Today's Mood Is...

...with an extra helping of...

What does all of this mean? Pleaso, oh PLEASE BSR explain these images to us!

I'll tell you on Monday or Tuesday. In the meantime, have a bitchin' 3 day weekend to all of those who actually hav days off. I don't, but I wish you all the best.

Today's Mood Is...

...with a side of...

Just in case you didn't have enough reasons to hate NAFTA...

I had a meeting with one of the bosses here at the many headed hydra of Moleville. It is the boss that I actually like. The one that actually hired me. The one that is leaving in two weeks to go work for her old boss (the one who was her boss here when I was hired, making him my old boss, too...oh the hell with it, you know what I mean here). It seems that my job is being "outsourced" (I can only assume to India or Pakistan, because that is where all the outsourced jobs seem to go). So sometime within the next month or so, after the "transition period" I will be down to one job. Of course, that will not make the mortgage company or the credit card issuer happy. So I am now officially job hunting.

I have been told that there are possibilities within the company, as well as externally (and they said that they would be assisting me with my job search be it internally or externally, including paying me to go on job interviews with outside companies. As my grandfather was wont to say, ain't that awfully white of 'em).

The bad part is that my soon to be former boss is feeling horrible about this. The hospital has decided to use her as the impetus for screwing over the staff, saying that her "following her wonderful new career opportunity" is the reason for all of this. Now it is true that they would not have dared to do this if she was staying here. she had too much clout. But this place (hell the entire overall operation for this named after the state university medical system) has been bleeding out trying to cut corners for the last 6-9 months. They actually hired a guy to look at cost effectiveness, who figured out that if they remove something like 2 trashcans per floor the hospital will save $5000 or some insane figure like that (because of less money spent on trashcan liners and less man hours emptying the cans and relining them and so forth). I am not saying that it isn't true, but if you as an organization have gotten to the point that you are talking about eliminating two trashcans, well, maybe you should look at some of your other business practices first. Maybe you could have not spent thousands of dollars putting in those battery powered paper towel dispensers (and added the cost of replacing the batteries) when the manual "pull the towel out of the dispenser with your hands" dispenser was working just fine. Especially since you have to keep refilling the old dispenser because the new one is too high for anyone in a wheelchair or otherwise disabled to use, AND YOU ARE A DAMN REHAB HOSPITAL WHERE THE MAJORITY OF YOUR PATIENTS ARE IN A DAMN WHEELCHAIR!!!!!!!

Sorry, I was attacked by logic. And logic will not be silenced.

So, if any of you are hiring, or know someone who is, let me know. I might just be very interested.

And don't you worry, I am sure that as my time here grows shorter I will get snarkier, and mayhap I will even start revealing names and numbers!

What have I got to lose?

BSR

Today's Mood Is...

Okay, let us get something clear here. If you have services done for an agreed upon fee, YOU HAVE TO PAY THAT FEE WHEN THE SERVICES ARE COMPLETED!!!!!!!!!!

I understand that you have insurance, however, not EVERYTHING you have done will be covered 100% by your insurance company. Your contract with the insurance company (and yes, you have a contract with the insurance company, it is part and parcel of the having of insurance) says that they will review each and every procedure performed on you, and if they deem it to be unnecessary, or if it is listed as a non covered service, that you may be held responsible to pay part or all of the cost of said procedure. This is above and beyond the contract saying that there are certain procedures that are not completely covered, and that depending on if you see a provider in our network or not, you may be held as responsible for additional fees.

When you go to the provider's office you are asked to fill out a lot of paperwork. Have you ever read that paperwork? It says (and this is pretty much standard no matter WHAT provider you go to see) that we will bill your insurance provider in good faith, but that any co-pays or denied procedures will be your responsibility. And if that we are not listed as being in the provider network for your particular insurance provider that those out of pocket fees could very well be higher than if you were seeing an in network provider.

***let me really break it down for anyone who might be a little confused. Let's say you have Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) as your insurance provider through your job. Now let's say that you are going to the dentist in order to have your teeth cleaned. Cleanings are covered at 100% (most preventative procedures are). If your dentist is contracted to BCBS as a "preferred provider" than if the dentist would charge someone without insurance $50 for a cleaning, but BCBS feels that $35 is the most they will pay for a cleaning, than your dentist has to accept the $35 as payment in full. If your dentist is not in the network, they can legally bill you for the $15 difference. So why would a dentist be in the network? So that they are listed by the insurance provider in the books and will hopefully get more patients that way. Now let's say you are having a cavity filled (yes, yes...giggity). The dentist's fee is $150. The insurance agrees that $100 is the most that the procedure is worth. A cavity is considered a "basic" procedure, which is usually (read 99 times out of 100) covered, but not at 100%. As a rule it is covered at 80%. So if you have a cavity and go to your in network dentist he will bill the insurance $150. The insurance company will say "No, that's only worth $100. We will pay 80% of that, so here is $80. The dentist says "okay, we will take the $80, bill the patient for the difference between what you say the procedure is worth and what the insurance company is willing to pay, and we will write off the remaining $50 as an insurance limitation". If out of network, there is no write off. It all makes sense, at least on a basic level.

