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NEWS 69 - 17 Comments
From: John Entered on: July 4, 2003 9:46 AM
Just to clarify, my original wedding band while cheap also has sentimental value. Nonetheless I'm still distraught with the loss of my newer ring.
From: Ross Entered on: July 4, 2003 3:56 PM
That truly sucks, my friend. I guess you need to get some fatter fingers. :)     Well, Heather and I had a rather shitty experience today ourselves. We're down in Ft. Lauderdale on vacation. She scored this trip on some online deal, without consulting me. From the beginning, I smelled a scam. This portion of the package she purchased is 3 nights here and 3 nights in Orlando. Upon arrival, we had to pick up our vouchers for our hotel in Ft. Lauderdale. We were told we did not have to sit through any sales presentations and I went to great lengths to verify this was the case. However, upon getting our vouchers, we were OFFERED the chance to get tickets to a free dinner cruise for tonight (which we are about to leave for right now) if we went to some 90 minute presentation for a new line of hotels or some such. We were assured that we would not be pressured to buy anything, they knew we were on vacation, it's simply publicity for their new hotels. Since we had not planned the Ft. Lauderdale portion of our journey in detail, Heather left the choice to me (to avoid incurring my wrath if it turned out shitty) and somehow I agreed. I figured, what the hey, 90 minutes, don't expect me to buy anything.     Wrong on both accounts.     We got there today, and they immediately pair you up with a salesperson. We go to breakfast and already this sales pitch is beginning. I'm already slightly annoyed, but I figure that this still is only going to last 90 minutes. Nope. All together it was over 3 hours of bullshit, trying to get us to buy a timeshare down there. I knew I was a dope for agreeing to go, but somehow I had to test it for myself anyhow. The worst part was at the end of course when they sit us down and try to get you to buy. Earlier on they asked us to fill out a sheet with some financial information (annual salary, credit debt, house payments, etc) and I didn't put anything down. I didn't want these guys knowing how much I make or how much credit I have to harass me with.     So the lady who was with us of course kept lowering her numbers, but I was telling her I wasn't interested, and this wasn't a good time. So she gets her manager over there, which she claimed she had to do. The manager is a royal beyotch, picture Leona Helmsley. I can't even remember all the stupid shit she was talking about, but rest assured, it was nonsense. Eventually I broke to the point where I simply explained I was purchasing a home right now and don't even have any spare cash anyway. (They want like $8k down and something like $600 a month) So she acts incredulous and starts saying some shit about debt ratios and no bank would give me a loan. I was so annoyed, because I was under no obligation to explain myself to that woman. Heather had written some of the shit down about her credit cards and the woman starts trying to see if there's room left on there for her to fit the down payment on. I'm like "no, she has enough debt already" and of course this falls on deaf ears. Then she starts harassing me about why wouldn't I do this, so I say that frankly if I were so inclined to shell out this much money for something, I would do my own research first to see what kind of a deal this is. She acts as though I'm speaking Swahili - what kind of research? I'm like property values, the values of the memberships that are included in this package, taxes, etc. She says she can get me all this - I try to no avail, of course - to explain that I don't take the word of a salesman, this is research that you do on your own. She corrects me in a severe tone, that she IS NOT A SALESMAN. I AM A MANAGER. She is furious. She also said something about titles and deeds, about how my house would have one and so would this timeshare. I'm like great, but how is that germane (I used the word germane) to anything? I eventually get really annoyed and go "Look, you are really starting to annoy me. Can we go?" She gets so pissed, she's like "we paid for your hotel (which they didn't) and we reserve the right to ask you these kinds of questions." I said "I never agreed to answer these questions!" at which point she instructs the salesperson to get us out. So it ended supremely shittily but we got our tickets to the cruise (which is in no way affiliated with this timeshare) and went to the beach, which was actually pretty sweet with lots of young bikini tenders (YBTs) running around. And now I have to get in the shower and get ready for this thing.
From: Ross Entered on: July 4, 2003 4:13 PM
Oh, and:     Happy Fourth of July, Motherfuckers!
