What annoyed you today?

[Quailman]

A recruiter set up a phone interview for me today at noon. I read up on the company, wrote down some questions to ask, charged my phone, relieved myself, etc. Noon became 12:15, then 12:30. At 12:45 I e-mailed the recruiter to see if I had the time wrong. The interviewer had gotten tied up in a meeting with her boss and lost track of the time. Now I'm waiting to see if tomorrow at 10:00 AM will work.

[Gomez]

A few YouTube gripes:

1). Nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody in their right minds cares what "brought you here". Keep that shit to yourself.

2). Just seen a music video, have you? Find it moving, did you? Well, there's absolutely no harm in saying so provided you keep your insipid emo tone poetry to your damn self! I spent an idle couple of hours checking out music videos today, and just look at these quotes I found:

• When this song plays, my wings push through my skin and stretch.
  
• He can heal that heartbreak through his art, I believe that he will survive the pain.
  
• More people need to know and love this music ... But the selfish part of me, the childish part of me, wants to keep it all for my own. It's a beautiful thing; a pretty thing. I want it to be mine, just mine; but I know that if I want this artist -- a true artist -- to receive his just deserves, I will have to share.
  
• Life is love, agony, and heartbreak. This beautiful music soars on a zephyr, lifting me above the fray.

Christ alive! What a load of absolute bollocks! Look at that first one, for instance. The one about the wings. Is it wrong that I just wanna reach through the internet and murder that guy? On the principle that nothing that pretentious should be allowed to procreate? And the last one, I don't even know what that means.

3). YouTube is also choc full of bigots. Here, for the edification of the future social scientists who will study this phenomenon, I present Gomez's first law of YouTube. If a black person or group of black people feature prominently in any video, there will, with 99% certainty, be a horribly degrading racist comment somewhere in the first couple of pages.

What the hell is wrong with people?

4). Realistically, very few people are funny or interesting enough to deserve a vlog. Statistically, chances are you're not one of those people.

5). Gomez's second law: There is a marked correlation between the frequency YouTube postings in ALL CAPS and the market price of lithium. Probably. Based on the amount of THIS CRAP I've seen today, it must be more expensive than diamond encrusted platinum.

[Zag]

Question: Just how retarded to you need to be to spend actual time reading the comments in YouTube?

[Gomez]

I checked, and the answer is a little way between I-am-Sam and Simple Jack from Tropic Thunder, with just a dash of Sling Blade for attitude.

Having no life also helps.

[Courk]

My favorite thing on Youtube is when a comment is hidden for too many down votes. At that point, I just have to know what they said.

Next best is an obvious fighting comment in response to someone, I have to click to see the previous comment -- the ones that go back multiple comments are fun.

[grz*]

Yesterday's Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic. Not even the comic itself, just the header to the comic, offended my puzzling instincts.

edit: Link for posterity

[Neo]

I continued a 2 or 3 year battle with the main company office regarding the abysmal state of our website today.

Background: Our parent company owns 4 camps and one ship. Our website sucks in almost every imaginable way. My camp has been fighting the main office and trying to get them to update it so it doesn't look like a middle school student half-assed it as part of a class he failed. The company doesn't have an IT guy or webmaster or anything, the site was done by the HR guy in his spare time.

In our last major discussion of the website, the main office discovered we were working behind their backs and soliciting quotes and advice from other companies to do a website just for our camp. They seemed to finally wake up, asked for our research and distributed a survey on which we spent several days outlining our concerns with the current website, wishlist for a new design and content and laid out justification for having a professional looking website.

That was almost a year ago. It is clear now they were just trying to shut us up. So I just finished going through every page on the company website that deals with our camp and listed all the mistakes in grammar, typos, inaccurate claims, misleading statements, and outdated information. Also broken links, missing pictures, etc.

That list is 22 pages long. At one point it was so bad that I actually felt physically ill. Among other things, I learned that in one class we have a "wall made out of pure light" and will teach kids about "the invisible force that makes things glow in the dark."

