Pollywogs!

Fairfield Toyota of Muncy PA, I think they’re jerking me around…

As you may or may not know, I hit a deer recently. Except that it isn’t recently anymore, it has been a month and six days.

The long and the short of the quote? The hood, fender, bumper, radiator, AC condenser and some other minor pieces. Very common and easy to replace items, you know, things that are commonly broken when having an accident. Nothing esoteric, nothing wildly complicated or elaborate. Just your basic accident repair estimate. And, apparently, they had to put AN ORDER IN WITH FUCKING TOYOTA OF JAPAN to get the parts, cause the shit STILL ISN’T DONE.

So I call them today, the day they’ve been saying is ‘the day’, the day they estimated the work will be done…and am told once again that they are ‘waiting on (insert some part here) part’, and that I should call early next week. At that point, they’ll have a better idea of when the work will be done.

First time I called, they were ‘waiting on parts’. The next time, ‘waiting on a fan blade’. This time, ‘waiting on some trim parts’.

Let me tell you fucking what: next time I have a problem, I’m going to a different fucking Toyota dealership to have the work done. If I have to drive an hour to get there, and wait two weeks to have the work done, I’ll still be ahead by A MONTH. Hell, it says right on the estimate ‘12 days to repair’. That is a generous allowance for watching paint dry…

I don’t care if they are busy, I don’t care if they have a problem getting this item or that item. A month and a half for a simple bit of body repair and a few minor mechanicals IS FUCKING BULLSHIT, FAIRFIELD TOYOTA. Stock the shit, make sure Toyota stocks the shit, have your crew work two shifts, hire more help…I don’t care what you have to do, this is a pile of shit for a major corporation with dealerships across the globe, factories everywhere, warehouses full of parts, billions of dollars of cash in the bank…

Almost the same style of of shit as quoting 46 hours for 8 hours of work…26 hours on the mechanicals? I had the bumper and AC condenser off the Corolla in all of 30 minutes, and I had never done it before…and they have two hours…An hour to replace the hood? Its like four fucking bolts! And 20 minutes to replace the MAF? What the FUCK are they smoking??? Now, I don’t know a damn thing about painting, but it is a small fucking car…and they have 20 hours down for painting…jesus, its not a fucking Ferrari. Anyway, Toyota OEM paint jobs have more orange peel than a crate of citrus fruit…

The future of the US dollar and, where Dick Cheney invests his money…yes, they don’t give a fuck about us, really. Fuck, Halliburton left the country, so did Dick’s money. Put two and two together and see if you don’t come up with four…

Let’s examine this closer:

VWSTX: you couldn’t find a safer thing to stick $10-25 MILLION in, if you simply wanted to keep it safe through a rough patch and simply HAD to keep some of your money in the United States. If you had such piles of cash, and you were the Vice President of the United States, why else would you sink it into such a staid and tepid performing item? Can’t move 100% of your assets outside the country, that would just look wrong.

VMSXX: if you were looking for something safer than the above tax free municipal bonds, this tax free money market account may be it. Let’s sink $1-5 MILLION into that!

VIPSX: if you were thinking that inflation was going to accelerate (well, if the US dollar isn’t worth what it once was, eh?) you may stick $2-10 MILLION into this fund.

BEGBX: invest in foreign currency and government/corporate debt outside the United States…to the tune of $10-25 MILLION. Excellent, excellent idea if everything in the US does go completely to shit, you’ve still got a cool pile of cash safely outside the country!

The Cheney’s also have some minor stock holdings, nearly entirely outside the country as well. Isn’t that EXACTLY the kind of thing you like to see in the investments of your Vice President? A real sense of security and safety, knowing that the United States economy is going to be A-OK!!!

