Jul
26
2010
Here’s a hot top for anyone who owns or manages a business: If you send a bill to a customer and it gets bounced back, try callling the phone number listed on the account!
I just found out today I’d been sent to collections for failing to pay a dental bill. For a visit in 2004. Jessie tried to make an appointment for herself and was told we’d have to settle our account first. Then, they proceeded to give her the wrong number for the collection agency to call. So, I called and asked about the account. They asked for my phone number, and I gave it to them, then they confirmed my name and some other details and informed me the account had been sent to collections in 2005.
Really?
I told them their collection agency sucks, because I haven’t heard a thing from them in 6 years. There have been no attempts to reach me, and no contact from their office to settle the bill. They told me I’d have to settle up with the collection agency, and gave me the correct number to call and do so. The total bill was under $100.
I went to them because my insurance supposedly covered the visit, and had provided them with my insurance information. How about you use the phone number on my account to contact me and get a correct billing address if it wasn’t sent to the right one? How about you do a simple online search to see if you can find a Brian Gillespie at an address that is close to the one I gave you? I did it and found it in about five minutes. How about you use those HIPAA laws that are playing hell with the medical industry and obtain billing information from the insurance company? For that matter how about you BILL MY INSURANCE?!
Needless to say I won’t be patronizing Willamette Dental again. Which is disappointing, because I rather liked their staff. However, I won’t deal with a company who sends you to collections at the drop of a hat.
Jun
23
2010
And now we know why.
Jun
21
2010
We try really hard to only repost videos, comics and other things for which we have our own commentary; it’s just cheating otherwise. However, today I ran across this years-old LiveJournal post that made me laugh until I could barely breathe. Some of my friends couldn’t reach the link from work, so I’m reposting it here for you all to see in its hilariously doggy glory. Mea culpa, littera_abactor, but I can’t help but share your awesomeness. The original story and its hilarious author are here.
I HAS A SWEET POTATO
You know, a lot of times I write up random posts and then don’t post them. But Best Beloved just called me, and I could not really explain why I was inarticulate about sweet potatoes, so I said I’d go ahead and post this. That way, she can read it at work and know just what kind of day it has been. (Short version, for those who do not feel like reading the whole post: ARRRRRRG. Fucking sweet potatoes.)The longer version, summarized in conversation form:
Dog: I am starving.
Me: Actually, no. You aren’t starving. You get two very good meals a day. And treats. And Best Beloved fed you extra food while I was gone.
Dog: STARVING.
Me: I saw you get fed not four hours ago! You are not starving.
Dog: Pity me, a sad and tragic creature, for I can barely walk, I am so starving. WOE.
Me: I am now ignoring you.
Dog: STARVING.
Dog: Did you hear me? I am starving.
Dog: Are you seriously ignoring me? Fine.[There is a pause, during which the dog exits the room in a pointed manner.]
[From the kitchen, there comes a noise like someone is eating a baseball bat.]
Me, yelling: What the hell are you doing?
Me: *makes haste for the kitchen and finds dog there*
Dog: *picks up entire raw sweet potato, which is what was causing the baseball bat noise, and flees for the bedroom*
Me: *chases dog, retrieves most of sweet potato, less the portion which has disappeared into dog’s gullet*
Dog: See? STARVING.
Me: …That can’t be good for you. It’s a RAW SWEET POTATO.
Dog: I had to do it. I haven’t been fed. Ever.
Me: You realize you aren’t normal. Normal dogs don’t steal raw sweet potatoes.
Dog, sadly: I was badly brought up.
Me: Yes. Yes, you were.
Dog: By people who starved me.
Me: Oh, no. I am not doing this again.
Me: *exits the room, bearing sweet potato*[There is a pause.]
[There is a noise like someone is trying to eat a baseball bat very very quietly.]
Me: Oh, for the love of GOD.
Me: *heads off to the kitchen*
Dog: I am not eating a raw sweet potato.
Me: You have sweet potato parts all over your snout.
Dog: But you don’t actually SEE a raw sweet potato, do you? So maybe that’s just – um. A birthmark.
Me: Did you seriously eat a whole sweet potato?
Dog: You don’t listen. I told you, I wasn’t eating a sweet potato.
Me, searching around fruitlessly: Look. NO MORE SWEET POTATOES.
