Summer of Dan

January in March

This is a touchy subject. It's been hashed and rehashed a million times. But I have to, it goes against all fiber of my being to not. My only disclaimer is I am not an elitist or anything like that, far from it. There is a right and a wrong way to do things though.

Begin rant:

I cannot stand certain types and even specific people at the gym. Yes the January crowd is always the worst. They come in with their brand new tracksuits and sneakers and take over the entire place. Need a treadmill? Sorry they are all walking 1.0 mph for 60 minutes while chatting on their phone to a friend. How about that bench? Sorry that guy is reading an entire book in between sets.

Common courtesy goes a very long way. No one truly wants to be there. Yeah, working out can be fun, but given the choice of have the body you want for free or working out, only sadists would choose working out.

These people go to great lengths to park as close to the gym as possible. They create their own spaces. They will park on giant snow banks. They will park illegally. I mean, why should they park half a mile down the road like I have to because there are 12 million new people at the gym and walk in freezing rain to workout? I mean, seriously, these people are making a concerted effort to take back their live and their health in their own hands! Why should they have to park normally like the rest of us?

And that brings me to proper dress. I'm not part of the fashion police. Not even fucking close. But there are two rules when working out in the gym as far as clothing goes: make sure it fits and make sure it's clean. If you want to workout in jeans, whatever. That's fine. Just make sure they fit and aren't around your ankles when you are squatting. Or your shirt is so tight I can count your chest hairs through it. 

Side note #1: to the guy that has worked out at my gym for the last 3 years, seriously, you do not need to wear bike shorts every day. You don't even go to spin class. No one wants to see your junk. AT ALL. It was bothersome when they were black, and no it's downright awful now that you switched it up and bought some red ones. Seriously. And you smell like egg salad that has been in the sun for a few hours. Wash that shit.

I get it, I really do. You are at the gym to lose weight, or improve in some sport or activity, or better yourself, or to just be generally healthy. So get off the phone. Don't text. Don't call people. Don't answer your phone. In fact, leave it in the fucking car. No one wants to hear how you worked late today and are at the gym working out and how your weekend is shaping up. You are wasting your time, just go home. You're also wasting my time. If I want to use your machine, why should I have to politely interrupt you to ask if I can work in? You're the douchebag, not me. 

If you are new to the gym, learn how to lift. Watch other people. Read some magazines. Get a personal trainer. Don't half ass and wing it. You're hurt yourself and look like an idiot. Like the guy the other day that attempted way too much wait on the cable crossover machine and not only almost lost an eye, but almost hit someone with it when it flew out of his hand. 

Side note #2: to the guy that brings his teenage son to the gym every day and then sits on his ass in a brightly colored sweatsuit and points at things for his son to do - get off your fat ass and workout. Dude, you qualify for Biggest Loser. If you even worked out half the time you are in that gym watching other people workout you would already be in a XXL sweatsuit instead of an XXXXXL.

When you clean off a machine when you are done with it, spray the paper towel, not the treadmill/arc trainer/stationary bike/rowing machine/elliptical. People are working out around you, there are fans everywhere. Where do you think even some of that spray is going to go? Oh yeah, in other people's faces. Think before acting like a moron.

Talking is acceptable, just be aware of who is around you. That goes for tone, subject, loudness, and especially be aware of people that are spying the machine you are 'using' while chatting to someone else. Ask them if they want to work in. Or ask them if they want to use it. Simple things go a long way.

Side note #3: to the woman I see every Friday night who sings so loudly I can hear her upstairs over the piped in music and my iPod music that's maxed out: seriously just shut the fuck up. You are awful. You are worse than awful. You surely are completely tone deaf, if not just deaf. I can't put into words what you sound like, just that you have to stop.

Is this a completely unnecessary rant? Maybe. Is it long winded? Of course. But is it true? All of it. 100%. Absolutely. 

The way I figure it - if someone reads this and it changes what they do, even one little thing, that makes life better for those of us that work out, it was well worth it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I can't wait to see bike short guy, Whitney Houston's crackhead tone deaf sister, and the Koolaid Man.

Life on hold

It's quite an amazing thing that happens when your debit card is compromised and your checking account is not only emptied but in the negative by almost $3000.

1. The true colors of your banks shows and quite quickly.
2. Offers for help from friends come at you left and right.

It's not like I needed any more examples of why my friends and coworkers were the greatest bunch of people on the planet, but offers to help have been unabated since New Years Day.

But I did need just one example of why my bank has it's best interest at heart for me to wake up.

