Big Truck Rant (Maybe)

Really?

Earlier this week I was picking up lawn mower parts at a big box hardware store. While I was there and going up the road that accesses the store a truck basically pushed myself and one or two other cars behind me almost or into the lane of opposing traffic.

Typical scenario – right? Typical action on a truck driver, right?

I don’t believe so – I have too many friends that professionally drive, so I don’t believe this in any way is typical. I believe a truck driver doing this is the minority.

Having said that, I beeped simply because I didn’t think the driver noticed me. At the angle he was going there was a strong possibility of a big blind spot. I finally got past him and proceeded to park and go into the store to purchase the parts I needed.

When I was in the store, the truck driver sought me out and confronted me.

He started with “Thanks for the beep – I was in the truck”.

I replied with “I beeped because I didn’t think you noticed me already half was up your rig since you only turn your turn signals on half into the turn”.

He replied with “That’s BS” and proceeded to harass me in the store. When I walked away he aggressively followed me until I got to  customer service desk. I alerted the rep of the situation and quickly checked out to make sure thy driver did not go back out to damage my car.

Later I alerted the big box hardware co via their customer service email of the harassment and fear that the driver may have also taken down my license plate to harass me or my family later.

The big box hardware co replied back with a letter that basically said “unfortunately they’re just a vendor to us, so we really don’t care”. In other words “we have better lawyers than you could ever get ….. so don’t worry about trying to take legal action to protect yourself”.

Now … this is a rant post if the driver was wrong in finding a harassing a customer of a business they were supplying it.

So, knowing other professional drivers and having their opinions … what do SWB’s readers think?  do I pursue or drop?

I still award a clueless trophy to the driver for being dumb enough to harass a customer of a business you want to remain a vendor for.

-SWB

Woohooooo! The flowers are back!

Golly gee, I’m excited!

Because of flowers?!?!?!?

Well, sort of … not all flowers, I guess.

A special kind of flower – but rare? No.

Does it have odd colors? A Unique design?? Nope.

What’s so special?

It’s most popular in Spring in PA.

Well ….. what???

Official PA State Flower

Yeah …. that flower.

Welcome to Pennsylvania Spring and safety orange.

-SWB

…. as my dog would say – “grooooooaaannnn”

We’re being watched …

“Shut up and give me food” (c) Lawrence A Capozzolo

Yes, we’re being watched,

All the time, everywhere, everyplace …

By the most offended people on the planet.

Ourselves.

Yep …. we seem to offend ourselves so much that we are in a perpetual loop of self-amusement.

We’ve taken offense to a completely new art form … we are now at the point of being offending from more than one direction by the multiply offended who are offended by the offenses of the overly offended (how DARE the offended take a bigger offense to US being offended!! – THIS IS ATROCIOUS!!). I’m offended – I want “Night Court” back on TV so I can state my offense on a non-offended, offensively offending sitcom where any offense cannot be taken seriously (how can you not be indescribably offended by the non-offense of an 80s sitcom …. WTF????).

Come one, humans …. have I made my point?

Talk to each other, face to face …. not through special interest groups.

When humans talk to humans, politics ends … when humans talk through SIGs only, humanity ends.

… think a little bit before being offended and take time to talk to the other humans …. they may be going through the same thing, just on different section of the color wheel. We all have brains, we all have hearts ….. time to make them active again.

Practice “human therapy” and the animals will still have people to feed them.

-SWB

P.S. This SWB Clueless award goes to all humans. We seem to have simply given up on understanding that talking can solve many, if not all issues. Will all of the talking be nice, happy, and surrounded by cute picket fences? …. no – some will be passionate and to the point, but it will be talking. Will we all agree – no, but at least we will be talking.

Dollar Bank and MasterCard Drop the ball big time

First … to consumers, this is a credit/debit card alert (and most likely you’ll hear it from us WAY before hearing it from Dollar Bank or Master Card): MasterCard caught a processor possibly fraudulently charging to customer accounts, so cards were shut off and/or canceled.

Now on to the rant.  After standing in a store having my card twice declined as a debit, and then declined as a credit, I called the number on the card to see what was going on.  They informed me there was a card security issues and my card was shut off and canceled. When I asked who was the “offender” I was told that MasterCard does not inform Dollar Bank.

Now, I have online banking with alerts set to go to email ….. never received anything and was told by customer service that only if I had happened to log on to http://www.dollarbank.com would I have seen an alert.   Now keep in mind we left PNC for multiple reasons, one being that we felt they used bailout money to drive National City down to acquire them – which in our eyes was illegal.