Also our 24 foot high rock wall is listed several times as being over 50 feet tall.

Next step, the chaperones and teachers that come up here fill out a survey at the end of their stay. We're sticking some website related questions on there because it's a constant source of confusion for them. We're also going to put together a separate survey about the website to have staff fill out. I plan on sending that survey to past staff members and anybody else who wants to look at the abomination we call a website and type out some comments.

Eventually all of this will go into one big giant proposal and sent to the main office. Where I'm sure it will be "carefully read and considered" which we all know is code for "glanced at and tossed in the trash."
_________________
_{Ad Astra}

[Zag]

LOL. Now I'm curious to see the horrible web site. What's the URL?

One comment on corporate culture: it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission. So just do it, stealth mode.

[Crk*]

To be fair, that rock wall is almost 50 half-feet tall, an easy mistake to make.

[Quailman]

[Neo]

[The Potter]

Isn't your real name also on the "About" page?
_________________
Artwork | Fractals | Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy.

[Neo]

[The Potter]

I understand. Actually, this is a topic that I have thought about quite a bit-- The strange relationship we have with our identity and the internet. I am not talking about bank and credit card numbers but the somewhat traceable pseudonyms and local life. The internet is now such an everyday part of life the separation from the Meat World and our computer screens is not clear anymore.

This is also one of the topics I was thinking about in the events that lead up to my manic episode last August. :-/
_________________
Artwork | Fractals | Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy.

[Quailman]

I have jury duty today. It's in downtown Houston, so I drove to a park & ride and caught the first bus that said " Downtown". It was a local with a zig-zagging route that took an hour instead of 15-20 minutes the direct bus would have taken.

On the plus side, they have free wifi.

[Jedo the Jedi]

I feel you on that. I'm guessing you plan ahead so well that you were still on time for jury duty. Of course, who wouldn't rather spend some extra time not sitting in that room?
_________________
Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Quailman]

I did allow plenty of time and got there at the supposed last minute. I had allowed extra time for driving to the park and ride, but it's Spring Break here, so there was no traffic to speak of. Then I hopped on that bus that was pulling when I was, so I saved that wait time

We sat in a room that has comfortable theater seating for nearly two hours before any panels were called. I was in the first group of 65, from which they needed 13 (12 with an alternate) for what they said would be a two day trial. We were led through a tunnel to the courthouse and shuttled up to the 15th floor, where we stood outside the courtroom for twenty minutes.

We each had a number - mine was 34 - and we sat in order, fifteen to each row. The judge explained how the selection process would work, and how the trial would proceed and so forth. The defendant was charged with compelling prostitution of a minor (forcing or encouraging or otherwise causing a girl under 18 to turn tricks). The sentence range for compelling prostitution is 5-99 years, but if it's a minor, it's 15 years minimum. That applies even if you met here in a bar where she should have been carded and she looks 22, and even if she lied and said she was 18.

We were asked all sorts of questions over the next FOUR HOURS to whittle us down. No one was allowed to leave, even juror 11, who seemed to have a problem with everything. He felt like he couldn't consider the maximum sentence under any circumstances. He has a young daughter, so he couldn't consider the minimum. If the defendant did not testify in his own defense, he felt he must be hiding something. Several people had a problem with that. One or two thought he must have done something wrong or he wouldn't be in the courtroom to begin with.

The judge said to speak up, because the quiet jurors get selected. I had nothing to object to, but partway in, I realized that I recognized the Assistant DA, who hadn't said anything but was there to help the lead DA take notes. She had been involved in a minor way in the only other trial I've had to serve on. At the end I raised my hand and offered that up, as we had been asked up front if we knew any of the lawyers or the defendant. That must have worked!

They didn't have enough left for the jury. The judge strikes people and gives the remaining list to the lawyers, who can strike ten each, all without telling us. The deliberated for a bit, and the judge said they had a problem, but some of us could go. I was in that group. There's no telling how long the rest of them stayed. It was past 2:30 and no one had eaten lunch.

