I made the payment this morning via PayPal, and I’ve been working on the material.

It’s a bit dry, but I haven’t much time to work with. I have to get this done, and get insured as quickly as possible.

I WILL do this.

Sorry I’ve had to neglect the PayPerPost forums, but this comes first, the ability to pay my bills and support myself, as well as my family.
I have to get this done.

No.

I WILL GET THIS DONE.

I’m sick of being afraid.
I’m sick of being sick.
I have a goal.

I want to win, and I want to move forward with my life.
I want to shrug off all my debts, and be able to show myself, and show my late parents that I can be gainfully employed.

They’re watching me now, on this giant stage we call Life, and it’s time for me to show my power in this, the next act of my life.

That’s okay, though. I couldn’t afford to buy anyone anything in return, so I don’t feel obligated.

Though, it’s a tad annoying that the family always calls on me to do this and that and this and that for them without at least bothering to offer me so much as gas money when I have to run off and do things for ‘em. Ah, well.

Hope your Christmas was more restful than mine, at the very least.
Take care.

If I ever get a really good camera, maybe I’ll start a photoblog. Photos are always good.

I just feel that pictures can convey a message better than just words. It’s like when you go shopping, you look at the price tags (a picture), instead of just asking “How much is that?”

Ah, well, speaking of price tags… Off to work.

I’m looking under the Christmas tree at all the gifts there, and none of those boxes and awkward packages belong to me.
Even the dog has more presents under the tree than I do.

I’ve looked through everything I brought with me from moving to this house, and noticed that my old digital camera (1.3 megapixel, generic camera, and required a USB cable to move pictures back and forth) isn’t among the stuff that came with me. I was getting into digital photography, learning as I go along about what makes a good shot or not.

That’s a shot I took with my old camera.
I can only imagine how much better it’d have been with a new camera, especially one of those nice HP cameras with an LCD display on the back instead of trying to get the offset to line up on a classic piece of glass viewfinder.
We’re selling an HP camera at work (I forget the model), but it’s just not in the budget for me to get, sadly. It even supports SD cards, which makes it even better for extended shooting sessions, AND for short movie making, too.

The camera in my phone is only VGA quality, which means it’s not even a single megapixel for resolution. The shots this camera takes aren’t that good, with, or without decent lighting.

I won’t be able to have one of them by Christmas of this year, but that’s okay.
I just like being remembered for gifts and stuff, is all.
Please, PayPerPost, Please pimp my Christmas Tree!

This post is sponsored by HP.

Happy Crimbo.

Festive Wishes to all, from Xial / Justin.
No matter your holiday, your beliefs, or your customs, enjoy the season, and enjoy your family.

Take care of yourselves.

From yesterday:

Sixty-nine minutes (Yes, an hour, nine minutes) on hold with Verizon.

My neck was getting tired, so I put the phone down, unmuted my microphone, and placed it on the earpiece, so I can rest for a minute.

Attention, Businesses: It’s sad when you make your customers do this.
It’s even sadder still when you make them sit and outwait the hold music, and hope their phone’s battery does not die. If you know it’s going to take this long, here’s an idea:
Dedicate two queues to the cause:
Queue 1 takes callers already on hold.
Allow callers who have waited at least a half hour to leave their phone number, and a brief message as to what they want.
Queue 2 goes through, and calls people out of that particular queue, so as to, uhm…
Let users who are waiting go use the restroom, cook dinner, eat, shower, something?

Either way… this sucks.

UPDATE: The timer on the phone got up to 88:31, while I called again on my Sprint phone (I wub yuu, Sprint) to see what the hell was going on.
The first number said it was closed, call back tomorrow.

So I called the Repair office, and began ranting.
The guy was apologizing off the bat, when I told him just how long I’ve been on hold.

ProTip: If you are running an automated system, and your office runs the risk of closing with people on hold, try injecting messages in every five minutes, about 30 minutes before you close, and don’t let new people enter the queue after you close. It just serves to piss people off. TAKE CARE OF THE PEOPLE ALREADY IN THE QUEUE.
Do not just leave them there and go home!

Jesus.

CAMEL CHOKER

Camel Cigarettes sent me a blindfold in the mail yesterday, with some specific instructions.

I decided to not follow them, and instead show you the truth.

Puff-puff, pass.

For the record, yes, that is a Camel Turkish Silver cigarette.
Yes, I do smoke on occasion, but usually when I’m drinking as well.

(p.s.: I would love a Flickr Pro account.)

I’m still looking for another job, but right now? Sheesh, I feel better, because I’m just going to move forward, shedding all my bad weight.

