Flippy - I Rant, You Read

Friday, February 26, 2010

late morning

Oh, I’m Going to Miss the Olympics

It’s been a fun couple of weeks…on television at least.  There’s nothing Leigh-Ann and I enjoy more than a couple of weeks of Olympic viewing, day and night.  The last Olympics didn’t involve such drama away from our television, but it’s been a nice mental break to concentrate on the events.  I remember when we first met, we spent two weeks at our friends’ place watching the Nagano Olympics, rarely leaving to even get food.  It’s funny how so much has changed, but yet in some cases, nothing has changed.  We can still spend 24/7 watching the Olympics and never get bored, even when watching events that we’d never watch at any other time of the year.  Yeah, I’m talking to you, Nordic-Combined and Biathalon.

I miss blogging, but I’m not sure what to talk about.  I’ll try to think of some good news.  Wait, I know - Mack, the German Shepherd that we rescued, will now let me leave the bedroom without jumping over the baby gate to follow me wherever I go.  Man, this dog has the worst separation anxiety of any dog I’ve ever met.  We adopted him to keep Dante company after Eli died in June, but unfortunately, Mack won’t spend any time with Dante, unless we’re standing there with him.  So, poor Dante is still lonely and now we have a German Shepherd added to the already beast-full master bedroom.  He’s basically a really good dog, but he must’ve had a really lousy life before he ended up at the shelter.  I hope that someday soon he’ll be able to hang out with Dante for a few hours at a time.  Dante needs a big dog pal.

Here’s a picture of Mack, sitting in (15lb) Cricket’s bed.  He loves to “try” to curl up in Cricket’s bed.  He’ll eye it from across the room, and then he’ll literally run right over to it and start spinning his big body to get as tiny as he can, but he always ends up spilling over the sides.  It’s really adorable though.  If we had extra cash, we’d buy him a big bed with sides, but for now, he’ll have to settle for the two big Orvis beds that are in the bedroom.  Poor dog, suffering like that. LOL

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

terribly early in the morning

Daily Rituals

Aw, isn’t it sweet, someone checks my blog almost every single morning around 8 am.  Nothing says “time to wake up” like a cup of coffee and a dose of Flippy.  Keep checking, I still have some blog entries in mind for you.  In the meantime, why don’t you get started reading here and see if you can find yourself.  For those of you who are less obsessive about me, you should check out the link, too, but only for pure entertainment value.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

lunch time

Glass Houses?

There’s “someone” (apparently they’ve been sitting and waiting for months for me to come back - it’s nice to be missed!) commenting on a couple of posts on my blog who thinks that I haven’t posted enough about my own personal financial problems and they think that if they reveal them here, in my comments (that are moderated, DUH! - it should only take ONE comment to figure that out, no?), it’ll be a big surprise to all of you what’s been going on with me.  Let’s see, first there were my health problems (back surgery, et al), then I lost my job due to my health problems, then I followed that with the loss of my car and my house.  So, for “Barbara Wellington” (don’t make me reveal your real name here, mister…because that would be a lot worse than what’s already on my blog, wouldn’t it?), I hereby publicly declare that I filed for bankruptcy and I’m currently waiting for the Social Security Administration to make their first (and final, I hope, but most people do have to appeal) decision regarding my disability case.

These threats of revealing my “personal” issues are pretty funny considering everything is here, on my blog (AND on HuffPo!), for the whole world to read.  And honestly, what more could I lose?  In the past several years, I’ve lost my health, my job, my car, my home, and my siblings.  What does MISTER DBA, MBA, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda think I have left to lose?  So, dude, learn how to use an apostrophe and quit writing as a woman on my blog.  I don’t intend to run for public office, so no one is in danger of having me be in charge of public funds…nor even private funds.

Wow, it’s astonishingly lame to threaten a disabled chick who has lost pretty much everything, don’t ya think?

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

mid-morning

My blog, it’s back

I can’t believe my last post was in July.  A whole mess of stuff has happened since then and not a single bit of it is good.  More soon.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

mid-afternoon

SeattleCoffeeDirect.com, UrbanCoffeeDirect.com, WorldBeanCafe.com’s $2 or $5 trial is a SCAM!

I signed up for the $2 trial offer from SeattleCoffeeDirect.com to get godfather points for Mafia Wars on Facebook.  Yeah, that was stupid, but only in hindsight.  I assumed that Zynga, the company that owns Mafia Wars, wouldn’t associate themselves with downright thieves.  The $2 offer for two stainless steel mugs and two pounds of coffee, plus however many “godfather points” WAS a good deal.  I didn’t expect the company to outright lie in their terms & conditions: * Program Membership Terms and Conditions:   We want you to be happy with your order. As a customer of SeattleCoffeeDirect, you control your membership. You determine your semimonthly coffee selections and the frequency of your shipments. You may also opt out of our membership program at any time after you place your initial order. Feel free to contact us online by logging into your account at SeattleCoffeeDirect.com or by simply calling 866-794-2030.

You cannot “control your membership” by “logging into your account” because they don’t GIVE you an account to log into.  And, before you even GET your trial offer, they start charging away on your credit card, using MULTIPLE business names!!!  PayPal has been so slow to react that it’s caused overdraft charges on the bank account that I had attached to my Paypal card, even though I deleted the bank account info.  They’ve saved it, just so they can charge THIS FRAUD over and over and over again.  I’m now at 4 charges in a week, only one of them approved by me, the $2 charge.

July 12th, $2 charged by WorldBeanCafe.com but signed up supposedly with SeattleCoffeeDirect.com (I thought it would be a nice inexpensive give for someone) - authorized July 13th, $38.95 charged by WorldBeanCafe.com - NOT authorized July 17th, $38.95 charged by UrbanCoffeeDirect.com - NOT authorized July 18th, $38.95 charged by Urban Coffee Direct Evanston IL - NOT authorized

Conveniently, they’re charging these on weekends, when they’re supposedly closed.  Also, conveniently enough, they don’t have ANY email support.  There is no way to log “into your account” on their website, because their website doesn’t have accounts.  Their domains are registered with DomainsByProxy.com.  What are they hiding?  Who are they hiding?  Why are they going by so many different names?  Oh wait, I know the answer to that, so they can keep trying to charge people’s accounts, so that when one name is blocked, they can charge using another.

Hindsight is 20/20, but just look at all of these complaints, there are 395 just HERE, just under ONE name, and the BBB rates them an “F”.  If I don’t receive a full refund and refunds of my overdraft fees, I think this situation finally calls for an actual criminal charge.  They are knowingly overcharging & fraudulently charging customers before they even receive their trial offers.  No company who believes in their product would need to charge their customers numerous times before they even get the damned coffee ONCE.  Clearly, the product must royally suck.

All I’m saying is…I had BETTER get my REFUND or every single time someone does a search for one of their company names, there’s going to be a website or a number of blogs telling them EXACTLY how this “company” does “business”.  It’s clear they’re out to steal as much money as they can until someone finally shuts them down.  That time is LONG overdue.