Rewind to New Years Day - I was running my 1 mile race downhill that I do every year and 1/4 of the way done I knew I was in deep shit. My lower back started seizing up on me and the rest is history. All you need to know about that race you can see in the picture below.

Just look at the time on the clock, my face, and take a glance at the two little girls to my right. Runner #803 barely looks like she even ran. We finished at the same time. She is like 7 years old. I'm 30. And sadly wearing a shirt that proclaims that Athletes Run. Obviously #803 and #554 are fine athletes. But I digress.

The Niff was at the bottom of the hill and was telling me about an email confirmation she got on her Blackberry for purchasing commuter rail tickets in Helsinki.

Full disclosure: we don't live in Finland. We've never been to Helsinki. We both work in Concord, New Hampshire.

I told her it was likely spam, but she said she got two emails.

Odd.

We called our bank, Citizen's Bank, to tell them about it and they said that someone did in fact purchase that on our debit card. Three times. For $1042 each.

Here enters the first of many flaws in their system: we purchased coffee for the Niff prior to my race, in New Hampshire, around 12:00pm. The tickets were purchased in Helsinki at 1:30pm. We also don't know of any portals that could get us to Finland in 90 minutes.

Flaw #1: Why didn't their system immediately flag and stop our card from being used?

We talked to the Fraud Department, who happened to call us while we were on the phone with the bank. Proactive? Nope. Reactive? Not really, since we are the ones that called first.

My question to the bank was why they didn't call us to verify such large purchases. In the past we've been flagged for anything over $600 and on one notable occasion got a phone call from our bank while we were still in line at IKEA to make sure we didn't lose our card since we usually don't purchase that much stuff at once.

We were told that it was the holiday and the weekend and the Fraud Monitoring Department was off for the holiday.

Wait, what? Oh yeah, because thieves take the holidays and weekends off too. I forgot.

Flaw #2: Why wasn't a call made to us, even after the first purchase?

Flaw #3: Holidays and weekends? Seriously???

We were told they were debit purchases, which meant we needed to wait until the transactions cleared before we could take action. We asked the bank to stop the purchases, they said they couldn't do that. 

At this point, Citizens Bank knew that someone had our card. All they did was cancel the Niff's card. They were not able to stop a pending transaction. For real?

Flaw #4: We were told by the person on the phone we had to wait for our account to basically be emptied before we could do anything, but rest assured, they usually could get the money back in within 48 hours of us going to a branch and signing an affidavit.

Saying we were helpless is an understatement. We went home, I logged onto our online banking and saw even more transactions that were slated to come out. We could do nothing.

But I did.

I fucking paid every single bill I could as fast as I possibly could, even a month in advance because I knew the shitstorm that was coming. I couldn't pay my rent in time or my car payment, because I write checks for them but dammit if I was going to have the rest of our account leached out from under us when the bank sat on their hands and did jack shit for us.

So we waited. Until the transactions cleared. Then we went to the bank. We were told there that it would take 5-10 business days to get money back in the account.

Wait, what?? We were told 48 hours. 

Wrong. 5 days minimum. Not 5 days from when we called them to report fraud on our account but 5 business days from when we signed some paperwork.

Ok...well...how come it takes 5 business days? Citizens Bank has branches that are open on Saturday and Sunday, I mean, that's why they are my bank. Because I can go there every day of the week. So, those should count, because it's their business days, right?

Of course not.

Flaw #5: When someone tells you that you'll have your life back in 48 hours, actually mean 48 hours. 

Flaw #6: In issues of fraud, perhaps you should count the weekends. This goes back to Flaw #3. Staff your organization so this happens less and in the event it does that people can get their lives back together even faster. Dipshits.

We went on our lives the best way we could. We have been taking cash from our savings and buying groceries, charging whatever we need to knowing we'll eventually have a checking account to pay it off immediately.

I called the other day to check on the status of it as it was the 5th business day. Ahhh that magic number! 5 business days!!!

"Sir, it takes 10-14 business days."

Flaw #7: When you say 48 hours, then 5 business days, then 10 business days I will never believe you ever again and will never trust you with my money. Plus you better be prepared to pay my medical bills when I hear that bullshit and have a stroke.

I was at work when I was told this. I'm thankful I have understanding people where I work. Everyone I work with in general is awesome, the people that work in my immediate vicinity are nothing short of saints. In fact I'm applying to the Catholic Church for sainthood for them after this is all finished.

Because I lost my fucking mind.

I let the woman on the phone know that in no uncertain times that my life was fucked up because of this and the longer it goes on the worse it gets. She didn't give a shit.

"I'm sorry sir."

