Goods and services

VIPAttractions.com Jamaica — Fraud

Posted on April 23, 2017 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

Update 4/24/17 After making this post and sending a link to the company with this post, links to my social media posts, and my review on Tripadvisor (where I am slowly becoming an actual voice… level 4 reviewer with over 10,000 reviews read) they relented. They sent me an apology email this morning as well as a refund. That’s great. But they were still relentless cunts through the entire process so the reviews on all sites will stand. Stop jerking around your customers, assholes! Original post 4/23/17: VIP Attractions is evidently an airport service offered to those who arrive in (and depart from) Montgo Bay and Kingston, Jamaica. It is purported to be a ‘rush service’ through customs on arrival, and a bar to sit in while you wait for departure. All of that may be true, but I wouldn’t know. I paid for the service, but never got to Continue reading VIPAttractions.com Jamaica — Fraud→

How long does it take to get a digital download from BestBuy.com?

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

The wife has been interested in checking out Skyrim for a while now, and I have to admit that I was a little bit too. I intended to purchase her a copy of it yesterday for digital download, thinking that if it looked good and had reasonable controls on the PC ported version of it, I might get it for myself as well. So I started looking for places that had the digital download available. GameFly had it available, but I haven’t ordered anything from them since I used to get the downloads from Direct2Drive, and I was afraid that this fact could delay the download, so I looked elsewhere. Then I saw that BestBuy.com had it available. Now, I have a BestBuy Rewards mastercard. I haven’t used it in over a year though, because it is issued by Swindler’s Bank and Trust, who have been slapped with so many Continue reading How long does it take to get a digital download from BestBuy.com?→

The Great 2012 PC component adventure

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Shadowtwin — 1 Comment ↓

The idea was to do a minor upgrade to the two main pcs in the house. I just wanted to bump up the graphics a little bit. My graphics card is an antiquated (by enthusiast standards) radeon hd 5570, while my wife is sporting the also antiquated (by enthusiast standards) geforce 220. I say antiquated (by enthusiast standards) because they are plenty for what we are doing now, but they won’t be able to play new games at max frame rate, and my computers are the one area of life that I like to indulge (on a budget). So I set about to choosing a video card. I turned to Tom’s Hardware’s best video cards for the money to help me pick them out. If you are at all geeky about computers and you don’t know about that site, you certainly should check it out. Nearly any time I am Continue reading The Great 2012 PC component adventure→

eMachines

Posted on June 6, 2006 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

Much like I will be offended when I am getting screwed by a large corporation, I will also give credit where credit is due. I have posted a few entries about eMachines, mostly pertaining to why it is that I continue to buy the machines when they are pretty obsolete right out of the box. Since I don’t want to waste the time looking up old posts, I will sum it all up in a quick sentence: Buy a $300 eMachine, put in $300 worth of upgrades (video card, RAM, etc.) and you have a $1500 HP, Compaq or Dell. That is the type of math that I like (also it is much easier to find an eMachine that comes without a monitor, and the monitor alone is generally at least a third of a system price from other companies -on a low end system). I have also had extremely Continue reading eMachines→

Free advertising for Citibank

Posted on March 16, 2006 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

Credit cards are a pretty bad thing in general; If you don’t have the cash to pay for it, you probably shouldn’t be buying it in the first place. That being said, it is near impossible to get by in day to day life without having one of the precious plastic things in your wallet/purse. Just imagine trying to make hotel/car rental reservations without one. Sure the same can be done with a debit card, but you are a far braver soul than I if you are willing to give your personal bank account information to the stranger on the end of a phone line. True, now that the debit cards are actually subsidized by VISA they are covered by the exact same fraud protection as a normal credit card, but you have to file a claim and wait for a couple of weeks to get reimbursed for the fraudulent Continue reading Free advertising for Citibank→

Truth in advertising

Posted on September 16, 2005 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

