Dave Matthews Knows... Yes he does.

I know a lot of people that hate Dave Matthews Band. In fact, if my pal Dustin even hears the words "Dave Matthews" whispered in the same room as him, you can bet you'll get his hilarious (and mostly accurate) impersonation of singer. In honor of all the people I love, and their hatred for Dave Matthews, here is an SNL clip of Bill Hader playing as Dave Matthews, and the actual Dave Matthews playing as Ozzy Osborne.

Even Dave Matthews knows his voice is ridiculous...

Chocolate Ice Cream I Can Get Behind

So, I've never been a huge chocolate fan. Sure, chocolate is good, but I'd rather go with vanilla if I have a choice. This week I was introduced to a chocolate ice cream that deserves some level of credit for making me have to think a little harder when trying to decide which is better. I don't know what Dove puts in their Unconditional Chocolate ice cream that makes it so delicious, but it has to be something that's on this list:

SKIM MILK, CREAM, SUGAR, SEMISWEET CHOCOLATE (SUGAR, CHOCOLATE, CHOCOLATE PROCESSED WITH ALKALI, COCOA BUTTER, MILKFAT, SOY LECITHIN, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS), MILK CHOCOLATE (SUGAR, COCOA BUTTER, SKIM MILK, CHOCOLATE, LACTOSE, MILKFAT, SOY LECITHIN, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR), CORN SYRUP, COCOA POWDER PROCESSED WITH ALKALI, COCONUT OIL, LESS THAN 1.5% - CHOCOLATE, CHOCOLATE PROCESSED WITH ALKALI, MILK, PALM OIL, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, CAROB BEAN GUM, CARRAGEENAN, CORN STARCH, NATURAL FLAVOR.

Good work Dove.

You've Betrayed Me Wells Fargo!

I have a lot of friends that have been clients of Wells Fargo Bank in the past, and have left because they had poor experiences with the customer service there. Wells Fargo, I've stuck up for you for years! When the criticisms came in thick, I brushed them off with a wave of my "High Value Customer" hand. Then you went and stabbed me in the back. Here's my tale:

I performed one action to bring this headache on, and it was making one deposit. I made one deposit and the following is what has happened in that poor decision's wake...

So I go to Wells Fargo on Tuesday, the 19th to make a deposit so I can pay my tuition for school this semester. I get to the teller line and visit with Jorge while he makes my deposit. He hands me the receipt and I immediately notice that he left a zero off the end of my deposit. I point out the sizable difference in dollar amount and he calls his manager over to fix the problem. The manager notices the amount and decides he wants to put a hold on the check. I tell him that I need it for tuition and can't afford to wait for a hold to clear, so he asks if it's okay if he holds just SOME of the check.

Fine. I don't care. As long as I have enough available for tuition.

The transaction completed, I leave the branch.

Wednesday, January 20
I get online to make a transfer so I can pay my tuition, but something is different... what could it be? Oh yes, the positive balance I had in my checking account the day before is now mysteriously nearly $900 in the negative! Some quick maths inform me that the difference between the amount I had on Tuesday (prior to my deposit) and the amount I have Wednesday is exactly the same amount as the hold the Store Manager placed on my account. Not only is my account missing all this money, but the sizable deposit I had just made is no where to be seen. Usually you'll see a deposit as 'pending' until it posts, but my account shows no such transaction.

I phone my pal Bryce. He works for Wells Fargo, in fact, he works at the very branch I made my deposit at (but he wasn't at work at the time I was in.) I say, "Bryce, I'm missing a whole bunch of money..."

Bryce is a good man. He replies, "Yep."

Bryce tells me he's gotta make some phone calls to see what the deal is and promises he'll call right back. When Bryce calls me back he tells me a whole bunch of bank transaction process mumbo jumbo (which I actually understood since I used to work for Wells Fargo) and posts a credit to my account in the amount of my original deposit. He makes it clear that it won't look normal for a few days because they had to find my original paperwork that they had already mailed in to the back shop. Whatever, there's money in the bank.

Thursday, January 21
Email 1 (6:09am): I wake up and check my email. Subj:Wells Fargo Overdraft Protection Advance. I'm not sure why I need Overdraft Protection Advances when I haven't even made a withdrawal, but apparently Wells Fargo was happier seeing all the money in my Savings Account and all the available credit on my credit card moved into my checking account. I call up my good pal Bryce and he says, "Yeah, I saw that this morning. Don't worry, just call me if you get any service fees."

