Introspection alert level: Red

I can't go into much detail, but this afternoon, I pretty much re-lived one of the pivotal bad moments of my life from a slightly different perspective. It was happening almost identically to the way it happened to me years ago, and in trying to help the situation, I found myself flooded with realizations of how horribly I acted back then, how things could've been handled differently, and was reminded of the pain I experienced.

I can't go into it too much, because A) it may still be going on at this moment, and B) it's not proper for me to air out other people's shit. Nevertheless, it was akin to my grandfather's death causing me to relive my father's death 14 years before. The main difference this time being that I'm not having to deal with the pain of a new experience. It's all about empathy now, and not only am I nearly powerless to change anything about it, I'm feeling as shitty as someone could possibly feel without actually being responsible.

Fuck it, I'm gonna go get drunk.

Political cures that may be worse than the disease Vol.6: The Founding Fathers

I, for one, am getting a little sick and tired of hearing politicians and pundits describing whatever current legistlation is at hand as "not what our founding fathers intended". In fact, it has bugged the ever living shit out of me ever since the first time I heard it used back when I was in college.

My history professor never followed the book assigned to the course. Instead, he wrote his own study guides. In one of them, without it even being on the topic we were covering, he wrote that the founding fathers wouldn't approve of our country's stance on abortion. The next class period, I just went off on him. That wasn't history he was teaching, he was pushing his beliefs on his students.

My frustration at that phrase stems from one simple philosophy: Why should we care about the opinions of men who lived over 230 years ago? If people feel that their opinions matter so much, then why don't they try to get more funding for time travel research?

We start off simple. Our first trip, we go back to 1944, and tell all the troops on the front lines of World War II that in our time, there are Japanese electronics in every household in America, and that the same company that makes the vehicles the Nazis are driving around will make our luxury vehicles today. Let's see how many of those guys still wanna fight the good fight.

Then, let's go back to talk to Lincoln, and inform him that people in the Republican party are using his name and his achievement of freeing the slaves to whitewash the fact that they want to set civil rights back another fifty years.

If all goes well, we go back to the writing of the constitution and tell them what we have accomplished in 230 years:

We have machines that can prepare entire meals in less than five minutes, and for some people, that's not fast enough.

We have flying machines that are capable of transporting 200 people from New York to Paris, France in less than six hours.

The average life expectancy is 75 years.

We are able of transplanting organs from one human being to another, allowing the recipient to live another thirty plus years.

We have devices that allow you to contact people from around the globe and talk to them as if they were in the next room.


If you haven't been locked up as a heretic or all of them have died of shock, continue:

Women and non-whites not only are allowed to vote, but they hold political office and run for president.

We have guns that can fire 100 bullets in less than a minute, and the bullets can break through the toughest armor we have available, and people are using the second amendment to justify using these for hunting purposes.

We have created bombs that can reduce entire cities to smoldering rubble in a fraction of a second, and can launch them from hundreds of miles away and they hit their target with pinpoint accuracy.

We pay taxes on everything we earn and buy.

Many people in our nation are starving, and some people eat well just to intentionally puke it up afterwards.

England is now our only true ally in world affairs. Everyone else either hates us, pretends to like us, or wants to kill every one of us.


Then, you can ask them about their opinions on how we're doing as a nation.


The next time anyone invokes the founding fathers in a political discussion, please keep the following things in mind:

1. If the topic is the passing of a new law, then that is precisely what the founding fathers had in mind. They put a clause in the Constitution that says, "Hey, feel free to change these things if it is needed!"

2. Try and remember the last time your grandparent(s) gave you their opinion on current affairs. Did you totally agree with them? My grandmother is in her mid-seventies, and she still holds a grudge because my cousin married a Baptist. She'd still be upset that I moved in with my last girlfriend if it hadn't gotten a positive write-up in People magazine! Not that she's out-of-touch or anything, but her opinions do come from a time long since relevant to our times....at least her point of view comes from a time after electricity was harnessed!

3. If it's a question of our moral standing, consider Ben Franklin's son who was born out of wedlock, or Thomas Jefferson's many affairs with his slaves and the children that spawned as a result, or the fact that opium was to the founding fathers what a cocktail is to us today.

4. Think of how insane it is that we are apparently so polarized as a nation, that rather than agree with our fellow man, that we need a judgment call from a dead guy, much less many dead guys!

