Friday, March 25, 2011

Thursday, March 24, 2011

You Know What I Hate: People Who Stand on Escalators

What is with this? People who live or commute into the city daily have probably witnessed this. The rule has always been stand on the right walk on the left. How this confuses and baffles people is beyond me. It's unwritten, no sign is needed. Are people that stupid? You see everyone else standing on the right side and people walking on the left side. So logically one would assume the right is for lazy idiots who apparently think the escalator was invented so they didn't have to walk up a flight of stairs and the left for those who know its true intention, to get up the stairs faster.

My finding standing on the escalator lazy aside if you must why would you block those in a rush? I notice there's 2 main types of people who do this. The biggest offender is tourists, of course. They stand there with their luggage taking up the whole thing. Putting their bags in front of them would be out of the question.  They also see a need to stand right next to each other so they can talk while riding the escalator. Riding, fucking riding the escalator. Something created as a simple convenience to help expedite the commuting process has now turned into something we RIDE. Only in America would we do such a thing.

Back on topic couples are the worst. They gotta hold hands and make out. Of all the places to do it they have to pick here. Again a place of expedited travel. It'd be like making out during a marathon. Anyways that's tourists but there's still another group. Before I mention this I want to lay out a disclaimer. No I'm not racist I'm making an observation based on experience. Anyone whose spent extensive time in San Fran has ran into someone similar to who I'm about to mention.

The rude African American man. So in my case he had a cane, clearly had to stand and still chose to use the left side for standing, right in front of me, halting all traffic on the escalator. He purposefully pushed in front of me to get there just so he could stand in my way. After we get off he pretended to walk into a girl and then proceeded to grope her while apologizing. Then on my way home another man did something similar. He was walking out of my path when he noticed I was headed for the Bart stairs. He looks at me and then walks right in my way so I have to go around him or stop for him. He smiled while he did it too so it wasn't an accident. I know Caucasian people did horrible things to African Americans in the past but do we really need to harbor the grudge? All the extra hate gets us nowhere. Course around SF you see that crap all the time. The homeless can be especially pushy, and prone to shouting. I really don't need an aggressive guy yelling at me because I don't carry change.

Then there's the teenagers, oh the teenagers. They all come dressed in their retarded rave outfits. Sporting glow sticks and enough E to fry a sperm whale's brain like an egg. They're rude as hell. They litter, they treat clerks and waitresses like crap, and they're annoying. Its like they have no idea how to act in public. They always ride the rail on the escalator. Its not a seat! I always hope one of them falls off and cracks their head on the marble floor below. Malicious I know but they really get on my nerves.

Earlier today when I got off Bart the escalator was closed. I thought “Oh no! What will they do!” The amount of foot traffic was around half what it normally is. Everyone else opted to use the working escalator on the other side of the platform. You usually take this one because the exit you need is closer to here. I guess walking extra distance on level ground is better then walking up a flight of stairs, lazy asses. Then there's stations like Colma with no escalators going up. So everyone has to walk and of course then you get the people who can't handle the stairs. There is an elevator and obviously they should be using it. Seriously they walk up the steps like retarded penguins. Waddling back and fourth and usually hitting me with whatever bag they have. One guy almost tripped me by hitting my back foot with his lunch box.

Man I'm getting off track. Time for some closing statements. Escalators are for walking, not standing. If you must stand to the right and let us people who have things to do get by. If you can't handle the stairs use the damn elevator!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

You Know What I Hate?: Bad Teachers

You know ranting has become one of those things I miss doing. You'd think an act that in my case is typically driven by anger wouldn't be so fun. I don't always have to be mad to rant, just annoyed by something.

Today that something is lazy ass teachers. This is broad because teachers can be lazy in so many ways. Those of my readers who aren't in college yet have no idea. Sure high school teachers can be annoying too but college is even worse. College professors get paid more then high school teachers and the money they're being paid with is yours. Your cash goes into their pocket and their laziness tends to piss you off more then it normally would. College is also it. Your last line of education before you go into the real world and get yourself a job. You want to learn in college so when you're not getting what you need out of a class you paid 2,500 bucks for you tend to get a little sore.