From: Ross Entered on: July 5, 2003 9:06 AM
Update: Sheesh. I should have done some research on this cruise. What a piece of shit. An entire day basically wasted. Come to find out these were two $30 tickets. I thought they were $60 tickets, and even then I thought that was cheap for an all you can eat cruise.     It was sooooo bad, you guys would have been cracking up at my poor judgement. First of all, the big riverboat on the brochure was nowhere to be found - we were on board some shitty ragtag ferryboat. The cruise down the intracoastal was ok, though we had to endure it on some highly uncomfortable chairs. Anyway, they take us to some shitty little island and we pack into this big ass canopied room with big long picnic tables and benches. I was thinking that Heather and I could get some table to ourselves and have a nice quiet dinner - hah! And the food was quite pedestrian and obviously much of it had been frozen and reheated. Don't get me wrong - I still pigged out - but it was rather disappointing. But we haven't gotten to the truly awful part of the story - the "variety show". I knew this was going to be bad - outside the "restaurant" there were tons of benches pointed at a small stage. I had no interest in whatever they were going to show us, so Heather and I took a walk around this tiny island. There were some exotic birds, monkeys, and alligators in cages and that held our attention for about 20 minutes, but eventually we drifted back toward the stage to see what was amusing these middle American tourists.     My friends, I cannot overemphasize how truly awful this "show" was. First, there was this DJ to the side of the stage playing shitty karoke songs and singing. Then he introduces the first act, and a bubbly girl in a shitty Vegas-esque stage costume comes out and starts singing American Idol-style. Except she could have been the very first person kicked off of American Idol, she was so horrible. She gets two guys up on stage, puts a feather boa and a wig on each of them, and makes them dance like the Supremes, much to the hysterics of the audience, and flashbulbs are going off around us like a thunderstorm. This, I thought, is what amuses Joe Sixpack. I lament to Heather that perhaps if it's a "variety" show, we could get some stand up comedy - even BAD standup comedy would be better than this.     I was wrong again.     After the mind-numbing singing and dancing act, we welcome to the stage a middle-age white woman (the least funny demographic on the planet) and her ventriloquist dummy - some kind of monkey or something. This woman was so fucking bad, I am at a loss to relate our pain to you through the English language. First, the microphone was so poorly configured, we could only hear her half the time. But most of her jokes seemed to involve the dummy going "oooooh" and looking over the crowd in sweeping movements. And let me tell you - when the dummy spoke, its mouth moved far less than the woman's did. She was THAT bad. As Heather was in the middle of telling me that this reminded her of a bad act on the gong show, a couple of the saner people in the group behind us went "GONG!" and we all started cracking up. But by then, I could take no more and had to leave. Even staring at a fairly inactive monkey was far more entertaining that what was onstage. So we milled around the tiny island for the next half hour, hearing fireworks from the coast (which we were told we would be able to see but couldn't) and took a picture that almost makes us look like we were having fun. Anyway, it wasn't THAT bad I guess but I will never ever be so stupid again on vacation in my life.     This morning we were supposed to be going on a glass bottom boat/snorkeling tour but the waves are too choppy so we're going to hang out by the pool for a bit - everything we do from here on out will be planned by us and I'm going to avoid any more fucking white trash festivities.     NOTE: Heather insists I add that our shitty adventure was entirely precipitated by my decision and not hers.
From: Jackzilla Entered on: July 5, 2003 11:57 AM
HA HA HA!!     Thank you, Ross, for your bravery in reporting this shitty tale. I always wondered how exactly those presentation scams went down.     At least you got to see monkeys.
From: The Bone Entered on: July 5, 2003 1:57 PM
Roche: Sorry to hear about the ring. I too am worried I may lose mine. It fits a little loose, so I take it off every time I go to the beach. I just got insurance for it butstill, I would hate to lose it for the sentimental value.     Bert: Your story was hilarious and well written as always. Kristen and I did the same thing on Kauii a while back. We signed up for the presentation so we could get $100 off a helicopter tour. The video was 30 mins so not too bad, then we had to endure the sales pitch. These bitches do put up a hard sell but Kristen was backing me up so we had her overpowered. In order to let us go the salesbitch had to get the manager also, who must of graduated from "fucking the customer school". Finally we got up and politely said, "Thank you for the opportunity, but we are leaving now", and simply left. We were there for at least 2 hours though and we were the first to leave so I bet other people got screwed. Lesson is, my time is far more valuable than the money saved on vacation.
