So close…

I was really excited when I started this blog and thought “yeah, this is gonna be awesome! I’ll write every other day and soon I will have a cult of avid readers who cannot live without my blog!” Hmm, ok, that didn’t work out as planned. On the plus side I am almost done with my BA thesis. Well, at least haflway done. Almost.

Crawling Skin

From time to time you meet someone toward whom you feel a sudden rush of affection. Other times you meet people you initially despise and, surprisingly, feel good about that. Their mere presence makes your skin crawl, your guts feel like they’re being caressed with pliers and your ears start burning once they open their mouth to torment their surroundings with boring, utterly pointless drivel (I am aware of the tautology).

That’s all.

“Not Funny,” said PayPal

I rent a voice chat server with my best friend to stay in touch as much as possible as she lives in another country. Since she is billed for the server, I send her some money now and then to pay my half. Last time, I thought it would be hilarious, well, kinda funny, to write “Porn” in the PayPal transaction subject line. As it turned out, PayPal employees did not appreciate my fine sense of humor. Who knew! They sent her, surprisingly not me, an email explaining how wrong it was to take money for something which obviously (to them) is oh so wrong. First of all, even if I were paying her for porn I do not see why it is any of their business; and second of all, who on earth writes “Porn” in a subject line when actually purchasing porn? Think about it!

Anyway, it was all fun and games, until they threatened with suspending her account. What? Is PayPal run by some crazy, tight-ass nutbars? Apparently, it is. The issue was resolved with an email telling them that no porn changed sticky hands. Perhaps, I should use something less offensive like “slave child” or “eastern European woman” next time because porn, obviously, crosses the line. Gsus!

Munching, Breathing, “Noise-ing”

I am very sensitive when it comes to sounds. No, I really mean it. I am ridiculously sensitive to the degree of madness. For example, I cannot stand heavy breathing. You know, when someone only breaths through the nose and it’s barely noticeable at first, but as time wears on it gets louder, and louder, and louder. The sound of heavy breathing, this whistling of the nose, air being sucked in and air gushing out. Constantly. In. Out. Shuuuuuh. Everything around you falls silent, you can only hear this one annoying, nerve-wrecking sound. Try as I might I cannot block this sound; it’s an impossible task. Shuuuuuh. Drilling itself into my auditory canal like a jack-hammer. Inescapable. This is especially annoying during exams, or while watching a movie; Whether that is at home or at the cinema doesn’t matter. Although, I have to say, I always have the pleasure to sit next to a weird person when i go to the movies. Either they breath heavily, cough all the time, or make some other funky, annoying noise. Same goes for munching, especially when I’m no eating myself. It pretty much works the same way as with heavy breathing. Why I am this way I do not know. Come to think of it, maybe the problem is me and not them… No, it’s them.

Nothing Important Happened Today

Neither did yesterday, or the day before that, or the day before that and so forth. Actually, all I do is studying for my last two exams in this semester, talking to friends on msn or spend my days reading and watching The Office. I started to read A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami and love it. I guess I am generally quite fond of Japanese authors, however, I only know, besides Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto.

Anyway, I don’t really know what it is, but somehow Japanese authors, albeit translated, have this certain charm, a somewhat extraordinary feel to them. Their style seems to be different, yet familiar and maybe it has absolutely nothing to do with them being Japanese (although I doubt that is true), but merely with their artistic skills being simply overwhelming. They manage to suck you into their stories, their worlds and after a while you don’t really care anymore what they write about as long as they write… anything. I know, I know, style does not make up for a lack of substance and fortunately substance is something Murakami and Yoshimoto certainly don’t lack. To me, they are superior contemporary novelists, and all those critics who resent them for being “too pop-culture” are either to narrow-minded when it comes to literature or too arrogant to acknowledge the genius of what contemporary literature is: not the same old thing, but new, exciting, and above all different in the best possible way.

Gimme money you spoiled person!

This morning as early as 11:30AM (yes, to me that’s still part of the fairly early morning) the doorbell rang. The mail had already been delivered, I wasn’t expecting any guests and I doubt I had won something so big, it had to be delivered – plus I don’t do raffles). Perhaps a couple of Jehova’s Witnesses. Crap, I knew talking to them two or three times – during which I repeatedly told them that they’d never make me sign up for their club, no matter what – would come back and bite me in the ass. So I crawled on top of my desk and hugged the window to check if it was them standing downstairs at the front door. To my surprise they were not, but a very impressive impression of my face did on the window. There can’t possibly be anything worse than a couple of religious nutbars at 11:30 in the morning so I tromped to the door, afraid my paranoia just screwed me out of a multibillion dollar win. Boy, was I wrong about both.

