Spontaneity

I showed up home at 9pm today… sometime before that, between 5PM and 8PM I managed to purchase a flat screen television… an idea or expense that I had no idea I was about to incur at 430PM of the same afternoon… how does this happen? And how does this happen specifically to me? I don’t know… I have a knack for the random, spontaneous and completely unprovoked action…

For example… some two, or is it three, years ago… was heading over to zone 3 in London… on the west side… to attend the world famous school disco… where lads and ladettes dress up in boarding school outfits… get insanely drunk… and either have random sex or fist fights… so in summary, if you take out the first point, its an average night for a british youth… on the way there I was listening to my now deceased Ipod… I don’t remember what I was listening to but it must have been good for by some stroke of fate I managed to get off two stops early… how this is possible as my stop was the last stop on the line – I don’t know… but out I go… and as I walk a block down from the wrong station, I start looking around and scratching my head… finally it dawns upon me that I got off early and right as I am about to go on a cursing fit what do I see before my eyes… but a nice looking mountain bike… parked in front of a coffee shop… and being sold for a princely sum of 35 quid – quite cheap mind you…

Now the question here is what should happen here? A normal person gets back on the tube, rides out the two extra stops and goes on with his night trying to get lucky with some drunk English whore… but me… I am not normal… I see the phone number on the sign and I dial it… a very eager woman picks up and informs me that she’ll be right there… literally two minutes later she appears, with an addition of an eight year old girl in hand and the subtraction of a few of her teeth and a couple of ribs… sometime later I figured out she was a heroin addict... though the little girl seemed quite happy and well adjusted nonetheless… anyway… the woman saunters over to me and in great blabbering rush explains that her and her husband… and probably daughter too… are moving to where else but Australia tomorrow… and that this is quite unexpected… like most moves to the other side of the world to the old penal colony… and that she really must get rid of this wonderful bike… me and my moral sense disassociate from each other at this point and in an almost dreamlike state I find myself handing the woman over 35 quid for a bike that’s clearly not hers, removing the chain off the bike which the woman assures me was cut because her husband, silly lass that he is, lost the keys... waving good buy to her sweet daughter… ignoring the angry, piercing stare from the coffee shop owner… and off I go… riding my newly acquired bike to the school disco… with no idea what I will do with this thing while I am at the disco nor how I will get it back half way across London to my flat at Russell Square…

The bike survived school disco by being parked amongst 50 other bikes near the tube stop (really dying to remember its name)… I wrapped the ripped lock around it to disguise the fact that it was in fact free to take… and now to think of it, that would have kind of been kind of a just turn of events… but anyway… I left the bike at the bike rack… went to the school disco… waited for my Argentinean comrade (who shall remain nameless) for over an hour…. Paid 5 quid for the ugliest tie on the face of the planet…. Got insanely drunk at the festivities… didn’t get laid though got into a fist swinging match with some drunken idiot… left the party drunk and irritated… talked two of my classmates into agreeing to share a cab back to zone 1 with my ‘new’ bike… and spent a night twisting and turning in guilty misery over being an accessory to what was clearly bike theft…

the spontaneous story ended well… I rode back and forth from school on the bike… I didn’t wear a helmet but lived to tell about it… the 35 quid I spent on it plus another 20 I spent on a real lock paid for itself in reduced commuter costs… and I got compliments from quite a few classmates for being very cool… something that I always thought, I was with or without my bike in tow… but whatever… ill take all the help I can get…. And at the end of my school career I sold the bike on for 80 quid to an Israeli student… the proud jewish glee glistening in my eyes when I closed that transaction… yes… my mother would have been proud… profit… profit… and more profit… though with an unfortunate moral disclaimer though…

the story didn’t end perfectly though… the bike broke a week later and being that I was already on the short end of my immorality quota, I had to refund most of the bike money back to the Israeli for repairs… the deal still ended up being profitable based on commuter savings alone…. Though not as profitable as I dreamed it to be but again… given the fact on what confluence of sheer luck and scummy principles this happened… I should be happy I wasn’t run over by one of those psychotic black cabs…

and in the end… when I finished reciting this story to my friend Pranav… probably the foremost business brain I know… all he could muster to say was ‘Eugene, I have no idea how you pull this off!?’…

But now back to 2007… to my apartment and perpetually sore throat… I am now 400 bucks poorer… and one flat screen TV richer… why I need this fancy thing all of a sudden… I don’t know… but shit… a good deal is a good deal… so who am I to question…

Former life

For the sake of preserving history… fruitless history at that… here is my former jdate profile… which netted me exactly zero dates in a period of eight months… fair or deserved - definetely not! but one way or another - AMEN....

