I’m not entirely sure what’s my problem anymore, except to say that I am ALWAYS cranky. I think I have an emotional disorder and am probably in need of medication. Wouldn’t surprise me.

I got new glasses! So it also goes without saying that yes, my prescription got worse. And my optometrist kind of chewed me out, saying that I really need to stop overwearing my contacts because I could damage my eyes if I keep wearing them for a month at a time instead of only two weeks at a time. ok, ok, you guilt tripped me enough, thanks!

So I have to go back in a week for a follow-up and then he’ll write me a contacts prescription, on the condition that I wear my contacts correctly now. ok, ok. This time I really will.

One of my sisters and her two young sons stayed with us this weekend, and oh my goodness, I was SO ready for them to leave this morning. I’m just such a hermit that I can’t stand being around people all the time. Plus the boys kept doing things that I feel are rude, like coming into my bedroom WITHOUT knocking. I hate that. And their mom is right in the living room, why can’t she teach them manners? Something along the lines of, “don’t go into your auntie’s room unless you knock first!” Something like that? arggggggh.

You know what I’m always saying–I really need to get out of this house!

Posted: August 12th, 2007 under Mad Rants, My So-Called Life.
Comments: 8

I’m just wondering: why do some people take rules a bit TOO seriously?

Case in point: there is a certain knitting-related group on Flickr to which I USED to belong. I think I once had a photo deleted from the group pool because I mistakenly, HEAVEN FORBID, post a photo of an unfinished knit sock! oh no!!! The horror! So the group admin had a hissy and warned me about the group being for completed socks ONLY, and that if I did it again, I would burn in HELL. (ok, exaggeration–but you get the idea. She was miffed, I got the picture.)

So I thought, fine, it’s her group–she’s a bit tyrannical, maybe that’s just her personality. I abode by the rules for a couple more months, till I saw a post in the discussion area where she cattily made a comment to someone else. It was soooo dumb! Not something to get one’s panties in a knot over! I’d had enough. I quit the Flickr group. Not only that, I deleted this person from my contacts list. She might be a great knitter, but her personality was a major turnoff.

Here’s what I don’t understand–why do some people get SO stinking dictator about stuff that is intended to be fun and community based? All of the “don’t do this, you’re not allowed to do that” really, really annoys me. So I exercised my right to quit the group. I do understand that some people are control freaks, but…I don’t know. It just seems such a rarity to find a bitchy knitter (for the most part) that when I do run across one, I’m dumbfounded. The majority of us are quite nice people.

/end rant

Posted: August 8th, 2007 under Knitting, Mad Rants.
Comments: 5

First, the fun! Last night I went to an SnB for the first time. I had a good time! After I figured out who the knitters were. I walked into the store, looked around, but I hadn’t met any of them before, and I didn’t see anyone with yarn/knitting at first…so I walked around the store once (in quite a confused state), then went to the magazine area, still trying to peek at the cafe area and see if anyone was knitting. I figured oh heck, I just need to WALK over there, so I sort of wandered over, and Tasha (from the L&V board!), bless her heart, saw me and waved me over! yay! I felt kind of silly, but originally I saw another group of girls sitting together at a different table and I thought they were the knitters at first…but they weren’t! Good thing I didn’t go over there first!

Anyway, excluding the fact that I was rather sleepy and didn’t talk much (I never talk much when I first meet people!), it was fun! I want to go back next week. All five of us were knitting socks, and I actually finished my second Zen String sock while I was there! I need to take a pic of it!

So, the not fun. /begin rant:

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Posted: August 7th, 2007 under Knitting, Mad Rants, My So-Called Life.
Comments: 5

Remember my bad experience with a certain seller on Etsy? I took your advice and reported her to Etsy AND filed a claim with PayPal. PayPal then initiated communication with the seller, but guess what? She didn’t respond. Not once. So PayPal ruled in my favor! But wait:

After careful review, we have concluded our investigation of the Buyer Complaint described below.

We have decided in your favor, however, we were unable to recover any funds from the seller’s account. As stated in the PayPal User Agreement, recovery of funds associated with a Buyer Complaint cannot be guaranteed.

Please know that we will make our best effort to recover the funds in question if they become available in the seller’s account in the future and will take appropriate action against the seller. Such action may include issuing a warning, a temporary restriction, or terminating the account. Keep in mind that PayPal uses a number of factors to determine when to take action, including member complaints. Due to privacy laws, we cannot discuss the details of any action taken. We hope you understand our policy and that it assures you that you are safe using PayPal.

So, in short, I won the claim but I STILL don’t get my money back. The seller doesn’t have any PayPal funds?? What did she do, screw everyone over and skip town? Or is she dead in a ditch somewhere, or what? I’m just saying, it’s really odd to sell hundreds of items on Etsy and then suddenly flake and apparently disappear entirely.

sigh. I don’t know, in the grand scheme of things, I’ll take this as a lesson, I suppose. Granted, she had 100% positive feedback at the time of my purchase but I guess I should be more conservative and only purchase one thing at a time from a seller I’ve never shopped with.

Since PayPal ruled in my favor and other people have left her negative feedback, I’m comfortable posting the seller’s link. This is not to bash her publicly, it’s more of a consumer alert. Word to the wise, do NOT buy from her. You won’t get what you paid for, or a refund, or a reply to your many emails, for that matter.