So what are some ways a teacher can annoy you? Well inconsistent directions for one. Who here has had that teacher who assigns something but never accurately explains it? Or the famous “Check the syllabus” answer when they haven't been following it the entire quarter? I want a break down of what I'm being graded on, how it's to be presented, and what expectations are. I don't want vague examples of past students work or to be told “I'll type one later”. When I hear that it says to me “not much thought has gone into creating the assignment” and you obviously pulled it out of your ass. I've had teachers do this. They want to be like a real teacher and assign homework but they put no work into structuring the class so instead they pull this assignment out of thin air. I love the blank expressions on their faces while they try and think of something. That's when I know it wasn't planned and they just made it up on the spot. With this method we have no idea what we're being graded on we just have this vague outline of what to do.

So then we ask questions. “Email me.” Okay so I do and I never get an answer. Some of them like to do this cute thing where they email you the day of class or an hour before. That's just cruel. If you can't properly create an assignment and rubric to go along with it you shouldn't be having us do it. I think all teachers should have to do their own homework before they assign it. Same with books. I can't count the times I've been assigned a shitty book and the teacher later apologized for it. “Derp sorry I should have read it first.”. Gee you think? I mean the book only cost 100 bucks. I got money to waste. Since it sucks so hard you won't be using it again which means the school will no longer be selling it or accepting buy backs. I have so many books I can't do anything with because they're worth peanuts and I refuse to sell a 100 dollar book for 5 bucks no matter how crappy it is.

You know what else gets on my nerves? When they grade papers. I swear sometimes they only read them once. I can't count how many times I've read a comment on one page such as “You should address this.” Only for me to have actually addressed it on the next page. Pay attention you lazy asses. Is it that hard to keep the pen at bay until you finish the paper? I know being a teacher at a art based college is so taxing and all. I mean we only have the easiest general ed available. I love that too. When teachers for general ed classes think they're at a university or something. I had this one teacher for Statistics who gave this speech the first day of class about how seriously he takes the subject matter and he expects us to as well. I'm sorry am I here to be a boring data annalist or a filmmaker? When push comes to shove which class do you think I care more about, this one or something actually pertaining to my major?

That's another thing my school treats us all like a dollar sign. We're a consumer school run and owned by a team of lawyers. So because I'm treated like a customer and not a student I treat them like a corporation and not a school. They don't like that very much. I actually had one teacher try and make me sign a contract that said in so many words “If I don't like this class or aspects about I'm not allowed to complain.” Sorry but if you do a shit job teaching I have every right to complain about it. I left that class pretty quickly. That teacher was obviously nuts. They also wanted us to read one book every week. I forgot I was majoring in English. It was a Science class too which was the funniest part. I'm not going to be a Biologist either. They really need to curb these general ed teachers. They go a little too crazy.

Example, we had this one teacher who accused me and my friend of copying each other. We had to write poems and we used similar rhythm schemes. The hilarious part was it was a scheme they taught us. The part that really annoyed me was they accused us in front of the entire class in a manner I personally found to not only be insulting but unprofessional. When we defended ourselves they rudely told us to shut up and wouldn't let us finish a sentence. So we complained to their boss who defended them tooth and nail and basically told us to deal with it. The boss's reason “Their a published author.” Wow so all I gotta do is get two books published and I can do and say whatever I want? Awesome! The best part is both books are pretty buried and you can't even find them on Amazon, published author my ass. The teacher taught a Creative Writing class. Part of being creative is having imagination. Besides writing poems every assignment we got after that involved writing out something that actually happened to us. I'm sorry but am I missing something here? Fiction is the most creative form of writing and you're flat out banning us from doing it? Retarded is the only word that comes to mind.

What was also retarded is how they treated us during finals. My friend and I got into it with them again. We both wrote stories about our Moms for the final assignment, which was to write a story about a dramatic event you experienced. Apparently our stories were too similar. Except in his he finds his Mom dead and mine had to do with my Mom being a loser drug addict. I see one similarity and that's a stretch. We didn't even have a similar writing style. That teacher clearly just didn't like us. I'm sure their boss, who was quick to lick their toes, told them we complained about them. I'm really waiting for the day I completely lose it and go to the dean of the entire school about some of this crap.

