(some witty title comparing and misusing the words 'fair' and 'fare')

So, I had a pretty awful experience in a taxi-cab today.
I've never been in a cab before... This was a first time experience.
Chelsea and I arrived at the Orlando airport and got our luggage with no problem. Went down to the first floor and found the pickup area fine, and with just a little looking found a man sitting at a desk that said Taxi Service. Bingo. There were taxi's all around waiting... No problem.
We approached. The man simply asked our destination, e advised him our hotel name. He confirmed there were just two of us, then handed us a small paper and advised us to go with the cabbie standing nearby. We followed hits a sedan and got in.

Now...taxi's should be simple. There's a meter that calculates everything so you nor the cabbie have to. 
You should be able to get in. Arrive at your destination, pay. And have a nice day. 
Apparently that's too hard. 

The ride was fine. Tat cabbie said nothing, just drove very directly to our hotel. 
When we arrived he stopped and stated "total is 36.75"
I asked, "you take card, right?"
He Sid nothing for a moment and then mumbled something incoherently.

Let me pause the story to be a little racist. Yes the man was black....this did not affect his driving. He drove great, I wasn't as scared as I though I'd be, he only barely ever rose 1 or 2 miles above the speed limit. It was fine. However,it suddenly became clear that English was not his native language. And if it was...it had been so tarnished by some crazy Orlando-cabbie-loafer-wearing-slang that MADE NO SENSE TO NORMAL PEOPLE WHO KNOW HOW TO SPEAK!!!

I was perplexed by his answer and I was still unsure if he would take my card. I reframed my question... "oh, so you don't take card?" 
"he responded with more jibber-jabber and concluded with words that sounded like "need little paper."
I thought he meant he needed that slip of paper I was handed earlier...I went to hand it to him. Finally he turned and looked at me. Ad he gave me the most evil look in the word. He looked at me as if I was incredibly stupid and had no idea what was going on (I didn't). 
"No!" he almost screamed, "(jibberish jibberish jibberish, little slidey paper!!!" he made a motion like a old credit card reader, the kind with like 5 layers of carbon receipt paper.
I was again perplexed but this made me believe that he could in fact take my card. So I handed it to him.
Again he looked at me like I was trying to hand him a bomb. 

Now, normally I think I would have handed him cash earlier...my main reasoning for trying so desperately to pay with my card is because this trip was a gift. I won it in a company drawing. The transportation to ad from the airport is part of the gift, but I have to pay for it, and they're going to reimburse me. So what I was really after was a goddamned receipt. 

Finally I gave up. The total was $36 and some change so whatever, I handed him 2 twenties. After I handed it over he pressed another button on the damn meter to add the tax. Total was suddenly 39.50. 
Not wanting to continuously look the fool I then grabbed another 5 bucks ad handed it to him. I stated "and that's for you"
he looked at it...and looked back at me...then slooooooowly took it. It's like this man didn't know what money was. It was fucking weird, and he was incredibly snooty about it. 

If my High School graduate math is correct (failed algebra twice BTW) then 5.50 Isn't quite 15% of 40 bucks, and apparently cabbies expect between 15 and 20 percent....but this guy kinda was an ass...and offered no help whatsoever to two travelers who've OBVIOUSLY never Been in a damn cab before!!

Upon reflection (and 30 minutes of research on the Internet) I've decided to only attempt to pay cash from now on for a cab (even though the cab company's website confirmed that they take Visa....that crazy asshole!!). Pretty much everyone in the world advises to pay for cabs with cash. 
We'll probably have to take a cable 3 or four more times on this trip....I hope it goes better....and I hope our future cabbies can speak English

X-Men Flashbacks

I, like most film critics and geeks, wasn't expecting much from X-Men: First Class. I had every intention of going to see it, I had just expected something closer to "The Last Stand" which I try not to think about.

Now, there were plenty of issues I had with the show.
But surprisingly I was able to look past most of them. I became more engrossed in the film than I ever excepted. And I enjoyed every minute watching this movie.

