Patrick Mooney's blog

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170 notes &

theworstthingsforsale:

This urinal is labeled as being “high efficiency.” I’m not sure what that means in the land of urinals, but at $1,111,071.01, it had better reach out and shake my dick off when I’m done using it.

Well, OK, point taken, and I understand that the blogger is speaking hyperbolically about the price.
Still, I just want to say that I don’t want any kind of public human-waste-disposal porcelain touching my equipment, ever, no matter how much it costs.

theworstthingsforsale:

This urinal is labeled as being “high efficiency.” I’m not sure what that means in the land of urinals, but at $1,111,071.01, it had better reach out and shake my dick off when I’m done using it.

Well, OK, point taken, and I understand that the blogger is speaking hyperbolically about the price.

Still, I just want to say that I don’t want any kind of public human-waste-disposal porcelain touching my equipment, ever, no matter how much it costs.

Filed under idiocy corporatism

1 note &

I tried to place an order online through a local service that delivers food from local businesses to local addresses, only to find out that they’ve changed their policy: Your internet order has to be paid for with cash on delivery. (That’s right: they’ve stopped taking credit cards.) What amazes me is that their delivery area (“UCSB dorms and Isla Vista”) is almost entirely made up of students.
They don’t publicize their e-mail address, insisting instead that you contact them through a web feedback form. Presumably, they don’t want spiders crawling their web page and harvesting their e-mail address and selling it to spammers. ‘Course, they’ve been sending ads to my school address without my ever opting in, or using that address to place an order, but I imagine that, from their perspective, this is different, because it doesn’t clog their e-mail box.
Here’s the comment I sent through their web feedback form:

Really? I have to pay CASH ON DELIVERY for an order I’m putting in on the Internet? Your ONLY method of payment for deliveries is C.O.D.? Do I get a free non-stick pan and some sort of amazing slicing/dicing implement with my order?The whole point in ordering from you is not to leave the house. I don’t know how people live in your alternate universe, but most of the people I know in the campus community don’t make a real point of having cash on hand at all times. This is because we live in a time where even panhandlers often take credit cards. If I don’t happen to have cash on hand, and have to leave the house to get money from an ATM, I might as well just go directly to the restaurant, because any business in Isla Vista from which I can order place an order through you is within a few blocks — that is, within a one-minute bike ride — of the only ATMs in IV. This is more or less a moot point, because the ATM fees I pay at IV ATMs are more than your delivery charge.Guess what, though? I can call the restaurant directly and pay THEM with my credit card. This is because the businesses for which you serve as middleman aren’t staffed by people who sit around listening to their amazing quadraphonic sound systems and thinking about how this Diner’s Club fad is going to blow over while wearing Hawaiian shirts and mustaches that say, “Yeah, I’ve been nude on camera. What of it?” Going directly to the business with which I want to deal allows me to avoid Isla Vista ATM fees, a trek to the ATM, and your delivery fee. All this just by not doing business with you!I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: Eight-tracks are out, 1972 is over, and only hillbillies who touch their siblings try to order things C.O.D. any more. This is the Internet. Nobody wants to do business with a company that doesn’t take credit cards. Just sayin’.

I tried to place an order online through a local service that delivers food from local businesses to local addresses, only to find out that they’ve changed their policy: Your internet order has to be paid for with cash on delivery. (That’s right: they’ve stopped taking credit cards.) What amazes me is that their delivery area (“UCSB dorms and Isla Vista”) is almost entirely made up of students.


They don’t publicize their e-mail address, insisting instead that you contact them through a web feedback form. Presumably, they don’t want spiders crawling their web page and harvesting their e-mail address and selling it to spammers. ‘Course, they’ve been sending ads to my school address without my ever opting in, or using that address to place an order, but I imagine that, from their perspective, this is different, because it doesn’t clog their e-mail box.

Here’s the comment I sent through their web feedback form:

Really? I have to pay CASH ON DELIVERY for an order I’m putting in on the Internet? Your ONLY method of payment for deliveries is C.O.D.? Do I get a free non-stick pan and some sort of amazing slicing/dicing implement with my order?

