the blog of a bear

this is where a bear will post stuff.

brain-vomit

in response to an article I read, and a reminder to the TTC.

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I was scrolling twitter, and ran across
Blog shames TTC riders who take up extra seats
so I scrolled on over to this blog and while I agree with the centament, and the frustration, I don’t agree with some of the language being utalized. But since I can’t figure out the submission form, I’m just gonna post my thoughts here. Your comments in the comments section would rock. I’m blockquoting it because it was originally for that blog, but I couldn’t figure it out.

To those that crowd the front of the bus/streetcar when there’s clearly an entire back of said vehicle available. Kindly do us all a solid and move back and park your rear in an available seat, or hey you can even stand back their to! miracles! Oh, I’m sorry, that would be common curtisy. and some ttc riders are so all and mighty they’d rather not actually be curtius. DO not get me started on huge strolers, treatment of bus/streetcar drivers, etc. because I’d be here all day. Related: To you that think that not giving up a seat to a disabled rider is a good idea. how about you lose the use of your legs for a day and ride the TTC, then we’ll talk, k? thought so. In closing, learn you some common curtisy, you require one seat, put bag in your lap, or *gasp* under the seat, wear your children,leave the huge strollers at home, and use a smaller one. like duh, move to the back of the bus if it’s not crowded, or to prevent overcrowding, and if a disabled rider gets on, for the love of all that’s squeaky get your sighted non disabled bum out of the seat.

That’s all I have to say.
Comment away!

unimpressed, that's the nicest way this can be put

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Please note, this is in no way against just eat, absolutely and utterly not, they’ve been the rock in this whole fiasco and there just as in sensed as we are.
Over the past nearly 2 years I’ve taken a distinct pleasure in being lazy, and just forget cooking on certain nights, and hitting up
just eat
hammering in the postal code for wherever I happen to be, sorry Americans no go for you, picking a restaurant, ordering what I want, paying via credit card or interac online, and in about 45 minutes, voila, food.
Fast forward to tonight.
We’ve got a couple of kids, and 4 adults to feed, so who wants to cook for 5 people on a Saturday, if your answer was absolutely not us? You’d be correct! Tell them what they’ve won, Johnny!
OK, never mind that.
So we hit up just eat, banter around some ideas, finally make a choice, punch in the order, have a small argument with interac online because it liked to throw 500 errors, won the battle, tells us the order’s gonna be there at 20 to eight.
Ok, whatever. sit, spin, who cares.
order delivery time comes and goes. OK, maybe someone got lost. Ring up just eat. They call the restaurant, driver got lost, here, have $10 off your order we’ll be there in 5 minutes.
Five minutes comes and goes, so does ten. so does fifteen. we head for I think it had to be half an hour. Hey, look who’s here, the delivery driver!
I answer the door; this guy barely says two words to us. he hands me the drinks, I hand it to
this person over here
and turn around, and the guy’s already shoving the pizza at me. Instead of handing them to me one at a time, first the medium, then the extra-large, he shoves the extra-large at me, with the medium on top about to fall off.
OK, get them out of the way.
Then the driver wants me to sign the debit receipt. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, sign the debit receipt.
OK, I didn’t know what it was at first, so I ask him what it was I was signing, he never tells me.
I sign it, because at this point, I’m internally like, I want you out of the doorway and off this property.
please note I only find out that it’s the debit receipt I signed during subsequent conversations with just eat.
My first reaction is to call the restaurant and outright beat them over the head with their rude behavior. But take 30 seconds and breathe, then decide, let’s do this the right way, contact just eat.
SO I hit up there live chat system, explain the entire situation, please note I got the same rep I got on the phone, so he goes and rings up the restaurant to find out what in the name of all things squeaky and fuzzy’s going on.
They can’t tell him anything because they want to talk to the driver.
Ok, whatever, I know how this is gonna go down because I’ve been here before when I dealt with delivery places before directly, and I tell the just eat chat rep this straight up. You know they’re gonna deny it, the customers blind, so they’re gonna deny deny deny deny anything was wrong. Also during this chat, I said that I felt $10 off the order wasn’t enough for the now larger issue and that a complete refund was in order.
He says can I call you in 45 minutes. I need to talk to the restaurant about this, etc. Sure, I’ll go eat, you call me.
While you’re eating, I’m gonna put this complaint to my supervisor and account manager that is the head of our company.
Fast forward about an hour, 20 to ten or so.
He rings up, and of course I’m write, again. Restaurant says there wasn’t anything wrong, they weren’t going to issue a refund, he was polite, yada yada, I call complete bull. sorry, 4 adults say you’re in the wrong, now, let’s go.
Ok, I was more polite then that, but believe me, even just eat knows there getting tossed around.
so after that call, I end up finding the e-mail from the rep. Names of employees are removed for privacy reasons.

