I was scrolling twitter, and ran across
Blog shames TTC riders who take up extra seats
so I scrolled on over to this blog and while I agree with the centament, and the frustration, I don’t agree with some of the language being utalized. But since I can’t figure out the submission form, I’m just gonna post my thoughts here. Your comments in the comments section would rock. I’m blockquoting it because it was originally for that blog, but I couldn’t figure it out.

To those that crowd the front of the bus/streetcar when there’s clearly an entire back of said vehicle available. Kindly do us all a solid and move back and park your rear in an available seat, or hey you can even stand back their to! miracles! Oh, I’m sorry, that would be common curtisy. and some ttc riders are so all and mighty they’d rather not actually be curtius. DO not get me started on huge strolers, treatment of bus/streetcar drivers, etc. because I’d be here all day. Related: To you that think that not giving up a seat to a disabled rider is a good idea. how about you lose the use of your legs for a day and ride the TTC, then we’ll talk, k? thought so. In closing, learn you some common curtisy, you require one seat, put bag in your lap, or *gasp* under the seat, wear your children,leave the huge strollers at home, and use a smaller one. like duh, move to the back of the bus if it’s not crowded, or to prevent overcrowding, and if a disabled rider gets on, for the love of all that’s squeaky get your sighted non disabled bum out of the seat.

That’s all I have to say.
Comment away!

Please note, this is in no way against just eat, absolutely and utterly not, they’ve been the rock in this whole fiasco and there just as in sensed as we are.

Over the past nearly 2 years I’ve taken a distinct pleasure in being lazy, and just forget cooking on certain nights, and hitting up
just eat
hammering in the postal code for wherever I happen to be, sorry Americans no go for you, picking a restaurant, ordering what I want, paying via credit card or interac online, and in about 45 minutes, voila, food.
Fast forward to tonight.
We’ve got a couple of kids, and 4 adults to feed, so who wants to cook for 5 people on a Saturday, if your answer was absolutely not us? You’d be correct! Tell them what they’ve won, Johnny!
OK, never mind that.
So we hit up just eat, banter around some ideas, finally make a choice, punch in the order, have a small argument with interac online because it liked to throw 500 errors, won the battle, tells us the order’s gonna be there at 20 to eight.
Ok, whatever. sit, spin, who cares.
order delivery time comes and goes. OK, maybe someone got lost. Ring up just eat. They call the restaurant, driver got lost, here, have $10 off your order we’ll be there in 5 minutes.
Five minutes comes and goes, so does ten. so does fifteen. we head for I think it had to be half an hour. Hey, look who’s here, the delivery driver!
I answer the door; this guy barely says two words to us. he hands me the drinks, I hand it to
this person over here
and turn around, and the guy’s already shoving the pizza at me. Instead of handing them to me one at a time, first the medium, then the extra-large, he shoves the extra-large at me, with the medium on top about to fall off.
OK, get them out of the way.
Then the driver wants me to sign the debit receipt. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, sign the debit receipt.
OK, I didn’t know what it was at first, so I ask him what it was I was signing, he never tells me.
I sign it, because at this point, I’m internally like, I want you out of the doorway and off this property.
please note I only find out that it’s the debit receipt I signed during subsequent conversations with just eat.
My first reaction is to call the restaurant and outright beat them over the head with their rude behavior. But take 30 seconds and breathe, then decide, let’s do this the right way, contact just eat.
SO I hit up there live chat system, explain the entire situation, please note I got the same rep I got on the phone, so he goes and rings up the restaurant to find out what in the name of all things squeaky and fuzzy’s going on.
They can’t tell him anything because they want to talk to the driver.
Ok, whatever, I know how this is gonna go down because I’ve been here before when I dealt with delivery places before directly, and I tell the just eat chat rep this straight up. You know they’re gonna deny it, the customers blind, so they’re gonna deny deny deny deny anything was wrong. Also during this chat, I said that I felt $10 off the order wasn’t enough for the now larger issue and that a complete refund was in order.
He says can I call you in 45 minutes. I need to talk to the restaurant about this, etc. Sure, I’ll go eat, you call me.
While you’re eating, I’m gonna put this complaint to my supervisor and account manager that is the head of our company.
Fast forward about an hour, 20 to ten or so.
He rings up, and of course I’m write, again. Restaurant says there wasn’t anything wrong, they weren’t going to issue a refund, he was polite, yada yada, I call complete bull. sorry, 4 adults say you’re in the wrong, now, let’s go.
Ok, I was more polite then that, but believe me, even just eat knows there getting tossed around.
so after that call, I end up finding the e-mail from the rep. Names of employees are removed for privacy reasons.

This restaurant delivered this order almost an hour past the delivery time, the owner said it would be there within about 5 minutes when it was 30 minutes past the delivery time. The customer came into chat about 20-30 minutes afterwards and the order had still not been delivered. The owner told me again it would be there within a few minutes and offered 10 dollars off. The order was for small children and the main customer who the account is under is blind. The delivery driver came with the delivery about an hour past the delivery time and was rude to the customer, asking him to sign the receipt for a debit order which I assume confused the customer and shoving the food into his hands before he could pass it to other people helping carry the food. There were multiple other people there as well including the customers girlfriend who can potentially confirm this. I spoke with the staff and owner there regarding this and they were unwilling to do more, stating that their delivery guy was the nicest one they ever had and there was no way he would act like that. The owner called in later and was combative, threatening to leave Just Eat and asking for my full name and seeing if I had an employee code, saying he’s been in this business forever and knew more. This will need to be resolved fairly quickly as all the parties involved are quite upset.

Thanks,

Let me just say this, if I were just eat, amato’s would be dumped so fast and I’d be refunding the customer in question completely and telling the restaurant that these are the consequences.
I’m not them, so that’s not how it rolls.
I can dream, can’t I?
lol.
Later on, a Just Eat rep calls me back and tells me they talked to more of their staff, and there upset over this issue, and they want to give me another $10 in credit to use against any future order from just eat as a thank you for my patience and an apology they can’t resolve this until Monday.
They send me the $10 credit.
SO as a bit of a thank you I send this.

I’d like to take this opurtunity to thank all involved with this situation for working with myself to bring this to a satisfactory resolution and to hopefully get a full refund of the order in question.
I understand your just an intermediate company, but that’s no reason for this restaurant to treat your company, or your company’s customers like they’ve done tonight.
Amato’s treatment tonight of myself, and the rest in this household, is in no way a reflection of just eat or it’s employees.
Your willingness to keep in constant contact regarding this issue as it heads for a resolution speaks volumes for the level of customer service you want to see from both your own employees, and the restaurants you promote and serve.
If anyone has further questions, I can be reached using the information below my name.
Thank you for your time and attention.

We’ll see how this turns out, and I’ll post another entry when I know more.
Of course, the comments section is always available for you to give your opinion. Were we in the right to be pushing this as far as we are? Or are we all completely off our rockers. Let’s hear your thoughts.
See you next time.

Something happened to me today that has me inclined to write about it in the hope that doing so will prevent one more sighted person from pulling this same retard move.

Now, today’s Tuesday. It’s my long day at school, and if I wrote about every retarded thing someone did on a Tuesday, well, you guys would get sick of me real quick. Not that some of you already aren’t sick of me but that’s another story for another time.

So, I’m standing at the shuttle stop, texting, shooting the shit, waiting for the shuttle, as is my habit. I miss one, curse, continue texting.

All is normal here. Dee de dee de dee…Ooh! shuttle! *stuff phone in pocket, proceed to vehicle door*. Or… Rather., try to.

*insert sudden frightened scream and stream of obscenities here*.

I see a thought bubble over your head asking, “What, are you cursing at, now, Krista? Seriously?”

Behind me you see a guy, who we’ll call Grabby McHelperson. this fine example of an FSU student body member has decided, in his head, on the spur of the moment, “Oh my god! it’s a blind girl! She doesn’t know how to get onto the shuttle! she can’t find the door!”

So from there he’s decided, “I’ll simply grab her by the shoulders, not saying anything, and push her toward it!”
Because in Grabby McHelpersons world over there, apparently that’s just what you do when a blind person is slowly approaching a bus door so she doesn’t errantly cane anyone to death.

Now, I would’ve been alright if he’d asked me, “Excuse me, do you need help?”

Or even, “Yo! Need some help?” would’ve been nice! Seriously! I would’ve just told him I was fine and buggered off about my business, thinking nothing of it.

But, (and I say this for the benefit of sighted readers), blind people aren’t cattle! Don’t ever, EVER*, grab *anyone*, sighted, blind, or purple, for Christ’s sakes, and try and *herd* them somewhere. It’s degrading, undignified, and a stupid move if you wanna get out of a place unstared at.

Before someone jumps on my tits, because I know some asshole’s gonna go for it, I get wanting to help. But this guy didn’t even bother to say “Hi, how are you, need some help,” et cetera. He just walked silently up behind me and grabbed me by the shoulders and began pushing me forward. He was summarily disposed of by a flurry of screaming and cursing for the simple reason of, yes, I panicked. I mean come on, if you know me at all, or if you’re alive, breathing and in possession of a reasonable IQ, you know I’m not gonna stand there and let some silent stranger put his paws on me. Yes, it was a guy, I could tell once I could turn around enough to get a sideview on the dumb ass as he was backing away in embarrassment and fear of my cane which I had raised at a marginally threatening angle by that point.

So the question of the day is, who does that? How stupid do you have to be, or to think someone is, that you physically grab them and don’t say a damned word to them before doing so? Just… why? Why would you do that? Like I said. I get wanting to help. But if you wanna help someone, you open your piehole and *ask*, don’t just grab the person.

I wonder how this local community college treats its students? Come January, methinks we’re gonna find out.
4.5 hours, 2 screams, a walk in the rain and a caffeinated beverage later, I’m still seeing red. And yes I did actually go outside for a couple of screams. I think I need about 8 more by the time the red blur wears off my vision. Mom cooked a dinner she knew I’d eat, I only ate half a bowl if that.
I really hope these people realize eventually what they’re doing to my head. But oh…wait… I’m sorry… I mistook them for a second for people who actually care. I forgot they’re all droids that are preprogrammed. As long as it looks like the droids are working correctly, noone actually cares about the living, breathing people involved. And when those people have had to start medication and start seeking counseling, it doesn’t matter to them. It doesn’t matter at all because what they’ve done looks ok on paper and as long as they can go home and say they’ve put in a successful day of work, it doesn’t matter who they inconvenience.
It doesn’t matter that between now and the end of the semester, my family now has to shell out upwards of $1200 in gas. It doesn’t matter that in the winter, when we’ve got 2 feet of snow on the ground, but that campus is nice and clear, that I won’t be able to get to class because driving conditions are hazardous and nobody in my family should have to get in a car accident in order for me to get to class.
Yet, I still have no answers. Nobody can tell me how I fell through the cracks last year and why I lived in the filth I lived in. Nobody wants to take responsibility for that. Nobody can tell me why is it a girl got away with disrespecting my family the way she did. Noone can tell me why it was that people avoided me all semester last year because my clothes stank of mold no matter how many times I washed them. Nobody can tell me why the furniture safety violations I complained about weren’t looked into. Nobody can tell me why I sat there all of February with my window open praying for a breath of air that wasn’t contaminated. Best yet, noone wants to explain how and why the bacteria culture that was that room got so bad I actually got a UTI from it.
Yet, I’m the bad person here. Well, you know what? I’m tired of being the bad person. Fornicate this taurean dung, I capitulate!

A quicky because I’m trying to figure out what to do about the last item on the list, because apparently somebody thought I needed yet more crap to add to the disaster that my existence is currently behaving like. And no, we’re not actually making an html list out of it this evening because I’d have to look up how to do it and my goal is not to make it look pretty, it’s to write.
1. Commuting? If you have a 9:30 class? Isn’t how it rocks. Unless you’re lucky and you live, oh, down the street. I realize where I’m going’s the middle of nowhere, but MBTA, do you really need to make it that hard to get to?
2. Also related Trying to get back here was less than amusing. If we tell you we’re stopping at Porter Square, that doesn’t mean we wanna go to North Station. Also, if your automated announcements are broken, use your big mouth.
3. All I’m gonna say about item 3 which technically should’ve been item 2 if we’re doing the chronological thing which we’re not, and only I’ll know what I’m referring to… Is WTF.
4. Oy. You. Yeah. You. Out there. 4.0. You know who I’m talking to. I’m living. I’m breathing. I wasn’t actually mugged Friday night like I thought I was gonna be. Now, you either think I belong in a group home, or you think I’m an adult. If you think I’m an adult, then act like one yourself.
5. Editing ftw kids. Oh, wait, someone already took care of that for me. Thanks. Yeah. that’s just what’s needed. Because I trusted you not to put me in a position wherein I could become perma homeless and you broke that trust. Well, you know something? fuck you.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go try and figure out how the hell to stop the universe so I can get off. No, not like that, you pervs. I know at least one of you was thinkin’ it. Drinking sounds like a good idea, now let’s go see how much I can handle before I’m hospitalized or dead. I’d prefer the later.