"You aren't sorry, don't say you are. My life is on hold until you guys make good on this. We did nothing wrong. We in fact called you to tell you our account was compromised. We signed an affidavit. If you find that I am lying please by all means put me in jail. Do you realize I had to ask my rental office to hold my rent check? That I have a new car I need to pay for but my checks are worthless right now? And you guys keep lying to me, telling me it will be 48 hours, then 5 days, now 10? Are you kidding me? How would a family of 5 get by? Don't you get it? You DON'T. I've had an account with you guys for 17 years now, I opened up a savings account when I first moved to this state when I was 13. 17 loyal years of business. And there is nothing you can do? Well, there's something I can and will do. I'm going to move all of my business to a local credit union. I'm going to warn friends and family about Citizens Bank. I'm going to warn them that they aren't as safe as they think they are. I'm going to use every chance I get to tell people the truth about Citizens Bank. And I hope that what I tell them helps even one person. And I hope that you actually take note of the flaws of your system that I've outlined and that you fix them. Because no one should have to go through this. Ever. Someone stole part of our lives and you don't seem to care. Thanks."

And it went on. And on. I asked for this woman's supervisor, told her the same thing and she told me the same thing, "I'm sorry". I told her that she has no idea what I'm going through unless this has happened to her. She told me she would call me when the money is back in the account. I laughed, I told her I've been checking it 20 times a day online and she can feel free to call but much like the fraud on our account I would find out before the call was made.

The Niff found out from UConn (her Alma Mater) that their school store was compromised and credit card/debit card information could have been taken. Usually you never find out where and how, but we did. Is it all because of the attention that UConn got for the women winning 90 games in a row? Because some douchebag hacker across the pond saw UConn on the news every fucking night for a month? And they figured, "Shit, I bet they are selling a ton of merchandise, this might be a great hack...". Who knows. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it was compromised from within.

Bottomline as far as debit purchases online - don't do it. Use a credit card that has fraud protection. Trust me. If you don't have one get one and if you can't get one don't do it. It isn't worth the living hell you can go through.

Citizens Bank had many opportunities here to make things right. They didn't. I hope this opens people's eyes. I hope it educates people. I hope that things change because of it. The optimist in me says a lot of good can happen out of this. The realist tells me nothing will change.

Tragic.

Welcome to Shit Talker USA

I have thought about writing this specific post for over a year now but never had the push to really write it out until just recently. The events surrounding the Patriots loss this past sunday to the Colts were just the final straw.

People are different. People like different music, sports teams, foods, movie genres, books, even different seasons. There are a million things that make us who we are. Sports is one of those truly defining nuggets of life that for many of us owe a chunk of their identity to.

I'm going to start by saying I'm a diehard Red Sox fan. If you're a Yankees fan, that's fine, I love rooting against you and your team whenever I can, because it's a rivalry that was created forever ago. It's a historical rivalry.

I'm a Boston sports fan - not just because I live in the general vicinity, not just because I grew up 10 minutes south of Boston, and not because I'm a New England person. But because these are the teams I grew up watching and loving and grew attached to. If you grew up living in Boston and loved the Dodgers, that's awesome. I'm totally cool with people pledging their undying fanhood to teams they never had a real connection with. I'm a huge college football fan that loves watching Michigan, Florida State, Notre Dame, Boston College, Texas, and Florida. I didn't go to any of these schools but something about them struck me. I'll always hate the U, I'll always smile when USC loses, I'll always be happy to see Pitt have a terrible season.

And I get fans that are all about their team. I run fantasy leagues that are made up primarily of Sox fans but we always invite some of our buddies that are Yankees fans to join in. It makes for interesting trash talk and a fun season.

Back to the Pats/Colts game - I'm fine with Colts fans laughing it up that the Pats had the balls to do what most wouldn't and try to end the game by converting on 4th and 2 on their own 28. I'm fine with the analysts jumping all over them about "throwing the game away".

What I'm not fine with is all the other people that relish in it - everyone knows these people: the ones that are fans of some team that isn't playing your team but when your team loses people make a point to throw it in your face. People that "aren't Yankees fans or Sox fans" but when they play and the Sox lose they make a point to bring it up 100 times. The people that "don't really watch sports, but they hate Boston teams". 

When the Astros play the Rockies and they lose, I don't find the nearest Astros fan to throw it in his face.

When the Giants lose to the Jets, I don't seek out my buddies that are Giants fans and shit all over them.

When the Pacers are down by 2 with 5 seconds left and go for the win with a 3 that rims in and out and lose to the Spurs, I don't call up my buddy and tell him how much of a loser his team is and how bad they suck. 