From: Ross Entered on: July 6, 2003 1:47 PM
Well, we just had to go through a bit more stank just now. We just arrived in our hotel in Orlando, and went to the visitors center where they give you voucher for the hotel. We had already discussed how we were going to be harsh with anyone who offered us any more tours and were relishing the thought. Unfortunately, the scenario did not play out as we had envisioned.     We get to the counter and a young, large, greasy, ugly guy comes up and asks us if we "took the tour for our tickets in Ft. Lauderdale." Before I had time to consider a proper answer to this incorrect question, Heather answers yes. Then he says, "Did you buy?" No. I knew this was bad because already he was thinking that we were supposed to take a tour for our hotel, when in fact the tour we took was voluntary. But I doubt it would have done any good to explain this to him because he was a royal carksarker. He started telling us when and where we had to take our tour, and Heather and I quickly tried to squelch this by telling him that we were assured repeatedly that we did not have to take any tours, as we reside in Illinois (which was the official reason for our non-tour taking abilities). He's like "I understand that, but you still have to take the tour." No, we don't. Yes you do. Back and forth. I was getting fucking pissed. I KNEW I should have had it in writing! I tried to have Heather get it for me a few weeks ago, to no avail. However, we WILL have it in writing before we go on the other portions of this vacation package or else I'm not going.     Anyway, after what appears to be a stalemate, he goes "I'm not going to hold a gun to your head - either you take the tour or you don't. I'm just going to have to report this to the tour company, that you refused to go." I'm thinking, great, whatever you have to do. And then he gives us the voucher anyway! So clearly, he was scamming us, as his "gun" was the voucher for our hotel, but even he was not a big enough jackass to withhold it, as he was clearly prohibited from doing so - he was just trying to force us to do something against our will probably for some partial commission or something. Fuckhead.     Anyway, we got our room no problem after that and it's pretty decent. Hopefully there will be no more suprises, as the rest of our vacation is out of the control of this shitty tour company. Before we take off I'm going to call this tour company and complain about that asshole.
From: John Entered on: July 6, 2003 4:00 PM
As well you should, farkin carksarker. I would be complaining my ass off about the that guy and the manager bitch. I was quite amused by your story I might add. Sounds to me as though this could be the last time you take one of those package deal vacations. I hope the rest of your vacation goes a bit better.     As an update on my ring situation I must inform you guys that Melissa and I will be replacing my ring with the exact same ring. We put it on layaway today. The shitty part is when we bought it three years ago we paid $540 because it was on sale. It was origanally at the time $840. Now the ring retails at $1100. They gave us the best deal they could and we are getting it for $860 but that sucks to have to replace the ring for so much money. Melissa and I were quite fond of the ring so that is why we are buying the same one again.
From: Ross Entered on: July 6, 2003 11:07 PM
To say the least, yes, we will never do this kind of lowbrow vacation again. The money was spent some time ago so we're just going through with it now.     I actually had an amusing anecdote to add to the whole shenanigans earlier. I called the vacation company to complain and they affirmed that indeed we had to take no tours. However, I told him that the big ugly dude was giving me shit about it, so he told me where I could write a letter of complaint. However, I didn't know the ugly dude's name, so I went back down into the lion's den to find it.     The room was filled with young punks like the ugly dude, but Ugly himself was not present. As I moved to the head of the line, I noticed that punks who had finished helping their customers were not calling me over for some reason. After a few minutes of this bullshit, I picked out the youngest punk and strolled up pleasantly.     "Excuse me, I was just in here a couple hours ago, and I was being helped by a big guy, yellow shirt?"   "Yeah, Josh?"   "Oh, that's his name? Thanks."     And I walked out the door. I figured rather than start off on the complaint tip, as none of these guys wore name tags, they might not want to give me any names if I started demanding some. So the guy gave it to me and now I have my ammo to write my letter. I don't even think Heather cares but she's signing it (the vacation is in her name) even if I have to strap her arm to mine and trace the motions for her.     Oh, and Roche, that's good news about the ring though the money part sucks.
From: John Entered on: July 7, 2003 9:51 AM
I'm pleased to be able to replace my ring with the exact same one, however the money part does suck.
From: Heather Entered on: July 7, 2003 10:36 AM
Yes, the lesson on this vacation is learned!!! I hope you all take note of this experience and refrain from any and all scam looking deals. No more shitty vacations for us. As a matter of fact...so I can't ever get blamed for anything in the future, Ross can be the one to do all of the travel arrangements. I will just sit back and enjoy the ride and when something goes wrong (because I think it always does on a vacation), he can blame no one but himself. That is exactly how it went for the tour and dinner cruise. He couldn't point any fingers unless they were pointing at his own face.     Anyway, it has not been that bad of a vacation. Aside from all of the shitty situations we got into, we have had many laughs and enjoyed ourselves despite the hassles. However, Ross forgot to mention something else that showed his "good spirits". As you all know, I'm sure, Ross doesn't like to lose. Ask him how well he did at miniature golf. Another fine Ross moment!
From: Swerb Entered on: July 7, 2003 1:10 PM
Roche: Don't you have your ring insured? I just went through great pains to make sure Stacy's engagement ring has its own policy. In fact, if you have some type of homeowners or renter's insurance, it might be covered.     As for Ross' vacation, I agree with Jack: At least you got to see monkeys. I find it humorous that the saleswoman was a "MANAGER." Let us all rejoice in the fact that our jobs aren't nearly as shitty as this woman's. I, of course, laughed out loud at all your vacation tales. And what's the miniature golf story? Did it involve Ross yelling a lot?