Well ok. My floor. Since I don’t have a desk to speak of at this current time. . You know, because give it a few days and I won’t have a place to live. But we already went over that earlier. So let’s just um, go down here, use my limited web design skills, and learn about what happens when stupid people/organizations do stupid things.

So, there’s this dude. You know, the guy who wrote this thinggy over here.

That guy who wrote that thing up there that’s used for the social network which shall not be named of which I may or may not be a member, goes to Florida State University.

Well, Florida State’s math department, you see, has this nasty little habit. They like to force their blind students to use inaccessible software for math courses.

Well, this dude doesn’t like this very much. You se, he, ladies and gentlemen, is blind, in the event you didn’t read that thing over there in your other browser tab. So what did Florida State do that pissed him off enough to get the NFB involved? Well, to refresh your memories, and mine, because it’s half past holy crap o’clock in the morning and I haven’t even had dinner yett, let’s play a li’l game. One of my favorites. it’s called Peel and Stick. It works, kinda like this, wherein I take a piece of that article in that other tab of mine and go… Well, let’s see what they did, now, shall we?

The suit alleges that FSU’s Department of Mathematics discriminated against Mr. Toth
and Ms. Principato by failing to provide them with proper accommodations so that
they could successfully complete required math courses for their respective degree
programs. The violations include requiring the students to use an inaccessible Web-based
application to complete homework assignments, tests, and quizzes; requiring the use
of clickers that cannot be used by a blind person to respond to in-class questions
and obtain bonus credit; failing to provide Braille versions of the required textbooks
in violation of agreed-upon accommodation plans; and engaging in retaliatory actions
when the students complained of these violations. In all cases, faculty members
in the Department of Mathematics were generally uncooperative, unhelpful, and even
hostile, and did not provide meaningful alternative methods for Mr. Toth and Ms.
Principato to successfully complete the required courses. As a result, both students
are currently unable to continue their degree programs and find their careers indefinitely
on hold.

Who are you, FSU math department, to deny these two blind students an education? And who are you, FSU disability services, for allowing the math department to treat students who *you* are supposed to be assisting, so poorly? And don’t even get me started. Inevitably, some fucktard’s gonna waltz on in here and say disability services could have known nothing about it. I’m calling bullshit. I’m calling bullshit based on the fact that other students in other state universities all across the country get treated like this daily. But you know what? As long as the books look pretty, it doesn’t matter how students are treated. Because nobody who works for a state university actually gives a fuck about the students. No. All they care about is their form letters and their handbooks and their rules. as long as it looks good on paper, nobody actually cares! Nope, because as long as their reports look pretty for whomever the hell they report to, they can just carry on treating people like garbage and get away with it.

You can’t rightfully sit here and tell me Florida State didn’t know about the treatment these two students were receiving. (In fact, I wish I could grab the one I have on my mesenger and ask him what disability services actually did about the situation, but unfortunately, right now, I can’t seem to find him.) Um, well, it is 1:26 AM. You normal people that are lucky an that have everything, you’re sleeping right now, wile I’m scrounging for a place to live. yeah. Especially you lucky sighties, who have jobs. And you all sat at home, in your normal houses, with your normal families, this evening, and did normal things. While I bounced around the state with a backpack, a duffel, a cane and a person guiding me, trying to find a place to crash this evening that wasn’t gonna get a friend of mine from high school evicted from her apartment, you people, probably some of the very ones I’m currently being persecuted and treated like a criminal by, get to live your lives like nothing’s wrong. You get to sleep in your own bed, in your own house, while I worry about whether my next move is to court so I dont get put in a group home by my insane mother, or worse, end up under her guardianship, and living in my house for the rest of my pathetic, broken, useless life. Hope you’re proud of yourselves, because I would rather like to start planning ways of getting rid of myself so you all have nothing to worry about anymore. Yeah. remember how someone told me I should kill myself? Suicidal ideations. again. thanks assholes. Just how I wanted to spend an evening in an unfamiliar place. and I thought I was gonna get away with not being a medicated zombie for the rest of my life? Well, guess I’m quite sure who to thank for that.

Yarfing all over the blog again to prevent me using something as a projectile that I shouldn’t. Screen readers, wanna skip it? H to jump to the next heading is your happyfriend, sighties, use those mice like they were intended.

I have officially hit the point where “I can’t fucking take it any fucking more,” writes, publishes, and sells the book on exactly how I feel right now. You, person, can sit there and lah lah lah, I’m nooooot liiiiiiistening, while I complain for months and months and months, on end, about mold. Filth. Dirty living conditions. Disrespectful treatment of my family. Ok, maybe sometimes my mother deserves it. But my grandmother didn’t deserve to have a spray bottle yanked out of her hand last year, nor did she deserve to be screamed and yelled at by the student who was my roommate at that time.

Nobody deserves to be ignored when your job is to help them. Nobody deserves to sit there in the middle of February, freezing their tits off in the middle of the night, while you sleep at home in your nice cozy warm bed. Why was I freezing in the middle of the night in mid February? Because the mold smell in my room was so awful that I had to keep the window open 24/7 just so I didn’t throw up! But as long as you’re happy, nobody else has to be happy, right? Obviously, that’s how certain people think. I’m not saying anymore here, because I fear for my personal safety and mental health. I honestly thought briefly about checkin’ myself into a hospital and gettin’ some downers shoved down my face. Only reason I didn’t do it was because it’d get people involved who didn’t need to be involved and hopefully won’t need to. I’m sick of discrimination. I’m sick of favoritism. I’m sick of ass-covering, and I’m sick of people simply NOT DOING THEIR BLOODY JOBS! No. I can’t take it anymore. We thank Shane for not allowing me alcohol this evening because if I had my choice, I’d go get stupidly drunk, induce alcohol poisoning because I have no tolerance, and end myself up in the hospital. We also thank my friend Minh for allowing me to crash on her spare bed. We don’t thank certain officials for putting me in a precarious position. I lived in a precarious position all summer long. I didn’t really wanna have to live in a mentally unhealthy unstable environment for the rest of my life. Thanks, people, you’ve ruined me.

But no, you don’t care. Of course you don’t care. Especially certain individuals who can sit on their couch and eat ice cream while a blind student lives in an unhealthy, unsafe environment, and the people who are supposed to help her aren’t doing anything about it. You had plenty of opportunities. Is it simply the fact that you hate me because I needed your help? Do you not like your job? Are you that unhappy in your career that you won’t help someone who’s getting urinary tract infections because her roommate’s living habits are causing them? I believe you are. And I will be bringing that up at my earliest opportunity. You had all the opportunity in the world last year to prove you were on my side. Obviously, you weren’t. That, is called favoritism. You let someone else make me sick while you plugged your ears, turned away from me, and pretended I didn’t exist! You didn’t care! And now that someone called you out on it, all of a sudden, you want me as far out of your face as you can get me. Because to you, as long as it looks like you’re doing your job on the books, and you’re getting paid for it, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing or how other people feel.

Oh god no. This place? Care? About their disabled students? Oh, I’m sorry, that’s too much work. You might have to pay someone to breathe instead of filling the positions with robots who are preprogrammed for only certain functions. I…dude…I’m simply at the point where I’m done giving a shit. The simple fact is that nobody cares. Nobody wants to help. It’s too much work. I’m too much work. if you couldn’t help me, who was supposed to? You were supposed to be the person who walked in and told her, “Enough is enough!” But you didn’t. You failed me. You failed me once and now you’re failing me again. My opinion of you is that you’re a malicious, malevolent and disgraceful human being who doesn’t actually care about his/her job. And you know what? I’m entitled to that opinion. I’m entitled to sit in this train station and write down what I think of you, because surely it’s better than drinking myself to death and ending up in the hospital.

I shouldn’t actively be thinking about getting drunk. Alcoholism runs in my family. My grandfather still struggles with it. I also shouldn’t be contemplating ways to sleep outside safely tonight because my friend’s building manager isn’t thrilled with me crashing with her. I can’t go home. I can’t go home because if I go home I’m going to end up locked in a mental institution because my mother is of the opinion that I belong in a group home or something or under her legal guardianship, which obviously I don’t.

I also thought I’d let ya know that I’ll be doing a mass cleanup of my social media the minute I hit a place where I have net access, as the MBTA car I’m currently sitting in…well…there wifi works about as well as my eyes. Which is to say, um, how bout not at all? things, are leaking. Things, are leaking, that should not, be leaking. And I’m gonna plug that leak if it’s the last damn thing I do on this earth. Noone. Has any right. To be digging into my locked shit, nor does anyone have the right to tell me that I should kill myself.

Yes, it happened. Someone told me I should end my life. Not a joke. I’m still breathing, I’m sitting in this car next to Shane right now because a frigging cat saved my life in 2003. Yes, you heard me, I said it publicly. Someone who will remain nameless told me I should kill myself. then, that same human being told me I should pretty much be locked away in a mental institution. Is that what people want? Would it make everyone happier if I just ended my life or got put away somewhere so I could never be a bother to anyone again? I know there are certain individuals who would be happier that way and the only reason they don’t get what they want, well, he’s sitting to my right, if you must know. Yeah, you saw that. I said it here. The reason I won’t end my otherwise miserable existence is because someone got through to my hard ass head that I was actually worth a shit.

So as you may or may not be aware, in the event you’re living under a rock, Shane showed up here on Thursday. Not even an hour after he showed up, came a knock on the door. It was the building director, reminding me of the guest policies and threatening me with academic sanctions, and basically doing her best to make me feel about the size and worth of an amoeba. I yessed her to death for the purposes of getting her the fuck out of my face before I slapped her because I was already prepping for battle because I had afeeling stupid shit was gonna go down. And well, it did.

Then, I remembered last year’s continuous saga of the stupid. My questions for this woman, because I hope to Christ she finds this somehow, are as follows.
Where were you while I was living in filth all year?
Where were you while I sat there in a room which stunk of mold, with someone else’s belongings strewn all over what should have been my side of the room?
Where were you while I sat in health services wondering how the fuck I could’ve gotten a urinary tract infection when I was being a two-shower-a-day clean freak, living with someone who didn’t shower, or even perform the common courtesy of emptying her fridge?
Where were you while I had someone come in and take pictures of the room to make sure I didn’t get dingged hundreds in damages because I lived with someone who didn’t give a rancid shit about personal space?
Where were you when all those complaints were lodged?
Where were you when I was sitting up till 2 and 3 in the morning listening to this girl sob and scream and cry to her boyfriend because he was telling her the truth and she didn’t wanna hear it?
Where were you when I was sick every other week because I had to keep the window open in the middle of February just so I could try and scrounge up some breatheable air?
Where were you when I was washing the same load of laundry twice just to try and make it smell less like rotten mold?
What did you ever do for me when I actually needed you? Nothing. And now you’re threatening me with academic sanctions because I have someone here who actually gives a fuck trying to help me?
Lady, you may be marrie to the rules, I understand that may be the only gratification you get, but you never did anything for me when I actually needed you, so why should you bother with me now?

Below are various notes to the stupid, in no particular order because Window-Eyes and WordPress just had an argument and I had to intervene and force them to fight nicely.
1. If I tell you something 2 weeks before I do something with which you may or may not have an issue, and then sit on my thumb for ages, I’m going to assume you’re either an idiot who doesn’t pay attention to email which is the only form of contact I have with you, or that you really don’t give a goddamn what I do.
2. If I get an email hours before the deal’s already sealed, and then you don’t say word 1 to me after the fact, you have already put me in a precarious position, one from which I hav to do metaphorical gymnastics to rebound.
3. Whining to Mommy don’t get ya nowhere. Whining to the boss is not how you solve your problems like an adult!
4. If you don’t have any solutions for contortions which I can use to extract myself from the fuck shit stack I am currently stuck in, shut up and get outa my way because stuff’s gonna fly. A person 4 feet and 10 inches in height cannot easily extract herself from a pool of quicksand and dog shit 10 feet deep.
5. Communication is your happyfriend. Fucking use it and stop avoiding me.
6. When I’m already stressin’ right outa my mind, that is not the time to start hammering on me! Once again, I’ll say, step the hell off.
7. Again with the communication: there are multiple ways to, say, check your email. Hi, can we say I’m kissin’ data overages this month?
Done now. The humidity in this room is doing shitty things to this keyboard, and I think I’ve hammered my points to death in various other forms. If the dude across the room wants the floor on the situation at hand,he can have it.
Sidenote: Window-Eyes or wordpress has eaten my categories for an after-dinner snack. Damn it. Not cute.