…but…

When something happens on your account with PNC and previously with National City, you knew via email immediately (or within minutes) what was going on.  Not specifics, mind you, but general info … ie. “your card was shut off due to security issues, call customer service for more info.”.  Neither National City dropped the ball on their customers by not informing them especially if they had elected to be informed with their account alerts via email.

So … basically still being clueless because I don’t know what vendor I am dealing with that was trying to post fraudulent charges to accounts associated with my bank, by no fault of my own after I get my new card I will be forced to link that card or use that card with a vendor that was known to process fraudulent charges.  The best security is to immediately inform and keep your customers informed.  Dollar Bank and MasterCard both dropped the ball on that by keeping their customers in the dark.

So, we elect to give a clueless trophy to Dollar Bank for being back around the early 90s in technology that keeps their customers in the dark, and to instantly going from what we thought was the better bank in Pittsburgh to what in our opinion is now close to being a joke.

We also give MasterCard a trophy for making sure their customers are in the dark so as the thieves of the world can take their pickings.

-SWB

PS – When we had National City / Visa combo as our banking … no issues.  Dollar Bank / MasterCard … issues.  BE AWARE.

Hearing Voices

In A quote (we cropped the it for our use) from WPXI onTwitter, the following was said:

“Monaca To Test Voice Warning System: Monaca residents will be hearing voices around noon…”

OK, ummmm ……..

Maybe Dr Phil can help?

…. oops, sorry – wrong network.

-SWB

Changes To SWB

Our New Owners

Yup, we being taken over.

This is for the good.  After being inactive for a while, another site has inquired about taking over Screaming Weasel.  There will be changes, it will retain some of  the sarcasm, but will lose some of the “rantiness”  and negativity that it had when it started around 2005-2006 and rant blogs were the fad – although we will gripe a little through it,  and SWB will be the occasional guest writer.

We think you’ll like it … and what it will present about Pittsburgh.

If you want to check out our new owners, Click Here

Here is their future WordPress Blog (Click Here)

Please welcome Karyon Nightly (sophisticatedpgh) as  the new main writer.

-SWB

Teens proving their stupidity

When we do things in PA, we do them right.

Even the teens.  When I was young, many of us did our best to show our stupidity by doing dumb things like egging a car, T.P.ing a tree … fairly non destructive stuff.  Well, each generation tries harder and harder … and I think this generation’s teen have hit a historic milestone in the heights of stupidity.

In this article by Margaret Harding of the Tribune Review, teens did damage to 21 vehicles by running and jumping on them (fortunately someone did have a camera pointed their way, so maybe they can determine the fate of some of those teens). It’s nice to know courtesy of today’s quality of teens PA will most likely head into history looking like a state full of idiots (and we thought the politicians would end up doing that for us).

Full SWB Clueless Award to these kiddies (and hopefully a few mug shots too)

-SWB

PS – Parents … keeping your kids feeling all good and happy via no discipline enables them to do things like this – oh who am I kidding voicing this to parents that don’t wanna hurt their kiddies feelings because the world is sooooooo hard.

BTW … The Port Authority said the cameras they ordered for the parking lot have not come in yet (translation: We didn’t order any and we’ll wait till this blows over so we don’t have to).

With This Driver, Stupidity Reigns!

This must be a highlight day in the Pittsburgh for dolts in the news.  This little tidbit actually did happen.

27 year old (probably 10 mentally) Brad Crawford, drove onto the Parkway West going the wrong way with his headlights off.

Click Here for the Trib’s posting about the incident.

They’re doing tox tests.  Hmmmm … wonder if they thunks this may have a bit to do with controlled substances?

Anyway, enjoy this little this little “so stupid it actually did happen” snippet from the news.

-SWB

PS – the true things that are happening in society are validating reality shows so much more every day.

Farm To Table Event (Eat Local!)

Here is an event that deserves BIG Kudos!

The Farm To Table annual convention (click here to check it out) is starring at the David Lawrence Convention Center next weekend (March 26 to 27th, 2010). The convention is run by The Pathways To Wellness Program (click here to go there) and promotes the buying and using of local foods.  Check out the site, because there is a link where you can subscribe for deliver of local foods, alleviating you from the tedious hunt for it, and giving you the perks of getting it.

So SWB is giving them a big Kudos for supporting local growers and upping awareness via the convention.  Keep it up … more local food farming = better food and health.

PCFA and Pathways to SmartCare are now in SWB Recommends!

-SWB

Two For One: Waived Snow Days and Pitt Anarchist

First … Happy real St Patrick’s day to y’all.

Now, on to the gripe … it’s two for one idiots in the news article day, so feel special.