From: John Entered on: July 7, 2003 2:41 PM
Swerb: No, we have no insurance for the ring or renter's insurance. Quite honestly we have no extra money for such things. Life insurance and car insurance is about all we can afford. In order to replace the ring we will have to pay for it in small increments. The new ring will be a half size smaller to help insure that it won't come flying off. I hate paying for in case shit happens, so even if we had the money for ring insurance I doubt I would have it. I'll be more vigilant in the future and take my chances. If my ring cost several thousand dollars perhaps it would be worth having an insurance policy for it.     I,m sure the miniature golf story involves plenty of yelling. Hopefully Ross will be inclined to tell this story.
From: Ross Entered on: July 7, 2003 10:35 PM
The miniature golf story goes like this: we were bored in Fort Lauderdale so we decided to go to this place called Boomers that we saw from the road, and that Heather had read something about online. They have a rock wall, arcade games, go-karts, and of course, miniature golf. We were both interested in doing the rock wall but upon arriving, we discovered that it appeared to be a pretty short wall and was probably only for kids. So we just did mini golf. We played a round of 18, and I was beating Heather soundly until near the end where I totally lost my cool and started fucking up. I had like an 8 on one hole and then a 4 on the next that should have been an easy two. Heather ended up beating me by 9. Those of you who have played any type of sports with me know that a) I'm not very good at sports and b) I'm fiercely competitve, which do not make a good match in most cases. So I'm grumpy for a bit, and we looked around for something else to do, but nothing suited us, so Heather bought us another round of miniature golf.     This was a mistake.     First off, I picked a club that was too long for my putting style, so I was flubbing shots even worse than I might normally have. After only two or three holes, I was completely losing my cool. After missing two simplistic short puts, I completely lost it, picked up the ball and chucked it, and as Heather gaped at me in shock, I flung my club down the fairway as well.     Well, that was the end of that little venture. She stalked off to the car and didn't speak to me for the next couple hours.     But all is well now, really! :) We just got back from Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios and had a great time. Be sure to check out the latest picture in the photo album - and there's a lot more where that one came from!
From: Ross Entered on: July 8, 2003 10:03 AM
A couple other tales that bear telling:     1) On the drive to Orlando, we were passed by about five speeding assholes who weaved through traffic like maniacs. About 15 minutes later, everything is slowing down and it's getting annoying. Then I notice that it's those cars that whipped by us, who were going side-by-side in all 3 or 4 lanes, and then slowing down, causing the entire highway to be clogged - and they were doing it on purpose. I was fucking livid. All their cars had "Three o Five" on the back windshields - some kind of gang or something? I don't know, I called the cops and they said they had already gotten calls and were on their way. We never did see them get busted, though. Eventually one of them moved over and I got the fuck past them.     2) Yesterday Heather and I were eating breakfast at our hotel's buffet and a family consisting of a husband, wife, and two daughters sits down a few tables away. One daughter was like 8, but the other was somewhere between 17 and 20, and she was smoking hot. I dubbed her Breakfast Nugget, even though she was technically older than Nugget age. Anyway, BN goes off somewhere and comes back, but she tries to take a short cut into the eating area by opening the gate that was right by mine and Heather's table. She pulls on the gate a few times and I look over and see there's a lock on it that she probably couldn't see from her angle, so I tell her "I think it's locked." She gives up and goes in the correct way. Heather, amused, later tells me that had that not been a hottie, I would have ignored her never said a word, but since she was hot, I was using "any excuse to interact with her." Could this be true? I'm trying to objectively answer this for sure, and she might be right, but I tend to think I could have said that to anyone. It's not like I was hitting on her or anything.     Also, it bears mentioning how many fat fucking people are running around down here. I was thinking of starting to take pictures and put up a website called www.fatflorida.com or something. It's absolutely incredible. And they're starting out young, too. Just amazingly obese people, everywhere.
From: John Entered on: July 9, 2003 12:12 AM
As it turns out we do have renters insurance and I didn't even know. Just goes to show you how on top of things I am around here. Anyway, I'm going to check and see what the policy says about jewelry loss. Hopefully it will help replace the lost ring.
From: Swerb Entered on: July 9, 2003 6:24 PM
Re: The Ross/miniature golf incident... hee hee hee... Heather: Let me just say that the one time Ross played racquetball with my friends Brian and Rob and I is still legendary. Voices echo quite a bit on a racquetball court, as you'd imagine, and thus further amplified Ross' full-bodied bellows of frustration and despair... We still talk about it on occasion...