Instant douchebag, just add water

This is not a post of zerotorockstar-ish proportions. I'm deviating from that and giving you a peek into our typical misadventures.

Something's been bugging the shit out of me.
This is me getting up on my soap box and bitchin'.
Regarding what, say you?

Car lots and the people who work there.

Now I'm probably offending someone by writing this but it's my freakin' blog and everyone knows if ya gats sumthin' to complain about, ya go on the innah-nets and unleash the rage baby! That's the way of the future...

So, we're out shopping for a second car, looking at pre-owned at this point. Almost everyone is asking way too much for a car that's a couple of years old (or older), and everyone we've seen so far is asking for an insane amount of down payment upfront. Uh, hell no. I'm not gonna exhaust what we have saved up just so you can get your grubby little hands on it. The Blue Book resale value of it is $3000-$4000 less than what you're asking. Oh, and by the way, at least make an effort to have it in show room condition.

Oh, and the characters we have to deal with - some possess the personality of a twig and some are trying waaay too hard. I understand that they're just trying to make a living and are basically being told what to do and how to do it by Big Brother.

Yeah, I get all that.

But you want how much for that car!?

Does it come with a chauffeur or something? Am I paying for his/her salary?

And they're doing this with a straight face.


That's just one aspect of it. Of course there's also car insurance.
We found out that it's cheaper to have full coverage on a luxury convertible car than it is to fully cover a vanilla plain sedan. In some cases the amount per month is almost a car payment in itself.
This is the same insurance company that wouldn't pay for my visit to the optometrist because my glasses broke on impact when I had my car wreck last year.


This is beyond ridiculous. It's borderline absurd.

I think I've just about had it with companies that want premium payment for so-called premium service but can't keep up their end of the bargain.

Kinda like my internet service provider - for the last week and a half my connection has spanned from crap to nil. And all they can tell me is it's down because they're working on something in the neighborhood. And that the work order's been put in so it's just a matter of time until they can come to my house and service it.

Can you get any more vaguer than that?
"Just a matter of time" can mean in between today and the end of days.

So we are in the process of firing them and have arranged for some other (hopefully better) provider to take its place. Scheduled for Wednesday (crosses fingers).

J's small business relies heavily upon internet access. And truth be told so does my ventures. So this is costing us.

Oh yeah, one more thing. We don't have a land line. We have Skype and our mobile phones. We primarily rely on Skype to save us money on our airtime. So of course for the last week and a half that's been down the toilet.