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Direct Loans Makes Another Mistake

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While I was browsing through a pile of mail last night, I realized that Direct Loans made yet another mistake in processing my consolidation loan. If you can remember, over the summer they goofed up on the terms of the consolidation, marking me down as a 10-year repayer as opposed to the 25-year option that I actually highlighted on the application form.

The first bill came in and it was more than double what it should have been. When I told them about the mistake, they said there was nothing they could do and that I would have to pay the whole thing – but they would “process my change request” for the following statement. Even explaining to them that my “change request” was simply alerting them to their mistake did nothing.

As a side note – Direct Loans is the United States Department of Education. Don’t give me this shit that Department of Education can’t do anything about a mistake they made. Bullshit.

So I refused to pay and they rolled up that massive payment into my principal amount and wrote it off as a forebearance. Whatever. Situation resolved.

But as I’m looking at the mail last night, it turns out that they couldn’t process yet ANOTHER change on my account. I called them in September and requested to have my payments due on the 28th of each month. They allow you that option for some reason. So I changed my due date from the 14th of each month to the 28th and the lady on the phone told me that a paper would be coming in the mail to verify that the change was made.

No paper ever came.

But another bill came…due on October 14th…for double the amount owed.

I called them up again today and bitched and moaned. They claim things are completely fixed now. I guess we’ll see…

Smallville Episode 603 Review: Wither

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Although Smallville started their sixth season a few weeks ago, I haven’t had a chance to comment on any of the shows on the blog yet. So whereas I was able to make comments on the first two Lost episodes, I’m just going to start the Smallville episode reviews/comments with the third episode from this season. Thankfully, I won’t get a chance to comment on the second episode, “Sneeze,” in which Clark realizes that he has super breath because he catches a cold. Ugh…

That being said, I really don’t have too much to comment on the third episode, Wither. The ending was great with Clark sitting alone in his barn while all of the other major characters are getting some. It was actually the best written scene in the entire episode, I think – Clark just bouncing that ball against the wall all by himself. Poor guy.

Oh wait, he’s Superman.

As for the rest of the episode, well it wasn’t too too bad. It wasn’t really great, but it wasn’t really bad. Something about a tree woman who plants seeds inside of men just strikes me as overly hokey. Then again, I watch a show about a twenty-something Clark Kent…

The relationship between Lex and Lana seems forced (to me) at this stage. It was interesting before when it was new and taboo, but it really does seem like it’s a bit much. Lex undressing Lana in front of a fireplace at his mansion? Eh – Lana naked does it for me, not the whole forced romantic BS that the writers threw in there.

On the other hand, I am a fan of the Green Arrow and his relationship with Lois. Though I’m having trouble rectifying how a twenty-something Lois Lane and a twenty-something Clark can have such bland feelings towards each other now and eventually wind up wanting to pump each other. And with Chloe’s relationship – she really ought to be getting it on with Clark and not this photographer guy from the first or second season.

I would give this episode a C – it was very average. The ending, though, gets a strong B.

Lost My F*cking Pedometer

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A few months ago I bought a pedometer to see how many steps I walk in a day, week, month, etc. I figured it would be a fun little thing to have and just something interesting to monitor.

Well, being a schmuck, I had to buy the $25 pedometer as opposed to the $10 one. I don’t really know what the difference is between the two, but that didn’t matter at the time. So I started wearing the pedometer and it was cool to see how many steps you take in a day or how many steps you take when you’re just walking around the mall (by the way – you take a LOT of steps walking around the mall!). I also wore it to the gym so I could see how many steps I took during a typical session on the treadmill. All of this was very interesting.

But the stupid pedometer had a habit of flopping open all the time so I was constantly locking it back into place. That wasn’t really annoying, but it was aggravating to have to do that all of the time. Also, it was a pain in the ass to always have to remember to put the thing on when I was just walking around my apartment or lounging.

Anyway, I got out of my car in Newark today and as I was walking towards the building I was going to, I felt down to the pedometer and the fucking thing wasn’t there! The shell of it was there (that is, the piece that locks it into place), but the actual pedometer was gone. I figured that it was in my car since it has a habit of popping off in the car. Nope.

