An Open Letter to Danielle T.

Dear Danielle,

I am writing you this letter on behalf of Benson, a wonderful St. Bernard that you took into your home just 4 months ago.  Benson is my sister’s dog who she had to give up in January due to circumstances that made it impossible for her to keep him. Giving him up was one of the most difficult decisions that she has ever had to make and now you have made it one that she will forever regret.  She thought that he was going to a good home – you have a son who instantly became Benson’s best friend on the trial weekend plus you are a dog trainer, so certainly you must love dogs enough to know the love, care and attention they need, right? Jody loved that dog from the day he came home as a puppy and she will continue to love him, as we all will. Well, all of us except for you.

As you know, Benson has some health issues; he did from the time he came home. In his 3 short years there have been many trips to the vet and thousands of dollars spent on testing and medication.  Jody did anything and everything she could to give Benson a happy and fulfilling life, even when he was struggling with his health. He has certain diet and exercise regiments that needed to be kept up to help keep him healthy and happy and all of this was disclosed to you before you took him. You knew that the potential was there for him to get sick and you promised that you would care for him. But you didn’t. He got sick and you literally put him out on the street. You didn’t even have the decency to take him to the vet, you just put him out on the street and told him to go away. The worst part is that he is in pain and has difficulty walking so he didn’t even get very far. He simply couldn’t run away from you, although I’m sure he wanted to. I would have.

He was picked up on your street. Someone who cared enough to find his owner took him to the vet clinic on your street and from there Animal Services came and picked him up. Thanks goodness for that because at least he was in a safe place being cared for by people who actually want to help.  But can you imagine how he must have felt? He had come from a family who loved him so much and then he had to change homes which must have been confusing for him. He seemed to be doing well though – sleeping in your son’s bed and having a play buddy every day. And then something happened and he got sick again. What happened? Less than 3 weeks ago was the last time Jody checked in with you and you told her that everything was going great and then this week you there him out like a piece of garbage. He must have felt so terrible, so unloved and you did that to him. I want you to know that I am crying terribly at the thought of this, the thought of this sweet dog who loved you and I, and everyone he met unconditionally, but who was put out on the street to die when things became less than perfect. I hate the thought that he may have felt unloved, even for a moment, because he wasn’t, except by you.

Once Benson was picked up Animal Services visited my sister’s old house because he was still registered to her. You are a dog trainer and you didn’t even have the decency to update his registration information? Well that turned out to be a good thing. The new owners of the house contacted their real estate agent, who contacted Jody’s real estate agent who got in touch with her in Oklahoma. Imagine the surprise of getting that message? By this time Benson had already been at the animal shelter for 2 days. As soon as she got the news we started piecing the information together and it became clear that he was not there by accident – you wanted him to go away and he did. You lied to Animal Services and told them that you had called Jody and told her that you couldn’t keep him and that she was looking for a new home for him. Why did you lie? Why didn’t you call Jody and tell her instead  of taking the cowardly way out? We would have come and got him immediately because unlike you, our family doesn’t turn its back on those in need, dog, human or otherwise.

Jody flew back from Oklahoma today and we had Benson there to meet her at the airport. He has to be put down on Monday because he is too sick to continue living a fulfilling life but we are giving him the best final days that we can. He will leave this world surrounded by people who love him and he will be cremated so that he can always be with Jody and our family, who love him dearly. In a way it’s good that you have no heart because at least we get to be with him and love him in his greatest time of need.

Danielle, I have had to put a lot of bad thoughts about you out of my mind because the bottom line is that if I let myself think or wish horrible things upon you then I will be no better of a person than you are. I think what you did is heartless and disgusting and I hope that you never have to feel unloved for a second like Benson did. I hope that you didn’t lie to your son about what you did to Benson and I also hope that you never get another pet of any kind because you don’t have the strength to give them the love they need.

Please don’t think about Benson anymore, he is our dog again and we so happy to have him back, even if it is only for a couple of more days.

Suzanne

Useless Google Support

At apple you have to be a Genius, At Google you only have to have a pulse, and that is optional.

I've been having a problem with Google Adwords these last 3 weeks in that they forced me to do some sort of data migration and now I can't access my Adwords account. The ads are still running,  I am still being billed, but I can't get in to edit my ads or look at my billing. I just got off the phone with them for the 8th time in 2 weeks and I'm pretty sure it ended with mutual fuck yous. The first 7 calls I was nice. #8, not so much.

