Well it seems like my period of relative peace is over and life has decided to start fucking with me again.
Here’s today’s edition of the Fucking with Fru Daily.
I had asked Joe if he could take me to my branch of Van City, my credit union, so I could cash my GST cheque.
This needed to happen as said GST cheque was all I had to cover this week’s expenses. Stupid five week month and all that.
We had agreed to head out at 1 pm today. Joe pops into my room at half past noon to ask if it can be 2 pm. Sure, no prob.
2 o’clock rolls around and he fobs the job off on Julian. I have no reasonable reason to complain about this, even though it makes me feel bad, so I do not complain.
For the record, it makes me feel like I am not super important. Whatever.
So we get to the bank and there’s no tellers free, but a nice fellow beckons me over to one of the desks they use for opening new accounts and whatnot.
I endorse the check and give it to him, and after a minute or so he tells me that my account is overdrawn by $136.
This could not have shocked me more if it had been delivered by a ghost.
Turns out, the lovely people at Doctors Without Borders, to whom I donate $20/month, had tried to charge said donation to my bank account.
This has happened before, and all that happened was that the next time I cashed my monthly check, the little overdraft came off the check first.
But this time, they had upgraded their software’s evilness so that it now did what every other bank does and charged me a $25 overdraft charge.
So now I was $45 overdrawn. Repeat four more times – all without telling me a thing, because they could charge me more money that way – and now I owe them $136.
I freaked out.
Obviously, I could not have the whole frigging check disappear on me for charges I knew nothing about and never agreed to.
This is exactly the same kind of shady shit that TD pulled on me way back when we lived on Francis Road.
Van City changed the rules on me and tried to screw me over. So I was upset and angry and made my oonion known. Asked them why I shouldn’t just take my check back and go cash it at Money Mart, who would only charge me nine bucks, not the whole thing, and then never go to Van City again.
I also told them that I would tell everybody I knew about how Van City preys on the poor and the disabled in order to screw them out of money they don’t have,.
I even quoted their slogan, “make good money” back at them, and said “I don’t know what make good money means to you, but this ain’t it. ”
So they agreed to give me the full amount of the check in cash, and I have an appointment tomorrow to see about getting a tiny loan to cove the overdraft so I can pay it off in installments instead of having $136 of my next monthly check vanish when I go to cash it next week.
All of this has me terribly upset, natch, but at least I really stood up for myself.
If there is one area in which I have absolutely no problem asserting myself, it’s my money. You can do a lot of things to me and I will be mild and reasonable.
Come for my money and it’s all out fucking ar, especially if I feel like I am being ripped off. Maybe they get away with this bullshit with richer folk but not with me.
One last thing : I think I made the account manager throw up in his mouth a little. At least, I smelled vomit on his breath.
And I am ashamed to admit that I am a little proud of that.
Don’t fuck with my money, bitch.
More after the break.
The Fifth Game
Oh right… the fifth and final game review.
Mister Shifty. Wow, what a game.
It’s another high speed, high intensity kickass top down game like JYDGE. And like with that awesome but absurdly named game, you would think that the highly limited, and cartoonish graphics would make for a lame ass game.
But you would be very, very wrong.
There’s not much story. You’re some kind of special agent who has the ability to teleport (or “shift”) short distances at will.
You are fighting your way through some kind of office building. Opposing you are hordes of bad guys with guns.
And you are definitely NOT bulletproof. One bullet is all it takes to kill you. So in order to take out the bad guys, you have to shift around a lot and take advantage of things like cover, the element of surprise, firing angles, ambushes, and so on.
It all adds up to something that feels a lot like starring in a kickass action movie, and I love it. You die a lot (YDAL) but each room is relatively short and small, so there is not a lot of repetition.
In addition to your punching powers, you can also use weapons you find, including brooms, coffee mugs, and random lengths of wood. that sort of look like oars.
This game kicks ASS. It’s a ton of fun and very exciting. When you thread your way through a flood of baddies and take them all down, the thrill is intense. The action is fast and requires a lot of split second decision making, yet I don’t find it overwhelming.
And the compact design makes dying over and over until you figure out how to make it through a room no big deal.
In fact, in many ways, it’s like a high speed puzzle game. But with ass kicking.
Totally recommend it. Way to go, tinyBUILD!
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.