Update on the last post:

Yesterday morning, the pizza place's owners called me. To apologize for the mess.

It turns out they checked on what happened, and things went down as I had guessed already: when the kitchen messes up, they have to pay half the cost of the messed food. The girl whom I talked with on the phone was afraid of having to pay for the repeated mistakes, and in a panic blurted out that crap about 'eating half the pizza before complaining'.

Not that it makes calling anyone a scammer okay.

We talked on the phone for a half hour or so, while they explained they are having trouble with finding good help, cooks and waiters and counter people doing shoddy work, only interested in collecting their paycheck. Turns out I was not the first to complain, but I was the first to go out of my way to make a point of how dissatisfied I was.

They actually thanked me for the wake-up call.

The two talked about how they spent the time since my 'incident' going over notes and records, and noticed how the service quality takes a nosedive in slow days. So, they were actually scared the bad service was alienating customers and preventing the business from growing. Wondering how many people order or sit down at the place to eat for the first time, get bad service, and never return.

So, long story short: I accepted my money back, accepted their apology, and also apologized for my piss and vinegar stunt, even while they kept reassuring me I was right in being pissed off and how my reaction snapped them into action.

I might be ordering from them again in the future.

Who knows, right?

Their pizzas are really awesome.

This might not have been the smartest move in my life.

So, I hurt my foot yesterday. Jumped from some height, landed bad on heel and ankle. Nothing broke, but it hurts, a low level of constant pain that gets worse when I walk. Pain makes me cranky. And I can not go to see a doctor, because my health insurance plan's docs are on strike, claiming to be grossly underpaid. Oh joy.

So, deciding I should avoid walking much, I realized I could not really go grocery shopping for the week. I decided to order two pizzas and complement my diet for the next few days with fruit salad and juices I can buy at the cafeteria at work.

Sounds like a plan, right?

I called my favorite pizza place, and ordered the pizzas; deciding to spoil myself, I go for a tuna and cream cheese, and a bacon, chicken and cream cheese. Splurging with myself, I also ordered a two-liter container of ice cream, planning to relax and have some therapeutic junk food. Pizzas and ice cream arrive, I stash the ice cream in the freezer for later and grab two slices of pizza, tuna and creamy cheese. I start eating pizza always from the outer edge in, saving the central, thin end, with the most topping, for last. So, I had gone over about half of the two slices when I discovered onion bits mixed with the creamy cheese.

I have an irrational dislike of onions. Or rather, of pieces of onions, I hate the texture of onions being chewed and the sound they make. I can only use onions in seasoning if I blend them to puree.

And I have my aching foot making me cranky.

I call the pizza place and complain, even more flabbergasted since onion is not one of the listed ingredients of the tuna pizza. The person who takes the call asks me to wait, and lays down the receiver.

I wait.

And wait.

And wait.

After ten minutes (I was staring at the clock all the time, I hate to be on hold on the phone) the call drops.

Now I'm pissed, and take a few deep breathes before calling again. Mind you, nobody apologizes for the abandoned call, but, fuck it, I just want a solution to the onion thing, because I'm not paying for something I'm not eating. The pizza place person offers to send me a new, onion-less pizza.

Fifteen minutes or so later, the replacement pizza arrives, I hand over the onion-tainted one and check my new pizza.

It's burnt. All around the edges, and burnt on the underside, and it smells of burned. I knew I should have checked before the delivery guy left, but, silly me, I was thinking they would not mess up twice. I call again, and now I am agitated and unleashing the pissed-off sarcasm, because I'm hungry, disappointed, aching. Then, comes the cherry on top of the shit-sundae, apparently the delivery guy arrived back with the pizza and the person I was talking to checked it.

The following jewel was tossed at me: "Well, you did eat half the first pizza..."

I saw red for a moment.

First, I ate half of two slices. Last time I checked, half of a quarter was 1/8th, not half of the whole. Second... well, no second, it was bullshit, the person I was talking to was accusing me of trying to get free food. I told her so, and we argued a bit, pizza-employee denying saying anything even remotely related or similar to me consuming half the pizza before complaining, then saying the manager was not in and nobody could be held responsible....

I hung up.

Took the burnt tuna pizza, the untouched bacon pizza, the ice cream, loaded it in my car and drove over. When I got there, the manager/owner had arrived, and I simply handed him the whole thing, told him what had happened, and wished him a good night. He offered to return my money, and I told him I did not want it.

"But sir, I can not possibly keep your money if you are returning the food..."

I cut him. "No, you can and you will. You, this restaurant called me a scammer, so I'm buying a bit of payback for $$$ and calling you thieves. And of course, I will be taking my business elsewhere, which is a pity because I really liked your pizzas. Until tonight."

He still opened the till and tried to count out and give me back my money, but I just went back to the car and returned home. Sincerely, I hope it sticks with him, how he has money he did not earn, because someone who works for him decided to lie and call me a scammer. I really hope it sticks for a while.

Hey everybody. So, I adopted these kitties, and have not yet named them.


So, ideas? Anyone? They are both female, btw.

It is all good and true that you can not have an omelet without breaking some eggs. The trouble starts when the person insisting that we must have omelets for breakfast is doing so because she enjoys the sound of cracking eggshell.

