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Here I sit again, waiting for my father to get another cardio test. It wasn't as bad on me today since I left work early and got to bed early. Still haven't gotten confirmation from my boss whether it was ok if I left early or not but I could care less. We haven't been talking to each other much. I don't know what the deal is but again I could care less. The rift at this point is incurable and probably my own fault, but I have lost the ability to try.

Last year I had started doing a lot of the purchasing jobs and had hoped it would lead to something better. It looked promising until I started butting up against resistance to it all. Seemed like no matter how small I got the pricing on anything, they demanded more and it became a bit embarrassing to even ask. When the vendors stop talking to you then you know that it had gone on too long and too far. I received an email from one of the vendors that had stopped talking to me when the company's demands got insane requesting more information on what they all had been discussing behind my back ever since they all had stopped including me. I forwarded the email on and said it must have accidentally come to me. I received a curt response and it has been communication purgatory ever since.

To be completely honest, I would have been thrilled to give up the purchasing projects job, because I was getting more and more shit jobs thrust upon me every day. The fact that I was at the breaking point with all of the labor, and at the same time fielding emails and phone calls from vendors constantly was killing me really. It was starting to look like they were trying to kill me, and was making me pissy. it has been obvious though that my on stubbornness to support myself is starting to lose the battle anyway, and have finally accepted that this stone has no more blood. it will only come as a surprise to those that have truly convinced themselves that I am broken and worthless, and will only serves as a beacon to those that have done all that they can to drive me out. the latter won't be shocked in the least if I strike legally and have already shown their ability to lie and act justified, so what do I know.

In lieu of fielding the "legal advice" of everyone individually I shall point out the things that people don't know when they are staring up the beanstalk. First and foremost is to remember that I live in New Hampshire and not "insert other state here" which means that my workers rights are completely different than anyone else’s. New Hampshire is a work at will state and you can be fired for absolutely anything and are not entitled to any rights. You may have rights, but the situations have to be there. Race is a good example, but says age and disability are not. You can fire someone for being too old, if it means they are physically unable to do the job. Now in my case I may be physically unable based on employer neglect as long as I could prove it and they couldn't prove that my job is doable and it is my choices that make it too hard. Should I be able to convince comp that I do have this issue then I would be entitled to worker's comp which is 60 percent here? You also have to take any job that they give you within 5 percent of that 60 percent which means the state could place me in a grocery bagger job making 65 percent of what I had, and they do that here.

Then there is the legal system in general. New Hampshire has no punitive system for damages. That’s what those that dream of suing consider nirvana. It is the punitive pain you inflict by taking a portion of the profits of what injured you. McDonald’s coffee burns you then you sue for 5 percent of their coffee profits punitively. The judge awards 15k in doctors and lawyers fees, 200k in pain and suffering, and 10m in punitive damages. Nobody really understands this so they just say "that person got 10 mil" and it creates a buzz. Person loses a finger in a machine making Dixie cups and gets 500k in punitive damages, big deal. Now imagine a scenario where you can't even get that 500k. On the other side of the coin your pain and suffering can get you more money without punitive damages but it caps at 250k above and beyond pre arranged legal fees (this does not include pro rata) and any and all associated costs. Associated costs have to be rigorously justified so basically you need the 250k to live off of. Heaven knows you will never get another job.

Now onward to the fun of legal fees. Over glorified "pay if you win" fees are thus. If you lose you pay nothing. Now this rarely happens because "doomed" cases will inevitably be settled to avoid bad pr and with that you will have to sign away your ability to pursue the company when the real problems start. lawyers still use the fact that they could be stuck with all of that free legal if they lose, but they have already chosen to deny they can’t win and know they will salvage any of the might not win. For the luxury of this you will give 35 to 50 percent of your settlement and it cannot be included in the "arranged" legal fees. Most attorneys will have it in their contract that taxes and court fees come out of your end. Take the tobacco legislation in Washington for instance. That amounted to a half a trillion dollars and Clinton’s buddies (the lawyers) took 50 percent of every one of those dollars for legal services.

so under a best case scenario, if I were to find one of the soft hearted attorneys who will fight passionately to the end for 35 percent then at best I will have about 4 years salary to show for it. I will also have a lifetime of question marks to consider. It is no easier or more difficult than that. It is a decision I have looked at very seriously in both directions. It may be simply a matter of “scorched earth” for me at this point. Should I get another job, it would be at a much lower salary as I have been proclaimed “medium ability” by the state after the insurance company had forced through ability testing before I was ready for it. After finally getting myself to a point where I felt better the growing stress of the job got me to a point where I feel worse. It’s the 3 kids that make it all so complicated. If it were just me supporting myself then it would be rather simple actually. I would have my torch ready to burn brush, but where there are others surviving on my salary and my salary alone, then it makes some problems that the state will not assist in fixing. Don’t get me started on that. ;8o)

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My day started way too early, and that is always the first sign of trouble. There really is only one true foe of an agonizing back, and that would be hurrying. My existence is not the same as it used to be, because above all else I require at least 2 hours of "up" time before I can even take a shower in the morning. Even after that it is going to be a slow shower. I lose any ability to have a slow anything these days and there is nothing I can do about it.

I used to be a morning person actually. I could wake up at 5am, shoot out of bed and get more done before 7am then most people could in an entire week. It was in my nature and it all changed when my miserable job hurt my back. I could blame myself for the injury and have in the past, but lately I have taken the more practical approach of blaming the job. I truly believe that my fault lays purely in acceptance of the surroundings and doing what I was told. Now I am a bit of an overworked, loose cannon plotting revenge. Sometimes simple tricks, but more and more often it has been growing into fabulous disasters that could get me imprisoned. I walk a fine line of insanity, but that is the dark secret of a really agonizing back injury. Don’t fool yourself though, because not everyone is out to get you, but a lot of them are, and those that aren’t still don’t understand if they don’t have a bad back.

