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Latest Humorous T-shirt Slogan:
"You Wish!"
This one has to be taken in context to be appreciated. The girl wearing this belly shirt was maybe 5'0" tall, with a muffin top going on, despite the fact that she was clearly in her third trimester of pregnancy. In addition she was wearing a thong that came up past her low-rise jeans and pushed her muffin top down over the edge to really emphasize the roll. I'm not in perfect shape so I don't expect that others should be, but when you are wearing that shirt, along with the rest of the outfit, you open yourself to scrutiny (and perhaps random looks of horror).

It's fun to hate:
The Soccer Moms who insist that they drive gas-guzzling SUV's for the safety of their children despite the fact that they are 6 times more likely to be in a rollover accident than any other vehicle. It's like beating your child unconscious with the butt of your gun so that he will remain on the floor, thus making him less likely to be hit by a random bullet coming through the front window.

When Shadowtwin reigns supreme:
There will be mandatory, passive birth control required to participate in any form of government assistance. If you can't afford to raise your child on your own we are here to help you, but we must first make sure that your reproductive organs are adequately contained. If you don't like that policy all you have to do is support your kids your damn self!
Vote Shadowtwin!


Wildly inaccurate, yet shockingly precise, predictions based completely on happenstance and arbitrary universal fluctuations.
Your Horoscope:


Sagitarius: 11/22-12/21
A typographical error in your Church's newsletter will lead to you performing sex acts on dozens of anonymous strangers in your pursuit of "oral highground."

Capricorn: 12/22-1/19
The stars did recently tell your wife to "listen to her heart" regarding whether or not she should leave you. The stars did not intend for you to listen to her heart. But once you used that bonesaw on her sternum (not trusting the stethoscope which just responded with a cryptic thumping sound), we're pretty sure she made up her mind anyway.

Aquarius: 1/20-2/18
The stars would like to apologize for stating in their last prophecy, "Be wary of the stranger you meet at beach this weekend. The stars aren't sure why, but they don't trust him." Through a cosmic hiccup, that information was supposed to be released this month. The August prophecy should have read, "A dark and handsome stranger will approach you on the beach, profess his love for you, and sweep you away for a jetset marriage. After which you will lead a long, happy, prosperous, healthy life as the Queen of a small island nation." We apologize for any inconvenience this error may have caused.

Pisces: 2/19-3/20
Your new stopwatch will allow you to time how long you can hold your breath underwater down to the thousandth of a second. Unfortunately, poor planning will mean that you are not able to actually share the information with anyone.

Aries: 3/21-4/19
Your innovative new device for beauticians to use while giving pedicures can be wildly successful and make you quite wealthy IF you change the name. Trust us, no one is going to buy a "Ped-O-File".

Taurus: 4/20-5/20
Your Mother always told you to wear clean underwear just in case there was an accident and paramadics had to see them. But as you board that plane today, the stars want you to know that you needn't worry about it. The debris field will be more than 8 square miles, making it impossible to find most human remains. Not to mention that the ensuing fire burned so hot that it disintegrated not only all fabric, but most of the thin metals aboard as well.

Gemini: 5/21-6/21
You just had to get that genital piercing, didn't you? The stars tried to warn you not to, but you went ahead and did it anyway... Now all your worst fears will come to bear when, at a campground this weekend, you run afoul of this guy:


Cancer: 6/22-7/22
The less traveled by areas of the Grand Canyon's north rim offer some of the most breathtaking views of this natural wonder. You will soon find out they also include some of the worst footings and none of the handrails. They do, however, provide equally awe-inspiring, terminal velocity impacts.

Leo: 7/23-8/22
The stars heard your pleas, begging for someone who you could share your love with and embrace for the rest of your life. If you are still single, throw your arms around the closest person to you at 3:44pm GMT on Dcember 9th -That'll be the one. Trust us, you won't have time to be picky...

