Has the world frozen over?

You know what happened today?

I actually received my reimbursement check from Charter, which overcharged me when I cancelled my service effective last October first. (This is separate from the summer fiasco, which sadly never got resolved in my favor.) The stamp on the envelope is dated February 20th, but the check is dated something like October 30th of last year for some reason. (Part of me thinks that the bank is going to insist that the check has expired when I try to deposit this... That would certainly fit in with the Charter motto.)

Other things: Joss Whedon did something rather evil in the credits towards the end of season 6 of Buffy. (I don't want to give spoilers, so I'll leave my comments for private discussions or later blog entries.) Also, the "Supersymmetry" episode of Angel made my heart warm and fuzzy with certain things (like mentioning Ed Witten and Brian Greene by name and referring to them as the Nomar Garciaparra and Sammy Sosa of string theory) but it also annoyed me in numerous respects by getting just about the entire physics and journal publishing atmosphere dead wrong. On a completely separate note, I have some teaching stuff I want to rant about. That will also have to be part of a private conversation.

Allergies

I would just like to say that I am allergic to being fucked over.

The amount may be small in the grand scheme of things (in this case, about $90), but there is something about somebody or some company attempting to fuck me over that gets my blood boiling on sheer principle. (And I mean that my blood is boiling in the bad way, not the good way.) I'm pissed off and I recently read an excellent Harlan Ellison essay on how to deal with shit like this. But first, I'm going to stop by their place (assuming Charter Communications didn't also lie to me about the location of their Pasadena billing office, which I wouldn't put past them) to show them the credit card statement that verifies my claim.

If I lose some amount of money by my own stupidity or things just not working out, fine. But I will not stand for being fucked over in some arbitrary manner.

In sum: Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

And I'm really pissed off right now. (Of course, I'm the one suffering because it's my time that has been wasted and will be wasted at least a decent amount more. Sigh...) I won't stand for this.