Snow Days:

This is just a joke … the state (or county) is deciding who gets waived snow days.  Now, when I went to school you just made them up.  There was no question about it.  Family vacations and other things did not take precedence over the importance of being in school or making up days.  This is just dumb, but what makes it worse is someone after the level of storms we had is deciding who gets waived. I’m sure they will quickly forget that we were in this together.  You can almost guarantee that certain areas will be waived over others, and not due to the level of winter issues in that area … use your imagination, you can dream up the reasons. We’re not going to highlight any articles to go to, just check out the Tribune-Review, Post-Gazette, KDKA, WPXI, etc as there will be enough stories to just catch one.

The Pitt Anarchist:

What do you do if you are a popular college in the area to get news coverage and perk up your income?? … that’s right!!, you got it!! … you invite the guy that was affiliated with the group bombed your city in the 70’s to come speak on his anti-US views.  Real winner, Pitt.  Maybe you should fire all of your American teachers, put a ban on them, and outsource your school, since by inviting an anti-Pittsburgh, anti-US speaker to the city he helped bomb (11 buildings by the way) you’ve proven your views.  Click Here to check out the article from the Tribune-Review by Chris Togneri.  Free speech is one thing … but this is another thing.

-SWB

PS – Oh well, at least our top universities and politicians prove they can consistently work at the same level of stupidity.

Working Off Those Perks

You’ve heard us mention going into the city and parking far away for the purpose of getting some exercise. It really is a great way to do that, but sorry to announce,we have some ulterior motives.

Here are a few of them:

• The first one, and most important is donuts … the city has one of the few nicer Dunkin’ Donut stores around.
• The second, and almost as important is the exercise walk … which helps us burn off enough calories to make room for at least three or four donuts.  This is important as we aren’t trying to slim down, but at least keep to a point where we can walk off some calories.
• The third … there is just nothing like seeing the people.  All those happy smiling faces glowing with the rewards of their jobs. Alright … they’re really frowns, but if you hang upside down from one of the store signs, they look like smiles.
• The fourth … the construction now going on in Pittsburgh.  There is no need to join the Army or Marines to obtain access to a good obstacle course now.  The city has provided that for us. Fortunately, if you fall into a hole, you can usually land  on the next subway car and ride until the next stop.  If they don’t see you on the roof, they can’t charge you.
• The fifth … the ability to get a fifth from at least five wine spirits shops in the city. This can quickly make your day brighter (especially if it’s a typical partly cloudy Pittsburgh day), and also helps dull the pain from hitting the T-car after you fell into one of the holes in the street ending up in the subway.

So, as you see, strategic parking allows you to work off some perks and gain some too.

-SWB

PS – For those a little light in cerebral material … we WERE kidding about falling into the subway.

It’s Spring!

Birds are singing.

Snow is melting.

Potholes are blooming.

Green shamrocks are growing in the potholes.

You get the idea … it’s turning Spring in Pittsburgh.

—————

So what other signs of Spring do we have in this wonderful city of ours?

Let’s see:

• The pirates are starting spring training with aspirations to actually become a baseball team again.
• The waters are threatening to crest and carry Pittsburgh’s Primanti sandwiches out to sea.
• The Cultural District smells like a well tuned engine with the performances of Grease (or could that be the oil leaks from the buses?).
• Orange pylons are emerging from winter storage as Pittsburgh’s roadway obstacle courses are set for the Spring and Summer seasons.
• In The Strip, dogs howl as the sweet voices of the Opera blend with the musical tones of the local bird song.
• The aromas from the open doors at Pittsburgh Popcorn enlighten the senses (and unfortunately distract the drivers … that kitty never had a chance).
• Vendors in the strip finally shed their winter garb, thaw out, and begin wakening from hibernation (it was sad how people just stole their stuff when they were sleeping over the winter).
• Oh, and did I mention the potholes?  Well, we’re not going to make fun of the city crew, since this is really going to be a sucky Spring for them … although they fill all probably end up fitter than a fiddle (until St. Patty’s Day … along with everyone else).

-SWB

PS – Yup, Spring is in the air … so is the job market, fuel prices, home values.  Such appropriate crisis’ for the Spring 😉

St. Patrick’s Day Parade Changes

Well, it’s less than a week from the 2010 St. Patty’s Day parade, and if you haven’t heard there are changes.

Yup … in a town that pushes back against changes like a 767 jet engine pushing back against a 100 ton hydraulic press … that seems a little weird.

I mean … no party in Market Square.  Who cares if it’s a mud pit right now … nobody is usually coherent enough during the parade to care or notice, and if they wake up back home covered in mother earth they’ll just figure they forgot to take their clothes off before hitting the mud bath at the spa.