My own grasping at sanity could have been my worst enemy through it all. In the beginning you didn't see the plotting clearly enough to think what you saw was reasonable, and by the time you do it seems too far along to be taken seriously. Fear takes you at this point and you think that being "right" or "principled" is a badge of honor and it isn't at all. The human resources director walking around and spreading the "rumor" that she had heard you hurt yourself at a previous job had formed the "legend" that you deserved all of your hell. How do you deal with the fact that your medical treatment was bungled, and you ended up worse because they put you back to work when "their" doctor was unavailable, and then he lied to you about what was wrong? How can this not start to wear on you when you are making less than everyone else and in agony a year later? Now you are terrified because you aren't healthy enough to get another job, when your health had always been your best asset.

at that point the delusions start in your head, from the ex wife that left you and your kids forcing you to take that job, to the mother of those kids that won't pay a dime to support them, to that fucking bitch at work who broke you. They don’t go away either. Days like today when i had to get up 3 hours early, shower and get dressed in 15 minutes with all three kids and grandmother crammed into the same room that I am sitting half naked in trying to put my socks on embarrassed. It sucks and it is all unfair that I have to stew over things like that and just get hateful. now as I sit at a doctor’s appointment with my father, back on fire, exhausted, typing out all of this on a cell phone (yeah thanks to alternate reality through "phone yahoo" I have gotten almost as fast typing on a phone) hoping that it gets over quickly so that I can get another couple hours in before work, and like always trying to keep the volatile hatred towards everyone I could blame for anything out of my head by pressing keys on a phone.

I hear other people press phone keys when they feel like this too. not the same way of course, because I have always been phone phobic, and more over as my mind poisons over the last 2 years I have become more people phobic than anything else. I hate people for wanting things or taking up my time that I don’t have, making me get up too early and put my socks on too fast. People annoy me and realistically they always have but now of all damn things, I don’t have time to squeeze them in. It just looks like I do nothing when in reality, crawling from my futon to my chair everyday to sit for an hour to get up the energy to wander around the shower for 30 minutes before I take the customary 20 minutes or so to get dressed is agony in more ways than one. I used to take that all for granted, and now I wonder what child of mine will hear me lose it the next time they give me grief for not "snapping out of me" soon enough. I have no sanity anymore. Just a thin veil that holds me together and I just hope that my own self righteousness can carry me through whatever I do when I finally snap. Fuck em’ it will be a fabulous disaster ;8o)

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I have to blame Bravo for my lack of creativity these days. It’s like a cancer that infests my system and makes it so that I can’t change the channel. It was an accident really that started a couple of years ago and implanted the seed of inevitability that happens to me now. I was up late, and there was nothing on television, and I came across a show called Project Runway. I didn’t realize that it was a show about fashion designing because at 11pm at night all I thought was it was a show about Heidi Klum walking around in a tight miniskirt with a pair of those stockings that end just above the knees and spiked heels. I think we can all see how a man’s mind works, especially right before he goes to bed, so we will leave that one alone for now.

The show Project Runway hooked me instantly though because it had everything that great entertainment requires. It had a competition {like football only without the shoulder pads}, it had hot looking women {with shoulder pads, come to think of it}, flaming over the top gay men, cattiness, backstabbing, drama, hot looking women {had to put that back in there before I was mistaken for gay}, and it compelled me to start picking favorites immediately. Actually that is the hook of the show, because they always seem to get you really personally involved with the person that is about to be booted off, for good or for bad. More importantly, unlike all of the other stupid reality shows, these are people that are actually doing things based on their actual talent. They are working towards accomplishing something other then cash for screwing over everyone else. In three seasons the best have won, and for the most part you knew it.

Now along the way this year came along and I had a hell of a lot more responsibilities with my father here, and my own physical issues that have left me doing things all day with the television on in the background. This was all part of Bravo’s hideous plot of “Operation Get the Crow” {OGC} to which no antidote exists. Now along with having to defend my manhood because I know more about fashion then I do about Hockey, I happen to know more about the Hotel business, Matchmaking Millionaires, redesigning household from the eyes of Gay men, cooking in NY elite restaurants, and yes to a lesser extent Supermodels. I will admit that I am not doing THAT bad because once I realize that “Make me a Supermodel” is on I can very easily switch to ESPN and recharge. That show is total shit.

Don’t get me wrong, I still get energized over the newest episode of Project Runway {trust me it is a great show} and adore Queer Eye for the Strait Guy {those guys are hard not to love} but the rest of them are total accidents most of the time. Watching “The Millionaire Matchmaker” has taught me that either a lot of stereotypes about rich people are amazingly true, or they need to edit the damn show better. You get a nearly equal split of what Millionaires they have on their but they still fall under two categories. Vapid, spoiled and completely without soul, or stuffy, hallow, and completely without charm. Then you watch them all go through a buffet table of Barbi dolls, for the most part ignoring the women that they said they wanted, and then end up disappointed or disillusioned. Even by glorious train wreck standards, it isn’t good television, but I still hear it in the background.