My brain officially aches. I have had the…what, almost 2 weeks? From hell. Naturally, this computer was the cause of it.

I woke up on the morning of the 5th to one hell of a mess. I restarted the machine, got tossed into a never-ending boot loop. I swore in all kinds of pretty and colorful ways, then I called Shane and explained the problem because at 7 PM on a Sunday evening when I finally got around to it, Lenovo technical support were the last people I wanted to talk to. His theory: My Windows install’s trashed. Well…Shit,

My next course of action, grab the 12-year old. “Here. Read this.”

“But why?”

“Because I asked you to, and this computer’s on crack. Now, read.”

So the child manages with my help to get Windows installed, but no drivers, because, well, going to hunt for those required an Ethernet cable that we didn’t have. So my mother gets it in her head that she’s gonna take it to our local fixit shop and they’re gonna wave their magic wand and make it all better. Yeah ok, smoke some more of that why don’t ya?

She takes the machine in on friday, the 12th, after loudly and screamily insisting that she could take it in by herself and me loudly and screamily insisting that no, I was going with her, it was my machine and she didn’t have to use it, I did. I didn’t care if she paid for repairs, but I wanted to speak to the person(s) fixing it. So grudgingly she took me with her, I suppose because I’m the only one who knew where my personal Windows CD was and well, they asked her to take it in with the machine.

So I walk in, described to the guy what the underlying issue was, what I did to fix it. Now I knew this guy was 1. an arrogant prick and 2. a stupid son of a bitch, because he’s standing in front of me saying he likes Lenovo, and that’s just not something you say to me after I get 2 phone calls within 3 months of each other saying that other students’ exact makes and models, same machine, had literally began smoking, in their faces. (Hi dead power supply nice to see you.)

So I tell the first dude, “We’re bringing this in for a software issue, but I want the hardware looked at too. I’ve suspected a dying hard drive since June.”

I get it back Friday night, hey, cool, it’s working, and they said the hard drive wasn’t dead. I wake up Saturday morning to discover I’m jammed in another endless boot loop! The word of the morning, at top volume, was “Son of a bitch!”

I leave for my grandparents’ place that day because I’m staring at this thing and I can’t fucking take it anymore. I was ready to overdraft my bank account and rush order myself a netbook even though I hate them on principle just because I needed a working computer, and my mother had just pissed $120 into this thing, having the Windows install fixed and putting a 2GB stick of ram in it. All I’d done the previous night was uninstall Open Office and VLC Media Player, which are two programs that are completely fucking useless with a Windows screen reader, and the next morning I wake up and it’s boot looping again.

So Tuesday, Mom drags it back down to the shop. The second ass-clown who worked on it was at least not a complete ass-clown, as he did discover the dead hard drive right away, even though his buddy over there swore to god that Lenovo hardware never failed, but now we have this other issue.

“Oh, she screwed up the hard drive by uninstalling software.”

What? What? As in, the fuck? Which is to say, are they smoking? Also, what kind of drugs are in the water over there? Uninstaling a piece of software should not fuck up the hard drive, unless the hard drive was already fucked over in the first place, which means that *somebody*, ain’t doin’ their job!

I blow up Shane’s phone again, and drop this cute little tidbit of bullshit on his desk. Naturally, he’s about as pleased as I am, but he’s got the net, he’s got a working computer and can do more than I could at the time. He busts out google, does a reverse lookup of their phone number which I had somehow managed to beg borrow and steal. Then, the Better Business Bureau gets involved.

I didn’t do it. During Shane’s conversation with whomever he spoke to over there, we found out that these twerps were operating under expired credentials. So not only were they doing this, but they were sticking inaccessible software on a disabled person’s computer, blaming said person’s removal of the software for their incompetence, then telling said person not to remove said software. Reportedly, someone from the state of Massachusetts paid them a visit yesterday evening. If we find out more, we’ll let you know.

So. that’s been, what, my last, 2 weeks? Freaking out over a broken computer, dealing with incompetent tools, freaking out because it’s broken a second time, sending it in, then finding out the retards who were supposed to have fixed it the first time blamed me for screwing it up, and finding that they were operating a repair business with expired credentials! And on top of all this, I start classes in 2 weeks! I almost didn’t have a working computer for college. Can we say heart attack? Can we say nervous breakdown? I can!

First, we start with the internal stupid.
1. Pitting everyone against each other and causing a major bitchfest, is NOT how you get your way.
2. Sitting on the computer all day, unshowered and in your pajamas, at the age of 12 is wrong. What the fuck are you thinking? Wait…Why do I need to ask that when I know you’re not?
3. Additionally, again. At 12, you should be DOING SOMETHING. Not sitting there telling me you’re too lazy to take a shower.
4. Yes, I did bitch you out, and yes, your father agrees with me, or he would’ve bitched at me when I went to go do morning meds.
(He didn’t. He was completely fine with me and recognizes this as an attempt to pit everyone against each other and have them fighting for this child’s amusement.)

Onward to the external stupid.
1. As the blog’s disclaimer says, “You have the ability to not read this blog, please exercise that right. That simple.”
2. Let me translate that for you in even plainer English than Shane did. “If you don’t like what someone has to say here, kindly do us the favor of getting lost.”
3. Additionally, if you don’t like something here, please have the testicular fortitude to tell us, and tell us who you are. One thing we hate here are anonymous comments, which get automatically heaved into the spam folder, but even worse, we hate it when people circumvent blog policy.

4. Noone who comments has the right to tell us how to run the blog, or how we can comment. I’ll say it again. “You have the ability not to read this blog, please exercise that right.”
5. Not doing the above automatically revokes your bitching license. Please be advised of this in future.

Assistant admin and co-writer needs a 2-liter of Mountain Dew, some lunch, and a week off from the stupid.

cruising through my news list, my blood boiled when I read this article from the state of ma.
Some heartless individual
stole
a child’s wheelchair.
comments follow the article.

Boy’s wheelchair stolen from Lawrence home
LAWRENCE, Mass. — A young boy bound to a wheelchair was the victim to a heartless crime in Lawrence. Now the boy and his family want to know who could do this.

“My heart just dropped. I’m like oh my God. Who would really take a chair, a wheelchair that’s meant for somebody that’s sick, that has issues, that can’t do without,” said Meilene Valazquez, the boy’s mother.

Isaiah De La Rosa, 8, has cerebral palsy and his wheelchair is everything to him, but someone stole it.

“We love him to death, but it’s really, really hard to get him around and to get him to do things that normal kids would do,” said Heecliff De La Rosa, Isaiah’s father.

Isaiah’s other wheelchair is broken and he was using a loaner chair, that’s the one that was stolen. The chair gives him independence, holds him up and enables Isaiah to go to school and therapy, but now his parents must carry him everywhere. When they can’t, lying in bed is the only other option for him.

“Dad came downstairs and asked me, ‘Did you leave the chair’ and I was like ‘Yeah I did’ and he was like ‘Well it’s not here,’” said Valazquez.

Valazquez said she left the chair on the side of the house. It was before 7 a.m. that it was stolen.

“He went all over the place and then he couldn’t find it. He looked in the backyard, on the other side,” said Valazquez. “Whoever stole it, you don’t have a heart. I don’t know what to say. You have hurt my family, hurt my son.”
For now, Isaiah cannot go to school or therapy. Valazquez said the wheelchair that was stolen costs $2,500.

I’m downright disgusted by this.
Yes I’m somedays bound to crutches or if one’s available a wheelchair no thanks to issues with my leg, do to last year’s surgery that we’re still trying to correct a year later.
SO I feel the family’s pain and anguish.
To the person that stole the wheelchair.
Have a heart, return the chair and face the music.
If you don’t, that’ll proove to all of us that your not human and you don’t actually care about anyone but yourself and that your death would not be morned, but celibrated.

Their are times when I ask myself what the hell is up with people in the world.
You actually
put your service dog
in the back of a taxi cab?
Here’s the article, then my own comments will follow.

Service Dog Forced To Ride In Taxi Trunk
Blind Woman Says Driver Gave Her Ultimatum
Marc Stewart, 7News Reporter

POSTED: 8:38 pm MDT June 6, 2011
UPDATED: 2:10 pm MDT June 7, 2011

DENVER — A blind woman says a driver told her she would have to put her guide dog in the trunk of his taxi if she wanted a ride.

Judie Brown says her black lab named Alberto isn’t just a best friend; he’s been her lifeline for the past four years.

“If something happened to him. I would just die,” said Brown.

About a month ago, Brown called a cab.

When she walked out front with Alberto, the driver from Union Taxi initially refused to transport her with Alberto.

“He said, ‘No dog in my cab,’ ” said Brown.

Brown said the driver told her he was allergic to dogs and would only drive her if Alberto went in the back of his cab.

“I asked him, ‘Where in the back?’ And he said, ‘In the trunk,’ ” said Brown.

Late for an appointment, she reluctantly agreed.

“I never hear my dog whine or cry. Ever. Ever. I knew it was terribly wrong,” said Brown.

Colorado law protects guide dogs and their owners, allowing them to ride together in taxis.

“A service dog is an appliance, similar to a wheelchair. Would you deny them a wheelchair?” said animal law expert Jay Swearingen.

A manager with Union Taxi tells 7NEWS the driver has been suspended and fined by the state.

But Judie is scarred and says she’s been afraid to travel with Alberto ever since.

“I’ve lost my independence. And I do not like it. It makes me angry. And I want it back,” said Brown.

The National Guide Dog Association says they get similar calls, three to 10 times per week.

Regardless of weather you were late for an appointment or not, if said taxi cab driver refuses to transport you make said taxi driver get lost, call your appointment tell them you’ll be late, and make alternate arrangements.
Their was no reason for this service animal to be placed in the trunk of a car.
This is as much her fault as the drivers fault.
The driver got suspended, great, but this individual, should lose her service animal, and never be allowed another one.
Comment away.
Let’s see the discussion roll.

We all know Fitchburg State University is the bane of my existence. We know that they leave me beating my head against ]whatever available object on a regular basis. So, for the past few months, Shane has been trying to help me deal with their various levels of stupidity in whichever department decides to play Let’s Piss Krista Off on any given day. Shane is listed on my file as an alternate trainer, which means if fitchburg State University takes it into their head to fuck up somehow, he has various levels of verbal and written permission from me to assist me in jumping their shit. All that’s usually needed from me is an email to whomever, saying, “This is who he is, yes he has permission to speak to you and vice versa, now play hnice.” Ok, so it’s not worded that way, but it’s implied.

I’ve done this with several departments, up to and including maintenance, housing, and the dean’s office themselves, and I believe financial aid once too. I’ve been trying to do it with disability services for months. Obviously if you’re reading this you read the nastygram from disability services I posted about a week and a half ago, wherein the attitude is basically, “I don’t know who this Shane is but…”

My first question is, what kind of professionalism is that? Next, I ask, why isn’t the director of disability services herself asking me these questions? That email came from the woman who was the *interim* director, until the secretary got hired as the director somewhere between the end of last Spring and the beginning of fall semester. Yeah. You heard me. The secretary. Who, before she was hired, probably didn’t even know how to spit braille out of the computer and hope it was right. Instead of hiring someone who knew shit from shine-ola, Fitchburg State decided to give someone a salary boost. Great job, guys.

I got to thinking about it Friday night while shane and I were taking a few minutes to have a look at next semester’s schedule. (Yeah, I know. We prepare for stupid early.) It maybe took a while, but it registered in my head that every department we’ve dealt with has no problem dealing with an alternate trainer. Except, you guessed it, disability services. So my question now becomes, exactly what the hell are they hiding in that office that would bag them if, say, a licensed professional got his paws on it? If the dean’s office will speak to him, no problem, but refuses to speak to, say, one of my family members, namely my grandmother, then, yes, I understand. That office is doing something right. The director of housing has told him straight, “If there are any issues next year, and she contacts you, you contact me directly.” So obviously the director of housing has nothing to hide, nor does the maintenance department or the dean’s office.