Speaking of I almost did once. I had a class where we were had to shoot a PSA. Our group chose to shoot it at night after class. So during class we picked up a Uhaul and when we got back our teacher scolded us like we were 10 year olds. Again this was in front of our peers and they even went as far as dropping our group leader a whole letter grade. I forgot the part where the teacher was my Mother and micromanaging me was part of their job. The stupid part was their argument for why we shouldn't have done it revolved around them giving us time to work on the project the night before. We only have class once a week. The dumb ass thought we were in their other class. Well even if we were it wouldn't make a difference, they're two separate classes and to be kept that way. Get your facts straight before chewing people out moron.

I hate that too. Chewing out the whole class because a few of us are lazy. I don't need a lecture because someone else did something stupid. Again we're not in elementary school and we're sure as hell not in boot camp. I'm here to learn and as far as I'm concerned we're all peers, teachers included. Until I see some credentials that say otherwise. I've rarely seen any work from any of my teachers. This tells me they're either embarrassed by it or they just don't think it's better then what we produce. The teachers who have shown me work have done amazing stuff and seem truly qualified to be teaching. The rest I question how extensive their knowledge is and the lack of examples proves that point in my book. It's not fair to assume someone is shit just because they can't prove otherwise but some of the things they say are completely wrong. I've proven several teachers wrong more times then I can count. My favorite is when I prove them wrong and then they turn around and take credit for my correction. Shameful really but if they want to be idiots and not fess up to it that's only going to hurt them in the long run. I stopped correcting them in hopes they will say something stupid on a job and it will reflect poorly on them.

I truly am ranting. And it's been going on for 2 pages now. If anyone has read this far I congratulate you. You probably have an entire psych profile worth the material here based on my college experience. This is just my issues with teachers I haven't even started with the school itself. That's for another day though. Thanks for reading.

Friday, March 18, 2011

You Know What I Hate? 1

I need an outlet for all my pent up anger about the crap I deal with on a daily basis. So this is going to be it. I'm going to blog about what I hate and why.

So part one Automated Phone Services and Companies With Poor Customer Service

Everyone hates these right? Well let me tell you a story, one you've probably all heard before. I ordered a product through a company who shall remain unnamed and they messed up my order. I ordered a program for Windows and instead of sending me an order confirmation they send me an email telling me my order was processed. So I don't find out until they send me a shipping receipt that my package is already on it's way and it's the Mac version of the program.

Okay first off maybe I'm old but remember the days when programs came packaged together for both systems? Did the option of two disks labeled Mac and Windows or a check box promoting you to tell the computer which OS you have confuse the user base so much they had to do away with this simple convenience? So now we have this problem where the non-morons order a program, the dealer screws up the order and you end up with something you can't use.

So how does the dealer respond to this error, which is clearly their fault? Before I move on I state it's clearly their fault because even if I didn't triple check before purchasing, which I do now for this exact reason, had they sent me an email confirmation with the product listed in it I would know the error existed before they sent out my package. I know horrible run on sentence but I'm ranting just go with it.

So they tell me this "Refuse the package." What? Refuse the package? I don't know about you all but 90% of the time a package comes I'm not home and they leave it sitting on my doorstep anyways. So that option is out of the question. I tell them that and they get snippy, "Well I guess you can return it." You guess? Wow I was unaware that simple returns were so alien to a company that deals online. You don't want an item refuse the package! Hell why not. I mean that doesn't sound totally shadey, or completely cheap on their part. I wouldn't even know how to go about doing such a thing. "No Mr. UPS guy I will not take your package, I refuse! Send it back." They'd look at me like I'm crazy, and an asshole. Now I have to pay return shipping which is complete BS. On top of that I have to wait until they receive the return package before they send me the right version. So I have around 3 weeks of waiting minimum before I get my program.

If that's not enough I ask them if I need to call again or if they will know to send me the Windows copy. I mean will they make a note in the system, do I have to tell them, are they psychic? Another snippy response "You can call and check in if you feel you need to." Well yeah I need to. Your warehouse can't even tell the difference between the words WINDOWS and MAC let alone me trusting some jerk in the customer service department will properly document my inquiry. That rides on a little too much faith given their current track record with me. I had previously ordered from them before, paid extra for 2 day shipping and they screwed me and took a week to send it anyways. Apparently paying 20 extra bucks to get something sent to you doesn't mean it's time sensitive or important you get it sooner rather then later. Their response that time was I still got it earlier then I would have had I picked normal shipping. Well lucky me. Maybe next time label the option "Slightly faster shipping, maybe." or hell maybe "Gamble, you might get it faster."