What’s worse is that they have those marathons of entire seasons of the shows. I have now seen all of the Project Runway’s about 45 times each, and I can’t stop watching them. It’s good because I have been able to catch up on all of the Queer Eye’s {late to the party I know} and I even found that I liked the Parker House one there, but fortunately have only seen it once through. I am concerned that I may end up accidentally getting “used to” Make me a Supermodel which even when I have tried to sit through it appears to be nothing more than a watered down bisexual orgy with idiots. I am sure that it would be ok if I downloaded it from Usenet, but as it takes out all of the sex, and simply leaves the dialogue, I think it speaks for itself. I mean it would be like all of the parts from an old VHS porn movie that aren’t worn away from pausing and constant fast forward and rewind because NOBODY WATCHES IT!

My concern now focuses on the “Real Housewives of New York City” that is upcoming, and will probably be interjected into the mix when I least expect it. “The Real Housewives of Orange County” was their last foray into the twisted and vapid, that they had on last season. I can honestly say that I was able to change the channel on that one and totally drown it out if I had forgotten to mainly because it was that bad. It was also foreign to me because it was West Coast twisted and vapid, and about as realistic to me as an old 90210 episode. The new one being East Coast twisted and vapid might actually resonate with me, like listening to the world according to me junkie mother, or an ex wife, or God help me, most of the women I work with. In other words “fingernails on a blackboard” and who knows if my television can stand getting knocked over every time I run to change the channel ;8o)

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And then there was Roger. Am I qualified as a Red Sox fan to make any proclamation of Roger Clemens? I’m not really sure of that, but I am really sure that there is a circus going on in Washington that requires some sort of commentary from someone that has logic. I am not even sure if I have enough of that to deal with the situation as it is going. I know that I can shed some light on something tat many in the country haven’t really paid attention to, but has everything to do with the story. Roger Clemens was, after all a .500 pitcher when he left Boston if his stats for the last 3 years of his career here are to be examined. His 50 and 49 record over those years did not in any way dictate that he had the abilities to be the ace of any staff, much less the Boston Red Sox, and the apologists who like to point out that the rest of the team was lousy, aren’t looking at the job of an ace. Bad teams get dominating performances from an ace, and the Red Sox were getting a mediocre performance from theirs.

Most people who were not caught up in the romance of having Roger Clemens on the staff were thoroughly convinced that he was on the downslide of what was a great career, and he left Boston with a major chip on his shoulder. Who wouldn’t after being told that you were washed up? He went to Toronto and after looking every bit as bad as the general manager of the Red Sox said he would be for half of the first season there he transformed miraculously into the huge, dominant pitcher that he once was, only far more. The next season he won a Cy Young again being over the top dominant, and was sticking it in the eye of the Red Sox, which he deserved to do as he was reborn like a phoenix from the flame. Later on he moved to the Yankees to get the World Series that the Red Sox were never going to get him, and later on became the eternally youthful Roger Clemens that created a feeding frenzy every year as he would “un-retire” and come back to baseball for one last hoorah. Now he is involved in the steroid investigation, and everyone is taking sides.

I remained apathetic purely because I was jaded into believing that it was simply obvious, and Roger should have just made up a lame story about doing it 3 or 4 times and put himself on the mercy of the fans. It would have been over and done with and in 5 years they would have put him in the hall of fame, hands clean, continue. Instead he decided to do some of the most idiotic things I have ever seen, and what slays me is that people are still defending him when logic dictates that he is probably affected by steroids beyond the physical and probably mentally damaged. I would have ignored all of this if it wasn’t for the fact that prominent members of the political party I have given my heart and soul too over the last decade got involved. This is where it gets interesting because if I thought Roger Clemens was a dolt, then I would have to say that the Republican senators that he bought and paid for at that hearing were lunatics. I have blocked their names from my mind in the hopes that I won’t have to wash my eyes out with soap, but watching the Republicans acting like Clemens lap dogs was humiliating to me. The fact that tax payer dollars was spent on this is humiliating to us all.

In order for anyone to believe that Roger Clemens is innocent, you would have to believe that McNamee told the truth about Petite and Knoblauch but lied about Roger. You would have to believe that Debbie Clemens took HGH without consulting with the man she is married to, who happens to be a professional athlete. You would have to believe that Roger Clemens couldn’t remember the name of a nanny that coincidentally was invited to his house that weekend to talk about some things. You would have to believe that a man who throws broken baseball bats at people when they are running to first, or the baseball in general at their head when they “show them up” isn’t possibly having roid rage. I don’t believe that the Republicans sitting in that room believed these things in the least. I don’t believe that they ever have, and I don’t believe that I have ever supported any of those bozos.

Here’s where I part company with any of this in general, because I know that steroids is a major problem in the world, and think without general medical supervision it is a tragedy to be going on. These people that are searching for “the truth” to not believe the same way because the answers to these things are a lot easier then they make them out to be. Using steroids is a crime, and it is supposed to be prosecuted as a criminal activity. It is not in the least and it doesn’t carry the stigma of the loss of freedom associated with most crimes. I mean seriously we have heard about people flunking drug tests and facing a suspension, and it simply looks to me to be an associated “job risk” with no perceivable reason to NOT do it, and I have been rather rabid about these things for a long time now. My education in sports medicine brings me back about 20 years on this debate and I remember writing an article {that was not well received} about Shawn Ray back in the early 90s when he was stripped of the Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic title. He flunked the steroid test really badly and title was given to someone else. There was a long article in Flex magazine talking about how he hadn’t gotten off the juice early enough, and within a year he had gone back and won the title after cleaning out properly.

