Guilty Pleasure - The Lottery

The lottery is numbers, chance, big money, and gambling all rolled into one. It's also my guilty pleasure. I'm not bad at math, I know full well that the 175,711,536 to 1 odds of me winning the jackpot are just about the worst odds in the world. But I look at the money spent as an entertainment tax.

It's the fee that allows me to stand in the shower in the morning and daydream about a future where I don't have to get up and go to work in the morning. A future where my daughter's college education is already fully paid. The key is to realize that this reality can come about; but it probably won't happen via the lottery.

Playing with the numbers is an added benefit. Mapping out the numbers and seeing which ones hit on what dates is a strange kind of fun for me.

You DON'T Deserve It

Most of us are guilty of justifying a purchase with, "I deserve it." Unless you budgeted it for it at the beginning of the month, you don't.

Even though you may have had a tough week or just accomplished a large project, you owe it to yourself to delay gratification. The momentary satisfaction of buying something isn't worth going outside of your budget and the havoc it can create.

Dave Ramsey had a story about a single mother giving in at the end of a tough day and buying McDonald's for her kids even though it wasn't in her budget. Those happy meals ended up costing her over a hundred dollars due to the NSF fees from both her bank and the check payees. In the future I'll try to remember this story when I try to justify a purchase by telling myself that I deserve it.

Why CannibalCrowley?

I'm sure it's a question that people will have and the answer is that it's simply because that's what I use for everything. Of course, the exception to that is Xbox Live where I use Cannibal GWJ due to Microsoft's craptacular handling of migrating old accounts from the original Xbox to the 360.

The name came about back when I was in the Marine Corps. My roommate gave me the first portion due to my love of cannibal and zombie movies. So I used the name for a while online; but with such a common word I kept bumping into others with the same name. Due to my hatred of simply adding a number to the end of a name, I decided that I needed to add another word in there.

I really like alliterations so that part was set. I was sitting around the barracks and brainstorming with my roommate and I just happened to have a book by Aleister Crowley sitting out at the time. So that's how the name was born.

Consistency

Writing something every day has got to be the hardest part of blogging. I know it sure kicks my butt. Darn my laziness.

I have a lot of respect for people who can not only write every day; but perform a corresponding activity as well. For instance, Brian at Horror Movie A Day watches a different horror movie ever day and then writes about it. That's close to 2 hours out of every day.

Games for Lunch spends an hour of each day with a different videogame and talks about his experience along with giving a yes or no answer to whether or not he'd play it more.

Keep up the good work guys.

Revocation of Acceptance - Part 4

It's been a couple weeks since I revoked acceptance on the Impala and as of last night the dealer still hadn't arranged a time or place where he could take the vehicle in exchange for refunding me my downpayment plus the repairs that I ended up paying for even after he said that he would do so. When my wife finally got home from taking care of her Grandmother (she just had knee surgery), we drove to Auto King of Grand Rapids and I dropped the car off at his lot along with a note to contact me to get the keys. It also mentioned that I was expecting to receive my money within 10 days.

Early this morning I also faxed the note to the dealership as well as sent it to Chris Buben in an email. I then wrote a letter explaining this step and faxed it to the finance company. I informed them to contact me via email with any questions.

Revocation of Acceptance - Part 1
Revocation of Acceptance - Part 2
Revocation of Acceptance - Part 3

Revocation of Acceptance - Part 3

After calling, mailing, and faxing, I finally got a response from Chris Buben of Auto King of Grand Rapids. His response came in the form of an email from cbuben@sbcglobal.net. He basically said, "nuh-uh, you can't do that." He must have completely ignored the letter itself as well as the supporting documentation.

Let's go over some of the funnier parts of the email (his portion in green):

We need to get the car to our mechanics and go from there.

Would this be the same mechanics whose shop at your dealership didn't even have a common car fuse?

You can't simply decide you don't want the car any more because it has a couple mechanical issues.

Actually, if you had bothered to read the letters and fax I sent then you would be aware that the consumer is allowed to do just that if the defects substantially impair the value and also fulfill one of the following conditions:

• Defects were supposed to be fixed and have not been.
• The buyer's initial acceptance was caused by difficulty of discovery.
• The buyer's initial acceptance was influenced by the seller's assurances.
• The product sold is not fit for ordinary purposes (e.g. a car should start and run).
• The seller used "unfair, unconscionable, or deceptive methods, acts, or practices"(as set forth in the Michigan Consumer Protection Act).

I can meet all five instead of just one, so this will be a slam dunk if it goes to court.

I wonder if he thinks I'm not serious. The longer this goes on, the more it seems like he's just hoping I'll give up. Well I've got news for him, I'm not a big fan of being screwed over and I'll gladly spend a day in court to get things right. He's just making things harder on himself because he'll end up having to pay the fees and costs is this goes to trial. On top of that he'd probably drag his feet on paying the judgment and I'd end up having to go through a seizure of property.

Part 1
Part 2

Revocation of Acceptance - Part 2

The mug pictured sure isn't me, it's Chris Buben from Auto King of Grand Rapids. He's the seller that I briefly mention in part one of this little story. I was hoping that there wasn't going to be a part two, I naively believed that Mr. Buben would act like the upstanding businessman that he claims to be; but I should have known better.

I've always shied away from used car dealers and bought from private owners due to the less than stellar reputation that used car dealers have as a whole. However, since the wife was against going to a private party, we compromised and went to a smaller local dealer because we (it turns out wrongly) believed that they would be more honest than your average corporate-type dealer.

I called Auto King with my revocation of acceptance on Tuesday morning, as of Wednesday morning I still hadn't heard from them so I sent a letter as well. On Friday I called the finance company (UAC) and informed Steve of the situation. He stopped short of calling me; but just barely. He actually had the gall to lie to me and try to say that I had no recourse against them because all they were doing is financing the purchase. Of course that would require me to ignore the bold print statement at the bottom of the contract which states (as required by federal & state law):

NOTICE: ANY HOLDER OF THIS CONSUMER CREDIT CONTRACT IS SUBJECT TO ALL CLAIMS AND DEFENSES WHICH THE DEBTOR COULD ASSERT AGAINST THE SELLER OF GOODS OR SERVICES OBTAINED PURSUANT HERETO OR WITH THE PROCEEDS HEREOF. RECOVERY HEREUNDER BY THE DEBTOR SHALL NOT EXCEED AMOUNTS PAID BY THE DEBTOR HEREUNDER.

After calling him out on it he fell back to the "well, neither of us are lawyers" defense and I ended up just faxing the letter and all supporting documentation to his office at 616-949-9690.

As of this morning I still haven't heard back from Chris Buben with a time and place where we can exchange the vehicle for the downpayment plus the repair costs he was supposed to cover. So after a bit of digging I found their fax number ( 616-261-3361 ) and faxed a copy of the letter that I mailed to him last week. I also re-faxed it to UAC since I still haven't heard from them either.

Part 1
Part 3