Certains banquiers sont de gros FEIGNANTS et sont du côté des voleurs (les joies d'une carte "CB")

Ben tiens... Encore une arnaque de plus en notre bon royaume de France.

Celle-là ne m'est pas arrivée à moi, mais je me coltine la paperasse et j'ai l'impression que mon banquier et mon conseiller moitié me prenne pour une buse, moitié sont NULS à pleurer.

Pour faire dans le court, la famille a été victime d'un vol sur Internet (produit commandé jamais livré). 

Le problème a été immédiatement signalé.

La commande à "ABC" a été payée à "JKL".

On demande le "chargeback"/rétrofacturation - comme indiqué sur les sites du gouvernement - sauf que le truc est passé par CB (carte bancaire), pas par VISA ou Mastercard et donc, c'est un "litige commercial" et débrouillez-vous avec le vendeur voleur.

Il existe des textes de loi qui sont censés nous protéger, mais les cartes co-badgées CB (la quasi totalité des cartes en France parce que... y'a pas l'choix) suivent leur propres règles. 'Faut dire que c'est compliqué de suivre un paiement électronique (le gars à la tête de l'agence où il y a eu le problème ne comprend pas comment ça marche ! Je ne plaisante pas. Hélas !).

Chez VISA ou Mastercard, le chargeback serait en route depuis belle lurette pour non respect des directives européennes. 

Chez CB, c'est : "on s'en tape et ne nous dérangez pas avec vos problèmes".

Donc : 

- problème tout de suite signalé. On bloque l'opération ? Ah, non, il faut payer le voleur.

- on peut faire revenir l'argent volé ? Ah, non, c'est un litige commercial qui ne regarde pas la banque.

Et ça vous est dit, sans broncher, par des gros BALTRINGUES qui jouent régulièrement au poker avec des milliards, se font aider par nos politôcards (donc avec NOS sous !) et ne font strictement rien en cas de problème.

Je fatigue. Grave.

'No, my dear neighbour, I wasn't raised in a barn.'

Apparently, my next door neighbour thinks I was raised in a barn (even though we've known each other for years!).

Here's what happened: I open my door and she's right outside my door (in the dark, which makes me think that she might be the one who keeps opening the window on the landing nine steps below our shared floor). We say 'Hello!' and chat a bit and then she asks me if my cat was sick on our floor - and I fucking left it there for her to clean.

*blink*

What?

Pardon my French, but fucking WHAT?!!!!!

I told her that my cat doesn't go out and if he'd been sick, I'd have cleaned his mess. I'm furious that she thinks I'd do such a thing.

My misanthropic side is growing. I'm really fed up with most bipeds.

Publicitaire psychopathe ?

Cette publicité a pour titre Un père Noël pas comme les autres...

Dès la première fois que je l'ai vue, je me suis demandée si le gars qui avait pondu ça avait des problèmes psychiatriques. Quel genre de malade concocte une pub où un père Noël se paye la tronche de deux enfants à juste quelques jours de Noël ???

Dans un élan charitable, je me suis dit que la pub passait seulement après le coucher des mômes, mais non ! Même pas ! 

Comme si cette fichue planète n'était pas assez dure, les rêves des gamins passent à la trappe - et si ça fait vendre des forfaits...

J'entends déjà les « Mais c’est de l’humour ! ». Curieux, je ne trouve pas ça drôle.

Quelle bande de baltringues !

Et Joyeux Noël !

The Utter Joy of Having an Incompetent Landlady

It's official, from now on, I'll deal with the council estate in a "baka yoke" spirit as if they were the village idiots .

Last year, there was a mistake with my water meter (no one came to read it, but they sent data to the council estate nonetheless).

I contacted the landlady, but she told me I'd have to pay (about half my wages!) and I'd get my money back later. In fact, what I paid them, when I didn't owe them that money, was used to pay the rent the  following months - not the same as "getting my money back".

A plumber came to change my meter so it could be read remotely. 

The kid didn't manage to do it.

I was the one who told the caretaker that the job wasn't done.

No news since.

Comes January and I invite my caretaker to take a picture of my meter so she sends it to the landlady (and she just confirmed me that she did).

Comes today, and they want me to pay for 140 m3 when I only used 30 m3! "Incidentally", that's about  three quarters of my wages that they want this time.

The plonkerish landlady has two months to have the mistake corrected. I swear to Zeus I'm going to rip her a new one if she doesn't do her job - again.

If I have to do her job by telling her what to do (apparently, I should have checked in January that she'd do what she was supposed to do with the photo of my meter), I'm going to start sending her invoices.

Bloody idiot.

Chers scénaristes, si vous avez besoin d'une historienne...

