The hideous Kinko

Besides insurance companies and roommates using too much toilet paper, the biggest swindler on this planet is Kinko's. They cheated me of 60 cents just to check gmail.

A wine bottle in hand, I headed to a friend's place to start a drinking party while in NYC. Genius she is, friend sent the wrong address, or I may have noted the wrong address. I rang the bell of an apartment, which was answered by a Jerry Springer chick.

"You ringed wrong apart so get away," said a woman in a Middle Eastern accent over the buzzer. Would've been cool if she added "you bastard."

That wasn't S, she usually laughs. Before threatening woman came down with a chainsaw, I was on my way to Kinko's in the Upper East Side to check S's address.

It costs 30 cents a minute to access the Internet @ Kinko's. Repeat: 30 cents a minute. The ancient desktops takes a minute to boot, so 30 cents gone right there. Starting IE takes 45 seconds with the popups, so 30 more cents.

Overall, it took me 4 minutes to check friend's address on gmail -- starting the browser, shutting down popups etc. -- costing me $1.20.

So, Kinko's used kinky old 1999 Dell desktops to swindle people. Naturally, I'm not paying for what is their fault. So I go to the counter, tell a rep that I'm not paying for the prized Bronze Age Dell desktops that take 3 minutes to start/load IE. Rep cooperated and refunded 60 pips.

I'm cheap. That's just me. I want to justify every frickin penny I spend. Criminal organizations like Kinko's don't deserve the extra $0.60 that I can spend on...on...what can I buy for 60 cents? Perhaps an Apple Pie in McD's and perhaps Us Weekly, which I did actually buy.

In the end, she called with the right address and the party started at Chinese Mirch for dinner, which was argh, disappointing.

Seems like they've been uprooted from the homefood origins they were etched in. Instead of dishing out fresh stuff, the bowl was burning with microwaved stuff.

Didn't feel like eating, so we slinged each other in a chili-eating match after ordering innumerable chilis and half-n-halfs. Constantly fanning our mouths after a chili, proceeded by downing half-and-halfs to cool the mouth, made for some neat public viewing.