Archive for the ‘Fails’ Category

StumbleUponics Anonymous

Posted: May 12, 2011 by Tim in Completely Pointless, Fails
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For those of you who maximize the potential of your Internet (the non-Kim Jong-il version), then you should be well aware of the StumbleUpon toolbar. If not, download it… if you dare. If you found this article through StumbleUpon, I assume its 4am where you live, your have milky-eyes from staring at that bright screen in the darkness of your bedroom for the past 3 hours, your tired, your crotch is burning from having your laptop sitting on it, you have work/school the next morning but keep insisting “one more click”. You are chasing that brightly colored dragon to find that one website that is going to make that 3+ hours of stumbling all worth it. Sorry to disappoint you, but I can only assume that this article isn’t going to be that momentous epiphany you are looking for. So on to the next click.

For those who still don’t know what the hell I’m talking about (probably because you still didn’t download it and continued reading this..I applaud you, kind of), StumbleUpon is a toolbar.. NO.. the ONLY toolbar you should ever download. Fuck Google/Yahoo/Microsoft/Bing/Weatherbug etc. They take up valuable viewing real estate when all you need is an address bar, reload button, and Stumble. While I’m on it, I advocate usage of Google Chrome for your Internet viewing sanity. So dad, if you happen to read this, stop using fucking AOL to surf the internet, its not 1996 anymore.

I digress, as usual. What was I talking about? Am I typing out loud again? Shit..

So once you download StumbleUpon, they make you create a profile. This is where the fun begins. They let you choose all of the categories that you are “interested” in. I use this word in quotations because this is where everyone hits their downfall. The reason you are up until 4am is because you pretend to be interested in everything that you aren’t really interested in, therefore Stumble is going to throw you those useless self-motivation websites that you are just going to save to your favorites, falsely thinking you will go back and read it at some point, hoping that some ex-lover/spouse/friend is going to go in there and see that you favorited it and think “wow, he/she is SO deep”. If you don’t want to see useless shit on Stumble, don’t ‘like’ shit you aren’t interested in. Trust me, nobody is going to use your computer to see what interesting things you are stumbling, so get real.

Although I rant about it, I too was one of these people. I thought “oh cool, i’d probably be interested in postmodernism *click* — oh humanitarianism, how noble *click* — comic books, never read them but no time like the present! *click — self-improvement *click*” and it goes on and on and on til you realize, “wow! I have a lot more interests than I originally thought, I’m glad stumbleupon helped me realize this about myself..people are gonna think I’m the shit!” Wrong. This is what leads you to the 4-am heroin chase. You’ll find that amazingly perfect website on the first night–Something that you are actually interested in, say, conspiracy theories… now I can finally go to sleep (or stay up all night with a tin foil hat because you just read the government is listening to your thoughts). The next night you are sucked into a vortex of homebrewing, drug culture, fashion websites, flash games, random wikipedia entries, cigars, guns, quilting, spelunking, camping gear, how to start a fire, how to put out a fire, how to attract a lady, how not to smell bad, how to make your life not suck and this and that and what time is it? Before you know it, you have 2,356 bookmarked pages that, and I guarantee you, you will almost never look at or remember that you saved it.. and if you do remember, good luck finding it.

This is the StumbleUpon addiction. If you didn’t already download it right from the first sentence, and still haven’t, then I may have just saved countless hours of your life (although that means you are still reading this, so mission accomplished on my end).

Like Facebook, college kids first began using StumbleUpon to waste more time while “writing papers”, “studying”, and “going to class”. You’re broke, you’ve beaten Super Mario Bros for the 11,000th time, you’re high/drunk, but you still pay $59.99 a month for Internet…time to utilize that shit. StumbleUpon was also an excellent rehab for drunk Internet surfing. Statistics show that 79% of college students stopped making creepy Facebook comments on pictures of girls they went to high school with, stopped friending every hot girl on Facebook, and online breakups were down 72%. Truly, StumbleUpon saved millions of college students from complete embarrassment the following morning.