Virgo: 8/23-9/22
The stars have piled up most of your things on the front porch. You can stay at a friend's house, but you aren't coming back home until you admit what you did and apologize. The stars' Mother was right about you... (you must have really pissed them off; the stars were in tears while they told me this)

Libra: 9/23-10/22
The stars have been doing a little thinking and a lot of math. The population of planet earth is roughly 6,796,590,704. That means that roughly 566,382,558 people share each astrological sign. About 18,620,796 have the same birthday. Based on average life expectancy as many as 248,277 people were born on the same day, in the same year, for every zodiac sign. How can one statement possibly predict the future of all of them? Ehh, fuck it. "A full moon while Venus is rising is an omen of good things to come."

Scorpio: 10/23-11/21
They say you never know how you are going to react to a crisis. After a home invasion this weekend you will: You will scream, "Do whatever you want to my wife, but leave me alone!" You will then create a distraction by throwing your newborn at the assailant as you dive through the window to safety. Now you know.

Music lost to history:

Aerosmith - Dream On When I started doing these, I could never have imagined that I would be putting an Aerosmith song here. Since I was born in 1974, this song is well before my generation. It was recorded in 1972 and released in 1983 on Aerosmith's Self-Titled Album, but to read the information on it at Wikipedia most of us would become familiar with it from a re-release in 1976.

Like most of the music being released in the late 60's/early 70's that was pushing the rock-n-roll envelope, Dream On relies heavily on solid composition and and melody. Before the era of the modern effects processor, these bands had no distortion to hide behind (or very little), and synthesized instruments hadn't yet made their way into music. In that way the music always sounds more raw to us today because, quite simply, it was. While it seems laughable to think about today, music like this was so far removed from the bubble-gum pop of the 50's that it still wasn't accepted into the mainstream. As the baby-boomers became the target demographic, the rock-n-roll movement really started to pick up speed, with bands like Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith clearing the path for the much darker and heavier bands like Black Sabbath.

While I (and most of my generation) are probably far more familiar with the Aerosmith of the late 80's and early 90's, the reason this song makes it onto my MLtH page comes down to one thing: Age. Not necessarily the age of the song; In fact, as I sat down to do the research for this today, I had no idea when it was released, but would have guessed (closely) the mid 70's. Tyler was born March 26, 1948, meaning that this song was written when he was only 24 years old. I'm not sure why, but I have always thought this song was pretty amazing given his age at composition. I suppose it is human nature to wax poetic about the days of yore and the imminent passage of time, but the melody sets a mood that makes you feel it right along with him. As the song nears the end and his lyrics become more more frenzied, you can almost feel the pain (longing?) in his voice. Listen to it with headphones and no distraction sometime, you'll see what I mean.

I wrote a short bit some time ago about Kelly Sweet's cover of this song (see the video on Youtube). While I have since gotten over the initial hatred I felt towards the cover of the song, I still just can't like it. The words are there; she hits the notes; but I just can't hear it in her voice. As if there is somthing very personal about the song and Tyler's deliverance of the lyrics that just can't be duplicated. At least to me.

That said, I have heard Aerosmith doing the song with an orchestra, and it also seems to lack the passion of the original. So perhaps the thing that I like so much about it is the under-produced, raw sound of it, or it may be that I am still hearing it through the ears of that impressionable youth that heard if for the first time in a dusty old Van with my Uncle Art. Either way, it seems it is Lost to History.

Music Lost to History Archive


I Can't Believe it's Not Porn!
WhorePresents.comYep, it's not porn. It's not a site with gifts for sale either, which is probably a good thing since I can't imagine that any woman would be at all flattered to get a gift -no matter how nice- in a box that says "Whore Presents.com" on it.

Daily Reading:
BlackChampagne
Magazine Man
Shane Nickerson
Wil Wheaton
Boners
Hoyazo's Poker Blog

My reading list changes from time to time, and there are many sites that I visit that are not on the list. They are listed in the order that I visit them, enjoy!



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Shadowtwin.com: Free Advertising for Citibank!



Thursday, March 16, 2006
 

Free Advertising for Citibank!

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 purchases. That is a lot of time to have to wait to get the money back in your bank account, especially if the rent is due. If your credit card is used fraudulently all you have to do is cancel it, then take care of the paperwork at your leisure. Much less stressful.

Of course I would be lying if I said that the only reason I use a credit card is to book hotel rooms. I do use them for all sorts of stuff, and I do maintain a balance on one card. It keeps my credit in good standing (funny thing about credit is if you quit using it the companies assume that you are no longer creditworthy), and is far cheaper than doing some highway robbery rent to own type bullshit.