- Paraphrasing Luis Fernando Veríssimo.

Location: Deli at my favorite supermarket

Short line, but at the front there was a lady harassing one of the two deli workers. Imagine a shrill, strident voice, loaded with generous helpings of arrogance:

"Slice it thiiiiiiiiiiiinn! Slice it thiiiiiiiiiiiinn! No, start over, thiiiiiiiiiiiinn like a bible's pages!" The Deli worker was slicing one sample slice, bringing it to the woman. Lady would roll it between her fingers a bit, take a bite then toss it on the floor and resume her screeching for thinner slices.

After some of that, with the line growing while the Screeching One continued her wastage and shrill harassment, she came up with this gem: "Slice it thiiiiiiiiiiiinn, damn you, slice it thiiiiiiiiiiiinn or I will fuck you!"

The deli worker, male, without missing a beat, replied in a very apologetic customer-servicey tone: "Thank you for the offer, ma'am, but I am happily married and even if I were not, you are just not my type."

The Screeching One was, understandably, laughed off the area by the whole line.

This post brought back memories.

A few years ago, I was doing hotel reservations for a conference. You HAD to confirm your going or not going until two weeks before the date, because the fancyschmancyhotel would NOT hold extra rooms: they are a very popular resort, the conference would take over 1/3 of their rooms, but if it was cancelled, they would have no trouble filling those rooms in a couple days.

So, GuyX does not return any info if he is going or not. I call his secretary twice daily for a week and some, until five days before the conference when he decides he is not going. 'Good', I think, since the resort already rented the unclaimed rooms for regular guests. I confirm with the secretary that it can not be changed anymore later, fax and e-mail her a copy of the material where it says there will be no room for changing his mind later.

Three days later, secretary calls and tells me (very embarrassed) that GuyX decided he will go.

He is a federal court judge. I work for the government. My boss sucks up to to the entitled guys who think laws and regulations do not apply to them. Micro-rant: WTF is wrong with the legal body here? They judge violations of the law, but think the law, any regulations, deadlines, anything that might limit THEM in any way are just suggestions.

I spend long hours that day (overtime, unpaid, hooray) and the next cajoling the travel agents in the area. No, FancySchmancyHotel has no rooms avaiable. None, they are booked solid and the waiting line is 300+ guests long. Beg, plead, pull off hairs, no dice. I even manage to track down the organizers of the conference and beg them for help. The best we can do is to find a five-star resort some 17 kilometers away (not five-star-deluxe like FancySchmancyHotel). Since there are up to a dozen people in the same situation (changing their minds last minute) the organizers of the conference managed to wrangle a deluxe charter bus to ferry the undecided back and forth.

I write it all down, explain the situation to my boss and to his boss, show all the repeated e-mails and faxes of confirmation: GuyX decided to go LONG after the reservation deadline, best thing possible is the secondary hotel and charter bus transportation. I am backed on this by the organizers of the conference, who call and fax the same information: even this arrangement is a courtesy above and beyond anyone's duties, since the Undecided Ones could not be arsed respecting the deadline.

GuyX is informed by this by my boss, and I am there during the call, so I know what was said, the pointing out of deadlines, how many exceptions were made for him speshul snowflake entitled craptastic moron (of course that was my mental dialogue), how we bent over backwards and made several other people bend over backwards, all in professional polite businesspeak.

GuyX returns from the conference wanting MY head on a pike, because -I- "dumped" him on a "shitty" hotel and "forced" him to take a bus back and forth, and that is because I am "racist".

Yes, GuyX is black.

No, I did not knew that at all: never met him, he was for me just a name on a list, but of course... "If things dont go PERFECTLY my way, it MUST be because I am being discriminated against!" Not because he waited until well past the deadline to decide to attend the conference, even being warned repeated times about the hotel policy. No, he was 'mistreated', 'disrespected' and 'abused', because I must be a 'racist shit'. I heard him yelling at my boss' boss, who, being the fantastic guy he is, let the man yell away then went over the profusely documented actions I took. He even brought out my time cards to show I stayed past close securing him a FIVE STAR apartment.

The cherry on top of the shitsundae? GuyX did not pay a single cent for this three-day stay at the conference. He did not pay for plane tickets, nor the room, nor meals, nothing.

GuyX left still huffing and puffing, even after my Boss' Boss told him, in polite words I can't exactly recall, "I am sorry your whiny shpeshul snowflake victim-complex ASS felt hurt, but it is your own damn fault."

And here they are, if anyone wants to ask anything.

Been playing GTA San Andreas lately. And I have a few words to write down. The protagonist, CJ:

- Is a thief;

- Is a robber;

- Is a carjacker;

- Is a murderer;

- Is a smuggler;

- Is promiscuous, having up to six different 'girlfriends', saying to all they are 'the one';

- Is a liar (see above);

Do I need to continue?

So, exposing your kids to all this is okay.

One pixelated sex scene, and the game is bad? Puh-lease... even more since its not 'real' sex, but a rubdown... the guy does not take off his clothes.

So, worried mothers and fathers... be relieved. No pixel babies are going to exist as a consequence of the pixelated sex. Its SAFE sex...