When Christianity is just an excuse for bigotry

A friend of mine just lost his apartment because he wasn't Christian. Read that again. Not in the Deep South, not in India, not in Egypt. In Canada. In 2013.

This level of bullshit has me personally angry - I'm writing furiously, and I might get some of the minor details incorrect. Of course, the names have been changed to protect my friend's privacy (which you will see is a big deal in a moment).

Important legal preface: In Nova Scotia, according to the Residential Tenancies Act, a verbal agreement to allow someone to rent is equivalent to having a signed piece of paper. Unless either a tenant or a landlord have issued a notice to quit, leases are automatically assumed to be re-signed. The notice to quit is four months for the landlord or three months for the tenant. When rental properties are sold, the new purchaser is required by law to honour the original lease.

My friend Morris was kicked out of his second apartment in two months. The first apartment was a clusterfuck. The old women who he was renting from decided to move to Halifax and told him to leave without appropriate notice. They then abandoned the upstairs, locked him out of his washer room, and left a letter on his car asking him to be out within a month so they could sell the property. Their justification was that Morris hadn't signed a new lease last September, even though that's actually irrelevant. In the end, what happened was illegal, and Morris could have stayed in with a fight, but after looking at his options decided to move in with his friends Gerald and Amanda, who had a spare room. This seemed to be his best, and indeed, cheaper, option.

Morris got settled in with Gerald and Amanda about a month ago, who had cleared his arrival with their landlords. Their third roommate, Luke, was never home as he essentially lives with his girlfriend, giving them all more living space than expected. Morris pretty much thought things were going great. He had a few of the usual roommate gripes about things like dishes not getting done or common spaces not getting cleaned, but over all it seemed pretty good, until things started getting weird about a week ago.

The four of them had, originally, planned to retain the location for their next year in university. However, about a week ago, Morris came over to my place pretty upset, as Gerald and Amanda had resigned their lease without Morris and Luke on it - essentially writing them out of their apartment for May 1st. Luke, at least, should have been given his notice to quit two months ago, and it came as quite the surprise. When they asked Gerald and Amanda about it, they replied that Gerald's mother and father had told them to sign the lease without their friends on it. Understandably, Luke and Morris were upset - they had to figure out a place to live for May - but they set about their task diligently.

Then, last night, Morris got a text from Luke. "You better get over to the apartment. Shit is going down." A few texts later, Morris realized that Gerald's mother and father were over - and wanted him kicked out that night. He decided to go see what was up and took me along, since I know the Residential Tenancy Act inside and out, having helped a few friends through landlord-related predicaments before. So we hopped in his car, as he was at my place, and rolled down to see what was up.

Sure enough, when we got there, Gerald's dad was outside, going inside. I noticed the brand-new lock when I entered the basement apartment. It was a narrow, cramped place, and I can't say it looked like anything other than a shithole. Walking down, we found an older man - I'd guess in his 60s - and a woman in her 40s. And that woman, Gerald's mom (who's name I do not know) had the biggest, most arrogant smirk on her face. Fuck, I was already getting angry, but I had no idea what was up.

As I stepped beside Morris, I looked into one of the other rooms. Gerald and Amanda were there. Amanda was laying on the bed, Gerald sitting on the edge, and I've never seen someone look so defeated and...browbeaten in my entire life. Hoodie with hood up, hat on and pulled down to his glasses, refusing to look up and make eye contact. Man, I immediately felt bad for that guy.

"Well, Morris, I think you should move out," said Gerald's mom. "We've had a look around, and the place isn't in a good condition." Impossible that it ever could be, I thought. "And quite frankly, we don't like the things you've brought into the apartment. It's just not working out, and you should just go."

It was smug. Smug was the word that had immediately entered my mind. Morris, of course, got pretty upset. He had been upset going in, but the reality was worse, infinitely so. "What do you mean, you don't like the things I've brought into the apartment?" he asked. An understandable question.

"Well, we took a look in your room, and the things you have in there! My goodness. You know that's not acceptable. We're not that kind of person, and you should just go. Tonight."

Immediately, Morris went from upset to fucking livid. "You mean you went into my room? Without my permission?"

"Yes."

"You violated my privacy?" he asked, enraged.

She smiled that little smug smile. "We don't like the things you have in there. It doesn't matter if we went into the room, because those sorts of things aren't welcome here. We're Christians - we're not that sort of people." Of course I had no idea what Morris had set up in his room. We're fantasy gamers, so I thought that a Dungeons & Dragons book might have caught the unwelcome attention of Gerald's parents - but the argument continued, and it became pretty evident that my friend had some sort of non-Christian religious altar set up in his bedroom. Of course, to me, that's no big deal. But not here.