Anyways I had to jump through hoops to get a refund on my shipping. You might ask why I use them at all but when you're paying somewhere around $1,100 less then market value for software you deal with crap. And before you ask no it's not black market.

Well that's it for today. I had another incident but that ones apart of something really big. I'll save that for a rainy day, oh wait...

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Accusation

You know I find it interesting when someone has to go out of their way to call me out on my own personal quirks. My best friend and I have an odd bond where we unintentionally look at one another and speak without saying a word. We do it all the time and unless someone points it out we are often unaware of it. I know it sounds weird because how do you forget looking at someone but it's the faces we apparently make while we are doing it.

Anyways the point of this is a teacher decided to talk to us about it. We were sitting in class minding our own business and she asked Daniel what his last name was. He told her and she said she got him checked off on the attendance. So he replied with "Excellent". This apparently set her off and she responded with "I need to see the two of you after class".

Before I go any further I need to describe this person to you. She's one of those weird hippie people who humps trees and likes to sleep on rocks. She listens to music that sounds like it was made by a guy on acid. She also apparently follows every religion ever. She's very strange and has all these weird stories about weird people she's met and spiritual journeys she's gone on. She also told us she gets up at 4:20 every morning...very random time.

So she pulls us aside and says "I'm getting negative vibes from you both. I feel there's disrespect between us." So we asked what it was we were doing. She says "You know what your doing." Actually no I don't and if you can't tell me what it is I'm doing you obviously don't know yourself, idiot. So in the end we squeezed out of her what her issue was.

During both classes we've had with her we watched this horrible movie called Baraka. It's just some music with footage badly edited to it. I fail to see the relevance of it. Anyways there's a part where these guys are doing this Balinese Monkey Chant. It's fucking hilarious. So Daniel and myself start laughing, this is apparently disrespectful. Then at the end of the video there's a guy yelling with no audio and he has this intense look on his face like he's shitting his pants. We also found this to be hilarious, this was also apparently disrespectful. Lastly she engages in this ritual with a Bald Eagle feather. This is where we lost it. She starts running around the room in a circle waving the feather around, it looked like she was trying to fly. Then she gets on her knees in front of every student and starts waving the feather at them with this intense look on her face. Daniel was first so of course he laughed, he was caught off guard. I kept a straight face but I was almost last so I had time to prepare.

So she tells us we have to respect every culture out there and laughing isn't okay. I find this funny because she told us she has the Eagle feather illegally. She took seven of them from some forest she went to and brought them back here. It's not legal to own these but she doesn't care because it's man's law. So it's okay to disrespect man's law but it's not okay to laugh at the Balinese Monkey Chant. That's ass backwards logic. She also can't expect everyone to feel as passionate about this crap as she does.

For reference this is the Balinese Monkey Chant. Pay attention tot he bald old guy he's the one that set us off. Especially towards the end.


And here's the face guy I mentioned. It starts at 1:35. The music was removed because of copyright issues but even without the music it's pretty much the same idea.


As for the looks Daniel and myself tend to just look at each other whenever someone says something retarded and then we laugh. We have some morons in that class. There's one guy who yells everything he says like he turrets or something. He also went off on a tangent about Micheal Jackson in the middle of class.

So yeah that's my rant for today. Don't even get me started on my Creative Writing teacher.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Living Arrangments

No I'm not moving out. I just finished refurnishing my living room. Actually the correct term would be furnishing, there was literally nothing in there before. I went out one weekend and bought two side tables, a coffee table, a futon, a TV stand, a 42 inch LG HDTV, and a bluray player. Then I bought a bunch of poster frames and my roommates and I began filling them with 27X40 movie posters.

So far we have Gran Torino, Dirty Harry, Iron-man, Ninja Turtles 2, Children Of Men, and Rescue Me. On the way are Rodger Rabbit(The girlfriend), Hellboy 2, and lastly Dark Knight. Amazon decided to mangle the first DK poster they sent me so I had to call them up and get a replacement. By the time all is said and done the place will look pretty spiffy. I'll be sure to post pictures.

This is part of what I've been up to. The rest is homework. I also saw some movies. Busy busy busy.

I have a new idea I've been trying to bring to fruition. If anything comes of it I'll be sure to post about it here first.