A mix CD that argues with itself

Track list:

1. "Be My Yoko Ono", Bakenaked Ladies

2. "I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono", Dar Williams

3. "You", Candlebox

4. "Me", Paula Cole

5. "Us and Them", Pink Floyd

6. "Hold Me", Thompson Twins

7. "Don't Stand So Close To Me", The Police

8. "Stay", Lisa Loeb

9. "Hit The Road, Jack", Ray Charles

10. "Should I Stay or Should I Go?", the Clash

11. "Hello Goodbye", the Beatles

12. "Pull", Better Than Ezra

13. "Push It", Garbage

14. "I'm Too Sexy", Right Said Fred

15. "So Unsexy", Alanis Morrissette

16. "Drink the Water", Jack Johnson

17. "Don't Drink the Water" Dave Matthews Band

18. "Friend of the Devil", Grateful Dead

19. "Oh, What a Friend I have in Jesus", Traditional

20. "I'm a Man", Bo Diddley

21. "I am Woman, Hear Me Roar" Helen Reddy

22. "Red Rain", Peter Gabriel

23. "Blue Sky", Tori Amos

24. "Strangelove", Depeche Mode

25. "Bad Love", Eric Clapton

26. "Righteous Love", Joan Osborne

27. "Crazy Love", Van Morrison

28. "Good Love", Anita Baker

No pithy movie-related pun possible

My friend Colleen called me last night to ask me to tag along to a free advance screening of Blades of Glory tonight. I weighed the pros and cons for a moment:

Cons:
Will Ferrell as a (insert wacky occupation here).
The last time I tagged along to a free screening with her, my car got totalled afterward.
These free screenings tend to attract the kind of people I absolutely hate to be in a dark room in with for two hours. Handing out free passes to loud, obnoxious people is like throwing a Twinkie into a Weight Watchers meeting...they just go fucking nuts!

Pros:
I can't resist Will Ferrell no matter how much I may hate myself afterwards.
I could really use a couple hours of brainless fun.
It's free!

So, I said yes, and I had a fun time. The movie was pretty damned good. Very funny, not too predictable, and didn't over-stay its welcome. However, the real entertainment had nothing to do with the movie.

I've been to a few advance screenings in my time...enough that I know the drill. I don't bring any cameras, I turn off my cell phone, and I don't save seats for twenty people in a prime location. This time, however, there was studio rep there. He was a skinny, twenty-something little pipsqueak who for the purposes of this story, we'll call him Skippy.

Skippy got a little power-hungry with the microphone. He tried his best commanding voice to address the crowd about his policies regarding video cameras, vulgarities being shouted, cell phones, etc. Unfortunately for him, the microphone kept cutting out, so he had to address the crowd directly. His little speech gave me the impression that this was his outlet for repressed anger over every wedgie he got back in grade school. I particularly liked his stuff about cameras, saying, "If we see any red lights come on during the movie. You. Are. Outta. Here! No exceptions!"

Here's what I don't get about movie pirating: If some people are willing to pay to see a crappy videotaped in the theater version of the latest blockbuster, complete with the background noise of everyone in the theater talking, laughing and munching on popcorn...wouldn't it be easier to just target the marketing campaigns towards people who actually want to see the film in a theater? Personally, I blame the anti-piracy policies for the fact that Wild Hogs topped the box office for three weeks. If you give idiots no other choice but to go to the theater, then this is the kind of thing that gonna happen. Let these people sit at home and watch it in glorious RealPlayer quality, and leave a little elbow room for the people willing to pay to see it on the big screen.

Anyway, there was apparently one casualty of Skippy's zero tolerance policy. As we all left the theater, there was a guy sitting on the bench outside who told us how he got thrown out by Skippy because he got a phone call from his grandmother. Five minutes into the flick, Skippy saw him on the phone and the power-trip kicked into gear. The guy went on to say that he had driven in from Wagoner to hang out with his "friend"...who stayed in the theater while he was being thrown out. So, he sat outside on the bench until the movie let out.

No sooner than we all declared, "Gee, man, that sucks." He saw his "friend" in the distance.

He called out to her, "Traci! (or Brittany or Courtney or whatever her name was)"

Her response? In a irritated tone, "WHAT?!?"