This restaurant delivered this order almost an hour past the delivery time, the owner said it would be there within about 5 minutes when it was 30 minutes past the delivery time. The customer came into chat about 20-30 minutes afterwards and the order had still not been delivered. The owner told me again it would be there within a few minutes and offered 10 dollars off. The order was for small children and the main customer who the account is under is blind. The delivery driver came with the delivery about an hour past the delivery time and was rude to the customer, asking him to sign the receipt for a debit order which I assume confused the customer and shoving the food into his hands before he could pass it to other people helping carry the food. There were multiple other people there as well including the customers girlfriend who can potentially confirm this. I spoke with the staff and owner there regarding this and they were unwilling to do more, stating that their delivery guy was the nicest one they ever had and there was no way he would act like that. The owner called in later and was combative, threatening to leave Just Eat and asking for my full name and seeing if I had an employee code, saying he’s been in this business forever and knew more. This will need to be resolved fairly quickly as all the parties involved are quite upset.
Thanks,

Let me just say this, if I were just eat, amato’s would be dumped so fast and I’d be refunding the customer in question completely and telling the restaurant that these are the consequences.
I’m not them, so that’s not how it rolls.
I can dream, can’t I?
lol.
Later on, a Just Eat rep calls me back and tells me they talked to more of their staff, and there upset over this issue, and they want to give me another $10 in credit to use against any future order from just eat as a thank you for my patience and an apology they can’t resolve this until Monday.
They send me the $10 credit.
SO as a bit of a thank you I send this.

I’d like to take this opurtunity to thank all involved with this situation for working with myself to bring this to a satisfactory resolution and to hopefully get a full refund of the order in question.
I understand your just an intermediate company, but that’s no reason for this restaurant to treat your company, or your company’s customers like they’ve done tonight.
Amato’s treatment tonight of myself, and the rest in this household, is in no way a reflection of just eat or it’s employees.
Your willingness to keep in constant contact regarding this issue as it heads for a resolution speaks volumes for the level of customer service you want to see from both your own employees, and the restaurants you promote and serve.
If anyone has further questions, I can be reached using the information below my name.
Thank you for your time and attention.

We’ll see how this turns out, and I’ll post another entry when I know more.
Of course, the comments section is always available for you to give your opinion. Were we in the right to be pushing this as far as we are? Or are we all completely off our rockers. Let’s hear your thoughts.
See you next time.

a reminder to the TTC fair collectors.