This bitch is pretty specific. Car insurance companies seem to be getting away with the worst false advertising ever, unless you count the “Employee Pricing for Everyone” programs that every car dealer is now using. I will even get a bit more specific: The company is Allstate. They are running commercial ads that say that you can save ( I forget the exact number ) $300 dollars a year by switching to them. I was intrigued. How can that be true? It took watching the commercial a couple of dozen times before I figured out exactly how they were making that claim; they are flat-out lying. At the very bottom of the screen, and only when they make the claim of the “average savings”, there comes up a little line (and I mean tiny) that says, “Savings claim based on customers who reported saving when switching to Allstate.” Okay, that Continue reading Truth in advertising→

Stupid shoe stores

Posted on September 10, 2005 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

On our way out of Phoenix last Sunday we stopped by a shoe store to buy my birthday gift, my birthday is actually the 12th of July but I just never got around to getting the shoes until then. I had the same problem as I always do, it turns out that the major shoe companies think that everyone has really narrow feet, I do not. Thus most of the shoes just didn’t fit. The problem I have with finding shoes really doesn’t have much to do with the width though. You can pick up just about any pair of New Balance shoes and they will fit pretty well, if not New Balance seems to sell far more extra wide shoes than any other company. The problem that I have is that the only color I can wear is black, and the shoe needs to be made out of leather Continue reading Stupid shoe stores→

Stupid junk mail!

Posted on August 19, 2005 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

With email taking over the vast majority of delivering useless junk mail, it is always refreshing to find one in the actual post office, printed on real paper, that makes you laugh. DONNIE BURGESS: Your property at PO Box 166 may be eligible for special programs from Government Sponsored Institutions. Your census tract is currently being targeted by our Equal Lending Assessment Center for loans from major depository institutions without the usual restrictions on credit history, income or employer status. If you are the legal owner of the above property, you may benefit from programs created by Federal Agencies. If you are not the legal owner, please forward this notice to them or return to sender. But seriously, this is obviously a computer generated form, complete with unique offer number, mine happens to be LQY6-0665-524, which I am sure is the same as everyone else’s. The question that I have Continue reading Stupid junk mail!→

Are people really that fucking darn stupid?

Posted on August 10, 2005 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

Okay, people are sheep, the bible tells us that. Even if you aren’t into the whole religion thing, just look at the way that we all flocked to buy the latest Harry Potter book. Yes, we are all into following trends, usually without actually taking the time to think about it: Would the latest Harry Potter book have failed to exist if you weren’t there to buy it at midnight on the day it was released? Did you then go home and read the whole book before morning? -mind you that if you did you have a completely different sort of disorder which is equally as bad.- I’m just saying people are sheep; once the herd is pointed in a particular direction, they go that way regardless of obstruction (remember the ‘tickle me Elmo’ doll?). That was a really horrible parallel to use for the point I am going to Continue reading Are people really that ~~fucking~~ darn stupid?→

Metallica - One

Citing Metallica's song 'One' as 'music lost to history' probably doesn't make much sense to most. In this case, I don't think the song is lost to history, but the video is.

When this video dropped (I'd guess it was about 1989) I thought it was the most powerful video I had ever seen. Now, nearly thirty years later, I still believe it is the most powerful music video ever made.

The story may not be completely unique (the imagery is recycled -but from a film that was so old that my -then fifteen or sixteen year old- eyes had never seen. My now forty-five-ish year old eyes had never seen it either) but that video is shot and edited so well that you will be crying by the end. If, that is, you have a heart.

The video for Metallica's One surpassed all expectations for music videos, set the mark for what music videos would, could, and should be. It rocketed the group from garage band to the biggest group that ever lived. This single video defines not just that band, but the entire genre.

No other video has ever had such an impact on on the world of music. Not Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video (which I believe to this day gets far too much credit) not The Beastie Boys song Sabotage which was a wonderful throwback to the seventies era cop show, but which I believe, also gets credit far beyond it's worth. Metallica's video for One, on the other hand, didn't try to look like anything more than it was. It was a hard-rocking song and Metallica used some masterful movie clips to add to the morose feel that the instruments generated. That video, for that song, was absolutely perfect.

It is without any form of doubt that I say the video for Metallica's song One was, and ever will be, the best video ever made. Don't take my word for it though, watch the video above (with low light and in a dark room) . If it doesn't move your heart, you're living this life all wrong.