... ou tout simplement de quelqu'un pour vous relire, vous pouvez m'engager.

En revanche, si vous vous acharnez à commettre des erreurs historiques, je vous fais bouffer votre script. Sans sel. Sans moutarde.

Pourquoi suis-je en train de ronchonner ? Tout simplement à cause d'un téléfilm.

Je regardais tranquillement un épisode de Meurtres à..., qui est une série que j'aime beaucoup, quand l'épisode ...Aix-en-Provence (écrit et réalisé par Claude-Michel Rome) m'a fait faire un triple salto arrière avec rattrapage au plafond par les griffes.

Présentations des pièces à conviction, Madame la présidente/Monsieur le président : 

Échange n°1 :

A : Je l'ai convaincu que tu serais plus à ton aise si le manuscrit était ici.

{Gros plan sur un livre imprimé protégé par une vitrine} <- au moins, l'accessoiriste n'est pas une tanche, car ->

B : Incroyable. Un incunable du XVI^e siècle. Écrit de la main de Nostradamus ?

Là, mon plafond était déjà lacéré.

Échange n°2 : 

C : Est-ce qu'il pourrait venir du manuscrit trouvé dans la crypte ?

D : Non, personne n'a approché l'incunable après sa découverte.

C : Heu ?

D: L'incunable !

E : Livre du XVI^e siècle postérieur au début de l'imprimerie.

Là, j'ai commencé à hurler à la mort. Je n'avais pas autant râlé à cause d'un scénario depuis Gladiator, qui était pourtant pas mal déjanté dans le genre « Je fais pas mes devoirs, mais c'est pas grave ».

Un manuscrit, c'est écrit à la main par un copiste.

Un incunable, c'est un livre imprimé entre la date de l'invention de l'imprimerie (vers 1450) et avant le 1^er janvier 1501.

Un « incunable manuscrit », ça n'existe pas dans notre dimension.

Donc, le scénariste n'a pas vérifié la définition d'un incunable ou l'a lue en diagonale ou ne l'a pas comprise ou... se fichait complètement d'avoir une telle erreur dans son œuvre (je me souviens de la conférence d'un historien à qui il arrivait d'être conseiller historique sur des tournages et qui nous avait parlé d'un réalisateur qui voulait avoir des bananes dans une coupe de fruits... au Moyen-âge !).

Je ne sais pas à quoi nous avons affaire ici, mais si j'ai, un jour, le plaisir de rencontrer le coupable, je me ferai un plaisir de lui poser la question.

En attendant, si quelqu'un veut m'engager, je suis très efficace... mais je vous démonterai le squelette en place publique si vous ne corrigez pas ce genre d'erreur une fois que je vous l'aurai signalée (je fais de l'allergie aux tanches de concours et autres buses).

PS : Ce n'est peut-être pas qu'avec côtelette incunable que le scénariste a des problèmes, mais, même s'il voulait dire volume ou livre à la place de manuscrit, ça n'explique quand même pas le réplique B de l'échange 1.

No Dye

I'm growling (again) about the way people treat me when they focus on my whitening hair. It's not merely that they see it, no... it's all they see.

Even people who have known me for years tend to forget that I was playing with their children - and that, no, I'm not older than their aforementioned children (that happened to me just yesterday, and it was massively weird).

There was this supermarket employee in Chinatown who stared at me because I was checking the different sauces. His eyes (and general expression) seemed to say "Are you lost, lil', old lady?". Seriously, what the flurch?! I had to state "I'm fine. Ta!" for him to stop staring.

I'll admit that I enjoy my depigmented privilege on overcrowded buses as no one asks me to vacate my seat (not proud of it, and if someone who's really, actually old is near me, I do offer my seat - I'm not a monster).

My neighbouring cousin and I have the same depigmented problem at work (not when we work on a book together - though our depigmenting is different, which is funny as it seems to come from the same bit of shared DNA). Our students must think that we were around somewhere when the pyramids were being built - and the oldest amongst the staff, but we're not (I've got only three colleagues younger than I, and my cousin has just the one). Yet, since the wires on our heads are white, some of our students seem to think that we are an inch from retirement - or death.

My poor cousin just had to deal with a student (to whom the administration of her school decided to give another chance to pass) who thought that it could plagiarize "its" assigned work - coz my cousin, being white-haired and all, must be senile and she'd never, ever flurching notice that "it" copied and pasted pages and pages from the Internet. Right?

What's wrong with these people's eyes? Can't they bloody look at our skins? Not a wrinkle, for Merlin's sake (laugh lines don't count - we do laugh, and we're not planning to stop!).

When I get a coat of arm, "Fronti nulla fides" is sooooo my motto.

For the moment, I think I may start asking people if they left their Labrador at home by mistake*.