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As a recent resident to Toronto, I’m heavily reliant on the toronto transit commission to get from point A to point B on a daily bases.
Hey, so does, this recent blogger convert to wordpress one over here but that’s just par for the course around here.
Anyhow, I’ve been around the block a time or two with these guys, sometimes my own stupidity, sometimes, they left there brains at track level, hey, sometimes, I don’t start it, but anyhow.
A little background.
previous policy stated that children 5 years of age or younger while being carried on the mother, or father’s, back did not get charged, because hey’, it’s one person, one turn of the turnstyle, takes up one seat, so get outta our faces.
About 3 weeks ago, this policy changed.
No matter what, carried or not, children above 3y/o of age pay $0.75. OK, fine and dandy, right?
yep, Totally fine, until you are a royal rude idiot about it and decide to think your all up and mighty about it and your crap don’t stink.
I decide, because I have a *working* magnetic strip on my TTC pass, to avoid the line, swipe and go through the middle turnstyle, please note I still haven’t mastered that art, but I’ll get there.
Anyhow, as I’m ffighting with my pass, Thanks random TTC worker for showing the clueless person that is me how to use it, I here the other person I’m with, that is carrying the child get stopped by the TTC collector and a… we’ll call it an argument insues, because he tells her she has to pay the fair, and accuses her of ripping off the TTC for seven month’s because he’s watched her, and believe me the tone of his voice, dude, if I hadn’t been clear of the turnstyle, I’d have given him what for. I didn’t have to because the person carrying the child held her own, so we’ll just leave it at that.
I won’t go into detail about the argument that ensued, because I don’t remember exactly how it went, but in summary, here’s what I’ll give you.
You, as a TTC worker have a responsibility to be curtius, but informative to your customers.
This means, after asking how old the child being carried is, if the policy has changed, nicely inform the person carrying said child that the policy has changed and they need to pay the child fair. This does not mean you degrade, or otherwise shame the individual in question.
You are responsible for your actions, and Mr. TTC worker, you are a shame to the organization, and a disgrace to this transit provider’s good name and I hope that you are sent back for retraining, because your actions tonight were deplorable.
A complaint has been filed with the commission about this individuals action with a request for follow up as to the resolution of the matter.
Have a great night all.

everything explodes, and doesn't take customers with it. and other unrelated things.

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I no how to blog? apparently, I do.
If your smart, you’ll have noticed that thing that your reading and some of it’s associated services, hey
zoe?
you actually no how to update? miracles! Wait, I can’t actually talk because I’ve been lazy about updating this thing, more on the how and why in list form later in this entry.
As you might have read
over here
that over there in that corner of the server moved, to.
our domains are still barried on the same server, just not on the
same servers that our paying people hang out on
and it saves $$$ in the long run, and allows for a little more *smash* to happen without taking the customer base with it.
This also means if the customer server goes *smash* the customers can still yell at us and tell us it’s broken. Hey, ladies and gents, we already knew, we knew long before you, now shut up so we can fix it, k? lol.
A couple of services like
this one
shit the bed nicely during an unrelated change, more on that later, and I kinda didn’t find it until this morning. Yeah, shut up, I know I’m on a roll.
Let’s see, what else.

  • move into temporary residence is complete, and I finally got around to running the keys back to the old rental office, damn you life, stop fucking me up.
  • apparently my computer dealer is a moron and doesn’t believe I know what I’m talking about when I know the damn system board’s on it’s way out. any of my female readers wanna use a pair of high heals and step on his nuts, please?
  • we welcome
    May
    to her own little corner of the web and to
    wordpress
    thank you for not using
    blogger
    our sanity thanks you
  • my next convert
    does live on blogger
    but I’m working to fix that, but need to wait until she’s back from
    the san rafael campus of guidedogs for the blind
    to complete that transition.
  • it’s nifty to see 8MS pingtimes to the iweb box, and a solid 15 to the server where this blog lives. go bell fibe, go!
  • school starts soon, so that just might break my blogging sprea. oops.
  • I’m playing games like
    imperium novanow
  • certain people need to understand a specific 4 letter word has more meaning than you think and to stop acting like a whore, no I’m not providing context, to bad.
  • an unlocked iphone is in my future.

I think that covers the high points and random spueage of my brain.
Talk soon.

This can't be happening again.

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This morning I had to wake up and remind myself, “No, you’re not a freshman in high school.” I’m having flashbacks to my early days of simply not wanting to go to school because I’m not wanted there. I don’t want to be there. Don’t want to go. I want this nightmare to be over. I hate that place. It, obviously, hates me. There are only 1 or 2 people in there that’re worth my time anymore and they’re students. I can’t stand that place anymore. Hell, if my family didn’t want me to finish out the semester there I’d fill out the withdrawal forms, grab the remainder of my shit out of the dorm and get out of there and never turn back.
Who was I kidding, I wasn’t wanted there from day 1. I went from a high school that couldn’t help me, to a school for the blind, did awesome there, went to college and it all went to hell from there. I’m nothing to that place. A bug on their windshield. Something they want to persecute and get rid of. All I am to them is garbage. Nothing more, nothing less.
I want to be somewhere I’m wanted. I want to be somewhere that’s willing to help, and hell, maybe even find me a job in the bargain. I want to be somewhere I’m not just a pain in the ass. I want to be somewhere I know people are going to care about me as a person, not just a statistic or part of their job.
Yes, I’m frustrated, angry, annoyed, depressed, panicky, generally not fit for human company. I can’t wait to be done with that place. I feel like it’s holding a part of me hostage that I’ll never get back. I felt like this before I transferred high schools, too. I thought when you went to a university, you were supposed to be part of a community. I guess I was wrong.