Look, we all know I have a short temper to begin with and an extremely low tolerance for stupid people, so when you combine that with multiple calls that go nowhere things are bound to end badly. Here's how it went for 45 minutes:

Me: Hi I'm hoping you can help me. I can't access my ad words account and the number of the department that you told me to call last time requires a pin number for me to get past the first menu, but because I can't access my account I can't get a pin number.

Google: You'll need the pin number to get through.

Me: Riiiight. But I don't have access to my account so I can't get the pin number.

Google: Well you'll have to get it. Go to blah blah blah and retrieve it from there

I enter all this stuff and guess what, NO ACCESS TO THIS ACCOUNT!

Google: Well there's nothing else I can do for you.

Me: Could you put through to a manager please?

Google: We don't have managers.

Me: Google doesn't have managers?

Google: That's right.

Me: Well you and I both know that's a lie. I watch CNBC and in their Google documentaries they talk to managers of various departments so....

Silence from Google.

Me: Ok, can you send me a copy of my bill for the last 2 months then.

Google: That information is in your account

Me: And I thought we had determined that I don't have access to my account

Google: You'll have to call that phone # you were given.

Me: The one that requires the pin that I don't have because I can't access my account? You do understand that if I had the pin I would have access to my account and I wouldn't be calling you, right? So what can you help me with if you can't help me get access to my account which I've had problem with for 3 years and you can't help me with my billing?

Google: There's nothing I can do for you.

Me: So you just answer the phone but can't actually do anything  to help anyone? That doesn't make sense, that would mean you're literally getting paid to do nothing.  Ok, so you're still billing me, so can you suspend my account until we get this worked out?

Google: You can do that within your account.

Me: You're kidding, right? Have you not heard me say that I don't have access to my account?

Google: I can't help you.

Me: So in a multi-billion dollar company like Google who employs the greatest technology people in the world, present company excluded, you're telling me that a tiny 2 person company has stumped the fuck out of you and we're just supposed to keep paying for something that we have no access and no control over? Well I guess I know how you've made your billions, I should set up my business like that. Isn't it illegal for you to be billing me and not provide an invoice?

Google: I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do.

Me: So you work at Google, but you can't call any other department at Google, is that what you're telling me?

Google: That's right. I would call the same number that you would.

Me: So if you mom worked in another Google department and you needed to get in touch with her, you couldn't just call her?

Google: Well, um, I...

Me: So you can call other departments, you just don't want to.

Google: I can't help you.

Now by this time I'm wondering wouldn't it just be a whole fuck of a lot easier to just connect me to the fucking department I need to fix my problem? At this point I'm just being an asshole and wasting her time and mine to try and get her to use her brain and break from the script and try to actually help me. This goes on for 40 mins until I decide that I'm hungry enough to tell her to eat a shit sandwich and hang up.

Now I have to wait 2-5 business days from a senior support person (who is not a manager. By God do NOT call them a manager!) too see if they can use their brain and figure this out. In the meantime, I just hope to hell I don't rack up too much of an invoice because as I mentioned, I don't have access to my account to change it. Oh, and fuck you Google you useless pieces of shit, I hope I ruined your weekend!

A Brief Vacation Recap So As To Not Bore You To Death

Well, it's been about a year or so since I wrote but hey, good things come to those who wait, right? Well if that is true it's your lucky day!

I just got back from vacation and as usual I'm sick as hell. Oh well, it was totally worth it.

It's been over 3 years since I have been to Texas and seen my friends there and although I didn't get to see everyone, I did get a good dose of crazy Texans in my 4 day visit (I'm looking at you Fanatics!). We got in 5 hours late but did manage to get out to Freiheit Country Store for NYE celebrations with the gang - Carolyn, A.L., Martha, Mikey, Chase, Bruce and Laurie. Jason Allen was playing and yes, there were black eyed peas at midnight so I'm good to go for luck this year (although I did have to steal them from BF's bowl since they were gone by the time my mom and I made it to the food table). It was a short but great night and as you can see my friends took full advantage of the BYOB! (We need this in Alberta. We really need this).



The next day we went to Gruene and met up with Gem and my mom deemed that "she is a nice girl" so we were allowed to go to Steamboat with her. I guess I won't tell my mom the SB stories, otherwise I might not be allowed to hang out with sweet little Gem anymore. ha ha!