First off, Magneto Is a badass! We all knew this of course...but Michael Fassbender was fantastic!

Secondly, they managed to make The Banshee a cool character, I always thought he was an annoying character, but damn funny in this movie.

It's hard to stress how pleased I was with the film, and it might just have been because my expectations were so low. Even so, by the end of the film I was literally on the edge of my seat.

I haven't been able to stop thinking about the movie since watching it this morning. It's really brought me back to everything i've always loved about The X-Men, and it shows all the fun potential a real "comic book" movie can be, including your cheesy morals and silly one liners squeezed in.
While reliving all my crazy superhero fantasies I couldn't stop thinking about the X-Men animated series from the 90's, which everyone agrees was easily the best one.



Well, one quick Amazon search later....and all five seasons are on their way. 60 bucks for the entire series....yeah, I'd say it's worth it.

The Most Lazy

I have been more lazy recently than normal, which is impressive (if you ask me).
I got paid 11 days ago and have not cashed my check yet. That's not to say I don't need to, in fact I really needed too, but instead of just waking up early enough to go to the bank before work, I've just been dipping into my savings and putting bills on my line of credit.
Nothing major or bad, and I'll be able to pay it all back when I get around to going to the damn bank.
I realized today that I get paid again in 9 days, i'm definitely going to try to make it until I get paid again before going to the bank, just for shits and giggles.

On top of that laziness I've had three compliments/comments about my beard in the last 24 hours.
I'm a hairy MF. (MF is short for Mother Fucker, just so I don't offend anyone).
I've been talking about getting a haircut for two or three weeks now...still haven't.

In short, I have no money and refuse to groom my body hair.
I also have the day off tomorrow and I plan on staying in my pajamas and watching television all day, I have much I need to get through: Newsradio seasons 4 and 5, Cheers seasons 4-11, Carnivale season 2, Deadwood seasons 2 and 3. Plus I want to watch The Pretender again...and maybe go through Scrubs.

uh oh...

They annouced the iPad 2 yeterday.





I spent over an hour watching the keynote speach, and was sadly more impressed than I should have been.

Yes there are flaws. not as much RAM as expected. And while it's exciting to get cameras for the new iPad, it's lame that they're the same crappy cameras on the iPod, not even close to comaring to the cameras on the iPhone 4.

The new cover is a great idea.

Also the adapter to connect and HDMI cable to the device is awesome! plus that adapter is compatable with the iPhone 4 and iPods 3 and 4.

All around...I geeked out over it.

over the last few years I've become a pretty big Apple fan.
Been using iTunes for along time now. had a couple of iPods.
I'll probably never own an Apple Computer, but I do really love the idea of a tablet. all the possiblities are great. I'd read the "newspaper" in tablet form. I'd probably write more (laptop is great fir that though), I've love to play with some art applications that are larger than the 3 inch screen of my iPod.

Basically...I think I'm going to buy one on the 11th when they come out.

My biggest concern was that I had previously deciced to blow my next paycheck on the Nintendo 3DS. this comes out on March 27th...so I had a crazy hard decision to make....then I realized...that if i just dont spend any money on anything else this month...I could probably buy both... Now I'm torn because I do want to start saving more money.
But i REALLLY like getting new toys : )

Movie fail.

I fell like a failure.
I've been watching a movie every day and blogging about it here And I've been doing well...until yesterday. Didn't watch a movie at all that day.

I was going to that moring about 1 am, but I was really tired, then when I woke up I decided to go to the mechanic to get my car worked on, just to get it out of the way.
Well I ended up waiting at the Mechanics for over 4 hours, without my iPod (could have watched a movie on my iPod). I was late for work, and then work was really busy. It was totally depresseing.

On the bright side, as soon as I finish my saftey inspection on the car I get to go to the DMV and put it into my name. Then the car will officially be mine.
Yay me!

Mua ha ha!!