So, he drives in from out of town to spend time with her, she ditches him, and to top it all off, she's being combative about it! Granted, it was a free movie, but that's as far as I'll be able to go in defending her position. They exchange a few words, he storms off, and they start fighting again by her car. She takes off, he stomps back to his car and drives off, too.

If the brief time talking to this guy before the confrontation, I got the feeling that his use of the word "friend" indicated that he was kinda hoping it would be more. Believe me, I know the feeling. That one girl in high school who agreed to go to a movie with me and brought her boyfriend...the girl I went to a party with in college and talked my ear off about coming out to her family a few weeks earlier...Yeah, I've been in that guy's shoes before. My heart goes out to the guy.

Driving home, I got to thinking that in all of the wacky observations I've made of total strangers, this was one of the few that I didn't experience alone. Yes, this time, I had witnesses with me!

Monday Night Caption Contest

Post your captions in the comment section below.

Here are mine for the week:

1. Ladies, are you not aware that you are being exploited?!? You're being used to perpetuate the...stereotype that women...should be viewed...as...objects...gosh, you're all so pretty!

2. After years of declining sales, Hooters restaurants launches its new promotional campaign: Let's cut through the bullshit. We'll jiggle around in these outfits while you choke down stale $12 buffalo wings, deal?


There's still one more week for last week's caption contest. The winner will be announced next Monday.


The winner of March 12th's caption contest is Aliceson with the caption "Fritschie throws another joke!" Hey, if you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?

The electric company sucks

I've been working 60-75 hour weeks lately. Many things in my life have been put on hold, namely paying bills. Tuesday, it struck me that my electricity was gonna be turned off if I didn't pay the bill toot sweet. The shut-off date was Wednesday, so I paid the bill on Tuesday night at the kiosk at Reasor's.

I left work at a normal time Thursday night. I went home, got my laundry gathered, fed the cat, and headed to the laundromat. I did this in a rush and didn't bother to turn on a light when I was home. If I had, I would've known that my electricity was shut off. This discovery was made when I got home at 7:30. I called the number on my bill and was told that the kiosk I paid the bill at wouldn't clear through the billing office for three business days after the payment was made. My only choice would be to pay the bill again over the phone or through one of their payment offices.

I tried their over the phone payment number, but the payment couldn't go through because the zip code I provided didn't match the one in their system. I could've done a check by phone, but my checkbook was somewhere in my apartment, in a lot of clutter, in the dark.

I called the first number again and got an address for the one payment station that was still open. They told me it was at Skelly and Garnett. I couldn't find the place, so I called them back again.

At this point, my phone battery went dead. I had no car charger, but I had one at the office I could use. I called the number back on a land line from my office, and clarified the address and punched it up on Mapquest. As it turns out, it was at Lewis and Skelly...fifteen miles from where they initially sent me. It was 8:35, and they closed at 9:00.

I haul ass to this place, which was a little convenience store that obviously never gets much business. I screech into the parking space, run in and find no one inside the store. After a minute or so, a very old middle eastern man enters the store...and he turns out to be the cashier! I give him the bill stub and enough cash to cover it. He grabs the cash and starts to count it. At this moment, it becomes clear that he suffers from Parkinson's Disease.

Now, I'm not gonna make fun of his disease, but it was such a movie moment. I was in such a rush, and suddenly, my fate rested on a man who took a minute and a half to steady his hand enough to grasp the first bill in the stack. I could hear the up-tempo music score get stopped by the sound of a scratching record.

It took fifteen minutes to complete the transaction. I thanked the man profusely. He responded with a dirty look, "You know, I've got bills to pay, too!" and shifted his eyes over to the drink cooler.

I kept my cool, telling him that I just wasn't thirsty. I thanked him again and left. But what I wanted to tell him was, "Thanks for helping me get my electricity turned back on, but fuck you for trying to guilt trip me into buying something, you prick. I'm sorry you opened a shitty convenience store on a one-way access road before the offramp, but I've had a pretty shitty night myself, and I'm going home."

I stopped at the store on my way home and bought a wind-up alarm clock, because i no longer trusted anything that ran on electricity. I went straight to bed and thankfully woke up on time to get to work.

So, I double-paid my electric bill. One less thing to worry about for the next couple months. Everything was back to normal by lunch on Friday.

Monday Night Caption Contest

Post your captions in the comment section below.

Here are mine for the week:

1. I've called this press conference to announce my lawsuit against the manufacturers of Clearasil.

2. Man, Bob Seger should really insist the photographers use a soft-focus lens.


Please get in your captions for last week's contest. The winner will be announced next Monday.


