Becoming Buddha in 30 Days or Less

 "i think the carebears are supremely enlightened little yogis." -S.

reduce, reuse, but don't even think about recycling

i live in the woods. i get it. but i also get that it is 2011. i can look up the square root of eleventy on the phone in my pocket. what i cannot do is recycle weekly.

yes, that's right. my recycling gets picked up curbside ONCE a MONTH. boo. hiss. but at least the borough gave us GIANT buckets for recycling. the better to jam a months worth of containers into.

but alas, woe is us and we only received three (3) containers. which unfortunately will only take care of my recyclable gas because unlike the rest of the entire milky way universe i have to separate my clear glass from my brown glass from my green glass. is it 1992? what? even the city of philadelphia managed to get its shit together enough to allow commingling of everything. so much for single stream. i have eleventy billion recycle streams here.

also to separate - plastics 1 vs. plastics 2  and aluminum vs tin.

and not recyclable? any other plastic or ANY PLASTIC EVEN 1s AND 2s NOT IN A BOTTLE FORM.

wtf.

things i have to THROW AWAY:
*yogurt containers
*certain plastic juice containers (arizona iced tea jugs and simply lemonade for example)
*microwave plastic food trays (Bee's lunches when i'm not around)
*takeaway plastic food trays (we don't get these a lot, but sometimes)
*plastic lids of any kind
*junk mail

things i have to hoard and then pile into the car and drive over to the recycling center (which is only open for three specific hours during the entire week) to recycle:
*magazines
*cardboard

and unfortunately we're having some trouble with the cardboard because the current format for collecting it is apparently causing "clutter" in our house and giving Bee a hernia. so most of our cardboard ends up in the garbage anyway.

i hate myself so hard every time i throw a yogurt container away. i am not even kidding.  i die a little bit inside every time.

if you search for reviews of the company, there's some fucking crazy lady who bashes everyone who complains about the ridiculousness of recycling only 1 & 2 bottles by bringing up gas prices and telling everyone to get off their high horses and to lower their recycling standards.


get with the times, dville. fucking recycle. and that means everything. no excuse.

the mediocrity of valley television service

We're in the market for television. we managed to survive the summer by catching up on Deadwood, Community, Parks & Rec, The League and a few others by means of Hulu and Netflix Qwikster/Netflix.

After much back forth about cable vs dish vs directv vs slingboxing to any number of our friends/relatives, we finally made a decision. I called and set up an appointment and they said they'd be out in three weeks to set it up for us. yes, three weeks. from the date that i called. okay, whatever. you do what you can do, must be a busy time for handing people cable boxes.

But meanwhile, during those said three weeks, we've had some time to think about it and research it a little more and we made the decision to go in a different direction. We sign up for the service (ONLINE! imagine that!) and i'm pretty sure if we hadn't ordered at 7 at night, we'd have been able to get an install date the very next day. alas, we can get installation in two business days (technically one and a half).

So i call up the first service, rehearsing my "i'm really sorry, we've gone in another direction, they were cheaper for more channels and way quicker with the install" bit. And i get put on hold. for seven minutes. and not just "your call is important to us" hold, but "those other services aren't as good as we are! we're the best and have been in business in the valley for over fifty year! we take pride in our service to you" hold AND with every minute that someone does not answer your call, you have to repeatedly press "0" to continue to hold. It's the "are you sure you want to continue to hold to talk to us? Really, are you sure? Just checking. Okay, now? Are you still sure now?" hold.

So after seven minutes of affirming my desire to talk to someone, I finally get a person on the line. I explain that I would like to cancel my installation and the girl checks my phone number, verifies my address and then says, "Okay, i've gone ahead and canceled that for you. Have a good day." Click.

No "i'm sorry to see you go" "is there something we could have done better?" "can i help you with anything else today, like perhaps our internet or telephone service?" or "we're currently offering free HD and DVR for the next three months if you'd like to stay on with us." none of that. just an okay, goodbye, click.

It's like the people here don't even give a shit if you give them business. I'd love to keep my money local, but a three week wait for a handful of channels that are twice as expensive as the other guy, topped with no attempt to even try to retain me as a customer, well, that's just a bad business plan.

And don't even get me started on the heating oil company.

HOW DO YOU PEOPLE GET OTHER PEOPLE TO GIVE YOU MONEY? WHO IS GIVING YOU THEIR MONEY??

i don't get it. i just don't get it. don't you want me to give you my money?