And no open alcohol.  That’s an issue.  Not that I’m pro-drunks or of the thinking that being Irish is about being drunk.  Absolutely not … that’s just offensive.  This issue is that the best part of the parade is not the parade (although that is a good show) – it’s watching the drunks pinging off the telephone poles. Since most of the poles are metal in the city, depending on the frequency and size of the heads hitting them, you can occasionally hear a tune being played from the pings … honest.

I’ll miss that.

… and what excuse will you have for your boss when he’s working on the weekend and sees you dancing on top of the parked cars in the street??  If you actually did things like that sober, you probably wouldn’t be working for him.

-SWB

PS – Oh well, change happens … sometime not for the best.

Anyway, Click Here for a link with some info on the changes from Channel 4.

The “Toyota Bomb”

The most popular question of the day:

“Do you think Toyota is being treated unfairly by our government?” … YES.

Why?

Because what is happening is something we try to make sure never happens in the corporate world, and is setting a precedent that could have some serious ramifications later in all corporate businesses.

And that is? ….. Conflict of interests. Really, really, big conflict of interests.

The U.S. government, because of the bailouts now effectively owns part of the U.S. car manufacturers (or at least some of them). That puts them in a very dangerous place where doing any regulation on the car manufacturers they do not own sets precedents to allow that to happen on a regular basis in real business.

This could set the scenario where an exec sits on one company and also on an another company selling or manufacturing like products allowing for price fixing, and monopolizing of an industry or product.

That happending could end up being a huge problem nobody in business wants, besides a few top controllers of the corporate world. It could also set the precedent of government control of businesses (and not in a good way).

What should be done with the Toyota issue?

There should have been a panel assembled of experts and representatives from the auto and safety industries from all countries where Toyota sells. They should have been the ones to review the Toyota recall issues and publish a decision and recommendations on those findings. All of the countries involved should have agreed to go by those published findings and decisions. This would have eliminated the conflict of interests legal issue our government has with handling this themselves.

The Toyota issue is not only hurting Toyota, it is hurting all auto sales from foreign companies, especially from Japan. Speaking to my father, who sells Honda, their sales are being hurt from this issue too. It’s helping the American companies, but way before they fix their own issues … and that’s another problem.

Think also, how many more people are employed in this country by companies like Toyota, Honda, etc. The good paying jobs and up being more numerous in those companies than in the American ones (I know this from how well Honda treats my father with bonuses, etc and how poorly I saw him treated when selling and working for the American car companies. I also have friends that worked for Chrysler, GM, etc and moved over to Toyota or Honda that are much happier now).

If the government messes up on this issue, it could end up hitting us even further in the economic groin … further rendering us useless as a financially powerful country.

We may want to think this one out a little further before putting a bullet in Toyota’s head, or we may end up dead from the ricochet. Issues like this are ones where you want to make sure you are thinking out how the resolutions you give will determine how that industry or business goes over the next five years, not just today or this month, etc.

Yes, Toyota needs to work on things like transparency …. but so do our companies. As they say “the one that has done no sin may throw the first stone.” I don’t think the U.S. is qualified to throw the first stone.

Well, since it is so deserving, SWB is handing out it’s frst never-ending clueless trophy. It’s good for as long as the U.S. Government is around, for as good as it is designed, the clueless will always be present within it.

The “Toyota Bomb” is ticking … will our government stop the show in time before it blows?

-SWB

PS – Our government needs to get back to governing. The people are quite capable of not buying Toyota’s if they don’t like them or don’t trust them.

The “Pittsburgh Winter” is officially back

If you think we are a little late on this post … read on.

A “Pittsburgh Winter” is only official once the car damage starts.  I’m not talking about the damage from mindless idiots trying to drive 65 during one of the worst storms we’ve had in years … I’m talking about the other damage.

Think about it … come on, you can figure it out ….

That’s right … the potholes.

So far we’ve had to spend $270 on front tires for our 2008 Fit due to rapid fire hits from potholes.  Even if the belt in the tire was going bad, the potholes helped it bite the dust.  The 12 year old I own Civic just got the windshield taken out from a loose asphalt cannon ball hitting it.  That’s another $210.

Yup we now have an official, down home “Pittsburgh Winter”.  Yay!!!

The thing that makes it even worse than the ones I used to remember when I was young is that the 2010 storm was bad enough you can’t even chew out the road crews.  If you handed every Burgher a 5 gallon pail of cold fill asphalt, they’d never be able to keep up.  That just creates more stress when you can’t blame another human.

-SWB

PS – I guess I shouldn’t complain since I survived an ice hit from the bridges … but I’m a Pittsburgh, so I’m required to complain.  What about these out of town folks moving here?, can’t we force them to earn their Pittsburgh citizenship status by filling potholes during lunch???