Disability services’ open hostility toward him though, leads me to believe there’s definitely something in there that they don’t want someone with the appropriate authority to know about. We know it’s bad in there, we know they’re clueless. Hint: They’re using a standard JFW license instead of one that’s designed for lab use. Also, they only have jaws licensed on one machine, and there are 2 blind students at the university. Further, they’re using Jaws 11, Microsoft 2010, and Windows 7, which is a match made in hell. All they need to do is call I.t. and have them come in and upgrade. Shane and I made sure there was an SMA attached to that license and that the keys were reset so that it could be used on another computer in that lab. Hint 2: Shane should not have to rescan my books for me after they hand me an image PDF that I’m supposed to use as my textbook all semester. I ask for accessible documents, and I don’t get them. Instead, I have to send Shane pdf’s and he has to rescan the entire book, sometimes taking hours out of his day, to make sure I have what I need. And yes, now it’s public knowledge. Yes, I did just say that on the blog. No, there’s really nothing anyone can do to me for telling the truth. The other thing I have to wonder about in the back of my head is, does the Massachusetts Commission for the blind have any clue about the state of this university’s supposed disability services department? If they did, would they be paying for two, potentially three, students to attend the university? Just some things to think about. Thoughts? Comments? Anybody?

Edit before hitting sennd: Yes, FSU stupid has its own category now. Yes,
I’m posting by myself now. Via email. Run for your lives. We now continue
with that thing over there that calls itself a me update.

So as any of you who follow my Twitter know, from Friday afternoon till
about Tuesday or early Wednesday, my body decided broken was the name of the
game. Not to gross anyone out but, trips to the little girls’ room every
15minutes to empty your bladder are not fun. So, Mom takes one look at me
when I get in the car Friday night and says, “From what you told me earlier,
you have a urinary tract infection. I bought you this for it and your dad
has antibiotics at home you can try for it.” The “this” ended up being what
I later found out was Azo, which causes some colorful side effects. But of
course I only found that out after the fact, thank you semi-retarded
rednecks that happen to be my family. Learn to read packaging, for Christ’s
sakes.

Friday night passes, no change. Saturday goes by, still zilch. By Sunday, I
was going out of my mind. If I didn’t do something soon, I was gonna flip
out. So I batted the idea of getting carted off to the ER around and decided
that would be a hell the fuck no. I get up Monday morning, hook myself up
with an appointment at the school health center, which, not gonna lie, I
thought would be a total farce. I thought for sure I’d get the same thing I
always get from medical professionals. Essentially, “There’s nothing wrong
with you, here, take this, and GTFO.”

I get there to find out, oh yeah, I have a urinary tract infection. Family
had been giving me expired antibiotics for 3 days, so um, duh, nothing was
working. The nurse practitioner over there was wicked super helpful, and
made sure that I not only had a prescription, but that FSU paid for my
cabfare to the pharmacy and back. I also asked her if the unsanitary living
conditions I’m subject to had anything to do with it, she said no. More on
those in a minute.

The cab company they have a contract with has a notoriously spacey and
bitchy dispatcher whom Shane and I have grown to hate, but I did manage to
get there and back with only one snafu. The dispatcher decides to forget to
tell him this got added to the FSU account. This guy remembered me from
before when I went somewhere with Shane, so once he saw me whip out my
phone, he knew it was getting taken care of right that instant. I didn’t
have time for him to drive around the block with his cranium up his rectum
while the dispatcher pulled her thumb out of her ass, so I made a phone
call, things went bounce. Got there, did what needed doing, GTFO. It’s all
good.

By today, Thursday, my body seems to have sorted out its issues for the most
part. But while all this is going on, (and oh, hello, stress isn’t good for
urinary tract infections), we of course have a subplot. We remember that
disability services has this aversion to speaking to Shane? And how I sent
them an email… Oh… Over a week ago in regards to this aversion and that
it should be rectified immediately? I posted it last week.

Well, I’m trying to get exams, papers, and homework done in between frequent
pottybreaks. Shane’s aware of this, so he didn’t think to ask me if I got a
response until today. I got nothin’. We’ve also got this matter of my
roommate having lived like a slob all year long, which nobody has thought to
deal with. Housing was SUPPOSED to deal with it, but they failed. I’m in the
middle of academic ohmygod because I have a paper due by Saturday, and meant
to have it in 3 days ago but couldn’t because of the health issue I was
dealing with. I give Shane verbal permission to speak to someone, I send
them a note, leave them a voicemail saying, essentially, “Yes, you have
permission to speak to him, now play nice.”

I hang out quietly in my corner typing my paper and watch his IM window.
Housing, whom he wished to speak to initially regarding the disgusting
living conditions, decides to not only avoid him, but duck out early, and
then the person he spoke to decided to tell him they didn’t have a superior.
FSU has done this to me a thousand times. I’ve gotten so good at their games
that I was pretty much giving Shane a play by play of what he dealt with,
while he was dealing with it, without even being in earshot.

I’m waiting… waiting… waiting some more… and then Shane asks me to
call and give somebody else permission to speak with him, and we find out we
don’t need to. I’m like alright? That’s weird? Somebody finally pull their
head outa their ass or what?

No, but somebody’s head’s gonna be forcibly yanked outa their ass at 9 AM
sharp tomorrow morning, I can tell ya that much. Shane got heaved up to the
maintenance department, who housing answers to. The woman he spoke to saw
notes all over my file, saw that I’d complained to housing, and disability
services, and anyone else I could find that might look like they’d listen,
and saw nothing got done. She was less than impressed with both housing, and
disability services. In fact, I’d wager a bet that she was just about as
impressed as I was the night my mother threw the shitfit about Shane wishing
to attend birthday festivities with my family. We remember how impressed I
was that night, right? Mm, thought so.

What it comes down to is this. Because housing didn’t get off their ass and
do their jobs, there really isn’t anything that can be done for me for the
remainder of the year, which is understandable. Disability services
should’ve been following up with this, since she is a disabled student, and
is living in one of their reserved rooms. They didn’t do this. Housing was
supposed to report this to them, they didn’t follow up. Are we surprised? Of
course we’re not. These’re the same people who thinkk it’s perfectly fine
for someone to put a straw in my drink and expect me not to pitch a fit when
it jumps my fucking nerves, but I digress. Anyway, nothing can be done for
me now. I’ve just gotta make damn sure that my room assignment stays the
same and that disability services doesn’t try to pull a card like, “Oh,
she’s disabled, she needs to live in one of our reserved rooms.” If they do
that, then I’m stuck living in a pig sty again with this child.

Tomorrow’s gonna be fun to watch, though. The guy in charge is marching his
happy ass, in person, to the disability services office first thing tomorrow
to tell them that this student is no longer allowed to work with them as a
workstudy student as of next year. If she can’t be a positive role model for
students with disabilities, and can’t keep a safe living environment for any
other disabled students in the room with her, she shouldn’t have that job.
I’ve been saying that for months. Also, next year, she’s not going to be
allowed to room with another disabled student. But as if this isn’t a slap
enough, she’s to be inspected, weekly. Her environment is to be looked over
weekly, to make sure it’s safe for her and whomever she’s rooming with, by a
member of the housing or maintenance staff. If she is consistently not
passing these inspections, she will be suspended. Does it help me, now? No,
but it prevents anyone else from having to deal with this bullshit, which as
the year progressed and noone did anything, became my aim. Do I wish
something could’ve been done earlier? Of course. Am I at least happy that
some other poor fool doesn’t have to go through this bullshit next year?
Sure. And no, it shouldn’t have had to be taken that far. Housing should’ve
done something about it after the 6 week old rotten egg incident. But
they’re to blame because they didn’t do their jobs.

The last 4 days have been nothing but a fuck shit stack, with one quick break yesterday that lasted oh, an hour, maybe two? I’ll preface this by stating the obvious. I absolutely despise Fitchburg State University. Nope, not gonna lie. In fact if I still had this perspective legally blind freshman’s email anywhere in my files I’d email her from my personal account and tell her straight not to waste the state’s, or her parents’, money by coming to this hellhole. Someone decided on Monday they didn’t like my attitude. That’d be ok, if they, oh, I don’t know, *SAID SOMETHING TO ME ABOUT IT LIKE AN ADULT?* But nah. They bitch to disability services. Disability services bitches at me. Whatever. That’s over with. I refuse to deal with the individuals in question for a couple days because I was done with being treated differently and I damn near almost quit school right then and there. This causes a minor inconvenience to me, of course, but it’s not like I care, because in my mind I’d rather be inconvenienced than treated like an infant. So, whatever. Tuesday managed to go over without any kerfuckles, mainly because I stayed out of sight and literally only left my room to go to class, to the bathroom, and stepped outside once to pay a delivery guy. So yesterday I woke up feeling sort of like I’d been run over by a large vehicle. Ok, endocrine system, I get it, you suck, you hate me, stop telling me about it. this was quickly squelched with ibuprofen. Everything started out pretty nifty yesterday. I was all happy because Shane had thrown random surprises at me because he could, so I was bouncebouncebounce-ing off the walls for a good 3 hours or so. I sit down to do some homework and Blackboard decides it’d be nifty to pitch a major fit that included me metaphorically pounding my head against it for a good 3 more hours or so before all was said and done. I got out of my night class a whole hour and 15 minutes early, so everything was nifty. Nothing could go to hell from here, right? Of course it can! I walk back into the room… *sniff sniff, “Oh my god, what the fuck is that god awful smell?”* Sit back down and return to TeamTalk, because I’d left shane hangin’ there till I returned to class.

“I’m back, and something fucking stinks in here. A fucking gain.”

“Really? Like what this time?”

“Bad food again, I’m almost sure of it. I remember this particular brand of nasty from last time.”

So a few people walk in to visit the roommate, and I corner them and ask them if they think it smells in here. They of course answer yes, and the roommate tries to blame her boyfriend’s feet. It definitely was not foot odor. It was some kind of food product gone bad. Again. Keep in mind this is the same girl who left eggs in her fridge to rot for 6 weeks, had no clue, and tried to blame Shane, and say that he was unclean and didn’t shower. When that didn’t work she tried to say it was my rugs that stunk. Naturally this didn’t work too well for her either because I had someone come independently verify that there was nothing wrong with the rugs. This went on for 6 weeks, until we got back from spring break and she on a whim decides to clean out her fridge. Sure enough, rotten eggs, rotten food.

I complained to housing, who complained to disability services, nothing got done. Keep in mind this is after Shane and I complained to one of the RA’s while he was here that her belongings, which are spewing onto my side of the room, are creating a tripping hazard. So nothing gets done. Finally Shane busts the flip-a-shit-ometer last night, leaves a very pointed voicemail with the appropriate individuals that the room, once again, is smelly, nasty and disgusting. Little did I realize that he also had pictures that he took when he was here of the disaster that is this room. By this point, Shane’s boss has probably tanked the flip-a-shit-ometer himself. He’s followed us up through this whole disaster. I kinda feel bad for the poor dude, just another poor person that has to deal with this place and it’s rampant stupidity. But of course it doesn’t stop there. That’d be too damn easy. Because apparently somebody’s decided I’m responsible, 14 hours before a test, for them having the appropriate test materials and knowing how to use them. By this time all I wanna do is either strangle somebody or go to bed, which I don’t get to do until 2 AM because somebody decided that staying up till such time with the light on was the order of the day. So I get up this morning and I’m already apprehensive about dealing with disability services. They seem to have this inherent issue wherein, because I am reasonably competent with a computer, I’m supposed to be a walking, talking quick reference guide for any person who uses a screen reader who happens to need help. I stuff my face, I caffeinate, (twice mind you), and head over there. Our stats professor is literally loading the materials, which I had previously taken 15 extra minutes to go rechase and recompile onto a thumb drive for myself, (yes it did take that long, this computer’s a pain in the ass), onto the desktop, of the computer at disability services. I wanted to pound my head against the wall, but decided that sighing and rolling my eyes was a safer reaction and wouldn’t get me taken away in a straightjacket. Since when is it the professor’s responsibility to load the extra test materials onto the computer for us? And frankly, since when is it my responsibility to do Jaws training that I’m not certified, or paid, to do? A quick question here or there, I don’t mind. But a few short hours before a test, the individual in question should have already looked at, and figured out, the material days ago. I’m not a certified trainer, I’m not a notetaker, and I’m not getting paid to do either. So disability services, kindly stop expecting me to do those things. Shane left a very pointed voicemail with them about that, too.

