📅 July 2005

Calling all Hackers! Calling all Hackers! Do you like people, especially women? Do you deplore and denounce violence, especially against women? Of course you do. Otherwise you'd be a dickless motherfucker who should rot in hell.

So if you like women, and you think beating them up is about the most disgusting thing a man can do, then I have a job for you. I would like someone to take down sliceoftheday.com for as long as possible, if not permanently.

Basically it's a celebrity nudes site. I was surfing it because this is my boyfriend's favorite kind of internet softporn, so I'm curious and thought maybe I could recommend the site to him. Alright, so I also wanted to see nude pictures of Scarlett Johannsson. Who wouldn't. Anyway, they have a section of the site called "Pieclopedia" where they define different types of women as different flavors of pie. Innocent enough. But then I saw this definition, complete with a bruised picture of Paris Hilton:

"Black and Blueberry
This is a very tricky flavor. Every single slice of pie can become Black and Blueberry, but none of them will ever stay that flavor. This flavor is for those pies that have been "kneeded" or "tenderized" to bring out their full flavor. If you miss your chance to taste this flavor, don't worry my friend. You can always create it out of any slice of pie you see."

These fuckers are not only recommending beating women, they are getting off on it. I'm so pissed I think I could make their dicks shrivel up right now just by thinking about it. I can't even say anymore, I don't think I have to. Women die everyday at the hands of their so-called "lovers". So if you want to hack-attack this site, you would be doing the world a favor. Or if there are any women out there who want to join me as I track the site owners down and beat the shit out of them and then ask how sexy *they* feel, I'm all for it.

I should know better than to think that I can skim even the surface of filth on some men's minds without becoming totally sickened by it. I'm all for looking at naked pictures, it turns me on too, but jokingly suggesting that beaten women are attractive hurts not just women but men too.

Warning: Harry Potter is crack! Millions have suffered from Harry Potter addiction before me, but now I've fallen prey too. So I'm here to warn you, children, if you've somehow managed to remain free of its influence up to now, do not touch, smell, or even look too closely at any Harry Potter books or the words may leap into your eyes and infect your brain.

Symptoms of Harry Potter addiction include but are not limited to:

--> An inability to concentrate on anything not related to Hogwarts, the Ministry of Magic, character arcana, or minute clues spread over 6 novels. In general, sufferers are prone to "magical thinking" and may refuse to go to work, eat, or even accept that "none of it is real." Once at work, they often spend hours combing through fan sites and repeatedly checking the current date to verify the ETA for "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (2 days, 13 hours, 50 minutes, 30 seconds).

--> Waving your pencil like a wand, trying to make your car fly, and seriously considering what position you are best suited to play on your house Quidditch team, which may result in attempts to actually play Quidditch, which may result in death. Warning: a broom can NOT fly, even and especially when one leaps off a rooftop astride one.

--> An intensely irritating weeping rash between the toes and around the heel of the foot that is resistant to all forms of OTC treatment (Although I haven't been able to determine conclusively that this is Potter induced... could be poison ivy.)

Suffers can be recognized by their glassy eyes, dazed expression, and incoherent speech. If they respond to questions by starting "Well, Dumbledore says..." or "My life is a lot like Sirius' in PoA" then they should be immediately diagnosed with the affliction.

Unfortunately, no cures have been established at this time, although symptoms do seem to be relieved by periods of unconsciousness (sleep, drug induced torpor, or coma) and vigorous shaking (either of the victim directly or by earth quake). One can only expect for this epidemic to become worse with the release of book 6, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", in only 2 days, 13 hours, 47 minutes and counting, or movie 4, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" which doesn't come out, alas, until November 2005.

Okay, so I'm on the road to becoming a financial wiz, and not a moron, but gosh, it's only taken me 29 and 3/4 years to figure out how to save money. And I've committed some real doosies along the way that make me feel so stupid, I have to get them off my chest. Mostly my problem is that I have been paying outrageously inflated prices for basic life services because I was too lazy to change, i.e. deal with bureaucracy and phone calls and forms and all. When I look at how much student loan debt I have, I wonder how much of it was the result of my willingness to pay inflated prices since money was so easy to come by. I mean, who of us with more than $20,000 in student loan debt didn't, on some level, think of it as "free money." Well, let's hope you consolidated, honey, 'cause $40,000 at 8.25% interest over ten years would cost you an additional $18,873. How's that for free? (Calculate your loan: )

Okay, so as a kind of financial numbskull confession, and a word of warning to everyone, here are my big mistakes.

Banking Fees: When I opened my bank account, I had just received my inheritance from my grandfather, which was fairly substantial, but not huge. So the account I got was some kind of Gold thing, with a monthly minimum of $2,000. Well, after a year or so, I had spent all the money and was below the minimum balance pretty much all the time. So I was charged fees of about $40 a month. Once, the fee even overdrew my account. By the time I figured out how much this was costing me, I was out over $500. Pretty lame, huh? But changing my account type did indeed take several months, since my bank is so crappy with the customer service. It was a real hassle, but kind of initiated me to the process of being pissed off at underlings who have no power and therefore bear little blame. I managed by continually harrassing one woman who made the mistake of giving me her extension number. Today, I have free checking.

No Collision Insurance: Part of what I blew my inheritance on was a used car of about $6,000. I paid cash for it. I had never owned a car or even learned how to drive prior to that point. I actually thought it was a "prudent" idea to skip the collision insurance on a car that had over 50,000 miles on it. So when I rear-ended someone and bent the whole frame of my car, it was pretty much totaled and I was out the cash I had spent on it. I sold it back to the used car dealer who had sold it to me. For $100. He fixed it up and put it back on the lot. For three grand.

Car Insurance In General: Pretty much the same story; having no experience, I took the first recommendation of the dealer and went to Ron Giovino in Kenmore and got a GMAC policy. Guess what? I just saved a ton of money on my car insurance. Yes, by switching to Geico. Over $400 a term, or nearly $900 a year. GMAC and the Giovino agents can go fuck themselves too, because they are the most backasswards and rude mo'fos I've ever dealt with. DON'T BUY YOUR INSURANCE FROM THEM!

Cell Phone: Last but not least, my cell phone catastrophe. Oh, God, you will think I'm so stupid. But really it takes a long time for these things to sink in with me. My mom had bought me a pay-as-you-go phone for Christmas in 2003. At first, I hardly used it and it was a good deal. Well, over the last 6 months I've been using it more for business. And personal calls. And then I moved and it became my only line for the time being. Well, I started to notice how often I was adding more money. Often. Finally today I switched to T-Mobile, so I can talk to my boyfriend for free and unlimited weekends and yadda yadda, sales pitch... for about $35 a month. My old Pay as you Go rate for the past 6 months? Average of about $86 per month. Yup. That's how dumb I've been. How really, really dumb.

So that's like what, about $10,000 wasted since 2003? A quarter of my debt, in fact. Just blown with the wind. But now, I am reforming. I'm becoming a serious coupon clipper. A "cheap Swede" like my sister. My new motto is "Never Pay Retail." I can tell you what's on sale at Tops right at this very moment. I do not have a credit card, nor do I want one. I am half way to paying my car off. And my debt, intimidating as it seems, is actually about average for someone with a professional Master's degree. So, you live, you lose, you learn. Hopefully now that I'm about to turn 30 and become, like, you know, a grown up, I'll be better about this shit. I mean sheesh. It's not like America is built on debt, or anything. Is it? (US Debt Clock: )