My reaction was black and white to this little “problem” that Shawn Ray had had, and that was that he should have been in JAIL! For the love of God, we had a man with a vial full of tainted blood and an admittance that he had been using illegal steroid, and there wasn’t even so much as an inquiry. I have been watching this whole “steroid issue” for the last two decades and as always it is just an “embarrassment” to these people to commit crimes and every politician in this country knows about it and has NO right to sit in judgment of it now. If Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds or any of these people using illegal substances end up going to jail for perjury then should we really feel bad for them or defend them? I realize that we are a nation of feelings, and not laws or common sense, but when do we place the brakes in? How am I to feel sympathetic about the children of the world and the bad messages that we send to them when we live in a lawless culture full of innuendo to the contrary?

I could care less what happens to Roger Clemens because I watched a deplorable human being, sell his own wife to the tabloids in front of the congress for no other reason then to save his own amazingly tarnished name. The senator that sat there and ranted that McNamee was a liar while Roger sat there smiling showed me beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have walked over the threshold of logic, and into the mire of spectacle for the sake of face time on the media outlets. Worse yet we have two political parties running the country, both pathetically corrupt, both damaged beyond repair, and we are at the mercy of them and the idiots that support them in lockstep. Blissful ignorance runs foul in both of them, and people are left wondering if we were not better off without a king. I only bring this up because I am sick of the princes and princesses that the media in this country are making for us anyway, and then desperately trying to tear down or bring up out of their own sport ;8o)

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I sincerely hope that Comcast got its money’s worth yesterday, because I have determined that the Senator that they have bought and paid for must be willing to commit political suicide for his client. Actually I shouldn’t say that, because if there is one thing I know about politics around the Philadelphia area, is that they have no concept of what is good for them anyway. Arlen Specter’s quest to take down the NFL over the Spygate thing might actually destroy America’s game but not because it will unearth anything, but more over because once congress decides that it is going to get you, it will get you. It should have been obvious when the whole meet and greet between Goodell and Specter amounted to Specter rising like an old peacock to encourage {demand} Goodell to talk to the former videographer of the New England Patriots, when a simple reading of last weeks newspaper would have told him that Goodell already had.

This is how the encroachment on people’s rights really happens. People think they are so smart because they parrot what they hear in the biased news media, and feel self righteous because they read it in print, but have not the ability to read between the lines, or feel guilty for beating on those that have more than they do. How many times have we heard “illegal domestic spying” and then think that it has to be true because it was on the news? People like myself are outnumbered by the idiots when we simply point out that there is no “illegal domestic spying” going on, or at least there isn’t any as it is reported by the media. The parrots yell louder and drown out the voices before they can inject reason, but any phone call that goes between one country and another is not DOMESTIC, it is officially INTERNATIONAL. It has a different meaning at that point, but the population in general is “dumbed down” to the point of not even understanding the English language and how do you fight against that? The answer is that sooner or later you don’t.

This is no different, but it is a different approach to a destructive means. The old story of “When they came to get my neighbor, I said nothing, but when they came to get me, there was nobody left to say anything,” comes into effect and nobody cares as long as they got “them” first. Too many people look at successful people and want to cast a finger of scorn because they are better than them in some way, despite any evidence that they may be worse in others. The Patriots dominated the new century on the football field so they had to cheat. Professional athletes make too much money so we have to go and get them, or at least take some of their money away from them. The collective bargaining agreements that professional athletes work under is unfair because my union doesn’t get half of that for ME! Nobody cares to listen when anyone else points out that professional athletes provide more services and entertainment than these overpaid senators do. The need to get the obviously “over paid and over privileged” athletes is a wonderful masked for the “over paid and over powerful” politicians and companies that back them.

Who thinks of how Arlen Specter represents the most pathetically underprivileged people in this country, and does absolutely nothing for them while he takes on the NFL? Who thinks of how Comcast puts the thumb of God on anyone who is completely and utterly under their control? I could spin them in a whole different light, but I have neither the fame nor the audience to change a single opinion, but if the NFL is unfairly judged because people like the product, and are willing to pay the salaries that are put forth then what about Comcast who holds a majority of the people as slaves? Think about it this way, but if the cable that comes to your house is owned by Comcast then you have NO power of the purse to get the services you want. If you live in the woods {as I do} then you can NOT simply switch to a satellite dish to stave off the robbery that Comcast does to you, and who do we blame for this? Congress!

20 Years ago the cable companies were controlled by your community. The city or town that you were living in would negotiate the contracts with the local cable companies and would get the best prices they felt necessary to provide the cable television. If a cable company started sticking it to the consumers then the city council {your neighbor} would simply throw them out and get a new one. That was until the congress got involved {for the children as they always do} and regulated all of the cable companies, and set the rates. Like congress always does, they over regulated it and left large glaring loopholes so that the people that fund their campaigns {cable companies} could insert more fees and more structure to keep you from your own money. Cable bills went from 10 dollars a month to well over 100 and it was snuck in on you until you suffocated under the stress of it all and then accepted it as a part of ordinary life. Arlen Specter is a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast, and that is no joke.

While everyone is fiddling at the gates of Rome right now they aren’t involved or caring whatsoever about what was really happening at the end of the NFL season. Why should you after all, because what was happening at the end of the NFL season only pertained to NFL fans. The NFL network was running the Patriots vs the Giants as it had been slated to do since before the season even started, and at the same time the Patriots were working on a perfect season. The NFL network was falling under an obscure congressional rule that cable consumers should only pay for networks that they want. Comcast had determined that we all want 5 home shopping networks and 15 all Spanish channels and NOT the NFL network, so they give you those included in your “Basic Cable Package” and the NFL network was a pay channel. Some people think that this is only fair, and I personally don’t care because I will pay for the NFL network because I like it, but hold on a minute, it isn’t that easy.