The whole point in ordering from you is not to leave the house. I don’t know how people live in your alternate universe, but most of the people I know in the campus community don’t make a real point of having cash on hand at all times. This is because we live in a time where even panhandlers often take credit cards. If I don’t happen to have cash on hand, and have to leave the house to get money from an ATM, I might as well just go directly to the restaurant, because any business in Isla Vista from which I can order place an order through you is within a few blocks — that is, within a one-minute bike ride — of the only ATMs in IV. This is more or less a moot point, because the ATM fees I pay at IV ATMs are more than your delivery charge.

Guess what, though? I can call the restaurant directly and pay THEM with my credit card. This is because the businesses for which you serve as middleman aren’t staffed by people who sit around listening to their amazing quadraphonic sound systems and thinking about how this Diner’s Club fad is going to blow over while wearing Hawaiian shirts and mustaches that say, “Yeah, I’ve been nude on camera. What of it?” Going directly to the business with which I want to deal allows me to avoid Isla Vista ATM fees, a trek to the ATM, and your delivery fee. All this just by not doing business with you!

I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: Eight-tracks are out, 1972 is over, and only hillbillies who touch their siblings try to order things C.O.D. any more. This is the Internet. Nobody wants to do business with a company that doesn’t take credit cards. Just sayin’.

Filed under money 21st century California college annoyances idiocy

2 notes &

‘But he must be one of those men who have reconciled science with religion,’ said Helen slowly. ‘I don’t like those men. They are scientific themselves, and talk of the survival of the fittest, and cut down the salaries of their clerks, and stunt the independence of all who may menace their comfort, but yet they believe that somehow good — it is always that sloppy ‘somehow’ — will be the outcome, and that in some mystical way the Mr. Basts of the future will benefit because the Mr. Basts of today are in pain.’
E.M. Forster, Howards End, ch. 23.

Filed under critique quotes E.M. Forster literature British writers modernist writers modernism politics ethics oppression privilege austerity economics desperation social Darwinism capitalism wealth corporatism money ownership false explanation hypocrisy self-indulgence labor corruption poverty piety socialism

2 notes &

Actual life is full of false clues and sign-posts that lead nowhere. With infinite effort we nerve ourselves for a crisis that never comes. The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared but that of the man who has prepared and is never taken. On a tragedy of that kind our national morality is duly silent. It assumes that preparation against danger is in itself a good, and that men, like nations, are the better for staggering through life fully armed. The tragedy of preparedness has scarely been handled, save by the Greeks. Life is indeed dangerous, but not in the way morality would have us believe. It is indeed unmanageable, but the essence of it is not a battle. it is unmanagedable because it is a romance, and its essence is romantic beauty.
E.M. Forster, Howards End, ch. 12.

Filed under critique knowledge frustration quotes E.M. Forster literature British writers modernist writers modernism security

1 note &

IS EVERYONE TAKING CRAZY PILLS?
File support request with website because I can’t get at any of my website-specific messages.
Specifically ask support not to reply using the website-specific message system, since my problem is that I can’t get at website-specific messages. Provide e-mail address and a place to find numerous other contact options.
Support staff sends a generic reply (“try clearing your cache!”) via website-specific message system, which I can’t access, which is the reason why I filed the support request in the first place.
After I don’t reply for a week to the message that I can’t see due to the problem that motivated me to file a support ticket in the first place, support staff marks problem as solved.
Man, I want a job like that.
Anyway, problem seems to be solved now. Yay.

IS EVERYONE TAKING CRAZY PILLS?

  • File support request with website because I can’t get at any of my website-specific messages.
  • Specifically ask support not to reply using the website-specific message system, since my problem is that I can’t get at website-specific messages. Provide e-mail address and a place to find numerous other contact options.
  • Support staff sends a generic reply (“try clearing your cache!”) via website-specific message system, which I can’t access, which is the reason why I filed the support request in the first place.
  • After I don’t reply for a week to the message that I can’t see due to the problem that motivated me to file a support ticket in the first place, support staff marks problem as solved.

Man, I want a job like that.

Anyway, problem seems to be solved now. Yay.

Filed under idiocy Internet false explanation DeviantArt frustration technical support