I get out of my test, come back here, and find this wonderful email. You know, I was going to summarize it, but I think I’ll just press some buttons instead. and after that I think I’ll press another button or 3 and show you my response. So here we go.

Subject: MCB

Thu, May 5, 2011 at 11:19 AM
Show original
Hi Krista,
I was speaking with Cindy Hebert today and brought up the fact that you were working with a new counselor named Shane. Cindy let me know that you are in fact still working with her and that to her knowledge there is not a counselor at MCB named Shane. I am not sure who this Shane is that continues to call on your behalf, but I can no longer accept phone calls from him. Because of confidentiality I cannot speak to anyone that I do not have a waiver to speak with.
Thank you,
Julie.

Please keep in mind that I’d had quite enough of disability services’ crap this week already, and had Shane been on the grid I would’ve just whipped the message at his head before reading it. I almost quit on Monday, that’s how angry I was. Related sidenote: I am not 3. I do not need a straw put in my drink, especially if you’re not wearing gloves to do it. Anyway, my main bullshit filter was off the grid so I kinda borrowed James and he became my backup bullshit filter. Trust me, you didn’t want me to read the content of that message directly after a stats test while I was undercaffeinated. Some poor innocent fool may have died as a result. So at around 3:30 this afternoon, it was on. I tried to call her back, got one of the secretaries, said fmeep this noise, I want this in writing. And write, I did. More like beat over the head with a clue by 4, but my strengths are not with speaking, but with calculated writing. I cannot think fast enough to verbalize all I had to say here while processing being spoken to, so email was my happyfriend.

Thu, May 5, 2011 at 4:59 PM
Hi Julie,
Re: my alternate trainer, no, he does not work directly for or with
MCB. He is not being paid by them. He is not taking over Cindy’s job.
He is not a counselor, but an alternate trainer. Cindy Hebert is the
counselor, which essentially means she’s the one who pays the bills. I
send her my grades, MCB does their part. The alternate trainer is
there for the more day-to-day issues, (i.e., the fact that my laptop
charger has managed to die an hour before I finish this email), or, my
living environment is smelly and disgusting and it’s not my side of
the room because my side’s spotless and free of garbage. A similar
issue arose in February, and I later found out that the offending
party had eggs in her fridge for 6 weeks and they’d gone bad.) That
having been said, he does have my permission to contact you, and you
do have my permission to speak with him. If you need an official
looking piece of paper that says as much, one can be created upon
request.
Thank you for your time,
Krista

Needless to say, people have been, and will be, squished. You know what really pisses me off about this though? I can complain, whine, bitch, persist, irritate, annoy, advocate, generally jump down people’s throats while I’m living in a hazardous environment, and nobody does anything to help me. The moment someone whines to disability services that I took attitude with them, I get a slap on the wrist, and am basically told, “Bad child, go to your corner.” So I’m not allowed to be an imperfect human being and snap at somebody for treating me like an infant, yet it’s ok for my roommate, their workstudy student, to leave rotten eggs in her fridge and take over my side of the room. Can we say discrimination? Do we need to have another vocabulary lesson, children? I should hope not.

Some tweets from this morning hit my radar almost 19 hours later, and I feel I need to say something publicly. Over the past few months, Christopher Toth has developed and distributed Hope, a third-party application that allows a Windows user using a screen reader to access the popular Pandora service. He charges $10 US for the program, which, considering he’s a student and is doing this in his spare time, is pretty damn fair. it’s even more so when before he stepped in, this demographic was unable to use Pandora unless they also used a Mac, or an iPod Touch or iPhone. anyone who doesn’t already own one will tell you that spending upwards of $200, so they may have access to Pandora via an iDevice, though it has many other uses, is out of their budget. I’m in a constant state of broke. I get broke, I live broke, I freakin’ electrical taped my laptop charger so I wouldn’t have to blow approximately $100 on a new one. Now, let’s be honest. You may not like the developer. You and he may have had a history in the past, you pissed each other off, had a fucking teenybopper snit, whatever. Maybe you have a hair across your ass because he told you to, oh my god, read the Qwitter Readme, (which, by the way, is common sense. Download software, read the documentation). But there is no excuse as to why you cannot pull $10 out of your tight asses, to buy this program. If I did it, anybody can. Maybe the registration scheme isn’t the niftiest, most awesome and most secure thing ever, yet. I get it. But there’s no reason to be a tool and steal a $10 piece of software. If you’re that much of a spoiled brat and need everything handed to you that badly, then you have some serious entitlement issues.

Yes, I’ve punked (legal) copies of software off Shane before. Four pieces of software on this machine are legally registered to him. They’re either there because I’ll need them eventually, because I needed them on the *BOUNCE*, meaning, I couldn’t wait any longer for the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind to stop scratching their asses long enough to actually do their jobs, because they were put here to help fix the broken that is this computer, or, in one case, because shane thought one particular piece of software would make this thing work a little less like a brick than the other. Also, as some of you know, I share a dropbox with shane. Why? Because he has tons of space and said I could share. The difference, folks, is that most everything he gave me, if not all of it, is way the hell out of my price range! However, everything on here that is his, is legally registered to him, and he knows I have it, because in 3 out of 4 cases, he’s slapped the software on this machine himself. In his words, per my conversation with him as I write, “You have my permission to use it, the company *is* aware that it’s on your system. As I was using your system for a time, and felt it wasn’t to anyone’s bennifit to clean up after myself, you still have access to that software.” In other words, it’s legal, shut up, keep it, and like it. also re: The one thing he didn’t put on here himself that he handed me from 400 miles away, it became a matter of, I need this, because if the university’s networking policies eventually force me to make a certain upgrade, certain stuff of mine will be out of date and quite useless. We made the decision that him handing me a particular authorization for a piece of software was, for now, the best way to put a BandAid on the issue. What else was I going to do, learn a new screen reader in 2 days? Pull money out of my ass? Wait for a moneytree to appear? How about not? Now, if it were $10 software, I could simply go and buy it. However, there are certain pieces of software that cost more than both my parents make in a week put together. if somebody hands me a legal license, because I need that software, I won’t be kickin’ a gift horse in the ass. I will, as Shane’s fond of jokingly telling me to do when he does something major to help me out, “shut up and like it.” But people. Seriously. Hope’s a $10 piece of software. I’ve probably spent $10 in the last 2 weeks on caffeine alone. the developer may not be your favorite person, but that’s no excuse to publicly ask for a free copy of his software on Twitter. Would you like someone to do the same to you? Think about it. A little common sense and courtesy might get some of you a little farther in life.

so as a long time tech geek, I have this bad habbit of keeping up with firmware upgrades for the various blind products,
pacmate
braillenote family of products
and the
braille sense family of products
once distributed by
GWMicro
now sold and distributed by their manufacturer
hims INC.
It’s come to my attention that the braille sense plus has a knew firmware upgrade coming out or that’s already out, ok, that’s special, great, spantacular. Except for one major off pissing issue.
This firmware, will have burnt into the rom, five, yes five, different versions of the bible.
I see a few issues with this
List time, you know how this rolls.

• not everyone’s freakin’ religious, stop trying to ram it down our throats.
• noting the item above, if I wanna freakin’ remove it, give me the ability to for christ sakes.
• Actually, here’s a better idea, during the upgrade, give us the option, we want it, grate, let us pick a version, or all five if the person wants it. Don’t want it? Don’t install it for peet sakes!

People have religion, believe in god, are cathlic, whatever. I’m not knocking that, what I’m freakin’ knocking is this freakin companies ramming religion by burning 5 different bibles into your note takers rom, without your consent, and their being no way to remove it or know way to tell the updater, thanks, but no thanks, I *don’t* want this.
Ok, if you *must* install it, stick it in flash, as files, so they can be deleted!
So me getting a braille sense plus?
Not after I read that.
Comment away.
Let’s see what this sparks. This should be interesting.

Oh yeah, this is exactly what I wanted to wake up to reading via rss feeds this morning.
While scrolling through RSS feeds, I come across
this.
Here’s the article in it’s entirety.

Vancouver couple have been arrested for allegedly holding their two young autistic boys captive in a darkened, caged room.

Responding to a tip from Child Protective Services, police officers raided the couple’s apartment Tuesday and found the boys, ages 5 and 7, confined in a bedroom with a cage-like door. The boys could not speak, were wearing diapers and were not enrolled in school or receiving medical attention, according to police reports. They had no toys in their bedroom, which also had a cage over the window.

The parents, John C. Eckhart, 30, and Alayna M. Higdon, 26, were taken into custody on suspicion of second-degree criminal mistreatment and unlawful imprisonment, both class C felonies. On Wednesday morning, Clark County Superior Court Judge Robert Lewis set bail at $25,000 each. As of Wednesday afternoon, the two were in the Clark County Jail.

Meanwhile, the boys and the couple’s two other boys, ages 9 years and 11 months, were placed in protective custody, Vancouver police spokeswoman Kim Kapp said. The 9-year-old and 11-month-old were not being held in caged rooms.

The case surfaced after a social worker responded to a complaint about children being locked in cages. After knocking at the door, the social worker reported hearing a strange wailing coming from the apartment at 4317 N.E. 66th Ave.

“It kind of sounded like a bird, but I wondered if it was a kid,” the caseworker told officers, according to police reports.

Responding officers arrived later, and Higdon answered the door with a baby in her arms. The officer reported looking down a hallway and seeing a child’s arm hanging through a caged door. There was garbage and food wrappers on the floor, and the apartment was dirty and grimy, according to police reports. The cupboards in the kitchen contained little food; a pizza and Mountain Dew were in the refrigerator.

The couple’s 9-year-old son told officers that his younger brothers were fed but never allowed out of the room. The 9-year-old grew quiet when officers asked if the parents ever physically assaulted the children, according to reports. There was no reports of physical abuse.

The door of the room had been removed and replaced with a metal slatted cage that encompassed the entire doorway, Kapp said. The room was dark, with a single mattress inside.

When an officer went to the bedroom, where the boys were confined, “they were making moaning noises and tapped their fingers together through the holes between the metal bars,” according to police reports.

The officer reported smelling the scent of urine coming from the boys.

Asked why her children were locked in the room, Higdon said they are hyperactive and she doesn’t want them running wild. Pressed about why they weren’t in school, she told the officer that she can’t find a special school for their autism and tries to home-school them — even though the 9-year-old told investigators that his mother doesn’t teach them, according to police reports.

She also explained that the boys are still in diapers because they don’t understand how to go to the bathroom. She said she was not responsible for their well-being because they were Eckhart’s biological children, not hers.

After contacting Eckhart, whom police reports describe as Higdon’s fiancé, he became antagonistic toward the officers, yelling that they have no right to take his children.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked police. “Let them run around the house? What kind of (expletive) parenting is that? They are both autistic.”

Higdon told officers that her fiancé uses marijuana.

When officers let the boys out of the room, they appeared excited, and one of them pointed toward the window, according to police reports.

A witness (whose name was redacted from the report) interviewed by police reported that the children had been held in the caged room for at least six months.

Wednesday afternoon, at the couple’s apartment complex off Andresen Road, Springfield Meadows, neighbors said they occasionally heard children screaming but never saw the kids come outside.

One upstairs neighbor said the family were “really bad neighbors” and that the children’s screaming was always followed by the mother’s yelling.

Eckhart is listed in court papers as unemployed; a search for his Facebook page displays a picture of him making an obscene gesture.

Higdon is listed as a student at Clark College in elementary education and was part of a work-study program that sporadically placed her as a volunteer in the library at Harney Elementary School, said Vancouver Public Schools spokeswoman Kris Sork.

According to court documents, the couple lives off food stamps and $1,160 in welfare a month.

The couple’s family is blended, with the autistic boys belonging to Eckhart and the 9-year-old belonging to Higdon, according to police reports. They are the parents of the 11-month-old.

At their first appearance Wednesday, the judge appointed attorney Robert Vukanovich to represent Eckhart and attorney Clark Fridley to represent Higdon.

The pair are expected to be arraigned on charges April 27.

Reading that article, I had to prevent myself from screaming.
I’m so goddamn tired of seing this, it makes my freakin’ blood boil.
What pisses me off even more is this part of the article.

