Why has every preternaturally emaciated woman in New York moved to Williamsburg?

And why do they all insist on wearing those damned "skinny" jeans??!  This evening I ventured back to the old neighborhood to clear up a few things at the former apartment, and I saw a girl thus attired... and I swear my calf couldn't have fit into the thigh of her jeans!

Now don't get me wrong, I am small.  Not only am I short, but it is fairly common for me to find myself on the receiving end of the typical "Oh my god, you're so skinny, I hate you..." diatribe.

Before you hate me too, please note that said smallness also extends to my boobs.  And I do have cellulite.

That being clarified, I simply do not understand this craze of abominably thin women--women who would make Barbie feel bad about her waistline--insisting on accentuating their emaciation by wearing skin-sucking denim every freaking day.  Also, if your ass is concave, why accentuate that with pockets that go halfway down the back of your thigh?

Just because it's "fashion" doesn't mean you look good.  It makes me want to offer you a sandwich.

I know that the War on Fashion is as likely to be won as the War on Terror (or whatever we're calling it this week), but really ladies... Heroin Chic is dead.  As are most of the perpetrators of said fashion statement.  If you insist on continuing to attire yourself in such a manner, don't be surprised when the toothless crackhead on the corner starts offering you money.

Success!!

Is a wet, naked woman eating Sun Chips directly from the bag considered hot?  I only ask because that's what anyone looking through my kitchen window a few minutes ago would have seen, and I like to maintain a rapport with my local peeping toms...

At any rate, I feel a certain level of accomplishment tonight.  A scant week after moving a whole 5-ish subway stops away from my neighborhood of 5 years, I ventured back to the old stomping grounds for drinks with friends, thus proving:

a.  one can maintain old friendships (and bad habits) after moving to a residence outside the "comfort zone";

b.  I am capable of walking the entire 1 1/2 blocks from the subway to my house--after midnight, while intoxicated--without being accosted or otherwise encumbered (unless you count the unexpected swarm of rats running from the trashcan to some unsuspecting individual's house, thus making me exceptionally grateful to be living on the 3rd floor);

and c.  that even riding on the most worthless train in all of New York City (feel free to make your guesses as to which train I mean) I still made it home before my friends!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is certainly an evening to feel proud.

Or perhaps that's just the Yuengling talking.

I'm sorry Sir, but WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SAYING??

Why is it that every company I do business with these days has customer service representatives with incredibly thick Indian accents?!?

While I won't go off on a diatribe re: the national unemployment ramifications of farming out all of our tech support to countries that pay a lower wage, there is a much simpler pitfall to this particular money-saving plan:  I cannot understand what the hell these people are saying to me!!

Case #1:  I just got off the phone with my credit card company.  I had called to request a credit limit increase (damn, moving is expensive!) and the response was about two minutes of--very melodious--gibberish.  I had no idea what the man said to me, other than that the response appeared to be negative.

Case #2 is perhaps even more alarming (or at the very least more amusing).  A few weeks ago I called Dell because Boss #2 had sent an email while on a business trip in Chile saying his laptop had crashed.  That is all the information I was given, and armed with such a detailed account of the problem I phoned up Dell tech support to find out the procedure for getting the thing repaired.

After at least 10 minutes on hold, I am connected with a woman who is most likely on the other side of the globe, pulling the graveyard shift in some sort of customer-service-sweatshop.  So I tell her what I know:  My boss is in Chile and his computer has crashed.

"Crashed?  You mean like it fell off the table?  It hit the floor?"

....

Are you fucking kidding me?  You are working tech support for a major American computer manufacturer, and you don't know the colloquialism of a computer crash??!??!

I would like to suggest the following rules be established for those companies who feel it is in their best economic interest to save money on wages, rather than provide effective (and intelligible) customer service:

First, make sure that your employees can be understood by the average American consumer.  Hell, I consider myself to be an above average American consumer, and yet half the time I have no idea what these people are saying to me.  Not that they all need to sound like Bryant Gumble, but on the accent-heaviness scale of 1-10, could we aim for 4 or less?

