Observations

T-Mobile just earned my burning, fiery hatred in one fell swoop. I received a notification from them that my $50 dollar mail in rebate was rejected due to missing requirements. The missing requirements to which Mr. Mobile was referring was a bar code panel from the side of my box. The paper with said requirements states that the SKU sticker panel must be cut from the side of the box and sent. There are about 8 different bar codes on the side of the box, and one which was labeled "SKU." I erroneously presumed that they wanted solely the bar code labeled "SKU," and therefore cut out only that one, and sent it off to the corporate rebate gods.

OK. So I am one of those (and I presume there are plenty) morons who doesn't read all of the fine print, and then gets pissed when he gets screwed because of it. Here is my observation--amongst all of the fine print, there is a part at the very bottom which states, "white sticker with all bar codes required." At the top where the three required items are listed, it says "SKU sticker panel cut from the side of the box." Does that not appear to be a blatant attempt to trick people? Why, for the love of Zeus, could they not insert "with all bar codes" in between "panel" and "cut?" Because they know there will be people who won't read all the fine print. Yes, it is my own damn fault for not reading everything. But boo to T-Mobile for being sneaksy little hobbitses.

As I was pedaling away from the Provo Towne Center, I passed a triad of people who seemed to be having a rather intense conversation. As I pedaled towards them, I thought to myself, "Well they don't appear to be particularly intelligent." My thought was crystallized as, upon passing, I heard one woman say, "It was a total fiaskle!" in a very exasperated tone. I chuckled my way through the rest of the parking lot. I suppose that one falls right in there with "supposably," and "irregardless." Don't do that.

Which brings me to my third observance. I mean, the pedaling. As I was returning home from about two and a half hours of pedaling about Provo, I passed through the 7-11 parking lot. I had finally maneuvered my way through the abnormal amount of cars milling about the gas pumps, and was on my way back into the street when I see a mini-van pulling out behind me onto the road. As we are parallel, I hear a kid yell, "faggot!" The mini-van quickly sped away, as though the "faggot" in the ridiculously small shorts was going to pedal after them and kick some ass. Here's the deal. I could care less about being called a homosexual, and I was completely un-offended. Yeah, my shorts were short. I may have even been riding with a man bag. But who is this mini-van crusading mom who sits idly by while her prepubescent son calls someone a faggot out the window? The cowardly woman merely sped away, and her little bigot son was likely applauded with silence. Hey mini-van mom--if your kid called some one a spic or a nigger out the window, would you have sped off then? What is the difference? Hooray for Utah County intolerance and the parental perpetuation of said intolerance.

Oh, If I could only see how many people got pissed and mocked me as they read, "I could care less." Please let me know if you did. And for those of you who thought nothing of it...please stop saying it. You couldn't care less. If you could, you wouldn't be putting it in that context now would you?