Note: Before reading, it’s important to know that I had a beef with an ebay seller with the broken seal on a small jar of paint when it arrived at my door. I would have easily accepted an “Oh, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Nothing wrong with that.” response as enough to trust their word and assume the paint would be safe to use on my expensive Zippos. However, this lady denied the very existence of any such seal (essentially calling me a liar or a raving lunatic), and went on a bitching-streak about the insignificance of my concerns and “OMG you disputed something and now my reputation with Paypal/ebay is ruined, you’re a terrible person” which I really question the validity of. This is a record and a testament to the kinds of people that really are out there (and how vindictive I can be).
Long and short of this story:
theplayerscove has a great feedback history
they shipped me an opened/unsealed pot of paint
apparently this is standard practice and nothing unusual
Sabrina Killingsworth is either incompetent with ebay’s auto-responder system, or is cheating it with her “I’m not here but I actually am if you try to get your money back”
she denied the existence of all problems without evidence or consideration
I have photographs and logs of the entire exchange
The full exchange and logs are after the cut. Will be lengthy and probably boring for most, but might be fun for those who like to read about examples of extremely stupid people saying excruciatingly stupid things and acting ridiculously childishly.
I have received my brand-spanking-new iPhone 4 via FedEx (after they delayed the delivery by 3 days, and then sent it from Mississauga to Vancouver, and then back to the GTA to delay it one extra day). I also preemptively made a case for it out of a Moleskine notebook. Pretty impressive that the damned things fit together so snugly, considering I never had the iPhone with me while cutting, and based pretty much everything off of estimates and measurements from Wikipedia. I made another time-lapse video of the cutting process, and normal recordings for the unboxing and fitting of Ulrich (my phone) in his handmade crib.
Notes: The original audio track was supposed to be Kaela Kimura’s “Level 42″ but because the folks at Columbia Music are dicks sticklers about people promoting their artists on their behalf for free illegal use of their “property” they wouldn’t let me use it on YouTube and the audio got nuked. I then used an audio-swap feature of YouTube’s to substitute a pre-licensed song (the “I’m Feeling Lucky” automatic song finder gave me Finger Eleven’s “Paralyzer” after two tries).
I hope you enjoy the video, without the original, nicely cut and faded audio. Thanks be to Karen for helping me with the cutting of the pages, and Amy for her genius idea on how to bind and seal the pages together. Oh, and thanks be to Columbia Music, just for being the kind of company they are. Please, continue to set this kind of precedent for all those in the music industry and do for your artists what only you can do, and I’m almost sure you will have a flourishing business model on your hands. That, or crash and burn like the bags of fecal matter in airplanes low on fuel that you so desperately wish to resemble.
Hate for petty and childish business models aside, I’m loving the phone and loved making the case. I have indeed been able to replicate the attenuation problem (to crush the dreams of all those who were hoping some magical fix had been implemented in the second batch of iPhones), but it seems that it is only an issue in inherently weak-signaled places, and I do think the reception overall is actually better on the iPhone 4. For example, I get 3 bars that will drop to none or 1 when applying the death-grip to Ulrich from within my condo. As a reference, I normally get zero/no reception at all with my previous handset in the same spot. This proves that attenuation is still a problem. However, the fact that the phone even gets any reception in that spot at all indicates that the antennae actually performs better if not being cheated.
help Amy with a clay replicas of various WMD stuff (and claysoft armaments)
minor amounts of exercise, including some weights and running/squash/Frisbee
I’ve lots planned for this summer (not formally, but there’s a ton of things I want to do). I’m excited, but damn is it ever hot here. Our house does not have any air conditioning. I spend my nights laying in my undies on my bed waiting to die of heat exhaustion or somehow fall into a stickily writhing sleep (enjoy the imagery, children). I wake up with sticky knee-backs (you know, the back of your knees) and that nasty feeling of having a layer of something truly mysterious between yourself and your clothes. Are you sweaty? Good, now lick the back of your hand. Taste that? That’s me. In your mouth. Enjoy.
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Edit: Okay so, is it more or less incriminating that my girlfriend very much resembles the Kaela you see in the image below? I’m wondering if it was coincidence—I certainly didn’t set out after Amy with the intention of finding someone like Kaela-san, but… I cannot deny that the similarities aren’t pretty glaring! Damn! Or… kind of awesome? I wonder if I’ll be getting a stern talking to in the near future… Love you, Amy! *nervous chuckle*
I am not entirely sure what is going on here but I am sure that it is most definitely awesome. I ♥ Kaela Kimura (Adwin, this is just the beginning of my site-shrine).
Click the jump for the lyrics (most of which I don’t know how to read/understand). Been liking this darling since grade 10 or so, ever since the “Happiness!!!” video (which was pretty viral if you were part of the “In” in “Internet”). Certifiably and scientifically proven to be the cutest girl online and otherwise. Continue reading
