• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, August 10, 2007

BusinessWeek tells us that "The Internet has rapidly become an outlet for frustrated homeowners to chronicle their bad experiences with new homes they have found to be structurally defective. Homeowners can now post complaints, discuss legal options, and warn future buyers on at least a dozen builder-directed 'gripe sites,' with names such as www.crapconstruction.com and www.khovsucks.com." Apparently in response, big builders pay people to shut down their builder-bashing Web sites.

Who among us hasn't been tempted to use the Internet to settle the score with those who have screwed us over in business or as consumers? Now it appears you can turn your anger into a cottage industry by raising enough stink that the target of your wrath pays you to go away. Let's see, who has deep pockets and has pissed me off lately?

BigOilSux.com - Why am I having such a hard time reconciling the excuse that limited refinery capacity is making me pay over 3 bucks a gallon at the same time all the Big Oil companies are racking up record profits? How about throwing a few billion our way and dropping your wholesale prices (and take zone pricing and stick it where the sun don't shine)?

ADIDASSux.com - Now, I appreciate that running shoe makers keep evolving their models to reflect improved technology and materials, but how hard can it be to post on your Web site that you're changing the name of some loyal customer's favorite shoe and that if they like it, the new iteration will now be called (insert new cloud-imaging name). And that the sizing may be slightly off from the old model? Isn't this why they invented the Internet in the first place?

BeefSux.com - I don't care if ethanol is driving up the price of corn that feeds my dinner while it is still on the hoof, I have a serious problem paying close to $30 a pound for steak that tastes like crap. Actually crap would be a step up; it mostly tastes like nothing. How about performance pricing for steak? The worse a filet mignon tastes, the less I pay for the next one?

VISTASux.com - I have been around the Internet long enough that I know you don't run out and buy the introductory version of ANYTHING -- especially software. But I had a brain fart in February and got a new computer with Vista instead of XP. While I could fill the rest of this column with nothing but gripes about it, let's just say that I lost 16,000 emails, and Windows Mail continues to fail with regularity. Vista is like a hooker with AIDS: pretty but dangerous. And you stand a better chance of being cured of AIDS than you do getting satisfactory technical help from Microsoft.

FootlockerSux.com - I order a kids' replica NFL jersey in November off the Web site (which, the site assures me, is in stock). Nothing arrives in the mail. No email warnings. I finally contact them on Jan. 18 (long AFTER every competing retail store in America has sold out of said jersey) only to be told that the item is out of stock. No "We're sorry for screwing up your kid's Xmas." No offer of a rain check. Nothing. Nada. Bye-bye.

CarDealersSux.com - I just bought a car. Like everyone else, I did my research online -- only to have two things happen that really pissed me off (in addition to the ritual indignity of having to even set foot in a showroom). 1) A Buick dealer tells me that the vehicle invoices I see online are "Always wrong." Then he looks at me like I'm a horse's ass when I suggest that since most people buying cars now use that information as a starting point for negotiation, it would be in HIS best interest to assure me that said online invoices were correct. 2) Two Honda dealers are still spamming me with emails long after I've told them I "had already bought a car" and to "please stop sending me 'I have been trying to contact you with a great offer...'" emails. It is worse than being on an Omaha Steaks snail mail list.

ISux.com - What a superficial, trivial amalgam of complaints! What's wrong with you? Your kids are healthy, you have a beautiful wife, your business is going great, and your mother loves you! Can't you come up with a better column than a list of things that piss you off? Think of how many people you almost gave a heart attack to who thought maybe they'd be on this list? Get a life!

The story you have just read is an attempt to blend fact and fiction in a manner that provokes thought, and on a good day, merriment. It would be ill-advised to take any of it literally. Take it, rather, with the same humor with which it is intended. Cut and paste or link to it at your own peril.