Where the satellite companies give the NFL network as a “Basic Network” station Comcast did not citing the “only pay for what you want” angle. Arlen Specter and his wholly owned subsidiaries of Comcast in Washington put the thumb down on the NFL network to let that game get televised elsewhere. What you all didn’t hear was that they wanted it to be televised on Comcast Sports Dot Net and on the NFL network. They did NOT want it put on the broadcast airwaves as they spun it out afterwards when the NFL Network decided to let CBS and NBC broadcast the game. Does anyone really think that that doesn’t have anything to do with why the wholly owned Comcast Senator is going after the NFL now? If it were just a matter of “paying for the channels that you want” then why does Comcast force you to pay 14.95 a month for the “Sports Package” of a bunch of unusable sports news stations and the NFL network if all you want is the NFL network? As I said before, it isn’t as easy as the news spins it after all. Keep your fiddles handy for when I explain what is really going on with Roger Clemens tomorrow ;8o)

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And the saga continues …

It was now time for me to deal with something I will admit that I have ignored for the last two years. It was one of the few parts of my credit report that I knew was there, didn’t deserve to be there, and I didn’t have the patience to deal with. The credit agency now had me in the mood to start a war. A link from my friend from the land of Woodchucks brought me to a site that is totally devoted to credit and the legalities surrounding credit reporting, and law. I was amazed at all of the information there and set forth to use as much of it as viable on my quest to take on Capital One. Oh yeah, the great Satan of the credit card world. A little history on this one for those that have either been caught in the Capital One trap, or are peering into the eyes of the snake, would be in order here, so away we go.

After my second divorce, the ex took my kids, my money and most of my shit. She also took a majority of my paycheck, and the People’s Republic of Maine was there to do so every week. Oh well, life goes on, and I had to do what I could to make it by. My credit was terrible and my income was terrible as well. I took a credit card from Capital One with an interest rate of about 18 percent {which I hear is chicken feed compared to what they do now} and it helped me through all of the hard times, and I was never late on my payments etc. Two years later I was living in Mechanicville NY and I had two Capital One credit cards. A Mastercard and a Visa, because rather than giving me more credit they gave me more cards, so that they could get two payments out of me a month instead of one. That’s fine, I get it, and I was never late and I made all my payments. Simple story so far, but it gets complicated from there.

I had just sold my house and had plenty of disposable income at this time; I called Capital One and cancelled my cards after paying off the balances. It was confirmed and all was right with the world. I didn’t need two high income credit cards, so I went without them and used the debit card that came with my checking account. As some know my son burned down the apartment building that my ex wife was living in, and it was because of her neglect. I left NY {unfortunately} and moved back to NH to take full custody of my children, and I had to do it the day it happened before my ex wife took them all and moved away where we couldn’t find her. Long story, but she is a loser. I placed a forwarding address and dealt with all of my business in NY in one day, my landlord was fine with it and understood completely, my job was sad to see me go, but understood, utilities were paid, and I went back to NH and spent most of my money fighting the state of Maine for custody of my kids. The state of Maine being terrified that they were losing another one of the 80 percent of their population that lives on welfare, made sure that I was flat broke before I could win, but I won.

Move ahead 3 years and I get a phone call from a credit collection agency telling me that I owe Capital One 900 and some odd dollars. I was dumbfounded over this, and the person on the other end of the phone had no shame in telling me that a 10 dollar charge was put on the card and they added bounce fees and interest charges to it for 3 years. He pointed out to me that in my contract I had agreed that within 30 days of the account being closed that if a charge was placed on the card it would remain open. I was then told quite unashamedly again that they had gotten back all of the mail from the address that they had, but their mail was not forwarded, and that under the contract that was my problem as well. Now on top of my confusion I was incensed. I was especially pissed that they could find my phone number to call me out of the blue and never sent me so much as a warning that this crap was going on. I told him to stick it, and have continued to do that over the last couple of years when they call me, because there appeared to be no way out of that jam.

Last week I got the Better Business Bureau involved, and let me tell anyone reading this that most credit card companies have tons of complaints against them. I was told a few of the things that I read online last night, and used them to my advantage already. First and foremost I used their record keeping against them. “Show me proof that I owe this money,” is the first thing to say. 9 out of 10 times the credit card company in question has deleted their records of your claim the second the agency purchases the debt for pennies on the dollar. The credit collection agency doesn’t actually have any authority to the debt unless they actually are working on behalf of the company. Capital One didn’t actually just screw me in this instance, but they screwed the collectors.

By placing that erroneous 10 dollar charge they amassed what looked like a fortune to a collection agency for little money. The company paid Capital One 5 cents on the dollar for the debt owed at the time. I tricked the guy into telling me this when I was talking to him, but I will explain that in a minute. They ended up paying Capital One about 45 dollars expecting to have about 900 some odd dollars to screw me out of somehow. Even if they got it down to about 300 dollars they made a very good profit, and as Capital One had turned 10 dollars into about 45 they had made a very good profit. Pretty sick stuff huh?

Here’s how the conversation went as I called them armed with a lot more information then the average person has on hand. I pointed out to the guy that I would require the proof of signature of the fact that I owe the money on the original contract with their company name on it. He stated that that would be impossible, which I knew, but I continued by pointing out that I originally owed them 10 dollars on a closed account, but “might” be willing to pay them their acquisition fee of my account if they eliminate the poor credit mark but would require the original document with the sale of my account on it. He started giving me a spiel and I said {in typical credit collection agent fashion} that it was a take it or leave it on the spot, so I need to know the amount and will send in the amount upon my approval of the submitted document, but I had to know how much NOW.

