Ramblings of the Mildly Insane

“Those are the things that grab you by your heartstrings and swing you right round ’til you feel like you’re going to be sick from giddiness.”

1. Men generally don’t have hair - or it’s very short which means they don’t wake up looking like Medusa most days.
2. Men don’t get to experience the wonderful joys of PMS every month, and even when we get a 9 month hiatus, we still have to pay for it at the end (so I hear)
3. Guys can pee standing up. Women need to hover. Do men really understand how hard it is to hover?
4. Men don’t have boobs. All the assorted grief that these things cause, some days I wish I could just take ‘em off and give myself a rest. Men seem to think they’re nifty as pie, but they aren’t.

There are a number of other reasons why men have it easier than women, but I don’t feel like becoming depressed. Granted, I like being a women - wouldn’t give it up for the world. I was just making some observations.

What were your parents thinking?

via Tom

I manage to find the most interesting stuff on my internet travels …if you suffer from BO, do the world a favor and have a mint

Apparently someone over at Budget Telecom reads my blog! Normally, I’d just let this go cuz I’m a nice and loving person, however, Budget Telecom has thoroughly pissed me off through and through and they have a smug little customer service rep who would like to think he knows what he’s talking about. I hope and pray that they have a whole lotta charge backs and Visa drops them.

Email from Mr. ******:

So far nothing was received by us.

Bull$#!^ - the “deny, deny, deny” response only came after I explained that Budget Telecom should have refunded the money the moment they realized it was a fraudulent transaction like EVERY OTHER MERCHANT did.

Just a week earlier they told me their company charged my card for 30 euros.

I emailed this response to my bank and asked them - has Budget Telecom refunded my money? My bank’s reply:

I do not show that there was a refund to your account from Budget Telecom.

Wow - what a surprise. Was that customer service rep really trying to tell me that my money got refunded and my bank is lying to me? Hmmm…

Some people just need to get a clue. I wish I could do a chargeback for inbox space, bandwidth, and time wasted by clueless customer service reps that are trying to cover their own ass.

Since I’ve downloaded and started using Firefox 1.0, I miss my firesomething extension from 1.0RC which changed the name of my browser. It gave me a little giggle each time I looked up an noticed it, or if I had to take a screenshot for someone and forgot to trim it and I would notice it later on…yes, I know, I amuse easily. Well, this desire to get firesomething back and hoping that an update was released, prompted me to visit Mozilla Update and I must say, I’m quite surprised. I also noticed it said “beta” so I knew there was some testin’ going on. I like it, I like it alot. Cleaner, easier to navigate, and just all out nice. Mozilla never ceases to amaze me…

Budget Telecom sucks in my honest opinion. I wouldn’t even recommend their service period because their customer service is clueless. Budget Telecom was one of the merchants involved in the fraudulent use of my credit card back in December and Budget Telecom is the only one *refusing to give me back my money* - ain’t that something?

Budget Telecom forced the charge through after the credit card was cancelled and when I contacted them (had to track them down through Google because they didn’t provide any contact information and on a side note, my bank informed me that internet companies aren’t required to provide certain forms of contact information when making a charge - that in itself is flawed, but I digress).

It turns out Budget Telecom is a French company so I had to call on every ounce of French class (which I hadn’t taken in a good 4 years) to find my way to their contact form. When I contacted them and said - this was a case of fraud, please credit back the card that was used. Didn’t ask them for any other service, didn’t ask them to do anything but give back the money to the original owner - whoever it may be (me). And you know what I received in my inbox this morning?

Fraudulent action take place everyday over the Internet, and I assure you credit/debit card transactions are cancelled everyday upon Banks requests within our company.

NB: we blocked the account of the fraud who used your credit/debit card half an hour after it was created.

Oh really? You blocked the account eh? Yet you didn’t return the money to the credit card which was used? Were you hoping that I spoke French and would decide to use you Budget Telecom services? Were you trying to protect that money by not crediting it back to the card so someone else could steal it?

Last time I checked, the merchant *can credit the money back to the credit card used* which would remedy the need for a charge back process in the first damn place. It’s a crying shame that I need to file a charge back for $40.89 because one - ONLY ONE - of about 12 merchants is refusing to give back the money.The merchant who had an $800 charge had more to lose than Budget Telecom, yet they still gleefully refunded the money. Maybe Budget Telecom is that hard pressed they need to hold $40 hostage.

