Pirates... in cupcake form

Since my blog is pirate titled, I felt I must include an entry about the pirate cupcakes I made this evening. My co-worker *LOVES* pirates... and Robert Pattinson, and it's her birthday tomorrow. I know I'm not talented enough with cake and frosting to make a Robert Pattinson cake, so she's getting pirate cupcakes instead. There's nothing super-fancy here; just store-bought cake mix and icing. Apparently my local grocery store doesn't sell black icing, so I had to improvise using a dark chocolate fudge frosting instead.

Although the design is super-simplistic, I like the overall finished look of these and think I'd easily make them again.

Bicycles!!

In an attempt to not only get around places faster, but also to find my inner child; I decided to buy myself a bicycle. After what seemed like an eternity of weighing the pros and cons of first the purchase, and then specifically the kind of bike I wanted, I decided upon a 6 speed cruiser style bike.

Having not ridden a bike in over 12 years, I was quite scared of falling and hurting myself. Surprisingly though, the saying "it's just like riding a bike" was beyond correct in my case. Sure, I was a bit wobbly in the store as I tested my bike, but after a lovely afternoon of bike riding along the harbour, it's like I never stopped riding.

Every morning I ride my bike to work, I briefly become an 8 year old version of myself and have to work hard not to squeal "Weeeeeeeee!" in excitement as I breeze down the hills.

Over the next few months, I'd like to accessorize my bike further, with some mirrors and perhaps a snazzy basket for both the front and the back.... I might also buy some streamers :D

Crosswalks and Death Defying Acts

As I walk to work each morning, I feel more and more like poor little frogger, trying to cross the street without getting hit by a car.  It doesn't matter if I wait for a light and cross with the walking man symbol or if I were try and run across the street without a light.  No matter how you slice it, crossing the street has become a dangerous game.

Many times when I have the right of way to cross with the lights, drivers will ignore the pedestrian crosswalk, and pull out to make a turn almost hitting those of us crossing the street.  Has bowling for pedestrians become the new game that the non-drivers don't know about?

The other thing that really irks me about drivers in this city is when a car pulls out into a very busy intersection, trying to make a right hand turn on a red, and effectively blocking all pedestrian traffic from safely crossing the street.  NEWSFLASH:  You're in a car, I'm walking... no matter what, you'll still get to where you need to be faster than I will. 

I know I can bitch about this all until I'm blue in the face, but at least maybe one driver will read this and realise that they can make the road safer by following the rules of the road and giving us pedestrian folk the right of way.

Debt... We All Have to Deal With It!

As most every 20 something out of school knows, you graduate with an insane amount of debt.  Sometimes it's manageable, sometimes it's not.  Like many others in my situation, my debt load has been a burden for some time, but slowly and surely I am paying it off, just like any honest, hard-working person tries to do.  Yes, there's been some financial ups and downs, as well as some naive stupidity with credit cards, but never once have I said that I wasn't going to pay my debts. I'm not a bad person, I just had debt that I wasn't good at dealing with while I was a student.  Lesson learned, and I'm paying for it.

Fast forward to this morning, where I wake up to a message on my answering machine from a collections agency I've been "working" with to get a very minor debt from my afforementioned naivete cleared up.  Mr. Collections Agent leaves me this long winded and haughty "you're not keeping up with your end of the deal" kind of message, and all I see is RED!  

Excuse me?!?  Hell no, he didn't just say that!  

What it boils down to is that Mr. Collections Agent is accusing me of dishonesty and failure to keep my end of the agreement we had.  I then get threatened that they will re-neg the arrangements made a few months ago if there's no payment by Mondy.  To clarify, the arrangements were that a payment would be made via online banking, the first Friday (pay) of each month.  It's nice and easy do this, because it's just like paying any other bill online.  I monitor my account very closely, and make sure there's always enough for the payment to go through.  Sure enough, I check my account, and the payment was processed yesterday, EXACTLY as per my agreement with Mr. Collections Agent.

Typically I would just call back and be polite about the misunderstanding; however, this time due to the nature of the message left for me, I kinda lost it.  When I feel like I'm being bullied and backed into a corner being blamed for something that's untrue, I really get upset.  Fuelled by my anger and righteousness over my payments being made on time, I called back.  Unfortunately I got voicemail, but that didn't deter me from saying exactly what I wanted to say.  

Mr. Collections Agent definitely got an earful from me on his voicemail.  I clearly stated that as per our agreement, payment was made (yesterday) on the first Friday of the month, and that this agreement was made while I was at work, and my co-workers heard me state the terms of payment that I could adhere to.  I provided the transaction number for yesterday's payment, and then said that since I'm adhering to my end of the agreement, it's bullshit that I'm being contacted for breaking the agreement.  Also, I threatened to sue for harrassment, should I receive any further calls about not living up to my end of the agreement.  I ended with "have a pleasant day"... which was said with a tinge of sarcasm, but that'll probably go unheard.  

I truly don't like to swear at people who are just doing their job, but after listening to that message and also recounting my past dealings with this "lovely" person, I was beyond pissed off.

I can't wait to be rid of this account so I can focus on more important things and not waste my energy on dealing with Mr. Collections Agent ever again.