So when you go to your dentist and have some fillings done, and after we receive the insurance payment and bill you for the balance, don't wait until you have been receiving bills for 6 months and then get one saying that you are going to be sent to collections due to lack of payment, then suddenly call me all irate and cuss me out. It is obvious to me that you got some of the previous bills, they were all sent to the same damn address. But now, all of a sudden, you have a problem? Well guess what, now WE have a problem. So refer to the 5 different sets of instructions above and follow them to the letter.

that is all.

BSR

Today's Mood Is...

Today's Mood Is...

Oh, it's twue. It's twue...

BSR

Today's Mood Is...

Bitch better have my honey (bbq sauce)!

I bet you could get that sauce HERE

For those of you who don't know, this is an actual place of business on E. North Avenue, not too far from Belair Road. When I worked for Satan's Minions Touring Children's Theatre Company (they had "666" RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PHONE NUMBER!!! HOW THE HELL DID I NOT NOTICE THAT AT THE TIME!?!?!?!?), we drove past this place on a regular basis. Now I drive past it every morning and afternoon on my way to and from Moleville. And every time I pass it, I can hear Vel (she was on tour with me the first couple of years I was there) and her little aside.

"Well, ho's gotta eat, too"

Vel was utterly unflappable. My first week with the company, we had three shows on the Eastern Shore (the first one at 8:30 in the morning). Usually when we had an early show that far away we would travel the night before and stay in a hotel (99 times out of 100 a Super 8). Well, one of the guys in the show couldn't do an overnight (his wife wouldn't let him. Next time you feel like your spouse is riding you particularly hard - how YOU doin'? - or otherwise is nagging you think about THAT). So we had a call time of 4:45 AM. Yup, you read that correctly.

Well, I had been hired about a week earlier, and was hired as the Production Manager, which meant that I was driving. And anyone who knows me knows that I am not too much of a morning person. Of course, I don't know if you could consider that morning. Either way, I set my alarm, got up in time, drank some coffee, packed some pick-me-ups for the ride (also known as Hershey bars) and led the merry caravan on to glory.

It wasn't until well after traversing the Bay Bridge that exhaustion finally caught up with me. And it was still pretty damn early, so there was realyl little to no traffic (it might have been a little busy on the main roads, but once you are in rural Eastern Shore territory, the farmers are on their property and not on the roads). Luckily there was a rumble strip on the side of the road which woke me up. I can attest that they work, and work well.

Most of the people in the van (including me it seems), were at least on some level, sleeping. Vel wasn't. While everyone else started making that startled out of sleep "who/whu/where" noise, and I quickly cleared my throat, sat up straight, and started making excuses of avoiding debris in the road and I'm sorry I had to wake you all up, Vel (who always sat right behind the driver) just leaned forward and quietly said "you wanna stop for a cup of coffee, big guy?". Now, I hardly knew her, and I almost killed her, but she just calmly suggested a pit stop, even saying loud enough for everyone to hear that she needed to stretch and take a potty break, and could I stop at that gas station up ahead?

Yeah, Vel was pretty awesome. And she was right. Ho's DO gotta eat.

Today's Mood Is...

That is all.

Today's Mood Is...

Its going to be a busy day, and probably a busy week. As such, and in the spirit of both brevity and updating you as to what is happening in ther world of BSR, I present you with the most precise explanation of Spider-Man's continuity and raison d'etre in 6 little words, as printed in the King-Sized Spider-Man Summer Special (which, if Larry the Upstairs Neighbor is reading this, I am VERY interested in picking up if at all possible. It looks to be teh awesome!).

Gotta run

Today's Mood Is...

The Olympics start today (in fact they have already started. We just won't get to see them until tonight. Well, YOU will be able to see them tonight. I will be at Bullseye Inc. protecting assets and asses. Not necessarily in that order). I could honestly care less. In fact, if I have time today or tomorrow, I am going to opine on the Olympics over on the sports blog. It is time for my monthly article / promise to post more regularly from now on piece.

I would like to welcome Shortschitt back to the fold. It has been a while, and I know we all missed her. And while I am here I would like to respond to her comment (refer to the comments on the Dark Knight Pizza piece for more information and the link to her reference to my reference - oh great I've gone cross-eyed).

I am not and never will be an apologist for a multi-billion dollar international conglomerate, but I will say that my personal experiences with McDonalds' Iced Coffee has never been negative as far as quality of beverage. The staff, however, is another story...

