1) so you think that engineers would have compensated for this fact.
- The MBTA will get you places cheaply, but Fairy Godmother (er, Mayor) Menino turns the T back into a pumpkin after midnight. This leaves thousands of college students in most areas with no choice but expensive taxis. Even the limited Night Owl bus service has been cancelled.
- Hate crimes. Within the reaches of the MBTA, there are over 100,000 college students. Locals assume all of us are reckless, landlords aren’t welcoming, and police love to murder us.
- They don’t call it Taxachusetts for no reason.