The winner of March 5th's contest is Mike with the caption "...and then Richard Simmons wakes up."

Do you like movies about gladiators?

I should've gone with my instincts and elect to see 300 at the IMAX. I'm kicking myself for thinking, "Gee, $8.75 seems awful steep for a matinee..." I will be seeing this movie again, and yes, I will be seeing it on the biggest screen I can.

300 more than makes up for every chick flick ever made. It is bloody, brutal, unapologetic, violent, stylish, brilliant, 100% testosterone, and it is fucking great. I left the theater wanting to order the biggest steak the closest restaurant could offer, extra rare. Police should be warned of potential assault or road rage incidents near the theaters when this movie lets out, because even for a pacifist like me, I just wanted to hit someone.

Between 300 and Sin City, I think it's obvious that Frank Miller has some issues...but God bless him for being able to articulate them into great stories that directors like Robert Rodriguez and Zack Snyder dreamed of putting into motion.

This movie is definitely not for the queasy or faint of heart. Every frame of this movie has blood on it. Even the end credits are liberally splattered in red. However, it is fully justified. The story demands it! Besides, the real battle of Thermopylae would make this movie look like an episode of the Teletubbies by comparison.

As with any movie, timing of its release is essential to its success. If we weren't at war right now, this movie would not have gotten greenlit. It would be so easy for someone to find some relation in this film for our current war, but let's not, okay? The insurgents are NOT the Persians. Sparta is NOT Iraq nor Afghanistan. Laura Bush may be the kind of person you'd expect to go before Congress and ask for more troops, like the Queen does in the movie, but her husband would be more likely to be sitting on the couch eating a bag of pretzels rather than be on the front lines leading his men in battle. Bush is NOT King Leonidas. Anyone I hear try to make such comparisons will soon be shown one or more of their vital organs.

I understand the historical inaccuracies in the story. Trust me, if they wanted this to be a exact-detail recreation, it wouldn't have gotten an R rating not just because of the extra carnage, but because the 300 warriors at the center of the story would be fighting completely nude. This should not be used for a term paper in Greek history. It is a film version of a great graphic novel based on a legend surrounding a real historic battle. A little creative license is allowed here, and if you wanna cry to the history police, rent Disney's Pocahontas. Hell, the porn version Poke-a-hot-ass had a more credible technical advisor than the one Disney hired.

I'm not suggesting everyone drop what they're doing and go see 300. You kinda have to be in the mood to see a movie like this. For me, it was perfect timing. With tons of work I have to get done, and no end in sight, it does my heart good to see these guys go out and do their job with such gusto. It also helps that blood, guts, heads and limbs are flying all over the place in the process.

St. Patrick's Day

What a day! I started off my Saturday with a brisky mornin' munchin' (yes, I just paraphrased Jar Jar Binks), then made my way to All Souls Unitarian Church for the peace rally. You know that I really care about a cause when it gets me to go to a church without a wedding or a funeral involved.

I took part in the march down Peoria, holding a sign that read "NO MORE WAR". It was kinda windy, so it was hard to keep the sign from blowing back and obscuring the word NO. The thing that I found funny was the fact that everyone who drove past us giving us the finger were all driving SUV's. I also enjoyed seeing people trying to counter-protest at thirty miles an hour. They all had about a second and a half to state their case. "YOU'REONLYHELPINGTHEENEMY!" "IDISAGREEWITHYOURPOSITION" "YOUSHOULDSUPPORTTHEPRESIDENT!" "GODDAMNEDHIPPIESBURNINHELL"

All in all, we had just as many people give us the thumbs up as people give us the middle finger.



Then, it was off to Kilkenny's to listen to the fiddlers and Hideaway Pizza for dinner. In retrospect, this was my time to hang out with my friends, and I'm glad I took advantage, because once I showed up at Arnie's to start my shift, that was the only appreciable time I would spend with them.