After he cracked and gave me the amount they paid for the debt, I started laughing like a lunatic, and through tears said “Capital One screwed you guys, and you think I am going to bail YOU out? Take me to court so that the judge can laugh at how crooked you all are,” to which he ripped back like a child that this can sit on my credit report forever! I personally find it to be a badge of honor, and intend to call the collection agency once or twice a week to laugh at them and make fun of them. God lemons can be made into lemonade at the strangest of times. ;8o)

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This was the week of the telephone wars. I hate having to deal with creditors because they are in the business to make money, and I am not the personification of money. What’s worse is that there are a few companies out there that are screwing me, and a few of them have been screwing me for quite a while. Like most good businesses, they have been using the “Ivory Tower” approach to keep me from keeping more of my own money. The few of these that have made themselves the most impossible to get a hold of and rectify were on my radar and I just wanted to get it dealt with. Needless to say it doesn’t make your mood any better.

The very first one that I was intent on getting dealt with wasn’t exactly a creditor, but makes its money based on my credit. Experian is the credit monitoring service that always seems to be associated with any bank I try to join, or any credit card I try to get. I have the feeling that they must charge the creditors less and make their profits through extortion of some sort, because in my case, they were so wrong that it should have been easily resolved. It wasn’t, and it became a bit of a family joke over the years. I’m sure that most people would assume that it is just the case of someone that has bad credit and is pissy about it, but I have chronicled my Experian saga {knowing that somehow it would make some good info for others} and am ready to share it. Whether this is truly over or not, I don’t know but will explain that in a bit.

Over the last 10 years it has been very hard for me to get credit anyway because I am poor and I have been divorced a lot. That has been the reasoning that I have used, and figured that it made as good a reason as any. When I moved back to New Hampshire about 6 years ago other things started factoring in, that I couldn’t understand at all. I couldn’t open bank accounts for some reason, and was being kept out of the better credit unions in the area because of my credit report. Two years ago, I finally got a credit report sent to me after I failed to get into the credit union that I had wanted to again, and was shocked at what it said. Of course, here’s where the extortion comes in because YOU do not get the credit report that your creditors do in this free fashion. You get a watered down credit report with innuendo in it, but I was able to deduce a few MAJOR flaws that should have not been in there if THEY did their job. Most importantly was the fact that I had 4 social security numbers according to them. I also had several “Aliases” which included my father and my uncle.

I was furious, and took the several hours that it took to fill out their forms. I figured that the fact that these people that they had me merged with actually existed should have been reason enough to take them off of my credit report, but they obviously didn’t care. Last year I went to get my credit limit increased on my credit card with the credit union that I am a member of, and was denied. More over they took my credit card away from me because from what they deduced from my credit report, I was a fraud. The woman at the credit union was practically in tears having to tell me this because she had seen me come in every week and deposit my check, and confided in me that this happens often. She knew all of the signs of a catastrophic Experian screw up, but was impotent to do anything about it. I didn’t blame her, but I ordered another credit report which had included a few more social security numbers and an uncle that had never lived within 100 miles of me, and when he was within a hundred miles of me I was 8.

They had gone further this time, as they had my date of birth being 1939, and even put in my report that it appeared that I had credit from before I was legal age. A lot of the credit cards I had closed out on bad terms were actually closed the year before I was born. I was incensed and filled out the reports again. I have three children, no wife, a shitty job, no child support, a car that the wheels fall off, a bad back, and a credit reporting agency that is obviously out to get me. Realistically I came to the realization that I am not that important and they aren’t actually out to get me, or anyone for that matter. They simply don’t care if they get it wrong, which is a bit scarier because they are in charge of the credit worthiness of most of America. At that time I was a bit too busy working over time, and trying to get my own life in order with my sick father living with me to try to deal with all of that crap, and I was completely right at the time.

I’m sure that you all have seen the commercials on TV for Free Credit Report Dot Com, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Experian. By Federal Law {politicians create laws to look busy but never keep track of whether their laws are really being followed} the credit reporting agencies were forced to make it easier to get your credit report. They set up this site https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp so that you can “Quickly and Easily” get your credit reports and “Fight the good fight” with them. It’s a joke really because if the feds looked at it they would see that it isn’t very good. It will take you to each of the credit reporting agencies sites so that you can fill out their forms, and then they will each give you an erroneous error as to why you can’t have your report. Well I should say why you can’t have it unless you pay them for it. My battle at this time was with Experian so I went to Free Credit Report Dot Com {I don’t actually use the site url because I will NOT advertise for them} and gave them my credit card information, so that I could have my credit report.

This was infuriating to say the least. After extorting me into getting my credit report I looked at something that was amateurish at best. It had my name on it, with a string of aliases including my father and my uncle, as well as two social security numbers that I don’t recognize. It had places that not one of us have lived, and credit cards that I had cancelled many years ago that were just accumulating bounce charges. I don’t blame them for that, but will save that saga for the next blog. As it was Saturday, I couldn’t call and get any of this crap straitened out. In other states you could, but because the law in MY state doesn’t specify that they have to talk to me on a weekend they abruptly hung up on me. This gave me two days to stew over this. When Monday rolled around they wouldn’t talk to me because my credit report from Saturday didn’t have a complaint number on it and I would have to pay another 20 bucks to get a new one. I was abruptly hung up on again.