KrokodilGenaFF32

About Me

A friendly crocodile. Live in an apartment. Work at the zoo as a crocodile. Of soft, delicate and a bit melancholic character. To relax, enjoy lying in the pool for hours on end, thinking deep thoughts on life and its meaning.

Personal Info

Gender: Single, Man seeking a Woman
Last Update: 10/30/2005

Lifestyle
I am looking for: Friend
Relocation: I would relocate for the right person or relationship
Relationship Status: Single
Children: None
Plan on having children:
Custody Situation: I have no children
I keep Kosher: Not at all
I go to Synagogue: Will tell you later
I smoke: Occasionally
I drink: Socially
Zodiac Sign: Cancer
Activity Level: Very Active

Physical Info

I am: 5' 11" (180 cm) I weigh:
My hair is: Other My eyes are: Brown
My body style is closest to: Athletic/Fit

Background
I grew up in: new york, ussr
My ethnicity is: Ashkenazi
I speak: English, Russian
My Religion: Will tell you later
I studied or am interested in: zoology
My education: Master's Degree
Occupation Other
Occupation description: an animal on exhibit
Annual income: Will tell you later
Political Orientation: Midway Moderate

Personality and Interests

My personality is best described as:
Adventurous/Wild/Spontaneous, Argumentative, Artistic, Easygoing/Flexible/Open-Minded, Eccentric, High Energy, High Maintenance, Intellectual, Stubborn
In my free time, I enjoy:
Camping, Hanging Out with Friends, Motorcycling, People Watching, Photography, Reading/Writing, Traveling/Weekend Trips/Adventure Travel
In my free time, I like to go to:
Antique Stores/Flea Markets/Garage Sales, Art Galleries, Bars/Nightclubs, Beach, Bookstores, Coffee Houses, Movies, Museums
My favorite physical activities:
Basketball, Biking, Boating/Sailing/Rafting, Golf, Hiking/Walking, Ice Skating, Soccer
I like/own these pets:
Cat, Dog
My favorite food(s):
Barbecue, Eastern European, French, Jewish/Kosher, Thai, Vietnamese
My favorite music:
Other
I like to read:
Fiction, Magazines, Newspapers

Relationships
My perfect first date:
we will go eat ice cream and it will be good and i might be a little sloppy and spill a little of mine, after which you will offer to share yours, which i will accept. and then we will walk around and get lost and it will start to rain and you will carry the umbrella and i will carry you . or is is the other way around?
My ideal relationship:
we will be friends and do a lot of things together. like for example, you can watch me working at the zoo or perform in the sherlock holmes theater. we can play music together - i can play the harmonica and you can sing.
My past relationships:

My Ideal Match
Age Range:
20 to 30
Relationship Status:
Single
Religious Background:
Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform, Secular, Traditional, Unaffiliated
Education Level:
Some College, Associate's Degree, Bachelor's Degree, Master's Degree, JD/Ph.D/Postdoctoral
Drinking Habits:
Never, Socially, Occasionally
Smoking Habits:
Non-Smoker, Occasionally, Regularly
I am looking for a:
someone cute, with big eyes and big ears, brown in color with a short but fury tail. must be of curious and intelligent nature and willing to participate in interesting activities like playing chess and reading train schedules

Dangling from a rope in the middle of Ethiopia

Well… what a lovely evening for Thursday night it is… and tomorrow mila and I are going to the roxman dacha in Connecticut… where I will lie on the beach… do nothing… read Alchemist by Paolo Coelho – a book everyone recommended and I have a feeling I will absolutely hate… and that’s about it… the weekend sounds stunning… does it not!