"In the end, you should just go," she repeated. "We talked to Luke earlier. He said you can stay with him and his girlfriend."

I finally interrupted. "Morris has a legal right to stay here," I said. "He's got a verbal agreement with the landlord, and they need to provide him with a legal notice to quit to evict him through the tenancy board."

She asked if I was a lawyer. I affirmed I am not, simply a regular advocate in tenancy board cases. She laughed at me, and I just shrugged. "Look, Morris, you better go, or we'll call the RCMP," she then said.

"Go ahead," I replied. "Morris has a legal right to be here. The RCMP don't handle tenancy cases, either. The Sheriffs (of the Nova Scotia Courts) do."

"What, you think they're not buddy-buddy with the RCMP that I clean for, that I work for sometimes?"

"I don't think it matters, they all have jobs to do." That was the end of the conversation about Morris being evicted. The conversation continued, sometimes looping around. Occasionally the woman would loudly declare that "I pay the bills here, so I get a say."

After one such point, I asked her, politely, "Is your name on the lease?"

"No."

"Is Gerald's?"

"Yes."

"Shouldn't we be hearing this from him, that he wants Morris to leave?" It was pretty evident that while Morris could win a legal fight, he was better off leaving. Nobody wants to live in this sort of situation.

Thirty seconds of silence followed. Eventually Gerald looked at the floor and muttered, "I think you better leave, Morris."

We talked about the duration, and Morris agreed to remove his altar that night. The conversation continued several times, always, "Well, it's nothing personal. It's just that we're Christian." Near the end, I finally lost my patience.

"If we're being honest, what you're doing is pretty damn horrible. You're being bigoted. Nobody should care what my friend does in his private space."

"Well, we do," the woman explained. The man, Gerald's father, hadn't said much, but finally piped in.

"We just don't have any truck with that sort of thing. It's not that we don't like you, we just don't have any truck with it," he said.

"I still don't see why it matters," I asked. "Didn't Jesus teach to love thy neighbour and turn the other cheek? He's not hurting your kids in any way."

"Well," the woman interrupted. "We're not that Christian-y."

We left shortly thereafter. It was hard to control my rage. We met up with Luke and his girlfriend who are, of course, putting Morris up in the meantime. Luke had told Gerald and his parents that Morris couldn't crash there - so she lied to Morris's face about what Luke had said. It didn't surprise me. You'll know they're Christians by their love, as Ed Brayton often says. Morris explained that he had arranged a small altar to the concept of death that he had used to grieve during the loss of his grandfather - and Luke said that Gerald's parents had not only entered his room but taken pictures of his arrangement to send to their religious relations.

Morris and I returned to my place for our regularly scheduled Pathfinder RPG game, but we had agreed that he needs to re-evaluate his friendship with Gerald. Twice, his mother conveniently has showed up to screw Morris out of a place to live, and twice Gerald has refused to stand up to his parents. In the end, though, what really got me going was the comment, "We're not that Christian-y." They saw something they didn't understand and used their religion to persecute.

Fuck them. Fuck them with a sideways broken broomhandle.

Beer + Laptop =?

So I spilled beer on my laptop a few days ago. Oops. That sucks, and it sucked more when my trackpad and my keyboard stopped working. Lugging around a mouse with me and using half a keyboard was a pain in the ass, so I figured, hey, it's not under warranty, I'll just replace the parts.

Today, all the new stuff arrived and within 45 minutes I had reassembled the laptop. It works great, but I'm concerned the life lesson here isn't "don't spill beer on your expensive things", but instead, "hey, if you spill beer, it's only $35 in parts!"

Oops.

Trivia Night Was A Success

That's right. Trivia Night was a success. It was beer o'clock when I got home yesterday, and so I drank a beer. And another beer. And another beer. And bbq'd. And drank another beer. Then I went to Scott's. And drank another beer.

Then we went to the Pub for Trivia.

Rick the Trivia Guy is pretty funny. Really offensive in places, but funny. But boy does he ask hard questions sometimes. And one of the teams is usually put together of professors from the university. Which means that we can get screwed pretty hard. And last night they brought in Bob Zecker, the certifiably insane US and immigration history prof.

So immediately, I was thinking....uhoh.

We lost three rounds (two to the profs, and 1 to Jordan's team) and then tied with Jordan's team for the last one. Which meant...sudden death overtime!

What was upsetting was I knew the answer to every one of Jordan's questions. The nation with the smallest army (Vatican)...and there were more, I was pretty drunk. And the trivia guy wanted to know what Halloween was originally celebrated as in Celtic folklore. I said "Samhain", and he thought that was wrong.