What am I supposed to do?” he asked police. “Let them run around the house? What kind of (expletive) parenting is that? They are both autistic.”

what the hell kind of an excuse is that?
Really?
and I’ve been
accused
of being a safety risk to kids?
Seriously?
Need I
remind
you that I know a parent who’s child’s autistic, blind, and nonverbal?
Does that kind of crap happen? Hell fucking know!
It’s stories like this that drive my willingness to protect the innocence of children, especially children like those shown in the story above.
and you want to let these people roam the street on araignment?
If I’m remembering my termonology correctly, is that not the same as bail?
Or maybe that word in my pissed off state was miss-read and I’m having a problem remembering the deffinition correctly.
feel free to comment and set me straight.

Oh yes, good morning ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the stupid.
This is exactly what I wanted to wake up to on a tuesday morning.
As you all know, I’ve been out of work for some time now, and relying on the ontario disability support program to survive, while I find another job.
This is all fine and dandy, until
James
checks the mail, and runs across, this letter, from my case worker, cathy jennings, of the ontario disability support program.

1148 VICTORIA ST APT 1
PETAWAWA ON K8H 2E7

Dear SHANE DAVIDSON:
This letter is about the income support you get from the Ontario Disability Support Program.

Our office has received information that may change the amount of income support that you
receive. We received information that you may be working and not declaring your income. We need to talk to you about this information so that we can make sure that you are getting the correct amount of income support now, and that you received the correct amount in the past.
Please come to the office:
at 77 Mary Street, 3rd Floor, Pembroke, ON on April 4, 2011 at 9:00 am
Please bring the following with you:

• Statements and/or passbooks for all bank accounts for the period of December 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011
If you have difficulty obtaining any of the documents by the date of the meeting, please call the ODSP office.
It is very important that you attend this meeting. If you need to change the time or date, or need to meet in a different place, please call the ODSP office.

You are welcome to bring a friend, a family member, a trustee, an advocate (social worker, case manager) or another person you trust to the meeting with you. If you need an interpreter, please advise the ODSP office in advance so they can help you make the necessary arrangements for the meeting.

If you would like to talk about this meeting, the information we have requested, or your case, please call me at 613-735-1073 Ext. 204.
Sincerely,
Kathy Jennings
Case Worker
for the Director of the Ontario Disability Support Program

Legislative Authority
Sections 5, 45, 46 and 59 of the Ontario Disability Support Program Act Sections 12(1), 23 and 54 of the ODSP Regulation (General)

Here’s where I stand up and go, w….t…f?
It’s right here.

We received information that you may be working and not declaring your income.

I’m gonna remind you that the dates their requesting statements for seen here.

Statements and/or passbooks for all bank accounts for the period of December 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011

Oh dear, I *wasn’t* working, I was attempting to uproute myself from the financial ass raping, that’s still occurring to date.
I have a sneaking suspicion who pulled this, and you low life stupid pompus moron, I’ll remind you of one thing, your shit’s one day gonna come back and bite you square in the ass, and believe me I hope I’m their to watch and laugh.
Karma’s a goddamn bitch, and one day…. one day…. you’ll get yours you fucking moron.
This just makes me feell all warm and fuzzy inside.
Um, actually, it doesn’t.
Have fun on the comment boards.
update 8:34AM: I just called my case worker, and the tip came in annonymously, so now I have all the proof I need. it’s time to play hardball, you stupid son of a bitch.
update 9:00AM: a call to ontario works in hamilton has sparked a complete review of that person’s file, yes, karma’s a bitch.

I thought I was done issuing clues to the stupid today? it’s almost 5 PM as I start this. I guess clue issuance doesn’t have office hours. Having said that, I guess stupid doesn’t either. And I take it those who issue clue don’t get sickdays? I could’ve taken one today. somewhere, one of you just asked, “Oh for fuck’s sakes, what could’ve possibly blown up now? Shane’s out of the country for Christ’s sakes!” Yeah, well of course he’s out of the country. but that doesn’t mean my family’s stupid license wasn’t revoked. Of course not. that’d be too easy. I’m digging through email again. Personal email. Translation: the address the family has. this can only end in cursing, right? Well, of course.

Over the past couple days, my mother seemed to have gotten some weed in her system, gotten the bug out of her ass, and started acting like a normal human being. she even cracked a joke in her last message about me buying her an iPhone for her 40th birthday. So you’d think that the stupid was if not gone, at least significantly curtailed, right? Excuse me while I pop your happy little bubble where everything’s perfect… Ah, there, that’s better. Incoming stupid! Duck and cover! (Note that the email address of the guilty party is not provided here for the author’s sanity and safety.)

Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 4:08 PM
From: (My grandmother)
To: Krista Pennell

Hi Krista
Auntie called me last night and she wants to take you out to lunch for your birthday, I guess this weekend
she wants me to go too. Dad and I are happy you are coming home. Remember you can not bring Shane home
with you. I don;t want what happened for your birthday to happen. Email me back please
Love you

Now, let’s review, children, shall we?
When was Shane supposed to leave? tuesday.
When did he actually leave? Wednesday. We’ll blame Fitchburg State, the MBTA, and Greyhound for that, but that’s his deal not mine.
Who paid, more often than not, whenever we went to do something, whether it was traveling to New Hampshire to hang with friends, grab takeout because cafeteria food is meh, or go out to dinner by ourselves, without people whining they wanna go with us? that’s right, Shane did.
What did I contribute? I was able to pay for his food when his wallet walked off, give him a place to stay, and let him borrow my equipment while we waited for his to get here. (Thanks, asshole in Montreal, that was much appreciated. And asshole who jacked his wallet? Hell. Go there. now. Move). This trip was not under the niftiest of circumstances, as you well know, and as I’ve said before, we thank everyone who was able to pull it off the ground when it did go sideways.

that having been said, what the hell do I have to do to get it through people’s heads that he’s not taking advantage of me? Is my family really that overprotective, stupid, and unwilling to treat me like an adult that they’re hammering it into their own heads that he’s taking advantage of me? And how am I supposed to show them he’s not when they won’t give me the chance to? My mother, for one, complains that I don’t include him in anything. well, how do I do that when you won’t allow me to, you dumb ass? And grandmother, you know better. You of all people, know that I despise when people behave like that. You knew I didn’t want a birthday party, you knew it would’ve been too much for me to deal with. You knew I wanted Shane to meet everyone. I understand mother had a tantrum, oh my god, 2 and a half weeks ago, but that doesn’t give you the right to bring it up and throw it in my face. We’ve spoken of this before. I’ve told you I’m not going to be the old lady with 7000 cats just to make my mother happy and make her not have to, *gasp*, deal with people she may or may not like. the only person I’ve ever dated that she’s liked is cory. God forbid I date anyone else. she’s never liked anyone I’ve dated, with the exception of one guy, and that’s because his parents were filthy motherfucking rich. But he lived all the way out in Boston, and god forbid I be allowed to travel there. Oh, and he wasn’t necessarily college material either, so I guess the only reason she ever liked him was his rich family. Hell, she’s never really even liked any of my blind friends, again, with the notable exception of Cory. I know I referred in my last post to the poor guy whose family originated from Pakistan whom she ragged on so bad behind his back that I took pity on the poor kid and stopped talking to him. she never ragged on any of my other friends that bad, but when I hung around the few sighted people who would tolerate being seen with the blind girl in my early high school days, you could tell she was much happier about that. Take for example my friend Jay, who had one whole side of his face crushed by a jet-ski about 4 years back. He too, was blind. Did she ever rag on him, even if his face was scarred up all to hell? No. Did she rag on my friend who is wheelchair bound and only has partial use of one hand? No. All of these people have one thing in common, including Shane. That is that they all, somehow, look different. Hell, even I do. And we know she’s all over me constantly about my looks. So what the hell is her problem? Shane has done nothing to hurt me, nor has he done anything to her. When he met her, he was nothing but civil to her. And she didn’t give him any hell either. What seems to be the problem, now, and how the hell do I fix it? Given her previous history with friends of mine and people I’ve dated, how was I supposed to know she’d pull this on Shane? And why, suddenly, is my grandmother behaving like this? What’d I do to her? How’s he supposed to meet the rest of the family if they won’t remove their collective cranium from their rectum? Mother says she wants to see him included in things, and so do I, but how is that possible when everyone’s being stupid? How did they go from being accepting of this in November, to this attitude of disgust, now?
End brain vomit. Time to go get actual work done, now. it’s 7:35 and I’m still in an awesome mood because of that one email. Just… Meh. I hate people somedays.

I am not happy, hence why shane has given me the floor, so to speak, as I believe he fears my head may actually explode. Normally, my Twitter account is my happy bitch, but 140 characters was not going to do this justice. I already almost squished some poor guy on my way to get the caffeine Wes told me to go get. Normally, I don’t do the blog thing. I’ve said before in my twitter feed that “It’s too damn time consuming, I’d forget about it and walk the hell off without even thinking. I’ve got way too much going on to worry about a damn blog.” Shane’s solution to the problem, instead of me blowing money on a domain I won’t use, is to give me author priveliges. That’s cool, that’s nifty, I can totally live with it. If something breaks, it won’t be mine to worry about. I just squeak, and it gets fixed. Kinda like I just had to do with my keyboard, actually. Whoops?

My keyboard just tried to do that cool thing wherein it tries to fall apart and Shane tells it, “No, sorry, you’re not dying yet.” oh yeah that was fun. Mostly blind me searching for a tiny plastic thinggy on the floor, wondering just how in the hell it was attached to the damn keyboard in the first place… Ah, yes, but that was just the perfect way to top this evening off, as if what I saw 10 minutes before wasn’t enough. You’re probably thinking “Oh for Christ’s sakes, what blew up now?”

Hell, I’ve got chocolate, I’ve got caffeine, I’ve got Pandora, and I got all night, let’s go. We’ll start from the top, as that’s as good a place as any. Shane, you’ll regret this, or kill me, one of the two…

First it has to be understood that my mother has never liked Shane. She took us both out to dinner, once, and was fine with him. Absolutely fine, didn’t even flip out too badly about him staying here with me. And Christ, my dad? My dad was cool with it! You’d think he’d be the one flipping a shit because some strange dude he didn’t know was living with his daughter for 2.5 weeks, but no. That, however, was in November. Shane left here, mid November, inadvertently leaving behind a prescription medication he was taking for his knee, and a bottle, which he was told was unlabeled, but was actually *inappropriately* labeled with someone else’s name, and looked like a prescription. Said bottle actually contained tylenol, but of course MotherZilla immediately labeled him a drug dealer in her head. Now, come on. anyone can make a mistake, and considering who Shane was living with at the time, it’s little wonder that they gave him a weird-looking bottle and lied to him about how it was labeled. I, for one, wasn’t surprised. A touch peeved at Shane at the time for sticking me in that situation, but I got over it. Anyone can screw up like that, it could’ve just as easily been me, leaving my prescription meds at his place if I went up there. This, however, is the princess. And…well… if you know me at all, you’ll know why I call her the princess. She hit a 20 on the flip-a-shit-ometer, lost her shit, and has never thought the same of him since.

We hit fast forward real quick to last week. I didn’t want a birthday party this year, unless shane could come. I wanted him to meet the family, and that, in my mind, was the primary purpose of a birthday party. Last year’s birthday festivities kinda broke my brain, tossed me on the ground, and ran over me with a truck, as they were sort of mandated by a death in the family. So I was kinda done with the whole OMG looky it’s a birthday, thing, and I told the family as much. Their listening skills are apparently that of a 3 year old child, with severe ADHD, after several sugar cubes and some Mountain Dew thrown in for good measure. So MotherZilla’s about to come pick me up last Friday. I ask her, politely, if shane could come, as I wanted him to meet everyone else. She hits a 50 on the flip-a-shit-ometer. During her tantrum, she also accused shane of playing a “game.” Said game, in her head, may or may not include him intercepting my voicemails and emails. We know he’s good, but he ain’t that good.

And then… tonight, the following happens.

I get back from my night class, grab Shane caffeine because he’s in the middle of a test, and sit down to do the last fly-through of student, (and unfortunately personal), email accounts. I know for a fact shane has posted about my mother’s 39 going on 3 attitude of late, because I commented on one of said posts, explaining it further. My mother’s always been somewhat of… well to borrow some words from one of my twitter followers… “a psychotic, neurotic, and unkind individual.” Some people may call her overprotective, but lately I just call it, “Holy fuck, the crazy, it burns.” and oh, does it ever burn. I’m flipping through mail, and I find… this.

wrote:
> If you need me to complete the FAFSA for next year financial aid, you need to let me know. Usually it is due 2-14 but you didn’t say anything to me and I just remembered, I haven’t even filed my taxes yet. I guess it doesn’t really matter anyhow since you can’t return any emails, texts, or calls from either Nana

My response to the princess’s latest bitchfest was a simple,

Yes Please.