Second, if these employees are working in an area that requires (or should require) a certain breadth of knowledge and understanding... make sure they actually HAVE it!  Perhaps this woman could have re-built my boss's laptop a la MacGuyver with nothing but a Leatherman and some chewing gum, but if I mention a crash or the Blue Screen of Death, I would like you to know what I'm talking about.  (Actually, that goes for all CS reps, not just those farmed out to foreign countries.)

I think that, if we could all adhere to these simple guidelines, the customer service experience would be a little less painful for all involved.

Addendum, aka: Covering My Ass.  Please do not think I am picking on the Indian people as a whole, they just happen to be the most commonly encountered ethnic group in the current trend of customer service outsourcing.  I actually rather like that accent.  Just not on the phone via a poor long distance connection when all I really want is my current bank balance.

Nobody reads this, do they?

I mean, how exactly is one supposed to go about advertising an anonymous blog?

"Hey everybody, you should go check out xxxxxxxx. It's this super-awesome blog I found the other day... what? Yeah, I know, what a coincidence! She just moved too... and her cat is insane... and she likes to knit... Crazy right? It's like we were seperated at birth..."

Somehow I just don't think that would work.

Moving, part 3

Oh.  My.  God.

Everything hurts.

EVERYTHING.

It's only 10pm on a Saturday and I am so totally ready for bed.  I have a looooong day of painting, cleaning, and unpacking ahead of me.

If I can walk when I wake up.

Wish me luck!!

Moving, part 2

It is 2:30 am, and I have finally finished packing.

Or at least, finished enough that I can go to bed without feeling too guilty.

Not bad really, only 2 1/2 hours later than I thought I was going to finish.  I have a real knack for grossly underestimating the enormity of a given task.  I tell myself "oh, my room's not that big... it can't take more than 4 hours to pack up...."  

Then I remember:  I have a shitload of crap.

Around 10pm I also realized that I was definitely going to run out of boxes.  At that point, what I should have done was say "fuck it," and thrown out everything that was not yet packed.   Instead I went down to the bodega and managed to sweet talk my way to 5 empty beer cases.  Now my movers will probably think I'm a lush.

Which is fine with me, so long as I'm not carrying anything down the stairs.

Moving, part 1

Oh my god, I hate packing.  Suddenly I remember why I haven't moved in 4 years... because packing SUCKS.

That and my rent was really cheap.  And there are 4 flights of stairs between my stuff and the great outdoors.  At least this time I've hired movers.

I hear my roommate washing a dish.  $20 says it's one of mine (an easy bet, they're all mine) and now I'll have to figure out what box all the others are in so that it can join its kin.  *grumble*  Not like I didn't tell them days ago that I was moving out, yet still I had to wash everyone else's dirty dishes so that I could pack them.

Not only does moving suck, but being the only person moving out of an apartment while the others are staying is even worse, because all their stuff is in your way and you have to keep worrying that they've got something of yours stashed away in their rooms somewhere, and you don't want to appear mistrustful by asking more than once, even though that's exactly what you are.

It's okay.  I'll just sit back and relish the fact that when they wake up tomorrow they'll have no dishes, no microwave, and no internet.  (Can you tell that household relations have been less than friendly as of late?)

Maybe I'll go out for pizza.  All my food is packed and right now the thought of actually starting to pack my room is quite daunting.  Another hour of procrastination can't hurt that much... can it?

Why are all the layouts on Blogspot so lame?

Or perhaps a wiser question would be... why am I too lazy to just make my own?

Once upon a time I actually knew some HTML.

Like in college.

God that was so long ago.

Anyway, hi. My initial intention for this blog was to join the ranks of all the knit-bloggers out there and share my handiwork with the world. Then I realized that I really wasn't committed enough to devote the time necessary, and anyway I've been so busy lately, what with avoiding my miserable roommates, looking for a new apartment, and panicking about the impending start of grad school, that the knitting has more or less fallen by the wayside.

I do, however, have a boring job that offers very little to do. Might as well do something productive (???) with my time... right?

Right.

Or at least that's the line I'm taking.