Right now feel enfeebled by another round of thera-flu I am drinking… at 1215 @ night, mind you… for this ridiculous virus is still working its way around my office… XXXXX went home sick on Tuesday… got anti-biotics on Wednesday… and I feel like dog poop this afternoon… a lovely, easily repeatable and fully foreseeable pattern this is…

Anyway… lately have been thinking of Magnus and where he is…for all the pleasures of my life… a certain rush of insane & mindless risk taking is clearly missing… like I haven’t done anything absurdly stupid… like dangle from a goat-hide rope twenty feet in the air… with no safety rope… and my skeletal biceps as my only insurance…. in the cliffs of Northern Ethiopia…. Trying to get to some monastery where I will learn about the latest in AIDS prevention and medications (samples of which I have @ home!)…. Yes… nothing matches that feeling… that split second… when you pause for a second from madly driving yourself to the top… realizing… that first of all, the rope you are clinging to really does smell like a corpse of a rotting beast of burden… that second… its really far down and still pretty far up… and that third… there is really a LOT of local people down there, mostly faithful women, eagerly staring upwards in my direction wondering if this particular farangee will make it up to the monastery or in god’s hands in the rocks below… luckily frenzied panic doesn’t allow me to consider these points… and I madly continue paddling up the rope… forgetting that as a child I was always a horrendous tree climber… and that heights really never were my thing… and that shit… I think I made it to the top… that the lovely Ethiopian people greeting me have seen many white people before me and really don’t care… and that shit… I am still alive… I am still breathing… that I have a water bottle in my backpack and some cigarettes in my pocket… and that my biceps are about to explode… that I cant see for all the sweat pouring off my forehead… and that all I can do is lie down on the filthy stairs pouring warm water on my head, dragging away on that fine cigarette which five minutes before seemed like an eternal impossibility…

And then we walk around the monastery… and see the ancient scrolls… and see the coolest looking Orthodox priests ever… meet the local cat… see the locals dragging over sewer water that they will have blessed before drinking… learn the history of Ethiopian church… admire the fine bright red towel with jesus Christ’s mug on it – sold at a Christian convention near you for $9.99… holding a place of honour amongst ancient artifacts… and listen to a local scholar talk with great eloquence about history and religion and AIDS… or how the latter is just an easily curable white man concoction…

And its all fine and well… we meet a pair of nice Icelandic boys… blonde and young… and way cooler than I ever was at 23… and Magnus comes to the conclusion that in my 4 days in Ethiopia I must have met all four Icelanders currently present on the Horn of Africa… I nod my head… But thoughts of sampling the AIDS medicine in my pocket are quite distracting… I think its oatmeal… but am not sure… kind of afraid to taste it actually…

And now its time to head back down… the same way we got in – by a long stinky and quite unsecured rope…. Icelandic boys are joining us for the ride into town… and Magnus is passionately chatting away to them in the ancient Norse tongue… Probably not too many speakers of that in Dubai either…

We approach the rope and my heart palpitations begin… getting up was easy… I was too stupid to realize what I was doing… getting back down… now that’ll take some courage… and the gentleman with the rope – all 115 senior citizen pounds of him (see picture) – gladly agrees… for he is demanding a king’s ransom of 20BIRR ($2.20) per person for the privilege of lowering us back to safety… one of the Icelandic boys gets outraged and starts arguing… no more than $5 BIRR… no fucking way! He insists…. But the old man insists and so do i… ‘if there is one time in your life to overpay for something, my friend’ I say ‘ this is most likely it…’

And down they go… one by one… first Magnus… with a healthy smile a big backpack and my camera in tow… then Pavel… our insistently tacit Czech companion for the day… and then the Icelandic boys… At a negotiated rate of 10BIRR per person… they all disappear into the abyss before me while I choke away at what I am convinced is my last cigarette… I think my last thoughts which now to think of it, I don’t remember… I check if my palms are sweaty.. and they are… and I give a once over to the older gentleman with the rope… noticing a slight pungent smell of sweat and whiskey in the air and remembering the comment of one of the Icelandic boys about how the old man had a bottle of liquor with him earlier… swigging away quite liberally… while a couple of guys sitting next to him tried to convince him that he might be getting too drunk for the job of a rope handler… but hey… money prevails over booze in these parts… and whether the bottle was finished or not I don’t know… but out the monastery I go… clinging to that god awful, filthy stinking goat rope….