*: oddly enough, I think I've been going through anger-generated adrenaline rushes recently, and it's a strange state...

Nasty Week

There's nothing tragic or final, but my stress-o-meter went up a notch this week.

I know it's for silly reasons, but when you're fighting PTSD, a grain of sand can feel like a boulder.

There are three things that bugged me:

1) My bank:

A few months ago, they'd tried to make me pay a fee for a service that I've had for years. I told them I was refusing to pay their fee because it wasn't in my initial contract and I got my money back.

End of story?

Of course not. 

The fee was back this week, so I had to contact my bank again, but, this time, I was told that I must trade the service I had for something else, or I must pay the fee. I caved and agreed to have the new service (because I've got better things to do than fight them on this), but I demanded my money back. I'm still waiting - and it bugs me.

2) Twitter (and Fox):

The way things trend there are too cryptic for my taste. I did some research, and the way they (try to) explain their algorithm is messy. I can understand that the name of a singer with too many overenthusiastic fanatics is not trending worldwide day in, day out, but a brand new hashtag to try and save a TV show disappearing after a day whilst I can see new people still tweeting about it... I find it odd, to say the least - all the more since another hashtag to try and save another show was still trending two days after it started (I'm talking about #SaveLucifer and #SaveB99).

I'm bugged because one of the things I use to control my stress is good shows, and I fell in love with Lucifer; it's well-written, consistent (a bloody miracle on American telly, where shows tend to not always follow the story's bible), intelligent, fun, and entertaining. Fox deciding to pull the plug on it shows their stupidity (then again, I was always surprised that they produced a series where Lucifer's the hero).

3) Twitter (and a lying, fascist politico):

This morning, I saw a retweet with comment where the initial tweet shows a politico who'd just angled a small shark.

I briefly considered reporting the tweet, but didn't:

a) even though I do believe that the shark is way more useful than the biped holding it on a ship's deck, what the biped did is not illegal (immoral, yes).

b) since the politico is a big name (Merlin know why, coz he's a deplorable waste of skin), I knew that Twitter would do flurch all because of their "it's newsworthy" smokescreen (either they approve, or they're just spineless).

I think I'm going to turn these into plot bunnies. After all, this is another trick I use to control my stress.

Censorship in the 21st Century

Long time no post, but the summer's properly demented, and some of us have Internet woes (and Usagi's still in Kyoto). Basically, reduced team is no fun...

We've made a choice about Racine's Phedre et Hyppolyte: we'll have the original spelling and typography, and a modern version (just the old one could be fun, but it'd be really tough without a more modern one on the right page).

We're still working on Wilde's Salomé, but we're taking our time to make sure that we'll give you a nice translation - and a bilingual introduction.

When I have some free time, I work on the fourth novel in my Sci-Fi universe (the current news are feeding the plot bunny in a rather dark way).

Then... bank news to be able to launch our website.

So... we've found a bank, but because of an annoying technicality, we can only open the account in September (sometime in September).

But what's utterly frustrating is that Cousin Chris had managed to open an account for us at her main bank. She'd had to go through artificial hoops to please the arrogant plonkers, but we had an account... until we asked for the reference that would allow us to buy an e-commerce plugin so that we could safely link our website to our account.

The female that called my cousin at my aunt's (even though my cousin never gives any phone number because she does business at 2 am by e-mail - because she gets some written proof) was a proper nightmare. 

First, she claimed that she didn't have access to our file (then, how did she get my aunt's phone number, um?), and she demanded to be given the names, addresses, and e-mails of the website provider and webmaster; to quote my cousin: 'No way in friggin' Hell!!!!!'.

My cousin's plan was to get the reference, give it to the plugin company, buy the plugin, install it, buy the website, migrate our site that's on Xampp, test everything, and launch the ship.

That wasn't possible, as the phoning biped demanded to be allowed to see our website first because she wanted... to censor it!

She literally said that she had to "check our website for references to religion, sex, and drug".

Well, 95% of our books are LGBTQ-friendly (though there's nothing graphic, but with "Miss Censorship-Sunshine", we'd have ended up with an empty catalogue). And Shakespeare's potentially controversial. And Wilde's play was already censored on religious grounds - from the late 19th century, up to the 1930s!

What we miss is stuff about drugs (thanks for the plot bunny, arrogant bank biped!).

So the account was closed, because none of us (not even our accountant, who growled with us, editors and authors) were ready to accept censorship in the 21st century.

Do you know what the other bank only asked us? That the website had an SSL certificate, which we will have. Internet security is their only concern.

Right now, we're plotting all together to report the censoring biped to someone much higher than her in the food chain.

