Why I hate San Francisco cabs (and why I hope Lyft and Uber put them out of business)

I never thought I'd say this, but thank goodness for the SF Muni. Cause last night I took the bus home.

Alone.

At 1am.

I went out and had a great time with my former roommate and close friend, Cathy and a new friend, Ben, last night. Around midnight my phone was at 8% battery life, so I turned it off hoping to preserve it so I could call an Uber or Lyft home later. Of course, when I tried to turn my phone back on it was dead (thanks, Apple, for the shitbag update that is 6.1.3!)

So Cathy ordered me an Uber Taxi from her phone, we said our goodbyes as she and Ben were staying later, and I went outside to meet it at the designated spot. The app had said 4 minutes till the driver's arrival. And I don't know if it was because I didn't look like Cathy enough for him to stop and recognize me, or if he canceled or called her phone and got no answer, but no Uber Taxi ever came. But, at this time of night downtown SF was crawling with cabs, so not a huge deal I should just be able to flag one down.

So I did.

Me: *gets in cab and sits down* "Yeah I'm going to [address in Outer Richmond]."

Cabbie: "Oh, I don't have time to go to Outer Richmond."

This actually translates to "I can't get a return fare in Outer Richmond and I'm a cheap dick so fuck you and your need to get home." Yes, I'm pretty sure they're not allowed to do this and this happened with two different cabbies last night! And this has happened before to me with SF cabs and trying to get back home.

After the second cab turned me down I happened to see a 38 bus coming and just decided to take that home. Was a little slow, but at least it was free and more reliable than the cabs here.

This isn't the first time I've had to deal with cabbies denying us service after finding where we want to go, but has been the first time I've had to deal with it alone. I guess I'll just invest in a backup battery charger so I never have to go without my access to Uber or Lyft ever again.

Dear UPS, part 2

I know I've complained about your service before, but I just couldn't help but share how completely contradictory your policies are. Little over a week ago you were set to deliver my new, $1200 laptop. I figured, from our past dealings, that you would just leave me a doortag and I'd have to wait an extra day or two. 

But on my walk home that day I saw your truck! And I ran to catch it before the driver took off.

"Did you have a package for this address?"
"Yeah I left it on the porch."

You left my twelve hundred fucking dollar laptop on my porch? I mean yeah, I live in a pretty safe neighborhood and it would have been convenient had I actually missed your delivery, but really? $1200 item left on my fucking porch?

A few days later I ordered some cat food on Amazon for my cat because:
1. The pet store is far and I'm lazy.
2. It was cheaper and free 2-day shipping woo!

Guess what I came home to find a UPS doortag on the door for, two days later?

Fuck you, UPS.

Dear UPS,

Why do you hate me?

You used to leave my packages, the ones that said no signature was required. But back in May you stopped. Just suddenly you stopped. You even had me sign the doortag once only to leave me another doortag on top of it the next day.

Why would you do that to me?

I mean, I can understand for expensive things like my laptop. But cheap things?

You left my roommates $40+ worth of Mass Effect books (nerd) but you won't leave my $20 Sonic Screwdriver (also nerd)? Why?

You always do it when it's something I really want too.  I tracked the package all day and was home during your "First attempt" but, no, you just must've seen the broken doorbell and said "WELP guess I tried."

I know our doorbell is broken, but that's why the note on it says "Out of Order PLEASE KNOCK." Do you see that big, open window upstairs? Seriously just knock on the door, I can hear it. I can hear my roommates opening the door when they come home, I'm sure I can hear your fist pounding on it.

The FedEx guy figured it out, why can't you?

I fucking hate AT&T

A few months ago I swore off tweeting about how much I hate AT&T. Why? Because I felt like it was becoming a far too often occurrence.

Except now it's become all bottled up inside of me. Especially now, with summer here, the service is even worse with tourists, festivals and fucking Cubs games.

So I'm just going to let it all out:

I fucking hate you, AT&T.

I hate you so much that I'm counting down the days till my contract is up. (310 left by the way).

I hate that when I'm downtown my phone works better (and by better I mean AT ALL) when I turn 3G off. That's right, I run on the fucking EDGE network because if I don't then nothing loads! Apparently every fucking person in the loop is also on your shitty 3G network!

I hate that if there's a Cubs game that my phone is rendered completely useless at my apartment, even though we live 1.5 miles west of Wrigley Field.

I hate that my roommate has an iPhone on Verizon and it loads a bajillion times faster than mine. I also hate that she gets signal almost everywhere! Oh group texts are coming to her but not to the other two of us on AT&T? Well shit.