I lost the damn thing. That’s $25 that I pretty much just threw into the street somewhere. Fucking fantastic. The moral of the story here, kiddies, is to not buy expensive trinkets if they are too small to keep an eye on and especially if you’re going to attach them in a manner that allows them to easily be lost.

Stupid pedometer…

Lost Episode 302 Review: The Glass Ballerina

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Again, this was another “good” episode of Lost but there are no more answers than there are new questions. I’ve never been one for these random flashbacks that they show during the show – especially when I have to read subtitles the entire time. But I do think it is interesting to find out that Jin was the one who pushed Sun’s secret lover to suicide. Nice little twist there…but not enough to make me forget about the fact that there are still way too many unanswered questions with this show.

In the first episode we saw that the Others lived in a little suburban community in the middle of the jungle on the island. Well, where did that community go? The writers for Lost make you forget about that community in a number of ways in this episode. First, they re-introduce the Frenchwoman’s daughter, Alex, to us – even if she’s still supposed to be brainwashed by this mysterious cult of Others. Second, they put a not-so-bad relationship in the story between Kate and Sawyer, but this really isn’t the time to be talking about love on the island. Oh, and it’s completely unnatural given the situation (did we forget that these people were in a plane crash only a month ago?)…but then again I guess the entire situation is unnatural in itself.

Another way they make you forget about the tons and tons of questions that you probably have about the show is by throwing a random ending in there where Ben introduces himself, formally, to Jack. In one of the funniest moments that I’ve seen in Lost so far, Ben tells Jack that the Others have contact with the outside world and that since he’s been on the island, George Bush was re-elected and the Red Sox won the World Series. Jack starts cracking up at the thought of Boston winning the Series and Ben gets a little shocked because it’s the truth.

Quite frankly, I still don’t believe that the Red Sox won – especially when the Yankees had a 3 – 0 lead on them! But I digress…

Then Ben turns on a video and shows Jack what he’s missed in the outside world and Jack literally jumps up and watches the TV in amazement (as legions of Yankees fans around the world and I shook our heads in disbelief again at the fact that Boston won in 2004).

What I did like about this episode was that Alex was re-introduced as someone who seems to be working against the norms of the Others’ colony and apparently her boyfriend was the guy in the cage before Kate was in there. Ok. One question answered, I guess. I also liked that Ben said he had been on the island all of his life. That might be something that could answer the tons of questions that we all have about this show, like what the hell is going on here anyway and why are these Others after babies?

Oh, I thought I would just ask this one…anyone figure out why there are polar bears on the island yet? Ah – you all forgot about that, huh? There are polar bears on the island!

All in all, a decent episode. I wish it had a little more in terms of storytelling, but I’ll take Sun shooting some broad in the bottom of a boat any day of the week. Go download it off of iTunes if you missed it last night.

Lost Episode 301 Review: A Tale of Two Cities

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The biggest pain in the ass about Lost is the fact that there are so many questions and so few answers. I don’t know if the writers put the show together that way, I don’t know if I’m just not reading this whole thing the right way, I just don’t know…

What I do know is that if this show doesn’t start giving real, concrete answers soon – I have better things to do on a Wednesday evening. Besides, why sit here and watch an hour-long show when I can just wait for it to come out on DVD or iTunes and not be bothered by go-nowhere episodes?

As for the season opener of Lost, I thought that they did a good job of explaining why the “Others” are on the island in the first place. But if they don’t tell us more about Ben and more about why Juliet had this book of Jack’s life, then there’s no reason to keep on watching the show. I mean we’re still waiting to know what the “monster” is on the island and just exactly what those numbers means (even though the word is that the meaning of those numbers was given away via an online “season” over the last few months).

The problem with Lost is that they are not answering existing questions and bringing resolution to issues; rather they are making us forget about questions by simply putting more questions in front of us that are slightly more intriguing. I will admit that opening Season 3 with the revelation that the Others lived in a quiet little suburbia in the middle of the island was intriguing, but what’s the deal with putting Jack in a shark tank and Kate and Sawyer in cages? I mean come on already – throw us a friggin bone!

In short, this was a good opening episode for Lost. It was very Lost-like in that it didn’t give you what you wanted to know but made you ask a lot more questions than you already were asking.