I'll have some painting to show you soon, maybe a video, and we're planning to take pictures of our paper babies to add them to the website (we'll share some with you then).

See you soon (hopefully)!

La SNCF, c'est (vraiment) [pas] possible

Si vous n'avez besoin de rien vous serez tout de suite servi.

Mon dernier voyage en train ?

Je me lève à l'aube (littéralement), arrive à la gare bien en avance et mon premier train part... A la moitié du voyage, une erreur d'aiguillage (ben voyons !) nous fait prendre un retard de 25 minutes - dommage, je n'ai que 20 minutes de battement pour attraper mon second train.
Que va-t-il se passer ?
Le contrôleur nous annonce que la correspondance sera assurée quand même cinq minutes avant l'arrivée en gare (merci pour le stress, les gars !).
Une fois sur le quai, ben t'as intérêt à battre le record de vitesse avec ta valise si tu veux l'avoir le TGV (quelques palpitations plus tard et un poignet abîmé à cause de ma valise super lourde, la porte s'est carrément refermée sur mes fesses - on courrait tous sur le quai, mais le chef de gare était pressé pour l'autre TGV... Ben mon gars, t'as qu'à apprendre à tes collègues à aiguiller les trains correctement).

L'année dernière, la SNCF m'avait laissée en rade à pas d'heure dans un gare dangereuse (Mère avait payé ce billet-là).
Je râle et le médiateur me donne raison (en bons de voyage, mais c'est déjà ça). La SNCF ne conteste pas, mais ne fait rien.
Depuis plus de quinze jours, après être passée en agence où on m'a dit de téléphoner au SAV, je tente de joindre ce service, mais le choix d'option ne marche tout simplement pas (avec deux téléphones !).
Je demande de l'aide à la SNCF sur Twitter et de fil en aiguille, on me demande les références du problème pour nous aider, puis nom, prénom, adresse, courriel, numéro de téléphone (l'âge du capitaine et mon mot de passe Twitter, aussi, peut-être ?!!!).
On me promet la relance du service hier...
... ce matin ? Ah, bah, "contactez un autre service, nous, on ne peut rien faire".
Conclusion : ils se payent nos tronches, bossent comme des "plonkers" (ouaip, de l'anglais, je sais, mais 1 - je suis bilingue et 2 - c'est le mot parfait pour les décrire !) et refusent de payer ce qu'ils doivent.
A en juger par les messages d'autres personnes sur les forums de la SNCF, le SAV est souvent en rade et ils bossent quand ils ont le temps.

Bloody plonkers!

Silent Banker

Hello, dear Readers!

We've got a slight case of "We are not amused" going on.

Our Editor-in-chief, my (usually patient and sweet) cousin, sent the links about the (local equivalent of the) Senate and Home Office stating that she is right to our new contact at our bank (over a decade with them for both of us, and not a single problem!), and... nothing.

We do not know if he's angry about the Law lesson, if he's asking his superior what to do with the mean gal who's sending him official texts showing that the bank is ignoring the Law, or if he's doing his job and opening us an account so we can start our online activity.

Not a clue...

Since none of us is a fan of silence... I contacted another bank in the night, got an answer this morning, and handed the baby to Cousin Editor-in-chief. Now... we wait.

I'd like to officially declare here that it is exhausting to deal with people who aren't even competent at their jobs. The number of arrogant cavepeople trying to bully their way through life is quite tiring.

I'll keep you posted on our launch.

Love,

Dru

Nul n'est censé ignorer la loi

The title of this post, which basically says that all citizens are supposed to know the Law, is just a saying, as only specialists and Law professionals may know most of it - not all of it (only a Vulcan could do that!).

If people cannot know all the laws of their country of residence, it's no reason to wilfully ignore most of the laws (people should know the rights that protect them, and the limits they've got to abide by).

Why this legal post now?

Well... I've got Cousin Chris fuming, right next to me. You see, her main form of ID is a bit old, and she knows that she can't use it to leave the country, for example, but... the Sénat and the Ministère de l'Intérieur both declare that it is still valid to prove her identity as long as the photo looks like her (and it bloody does!). So what's the problem? Well, the bank she contacted (her bank - and mine, too! - the bank that can see everything we buy and pay, and where our money comes from) just told her that her ID's no longer valid, which is, according to the Sénat and the Ministère de l'Intérieur, not legal, as they're not above the Sénat and the Ministère de l'Intérieur.

So... banks can play with our money as if it were Monopoly money, and ignore the Law?
How delightful!

We all agree that we must NOT cave and bow to them, because that bank is ignoring the Law - and we know it, and we're going to remind them because we're looking for business partners who trust us (and those know they can trust us), not bullies who can treat us like crooks, liars, and potential thieves!