I went to the correct bus stop and my bus came about five minutes later. How lucky is that? They only run every half hour outside of rush hour. Ten minutes later I was in my car headed home.

[LordKinbote]

[Jedo the Jedi]

Oh gosh. The only time I've had jury duty (thank goodness), I sat in the sterile room with uncomfortable seats for an hour-and-a-half until they decided they didn't need any more jurors. The check for about $9 didn't cover what I had lost in not substitute teaching that day. Dumb.

Still, yours definitely is more annoying. I suppose if I get called for jury duty another handful of times, I'll get a story like that.
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Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Death Mage]

My phone was upgraded today to "Jelly Bean" The process hosed my wifi, so I'm having to restore it to factory settings. Not cool.
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[Courk*]

Hmm... Maybe I should upgrade and see if that makes my wifi actually work...

[groza528]

For the past two years, the state of North Dakota has been incorrectly withholding income taxes from me (I have neither worked nor lived in ND since 2010. And I have finally managed to get them to stop withholding.) So far this has been little more than a nuisance because I just claim all that tax money back as a refund.
This year, I did just that. I claimed all of the ND tax money back as a refund, and it was accepted within minutes. I was impressed.
Then today when I returned home from Canada, I received a letter from North Dakota dated last Tuesday (which the savvy among you will recognize as less than one week before the tax deadline) claiming to be a "corrected" tax refund. This is clearly some definition of "corrected" for which I was previously unaware, because instead of paying me back the $1300 owed to me, they have decided they're only going to give me $42.

[Jedo the Jedi]

WTF? Is there something you can do?
_________________
Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Zag]

Wow. I suggest you start with the HR department where you work. Find out what it on your I9 form that makes them think they should be withholding money on ND's behalf. That's to stop the bleeding. The can probably advise you on the next step.

However, in the absence of advice, I'd call the ND dept of revenue. I suggest calling them the very minute that they start, in the morning, or even a little before that, to get ahead of the queue. I suspect that your visit to the HR dept. will inform you of something wrong in your own paperwork. When you call the ND DoR, you'll be able to explain what the problem was, and why you should get a full refund. They'll probably want some validation, but my experience with such people is that they aren't really looking to screw people over.

Oh, yeah, it helps if you're not talking about a lot of money (i.e. something under a couple of thousand). They are somewhat judged by a quote of money that they are supposed to collect per week. If it is clear to them that you're willing to take a lot of their time for a fairly small amount of money, then they might capitulate just so they can move on to a bigger fish. At least, I know that this is how the IRS works. I don't know about state DoR's.

[groza528]

[Zag]

I guess the big question is in the state section of your W-2, does it say that you made the money in ND? That's all that the state goes by.

Two amusing tax tales: (Well, they're amusing to me.)

In August of 1995 I and my family moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire. My wife continued to work in Mass but worked at home 2 days a week. The following April, I was very careful figuring out exactly what money was made in which state and paid the correct taxes. About a month later they (Mass DoR) sent us a letter saying that I had made a mistake in calculation and owed an additional $9. Not even bothering to confirm, I just wrote a check and mailed it.

Six months later, I got another letter from them. With some amount of dread (figuring that something really bad must follow the innocuous one), I opened the letter. Inside it said that there was an error in the taxes and that I had overpaid. It included a check for the entire amount of taxes I had paid them, including the extra $9. This was north of $6000! I actually called the office, and started to say that I had received a refund that I didn't think was correct, when the woman rather rudely interrupted my description and said that they would NEVER make such a mistake. Admittedly, I was not motivated to try all that hard, and I gave up.

On advice from a lawyer friend, we kept the money in a separate bank account for 3 years, fully expecting that they would catch up with their mistake and ask for it back. They never did. Mass DoR, if you're out there, it's too late! Bwahahaha!

Story #2.

In 2008, we cashed out some money from an IRA to fund the purchase of my wife's wheelchair-accessible van. Also in that year, my wife won a big jackpot on a slot machine in Vegas -- $2300, which is big enough that we had to fill out paperwork. Of course, when tax time came around, I had forgotten all about it.