I hate that you say I can't do data and voice at the same time on Verizon and that's your only selling point for me to stay with you. Except, I can only do data and voice if I'm on your fucking 3G network which, as already discussed, hardly ever works! I've also noticed that, sometimes, once I start a call that my 3G will magically disappear.

AT&T: Voice and data at the same time! HAHAH, just kidding. It doesn't work either.

I hate that I know where the deadzones are on the L. I hate that there are deadzones at all.

I hate that if I have 3 bars and a 3G signal it really means I have no signal, because my phone basically says "Oh you want that to load? Fuck you."  2 bars? Works. 4 bars? Works. 3 bars? Fuck you.

I hate that I'm trying to send an email from my phone RIGHT FUCKING NOW and it won't send!

I cannot wait until I am done with your joke of a service.

Fuckers.

Know what I hate?

Textbooks. More specifically, the textbook industry. College kids are being ripped off as is with tuition prices. What, when students in Europe get free university education, and I'm here payin' $30k a year to get me some learnins. I paid $80 for a book today. $80 dollars for a paperback book that is no bigger than your typical paperback novel. It is ri-damn-diculous how expensive textbooks are. I'm lucky that two of my professors have said the earlier edition is fine (because older edition books are cheap as hell on sites like Amazon because most schools are only selling/using the newer ones) and that my Japanese book from last quarter is good for the first three Japanese courses. So while my total of $97 (Chicago sales tax is a bitch) for books this quarter isn't as bad as say, $300, it's still a royal pain in the ass. And a hole in the pocket.

Know what I hate?

This is going to be a new thing. I notice a lot I say "Know what I hate?" about tons of different things and figure I might as well start writing some of them down. I may just continue to update this post, but it would probably be easier if I did multiple ones for updates sake.

Know what I hate?

People who type "lol" or especially "LOL" before or after everything.
Please note what is in BOLD. I didn't say I hate people who say "lol." I said I hate people who say "lol" ALL THE FUCKING TIME.

Example:
Me: How are you?
Them: LOL I'm okay.

THERE IS NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT WHAT YOU SAID OR WHAT I ASKED. I can guarantee, unless you've got a very sensitive sense of humor, that I doubt that either of us actually laughed out loud.

Why I dislike essays.

Despite the fact that I am a decently talented writer, especially when it comes to essays, I absolutely abhor the act of writing them. I hate being told to write this about this and argue a point about it.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy writing, but I enjoy writing when it's something I'm passionate about or something I believe in. If I didn't like writing I wouldn't post blogs. I do not enjoy writing when it's a topic being force fed to me.


Such is the case of the essay I just finished working on. After a whole day of procrastination, which involved cleaning my computer and keyboard, and some porn [procrastination orgasms are arguably some of the best], and enjoying even some of the most pointless of websites, I finally decided I had reached the point where my only option was to start the essay.


We were given a choice of topics. I chose this one: "What brought about the upheavals of 1857? What happened? How would you characterize the uprising?"


The first two questions only ask me to regurgitate the knowledge I have been given through the books for the class and the in class lectures. This type of knowledge regurgitation requires little to no thought process, as the materials you need [books, notes, intArweb, etc] are at your disposal.

Stamps

Since I got back to college I've been asking people to send me letters. Yes email and phone calls are nice, but there's a certain feeling you get when you open your mailbox and find a letter just waiting for you. Maybe this is because someone actually took the time to handwrite a letter just for you. Or maybe I'm just insane and I'm the only person who gets giddy when finding something in my mailbox.

I got a letter from my friend, Kyle last week. I wrote him a reply only to realize I have no stamps. Everyday I had free time I went down to the post office not far off campus. But, every time I was there the line was insane and they only had one person working. I'm not big on standing in lines so I'd leave. (This post office doesn't seem to have one of those amazing stamp vending machines either).

So I did what I do best. I ordered a roll of 20 stamps online. I did this five days ago on the 20th. It said on the site that orders take one business day to ship.

It's been five business days. The status of my order is still "In progress. Usually ships within 1 business day."

How hard is it to mail stamps? They don't need any special packing. Hell for all I care they can use one of my stamps to mail me my stamps. Take one off, put the stamps in an envelope and put one of my stamps on said envelope. I don't really care, but I can't imagine it would take 5 days to package and ship a roll of stamps. Five days ago I wasn't in desperate need for stamps, but it's starting to get to the point of "I really need to send my reply letter soon before Kyle thinks I'm some sort of jackass."