Andrew Sullivan just threw down his towel and called out Glenn at Instapundit. Woohey, the gloves are off, now!

My buddy Rick at the former Unspunâ„¢ has some hosting issues.

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This is an absolutely power-tripping removal of this animal’s status as protected, perhaps one of the last of its kind and what makes the Swedish government think they can get away with this? I truly, honestly, don’t get it, and I plan on writing a letter to the Swedish government because I’m sure they give a fuck what an American citizen thinks of anything they do.

(But, hey, my great-grandparents were Swedish, so maybe).

I got to the movie theater at 10:40, just to be told they weren’t yet open. Fuckers. I’m going back at two. If you are interested in going to see Harry Potter Friday night and want me to get you a ticket, read the details, then get in touch with me.

Get in touch with me quick.

Oh, yeah, right there …

Update:

Tickets gotten.

People who, on a regular basis, update the times on older posts so they’re always at or near the top of whatever aggregator you might happen to use. Christ man, those posts were probably all ready read, all you’re doing now is frustratin’ folks who don’t care to read your post fifty times.

This is the call I dread: “Hi, do you take credit cards?”

The answer, at both jobs, is ‘yes.’ However, what we mean when we say ‘yes’ is: “Yes, there is a machine in the store capable of processing credit card transactions – we call it a ‘credit card machine.’ Our drivers do not have any way to accept a credit card as payment at your door.”

Unfortunatly, as soon as the person who hears ‘yes’ hears that answer, they’ve already hung up the phone intent on handing their driver a credit card. Meanwhile, I’m back in the store slamming the phone onto the counter because my oft-rehearsed speech was cut off: “Yes, we take credit cards, but for delivery we take your info over the phone.” The *click* comes between the ‘w’ and the ‘e’ in ‘we.’

Fuckers.

Of course, I lied when I said ‘[we don't take credit cards] at the door.’ Of course we do. We just don’t have a machine to slid the credit card into. I’m not saying all delivery places don’t, just that the two shops I work at don’t. I’d like to have a portable credit card machine I could take with me, it’d be fun, I could play at being the bum on the corner who, when the rich guy asks if he’s got change for a $20, responds: “No, but I take plastic.”

So what happens when you open the door and present me a shiny Platinum MasterCard? After throttling you in my mind, I explain that I need to call the card into the store. That’s the easy part. Then I’ve actually got to call the store, hoping it isn’t busy, and that whoever picks up the phone likes me enough to work the machine as I read off the card number, expiration date, CVV number, and the billing zip code. This can be a problem as generally the homeowner doesn’t feel like babysitting me as I stand in their threshold and wanders off, then I’m forced to call out to them: “What’s your billing zip code?” Then they don’t understand if I mean the address where they mail the statement or … ?

People. Are. Crazy.

If you’re going to ask — when we enter a card number into the machine without swiping it, the machine asks a series of additional questions to make sure we’re not some scum-shit who found a card number. Also, apparently, if you enter the correct billing zip code, the merchant gets a discount on the usually steep card fees (you’d think if you entered the wrong billing zip code, it would refuse the transaction).

After calling out for the zip code, I then need to inquire the customer if they intended to tip on the credit card. If so, the total of the tip gets added to the order’s total, and the person at the store rings the card for the combined sum. This is the most awkward part of the situation, then, waiting for the other person to confirm over the phone: “It’s printing, no problem.” Trust me, you don’t want to give that coworker the total, hang up the phone, and get back to the store to learn the card was declined.

That’d be, like, bad. And stuff.