In October, I got a letter that we owed the IRS over $4000. Still trying to recover financially from my daughter's wedding (plus college), we didn't even almost have it. In something of a panic, I called the office to figure out what the mistake could be. First, the man I spoke to said that I owed $3600 for the 10% penalty of withdrawing from an IRA early, and then he said that I hadn't paid taxes on the gambling winnings. I said that the IRA money should have been exempt, because it was used to buy an accessible van. He agreed and said I needed to fill out a Form 3275. (I'm making up the number, here.) Then he said, "You probably had gambling losses which are more than the winnings, right? You know that you can deduct the losses from the winning."

"Well, sure," I said, "but I didn't keep careful records like the instructions say you are supposed to. I'm ok with paying that part." In reality, I knew I had no such losses, because I had won a lot at poker that year, plus that was not my wife's only win in that trip. We had come home much richer than we left. I assured him that I would redo the taxes with the gambling winnings, plus include the Form 3275, and he agreed to waive any penalty or interest.

So I went back to my copy of the taxes, and there was the Form 3275, right in the middle. I called back, got a different guy, caught him up and explained that the form was already included. He double-checked and verified that they did have it. "And about these gambling winnings, you probably had losses that at least equaled these winnings, right?" Holding back my feeling of deja vu, I repeated my earlier comment. "Oh, that's ok," he continued, "how about I just add on losses that exactly equal the winnings. This means that you owe us nothing and I'll just close this account." He paused for a second. "Is that OK with you?"

A little in shock, I gasped, "umm, sure." After a bit I managed to joke, "Is that a trick question?" He laughed and asked if there was anything else he could help with. "No, uhh, I'm good." I hung up, wondering why people hate the IRS so much. They seemed like swell guys to me!

[Jedo the Jedi]

Judging from your stories, people hate the IRS because they are swindling crooks who try to bamboozle the people who cower before their authority and capitulate to their demands without question...and most people do just that. If you just call them and make it an issue, then they deflate and drop their demand. Those guys don't get paid enough to defend the outrageous claims for your money.
_________________
Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[groza528]

Update: Apparently North Dakota hasn't figured out the concept of the "hold" function because I was greeted by an automatic answerer followed by not muzak, as I expected, but an answering machine. Seriously, I woke up on my day off for that?
Anyway, I left a message. They just had to do this to me during peak season. I guess I can take some solace in the fact that over the next week the number of phone calls they get will presumably drop rapidly.

[Death Mage]

North Dakota, particularly Bismarck - the capital, is currently under 2+ feet of snow. There's probably not going to be many people at the offices today. (I couldn't get out of my apartment complex's parking lot today.)
_________________
* These senseless ramblings brought to you by Insanity™. If you just can't figure the dang thing out, it must be Insanity™.
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[Jack_Ian]

More disgusted than annoyed, but I got a spam e-mail with a link to a malware URL with the subject line "Aftermath to explosion at Boston Marathon".

It sickens me how low people can go sometimes.

[Crk*]

Rear-ended by a guy with a record that includes previous accidents, citations for suspended licenses, intoxication, disorderly conduct, and drug possession.

[Dragon Phoenix]

Yesterday, rather than today. Just 30 minutes before dinner guests would arrive, a pigeon flew into the house via the half-open window. It took about 20 minutes to force the cretin out again and clean up the shit, throwing the dinner preparation into disarray. Fortunately, we still had a nice evening.
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[Death Mage]

Were you expecting Quailman over?

As for what annoyed me today, arm pain. I am convinced that aliens abducted my a while ago and cut off my arm for experimentation. When they reattached it, they didn't do the greatest job. I don't mind the experimentation so much, but they could have at least left me a bottle of alien-strength pain killers!

Also, it snowed again today. A little mini blizzard. Nothing stuck, but come on already! I will believe in Spring when Bigfoot rides up on a unicorn and informs me that it has arrived.
_________________
* These senseless ramblings brought to you by Insanity™. If you just can't figure the dang thing out, it must be Insanity™.
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