A map showing how ‘religious’ folks are, county by county, in the United States…

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The United States, gas hog with dirt cheap gas…

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If you give me $20, I’ll suck your cock! Those silly Republicans and their Family Values…knowing that even prostitutes have mouths to feed and swallowing their dismay to lay with those ladies of the night…

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Can’t tell them apart myself, either…

Related: Blind obedience = treason…

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I used to think that a smart man would buy ‘used’ landfills. Looks like this Russian is a smart man…shame about the whole ‘destroyed environment’ thing, really…

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Make sure to click ’show transcript’: this is an excellent article on health, obesitety, fructose and personal energy levels. It may make you think twice about your shopping habits…

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This blogger reminded me of Kell…what with the rabid swearing and whatnot, definately a kindred spirit…

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Looks like it isn’t just George Bush who doesn’t care about black people…

So today I go to call my cell phone and I get a message that ‘At the Immix wireless subscribers request, this phone does not accept incoming calls’…

I don’t remember choosing that…so I decide to call Immix ‘customer service’ to find out what is going on. I call up the number, do my typical ‘jam on the 0 button until I get through to a human’ and it disconnects me. Strike one…

I call back, be a slave to their machine, and end up talking to some guy. We’ll call him Fred. Fred says “What seems to be your problem today?”, or something similar. I explain my message when calling my phone, and ask him ‘what does that mean’. He is treating me like a typical ‘pain in the ass customer’, not volunteering any help. Strike two…

He continues that I haven’t paid my bill, it has been past due since June 11th…

That’s odd, I have it set up to auto-pay from my debit card, tied to my checking account. No problems there, so I inquire to the oh-so-not-quite-polite Fred ‘How is this being paid?’. He acts like I’m speaking French, so I lead him through the options and repeat the question. He says ‘a credit card’. Thanks for the big help there Fred! I lead him through the options and ask if he can confirm the last four digits of the card in question, which he does. I then inform him that I’ve been using this very same card for years to pay my bill, read him the entire card number and expiration date and he suddenly changes his oh-so-not-quite-polite tone…apparently, SOMEHOW, Immix had my expiration date as May instead of June…

…despite successfully charging it for the past 40-odd months.  Strike three, Fred, you’re out…

I ask why I haven’t gotten any notification about being past due and he mumbles something about ’someone calling the phone’ to let me know. Odd, I don’t remember someone calling and saying I’m past due. I explain to him that I rarely use the phone and I don’t have service in my house, and it would be much better for me to receive notification on my land line, since apparently they can just fuck you over with no recourse if you leave it assigned to notify your cell…at least they refunded me the late fee…they are so generous…

So, the guy is a rude dick to me, I’m forced to walk him through the possibility and get to the problem in the situation, and it all turns out to be what seems an impossible mistake, that something that should honestly never change got changed. Who was in there messing around? Why would they change the expiration date of the card? Is it a computer glitch? If so, that is quite scary in itself…needless to say if someone was just randomly tampering with that sensitive financial data…

Thanks Immix, glad to help you with my problem! If I can help you help me in the future, I’m sure I’ll have to call to find out what is going on!

I just finished watching a movie called “A Crude Awakening“. It really, deeply hit home just how different the future 10, 20 years from now is going to be.

The staggering quantity of practically free energy we are now consuming, and the breakneck pace at which we are hurtling towards this energy cliff…it is terrifying that we are fully aware of what is happening and yet doing so very fucking little to change things.

I guess the main problem is that the major energy companies are scared shitless that it is inevitable that they are going to lose central control over energy (a resource that is very locally available to nearly any location thanks to the sun) and they have decided as a corporate policy to ride OUR CIVILIZATION AND PLANET INTO THE GROUND rather than allow the government to begin implementing policies of conservation and massive, tremendous retooling of our economy to meet the challenge which is before us.

What do they care? They’ll all be dead in 20 years…they can’t take this money and affluence with them, no point in conserving or even worrying about the future…

Talk about Driving Anarchy…the shit hasn’t begun to hit the fan…what kind of people are Americans going to be? Are we going to stand up and use responsible technology to guide the rest of the world through this perilous span of time, or are we going to devolve into a barbaric, warlike people intent on monopolizing through brute fucking force the few remaining ‘easy’ energy stores as long as possible while subjugating the rest of the world to what amounts to rape: poverty and slavery to feed our pampered lifestyle?