Whatever.

I won. I knew the answer to the last question, and damned if I can remember what it was, I just remember knowing I knew the answer as he said it. And then...drinking free beer.

It was a good night. We actually beat the profs!!

Purolator fucking sucks.

Many of you know I bought a new power computer recently through Dell. I know Christmas is a shitty time of year to ship things, but I don't mind waiting. However, Purolator fucked up and told me that I could have had the package delivered to work. This was apparently impossible, and so I went to work while nobody was home. Had I been told the truth, Jason would have been able to camp at my place and wait. I have not had anyone from Purolator attempt to fix my problem. Never use them.

Here's a copy of the letter I sent to Purolator:
"This is not about a great idea I have had, but I feel I have to log my complaint again. The experience I have had shipping with Purolator has been the worst I have ever experienced. I understand that shipping in the winter weather around Christmas is sketchy. However, my experience has been detracted more by the ineptitude of Purolator customer service than the weather ever could.

Dell shipped me a computer and a display through your service. The expectation set to me by Dell was delivery by the 24th of December. I understand that the weather was not cooperative but I did receive my display on the 24th. Unfortunately, my computer itself was delayed until the 29th.

When I first called Purolator regarding my shipments I was informed they would arrive on the 23rd. They did not, and it appeared my two packages were split in transit. The display, according to the Purolator website, was placed on a truck for delivery on the 23rd. When I contacted Purolator support they informed me that the display would arrive by 5pm. At 6pm, I was informed the display would arrive by 8. It eventually arrived appx. 11 AM on the 24th.

My computer was placed on a truck for delivery around noon on the 24th, and Purolator support again promised delivery by 5pm. I called at 6pm and spoke to a guy named Kevin. He informed me that the package had been returned to the depot by the local courier and would not be delivered until the 29th. I explained to Kevin that I would be at work on the 29th and asked if the shipping address could be changed to my office. He informed me this was possible and that it would be delivered to my office.

However, when I called Purolator on the 29th to confirm, I was informed that this was not possible unless I contacted Dell first, but that the package could be delivered on the 30th. For me, this has presented an unacceptable situation, as the 30th is my last day before the holiday on the 1st. I am going on vacation after work and unlike the 29th, I am unable to make arrangements to have someone at my home to sign.

If I had been given the correct information on the 24th, I would have had someone at my house to sign for the package. However, because of the agent's incompetence, I am now stuck between having a very expensive computer returned to the USA, losing several hundred dollars worth of pay for missing time to receive the parcel, or skipping out on my planned and expensive vacation.

I eventually spoke to a manager named Diamenti who took ownership of the issue. Unfortunately, she was unable to get the driver to return to my location. Regardless, this experience has cost me hundreds of dollars of my time at work as well as days of my personal time. Aside from Diamenti's attempts to get things taken care of, not one person at Purolator went out of their way to make me feel like a valued customer or to convince me that they actually cared about my issue. I work in a telephone-based customer service industry and I understand the importance of providing excellent service. Certainly, having been on the receiving end of Purolator's support ineptitude will remind me of why it's important to be accurate every time.

If the reason for the failure to deliver was weather, mechanical, or even time-of-year related, I would not be so upset. I am a patient person, and I don't mind waiting. What I do mind is having my life inconvenienced by an error on Purolator's behalf. Except for when I spoke to a manager, there has been no attempt by Purolator to try and make things right for me, either with the time of mine that has been wasted waiting for a package or the money I have lost because one of Purolator's agents was wrong.

I can assure you I will never ship with Purolator again, nor will I recommend this company to my friends, family, acquaintances, or business associates. I also intend to post a copy of this correspondence online.

I would rather use Canada Post than risk my package based on the service I have received with this experience.

Thank you for your time today."

Fact: Do not buy an HP computer.

I realize that the concept of blogging about disapproving phone support or tech support is rather cliché and probably shouldn't be done, but hey. Who gives a flying fuck. I sure don't.

Against my advice, my parents bought an HP Pavillion Notebook for my younger sister to take to university with her. I had recommended a Mac, as she is going into music and quite frankly, Macs are infinitely better than PCs are for music work. But, my advice was disregarded.

So, about 2 weeks ago, I get a call from her in absolute tears. Lauren's computer won't turn on. I check and see if it's plugged in, battery's in, etc. It all is. So, I tell her I'll come take a look at it. I get there and promptly remove the battery, drain excess charge, that sort of thing. No dice. I check the hard-drive. It's connected. I check the RAM. I reseed and swap slots. No change. I pull a RAM chip - nothing. I pull the other, putting the first in the same slot. Magic, it boots.