Read between the lines.

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I wonder how this local community college treats its students? Come January, methinks we’re gonna find out.
4.5 hours, 2 screams, a walk in the rain and a caffeinated beverage later, I’m still seeing red. And yes I did actually go outside for a couple of screams. I think I need about 8 more by the time the red blur wears off my vision. Mom cooked a dinner she knew I’d eat, I only ate half a bowl if that.
I really hope these people realize eventually what they’re doing to my head. But oh…wait… I’m sorry… I mistook them for a second for people who actually care. I forgot they’re all droids that are preprogrammed. As long as it looks like the droids are working correctly, noone actually cares about the living, breathing people involved. And when those people have had to start medication and start seeking counseling, it doesn’t matter to them. It doesn’t matter at all because what they’ve done looks ok on paper and as long as they can go home and say they’ve put in a successful day of work, it doesn’t matter who they inconvenience.
It doesn’t matter that between now and the end of the semester, my family now has to shell out upwards of $1200 in gas. It doesn’t matter that in the winter, when we’ve got 2 feet of snow on the ground, but that campus is nice and clear, that I won’t be able to get to class because driving conditions are hazardous and nobody in my family should have to get in a car accident in order for me to get to class.
Yet, I still have no answers. Nobody can tell me how I fell through the cracks last year and why I lived in the filth I lived in. Nobody wants to take responsibility for that. Nobody can tell me why is it a girl got away with disrespecting my family the way she did. Noone can tell me why it was that people avoided me all semester last year because my clothes stank of mold no matter how many times I washed them. Nobody can tell me why the furniture safety violations I complained about weren’t looked into. Nobody can tell me why I sat there all of February with my window open praying for a breath of air that wasn’t contaminated. Best yet, noone wants to explain how and why the bacteria culture that was that room got so bad I actually got a UTI from it.
Yet, I’m the bad person here. Well, you know what? I’m tired of being the bad person. Fornicate this taurean dung, I capitulate!

Alcohol, now. give.

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1. Clearly, now, I have a choice between purchasing $995.00 software with my looks, or paying someone to scan and convert proprietary file formats for me because I can’t be diplomatic and the next best thing to diplomacy is keeping your damn mouth shut. Also, clearly, the latter, i.e., paying someone to scan, is gonna cost um… that thing called money. which I don’t have.
2. Also, eye doctors, when I ask you to fix something the answer is not take it apart, and then confuse me for half an hour. Also on a random sidenote, you better have someone with good fashion sense helping me pick frames for my new pair of eyes next Thursday or I’ll scream.
3. Stalking me is not how this rolls, has rolled, or will continue to roll. I asked it to stop. It didn’t. The appropriate authorities are being notified shortly after this posts, and it *will*, be dealt with. I’m not calling anyone out specifically, but when I’ve almost gone to the hospital 3 times, because of you people over there, and you know who you are, there’s a problem.
4. That long and actually civil conversation I had with my mother about alternative roads, let me just say that putting a plan together for January is looking better and better. I get that there are a few people out there who wanna put me in the hospital, but this’s gotta stop.
I don’t wanna walk around certain areas and not know if I’m being followed or watched. I don’t wanna have to feel like somebody’s shadowing me constantly, even if they aren’t doing it physically, well, how the hell would I know? I feel like I’m being stalked. I feel unsafe. I want it ended.