I do not make any income. I do not, as of yet, pay taxes, as I, well, don’t make any income. She needs to fill out the FAFSA whether she feels like being a bitch princess or not, as the government needs to determine that neither she, nor I, can pull money out of our ass to pay for my education.

My grandmother also has it in her head that he’s taking advantage of me. I think not. He took me out to lunch the other day, (and made me late for statistics, thanks, dear). He also bought me dinner Friday night after my mother pitched her childish fit, and has either paid for himself, or we’ve used my university meal plan to pay for his food, the entire time he’s been here, even when his wallet up and fucked off. We went to WalMart the other day and it was, ” What do you want to eat? Speak up, because you need to eat, too, not just Rick and myself. And what do you need? And no, nothing is not the answer, because I’m sure you need *something*.” I mean, hell, even after I ran to get him a drink, and 15 minutes later grabbed myself one before I shot someone, he ran to get chocolate, and brought some back for me on his own dime. Does that sound like he’s taking advantage of me? Absolutely not. Shit, even when his wallet fucked off, the two of us actively pursued the means for him to stay here without anally raping my minimal resources with a spork, and we thank those of you who helped.

anyone have any ideas of what to do about defective family members? Unfortunately, they didn’t come with instruction manuals.

so according to vanessa, the twatwaffling hormonal sex deprived asscrack, she’s attempted to call krista multiple times, sent multiple e-mails, etc.
Except that part wherein she sent nothing.
Anyone wanna guess who the fuck she’s blaming this time? Yep, me, again.
I’m supposedly the cause of krista never getting her voicemails or e-mails.
I hate people, just… bleh.

The things I find while waiting for files to save.
A 5-year-old says he
found
a gun in his father’s car on the way to school.

The young boy, who has since been suspended for an undetermined amount of time, told police that he found the gun in his stepfather’s vehicle on the way to school that morning.

Superintendent Tom Townsend says he is unaware if the child realizes the severity of the situation and ultimately, places blame on the child’s parent.

Well hey, he’s only 5, he was curious, and probably wanted to show it to all his friends. Placing blame on the parents, damn straight.
That’s exactly where it belongs.

“As a father that’s raised three kids, I’m responsible for what my 5 year old accesses. So, yes, I think he’s a victim of neglect.”

As a godfather, babysitter, and father to a child that isn’t mine biologically, I *was* responsible for that child(s) actions when that child is/was in my care. so I see where the superintendant’s coming from.

Police say that if the boy’s story proves to be true, the parent could face neglect charges as well as culpable negligence for improperly storing a firearm within the reach of a child.

I’m not doubting the validity of the child’s story, I’m currently wishing the parents jailed for such a stupid action.
The what if’s come to mind, what if the gun had gone off, what if their had been a bullit in the actual chamber… so many possibilities that just, even to me, are extremely scary.
Innocents could have been killed by this parents neglect.
Yes the child was wrong for picking up an unknown object, should he have been suspended? yes, I believe he should have been, just so he knows that what he did was wrong.
Should the parents be held accountable for the unsafe storage of a firearm around a child? Your fucking right they should be.
Taking this a step further, should the child be removed from the home, if it’s determined the parents are irresponsible with firearms? Yes, he should. Why? because it’s an unsafe environment for the child.

so this blog, among other things, including e-mail, is now hosted on
dream host
and a couple nights ago, their entire network infristructure went down for scheduled maintenance, and this was posted on their
status
twitter.

DreamHost Status: Network Maintenance: Friday, January 28th – 22:00 through Saturday, January 29th 02:00 PST http://dhurl.org/1io at 2:49:38 PM on 1/28/2011

so being the individual I am, I immediately visit the post, in the event I’m effected, and in
visiting that post
we see it’s tagged for 9:30PM.
Those of you with half an inkling of a clue about the power of
wordpress
will know you can future date a post, and it’ll show up as being posted at that date and time.
This is what dreamhost had done in this case.
The influx of fuckin’ winers after this post went up, supposedly 30 minutes before the network maintenance window, was outstandingly dumb!
These people supposedly have technical nowhow?
These people supposedly run websites and businesses?
You wouldn’t know it, reading the comments after that particular post even today over 48 hours after things went to hell and the maintenance went longer than expected.
People, a few things in list format, because I don’t feel like expanding my ideas right now and I’m undercafeinated and food deprived.

• dream host
  can’t control if things go straight to hell and the network maintenance window needs to be expanded
• secondly, dream host has better things to do than to bend to your every beck and call and issue you status e-mails when shit’s gonna fall over. this is why their
  twitter
  and
  status blog
  exist, and ohmygod, the status blog has an rss feed!
• further to that, you are supposedly technical, and you have time to post comments and wine, follow the rss feed of that status blog, or create a rss feed of their twitter, ok? use that technical knowledge for something else then pissing off dream host. they might shut you down, except not, but the thought was their and needed to be said.

the long and short of this post is this.
You run a website, your supposedly technical, dreamhost has many a way for you to know about this stuff, and their twitters updated hella frequently, so for the love of cheese and bacon, use the resources available to you and quit wining!
I’m done, now.
food calls.
I do like comments, use them.

I’m on the
jaws for windows list
hosted on
rfree lists
Why? because I’ve got nothing else better to do with my inbox, so why not, righht?
Sure, but over the past few days, the list has been less than on topic of late.
I politely, one list member to another, issued mild clues, just to say, this isn’t official, just one member to another back the off topic crap down before the owner/mods, mainly,
james
and/or
jessica
have to officially step in and squish this.
It didn’t help, kept up, and finally james very bluntly told the list membership, straight. just like this.

From: jfw-bounce@freelists.org [mailto:jfw-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of James Homuth
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2011 5:18 AM
To: jfw@freelists.org
Subject: Admin: The off-topic messages end right here, right now.

Folks, I’ll make this rather straightforward. Windows mobile does not have anything to do with JAWS. Nor does your particular iDevice of choice. Nor does Facebook shutting down, or not, depending on the time of day. If you can’t keep your messages confined to the topic of the *JAWS For Windows* list, you will be invited to leave. If you have a problem with the rules as laid out by Jessica earlier and myself now, take it up with me off-list. Another message that doesn’t have to do with JFW, and that person will spend some time on moderation. The guidelines are not hard to follow, folks. You all received them when you subscribed. If you’d like, they can be re-sent to you as a reminder. Please, for the love of all that is sane, follow them. The admin staff will not be asking again.

James,
List Admin

in other words, get your shit in order, leave quietly, or simarily get tossed out the window.
The list membership has been told how it’s gonna roll.
Welcome to the Friday cluestick, people.
Now, keep your shit on topic, ok?
related: free lists mailing manager needs to be shot, on basic principle.

We start out today… with yet another clue.
This is what… the 2nd day in a row?
Doing the morning cruise through RSS feeds, we find a mother that got charged for an amber alert, why? because the mother decided to use her kid as
insurance
so a man would return her car.
Then she claimed the child was abducted, oh yeah, this is just brilliant.
Have the article in full.

The Elmira mother charged after the city’s first use of the Amber Alert system used her 3-year-old son as “insurance” when she loaned an acquaintance her car, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Stephanie A. Davila, 33, of South Walnut Street, was also accused of lying to police as they were looking for her son, Jacob Ryan Rubin Davila.
Law enforcement officials said the mother loaned her car to a man she didn’t know well and made him take the boy so he would return the vehicle.
The boy, who was reported missing Tuesday night, was found unharmed Wednesday morning at a motel room in Henrietta, a suburb of Rochester.
Stephanie Davila and the man accused of taking Jacob Davila, Quentin M. Singletary, 26, of Rochester, were both charged Wednesday with endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor. They are scheduled to appear at 9 a.m. Wednesday in Elmira City Court.
“Right now, I feel we’ve got appropriate charges filed,” Chemung County District Attorney Weeden Wetmore said Thursday, adding that he’d spoken in detail with Capt. Joe Kain, commander of the Elmira Detective Bureau, about the investigation.
The misdemeanor complaint against Stephanie Davila accuses her of misleading police as they looked for her son.
“When the patrol originally went over there, she flat-out told us it was an abduction of her child against her wishes,” Kain said.
That information led police to issue an Amber Alert, saying that Jacob Davila had been abducted, Kain said.
“It wasn’t until we interviewed some of her other kids, and some of the information was able to be obtained to find out that she actually did give him (Singletary) consent to take her car and one of her children,” Kain said.
Another charge may be coming: Wetmore said he may charge Singletary with unlawful imprisonment, but Davila’s actions the night Jacob Davila went missing might stand in the way.
“(Davila) insisted that (Singletary) take her son when he took the car, as insurance that he would return the car,” Wetmore said, adding that that was the reason for her charge.

“He never intended to kidnap (Jacob), or anything. He just took the kid and went to do his business in Rochester,” Wetmore said.

Wetmore said he charged Singletary with endangering “because he had the kid legitimately, but for whatever reason he decided to go off to Rochester.”
Wetmore said he didn’t know why Singletary went to Rochester with Jacob Davila, and said Stephanie Davila also didn’t know.
“She didn’t want to know what his business was,” Wetmore said.
“According to her, she thought he was just going to a local Burger King. She let her son go off.”
Kain said there is no evidence Singletary’s trip to Rochester was related to drug trafficking.
He said there may have been some drug paraphernalia in the motel room in Henrietta where deputies found the boy, but Singletary and Jacob Davila had only been in that room for a few minutes. He said they stayed in a different room at the motel.
When deputies found Jacob Davila, they questioned Singletary, one man and two women.
Kain said the three other adults whom deputies found in the room “knew nothing about Quentin Singletary … abducting a kid or anything like that. They knew (Jacob) as his girl’s baby, so they never questioned anything about it. He just kind of hung out up there with them.”
Though the three other adults in the motel room may have thought the boy belonged to Singletary’s girlfriend, Kain said he didn’t know whether he and Stephanie Davila actually had a romantic relationship.
He said the two met about two weeks ago and had seen each other a few times since then.
“Quentin didn’t even know the boy’s name,” Kain said. “If he had to think for a while, it would come to him. … (Davila) doesn’t know him; he doesn’t know nothing about her.
“That’s his lifestyle, just come and go and do his own thing. He’s not accountable to anybody …,” Kain said.
Kain said Singletary has a criminal history but didn’t elaborate except to say that Singletary had never been arrested in Elmira.
Police said they fielded perhaps thousands of calls after issuing the Amber Alert. Kain said two of those callers provided information that helped locate Jacob Davila. He said he planned to talk to both.
“They did an outstanding job and it helped us out immensely, so I’d like to commend them in whatever way I can,” Kain said.
“It’s nice when people step up and do the right thing, especially when it’s a good cause: the protecting and the saving of a little kid.”

So in short, the man in question, Kain, isn’t being charged, unless I’m missing something, and the mother is.
Please do be taking the rest of her kids to, ok?
Related: I hate stupid people, stop failing, please? thanks.

For those who still haven’t realized how this works, let me clue you in on a little something, and I’ll do you a favor and do it in list format.

• I am dating Krista. and sorry, I don’t share.


• She is not abusing me. unlike some others I could name.


• She is not taking advantage of me, or using me to get away from her parents. nor is she using me to pay her financial way in life, like someone else I could mention.


• I’m not in this relationship for sex, even if certain backwater scumbags think that’s all I think about/want in life/from a relationship.


• I’m not using
  james
  and his credit card to get what I want in life. Nor am I using him to finance my upcoming trip to the states. This is paid for by me, nobody else. All james credit card did was hold the ticket, I paid for it out of pocket. once again, thanks for playing.

So in short, please, get you an education, get your facts straight and jump off the highist cliff available to you, and don’t take a parrashute with you either.
thanks for playing, next, please?

This is an open clue to specific individuals who think I’m made of money and who need a knew brain.
Please take note of the following in list format.

• Nobody was home when I left on december 1, 2010.
• Your waiting until now, almost a month later, to ask about the house key? seriously?

Now, for a couple well aimed clues.

• If you really want me to ship the key back to you, kindly pay for it. and *my*, transportation, at $25 each way, to and from pembroke by cab to ship the offending piece of metal.
• a more smarter idea is this, it’s cheeper to simply cut another key than to spend almost $15 in shipping, + transportation costs, to and from the post office, for me to ship the house key back to you.


• what the fuck am I gonna do with the house key nearly 9 hours away, for serious?