Why? Because I'm not an attention whore. It's as simple as that. I don't give a fuck what your team is doing unless it's playing mine (Sox/Yanks is a different story, everyone knows that). I hate the term "haters" because you hear it too often but it's true. The people that act like that are spewing verbal diarrhea that isn't worth listening to. It's sad but I see more and more of this as New England teams keep winning: Celtics won their 17th championship two seasons ago, the Patriots are a dynasty and won 3 out of 4 in the last decade, and the Sox swept both World Series they won in 2004 and 2007. Winning breeds jealousy and hatred but that's a pretty weak excuse to act like a shithead.

Look, trash talk will always have a time and place in sports. But that's not trash talking, it's straight up shit talking. Trash talking is when your favorite team matches up against mine and we talk shit. When either team involved is a team that you like you are a shit talker. No one likes a shit talker. People need to remember that.

 

 

Think happy thoughts

I don't understand why/how people that are with each other for such a long period of time can hurt each other so deeply. I don't know why they do it. I mean, I guess I know the how, I don't understand the why. I don't think I ever will. For all the selfless acts of a relationship or friendship, you'd think people would do everything they could to prevent that sort of thing. When you are with someone to the point where you know what they are thinking before they open their mouth or can guess what they want to do that Saturday without any hint you've reached a level with them where you need to fully understand that the little things matter, both good and bad, and that the big things matter just as much. I've seen too many cases where someone does all the little things for someone and when it comes to the big decisions/things they only think of themselves. And you know what I have to say to those people?

Fuck you.

Nothing else. That sums it up.

  

We live in a society!!!

An otherwise awesome weekend comprised of going to the Hopkinton Fair, exploring a corn maze that had Boston trivia answers hidden inside, and an exploratory adventure of sorts was marred by someone that doesn't realize that we live in a society. Where there are rules. And repercussions for their actions. 

So there we were (all great stories start this way): doing our laundry in our laundry room where we live that has two washers and four giant dryers. One washer was empty so I put my stuff in it. One was stopped with a basket on top. Now, people routinely leave their clothes in the washers and don't care about anyone else or their urgency to do laundry. They'll leave them in there for hours. I did the logical thing: I took out the clothes and put them in the basket on the washer. And put in the Niff's clothes.

We come back as soon as our timer goes off and we get our stuff. Because the dryers crank up the heat and destroy our clothes we hang them up on clothes racks. As the Niff is putting her stuff on her rack she realizes she can't find a piece of clothing. She looks all over the apartment, walks back to the laundry room, finds nothing. She keeps hanging and realizes she is missing a lot more than she thought. 

What.The.Fuck.

The person that had their clothes taken out by yours truly took probably at least 1/4 to 1/2 of the Niff's laundry: running shorts, sports bras, panties, shirts, you name it. 

And they did it because I took their shit out of the washer.

I mean, I realize I crossed major boundaries here touching your shit, almost Hatfield and McCoy type reasons to start shooting each other. But seriously?? Stealing someone's clothes because they touched your sheets.

It's more than fucked up, it's criminal. And because I've watched way too many episodes of CSI I am getting to the bottom of it. For real. I've already turned my recliner around to face the parking lot and dumpster. Anyone that goes near it that looks suspicious is on my suspect list. Because of my uber-Hardy Boy skills I have it narrowed down to a family that has a little boy which could be one of two families the live in the floor below us, one directly beneath us. 

I know what their laundry basket looks like and I'm on a mission. It might take a week. A month. A year. But I will figure it out. Oh yes, I will.

Letter to the douchebag at the gym

Dear guy at the gym that always wears a plain white t-shirt and huge ass ugly glasses,

I hate you. I will list the reasons why I hate you so damn much below. Please stop coming to the gym until you can remedy these.
 

1. Stop bringin a magazine to the gym every fucking day. You know why? Because you read the entire fucking thing. Whether you are on the treadmill going .5 miles an hour or "lifting" and sitting on the machine you are at for 40 minutes while other people wait. It's rude and fucking stupid. It's not a library, it's a goddamn gym. Use it for what it is.
   
   
2. When you ditch the magazine you might want to think about wearing another kind of shirt because you know, when you perspire you can see right through the shirt. Not that you would know that because the most sweat you work up is flipping those pages.
   
   
3. Cut your fucking hair. You look like you idolize Brandon Walsh or Dylan McKay for Christs sake. That was cool about 15 years ago assmonkey. It's not cool if you are flipping your hair to the side every 10 seconds. It just adds to your douchebaggery.
   
   
4. Along the same vein of coming into this decade, get some new rims on your glasses. You look like that Old Navy lady that died a few years ago. Fucking terrible. They make me want to kick the shit out of you even more.
   

