I'M STILL ANNOYED

[Thermofusion]

Megabus was over an hour late to arrive at the departure location.  Let the record show that this is the third time I've taken it, which means Megabus now has a Peronal Hassle Rate of 33 percent -- far higher than the oft-vilified Chinatown buses (which, despite the OMG CRAZY ORIENTAL DRIVARS sensationalist news stories that surround Fung Wah and New Century and such, have almost always been an easy time for me, transporting me from point A to point B without any problems). 

Google please index this for "should i take megabus or the chinatown bus", thank you.

The time I opted for the Chinatown bus I wasn't bothered so much by the OMG CRAZY ORIENTAL DRIVARS part as I was by the fact that it broke down in Connecticut.

[girl]

Speaking of transportation, pollo, are you coming to Beerfest?

[Greg Nog]

And now there is no wireless available in the Megabus, which is pretty much the main reason I opted for it.

Boooooooo

[das kranke Tier]

I'm annoyed with how fucking bored I am...and it's too hot to even move, let alone venture out...

[DCDave]

Had a housewarming party in my new place last night.  It's in a co-op.  I have passive-aggressive neighbors and spent a dozen minutes or so picking up the cigarette butts in the front at a "suggestion" from one of them.  I'da gotten around to it anyway.

Edit: (On the plus side, no noise complaints!)

[davy]

Oh man, our 3 or 4 month stay at a co-op in Colorado was filled with strange incidents. We were planning on staying for much longer, but shit just got too weird.

[jess]

Speaking of transportation, pollo, are you coming to Beerfest?

Yes, are you? Do you want crash space?

[Greg Nog]

So there's this newish mostly-vegan restaurant/café that apparently opened up right near me, and they brought a bunch of menus around to my apartment building.  I'm always up for trying out new food in the area, so I grabbed a menu, and just started looking through it.  It is one of the most obnoxious things I've ever seen, and I hate it.

The whole thing has this DIY-ish aesthetic going on, where all the text is hand-written in cursive, and the menus are photocopied.  But the tiny cursive text is really hard to scan quickly, and the margins are riddled with tiny messages and stuff, so the whole thing has the aura of some coked-up girl yelling at you in a crowded bar -- you can understand what she's saying, but you have to really concentrate, and halfway through whatever she's going on about, you think "Fuck it, it can't possibly be interesting enough to justify this malarkey," and you start planning to gracefully walk away as soon as she refocuses her energy on one of your friends.  The designer of the menu, it helpfully informs me, is "Megan", who is presumably Megan Blackburn, according to their website.  Megan Blackburn has failed at designing a user-friendly menu.

Apparently, the place was opened by some people who used to work at a bike shop, too, so the whole menu (and café) seems to be "bike-themed".  Which means that there are pictures of wheels and stuff all over it, and they proclaim that they deliver their food on bicycles (which is to say: like every other restaurant, messenger-service, and drug dealer in NYC that delivers to one's doorstep).  The "bike theme" kind of adds to the coked-up-girl-yelling feel:  She's really EXCITED?  About this CAFE she's OPENING?  And she fucking loves BIKES?  And everything's VEGAN?  And her FRIENDS tell her she makes really good SANDWICHES?

Also, the website address they have on the menu is wrong, which meant that to find their website, I had to google it rather than going to the address they provided.  And looking at the map, I now see that our apartment is outside their delivery zone.  Why did they even leave menus here, then?  What the fucking fuck.  I hope this place goes under.

[Andrew_TSKS]

OK, I'm not gonna tell you which one, but I purchased an account a few months ago at a non-free personals site. I don't know why the hell I did this, and I sure do regret doing it, not only because I haven't found anyone remotely worth talking to, but more importantly because now, trying to cancel my membership, I'm finding it literally impossible. All I really have the option to do is downgrade to a non-paying account (which is basically useless, but whatever, at least it doesn't cost me money), but every time I try to do that, I click the button at the bottom of the form I have to fill out explaining why I'm doing it, and it takes me to a broken link. Then I get a support request acknowledgement in my email, which recognizes that I'm unhappy with my service but not that I'm trying to downgrade my account. I've tried four times, gotten four emails, and not been able to downgrade my account any of the times. And the real problem here is that I'm set to renew automatically, which means it keeps charging my credit card every month until hell freezes over. Now, I do have the option of paying $25 for a year's membership that doesn't renew automatically (and for all I know, that part of their website might be broken too... somehow I doubt it), but paying 25 bucks now just to avoid getting automatically billed 10 bucks a month for the rest of my life doesn't seem worth it either. But I can't find a phone number to call and harass these people at either...