I showed up at Arnie's around 6:30 and had to go straight to work. My job was keeping the money straight in the office. I can't go into much detail about the job, but I can tell you these things:

1. Here are some of the unusual things people left in the tip jars: A car wash token, a twig, a chocolate coin, half of a dollar bill, numerous cigarette butts, and a button.
2. There was a group of guys sitting at a table just outside the office who, from what I could gather, were playing a drinking game called SCREAM. They all started screaming at the same time, and whoever stopped screaming first had to drink. I watched them on the security camera doing this, and it was just as irritating watching them as it was hearing them.
3. People were constantly banging on the men's room door telling people to hurry up in there, as if yelling ever made people pee faster.
4. We almost ran out of beer...twice. Aware of this problem, when I was told that I could grab anything I needed from the cooler, I only took what looked like it wasn't selling very fast. To that end, I had a Coke, a Smirnov Ice, another coke, a bottled water, and a Pabst Blue Ribbon.
5. To help me out, we had a money counting machine which was named Fred by the owners. I couldn't have done it all without Fred. He was a life-saver.

When I was relieved for the night, my hands were blackened with money ink and I was ten times more sober than my friends who were still hanging around. I went thome and fell fast asleep.

Requiem for a workaholic

It's officially that time of year for me. Work has ramped up, and it's beginning to invade every fiber of my being. Last night, I had a nightmare that there was a font issue with the 52-page program, wherein every instance of the word "Congratulations" came up as "Go screw yourself".

With all of the work we've got going, my boss picked a hell of a time to upgrade equipment. We've got a new color printer and a new computer station to run it and our old plate imager. The system was down all day yesterday because of software issues with the platemaker. We got that fixed today, but trying to get the new printer to work caused half of the front office to lose internet access. Tomorrow, we should be back up and running. The funny thing is, they didn't send us the special paper for the new printer. So, if we get it running, we won't be able to test it until sometime next week.

When we got the plate maker up and running after a couple hours of calibration, the first job I ran out was a pull page's worth of text at a 20% screen. The tech guy about had a heart attack, thinking that the calibration didn't take. I played it up a bit to mess with the guy. Good thing he had a sense of humor about it, otherwise I'd be in the hospital with a polyester printing plate lodged in my colon.

With things as busy as they are, I actually look forward to working late at night. The primary reason being that I don't have someone interrupting me every fifteen seconds. Today, it took me two hours to typeset a simple business cards because I'd get two letters into my typing and I'd hear someone calling my name. I've learned to just accept it as part of my job now, and it doesn't do any good to get all freaked out about it. Besides, it catches everyone off-guard when I don't get frustrated about it. They come into my office ready for a fight and leave horribly confused and feeling like a bit of an asshole. It's fucking great.

What's keeping me going? In the long term, the thought that I may reach my year-end goal of $4,000 in savings by July. In the short term, having Casino Royale playing in the background on my computer while I work. I may have to go get a few more James Bond movies to make it through this busy season. If there's any better way to get in the mindset of ruthless determination to get the job done as efficiently as possible, I haven't found it. That, and it's helping me form better pithy one-liners whenever I finally hit "print". "Well, logo, my old friend...consider yourself trapped."

...Okay, so I still got work to do.

I'm free to do ALL of the work, now!

Shit! I't been a busy week for me. I clocked just over 70 hours at work, and that's without even going in on Saturday. I got the first big project of the spring clusterfuck done this afternoon, and I am glad to be rid of it. It took a lot of my time in a very short timeframe. Thankfully, it was well organized all the way through.

That can't really be said about our other artist, who will be fired tomorrow when she comes in for her paycheck. She's been working part-time for several months now, and she's just as un-productive as she was when she was full-time.

On this big project, I gave her the easy pages, because I didn't know how much she'd be able to get done in the time she would be in this week. She was clocked in for a total of 15 hours this week, and she managed to complete what amounts to three hours of work by my standards. On Friday night, she stayed until she could no longer focus her eyes on the computer screen. She only had one more page to finish, and she planned to come in on Saturday for a couple hours to finish it up. I told her I'd have a couple more pages, plus a small job for her to do to fully justify coming in for two hours. The amount of work I had for her would've taken me an hour...blindfolded. She couldn't even finish half of what I set aside for her in two hours.

Not to mention, I spent two hours today fixing the mistakes she made. Fifteen hours of her time saved me three hours of work, and cost me two hours in mistakes. All in all, she works at 1/15 of my current capacity. She is utterly useless, and I have dreamed of the day that she would be fired. I've also been dreading it, because that means I'm alone in this sea of work. I'll make it through it all. I kinda have no choice. My mantra is: Think of all the overtime!

Monday Night Caption Contest

Post your captions in the comments section below.