Okay, no problem. All I need is a piece of 1gb SO-DIMM PC2-5300. HP'll prolly just send one out, charge and refund a credit card. We can do that! So I call up HP. I'm a techy guy, I know what's going on. The conversation goes something like this.

Me: Hey HP. I need a new gig of RAM for my sister's computer. It won't boot unless the RAM chip is pulled. Okay?
HP: Sure thing. Got a credit card?
Me: Nah, I'll have her call with mom's. I'm broke as fuck.
HP: Cool.

Okay. That's interaction one.

Lauren gets mom's CC info and calls up to set up the repair. The agent speaks to her for ONE AND A HALF HOURS, having her remove the hard drive, reseed the RAM, do the hokey-pokey, who the fuck knows. Suffice to say, she had a very inexperienced 18 year old girl pulling her computer apart. Adding on to this, the agent didn't have Lauren take the basic steps. For instance, when I was working on her computer, I made sure to ground myself every minute or so. The agent didn't inform Lauren of the dangers of static discharge inside a computer.

Then, the agent told Lauren that she'd have to send the whole computer in. Of course, we had already been told we could be sent the RAM we needed in the mail. Lauren asked to speak to a supervisor. The agent then put Lauren on hold for TWO MORE HOURS, listening to HP's atrocious hold "music" (see below), without coming back to check on her or let her know what the wait will be.

She messages me from her currently-working computer in tears (again), because basically this agent has fucked off and taken a 2 hour lunch at her expense. I agree to go ahead and get in touch with HP. I start by calling up and using their chat option. The chat option took about 10 minutes to get through. The agent was unsure of her English, and took an extremely long time (about 6-7 minutes) to respond to my basic questions, like, "So, can you send me this part or not?". I wasn't pleased.

Then, there was waiting on the goddamn phone.

I waited for about 45 minutes to get through. Okay. I'm patient, I can wait as needed. But the hold "music"...oh boy. I have never heard anything so annoying in my goddamn life. It had these soft, supposedly smoothing tones playing in the background, all very digital, like a hippie playing a keyboard. Then there was a woman speaking over it. Constantly, advertising various HP products, explaining the website option (which I was doing simultaneously), directing me to online search, all while I slowly seeth and grow more angry.

Now, to add onto this, the piece was cut by a retard. The various segments the woman was speaking through were chopped together at random. It looped, so after the third loop I got to notice the points. Generally, the music stopped for a second too, giving you that hope that someone was picking up. Now, get this, the woman misspoke in the middle of the recording. But instead of just doing another take, they kept her error, her cough, AND the part where she said "excuse me". WHY THE FUCK WOULDN'T YOU JUST DO ANOTHER GODDAMN TAKE! IS HP THAT FUCKING IDIODIC?!

Well, they sure are. I spoke to a fellow named Vincent, who was actually quite nice. He tried everything he could to get this taken care of. I explained the troubleshooting steps I had taken. He agreed that it was probably the RAM chip. He looked into it and told me what Lauren had been told - HP does not ship out RAM chips for this model. I politely asked if he could look into another option, which he did. This guy was great, he kept updating me as to what was going on. He escalated the case to a case manager, who called Lauren back and apologized and explained that HP does not send out parts for the model. He promised her the turnaround time for a mail-in repair was 3-4 days.

Okay. So I'm still upset, because there's no damn reason to go through all this for a three inch long chip. Hell, the fucking shipping alone is worth more than the damn RAM. But, she sent it in. Lo-and-behold, HP calls her back, saying they can't find anything wrong with it. Why? They said the RAM looked fine. Lauren asked if it would boot, and they said, "Well, no. The cause hasn't been determined." She asked if they had swapped out the RAM. They said no. Sounded like a load of BS to her.

Then - get this - afterwards, they said that, "Even if it is RAM, we can't replace it here. We'll ship the model back to you with a note for HP. Then HP can send you the part."

...

...so, they will send us the part, which is what we wanted in the first place, only after their random repair "experts" can determine that it's a part needed? Why can't they get the part in? Why doesn't a computer repair depot have the most common RAM in the world lying around? WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST SEND US THE RAM IN THE FIRST PLACE?!

This whole process is retarded, and the run-around has totally lost HP both myself and my sister as customers. I really recommend to you that you avoid HP like the plague. I am not telling you to buy a Mac, but look into Dell, or Toshiba, or Compaq, or someone other than Hewlett-Packard.

HP blows goats.