While college kids popularized StumbleUpon, it goes without saying that hipsters heard it before anyone else did–back when it was just called “Stumple”. Like a wildfire, StumbleUpon has now spread to over 10,000,000 users, equating to an estimated 87,000,000,000,000 hours of lost productivity worldwide.

Don’t get me wrong.. Stumbling is awesome. If not for Stumble, I would never be able to find a synonym for any word, insult someone in a Shakespearean manner, how to infuse vodka into gummy bears, or pretend that I’m interested in photography.

So in conclusion, while Stumble is a great time wasting device, a great way to find websites you are actually interested in, and a great way to look busy at work, it accounts for countless wasted hours. It is, however, a necessary evil. As the great American entertainer Will Rogers once said: “There have been three great inventions since the beginning of time: fire, the wheel, and StumbleUpon”. As true today as it was a hundred years ago. So Stumble wisely my friends. Don’t be pretentious about it, and you will cherish your Stumbling experience.

Condom Sense

Posted: April 26, 2011 by Tim in Completely Pointless, Fails, General Annoyance
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Location: 8th and Green Sts, Philadelphia PA

I felt compelled to write this post today after a disgusting, yet unsurprising find on a recent walk through my neighborhood. If the title of this article misled you into thinking that I would be writing about advocating condom usage, then I apologize (for the record, I do support it). This post is more-or-less to analyze the mindset of the individual who decided to dispose of this most intimate and personal item on a city sidewalk as opposed to, you know, a trash receptacle.

Just as a brief side note to this story, I saw this particular condom rotting into the fabric of the sidewalk a week ago, only to find it still laying in the same place as of yesterday evening.. and here we are.

I want to run a few scenarios to really figure out why this phenomenon would occur, and I do appreciate any input fellow readers may have into this subject. So without further ado:

  1. Cheating spouse/partner. Perhaps the condom could not be properly disposed inside of a residence because the unsuspecting partner would find out of their infidelities.
  2. Forgetfulness. Perhaps after the act of sexual congress commenced,  the culprit simply got dressed without removing said condom and didn’t realize until they hit the streets. Rather than find the nearest trash can, they took it off and flung it to the ground.
  3. No trash cans. Philly is notorious for litter which can be attributed to the lack of trash bins. Since the sanitation department is completely mafia-controlled, they could care less how dirty the city is.
  4. A conscientious rapist. While I hope this is not the case, perhaps a rapist didn’t want to infect the victim with their nasty sexually transmitted diseases.
  5. A laissez-faire attitude toward littering. This is likely the most logical explanation. As mentioned above, people in Philly tend to litter more regardless of the proximity of trash bins. Simply put, throwing trash in the streets makes it someone else’s problem.
  6. Culprit was unaware of how to dispose of a condom. Many people are idiots. Condoms do not explicitly tell you how to throw away a condom, so when all else fails, toss it in the street.
  7. Someone got caught. Perhaps the boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse came home a little too early and caught the cheater in the act. Culprit simply ran out, condom on and all, and again, whipped it into the streets as to remove any and all links to the encounter.
These are just my ideas, I happily encourage anyone to weigh in on this as I am completely dumbfounded to why this occurred.
Til next time, out..

People are incompetent

Posted: March 9, 2011 by Tim in Completely Pointless, Fails, General Annoyance
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For those of you who don’t know–or don’t really care, I am employed as a dream weaver, miracle worker, and a guy who has access to that magical button that will somehow get you free and/or deeply discounted flights. This profession is otherwise known as ‘travel agent’ or as I like to call it ‘Consultant of Travel Services’. Hey, if everyone at Bank of America is a VP of some meaningless department and has some nonsense title, why can’t I?