I'm just fucking frustrated and pissed. And I'm not sure what the hell to do.

[elpollodiablo]

Call the bank/card issuer and tell them you're being charged fraudulently.

[donblood]

Greg that's a big ball of idiocy but I like the promise to deliver on bikes.  OUR BIKE GUARANTEE!  It's kind of like saying OUR SANDWICHES ARE CUT WITH 100% METAL KNIVES OR YOUR MONEY BACK!

[Andrew_TSKS]

Call the bank/card issuer and tell them you're being charged fraudulently.

Oh word? Will look into this.

[dumbfish]

Yeah, that's definitely the move.

[Bernard]

"it was propelled by pegs instead of peddles"

H8

[diesel_powered]

I totally just dumped the most perfect plate of hash and eggs on to my shitty, lint and cat hair-covered carpet because I didn't push my fucking laptop far enough out of the way on my shitty coffee table. I fucking hate everything.

[girl]

That's more annoying than my annoying thing, so I'll just find somewhere else to post it.

[Aglaya]

My allergies overpowered Claritin, so I thought I'd try Zyrtec, which is worse.  I can't take Claritin-D unless I want to have a seizure.  Do doctors give you prescriptions for allergy meds without having to do the allergy tests which I've heard are so horrible?

[diesel_powered]

Yes, although allergy tests aren't nearly as horrible as you think. You're itchy for 4-6 hours after, but the allergy medicine usually takes care of that.

[clare]

And the bloke talks about a series of 'desensitisation shots' he had to get over his allergies (so no need for meds now) so that is an option too. I don't know what they were though - I mean I know his allergies, but not what the shots were, or the full story. Could get it, but prob'ly best to talk to your Dr or allergy specialist.

[Aglaya]

I didn't even have noticeable allergies until a couple years ago.  Started taking Claritin then, but recently I tried taking two of them a day and was still having problems.  It just fucking sucks having a runny nose every day of your life.

[diesel_powered]

I could be wrong, but I think the shots are just whatever allergen to which you're allergic. Sort of like the best way to get over cat allergies is to get a cat. Those were discussed when I was young, but the problem was that I was allergic to more things than it would have been worthwhile to get shots for.

For those, I do know you need an allergy test. But really, it's like 4-6 hours of mild discomfort to know exactly which things you're allergic to and therefore exactly how to treat them.

[jebreject]

I fell asleep at six pm and woke up at one and now I cannot get back to sleep 'cause, well, I've already slept more than I usually do in a night.

[alex]

Damn. When I left for Vienna last week, I got an under-26 return ticket, like you do. It didn't even occur to me when I did so that I would be turning 26 before making that return trip (though, let's face it, if it had, I would have gotten it anyway: I get IDed to make sure I'm not too young for something every now and then still, whereas I've never ever gotten IDed to make sure I wasn't too old for something; besides, this was the type of offense I was sure a Belgian ticket controller would punish by wagging his finger and saying "don't do this again"). So today on the trip back, I showed my ticket without any awareness that it might not be valid, nor did I even think much (except "huh, why?") when he asked to see my ID. Only as he was in the middle of some apparently very complicated mental calculations did I remember that I had indeed turned too old for my ticket a few days ago. And then he made me pay the full price of my journey (plus a few Euro extra for not having a valid ticket), which is about three times as much as the actual difference of the ticket I did buy and a regular journey. Fuckers.

[Greg Nog]

26 is an age-boundary that affects things?

[jess]

Sort of like the best way to get over cat allergies is to get a cat.

As someone who is allergic to cats and has a cat, let me just say that while you are correct re: allergy shots, having a cat so does not help at all, I think because the amount of exposure is too great--allergy shots give you teeny tiny bits at a time and gradually move up, so your immune system doesn't really notice and freak out, and getting your immune system to tolerate the allergen like that is the point. It's also how a guy has been able to get kids with severe peanut allergies to tolerate up to a whole peanut, which puts them mostly out of risk of accidental exposure. An actual cat is way too much allergen for that it seems, at least for me, sort of the equivalent of trying to use pb sandwiches to expose peanut allergy kids. I get by though with a combo of Zyrtec (which is the only allergy med I know of that typically does much for pet allergies), air filters, not touching the cat and touching my face, and not letting the cat into my bedroom, though I've been considering looking into allergy shots after a friend who has had them for cat allergies highly recommended them, since I still get a bit itchy from her sometimes.