I love the [tag]customers[/tag] I work with at [tag]Albertson’s[/tag], sometimes. I have some really good, really nice people who come in nearly every day, and keep me from regretting my job so much. The work isn’t altogether too difficult, though, the pay rate for what is expected of us is less than desired even with the removal of 30 minute photo.

I just hate the people who come in there to grind their bloody hateboners about people like me (you know, the lower working class — the people, that if we all quit simultaneously, and no one was hired to fill our spots for months at a time… the country would collapse, because no one would know how to get food?), looking down their noses while they have their stupid RAZRs and Treos glued to their head, wondering why we keep talking to them while they’re on their phones.
I hate the people who come in with those obviously fake coupons for “free _________”, and then get absolutely irritated when we politely say, “We’re sorry, but it is company policy that we do not accept Internet coupons for free product. We cannot honor your coupon.”
I hate the people who come in to the store to return two or four $9 bottles of Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and don’t have a receipt, because we won’t refund them on that if we don’t see it in the computer. We have to make them wait, while a manager goes upstairs and reviews the receipt log for the time of day the person claims to have bought them, and if it is in the computer, well, they get a gift card, because the return’s over $5 without a receipt.
I hate the people who cannot read a neatly printed sign that reads,
“This window is CLOSED. Customer Service Center Hours: 9 AM to 9 PM” — they’re usually one of the following two fools:

1. The window they’re standing at is closed. That cashier has gone to lunch, and I’m on the other register, visibly helping customers who are in line there. They get mad because I won’t break them into the line that is obviously flowing on the other end of the counter. I get stuff like, “I JUST WANT A LOTTO TICKET!” out of them. “Sure, just a moment, I have nine customers who are IN LINE, ahead of you. Let me finish with them, and I’ll be glad to help.” is what they get.
2. It’s either some time before nine in the morning, or some time after nine at night. Asking me to check your lottery tickets, check in your movies, find out if I have a movie to rent, ring up items, process MoneyGram, sell you scratch-off tickets (which are obviously NOT IN THE CASE)… it’s not going to happen. I’ll be more than happy to hand you a pack of smokes, so you can go to A CASHIER and have them rung up, but nothing else happens.

I love the customers who ask me how I’m doing, or want to stick around for ten minutes or so and shoot the breeze with me over random stuff while I’m working. You’re the guys that make my day, because, y’know, work is the only human to human (h2h) interaction I get on a day to day basis. I’m usually home when the family is either gone, or asleep, so yeah, I lack good h2h on an average day.

You’re the guys I’m going to miss, unless I happen to run into you all where I go.

Take care of yourselves, and don’t beat up the rest of ‘em too bad.
Y’all are right: I have too much talent to be wasting it in a grocery store for the rest of my life.

[tags]hateboner, grocery store, annoyances, cellular phones, cellphones, h2h, customer ignorance, touch of kindness[/tags]

I’m liking this site, so far.

Each day, they offer one piece of software for free. It must be installed by midnight, PST, of the same day it is promoted, or you cannot activate the free registration. It can get you some interesting applications, too. Yesterday’s application is a program that essentially expands your copy/paste buffer, as well as offers you the ability to paste frequently used snippets of text that you can configure into the utility.

They also have a sister site, called Game Giveaway of the Day.
Today’s game happened to be Mahjongg Artifacts, which I’ve been playing this evening.
I’m happy to have a simple, enjoyable game of mahjongg to play.

Check out Giveaway of the Day, or just view my sidebar to see what’s going on.

[tags]free software, software giveaway, legal software, legit software[/tags]

I had a commenter who asked a question about an [tag]insurance company[/tag] that has relations to the one I was going for.
I replied to the comment, and even sent an email to the person, to make sure they got my comment.

Today, I get a comment again from “Alex”, who basically reposted the link, and showed that they are, in fact, a spammer; One that actually is human, rather than another Tramadol-bot.
Kudos to you for getting by me, but guess what: I just ate your links.

I’ll be glad to let your links live with some actual weight, for a price. I’m not employed by your sister company yet, so advertising rates still do apply. There’s also a penalty rate for being a spammer of $10 per spammed link.
Your total cost is $40.
PayPal button’s on the About Me page; Yes, I accept credit cards, as long as they’re not stolen.

—–
Or not. I forget that humans make mistakes in this digital world. Alex is not a spammer; Alex came back and noticed that the same link was posted twice, and gave me a corrected link to an article that’s actually a rather interesting look at just how people think of Life Insurance.

Much of that article is the truth, and I know it from personal experience.
My mother had life insurance policies on all of us, because she wanted to make sure we all had good burials when we died. She didn’t want us buried in a flimsy wood box, but rather, in a decent casket, in a decent graveyard.

Thus, my apologies to Alex; Ye be not a spammer. Just human.