The first steps are immeadiately fatal…. I look down… see that I have a good 60 to 70 feet to go… that its quite high up… that there is a lot of people watching me…. That magnus is off to the side aiming at me with my camera… and that I am scared shitless…

As fast as my ascent was just an hour or so before… as slow and frightening this descent is…. I try to maintain control as I go down… but start speeding up… that scares me so I put sharp breaks on… with what now feels sturdy goat rope burning into my palms… and my legs in deadly python wrap…. And I am hanging on… and now stalled… and swinging back and forth… maybe with 30 or 40 feet to go… and everyone cheering… from both above and below…. And magnus actively snapping pictures… and me being swung forwards and backwards on this stinking rope… half way between life and death…. But at least with great fanfare….

By the time I got down… I must have lost at least three to four years of my life… though I would not admit it out loud… I really thought I dodged the grim reaper out there… and for the rest of the day… sitting in our rusty white van… listening to atonal Ethiopian folk music… riding on some of the worst roads I have ever seen… all I could think of was how lucky I was to still be alive and how appropriate it would be for me to now be somewhere safe and sound, like say my bed in new york… where I don’t have to play anymore games with god almighty or attempt to bet my life on physical skills that I have absolutely no confidence in….

Tales of my interviewing prowess

Well… I have one major complaint to issue to start off tonight’s rant… I have not heard from my dear friend Magnus in a very long time… I know he is alive and well since he posted a blog a fortnight ago…. But oh Magnus, dear Magnus… where art though!? Please leave me your phone number so I may call you!

On other matters… right now actively working on my CV… the interesting thing I’ve noticed is that while under certain circumstances I might be the best bullshitter alive… when it comes to selling myself to other people… or to be clear – people of strength and importance… I must be the worst ever… All the cacheisms and key phrases… all of the fancy shmancy way of telling these people what a bright and no-lose prospect I am… I cant do any of them… and while I can write a satirical piece on any damned topic that can entertain a rotting corpse… I cant write a decent CV or cover letter to save my life… maybe its true and I am in the wrong business…

Now to think of it… of all the hundreds of interviews I’ve been on…. Two really stand out as my finest… neither resulted in gainful employment… but nonetheless… one was my interview after college for a program to teach English in Japan… as usual, I showed up clueless and unprepared – the adventure seeker in me loves the spontaneity involved here… and when the guy started tossing out strange and random questions like why in the world I would want to go to a weird ass country like Japan (I’ve been to the airport… trust me… its weird…)… and teach a language I barely count as my own to people who speak or understand none of it whatsoever… and the interesting part was that I breezed through the interview and answered each question with absolutely stunning grace and aplomb… resulting in a job offer… that I, in my infinite wisdom (and under pressure of jewish mother), passed up to work as a treasure analyst in a failing mortgage originator… and no… I don’t regret this choice one bit… life of travel, adventure, learning… or reconciling daily wires for a now defunct company… the choice is clear to anyone semi-reasonable… isn’t it? Stay in new york… develop a slight drug and alcohol habit… earn measly pennies… watch and learn corporate intricacies… what kind of a freak needs to travel the world anyway… and no… I am not bitter… not matter how hard you ask…

Anyway… to move on to the next successful interview… I was on a train ride from Moscow to Kharkov (my beloved hometown)… in 2003… sixteen years after I left my sweet and bankrupt homeland for greedy world of capitalism… as a little background… the previous couple of days I spent at my cousin Andrei’s crackden apartment in Moscow… smoking copious amounts of cheap dope and playing video games… so by the time I left Kursk station on an overnight train bound for Kharkov (in Ukraine)… my brain was officially fried, toasted and un-functional…. The overnight part was fine though the three ladies in my coupe seemed to hate my guts… don’t know why… maybe, as has been recently suggested to me, I am a nasty snorer…. But that cant be true… anyway… at 7am I get woken up by a bang on our door… there stands a young and handsome Ukrainian border patrol officer… surely known for his unbending moral strength and fortitude… he gleefully asks where the American citizen is… whom it turns out is me… and one thing leads to the next and there is a problem with something I filled out on my visa form and there I am, in a different room, one on one with the officer, half awake with $200 bucks stuck in my back-pocket in case of an ‘emergency’…