Even if we do have to go look elsewhere, and it postpones the opening of our e-bookstore, we're not going to do as the bank bullies want, and we're not going to potentially subject our lovely patrons to arrogant ignoramuses who think someone died and made them kings.

Now... I'd better go find something soothing for the team, the five of us are currently fuming like a volcano in a weird mood.

De l'incompétence et l'arrogance de la BNP

L'année dernière, j'avais claqué la porte de la BNP après de très nombreuses années chez eux à cause de leur façon absolument pathétique de "travailler".

C'était pour mon compte courant personnel, mais il était quand même question que notre compagnie ouvre un compte pro chez eux - uniquement parce que le conseiller pro vers lequel j'avais aiguillé ma cousine se montrait plus que compétent et à l'écoute de nos besoins.

Le mois dernier, nous convenons qu'il est temps d'ouvrir le compte pro et ma cousine donne ses disponibilités au gentil conseiller qui d'habitude répond par retour de courriel en un jour (deux max).

Rien.

Transfert de message avec une fusée de détresse.

Rien.

Re-transfert (étonné et inquiet).

Rien.

Re-re-transfert (là, on passe au stade "vous êtes à l'hôpital ou quoi ?").

Rien.

Comme les informaticiens de la BNP ne sont pas des flèches... Il y a peut-être un blocage du message.

Nouveau message ("nous sommes prêtes pour le lancement").

Pas de réponse.

Re-nouveau message ("vous êtes en un seul morceau ou il y a problème avec notre projet ?").

Silence radio.

Là, ma cousine décide de se la jouer Lino Ventura dans Les tontons flingueurs et elle déboule à l'agence... et alors là, un vrai festival.

Ma cousine explique qu'elle voudrait voir le conseiller XYZ à la dame de l'accueil.

Sans sourciller (et sans commentaire au sujet du récent silence de XYZ), elle propose un rendez-vous à ma cousine... pour la fin de la semaine prochaine, mais c'est un rendez-vous, hein ?

Et ben non...

Le rendez-vous serait avec Madame JKL, parce que XYZ n'est plus là (mort, viré, muté ? On ne sait toujours pas). 

Incidemment, quand j'ai récupéré ma cousine (qui aurait pu machouiller du neutronium tellement elle était furax en remontant de la banque), j'ai pu louer son instinct de survie : JKL, c'est celle qui m'avait téléphoné alors que j'avais indiqué de ne jamais m'appeler et qui n'avait jamais fait ce qu'elle m'avait promis de faire. Une vraie perle!

Vu notre statut hyper particulier, ma cousine n'était pas ravie à l'idée de tout réexpliquer à quelqu'un d'autre, mais la personne à l'accueil n'est même pas émue ("Vous n'avez pas le choix").

Et là, le coup de génie. Ma cousine explique à son interlocutrice que nous avons notre SIRET, nos preuves de domiciliation, mais nos pièces d'identité ne sont plus toutes techniquement valides et XYZ avait reconnu que la décision du Sénat s'appliquait dans notre cas ("Elle est valable dix ans, mais, même périmée, elle permet à son titulaire de justifier de son identité sur le territoire national, à condition que la photographie soit ressemblante.").

Si ma cousine avait annoncé qu'elle avait la peste, la réaction de la secrétaire n'aurait pas été plus dégoûtée, apparemment. En gros, par les temps qui courent, la BNP se doit d'être méfiante (n’empêche que ma cousine a la même tête que sur sa carte périmée - et on va vendre des livres, pas financer des débilos du Moyen-Orient).

Donc rendez-vous annulé par la secrétaire et "Allez à la mairie faire refaire votre carte" (ouaip! Sauf qu'il faut aller à la Préfecture maintenant, et uniquement sur rendez-vous).
Si c'est ça leur niveau de compétence... on a peut-être échappé au pire !

Voulez-vous une cerise sur ce joli gâteau ?

Apparemment XYZ n'est "plus là" depuis un mois - et personne n'a eu l'idée de programmer sa boite de réception afin d'envoyer un message ; un truc entre "Si vous cherchez à contacter XYZ, téléphonez à notre agence" et "XYZ n'est plus disponible, tant pis pour vous, pauvres clowns !".

J'ai ronchonné pour toute la famille hier sur Twitter. Vous croyez que quelqu'un de la BNP m'aurait contactée, histoire de régler le problème et d'avoir un nouveau client professionnel ? Non. Toujours pas émus les p'tits gars.

La secrétaire avait pris l'adresse de courriel de ma cousine. Sans doute déjà effacée et même pas transmise à JKL !

Ouaip ! Je crois que nous avons échappé au pire.

Ma pauvre cousine va se retrouver à gérer un module bancaire en plus de la gestion normale du site internet.