I'm super grateful for Bryce. He's been a champ helping me out with all this, but the problem is that there shouldn't be an issue in the first place. I should have to worry about service fees simply because I made a deposit.

Email 2 (4:43pm): Subj: Insufficient Funds Notice. Really? Alright. I don't even have time to check what this is about because I'm on my way to school. I call up Bryce and leave him a message. He responds a couple hours later telling me that there were some service fees and he reversed them and assured me the problem would be fixed by tomorrow.

Once again, Bryce is the man for taking care of things for me, but I fear what this experience would have been like if I didn't have a close friend on the inside watching out for me. I have finally experienced what all my friends have and why they've left Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo, you broke my heart.

Where is sleep when I need it most...?

I tried to go to sleep 2 hours ago, but I'm still laying in bed unable to find Mr. Sandman. I think the Christmas break has totally ruined my sleep schedule, and now my school schedule is adding to the problem. Here's what happened:

Over the Christmas break my work slowed down so much that I was moved to a "part-time, on call" status. Translated, this means, "We don't have enough work for everybody so rather than lay you off we're just not going to call you until the spring. Have a great winter!" Being out of work isn't my favorite thing in the world, but the up side is that it gave me an excuse to focus all my attention on school for this semester, but I'm getting ahead of myself...

So I didn't have to go to work, and school was out for the break, and many of my favorite people in the world were visiting from out of town. This is the perfect storm for staying out late EVERY night. What happened though, is that over these several weeks, I've moved my internal sleep timer to kick in around 2:00 in the morning. That wasn't a problem at all until last week when school started. Going to bed at 2:00 or later doesn't bode well for having to get up at 6:30 for school every morning. The upside has been that I'm out of classes in the morning by 10:30, so I can just come home and take a nap.

As a result, here is my usual schedule. I wake up at 6:30 and am at school until 10:30. I come home and generally take a 2-3 hour nap. I'll then get up, do some homework, maybe go to dinner with friends, and on Tuesday & Thursday I'll head back to class at around 5:30 until 8:00. I'll get home and do some more homework until I get bored and can't focus anymore, and then what? I took a freaking 3 hour nap in the middle of the day! I can't sleep! I thought, "maybe if I just lay down, turn the lights off, and try to clear my mind, I can get back on a normal schedule. False! I seriously laid here in bed for 2 straight hours trying to shut my brain off, but eventually just got on the interwebs and started wasting time until exhaustion hopefully kicks in. I suppose I could do more homework since there never seems to be an end to that, but that doesn't sound very fun at all. Writing blog posts that people don't really care much about is a way better use of my time I think.

25 Most Listened to Songs of '09

Last year my pal Bryce made a list of the 25 most played songs on his iPod for the year and then reset his play counts and started over. I followed suit and am prepared to report on my top 25 played songs for 2009. Here they are.

#	Artist/Song	Times Played
25:	Phoenix - Fences	55
24:	Radiohead - Jigsaw Falling Into Place	56
23:	Loney, Dear - Everything Turns To You	56
22:	El Ten Eleven - My Only Swerving	56
21:	Vampire Weekend - M79	57
20:	The Sounds - No One Sleeps When I'm Awake	58
19:	Andrew Bird - Imitosis	58
18:	Bloc Party - Signs	60
17:	Mew - Beach	64
16:	Blitzen Trapper - Black River Killer	66
15:	Vampire Weekend - Ottoman	68
14:	Pinback - Good To Sea	68
13:	Vampire Weekend - Campus	69
12:	Cake - Love You Madly	70
11:	Band of Horses - No One's Gonna Love You	70
10:	The National - Fake Empire	71
9:	Phoenix - Armistice	76
8:	Muse - Uprising	79
7:	White Rabbits - Percussion Gun	82
6:	Phoenix - Lisztomania	82
5:	Blitzen Trapper - God & Suicide	82
4:	Passion Pit - Little Secrets	86
3:	The Temper Trap - Sweet Disposition	100
2:	The Whitest Boy Alive - Burning	107
1:	Phoenix - 1901	122

There you go... That's how 2009 treated me in the music department. Now it's time to reset and restart.