Anyway, the interview starts in an old soviet fashion… I am presumed guilty before I can even defend myself… the officer demands to know how I could possibly have an inconsistency on my entry forms – i.e. on one it says I am here as a tourist... on another I am coming into my former motherland on a personal visa… I am such as easy catch that I can see the young man, with a nice clean uniform, mind you, already counting the bribe I’ll be paying him in a minute or two… but there again my wit and quick thinking comes out… true, I might have planned this in the back of my head just for a moment like this… but I lay out to the officer that its hard for me to say if my trip is personal or tourist since in a way its both… as I am heading back to my beloved homeland to see what these capitalist cretinism has done to my wonderful land…and how after sixteen years of absence, mind you I left as a proud and honorful Pioneer, I am really dying to see what good things have happened in my country since then… “and now”, I turn to the officer, “what further questions do you have?”

Here things get weird for the officer since obviously it would be implicitly a very unpatriotic thing to do to demand a bribe out of me… on the other hand, just letting me go just like that seems a little weird… so the officer starts asking me about America… what I do there… how I like life there… etc… he seems of reasonably educated sort… so maybe at this point he is just stalling time and scouting out his own prospects…. After a few minutes of an ever increasingly friendly chat… he sticks out his hand… wishes me luck… and tells me that I hope I like what they’ve done with Ukraine… I say of course… though deep inside I highly doubt I would… at this point I look up and realize that another border guard spent this whole time standing over the back of me… trying to intimidate me… which didn’t work because I was so obliviously lost in my conversation/ interview that I forgot to notice his presence… this latter fellow is slightly taken aback by this turn of events since I doubt his buddy is generally known for his softness of heart… he weakly asks the other guy if maybe they should search my stuff… who knows, maybe I'm one of those crazy Americans with fifteen pounds of fine Afghani heroin in my backpack… but the other says no… this is a good man traveling… and I shake hands with both of them… extremely warm handshakes by the way… to a degree I almost regret not asking for a photograph… and off we go in our own directions… officers over to the next train car where they’ll be mugging some other poor soul in lieu of their failed ‘collection’ with me.. and me back to my coupe… where the previously hateful three women greet me as if I am the rebirth of John the Baptist… head attached and all…. What happened in Kharkov is a story (s) for another time…. But again… strange that of all the demented, strange and bizarre interviews I’ve had… these two are my most pleasant memories…. Is there a message buried in here somewhere?? I think… but I fully gleamed it yet….

when you are in Rome....

It’s a Wednesday night… nearly midnight… and its close to beddy bye time for me… and you know what I noticed… as I’ve gotten older… and climbed past the mighty 30 barrier on the age scale… the earlier I am going to bed… the more valuable my sleep is… and more I count down towards days when I can actually sleep as I wish – i.e. the weekends….

I was pretty much ready to write a really cynical joke about how now that I am officially heading down the other side of the hill, I have really low expectations of my conscious time and time sleeping seems ever more pleasant in comparison to the daily reality…. Yes… that would kind of sound morbidly witty for a second or two but really not true…. I was much more miserable in the years past than I am now… and this latest habit of
early bed times – i.e. midnight – is just a function of deteriorating body stamina and
function and not of the condition of my mental state…

was going to write something more meaningful… but now it doesn’t make a difference… wanted to go on a rant about a certain professional matter but then remembered all the horror stories of people getting their blogs found on the internet and getting fired… now on second thought…. Maybe that’s not such a terrible down side… Screw it… and lets do it…

ill use secret decoders tactics to make sure that even if undesirable eyes do befall upon these precious words… that there can be no implication of yours truly in anything whatsoever…

anyway… we have a certain senior manager where I work who is a lovely man… generally polite… pleasant in conversation and in possession of a healthy sense of humour… of reasonable physical appearance – not too shabby and not too shallow… is of reliable and diligent nature in his professional responsibilities… and really has only one slight fault as a professional and a human being – he is a finger pointer…