After getting my complaint number {by going through the cache in my browser … fuck them} I called them back and found no options for rectifying my problem, and was hung up on again for taking too long. I called back {this had taken me 2 hours by the way} and found a spot in the automated number pushing sequence where I could press 0. Now keep in mind that you couldn’t do that on every sequence, so I had to try it on each one, being hung up on with every one that you “couldn’t” use that on. 20 minutes later I was talking to someone, who put me on hold for someone else, who put me on hold for yet another, and another. It was precisely the amount of time that it took for my phone battery to die, but I was smart enough last year to get a cordless with two headsets. The fact that the guy was startled I was still there pissed me off to no end, and he knew it. After another half hour of explaining it to him he stated “Well obviously we have some erroneous errors on your report,” … NO SHIT! I was sent an e-mail confirmation later last night telling me that they had fixed the problems. It will cost me 20 bucks to see if they really had or not. Cancelling my Free Credit Report Dot Com account took a while too as I sat on the phone carousel, but made me feel better because I used a lot of foul language and threats when they tried to talk me out of it. Tomorrow I will hopefully find time to write about Capital One and Sprint. ;8o)

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Well, what to do when your team loses the Super Bowl. I’ve been down this road before, but it’s been a long time actually. It reminds me of when the Mets beat the Red Sox in 86 because like the Mets, the Giants used to be my favorite team, but weren’t the team I was pulling for. It’s amazing because I am not that depressed, which probably means that I am in shock, and Bob Griese ruined my angle of “Oh Gawd I have to listen to the 72 Dolphins for EVER again!” by being really noble when he talked about the game afterwards. He reminded the person talking to him on the phone that the Dolphins lost the Super Bowl in 71, and he predicts the Patriots to win next year. Ugh!

Here’s the long and the short of why I am not totally depressed after the game, and it comes down to this. The Giants were the far superior team in the Super Bowl. My mind was clouded by how superior the Patriots had been all year, and from the start of that game to the end of that game the Giants were better. If it were a case of certain calls going wrong, certain circumstances going wrong etc etc etc, then I would have been bummed out. The Giants were better on Offense {thanks mostly to their Defense} and they were far better on Defense. The Giants were the better team, and there is no argument about it. I will even go as far as to point out that Plaxico Burress almost called the game exactly, and everyone was talking about disrespecting the Patriots because of it. We never saw it coming.

If I were to be even more honest about it all, when the Patriots took the lead with a bit more than 2 minutes to go, I didn’t think that the Patriots could stop the Giants. The Giants until that point in the game had a much better offense, and I was forced to sit their chewing off my fingernails and hoping that someone would screw up, because they hadn’t been up until then. Hoping doesn’t solve any of the issues that were happening during the game. It was one of the two screw ups that the Giants had had up until then that even had the Patriots in the game when pass interference was called in the end zone. Take that away and the Patriots weren’t even in the game. What sold me on the fact that the Patriots were not the better team was that unlike “The Patriots” they had no solution to “The Giants” during half time. Seriously speaking that is the one thing that you usually expect from the Patriots, is that they will fix everything during half time. At the end of the Third Quarter, it had been obvious that they hadn’t.

The ugly of it all though was this. Tom Brady looked horrible, but that had a lot more to do with the Defense of the Giants hitting him a LOT. My finger nails were disappearing, as I was simply wishing that the Patriots would get better, and despite the last touch down they got, they just didn’t. I sat and prayed for the “screw up” and it didn’t come. More over the superior play of the Giants was absolutely highlighted as they made receptions that looked impossible {even by someone who watched Randy Moss all season standards} and created plays that even the Giants who had been beating up the Patriots all day hadn’t gotten earlier. The screw up finally came when Hobbs left Burress alone to get the game winner, but I was hoping for the Giants to screw up.

With 30 seconds left in the game, the Patriots did exactly what I thought they should, the Giants did exactly what they had to do, and unfortunately there wasn’t any shock when the Giants had one. I guess I will have to save looking for a bridge for after the Red Sox season. It’s been an entertaining year, and in the end it’s just a sporting event to which I had no control over, so I guess I am getting old if I can see it that way. Was it all a total waste? Yes, because the Patriots are one of the few teams that lost a Super Bowl that everyone will remember forever, because they “choked” in all honesty.

I have to admit that I think it was the commercials this year that may have lightened the burden of seeing perfection go up in smoke. I kept waking my son up in the other room, laughing out loud at a lot of the commercials. That one for Bridgestone Tires that had the guy swerving to miss everything and then Richard Simmons was in the middle of the road, and he hit the gas. Yep, that was the one that did it. Budweiser and Pepsi really dominated the hilarious commercial market, but I have to give honorable mention to that Sales Lead website there as well. If you missed any of them, the NFL set up a Myspace page where you can see all of the Super Bowl commercials this year which was a stroke of genius, but Fox owns Myspace after all. Oh before I forget, when the Fox NFL Robot got attacked by the Terminator Robot really was pretty cool too, but it was better when the NFL Robot went after him for revenge.

I also have a bit of a laugh over the New York Giants fans who wanted Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin crucified out front of the Meadowlands just 2 months ago. Unfortunately having been a Giants fan when I was a kid, and knowing how the New York media works, they will conveniently forget about all of that. Being human, within a few weeks I will too. Here’s where I earn my spot in Patriots Nation though, as I take my lumps for my team losing the big one. I will even go as far as to say “We lost the big one” since it always bugged me how every win with most fans is a “We” and every loss seems to be a “Them!” Here is where I say that last year Belichick did this after what appeared to be a crushing defeat in the AFC Championship game. I am actually anticipating what this will cause ;8o)

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I go back many years to about the time I was 10 years old. December in Foxboro Massachusetts was not only cold but it was bitter. Bitter especially when you are sitting just off the 50 yard line in Sullivan Stadium with your foam finger lying to everyone because it said Pats #1. At that time the Patriots were far from number 1 but I had been going to these games with our near 50 yard line season tickets for years. They were cheap, and you got good seats because nobody else went to the games. The Patriots sucked. At this point of the game the Patriots had been in the playoffs once and were slaughtered at home. It’s what we did 7 Sundays a year, and it was ok. We were fans of the home team. 5 Years later we were on our way to the Super Bowl with the Patriots because there weren’t enough season ticket holders to even warrant a lottery for the tickets, and like Patriots fans we went and watched the worst blowout {at the time} in Super Bowl history. That Bears team was arguably the best team ever, and we knew it, but we were happy to not be the draft favorites for a change.