In short, quit wasting my time, and yours, and the money I don’t have, and get over yourselves.
Replace the lock or the housekey, and move the fuck on.
I don’t wanna here anymore wining you can’t rent the room out because, *I*, didn’t give back the house key.
the simple fact is this, your to goddamn lazy to cut a knew one, and that’s the end of it.
Thanks for playing, now, shut up and leave me the hell alone.
note, to the people this is directed at, this is my blog, my opinion, don’t like what I have to say, stop reading, right the hell now.

and here, we go again.
TSA, seriously
agaain

The 50-year-old pilot, who lives outside Sacramento, asked that neither he nor his airline be identified. He has worked for the airline for more than a decade and was deputized by the TSA to carry a gun in the cockpit.

He is also a helicopter test pilot in the Army Reserve and flew missions for the United Nations in Macedonia.

Three days after he posted a series of six video clips recorded with a cell phone camera at San Francisco International Airport, four federal air marshals and two sheriff’s deputies arrived at his house to confiscate his federally-issued firearm. The pilot recorded that event as well and provided all the video to News10.

At the same time as the federal marshals took the pilot’s gun, a deputy sheriff asked him to surrender his state-issued permit to carry a concealed weapon.

A follow-up letter from the sheriff’s department said the CCW permit would be reevaluated following the outcome of the federal investigation.

The YouTube videos, posted Nov. 28, show what the pilot calls the irony of flight crews being forced to go through TSA screening while ground crew who service the aircraft are able to access secure areas simply by swiping a card.

“As you can see, airport security is kind of a farce. It’s only smoke and mirrors so you people believe there is actually something going on here,” the pilot narrates.

Video shot in the cockpit shows a medieval-looking rescue ax available on the flight deck after the pilots have gone through the metal detectors. “I would say a two-foot crash ax looks a lot more formidable than a box cutter,” the pilot remarked.

A letter from the TSA dated Dec. 6 informed the pilot that “an administrative review into your deputation status as a Federal Flight Deck Officer has been initiated.”

According to the letter, the review was directly related to the discovery by TSA staff of the YouTube videos. “The content and subject of these videos may have violated regulations concerning disclosure of sensitive security information,” the letter said.

The pilot’s attorney, Don Werno of Santa Ana, said he believed the federal government sent six people to the house to send a message.

“And the message was you’ve angered us by telling the truth and by showing America that there are major security problems despite the fact that we’ve spent billions of dollars allegedly to improve airline safety,” Werno said.

The pilot said he is not in trouble with his airline, but a supervisor asked him to remove public access to the YouTube videos.

He does, however, face potential civil penalties from the TSA. He said he would likely go public when it becomes clear what the government plans to do with him.
He still hasn't gone public, but further research indicates he did resign as an FFDO. from this article we have:

The pilot said he had resigned his position as an FFDO and was told by a TSA representative the resignation would result in the case being closed. The pilot’s attorney, Don Werno, said he was waiting for formal written confirmation.

In my opinion, why should he have to resign his job, because he showed flaws in a security system? it doesn’t make sense.
from the same article we have this

Current regulations require flight crews to pass through a TSA checkpoint, while ground crews can gain access to the same aircraft simply by swiping a card at an unmanned door.

“How effective is security when everybody on board is screened and everybody on the ground isn’t?” the pilot asked.

How safe do I feel now knowing that?
Should the ground crew not go through *the exact* same screening everyone else does?
I stand behind my previous claims, I’ll stay with greyhound, at least, until such time, as stuff like this is put in place for ground transportation.
Then I may just stop traveling crossboarder all together.
TSA, kindly, die.

a note to a list moderator;
Please kindly stop acting like a fucking prick to me.
your not god, and never will be.
Teling me repeatedly that a topics off topic on a *tech* list when it’s not then banning me after the list owner specifically told you not to, is a violation of your moderator privilidges.
I hope you never become a moderator again.
I’m glad you got your ass fired.
with no love,
me.

so I’ve been invited to
james
parents for christmas dinner.
All fine and dandy, until it actually comes time for me to leave to go their.
I dial the one cab company I use, their’s a message saying their closed for christmas.
I curse and call the next one.
Get the same thing.
So I had to call the parents I’m going to have dinner with and go can I have a ride?
Thank god their willing to come get me.
Thanks smalltown cab companies for sucking. large.

so yet again we run into passport canada’s
brilliant ideas
to as of february 1, 2011
no longer except
hospital birth certificates.

To obtain the proper certificate, people are asked to contact Ontario’s Vital Statistics Agency.

in other words, it’s gonna be even harder to get a passport.
thanks passport canada for
sucking even more
related: I might as well add that phone call to the province to the list of people to call today, yeah?

So monday started out all right.
The usual amount of nothing was scheduled to happen, except a few random calls to bitchslap people around that james and I had to make, not to tarrible, right?
you’d think so, until I have to ring up ODSP and hit them upside the head with knew information.
This goes all right, until it’s determined that their is no rent information on file for me, and I have until Friday, to get it in, if I don’t their not gonna issue the shelter cost.
Just fuckin’ spactacular.
I attempt to explain to the case worker, this can’t happen this way, we need more time, but can I give you the numbers verbally and fax or drop off to you in person next week with the proof of information, as this is how I got it done at the old address.
my reasoning I don’t have reliable transportation out to pembroke this week to get the information to you.
Of course not, legally she can’t do it, I shouldn’t have done it that way at the old address, etc. etc. etc.
Ok, fine, then can you send someone out here to pick up the information, as this has been done this way before, of course not.
So
james
gets involved and says, well all the information you needs in my file, can you use that until we can get in next week with the paperwork.
This is a no go to, so we finally get sick and tired of dealing with this person, and i call back and promptly request the manager of the district, without preamble.
I get shot to renfrue, the little smaller hicktown the opposit side of pembroke.
We determine after some checking that OK, I’m in the right spot, but the managers not in and won’t be until tomorrow, but is their something I can do for you.
The receptionist is sympathetic to the issues I’m raising and gets me calmed down from blowup stage to explain that yes, their doing their jobs, but no, them not accomidating you knowing the situation wasn’t right, and I was within my rights to call and speak to the district manager.
So I get put through to the manager’s voicemail, and have left one novel of a message.
After this is done, we now wait.
Will I get my full check this month? who the hell knows.
This has made up both mine and
james
mind that we are moving back to ottawa, for the simple fact that little hicktown dumps like here aren’t condoossive to gett anything resembling sensable done.
Related: we reached phil and hit him with a clue by 4 to get at least that portion of the paperwork started, but we’ll see where that ghoes.
Monday was made of suck fail and blow. that is all.

Holy shit.
This just tops the fuckin’ cake around here.
so I went to
equifax
to find out who/what has blown my credit report to all kinds of hell.
I get their, and ok, they want a credit card.
Whatever, I ask
james
if I could use his.
fine and dandy, right?
no, not so much.
We enter all the details, and instead of being smart, and logical, and making sure the information for billing was the same and letting me edit it if it wasn’t, the stupid thing *assumes* that *I* am the credit card holder.
Um, idiots? I *don’t* have a credit and I want to access my *credit* report to see what’s on it so I can *actually* get one, ok?
Equifax, a note to you, incompitent twits.
*don’t* require a credit card to access the credit report, thanks much.
Kindly die alongside everyone else including
greyhound USA
and
Greyhound canada

in Related news: getting jessica
up here is prooving to be made of fail hense my reference to greyhound USA/canada both needing to die.

***adult warning*** if you are offended by fowel language, stop reading now! ***end adult content warning!***
Ladies and gentlemen,
This post is an actual post, and it’s not going to be a nice one, and I frankly don’t give a flying fuck at this point.
The following logged conversation took place on march 21st, 2009 and my comments and the aftermath will follow.
First, the log itself.

Session Start: Saturday, March 21, 2009
vampiric poohbear (shane@shaned.net)
Naama (naamaerez_22@hotmail.com)
(7:50 AM) Naama: hi there, do you kow that I didn’t even know about hte meeting that took place with Larry in the radio room? I had no idea it ws going to happen?
(7:56 AM) vampiric poohbea: You’ll have to take that up with the board. Larry e-mailed the list saying he’d spoken with mitch and was given authority to take over the project, and that was that. please note you woke me up thanks.
(7:56 AM) Naama: are you being a jerk now/
(7:56 AM) Naama: you used to be so nice
(7:56 AM) Naama: I dont’ deserve this shit from you
(7:57 AM) vampiric poohbea: no, you woke me up. it’s just before 8AM on a saturday.
(7:57 AM) Naama: well didn’t you write to me at 2am ever for Mme?
(7:57 AM) Naama: if you dont’ want to be woken up, you can turn off messenger
(7:57 AM) Naama: so your true colors come out
(7:58 AM) Naama: believe me, I have some power to, o
(7:58 AM) Naama: I never gave you any reason to treat me like this, to talk to me like this
(7:59 AM) vampiric poohbea: I’m not giving you shit, I’m simply telling you how it went down, and if you have a problem with it, Is I stated before, take it up with the board and larry. I’m not management over their, and the politics of it all I could really care les about. larry supposedly talked to mitch, larry wrote the list, and the meeting took place. I don’t have a recording of said meeting because I was late getting their
(7:59 AM) Naama: I havne’t done anything toyou
(7:59 AM) Naama: yo never spooke to me like this
(7:59 AM) Naama: I dot deseve it
(7:59 AM) Naama: don’t deserve it
(7:59 AM) Naama: thanks for nothing
(8:00 AM) Naama: I gave you a ahcne when everoen on the old main menu team told me you were a jerk and that I should kick you off, including Larry
(8:00 AM) Naama: chance
(8:00 AM) Naama: when you applied to come back to acbri larry said never in hell
(8:00 AM) Naama: Larry hates your guts, dont’ forget, for what went down before you got kicked off
(8:01 AM) Naama: so good luck
(8:07 AM) vampiric poohbea: I do not appreciate waking up to this. If I was not wanted I wouldn’t have been send instant messages checking if I was going to attend said meeting. I do remember someone stating they’d approach you, and if that didn’t happen, is that really my problem? No, it’s not. I do my job to the best of my ability, and if people can’t or won’t appreciate it then what is the point of me even trying. I can and will work with anyone, and do tasks as assigned to me, no matter who’s managing the project, I do my job as assigned and if their’s a problem I will speak my mind, and ask anyone that’s known me long enough if I feel managements being rediculous I’ll be the first one to stand up and let whoever’s being rediculous have it both barrels
(8:07 AM) Naama has changed his/her status to Idle

Session Start: Saturday, March 21, 2009
vampiric poohbear (shane@shaned.net)
Naama (naamaerez_22@hotmail.com)
(8:29 AM) Naama: I was just talking to you as a friend, nothing special, just sharing with you, and you attacked me for no resson
(8:29 AM) Naama: I don’t deserve this from you
(8:29 AM) Naama: I helped youout without ou even knowing
(8:29 AM) Naama: so many people told me to kicke you off
(8:29 AM) Naama: and I had faith in you
(8:29 AM) Naama: Larry doesnt’ like you , he said some awful tings about you
(8:30 AM) Naama: and you are taking your shit out on me? you should be thanking me
(8:30 AM) Naama: I was just sharing
(8:30 AM) vampiric poohbear has changed his/her status to Appear Offline
(8:30 AM) vampiric poohbear has changed his/her status to Online
(8:30 AM) Naama: fine lblock me, youjerk
(8:32 AM) vampiric poohbea: I didn’t have to join the team, but i did because i had something to contribute. if you can’t appreciate it then that really isn’t my problem. now, if you have a problem with the way the meeting was put together take it up with the individuals responsible for calling the meeting, and leave me out of it.
(8:32 AM) vampiric poohbea: case, closed.
(8:32 AM) Naama: I wa s just fucking sharing with you
(8:32 AM) Naama: that’s all
(8:32 AM) Naama has been blocked

So after this little conversation, I basically let myself calm down, and then contacted Larry, (referenced in the above log) and also sent a copy of this to paul edwards and mitch pomerantz the ACB president and basically asked the following
1. Larry, did you say these things that naama has insinuated?
2. Do you indeed not want me apart of the ACBRadio main menu team?
3. Do you hate me that much
that you would let hell freeze over before I could rejoin ACBRadio interactive?

Does anyone wanna guess his response?
He never had a problem with me, never wanted me kicked off the main menu team, and he sure as shit didn’t say he didn’t want me back on interactive!
He even offered me the opurtunity to rejoin interactive in May once the knew management took over!
Ladies and gentlemen, with that, do you think he hate me? I think not!
Comments everyone?
I wanna here your opinions! speak up!