nothing this man enjoys more than talking about what somebody else didn’t do or even better yet what someone actually did that he shouldn’t have done… this gentleman is very good at reciting in public places who forgot to deliver what to him… who had what stupid idea and who was really doing something he had very little clue about… the gentleman’s pleasant nature, natural approach and flawless timing made these sorts of observations seem almost natural… so natural that at a certain point you feel an ancient cow instinct kick inside your brains, and next thing you know you are badmouthing the guy next to you for no reason but for pleasant conversation…

anyway, the above quality – the finger pointing – has its fine and not so fine points… for example… its quite noble when this gentleman occasionally calls out a more senior member of the staff for being an idiot… very refreshing… when he talks about clients or counterparties or whoever else – its not bad and it re-affirms your own hidden suspicions that everyone around you is an imbecile of first class intent on holding you, and your paycheck, as far down as possible…

things don’t go so well, though, when this gentleman starts whistfully recounting the failures of his employees (for sake of disclosure, I am one of them)… somehow, though this guy is suppose to be overseeing you and making sure you don’t make the exact screw ups he is so philosophically discussing, somehow he makes you seem like a complete ignorant incompetent, while he - an observant and astute manager… how he is an observant and astute manager I don’t know, for fuck ups seem to happen and you feel your career getting worse instead of getting better… but no… somehow it all makes sense, and even when your neighbor is being ricocheted off of three walls of a closed office, with the door wide open and the neighbor nowhere near, you sit there and nod your head knowing full well that the next time this guy is at a managing directors retreat, all he is going to talk about is what a failure his staff, namely people like me, are…

this quality in a manager does a few things… first of all it institures accountability, which is good… since you know that if you muck something up, on purpose or not, your name will be plastered across every office in midtown manhattan…. Second of all it creates clear lines of responsibility… nobody wants to take on something unknown that lord forbid might blow up in his face… so everybody sits there and does their particular lot in life… trying to keep their head as low as possible… which creates a very orderly place in one sense, and a place without innovation or initiative in another… you pick which one you prefer… finally, this managerial finger pointing creates a KGB atmosphere around the office… you never know who is ratting what on whom… because when the guy calls you in his office and asks you why this particular data happened to have been entered in the completely opposite manner to what it was supposed to… you can either bow your head and take the bullet to the head… knowing full well that this guy is going to go to the head of the group and say how things are going pretty well except for these slight errors by that guy in the corner (i.e. you) who keeps on ruining everything for everybody… or as another option… you can announce that yes, perhaps you did enter this specific piece of data in a literal sense… but metaphysically, you got this information from so and so and that person mislead you, maybe on purpose, maybe not… who knows… and that while you’ll certainly be happy to take your share of the blame… all you did was mis-enter the information this other incompetent, the true incompetent here to be perfectly clear, provided you with….

And so it goes… you have your job… you do it… if you do it OK or very well or excellent really doesn’t make a difference… for you are never going to be over-complimented or over-recognized… you keep your head down… and if push comes to shove… they say when you are in Rome, do as the Romans do…. so you become an expert at lifting thy right hand and pointing in the direction of the weakest link you can think of… it’s a healthy work environment, I know….

But here the story gets better my friends…. Though my colleagues and I never actually discussed this… this gentlemans reputation for being a shitty ass boss somehow established itself of its own… i.e. you don’t need to say it… you just know when push comes to shove this guy don’t have your back… he’ll sell you out to whoever he needs to sell you out to… and that’s that… its not going to be personal… he’ll happily shake your hand and share a beer with you afterwards… its business baby….
Well… of this no more… I am happy to say that I wasn’t the only one totally fed up with this non-sense... in the past couple of days this guy lost two out of his three main employees…. (I am not the third and will not divulge more for confidentiality reasons)… the guys bailed of course at the worst time possible… and essentially this guy is left with only the most junior member of the staff… which of course sucks for him and must raise a very curious question to the senior management of the firm – why doesn’t this guy have any loyalty from his employees…. Cuz he don’t care about no one but himself… that’s why you dummy! So when you are in Rome, do as the Romans do, and if it pays to do something for yourself, do it and worry about other people’s asses never…