La BNP nous a ignoré (sans même rien savoir sur notre projet). Si par bonheur notre aventure marche, ma cousine prépare déjà sa revanche (en mode Vésuve croisé avec le Krakatoa).

Varieties of Denialism

Bipeds that cannot accept facts because they don't fit their agenda, beliefs, or whatever have a way to make my blood boil.

With the film Denial coming to our screens, the number of Holocaust denialists has become more visible with these decerebrated bipeds flooding forums and comments threads.

Just this morning, I've seen a bunch of village idiots doubt that the Holocaust happened; one even found it fishy to not be allowed to doubt the evidence - and the testimonies of the survivors! There were also idiots adding the Holodomor to their list of denials.

As a historian, I understand that we can doubt that the battle of Agincourt happened exactly the way it is reported in archives - but we can dig up testimonies and get a fair idea of what happened. All one needs is hard work - and a working brain.

What I cannot understand is the collection of village idiots, from all over the rock, who can read all the documents we have in archives, and who can meet survivors or read their testimonies (be it about the Holodomor, the Holocaust, or even the sex slaves for the Imperial Japanese army), and who say, 'Nope! I don't believe it! It just can't be true!'.

They make me want to yell and make them sit down and educate themselves until their two and a half brain cells have a spark of illumination.

My introduction for the publication of Shakespeare's Sonnets for Éditions Aikyō is dealing with all the varieties of denialists about Shakespeare.

I ended up dividing contemporary denialists into two categories: prime and secondary.

Secondary denialists are the collections of village idiots who might well doubt that our planet orbits around the sun if it became fashionable in their circles to think so, or who do not have enough brain cells to understand facts and the truth. They're infuriating, but I fear most of them are just too stupid.

Much worse and twisted are the prime denialists. These are bipeds who, I think, do understand the archives and the testimonies, but who have decided to not believe them. These bipeds have decided to spread lies (not "post-truth", not "alternative facts" - let's call a spade a spade: they're LIES); maybe they're doing that to enjoy the chaos and pain their words will generate, and/or maybe they have some hidden agenda to promote - be it hatred for one subdivision of humanity, or be it to promote their own work.

If we take into account the scary number of secondary denialists, the prime denialists have a lot of quarterwits (I do fear we're talking about creatures way below the average halfwit) who are ready and willing to pay to buy their books or watch their films or documentaries.

We have ignoramuses and simpletons falling into the cunning traps of manipulators and profiters who would say and do anything to make money and become famous.

Both categories annoy me, but I have some compassion for secondary denialists... Prime denialists, not so much, as I see them as liars and dubious, devious, and unethical creatures who would deny that their own mothers gave birth to them if they could gain anything from spitting that lie.

I do believe that "Knowledge is power", and I will always fight against prime denialists who try to pervert what decent people know to be truths.

Of the Incredible Arrogance of Thieving Bankers

Back to bank-land, as I momentarily took over from my poor cousin (her fangs are firmly planted in the floor, and the next time a banker tells her a lie, she might well turn into a wifwolf!).

Today, I had news from Bank#2:

the gal gave me prices (without including the VAT!), and they're expensive, and for that price:

- one must add a percentage per transaction AND a percentage according to the amount of the transaction (because we're not paying them enough per month already!)

- they want to know everything about every Jack, Jill, Bob, Bethany, and Paul who works with us (name, postal address, and phone number). Funny they're not asking about their mums' phone numbers, blood types, and tax returns!

- they can't bloody spell (so how are we supposed to believe that they can encode?)

- they don't seem to be doing much to protect us (I e-mailed the gal a long list of potentially problematic situations, and I look forward to reading how they're planning to protect us in the cyberspace!)

- it's our webmaster who's supposed to configure everything (how cute! My cousin and I are the wedmistresses!)

Honestly, I answered the gal and asked questions, but I've got a bad feeling.

I'll contact again Bank#1, and if it comes to that, since we'll be doing all the hard work, we'll buy a bank thingy for Wordpress.

The banks keep being the most frustrating part of this business launching thingy (a solid tie with the Revenue guys, though), but we can definitely see the finish/launch line now.

Nutty Update: Bank#2's gal answered me. She'd like me to phone her coz I asked too many questions by e-mail.

ô.O

Oooookay. To Bank#1...

May I Use the Cruciatus on That Dentist?

*points at title* Not my current one, who is the doctor who fully reconciled me with his profession, and who I can go see alone.

You see, my teeth are oddly shaped, and not planted that well, but... they're quite solid and healthy.

When the dentist who'd always taken care of me retired (his surgery was rather far from our home, but he was quite good, and it was worth it), we decided to try one who was on our street...