Here are mine for the week:

1. Happy Holidays from the Cheneys

2. His last words were: "Shit, I lost count. One...Two...Three..."


There's still time for last week's contest. The winner will be announced next Monday.


The winner of February 26th's Contest is Kimmy with the caption: "Maybe if we lie here long enough, they'll build a pyramid..."

500 bucks...sensing a pattern, here

Today, we had a client come by to dispute an invoice for a $500 deposit on some stationery. It was a hand-written invoice, and not in the handwriting of anyone who worked for our company. It turns out that the guy we've been working with on some business cards forged a photocopy of one of our invoices to scam the money from his boss. The business cards were up next on the press, so i had time to run a fresh plate with that guy's card deleted from the order. All this happened within thirty minutes.

Speaking of $500, my old landlord is stonewalling me on the security deposit. Unless I can provide him with a signed receipt that I paid the money, he's not refunding the money. More details have come to light, though. The office manager that stole all of the money from him, the lady I paid my deposit to, had not logged in any cash transactions to anyone's record. She just pocketed the money...to the tune of $15,000 over four months. She apparently even took this one out-of-town couple's money for a security deposit, kept it, and rented out the same property to someone else while they were moving their stuff from Arkansas. The trouble I'm really having now is that the landlord isn't even willing to provide me with any information about this woman to try to file charges against her.

So tomorrow, I start making phone calls. I no longer care about the money, so long as he has to pay somebody. I will be satisified if he has to pay out at least the amount he owes me. I will be happier if it cripples his shitty little business. I will be elated if he rues the day he ever said, "Hey, I'm thinking of getting myself some rental property."

Fingers crossed.

Monday Night Caption Contest...belated

I know...I'm a day late. Long story. Here's this week's pic. Post your caption in the comment section below

Here are mine for the week:

1. As if I needed another reason to avoid going to the gym.

2. Thank God the photographer cropped out the fat guy in the corner doing squat thrusts.



There's still time for last week's contest. As of this moment, there are ZERO captions entered. C'mon, people! Give me hope that the caption contest will continue!


The winner of February 19's caption contest is Aliceson with the caption "But the ladies wanted ICED donuts, officers!" Way to go, my friend!

My goals out of life

I'm currently sitting at my computer, chain-smoking while the Departed is playing in the living room. I justr got through writing about three pages worth of ranting and raving about my current station in life. I closed the window without saving it, because I felt that it wasn't a constructive line of reasoning. I was dwelling too much on the failures in my past and how little I'm doing about it in the present.

So, to take my thought processes in a new direction, I'm making a list of rational, easily obtainable goals I will meet out of life:

- I will open my home to more people. The party last week was a really good time, and it's a shame that I've treated my home like the Fortress of Solitude for this long.

- More home-cooked meals. It's getting pretty sad that my taste in food at any given moment is based mostly on the closest drive-thru.

- Be more assertive. There's a difference between being a pacifist and being a pushover.

- Break my patterns. Do at least one thing a day out of my normal routine, and at least one thing a week that normally scares the living shit out of me.

- Shut out the world for a specific period of time on a regular basis. Turn off the phone, forget about work, and not think of anything but an afternoon in the park, a quiet meal in a nice restaurant with only a notebook for a date or simply a James Bond movie on the sofa.

- Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and don't mess with Mr. In-between.

- Focus more on definition instead of rationalization.

- Stop procrastinating so much. If something needs to be done, DO IT!

- Whatever conflict happens in the room, stays in that room. A bad day at work stays at the office. Worrying about what bills have to get paid is not gonna cloud my mind when I'm not at home.

Wringing my hands and laughing maniacally

Operation Slumlord is moving past the planning stages. Thursday, I issued the declaration of war: A three page letter stating my case clearly, leaving no greivance unearthed, and in the end stated that he has until the end of day this coming Wednesday to pay up or I will rain down a world of shit upon his head.

It still amazes me how much trouble some people go through to avoid honoring a contract. People like my old landlord spend all that time finding loopholes in the law to avoid having to pay out a small chunk of change that when they finally get caught in their scams, they have to pay ten times as much in fines and legal costs.

With everything that's happened so far, I'm reaching the level of vitriol where I don't care if I ever get my money back, just as long as he has to pay someone else at least the same amount. The Fire Marshall, city building inspector, the IRS...anyone will do.