While in Texas we also went up to Canyon Lake and BF made we walk across the damn dam. As you know, I don't care for exercise and I even purposely wore non-walking shoes but we finally agreed that we would go half way (which was still a 1 mile round trip) and that I would get ice cream after. And a foot massage. I still pouted the whole time.

The next day we went into San Antonio - through the ghetto I might add - and went to the Alamo and the Riverwalk. My mom was distraught that we only spent an hour at the Alamo but she has been 10 times before and will be going at least 2 more times this year so I'm sure she'll get over it. This pic is BF and I in front of the Alamo, but we kind of blend in with the doors - that's weird because fat chicks don't usually blend in with anything (obviously this is my new favorite place to take a picture).

After 5 days in glorious Texas we gathered up our snow suits and headed for Colorado for The Musicfest in Steamboat. We met Gem and Shelly in Denver where we found the most amazingly fancy Target store ever and where we also discovered that buying groceries for 5 people isn't as easy as just making a list. We made it through shopping without killing each other (barely) and then headed up to Steamboat. Now, this is my 3rd trip there but my first time driving and I have to say that it is a beautiful drive even with no snow. Seriously, there was no snow in Steamboat! It was well above freezing and brooks that shouldn't have been babbling were. It did snow one night so BF got to take a ski lesson (I didn't ski. I was going to but being from Alberta I wasn't going to ski on shitty man made snow, I'm better than that!). This pic is BF when he fell on the bunny hill and had to wait for the instructor to come and tell him how to get up all while a group of little twerps went gliding by. I laughed because I am a mean girlfriend. 

This is our condo "family"; Me, BF, Sarah, Shelly and Gem. You're probably thinking "why would BF subject himself to being trapped in a condo in a foreign country with 4 women?" The answer is we roofied him so he wouldn't know what was going on.

These condos are owned by people like you and me (if you and I had money to buy a ski in condo in Colorado, that is) and they had their creepy family pictures on display for all of the visitors through the year to look at. So being the smart asses we are, we decided to add our picture to their collection, Cosby Show style!

The rest of the time in Steamboat was full of beveraging, tromping from one show to another and trying to get extra shampoo from the front desk guy (mission completed).

I'll recap the actual music part of Musicfest in a separate post because not everyone will care and let's be honest, that may never happen anyway.

All you really need to know is that BF and I didn't kill each other on our first ever major vacation and that I got to do this whenever I wanted.

TV Time - How I Would Fix Big Brother

I haven’t blogged in a while because I’m so popular and wanted in so many different places that I’ve just been too busy. Ok, we all know that’s not true – I’ve been sitting my fat ass on the couch and watching what I’d like to vent about today – Big Brother.

I’ve watched Big Brother from day one. There have been people I really liked (Chicken George, Evil Dick, Dr. Will) and some that I literally hate (Brenchel, Jesse, and yes, even Jeff). After 13 seasons though I think the show is worn out and in need of a MAJOR revamp and this is how I think it should be done (CBS, I’m available for hire!):

The Players: No more “veterans” and “newbies”. Do either or but not both. This season has been the biggest snoozefest EVER. Even the newbs are boring – where are the huge blow outs? The all night parties? Would a little creativity kill these people??? Go back to getting clashing personalities and for goodness sake give them more booze! The drunker the better (for viewers anyway).

HOH – It’s time to make this more interesting. Don’t make it a competition every week, mix it up with that, a luck of the draw and America’s choice. Oh, and don’t tell them until right before what it is gong to be. Can you imagine how much crazier it would be the viewers got to play the game with them? Also, they should have to make decisions that will piss people off every week – like choosing the have-nots and appointing someone to be their personal assistant for the week. Oh yes, make them pick someone to be their cook, do their laundry and clean up anything in the house that needs it. That would definitely start some fights or at the very least get some emotion going.

Nominations – I’m so over the way it is done now. If you follow the live feeds at all you always know who is going up before it happens. And the constant stream of people wanting to cut deals they are never going to live up to is just silly. Again, I would bring in an America’s vote a few times, at other times I would make them name the nominations immediately after winning HOH so there can’t be any discussions and for other weeks the HOH  should have to make the nominations in secret in the diary room and they can’t be revealed until it is time to vote. Oh, and if they were revealed, the HOH would automatically go up as well. How crazy would that be???? I know, you are amazed at my brilliance.

