I'm supposed to be fixing a computer for someone else.

I really should be working on stuff for the store -- possibly even working on getting some of that stuff into other stores, so that I can get stuff sold without having my right to mark up products and the profits I would've gained from my own markup stripped from me through potentially inaccurate reporting.

The website thing is going along as well as can be expected. I'm learning new things, and learning how to implement those new things. But there were some delays in all that, including Swyndle showing up for a week. Ish. Not entirely his fault; I can't work on some things if there's anyone else in the room sometimes. And there were other things going on at the same time that kept me from focusing.

So I'm not blaming him.

Now? I could easily be working on a lot of things, but something else came up.

The books. Gremlin's books. They're at amazon.com. Which means I really, really, really need to do what I was supposed to do and write short descriptions.

Ugh.

The swine flu was created and released by Cafepress, to divert everyone's attention from the godawful mess they've made.

It's not exactly a public trainwreck, since you have to have an account to view it, but getting an account is as easy as opening a store – you don't even need to put anything in your store. Just having the store gives you access to the 2009 Marketplace Announcement Discussion. This forum was started...I'm going to guess less than five days ago...and it's already got 4,026 posts. I think it's over five pages of posts – I don't know for sure right now, because the forum just crashed.

...and it's back.

Five pages. In under a week. Five pages of people being very upset about the change.

What change? Oh, nothing major. Just a complete reversal of their usual [somewhat trite] 'unique expression of you' line.

What they're going to do is make it so that each individual type of product – no matter the design – has a set, flat price in the marketplace. You'll still have your own markup in your regular store, but in the marketplace? Not anymore. And you'll only get...I think the quoted rate was 10%.

I guess their new line [instead of that 'unique/you' shit] is 'the customer is too stupid'.

There's a lot of shit in that forum. A lot of people saying they're leaving. And a lot of things that really shouldn't be there – like the story about one shopkeeper calling in to ask what the hell was going on, and getting told 'you don't do shit' by the person on the phone.

As someone with a shop there, this...bugs me. I've spent hours just setting up the sections and getting the images right, not counting the time spent on my drawings. My iguana took months to draw. Telling someone who does this that they 'don't do shit' is just...not right.

I hope CP records their calls, and that this person was fired.

At this point, I don't really care what their reasoning is anymore. And I'm starting to not care about the other side, either. Because, seriously, whining on a messageboard about how you're going to tell the media? Not helpful.

Actually telling the media might be helpful, but you might want to do it in a non-petulant sort of way.

One might also consider just blogging about it. Since most of this is contained within a private forum [not too private, but private enough that most people won't go to the trouble to see it], you might want to be sharing the information with the general public.

Also an idea: if you want to get your attention, you should do what those people in Texas did to Yahoo back when Yahoo ditched the user rooms. They called a Troubleshooter type news person to report 'pedophile rooms', and the troubleshooter person got in touch with the various companies that advertise with Yahoo. CP has certain special account-holders that might not be aware of this. I think one of them sells Peanuts products [y'know, Snoopy?]. Those groups might be interested in hearing about this, and they – even though they're an extreme minority among shopkeepers – might have a little more pull, if you really don't want this to happen.

I know I don't want it to happen. I'm rather fond of not having to put any work into my shop, and occasionally getting sales from the marketplace. I won't much like it if my rather modest markup suddenly becomes even less because of this. But I don't do shit, right?

Yeah. I don't.

Especially right now. I'm not really in the mood to continue with this post. Maybe I'll say something else about it later. Maybe I'll get around to talking about ways this wouldn't annoy me. Or maybe it'll go the way of my common-law marriage post.

I told them to redeliver it Tuesday [online, while making sure I could do that over the phone].

I wait up on Tuesday to make sure I get it.

It's Wednesday now. Guess what....

Yeah. Still don't have it. Because the mailman didn't have it on Tuesday, and he said maybe today. So, when I didn't get it today, I called the stupid 800 number again. And they gave me the number of the main post office here.

And they said they'd have the supervisor call me back. But I'm kinda thinking I won't get that callback.

So, maybe I should be rude and call again.

...and I'm glad I did. Although, it's possible I may've gotten a wrong number, because I got a polite, reasonably intelligent, very helpful woman who actually tracked down the package and said she'd make sure it got out to me tomorrow, and that she'd make sure the mailman waited for me to get to the door.

But I'm still not buying any stamps. Because, really, anyone that helpful isn't going to last long.

I mean, seriously. Why the fuck is my Wii telling me that I'm out of fucking credits, and that I should put more coins in? There's no place for that. I don't like it at all.

It got me to go back to Umbrella Chronicles, though, which is fun, right up until you get stuck in one of those single-player missions. Apparently, the game's idea of fair is Wesker vs. Everyfuckingthing. All at once.

...and I'd like to know why Wesker can get hurt. And has a health bar. And why the other infected things keep attacking him. Shouldn't they ignore him like they ignore eachother?

Don't mind me. I'm just annoyed and bitter, because they hid a very special mission after a very impossible mission. And, if I ever get enough stars together to really upgrade the weapons enough, I might try to unlock it.