I'm alive

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Alive, yes. Sane, uh…Not really. Brain’s still trying to do wonderful things. This morning I lost a chunk of time and forgot where the hell I was and thank Christ I wasn’t on a train when it happened. Then, to boot, I almost passed out in stats class. The almost passin’ out was sorta kinda my fault though as I wasn’t being very nice to my body, I admit. I hadn’t eaten anything between the hours of 3 PM yesterday and…we’ll call it… 5:15 pm tonight. Part of that was because I was still unamused/unhappy/panicky, part of it was a genuine lack of time and lack of wanting my shit to disappear off the university campus if I left it hiding somewhere and walked away. Just my luck, my shit would pull a shane’s shit in late January and pull a disappearing act if I left it somewhere. And it wouldn’t just be my tech, it would’ve been my clothes and shower thingies and the rest. So yes I forfeited lunch to watch my stuff.
Yeah that would’ve been a great call to make, “Uh, yeah, I’m on campus, my shit’s missing.”
Hey, at least I came home and my mother didn’t threaten to institutionalize me or something. I was waitin’ for that when I made the call to my cousin who works across the street from the college, “Yo, come get me.”
Totaly expected her to walk in the door and clock out on the nearest flip-a-shit-ometer. I expected to be stuffed in the local psych unit strapped down and hooked to an IV by now, no lie. Everyone remained calm, no flip-a-shit-ometers were overclocked or broken in the process, my cousin had an escape plan for me if it got to the point where I needed out right the fuck now. He told me straight. “if you need to get out of there, you text me. I’ve seen what your mother can do to your brain, it’s not good. You look like you’ve already had several brain meltdowns today.”
My dad didn’t flip out, but it was my mother’s reaction that ok, shocked the shit outa me. My mother hugged me and actually cried. Standard-issue wiseass me probably would’ve said something along the lines of, “Who are you and what’d you do with MotherZilla?”
Nobody flipped a shit, probably because they were warned that I’d flipped several recently and probably would’ve volluntarily committed myself if anyone else, including me, flipped their shit again. Shit’s still up in the air, I’m trying not to panic anymore because then I really will have to be hospitalized, and I’d really, really rather not, thank you. I mean, I get it that Murphy hates me, but this shit’s gotta stop somewhere, seriously. I shouldn’t wake up in the morning and immediately start thinking I don’t deserve to breathe. On that note, I know it’s before 9 PM, but methinks it’s time to punk out and go curl up with my kid. Unless she’s still mad at me for hanging out with my friend’s dog, well, then, don’t know what to tell her. 😛

If I had a dick, and today were a person, I'd force said person to suck it.

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1. Shane’s on a bus heading back to Ottawa.
2. I’m emotionally fucking wiped right out.
3. As a result of the above, I’m ready to stuff my foot up the ass of the next person who anoys me.
4. For the love of whatever may or may not be holy, please don’t let it be one of you.
5. Packing in a holy fuck hurry results in you not nowing where in the hell half your shit is. don’t try it at… well…no, you won’t try it at home.
6. If something doesn’t go right soon, I’m gonna snap and probably end up in the hospital getting downers by IV until they can find something they don’t have to shoot me up with that won’t make me a spaceshot.
7. Related: Murphy, back the fuck off or I’m gonna die and go wherever you are just for the sole purpose of kickin’ your ass, then I’ll reincarnate as a cat. (Preferably a spoiled and well-love one like mine.)
8. The visuals I could provide you with if Shane doesn’t get a work visa for the states could curl your toes, make your eyes water and essentially make you cry like a little girl and run away.
9. Also, a note to whatever cabbie drove me to a friend’s place for the night, I can shut the door myself thank you, there’s really no need to shut it on me, no, really, I promise. You’re quite lucky you missed and didn’t nail me in the rib cage because I would’ve called your manager and he and I would’ve had a conversation.
In summary, now that I’ve been sitting here spewing brain vomit all over the place, I feel somewhat kinda sorta more human. Now, let’s not have anything else turn into a royal fucking clusterfuck please and thank you? Good thing flip-a-shit-ometers are not actually physical devices, I’d’ve had to replace about 10 over the last week.