At this point in my life I should know that 16 year olds working their first job and earning minimum wage are not going to be proficient in ironic conversation and do not comprehend straight faced commentary. And this is not saying that the teens are stupid, but I think that when they walk in the door to work their brains shut off in a form of self preservation. I truly believe that if someone worked at McDonalds (management excluded, for reasons that will be explained in a moment) and really tried to apply their brains to that mind numbing job that the brain would in fact consume itself in a misguided attempt to save itself, or at least have an honorable death. Managers are forced to think, and most do a good job. But I do believe that you adapt to your environment, and if you work in a place with pictures of the food on a touch screen menu in order to place an order for mass produced food that comes in semi colorful packaging that varies from product to product in order to further ease confusion and dull the need to recognize and discern minor differences and is prepared by other drones who follow picture maps of how to prepare the food in order to get it to you as quickly as possible with no real regards to quality leads these young, impressionable, still not fully developed minds to slip into apathy / drone mode. At that point, my silly little off hand remark lands on the floor in front of them like a dropped scoop of whipped potatoes on your tray at the school cafetorium.

So anyway, I have enjoyed the flavor and texture of McDonalds Iced Coffee (I honestly do not know why I capitalized iced coffee both times I put it directly after McDonalds. Mayhap my own reprogramming is coming along nicely. Thanks 5th Avenue!). I think it is possible that in the last year that they have improved the formula / ratio, or maybe Shorty got a bad cup. Either way, I hope she will give them another chance.

And now I want an iced coffee and a Quarter Pounder. And maybe some McNuggets. Damitall.

BSR

Today's Mood Is...

This image, like many others I have used here, was shamelessly cribbed from Chris' Invincible Super Blog. He is too good at this stuff for me not to pilfer it for you wholesale (while dreaming of electric sheep).

I have been having a real craving for a few things lately. One of those things I have been satisfying (how YOU doin'?) fairly regularly. The other things, not so much. But there is a good probability that will change in the near future. So, in no particular order, the things I have been wanting are...

Snowballs (egg custard in particular)

Iced Coffee

Wings (I have never been a big fan of "buffalo" wings, but I love me some honey bbq and Old Bay style)

Pizza (hence the pic)

There is a place near Bullseye Inc. that delivers pizza / wings / subs (actually, there are about 500 of them, but there is one in particular that I am focused on). They have a Bacon Cheddar Cheeseburger pizza that is just as delicious and not kosher as it sounds. I have come tantalizingly close to ordering that recently. The thing is, they also have some very good wings. Nice and big and meaty (how YOU doin'?), a good amount of sauce without being drowned in it...all around good eatin's.

I have not given in overmuch to my snowball cravings (I had one last week, but while I have been catching myself slowing down and staring at the roadside stands as I drive by, a la Nicholas Cage and convenience stores in Raising Arizona), but there is that other thing that I have been downing at possibly alarming rates. And that is iced coffee. McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, I am going crazy in the heat. Iced coffee is as refreshing as iced tea, but it has all the benefits of high octane coffee (which tea just can't touch). If you like coffee, you will like iced coffee. And if you don't, you are a damned dirty hippie!

Back with more in a sec.

BSR

The things that make you wonder

Now why on Earth would I be making THAT face? Well, I'll tell you...

My mother in law stayed with us for the weekend. No biggie, no worries. We have a couch and an inflatable mattress, so no one suffers. But still...

I woke up earlier than I planned this morning. The dog needed to go outside, and as I moved my body said "since you are already out of bed, you might as well hit the can yourself". And once you are within a certain length of time before you have to get up anyway (and your wife has spent the last hour or so being uncomfortable in bed and taking it out on your poor back as she thrashes about) you just get up and get ready for work. I don't have a set schedule here at the hospital, so as long as I get my 40 per all is good. So I can come in pretty much whenever.

Anyway, I get up this morning, have a lovely and completely coherent conversation with Wifey while she lays in bed and communicates with the ceiling tiles, then go upstairs in order to get myself to my car and on the way to work. It wasn't until I got to the foyer that I realized that something was amiss...

While I was performing my morning constitutional, as well as my morning bill of rights, I heard some strange noises coming from upstairs where M-I-L was sleeping. Since both her dog and our dog were out back being dogs, and the cat was standing in the doorway of the bathroom staring at me (I know she is plotting something, I just don't know WHAT yet. Mayhap she was trying to gauge my level of alertness in order to see if she should attempt another escape), and Wifey was talking to something about something, it had to be her. But by the time I was done in the bathroom and got the dogs back in the house and got dressed for work and made my way upstairs I had forgotten about the whole thing. UNTIL I got to the foyer. And that is when I saw it.

Two dustpans and a single kleenex. Laid out in almost a Stonehenge-worthy pattern in the doorway. Well, all I could do was move them so I could exit the house. But I don't know the final outcome of the breaking the dustpan crop circle. I have been in contact with Wifey today, and she says M-I-L is still asleep. So either she was dusting / sweeping in her sleep, or there will be an inter-dimensional vortex where my house used to be when I get home, and I will be responsible for allowing it by removing the blockade to the nether realms.

I really wish I had waited to mail my mortgage check until after I verified that I still have a house.

BSR