I see how a lot of people look at the New England Patriots now, and I totally understand. I used to be jealous of all the “good” teams, because my team was horrible. Don’t get me started on how bad my baseball team was, but I totally understand it. What I don’t understand is all of the idiocy around it all at this point in time, and I think it has something to do with politics. We have been indoctrinated towards memorizing “catch phrases” and thinking it makes us smart. If you hang out with and appreciate the approval of stupid people, then you are all set. Feel free to stop reading here, but if common sense makes you want to understand things a bit better using logic then you may want to continue along.

The Patriots this year have brought up a lot of debates, and I have totally stayed out of the fray because I didn’t want to ruin the euphoria of watching the greatest football team ever break a ton of records, and actually being a fan of them. Like most Patriots fans I was heartbroken when they lost to the Colts last year, and was elated that the team was willing to wipe that memory out of my mind as efficiently as possible. It was like when I used to be in a bowing league on Sunday nights and any time the Patriots had a Sunday night game they would destroy the team within 20 minutes of the game, and keep me from having to pay too much attention it. They made some serious upgrades in the Offense for a change, and I really thought they were a 14 and 2 team before the season even started. Spygate came along and I laughed it off, because it really is silly. Logic dictates that because all teams cheat somehow. Many people didn’t agree with me, but most of them are full of crap.

Now aside from the Chargers fans that cry about everything and the Steelers fans that will never admit to ever losing a game because everyone else cheated, only die hard Patriots haters bring this up. Now we have Arlen Spector making it into a Federal Case. I can understand why as we no longer have crime {especially in FilthyDelphia where his constituency is}, terrorism, healthcare issues, border issues, and a whole host of other things to deal with anymore. Arlen of course told the NFL Commissioner to come discuss these things with him and wanted to bring up the Anti-Trust agreement that the NFL has. It’s the ultimate shake down really and I am sure that most people don’t know that Arlen Spector’s largest contributor is Comcast, who would love nothing more than to put the hurt on the NFL for not allowing Comcast to buy the rights to the NFL Networks games. Common sense is all it takes to get from point A to point B on that one, but some good actually came out of it. The NFL Commissioner came out and talked about why the tapes were destroyed and talked a bit more about what was on them. The best of it all was when he said that other team’s coaches were waving to the Patriots camera men because everyone knew they were doing it. I respected his reasoning that the tapes were destroyed because that way if any of it shows up again then he knows to go get the Patriots for having it. Enough said.

Now I see all the television pundits trying to explain why the Patriots aren’t the greatest team ever even if they do win the Super Bowl. I can honestly say that there is a debate here as long as you talk about it based on the times that it is happening. I spent the day in bed because my back was killing me and it was just me and the NFL Network all day. I watched many old Super Bowls, and just got done watching “The Super Bowl” in question which involved the Miami Dolphins and the Washington Redskins {aka the one that closed the first and so far only perfect season} and now have to wonder how stupid these people are? What I saw in that Super Bowl was a bunch of little people, who weren’t very fast, couldn’t pass for crap, but looked better passing then they did kicking, throw a bunch of interceptions and hardly play football. This of course is by today’s standards.

Don’t get me wrong. Compared to all the other little guys, who weren’t very fast, couldn’t pass for crap, but looked better passing then they did kicking the Miami Dolphins were the best. Why believe my lying eyes after all? The average lineman today is about 100 lbs heavier, and if they aren’t it is all muscle now, and not belly. Quarterbacks are surgeons when it comes to throwing the football. Wide receivers are at the very least 6 inches taller and 40 pounds heavier, and Mercury Morris {who loves to talk about how much better those dolphins were} was considered a large running back at 190 pounds. You aren’t a running back in today’s NFL at 190 pounds unless you are 4 foot 9. It was like watching a really bad Bugs Bunny cartoon. Revisionism tells the people that the Steelers dynasty a few years later wasn’t equipped like this, and aside from a lot more skill than that Dolphins team, by today’s standards those teams would have a hard time beating teams that didn’t make the playoffs this year. This isn’t popular, it’s probably arrogant, but it’s amazingly obvious.

The last point I would like to bring up before I make my Patriots prediction {oops too late} is that everyone {and I mean EVERYONE} who hates the Patriots {aside from serious fan rivalries} are pretty disingenuous. Most people whine about how football players are to self absorbed, make too much money, don’t listen to their coach, don’t buy into a team philosophy, and most of all use these things to destroy chances of winning. The New England Patriots are EXACTLY what everyone has wanted in their own team, and not just the fact that they win. The players take serious salary cuts to remain there, and bolster the TEAM. Nobody on the team thumps their chest and demands to be put above anyone. No cheap theatrics. Completely team oriented with one goal, and that is bringing trophies to their fans. They try to score every time they touch the ball, because that is what they are paid to do, and their defense never points fingers at the offense for making mistakes. Worst of all for all of the haters out there is the fact that in today’s age of salary caps and parody, they get better every year, and force the teams around them to do the same, or lose. Feel free to look at the Dallas Cowboys {America’s Team} which acquires the chest thumping show off’s and gets them a “friendly” coach so that they can all be happy. How did that work out? … Patriots 45 – Giants 20 ;8o)