If they treated me - the victim of fraud - this way, I hate to see how they treat their actual customers. I hope this charge back goes on their permanent record and Visa revokes their merchant account or something because these people shouldn’t be allowed to operate a business.

I don’t know why I’m in the mood I’m in, but I’m not complaining :). I was just catching up on the email on one of the lists I subscribe to and I had a thought. Some of those ladies (well, all of those ladies) are awesome and the list is like one big coffee shop - sometimes I think it’s an episode of Sex & the City e-mail style. I would love to meet all of them in person, however, there is one that stands out in particular - I would really love to meet Tee (I wouldn’t mind meeting Leslie too, she’s just too adorable).

People on the list have often confused us because of name similarities. And from the first day I subscribed, we were communicating and exchanging ideas/assistance. She’s one of the sweetest people I’ve had the pleasure to e-communicate with - she was even nice enough to send me samples of her cards which are absolutely gorgeous. My favorite is the kitty hanging from a tree - somehow reminds me of my Little Tiger.

I literally didn’t want to give any of the cards away - but luckily for some close friends and family she gave me duplicates of some of them, otherwise they would have received the generic “Happy Holidays” snowy horizon cards from yesteryear. The remaining cards are in my card collection (yes, I have a card collection).

You can really tell when some people are true gems and I personally think she’s one of them…hard to find nowadays. I was reading her list replies and she is always there to help out and go above and beyond for the other list members, always humble and polite, and I absolutely love her broken English - I can just imagine the accent (and for those of you who don’t know me personally, I absolutely LOVE accents - all kinds, esp. Scottish). If she lived in S. FL, she’d definitely be one of the few peeps I’d like to chill with and have coffee chitchats with.

Anyhoo, that’s all - just felt like spreading some love.

I saw a post on John’s site asking his lurkers to reveal themselves and just after I finished giving him the skinny on me I see a post over at Michele’s blog informing her loyal readership that it’s de-lurking day…some sort of blog holiday? I didn’t know blogs had holidays…well, now that she’s brought it up, I’d be curious to know who’s reading my blog too. I pretty much know the regulars - but who’s lurking? Tell me about yourselves - as much or as little as you like, where’s your website, blog, location?

**** called me last night and asked me why I hadn’t posted yet. I would link ****’s name, however, he hasn’t jumped on the internet band wagon :|. There are many reasons for my not posting. This time of year is simply the roughest for me and frankly, I never feel like doing much of anything except maybe cry and sleep. But this year, I’m trying to be different and actually be productive.

Anyhoo, this is my first blog post of 2005 and what a year it has been (and we’re only 4 days in). I’ve already chipped a tooth, on a tangerine seed no less - which sucks - so I’m going to the dentist next week (aaaarggggh). My sister’s birthday is tomorrow and I have gotten her a really cool pair of not a damn thing. I hope she likes it. That translates to - I need to go get my sister’s present this afternoon.

Business is booming (thanks in part to Laura over at Actors Info Booth). I have 3 personal projects under way. I’ve already met some damn cool people (not in person yet, but they’re still damn cool). I’ve networked and we’re going to start offering custom blog design services.

I’ve already been harassed by a telemarketer - don’t they get the hint from the whole privacy director thing. If I refuse your call because it’s SPAM via land line, then why the hell are you going to try and call me again from your regular number which gives me the blinking red light that you are trying to sell me something I don’t want? Oh yea, that’s right - so you can leave a message on my machine that will never get returned…but I digress.

I broke down this morning when I saw a picture of this little girl - possibly parentless, scared and hungry - and I realized, even if I can’t save the entire world, if I can help, it’s a start. I’ve pledged my blog’s January earnings to blog aid and I know you may be saying I don’t have any Google ads on this site, I do, however, have Google adsense running on my two other blogs as well as affiliate marketing programs and I will be donating every cent I earn this month from them to the American Red Cross. I may put up Google Adsense ads on this blog for January too. So far, American Red Cross is up $23.16 (not much, but hopefully January will be more productive this year).

Even if you don’t have a blog - pledge your earnings from your regular website. One person may not be able to change the world, but one person can help to change the world and when enough people help to change the world - the world changes.