I remember opening wide, and she announced that she could spot some decay on at least one tooth, which she promptly drilled and (badly!!!) filled. I say badly because it was hideous, and my current dentist said it was poor work - and I believe him (and he had to alter the filling a few years ago to correct her mistake).

I'm not pretending that my teeth are perfect, no... Not at all. I'm just saying that the lying bitch who drilled my tooth did so to make money (the day I die, I'll still be convinced that that tooth had nothing, but she twisted my mum's arm and mine to make a few quids).

And today... a tiny lil' bit of that poor tooth broke. The tooth no longer has its nerve, and nothing is too damaged, but it's quite weird - and massively unpleasant.

I'll have to manage to get an appointment with my dentist (I hope he won't be on holidays!), and I hope nothing weird will happen whilst I'm stuck in the country (the local dentist, too many miles away anyway, is said to be a bit like that guy in Marathon Man - just saying).

If some greedy cunt hadn't drilled my tooth, I probably wouldn't be on tooth-watch now, whilst I have better things to do - hence my wish to use the Cruciatus on her. Since that spell isn't real, I'll just wish her to fall and break... all the bones in both feet (and I bloody mean it).

In Kafka-land

Dear Administrations,

would you please stop trying to give me an ulcer or a heart attack?

Sincerely,

Dru

My cousin, her mum, and I have spent last night attempting to read the additional bumph sent by our local "HM Revenue & Customs" (the IRS, if you're on the other side of the pond).

First... It's always written in North Korean (or in Romulan!).

And then, after picturing our publishing adventure closing before it even opened... we discovered that we're not concerned by the bumph they sent (our status is so rare - okay, and recent - that we're not on their map).

My cousin will have to go see them, explain (in veeeeeeeery simple words) what we do, give them the legal reference that concerns our status, and pray to Zeus that they acknowledge that we're right (otherwise they could ask us a pay a tax we cannot afford to pay).

We're trying to do everything by the book, and we're being probed, and investigated, and doubted (and generally not helped at all) even though we've done nothing to deserve that.

How do con-men go through these nets? Do they bulldoze and/or cajole their way though?

It's the third time we fear we might have to stop launching our own business. I hope it's the last time - and I hope we can go on...

Wish us luck?

Of Lazy Companies

'Dear Customer,

please, do our job...'

I can't help but have this sentence stuck in my head to summarize what just happened to me.

I got a letter from a "CCC" company that was informing me of the change/renewal of some piece of "AA" equipment in my flat.

The bloody thing looked like a scam.

I phoned to "AA", but no one knew about it... until I read them the letter, & they pointed out the piece of equipment now belongs to "AAa" ('Hello, communication between services!?' <- my Sarc font is firmly on).

I phoned to "AAa", and they confirmed that "CCC" works for them - but they had no trace of the change in my file (the OCD in me was beginning to twitch a little).

I phoned "CCC" because the appointment in the letter didn't work for me.

I could change it; no problem... buuuuuuuuut the lovely secretary told me that I should call the technician on the day of the appointment in order to know when he's going to be at my flat.

Aforementioned technician only has a mobile number (that's logical), & such numbers aren't included in my phone package & I am NOT going to pay to phone a guy when it's the "CCC" company that should contact me.

I told the secretary that I wouldn't be able to phone the technician, & I gave her my phone number (an old-fashioned landline).

She said that they'd contact me. [I thought "cool!"].

Then she said that I'd have to phone the technician to know when he'd be at my flat. ô.O

I realized that she wanted me to do their job, but... oops! I'm not paid for that.

Either they call me or they can drop dead - & I'll call "AAa" to read them the riot act in fifteen languages.

Oh.. "AAa" sent me a link to a poll. When they asked me if I had suggestions, weeeeell, I may have made a few to have them work properly, & not like lazy sloths.

I fear there shall be a "Part 2" to this story...

Victim Blaming Is Alive and Well

I really should read fewer newspapers.

I really should not read the comments.

I was reading a new article about the latest "scandal" about a courageous rape victim who was betrayed by the sentencing judge (because the culprit, as a fellow star athlete, deserves to not be properly punished).

It's this New York Times article (it's good, and I've got nothing to say against the journalist).

No, my problem is with whichever plonker picked a victim-blaming comment as a NYT Picks:

There are other similar comments on the thread. Of course. Gosh! My Sarc font is on again!

It's not about showing both sides of an argument. There's NO argument; one does not betray a victim yet another time by giving "air time" to a caveman. Full stop.

Oh, and for good measure, here's the mug of the culprit's protector judge:

I could add something about the letter that the culprit's father wrote, but there's no point in risking my lovely brain cells. Go read about that other caveman; he's a piece of... something.

It Would Be Funny If...

... it were not so sad.