Totally picked up the new iPod Touch 4th Generation a couple days ago. And it's super delicious.
Only 300 bucks and as long as I have wi-fi I have everything I could possibly want...and it fits in my pocket. It's still easier to write out long documents or blog entries on the lappy, but things like Facebook are amazing on the iPod. The application makes it way easier and cleaner to navigate and maintain. Twitter is no longer clogging up my phone's inbox and at a moments notice I have dozens of game possibilities...give me a few minutes and I have thousand of game opportunities.
And while I do all this I can listen to my music or a podcast.
Because I pretty much have wi-fi wherever I go...this works out well. Plus Chelsea got one too...and if we are both online we have free facetime. Which turns out to be the fastest video chat I've ever used.
Loving this.
And don't get me started on the gyro in the device, I've fallen in love.

A friend at work got some sad news today. No idea what the news was, but she's been sad all day...it kinda sucks.
Because now I've been sad all day.

Anyways other than that, things are peachy.

Still spending too much money on movies and comics. Still in debt. Still depressed. Still trying to find something worthwhile to do with my life.

Got a haircut a little while ago....seems to be the most entertaing part of my life recently. It'sodd cause it't the first time I've had facial hair and short hair at the same time. I kinda like it.

Been playing through a lot of sweet games recently too. Almost finished with Legend of zelda Ocarina of Time again. Also been playing through Legend of Zelda The Minish Cap for the first time. And I just instlled Spore onto Victoria last night...I likes that game a lot.

Moar Comicals!!!

I've become a fan of Warren Ellis.
As I got more and more into Comic Books I've started recognizing names of Writers and Artists...like Warren Ellis.

The first comic that showed me Warren is Freakangels .

I love steampunk and whilst searching aimlessly this was one of my best finds. I've been reading it online for a few years now and just picked up the TPB of volumes 1 and 2.

Anyways I just picked up volume 1 (and possibly the only volume) of Ignition City IT'S SO COOOOL.
A different steampunk style that makes me all sorts of giddy inside.

Warren Ellis has so many other comics I need to get into, this will take much time and money : ( ugh

Surreal and Depressing

Life is surreal and depressing.

I live in my parents basement.....and truth be told I go crazy if I'm there to long talking to people. I spend very little time there during the day. I try to keep all conscious hour in that house confined to the middle of the night so they're all asleep.

I work at a movie theatre.....and while I'm not at the bottom of the ladder it seems that it's becoming more and more difficult to move up. I make 8.50 an hour for Christ's sake! And by the end of the year they're dissolving my position. So I could either move up or step back down and with more and more rungs being taken off the top of the ladder I'm afraid I might have to get off the ladder and try a new one.

I owe money.....to a bank and I haven't been paying it off for a year. Also the bank I've been going through has handed me a credit card/loan that I have kept maxed out for the past 5 months or so. I'm paying my parents more than half of what I make each month and living paycheck to paycheck and it causes a lot more stress that I'd like it too. this also doesn't help when my car gets sick and I have to go crawling to my father to help me get it fixed.

I argue with myself daily.....and yes the therapist has told me to stop it. apparently it's not healthy. I worry constantly about things out of my control. I worry constantly about things that are in my control I'm just too lazy or unmotivated to get around to fixing them. I struggle constantly with the fear that no one loves me while in a crowd of people that all want to ask how I'm doing and what I've been up to. I worry that I'm not a good friend or an inadequate boyfriend while receiving texts and messages asking when I'm free to hang out.

I'm tired of being tired.....and I've finally given up trying to go to bed on time. I'm sick of laying in bed for hours trying to go to sleep. So I run myself ragged until I collapse and sleep through work or an appointment.

I go out of my way to avoid going home.....even if I inconvenience a friend and ruin plans for the day.

I have so many wonderful colours running through my mind. So many stories......I've stopped trying to share them with the world. I can't ever seem to get it right.

I envy everyone. even the people I hate.