it's my blog i can review what i want

cell phone service: I try to take it easy on the four-letter words, but after dealing with my cell phone carrier as much as I have recently, they've kinda been flying out of my mouth at an obscene rate. With the recent big deal about a credit card bill of rights, I think it's totally reasonable that there should be a cell service bill of rights. It would include:
- Customer should be able to easily find out how much a change in plan will cost, exactly. Quoted price should include any fees (from the government or the provider), taxes, options, etc. Customer should never be quoted a price then be completely surprised to find their bill significantly higher than quoted price. Customer should never get a "usually" or a "probably" or a "in the range of."
- Cell phones should be one price and one price only (sale price or discounted price is allowed, as long as terms of discount/sale are clearly stated). Price should be the same from store to store, on the internet, and on the phone. Additional fees and taxes should be easily obtainable.
- Bullshit fees are bullshit. Provider cannot charge fees for changing phones (on top of price of phone), for changing plans (on top of price of plan), or any other baloney.
- Provider should have an option for 'authorized user' or some such tag for any user on any plan. I have a family plan, but I am not the main number on the account; that doesn't mean I'm a twelve year old with a cell phone. I should be able to make decisions and changes to my plan, especially if I am not making changes to other plans on the account. And I should be able to be treated like an adult when I am on the phone with your customer service department. Refusing to tell me when my plan started, when it ends, when I'm available for an upgrade, or anything useful at all does not make me inclined to recommend your service to others.

bagel-fuls: I don't usually eat 'convenience foods' but Bagel-fuls seemed like a healthy option. I should have known better, since convenience foods posing as healthy are always a let down, whether in taste or nutrition. I chose the brown sugar cinnamon bagel with cinnamon cream cheese. There is a safety warning on the back of the package, use your hands, not your teeth, to open the wrapper. Seemed a little odd, until I tried to open the wrapper, and totally understood why someone would resort to using their teeth. At first bite, the bagel was chewy and bland, and the cream cheese was... crumbly (I assume from being frozen then thawed, possibly repeatedly), but tolerable. There wasn't an overwhelmingly cinnamony taste, to the bagel or the creamcheese, but there was a slightly sweet flavor, but mostly it was just kinda... meh. The bagel and the cream cheese kinda blended together, flavor and texture-wise, and by about half-way through, I couldn't eat anymore. It was just too *bleh,* it felt mechanical to continue eating this textureless, flavorless, nutrition-less pre-packaged 'food product.'

Music Movies Books?!

Music:
Battles - experimental rock music, nonsense lyrics that just add to the audio complexity. Experimental in the easy to listen to sense, rather than the what the hell am I even listening to sense.
Battles - Atlas

Movies:
Great World of Sound - Super enjoyed this movie. The best way I can describe it is a mix of Death of a Salesman + The Office (but the old ones, where it was all weird and awkward, and real-feeling, and great) + those bad American Idol auditions at the beginning of the season. Has a documentary-ish feel, due to the way they filmed it ("With hidden cameras, the interaction was recorded between the lead actors and the unsuspecting musicians." -imdb). The cast was spectacular, even though mostly unknowns.
Home Movies - ok, not a movie, but one of the best shows that's been on tv in pretty much forever, even though it's not really on tv anymore (or maybe it's on Adult Swim? I dunno, I haven't had cable in ages). I've been watching the poo out of it on youtube, and it's just so so excellent.

Books:
Seeing Redd (The Looking Glass Wars) by Frank Beddor - book two in the Looking Glass Wars series. It's been a while since I read book one, so it took me a chapter or two to catch up, but I'm enjoying this one at least as much as One. Kind of a grown-up version of the Alice in Wonderland story, probably best described as 'fan-fic.'
Sacred Threshold: Rituals and Readings for a Wedding with Spirit by Gertrud Mueller Nelson & Christopher Witt - This book was absolutely not at all what I was expecting. And I love it. The single best book on wedding/ceremony planning I've read thus far. It's also the first book on wedding planning that I've actually finished. The authors present different wedding traditions, tell where they come from and why we do them, offer variations, and give their unveiled opinions on the stupidity of some of them. Having planned the wedding easily enough, I was having trouble even knowing where to start in the planning of the ceremony; this book has been invaluable.

Broken Record

This is something that seems to be a prevalent issue right now... I feel like a broken record, because this has been my advice to so many people recently. I'm not sure if it makes me cold-hearted to hold this viewpoint, but nonetheless, here it is, conveniently on the internet so I can refer people to it rather than repeat myself.

You are a grown up. You can no longer use your parents' mistakes (or what you view as their mistakes), how people treated you in the past/your bad relationships, or even your own past bad decisions for who you are from now on. You are the only one who can change your life, your personality, your reputation, your future. You are solely responsible.

It is not productive to blame other people. It does nothing to help you grow as a person. It doesn't change any of the problems. It only gives you a weak excuse to continue in bad behavior.

Take responsibility. Make a change.


"When I was a child, I made use of a child's language, I had a child's feelings and a child's thoughts: now that I am a man, I have put away the things of a child." ~ 1 Corinthians 13:11