Anyway, I cancelled a credit card in January. They decided to jack the interest rate from 6.9% to 14.9%, and homey don't play that. So I sent in a final payment, cut the credit card up and that was that. Until today that is.

I sent in a check that was one dollar more than the total balance, thus leaving the account with a 1 dollar credit. It seems that their computer systems are pretty serious about what they consider a "balance". I guess my contract stated that there was a minimum one dollar finance charge when the card had a "balance", the fine print must not have stipulated that it be a positive balance, cause they charged me the finance charge on a negative balance. Now, through some sort of weird math that only credit companies can understand, that didn't take my account balance to $0 (which it should have, -1+1=0, right?), it took my balance to $.03. Yes, three cents. Very fishy math, that.

The last statement that I saw was still showing a credit of one dollar. The next one I got was showing a balance of 15.98, without a purchase being made. The one dollar credit became a 3 cent balance, which they tacked a one dollar finance charge onto, then, then, they had the nerve to tack on a 14.95 late payment fee, even though they hadn't been sending me statements! Yeah!

So I dialed up India (that is where all the call centers are, isn't it?) and, after about ten minutes of navigating the maze that is the automated call center, got to speak to Apu himself. I told him I simply wanted to close the account and be done with it. I think he asked me what I was disappointed with, though I could barely understand a word he said so I can't be sure. I told him that I didn't appreciate being charged a finance charge and late fee on a negative balance, which he said he understood, and he would gladly close the account if I would remit payment for 15.98. That pissed me off even more. I yelled at him for about five minutes, even though I know it wasn't his fault, simply because it made me feel better to lash out at someone.

Apu said that he was authorized to waive the late fee one time based on my good history with their company, (I could almost hear him reading it from the form letter, I bet they get this phone call a lot). But this still left me with a balance of 1.03, which I would have to pay in order to close the account. Not only that but there was a 9.95 fee to make the payment by phone. Fuck That! Okay, now the gloves were off.

You know that point where you get so pissed off that you go beyond anger and into a sort of freakily-tranquil, rage-induced calm? Where every word that comes out of your mouth is with a sort of firm staccato? I was there. "Send me a copy of every statement since December please."

"I can do that Mr. Burgess, can you verify your mailing address for me?" He mispronounced my name, but I didn't care.

I verified the information for him, then added "I would also like your name and the name of your supervisor..." paused for a moment, then added, "my attorney may need it."

This was, of course, and idle threat; I would have to be insane to try to take on a credit company as large as Citibank (woops, let the name slip). Then again, it wasn't the money that was pissing me off, so who knows. Thankfully I won't have to know, since the moment the word "attorney" left my lips Apu wanted me to talk to someone higher up in the chain of command.

The supervisor had a worse accent than Apu, I really couldn't understand anything she said. I did most of the talking though. There was generous use of the words "close my account", "waive all fees", "or else" and, of course, "attorney". I probably said each of them a half a dozen times, basically whenever she tried to say anything. In less than five minutes my account was closed, and she had graciously offered to send me the one dollar credit that remained in my account. It was so simple.

I just have to wonder how many people just pay the fees. In my case it was pretty clear that I was being fleeced, but what if someone's statement never arrived? Do most people simply pay the fee as opposed to going through the hassle of getting the fee removed? Do the credit card companies intentionally not send out statements to force the members to pay the fees? If I had to go through all this with Citibank (being one of the larger credit companies), what would you have to go through with some smaller bank?

Being the cynical person that I am, I believe that the majority of this is intentional. Most credit cards are not issued in the state that you live in, I think it is either Maryland or Massachusetts that most are based in, precisely because of lax regulation. Since you signed the contract in that other state, it would also have to be litigated in that state, which would be a heck of a burden for most people, especially when they could just pay the 9.95 (or whatever) and be done with it. The fact that they so quickly reverse all the charges really bolsters my case: They seem to know what they are doing is wrong, they simply don't care. The second they are challenged on it they fold. Their actions are criminal, hell, worse than criminal, at least you know what to expect when you get involved with the Mafia.

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