My cousin and I are spending a few days with our friend DeForest.

We've been observing the world together and trading plot bunnies, and it's been great.

And then the world's nuttiness caught up with him.

Nothing bad, but it makes you wonder how silly bipeds can be...

For a few months, some idiot in California has been giving De's address to several companies (Microsoft, Netflix, a dating site, a car seller, etc). He even gave De's address to a charming woman apparently quite fond of him, who contacted De (being the gentleman that he is, he pointed out the mistake - and didn't even get a "Thank you!").

De's address is "yadda" dot "yadda" dot "yaddayaddayadda" @gmail.com, and since the bloody geniuses at Google don't care about the dots and they don't make any difference, De's been getting messages sent to yaddayaddayaddayaddayadda@gmail.com, which is the address that the Californian idiot has been distributing around.

Seriously, that bloke's lucky that my friend's nice or he could have completely messed up with his dating profile since the company had sent the non-encrypted password to De.

After getting yet another message from the car selling company, De blew a fuse and e-mailed them to point out the mistake made by that guy.

He quickly got an answer... with an offer to help him if he wants to buy a car (he'd said that he isn't in the US!).

Gosh! He turned the sarcasm font on, answered the message, and unsubscribed himself from everything he ever received from that company (they're one sandwich short of a picnic in my book).

I'm a good friend. I gave De a plot bunny inspired by the incident, and he's having fun on my laptop...

We're writers. We turn the strangeness of the world into stories.

Bonus for me: I get to edit the story, and he'll probably never spot this post since he's mostly only reading newspapers online... *mwaha* (if he spots it, I'll give him another plot bunny... ^_^)

Les "bras cassés" de la BNP

Massif ras la frange ce soir/cette nuit.

Je suis à la BNP depuis ma majorité (sans rentrer dans les détails sordides... ça fait longtemps), mais là, j'ai envie de tous les renvoyer en stage de formation.

Depuis que je suis chez eux (dans le désordre) : 

- ils ont perdu ma signature

- ils ont perdu la procuration de ma mère sur mon compte (même pas émus... "Elle n'a qu'à repasser à l'agence" - Ben oui, sauf qu'elle est à 400km maintenant !)

- ils ont crédité un chèque que j'avais déposé sur mon compte sur le compte de ma mère

- le personnel change tellement souvent que je n'ai plus affaire à la même personne deux fois de suite

- ils ont muté mon compte courant sur leur plateforme en ligne sans me prévenir (j'ai dû prendre rendez-vous avec la tête de l'agence afin de récupérer mon compte normal - je n'ai que ça à faire !)

- une stagiaire à l'accueil m'a demandé pourquoi je voulais déposer du liquide et pourquoi j'avais du liquide (on parle de quelques euros, là, pas du budget golf de l'Arabie Saoudite)

- au téléphone, certains s'acharnent à m'appeler "Mademoiselle". Alors, petit un, c'est "Madame" ou "Docteur" et petit deux, on est en 2016, les p'tits gars (il est peut-être temps de limiter le sexisme, non ?)

- j'envoie un message à ma conseillère sauf que... elle n'est plus là. Un conseiller répond à mon message et prétend avoir essayé de me téléphoner (ce qui est un gros vilain mensonge, mais... passons). Dans la foulée, une de ses collègues m'attrape au téléphone (alors que je leur avais dit de ne pas me téléphoner !) et promet de régler mon problème.

Affaire classée ?

Que nenni !

Le conseiller n'a pas répondu au message suivant que j'ai envoyé (mais il a bien accusé réception du bidule il y a quinze jours) et aujourd'hui, je découvre que sa collègue n'a pas fait ce qu'elle avait promis.

Du coup, j'ai transféré le message d'origine au conseiller timide du clavier en lui passant un savon. Oh, et en mettant en copie le conseiller professionnel avec qui je devais (dois ?) faire affaire.

En faisant quelques recherches, j'ai vu que la BNP avait fait près de 7 milliards d'euros de bénéfices en 2015 - et ils ont décidé d'imposer des frais de tenue de compte ! Multipliez 2.5€ par le nombre de pigeons clients qui sont chez eux et grognez en chœur avec moi.

Il est hors de question que je les laisse s'en tirer à si bon compte et ils ont intérêt à me présenter des excuses plates de chez Plate, parce que, là... Basta. J'ai le Vésuve qui me monte au nez.

Oh... et si le p'tit gars me téléphone et me réveille dans quelques heures, je lui passe un savon à faire pleurer jusqu'à ses arrière-grand-mères.

Les banques ne sont peut-être pas des entreprises de philanthropie, mais je n'ai pas "vache à lait" tatoué sur les fesses.

"Caue BNP!"