July 2017

Cancer: 6/22-7/22
For 34 years you have been painstakingly removing a single hair from the head of each of woman you murder -with plans to weave them into a belt. A mishap involving a a candle-warmer, a vacuum cleaner, and the police breaking down the door to take you 'dead or alive' will bring your collecting days to an unfortunate end.

Leo: 7/23-8/22
Your plan to rook your boyfriend into marrying you by faking a pregnancy will fail this week. There are several reasons why this plan will fail: 1) you have denied him sex for your entire relationship, promising him that flower on the honeymoon. 2) You actually are pregnant. 3) You've been wearing a T-shirt that says 'Gold Digger' on it since the day you met him. 4) The single strand of hair that the Cancer (horoscope above) pulls from your head will be the one and only time he leaves his own DNA at the crime scene.

Virgo: 8/23-9/22
Okay, maybe the stars have been a bit harsh. They know you are a good guy, but you've made a lot of mistakes. The stars are willing to meet at Gina's Coffee Shop on July 12th at noon. If you aren't there, you may as well write off visitation of your kids.

Libra: 9/23-10/22
98% That is the specific number you will give your wife before you jump out of the plane. That optimistic chance of survival will slowly fade as you realize that gravity doesn't care a great deal if you have your arms out or not: Terminal velocity is terminal velocity. Your attempt to recreate the famous scene from the movie Point Break will end just as it should have in the movie: A horrible mass of flesh and bone several miles away from the guy who actually did have the parachute.

Scorpio: 10/23-11/21
The stars have a huge "to do" list. As such, your childhood wish to have sex with Anna Nichole Smith will finally come true this week. No, there's no way to stop it. The stars do apologize for the lateness of the fulfillment of this request, but they think your friends will count it anyway.

Sagitarius: 11/22-12/21
You've seen the movie The Number 23 exactly twenty-two times. You've built your life around avoiding that number. You''ll feel supremely confident when you leave your house on 07/12/2017. But, on 07/12/2017, you will step onto the sidewalk only to be struck and killed by a drunk driver. The time of impact? Exactly 11:01:00am on 07/12/2017. You will have exactly enough time to add up the digits of the date AND time: 1+1+0+1+0+0+0+7+1+2+2+0+1+7=23. Your realization that any date, time, or irrelevant number can be made to equal 23 will be moot.

Capricorn: 12/22-1/19
The stars have been watching you. And your daughter. Oh my, how we have been watching your daughter... Blah, blah, something about a star rising in Orion, blah, blah. The stars will definitely offer you better guidance once that daughter is of legal age.

Aquarius: 1/20-2/18
Every man wants to die a hero. That's human nature. But you have obsessed about it. When little Johnny accidentally starts a fire in his trash can this week, you should calmly walk out of the house with everyone else. If you happen to stand in Johnny's room screaming "take me, I'm the one you want!" That action may be ill-perceived by the police. The firefighters aren't even going to respond; the trash can fire burned itself out without even melting the plastic of the can.

Pisces: 2/19-3/20
Billy-Ray has been wearing that mullet for thirty damn years, so you figured yours would be fine, too. You'll soon realize that Billy-ray can rock that hairdo because he doesn't have to get it near the shake machine at Dairy Queen. You, on the other hand, have to get those lovely locks right up in there. Or, your now-naked scalp did.

Aries: 3/21-4/19
While the police report will read "failed attempt to jump the Grand Canyon", and the coroner's report will read "severe blunt-force trauma", everyone who knows you will know that they should have read "Eh, I think I can make it."

Taurus: 4/20-5/20
Rape. It's a big, scary word. It will also be the most appropriate word for what the biggest guy in jail is about to do to you. Please confer with a Cancer for advice on how to handle it.

Gemini: 5/21-6/21
Yeah, your Lyft driver is also carrying a knife. Unwanted advances will also result in removal of the penis. Keep it in your pants. Unless, of course, the Uber driver already handed it to you. In that case you can wave that thing around like a flag. You're probably not going to get a ride, but you are going to be one in a very exclusive group of men who can 'wave it around like a flag'.