Posted: July 18th, 2007 under Mad Rants.
Comments: 6

As some backstory/clarification to my previous post, and because I am so INCENSED by the LUDICROUS nature of my MacBook troubles, here are the gory details thus far in my MacBook drama. (I just posted this at the L&V board, then figured heck, might as well put it here, too.)

As some background, I am a total Mac person. I made the switch years ago and haven’t looked back since! The only time I use PCs is at work, because I don’t have a choice. But now, I am SOOOO sad/pissed/disappointed. And I know that the badmouthing about Apple I’m about to do is justified:

I’ve only had my MacBook for one MONTH, and now the battery is having issues. Apparently one day I didn’t notice that it needed to be charged, so the battery drained completely. No big deal, it’s rechargeable! But when I went to plug it into the power adapter, it started randomly shutting down and then when I turned it back on, the thing told me I had “No batteries installed.” eh???

I called AppleCare, the tech support peeps, and they very nicely tried to help me troubleshoot, which didn’t work. They then overnighted me a new battery. When I got it the next day, I installed it. Success!…so I thought. The new battery worked for about an hour, then crapped out, too. Same problems.

I called AppleCare AGAIN, and the support person I talked to thinks it’s a hardware issue. So I’m taking it to my local Apple store tomorrow to have them look at it. I have a feeling they’re going to send it out for repair, so if I’m absent from here/the Net for about a week or so, that’s why.

Bad Apple. I’m only able to use it when it’s connected to the power adapter (it won’t even TURN ON unless it’s plugged in), and even then it’s telling me I have no battery. ugh! Sadly, too, I’ve done some googling and this is apparently not only a very common issue with MacBooks/MacBook Pros, but is a KNOWN issue with Apple and they’ve been scrambling to send out new batteries/repair MacBooks on the down-low. grrrrrrrrr.

I’ve got my fingers crossed that they can either fix it on the spot for me tomorrow (doubtful), or that they can repair it offsite and that will take care of all the problems. If so, Apple can get back in my good graces…if not…we’ll see!

So yeah, if I’m not blogging or posting on the L&V board/Ravelry/Flickr/etc. much or at all this coming week, that’s why. MacBook to the doctor, possibly. I still have Net access at work, of course, but I don’t think I’ll be able to hop on much except my Gmail. So cross your fingers for me, maybe the folks at the store tomorrow will magically fix my stinkin’ MacBook! (’cause right now, I’m thinking of it as “that stupid piece of crap” and once it’s fixed it will go back to being “you pretty computer, yes you are!”) But in the meantime…

Technology is great when it WORKS, eh?

Posted: July 7th, 2007 under Mad Rants.
Comments: 11

This is me normally:

This is me right now:

This afternoon, I was stopped by a cop who told me I was driving 39 mph in a 25 mph zone. ok, fine, I was speeding. And when the officer asked me if I knew how fast I was going, I was honest and said no. He took my license and registration, blah blah, and took his sweet time checking my record.

I did not have ANY tickets or anything bad on my driving record. The only ticket I ever had was from almost 12 years ago!

HE GAVE ME A TICKET ANYWAY.

This is probably the only time you will ever see me curse on my blog!

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Posted: May 28th, 2007 under Mad Rants.
Comments: 13

In all fairness, and as a follow-up to one of my previous posts in which I raved about (well, sort of) and even defended Mystical Creation Yarns, I have to mention this.

MCY claimed that they voluntarily closed their Etsy shop recently because their business grew so quickly that they couldn’t keep up with both their Etsy and Ebay shops. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and believed them, mainly because I never had any personal problems with the yarn I ordered from them in the past. I also never experienced the bad customer service that so many knitters have reported.
However, if you’ve been following this thread at the L&V boards, something is definitely fishy in MCYville. First, a poster in communication with Etsy says that MCY was actually BANNED by Etsy for violating the terms of use. um, that’s a big deal! If true, then MCY misrepresented not only the principles of Etsy selling, but also the real reason that they closed their shop. Namely, it wasn’t voluntary; they were required to. That’s called a lie!

Second, one of MCY’s international associates (I know she is because she was mentioned in previous posts on the MCY blog, which have strangely since disappeared) has popped up on Etsy, first selling as artfibers and currently selling as claudinefrance. People…look. If you’re going to put MCY’s yarn back up on Etsy, even though you got kicked off of Etsy, could you at least take some different photos of the yarn?! I recognized the yarn immediately as MCY’s…but the point of them being banned from Etsy (again, assuming they were) is that they are not supposed to sell on Etsy anymore. How is selling via their “international distributor” not another violation of terms of use? Isn’t that the same thing?

Anyway, sorry for the rant. Just wanted to clear up that I’m no longer defending MCY. I will still knit with their yarn that’s in my stash, but I won’t order from them again just because of all the suspicious circumstances surrounding them as a business. Everyone else has been saying it this whole time: there are plenty of other yarn sources out there that don’t have so much drama (and dare I say, even lack of business ethics) surrounding them. It’s all a shame, really.

Posted: May 3rd, 2007 under Knitting, Mad Rants.
Comments: 7