Posts (page 2)
Am I the only person who thinks that Second Life is L-A-M-E?
. . . is an adage that should be as well known as "never fight a land war in Asia."
Back in November, I found a lovely little sofa at www.jcpenney.com, JC Penney's online store. So, I placed the order, and waited with anticipation for my comfy new couch to arrive.
Which it did, with two large holes in it, which I didn't discover until unwrapping it. It looked as though someone had tried to pick it up with a forklift, as it was pierced through the bottom through to the seat of the couch.
Of course, the couch arrives a few days before Christmas. I called JC Penney and asked them to pick it up and ship me a new one. They tell me that as it's the holidays, it make take a few weeks.
Fine, I can live with a broke-ass couch in my one bedroom apartment for a few weeks and take more time off work to deal with this.
Last week, the oh-so-unfriendly delivery company, Seko, shows up with the new couch, but refuses to take the old one as it's "not on their bill." So again, I'm on the phone with JC Penney's customer service department, asking them what to do. I'm told not to throw out the couch, that they would put out an "urgent dispatch" to have Seko pick it back up (claiming that they told them that in the first place, and that it was Seko's fault, not theirs).
That was Wednesday, and as of this evening, I still have two couches in my apartment.
So I called JC Penney again today, and was told by rather unfriendly customer service supervisor lady that "these things take 72 hours to process," so that JC Penney was still within "an acceptable timeframe" for this issue. No one told me that last week, when I was told that they would be on it right away.
And still no call from the Seko, either.
Want to place any bets on when this will all be resolved? At the rate this is all going, JC Penney will likely instruct Seko to either 1) come bash in my other couch or 2) take both couches.
OMFG:
As celebrity themed reality TV goes, it's a long way from making them eat bugs. One of the cornerstones of BBC2's new year schedule will aim to meticulously recreate a high-profile rape trial using top lawyers and following 12 celebrity jurors as they reach their verdict. (The Guardian, 13 Dec 06)
Wow, rape as fodder for entertainment.
Things are winding down here at the ranch, so I've had more time on my hands to follow where the internet takes me. In catching up on news, I learned about the scandal with Miss USA, and how The Donald has decided to not fire her, chalking her drinking and partying ways up to life in the big city.*
There was also a link to the story on Black America Web, which discussed whether an African-American Miss USA would have been fired for the same offenses: drinking, partying, supposedly making-out with Miss Teen USA. An interesting analyis, and I don't disagree with the writer's overall argument.
But there was one thing that really bothered me:
This turn of events has many looking back to the mid-1980s when Vanessa Williams was forced to relinquish her crown when nude pictures of her, taken before she became the first black Miss America, surfaced. Williams, who went on to have a professional acting and singing career that could be envied by other beauty queens who served out the duration of their reigns, was thought unfit to represent a title that makes its holders an instant role model.
Hmmm.
My boyfriend in college liked naked celebs. He had a collection of nudie magazines, including the Penthouse that featured Vanessa Williams. Not understanding what the hullabaloo was about when I was a kid (at the time that Williams was de-crowned), I figured I would check it out. After all, Playboy was not much worse than the Victoria's Secret catalog, so how bad could it be?
Now, for those people that have never seen a Penthouse, it's a little more, shall we say, intimate than Playboy. Playboy is average t+a fare, airbrushed, and can be somewhat artistic. Plus it actually has articles. Penthouse, not so classy.
And Vanessa Williams did more than "make out" with her two fellow female beauty contestants in those pictures, if you get my drift.** Britney Spears would have blushed at those photos.
What bothered me about the above-listed passage is that the author clearly didn't see the photographs, or would have never implied that Vanessa Williams was wrongly-dismissed as the role model for the 1984 pre-teen girl.
(* Don't get me started on beauty pagents - they send the wrong message andare sexist and yucky and silly. But that's not what this is about.)
(** I'm not a pervert. This is a link to the Wikipedia article.)
Electric Firefly and I caught up online with an old friend from the Oxford days. Turns out that she's getting married. We asked her about her future husband, and here's what she had to say:
He really does complete me in so many ways...where I am outgoing and sometimes allow outbursts of opinions before I think, he is more introverted and thinks carefully before speaking; where I am more cynical and negative about life (after the crap I deal with each day), he sees more of the good in people and tries to remind me of their potential instead of their past; he keeps me grounded; he reminds me to stay true to my inner kid; he has dreams of seeing all the places I've already been and all of those places that neither of us have ever been; he has such a good business head that combines nicely with my creativity (that I think I never realized I had).
Beautiful, isn't it? It's the love that we all strive for, it's the love that we all hopefully have, but can't verbalize quite as well . . .
Mazel tov, my Southern belle!
J and I were on one of those random stream-of-conscious conversations that people have before falling asleep. We stumbled into talking about music and discovered that neither one of us knows what the hell Michael Hutchence was talking about when he quipped "at 98 we all rotate."
Read her rant on trying to buy cold medicine.
It's been a strange and hard past few weeks, so in an attempt to lighten the mood, here are my five good things for today.
(Minus the obvious ones of having a roof over my head, food to eat, etc. Those transcend good.)
1. Photo booths. One of my favorite watering holes in DC has one of those photo booths that produces a black-and-white four picture strip. I never do it alone and I always give the other person half. So in my office, I have these great little pictures of me and e-ron, and me and J. They make me giddy.
2. Tootsie pops. I used to hate them as a kid, and now I'm slightly in love with them as an adult. Why the hatred? Who knows. Probably the same reason I didn't like grape juice or pickles. I was gnawing on a pop the other day and studied the wrapper, looking for the native american shooting the star. Legend had it that you used to be able to take those to a candy store and get a free pop. No idea if it's true. (Update: it's not. Boo!)
3. Back rubs from my man-friend. I have a permanent knot in my right shoulder, and he can usually work it out. Most people, when they give you a massage, are too forceful or too gentle. He's happily in the middle.
4. Red, red wine.
5. The free gift tags that I got in the mail from Design Within Reach. I can't afford anything in that store, so I feel a little fancy with my free stuff.
Jazz chanteuse Anita O'Day died over Thanksgiving.
She was cool, crazy, and lived a tough life, filled with addiction and heartbreak. Through it all, she still had a voice that could make even the hardest heart dance.
They just don't make 'em like they used to.
RIP, Miss O'Day. I hope that you're sitting at the great martini lounge in the sky.
Dear Citibank,
Please repeat after me: "It's your money, Stephanie."
So, when I call you to get the "special super-secret pin" that I need in order to have Quicken talk to you, please don't ask me to pay $9.99 a month for the pleasure of managing my own money. I will circumvent you and go through the tedious process of downloading individual files to my desktop and import them back into Quicken. But I don't want to have to do that.
After all, dear bank, you have my checking, savings, retirement, loan, and credit card. I feel that you can pony up a pin number and a periodic electronic transfer to keep me happy. After all, you are making money off of my money, you know.
I'm beginning to think that I'm not getting what I need out of our relationship. It's all take, take, take with you these days. I'd like to try and work this out so that I feel more valued. Let's talk.
Love,
Stephanie