I don't think that's a lot to ask. You go to the gym, workout, maybe strike up a short conversation with someone and get the hell out of there. It's not fucking Panera or Borders. People want to get in and out of there and when it's packed and you are taking up a treadmill someone really wants to use or sitting on a bench with no weight on the bar people get a little testy. Time is valuable so don't waste ours.

Signed,

Me

NFL Network leaving Comcast on May 1st

In a move to force the monopolostic hand that is Comcast, the NFL Network has decided to pull it's channel from the Comcast lineup as of May 1st. Comcast decided to push the NFL Network into their Sports Tier Package, which costs subscribers sometimes as much as $15 a month to watch one of the best sports networks on TV. The NFL Network has always stood by it's fans and has tried to get Comcast to do what is the right thing - put it in the normal Basic Tier Package and allow the masses (up to 2 million more Comcast subscribers) to get the NFL Network for free. This is a big deal because when Thanksgiving rolls around every single week after that there are games that are put on the NFL Network that you normally wouldn't get to see. For NFL fans, one more game is a huge deal.

One thing I'm curious about is whether Comcast intends to drop the price of their sports package. I know I will cancel this package the second the NFL Network is not on my sports package. I couldn't care less about the other sports channels they put into the package as filler.

Comcast needs to learn that they can't continue to jerk their customers around. People will leave for other services - FiOs, DirecTV. If I had a choice I would be gone from Comcast in a heartbeat.

Check out a site the NFL put up to keep people updated - I know I'll be checking it out on a regular basis.

http://iwantnflnetwork.com/

The Book of Love

Keith Olbermann is the bomb. He's fantastic when paired with Dan Patrick on the radio or on Sunday Night's Football in America, as they were when they were together on SportsCenter back in the day. This just adds to his pimptasticness.

 

Like he said, I would love to hear someone despute what he is bringing up. Take religion out of it, because we don't all follow the same religion or system of beliefs. It's wrong. It's not right on any level. This is about your love for your common man. Prop 8 is the worst piece of legislation to pass in my recent memory, aside from the Patriot Act, where library books being taken out gets you thrown on a list and makes you a person of interest.

I hope someday it's reversed. And by someday I mean sooner rather than later.

Stuck inside a memory

The Niff, myself, and Kraig ventured last week to the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom to check out O.A.R. It was a while since I've been to the Casino but it's easily the best venue in the entire state to see a live show in an intimate setting. Steve says the Stone Church is a great place too, but I haven't been there yet. I can't really see anything matching being able to see a show, having them open the doors and let the ocean breeze sneak in, and after a great show walking out on the beach and taking your time to enjoy yourself.

On the way to the show we hopped off the highway so Kraig and I could get a bite to eat at Wendy's. This massive behemoth of a beast lady in front of us in line had over $60 in food, and was bitching at the staff that they fucked up her order. It literally took 20 minutes to sort out. You could so tell she wanted a couple bags of fries as a peace offering but she was such a douchecanoe they didn't budge. Good for them. I hate when people treat complete strangers like shit just because they work at a gas station/fast food place/restaurant/oil lube place/the mall. Another minute and I was going to tell her to get the fuck over herself and get lost.

We got there about half an hour early and picked out a decent spot to check out the show. illScarlet opened the show with some good music, a band I've never heard of but liked nonetheless. O.A.R. had a great show, going over 2 hours for their set while playing a lot of their popular songs as well as a healthy dose of their new album.

I did my best to get some pictures of O.A.R. on stage, but with the extreme darkness coupled with the bright and always changing colored lights it wasn't too easy.

During the encore Kraig and I decided to bolt as the third song was ending, as we didn't think they'd be playing much longer. No sooner did we get to the bottom of the back steps did we hear the lead singer Mark thank the crowd for a great show. We lucked out and were the first people out of the parking lot, easily saving us some major time.

It was a great show, I'm glad I was able to get to see O.A.R. live as I don't really go to many shows anymore, and what better place to see them than at the Casino Ballroom. Fantastic.

One of the most evil inventions ever

FedEx Tracking

Don't believe the hype. It's fucking evil.

I ordered my new cell phone on Thursday. They told me with 2 Day service, there was a shot of me getting it Friday since I ordered it in the morning, Monday at the latest.

Didn't come Friday.

Didn't come yesterday.

Now, what killed me is that as of yesterday morning at 12:10am, it was less than 20 miles from me. So why didn't it get to me yesterday?

As if that wasn't bad enough, it was put on the FedEx truck at 8:18am this morning. What has two thumbs and bets it won't arrive until tomorrow?

THIS GUY