There are 2 things that piss me off the most in my profession. 1) People who think I can slash airline prices and 2) People who blatantly, or at least hint at the fact that they will be shopping around the second they get off the phone with me. Why not just say “hey, don’t spend a lot of time on me because I’m either not serious, or I will just book with someone else who spent less time because they are saving me $5 more than you.”

The problem with the first point is that literally nobody can discount airline tickets anymore. If you are a fellow agent, I welcome your input as well. I don’t charge people extra for booking tickets, I don’t make any money on the tickets, and I sure as shit am not hiding anything on you. I hate the airlines as much as you. I do not work for the airlines, so don’t get pissed off at me when I tell you how much your flight to Vegas is going to cost. If you don’t have the money to fly, I assume you don’t have the money to piss away in Vegas either, so maybe you should consider traveling when your financial situation permits.

When you bitch about how much it costs to travel I assume certain things about you–That you clearly put no time or effort into researching your trip and you expect me to do all of the work for you AND that you think I have the magic button that allows me to slash your prices to pay what you want to pay. I have some news for you people, brace yourselves, it costs money to travel. My company, which shall remain nameless, ran a special for a 9-day trip to China from $2214 for 4 people. Now, I know it doesn’t specify.. but any person who understands China would realize that this cost is per person, based on 4 people in your group. This chick thought she could fly 4 people to China for 9 days for $2214. The sad part is, I thought she was really serious in the beginning. I even got her an amazing deal on air which was $970 per person…TO FUCKING CHINA. Thats an amazing deal. I spent wayyyy too much time on this and it made my head spin when she said YIKES that’s too expensive… YA THINK? Clearly, she had no fucking idea where China even was.

So yeah, people, if you are going to call your travel agent.. please have SOME idea of where you want to go, when you want to go, and have a realistic budget in mind. If you tell me you want to go to France in the middle of June for $500 a person I’m going to laugh at you and hang up. Do your homework first.

This brings me to my second point. If you want a travel agent to take you seriously, don’t ask if you can get better rates through, say, AAA. Of course, I’m still going to try my best to give you the absolute best service, the best price, and the level of professional courtesy you expect, however, you are basically telling me not to waste too much time on you. Just use some common sense people. I don’t call you at Bank of America and say “hey, Citibank is going to give me a 10% interest rate on this loan when you are offering 12%”. See what I mean?

The main reason why I wrote this wasn’t to bitch about my job or the people that make it difficult. In fact, it wasn’t even a ‘person’ who caused me to  believe everything/everyone is incompetent. Actually, I took issue with a particular resort in Jamaica, which also shall remain nameless. Now, I understand Jamaica is laid back and I can expect a slow turnaround when I send an email request to your resort. But your property happens to be extremely well known and world-renown for its service. I send an email 3 1/2 weeks ago to request that my clients have a child safety seat for their shuttle from the airport to the resort. I finally get a reply back yesterday about pricing for transfers and for me to give them the clients flight info. The problem? They already have all of this information AND it was already paid for. I respond back explaining it and receive an ‘out of office’ reply that she won’t be returning til the day before my clients arrive. I am given the email of another associate who can assist me in this matter. I send an email, in the nicest possible way that I am capable of, explaining the situation, etc. I receive another ‘out of office’ reply that she is out of the office until 2 days before they arrive and to contact the person who is out of the office til the day before with all pressing matters. Hello? Are you serious?

If you are running a damn 5-star resort, I expect a damn reply within that week. Not nearly a month later. At least coordinate your out of office replies as to not make my job more difficult than it has to be. Also, please actually look my clients up before you send some cookie-cutter response to me. That my friends, is the definition of INCOMPETENCE..

A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and clearly, people are wasting away.

Til next time, oooouuutttt

Golf Fail

Posted: September 1, 2010 by Tim in Fails, News
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Golfer Sparks 25 acre California fire

Had to post this.. This guy took a swing at his golf ball, hit a rock with his club, and sparked a 25-acre fire in SoCal. Luckily, he’s not being charged. But I’m sure he won’t be able to live this one down anytime soon!