Or, I might just sit here and replay an easier mission until Gremlin wakes up. Because co-op is even more fun.

Edit: this was supposed to be posted before I went to bed this morning, but it didn't. Some sort of internal server error got in my way, and I didn't notice. Oops.

Exciting, huh?

I think that was Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. That was when I discovered that my new watch was broken.

You can probably guess when that happened. I had to set the timezone and check the clock during that stage of the reformat, and suddenly...what the hell? There's a line across the face of my watch.

Must be a hair, right? Nope. It doesn't go away when I brush at it.

Must be a scratch. How annoying. But...I don't remember doing anything to scratch it.

...except...it's slowly getting worse.

Today, it's very obviously a large crack. A large, spontaneously forming crack. In the face of my nice, new sports watch.

So I email Nike.

Nike understands that I am disappointed. Nike is sorry that my watch did this. Nike says I should try to exchange the watch at the store I purchased it from, because they understand that this store has a very fair return policy.

If that doesn't work, Nike would like me to send the watch off to some place I've never heard of, and that, if they find that this random, spontaneous crack is actually my fault [what are the odds?], I'll have to pay for the repair. And if it's not my fault, I'll still have to pay for certain things.

Which sucks. A lot. I really liked the watch. It had two timezone settings, and it was comfy, and I haven't lost it yet.

I think I'm going to save the rest of the 'long couple of days' for another post, though.

And today, I get a call from someone -- I never got her name, or, rather I never understood it because she must've been talking to me through a slab of styrofoam wrapped cheese, or something -- telling me to call her back at her direct line.

Why? Because they have a monitor that doesn't match any of their records.

Lucky me.

So I go looking for the email I got from the guy that set everything up for the repair...and for my phone charger. And I give her a call.

Unfortunately, she has not replaced her phone in the twenty or so minutes since she called me. Joy.

"We have a monitor here that doesn't match anything in our system. It is not registered."

"Except it is registered, and it is in your system for a repair."

"Well, what's the name on the account."

I tell her, and she proceeds to do that annoying thing where she decides my name has all these vowels in it that it doesn't.

...and then she discovers that it's 'my fault' that it's not in the system, because there was supposed to be a B instead of an 8. Except it was very clearly an 8. But they couldn't clear that up because they didn't know my name....

Except, how in the fuck did she get my phone number if she didn't know my name?

You bastards. They better not taste different....

Ah, hell. They do. They're no longer nummy, salty goodness.

I'm glad that someone else, someone who may be considered to be more credible than I am [for no good reason other than 'he's a real live scientist!] has noticed this taste difference. From the day that Wendy's took their first [fully voluntary] step and changed their fries, things haven't been the same.

And Wendy's fries? Have never been that good. McDonalds fries are strange, soggy little water-tasting things now, and I'm not sure why, except that they're now '0 trans fat' fries.

I'm sure that KFC's newly 'zero trans fatted' chicken is equally 'ih'.

And for people who claim that there's no way to tell the difference ['there is no difference, it's just healthier!'], or that 'it's just because your tastebuds have been brainwashed and overloaded with fat, give them time, you'll get over it!' I say: It must suck to be you. To be not only that tasteless, but that easily fooled? I'd be careful if I were you. You're one website away from believing that Bush is a reptillian alien.

These are likely the same people who tell me that 'Pepsi tastes just like Coke' and 'You can't tell the difference between whole and 2% milk. And you'll never know if I slip you some soy milk instead.'

What the hell is wrong with them? Were they born without a full compliment of functioning tastebuds? Are these people just...vindictive, and trying to sentence the rest of us to a viceless world of nasty-tasting, 'healthy by current standards' horrors?

And, hey, what's this I hear about further studies on trans fats showing that there are actually good ones, just like there's good cholesterol? Can we maybe stop ripping things out of our foods to fit trends before the research is fully done?

Also, can we maybe please stop running around telling eachother what we can and cannot taste? Because I really don't care about your deficiencies. The only thing that matters to me is the way it tastes to me. Yeah, I know, that's terribly selfish of me, to be concerned about how much I enjoy eating something, but it's none of your fucking business. There's maybe a handfull of people who get to be concerned about what I put into my body, and most of them are immediate family.

Unless there's something I don't know about [like family in charge of certain companies -- in which case, we need to talk about truckloads of freebies], we just need to mind our own business, okay? You can have your 0 trans fat options, and I'll have the stuff that tastes good. Barring unusual conditions in which we are literally unable to make a choice, we will each make our own, and take responsibility for them.

That's just too much to ask, isn't it?

Gamexplosion, however, have been closed by seven for the past two days, which is really annoying, because their hours are posted everywhere as being until 8pm.

I'm starting to think it's actually because there are a lot of people also watching through Netflix, and that they're just blaming me to piss me off and get me to go somewhere else. Because fourteen minutes of waiting while something rebuffers? Is fucking bullshit.

Seriously, there's almost no network traffic right now, and I'm still waiting. It's got to be somewhere other than 'on my end'. They shouldn't lie to me like this.