Me: Oh, what am I saying? This is you we’re talking about, here. *goes to hide all the sweet potatoes that are left – which isn’t many – in the fridge, because some people cannot be trusted*
Dog: *attempts to look thwarted*
Dog: *does not succeed, because her tail is wagging so hard small cyclones are forming in the kitchen*
Me: *has a very bad feeling about this*[There is a pause, during which I do not even bother trying to return to what I was doing. I just stand in the computer room, waiting.]
[There is, as I wholly expected, a baseball-bat-eating noise.]
Me, stomping back to the kitchen: OKAY. GIVE ME THE DAMNED SWEET POTATO.
Dog, looking up guiltily: What sweet potato?
Me: THE ONE IN YOUR MOUTH.
Dog: Oh, did you want this? I just, um. Found it. Lying here.
Me: *confiscates the sweet potato and deposits it in the locking trashcan*
Me: Let us say no more about this.
Dog: …Nooooo! They be stealin’ my sweet potato![I attempt to remember what I was doing before the sweet potato episode.]
[Some ten minutes later, I succeed, and return to it.]
[NOT ONE MINUTE LATER, I hear a noise with which I have become all too familiar.]
Me, bonking head on desk: Arg.
Me, arriving in kitchen: How did you even get another sweet potato?
Dog, smugly: I have my ways.
Me: Are you punishing me for being away for several days? I was at a FUNERAL, you know. It wasn’t FUN.
Dog: How would I know? You didn’t take me. You left me here with only one human to look after my needs. One human is NOT ENOUGH.
Me: *shuts dog in bedroom, conducts a sweep of the kitchen to track down all remaining sweet potatoes, wipes up random sweet potato particles from floor, eradicates all traces of sweet potato from house*
Me: *lets dog out*
Dog, sulkily: Oh, so you think you’ve won.[I watch her go about her business with the same sense of overwhelming doom that heroines of Victorian novels get when they meet Count Sinistrus Grimblack for the first time.]
[Half an hour later, there is a wetter, juicier eating noise, as though someone was eating a very moist baseball bat.]
Me, wearily: What NOW?
Dog, hunched over the remains of a butternut squash: *says something garbled because her mouth is full*
Me: Okay. Fine.
Me: *stomps over, empties entire vegetable bowl into trash*
Me: WE JUST WON’T HAVE ANY ROOT VEGETABLES ANYMORE. THERE. ARE YOU HAPPY?
Dog: I’m not even remotely sorry. I told you I was hungry. And you went to a funeral without me.
Me: ARRRRRRRRG.[A half-hour later, there is another baseball-bat-eating noise from the kitchen. The dog, who apparently does not know how to win gracefully, has found another sweet potato, or possibly caused one to materialize from the Rift.]
Me, hauling chewed sweet potato parts from the mouth of a dog very reluctant to part with them: Oh my god how is this my life?
Dog: Don’t you think it would just be easier to feed me?
Me: EVERYONE GO TO THE BEDROOM AND STAY THERE. EAT NOTHING.
Dog: Actually, I feel…um…not so good.
Dog: *throws up* *vomit is very bright orange*[Unfortunate details ensue.]
Some time later:
Me, attempting to rescue something from the wreckage: So. What have we learned from this?
Dog: Sweet potatoes are yummy!
Other Dog, looking thoughtful: I should pay more attention to crunching noises. Sweet potatoes are probably yummy.
Me: I need a lobotomy.And that, Best Beloved – and anyone else who made it through that – is What Kind of Day It Has Been.
FUCKING SWEET POTATOES. ARG.
Do you need to relearn how to breathe without laughing? I certainly do now.
May
28
2010
I had to work SO HARD not to laugh at this commercial while I’m trying to keep the noise down out in my friends’ living room. I will never look at Scrubbing Bubbles the same way again. ^_^
May
27
2010
They’re complicating my vision of being a cyborg! Waaaah. But I guess it’s good to think about in advance. And it’s amusing to think about a hospital ward specifically for computer viruses.
Brian Tweeted:- Grr...when I get up in the morning I'd like to be able to actually use my computer, not watch it run diagnostics because I shut it off wrong
- In other news: I need to keep fingernail clippers in my desk at work. That is all.
- Woke up early, and I can't think of anything I NEED to get done today. Is it possible I can go to Church and the Aquasox game and relax? 0_0