The Power of Veto – I hate this part of the game. I don’t mind when someone gets back doored, but usually this is just another snoozefest. Again, this needs to be mixed up – some weeks can be competition as usual, some should be comps played by only those who are not HOH or nominated, some should be a blind draw and some weeks should be no veto at all making the nominations stand as is. And once again, no one should know what is going to happen from week to week – keep them guessing until the last minute and really make them play the game!

Evictions – I would bring back the viewer voting. People are so much more invested in a show when they get to make the decisions and it would throw a kink in the game if the houseguests didn’t know from week to week if they or America would be voting.

Have-Nots – I am over the whole “slop” thing, aren’t you? Make this more interesting by knowing what each houseguests favourite foods are and other things that they can’t live without and take those away. Yes, they can have hard beds but they should also have cold showers, eat only bran flakes and they should have to cook every meal for the Havs. Payback here would be a bitch!

The Feeds - I would also put the 24/7 feeds back to free, but we all know that will NEVER happen, so I’ll just leave it.

There are some other elements that I would add, like the ability for the house guests to request that the truth be told via a replay of a conversation. I would allow each house guest this privilege twice per season and if not such conversation existed, they would be told that too. Catching people in their lies is so much fun, why not create some more drama in the house? Also, I would send everyone who is evicted to another house for the rest of the summer – no one goes home until the end and we can watch them figure out things as another person enters. Fun, right? Now, if they really wanted to get crazy, have 2 houses start out with the same # of people, and then merge them at the halfway point and see what happens – just like survivor only they would never expect it! And how do you get them down to the numbers needed? An eviction a day until they get down to jury #’s. Oh yes, this could work!

Oh there is one last thing, the host. I don’t know of anyone who actually likes Chenbot, but she has got to go. She has been awful from DAY ONE yet here she is, 13 seasons later still doing an believably bad job. If there was ever a marriage I wanted to break up it is hers so that she would get the boot. If they had someone who was really into the show as the host it would be so much better. They could ask the GOOD questions and maybe even interact with fans. I wouldn’t be opposed to previous house guests doing it, as long as it isn’t some losers like Brenchel. Pick people who can actually string an intelligent sentence together and who other people, viewers included, can stand to watch.

So that’s it, that is how I would fix this show that I used to love but now just annoys me with the repetitive garbage we’re watching this summer.

What do you think?

People Really Are This Stupid

Well that's a piss off, my last blog post isn't here. I wrote it, I posted it and now it isn't here. Sometimes I really hate technology.

Anyway, I just had to share this whole new level of stupidity I've seen today. As you know, I'm on the condo board for my building and part of my responsibilities are to monitor the website and email for question, concerns, inquiries.  90 percent of the people in my building don't understand the difference between the board and the property manager so we'll get emails about the garage door not working or they need a new fob becuase they lost their.- all service/maintenance things that that the PM takes care of. The board only enforced bylaws and directs the PM where to spend money when necessary.
Needless to say, I get annoyed with dumbos at the best of times, but today someone actually emailed the condo board to tell us the 2nd floor smelled like smoke/fire. Emailed. The Board. Didn't call the fire dept or anything! The best part is we don't check the email all the time, not even every day. I just happened to see it as I was logging in for something else and I actually had to log out and log back in because I couldn't really believe that someone could be this retarded.
So how do you even respond to that kind of email? I want to say "well I guess since the building hasn't burnt down you were wrong this time" or what's more likely is "are you fucking kidding me with this shit? Are you really that moronic that although you were concerned enough to think there might be a fire you only wanted to let the board know a day or two later and not the fire dept now?" This person either needs to have 24/7 special assistance care or needs to be evicted so that I don't have to deal with their stupid ass.

In other news, the new high school across the street is almost done. This is good news and bad news. The good: fewer big noisy trucks interrupting my lunchtime patio naps; less dirt and dust piling up on my furniture, entertainment in the upcoming school year - you know I'm going to be yelling at kids to GET OFF MY LAWN! And now the bad: bigger line ups at 7-11 (this is really going to piss me off), more garbage everywhere and more complaints from residents in the building about the hooligans smoking on our property. Hey, if all they are doing is smoking cigarettes I will be happy.
I have one more year here, making it 6 years and the longest I have ever stayed in one place. There is a 50/50 chance I will snap and kill a kid before my lease it up and if do end up in jail please bring me some mini eggs.