I cheerily opened the door, already prepared to act all surprised when a hot woman in a bikini would give me a suitcase full of money, and there he was: a harbinger of feel-bad, luckily not wearing a bathing suit. It was a man, relatively short, bearded, not particularly clean and wearing socks in sandals (some people just don’t have any sense of fashion). He had already started to walk away, but when I opened the door readily scampered back. A little perplexed I stammered “Hey, what’s up?” and he said “Hello!” and shoved a picture of some sad-looking kid, along with his ID in my face. The text under the sad-looking boy’s face read (in several languages – how handy!) “Please help me and give me some money so my son can have that life-saving operation he so desperately needs!” Or something. His ID identified him as a citizen of Romania. I politely refused to give him all my life savings and with a “Ok!” he walked off to nag the neighbors. I felt bad at first. Maybe his son really needed this operation! Am I a bad person?

I learned later that apparently a couple of young boys needed very expensive and life-saving operations lately, as several men had been roaming the neighborhood, asking people for money. Ah, good, I lucked out this time, no harm done, it was only a scam, this is a good day for my karma. Still, I think I should donate some money to people who really need it – just in case.

Stupid Parents!

Once upon a time I stumbled upon a post on IMDB which read something along the lines of “Do you think my 13 year old is mature enough to watch Irreversible?” Yes, I thought, your 13 year old is mature enough to watch a movie with a brutal and very graphic rape scene! Come on. What kind of question is that anyway? Should I let my child watch a movie about rape? If you are so stupid, you are not even sure (and need the advice of total strangers) whether it is cool or not to have your child watch a rape with you then maybe you are not mature enough to have kids.

Exam jitters

One exam that holds me back. One exam and all will be in the past. One exam that makes me go crazy. One exam that keeps me from blissful joys of just being and becoming.

In short, I have a big Latin exam coming up next week which already propelled me into a state of agitation. I hate, I loathe, I detest this language. The tragic part about it is that I only have to learn it for a stupid, needless requirement for my history studies – and I’m not even a history major so it’s stupid times two.

I am really scared, but do not dare to think about not passing because the mere thought of another semester filled with woeful Latin lessons is simply too excruciating.

I heart amazon!

Here’s the second part to the Sony sucks! story. Surprisingly, I got a reply from Sony; but only to tell me that I had contacted the wrong department. So I wrote to the department they told me to write to and they again referred me to someone else. One last time I attempted to make someone care about my dilemma and the reply I got – and this is no joke – was that I should go to the sony.co.uk website and look for help there.Wow. I was glad they told me as I would have never thought of that on my own! Gsus.

Since contacting Sony brought me nothing but sorrow I stopped to pursue this fruitless endeavor and decided to send and email to amazon.co.uk instead. Boy, had I no idea what I was about to blunder into. Not that they weren’t helpful, they were very much so; however, it was confusing. I will not quote all the emails which have been sent back and forth, but will paraphrase the important parts.

My first email: Hello amazon employee, I purchased the The Shield Season 5 DVD and the last episode is 20 minutes short. Please tell Sony to fix it.

Amazon reply #1: Hello, we are very sorry! We’ll send you a new DVD box and you don’t even have to send the one you already own back “as the cost of returning the package is in this case prohibitively expensive.”

My second email: Hi! Well, thanks, but it’s really not your problem and I doubt a new DVD Box will solve the problem.

Amazon reply #2: Hello, we are very sorry! We will still send you a new DVD box, but you have to send the one you already own back.

My third email: Cheerio! Ok then, send me a new DVD box, but do you want me to send the first DVD box back or not?

Amazon reply #3: Hello, we are very sorry! You don’t even have to send the one you already own back “as the cost of returning the package is in this case prohibitively expensive.”

One of the three amazon employees I dealt with suggested giving one of the boxes to charity. I wonder if any charity would want it.

In the end all this emailing, wasting time surfing the web for information and obsessing didn’t get me far. In retrospect it didn’t get me anywhere. As a result I am stuck not with one, but with two DVD boxes which, not all that surprisingly, have the exact same flaw. I heart amazon.

The times they are a-changin’

2 things:

1. If I have to listen to this god-awful song ever again I will kill someone.

2. I went from blogger.com to wordpress.com because WP appears to be totally rad. Actually, I am quite stunned that my blogging life is already in upheaval. Promising. Or not.