How i bought a cell phone

OK. So we’ll start with the important developments in my life… After heavy and management consulting intensive search, I’ve selected myself a new cell phone… Its shiny, nice and has a 2 megapixel camera… and only cost me $50 bucks after a $50 rebate and signing my life away to Verizon for another 2 years… so far it looks like a good deal… the graphics on the phone are very colourful… almost like a real tv… the keypad is real futuristic looking, though my slimy fingers keep on sliding all over it… but hey.. who needs to dial the right number as long as you look cool…

and oh yes… yesterday I began my next important mobile project – finding just the right ring tone for my new machine… never mind that I am likely to keep the thing on vibrate at all times… so I dug through the phone, got myself connected to UniVision mobile website… which turned out to be in Spanish… tried to download some hot latin beats…. Namely Eminem… only to realize that they wanted to charge me something like three bucks for the privilege… without a second of hesitation, my bargain nose clearly told me that this was a rip off, I went to two other ‘free’ mobile sites touted by my beloved Verizon phone… lo and behold… while accessing the actual website is apparently free (I’ll find out on my next bill I guess)… downloading the advertised ‘free’ ringtones was decidedly un-free…

and this brings me to my next raving rant… the little rip offs in life we all have to deal with… ill stick with the mobile thematica here… so while purchasing the afore mentioned slick new phone – LG VX8700 to be perfectly exact…. At the Union Square Verizon store… I was being helped by an Indian saleskid – so good was he that I even remember his name – Manesh…. Or is it Mahesh? Anyway, lets go on, who cares…

So there I am, booking the purchase of the new phone with Mashish… a fine upstanding young man of maybe 18 he is… with a lightly protruding mustache awaiting its first bloody shave… and a fresh Verizon employee uniform that some marketing buffoons at headquarters spent six and a half months and half a mil drawing up… ‘the colors of the uniform will encourage more accessory purchasing, mr. Verizon CEO, sir…’ was what they said at headquarters… instead they got a bunch of little greedy monkeys running around their stores, looking like half literate gas station attendants trying to pawn off god knows what crap on us, unsuspecting consumers….

So anyway, back to Mashish and me… there he is, booking my purchase of the phone/ two year soul sale into the system… all is fine and well and I am even excited for the 2 megapixel camera will truly allow my ‘photographic talent’ to shine and explode… allowing to explore the nether reaches of my existential existence and prune out the liberating truth behind it… OK… sorry… that’s just the non-sense stuck in my head from the last photo show I attended… fuck them, art overbred maggots….

Anyway, mashish is there booking me into his system with a lazy tune of a teenage salesman… about two minutes into the procedure, he scans something over on the screen and announces that I do a lot of texting… and that I don’t have a texting package… and since I do around 90 texts a month… I should get a $10 monthly texting package…

Now that’s where an uneducated consumer – i.e. one who has not spent forty thousand pounds on his MBA – just nods his head and gets his face ripped off by this teenage criminal… but no… because Mehesh was a young man, he didn’t realize that not only did he need to make a generally vague financial proposition to someone like me… but he also needed to appeal to my vanity… say by complimenting the number of friends who must care deeply about me for 90 texts really is a lot…never mind the truth – half are to my mother reporting on my whereabouts… but my vanity would be pleased… I’d feel like a wholesome member of society and gladly fork over the $10 monthly fixed charge…

Instead he let me think… and I did the math… and asked the right question – i.e. how much is each text… Normal text = .15… picture text = .25… I never picture text…. So effectively I spend $13 bucks texting on average…

“and how many texts do I get for $10 bucks?” – 2000 or way too many…

“And how many texts was my minimum in the last four months?” – fifty two, this past month…

“and oh shit, is there a cheaper plan?” – why yes, for $5 bucks I get 250 texts for free….

And there we go Mahesh… you sell me the cheaper plan instead of the one where you earn an extra 20 cents a month or whatever your commission is on this….

And I am going to stop now… but what I didn’t mention was the thousand and one accessories that they tried to hang upon my already burdened neck… including a lovely cell phone case… headphones… god knows what else… for you know what… they make these freaking things so they are not compatible with anything else and the headphones you have, the USB port you already use… none of it connects with any of this new crap you bought… and you know why… so big capitalists somewhere in Korea… or maybe even in our very own Verizon store in Union Square, can make a few extra dollars off your lazy, inattentive American ass….