Monthly Archives: October 2007

Confessions of a Wireless Customer Service Rep, 071018

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Attention callers to Wireless Customer Service Centers!

Here’s a few things to keep in mind when calling in to your cellular phone company:

If you’re calling to buy a new phone, but have no idea what kind of phone you want…look, think about it, that’s just dumb. Nothing I can say is going to describe that phone well enough for you to make a decision. Go to a store. Put your hands on it. Does it feel right? Does it feel well made? Does it fit your style? At least look on the web site and see if you like the look of the phone. Seriously, you’re going to come to the conclusion that calling in wasn’t the best way to shop for a phone.

Your bill is simple.  Everything you need to know is right there.  I’ll be happy to explain it to you…twice!  After that, I’ve already decided that you’re an idiot and incapable of understanding basic math.  Oh, and just because you’re not an American Citizen, does NOT mean that you don’t have to pay the sales tax on your bill.  Yes…it’s high…become a citizen and write your Congress-person.

Yes, we’re here to answer your questions…all of your questions…we kind of have to stay on the phone with you until we’ve explained everything that you’ve asked us. For the love of all that’s holy, try to keep in mind that we have an average call time that we’re shooting for to keep our bosses happy. Calling in once a year to review the four separate multi-line accounts you keep for your extended family because you’re the only one with a decent credit rating is just plain mean. Constantly putting me on hold for your girlfriends who keep calling you and then telling me alll about it before getting back to business is torture.

Please, please, please, don’t call us when you’re in the middle of a screaming match with your teenager because hormone boy downloaded over $1500.00 of games and ringtones last month. I’ll be happy to help you after you’ve hogtied and gagged the offending idiot. And ummm, yes, those are going to be valid charges, and no, there’s no way on this planet that anyone over the age of 5 could believe that all that stuff was “free.” The “You will be charged $9.99 for this game. Do you wish to continue?” message kind of destroys that defense. How does all that stuff fit on one phone? It doesn’t. Perhaps you want to give that phone to someone with a brain that hasn’t been fried from playing Halo 3 nonstop since it’s release.

We have absolutely no reason to lie to you about anything. If we tell you that your plan never included free mobile to mobile or free unlimited text messaging, we’re telling you the truth.  We’ve got all the information right in front of us, we know what our company is capable of.  We can’t say this out loud to you, but perhaps the gorgeous (well-proportioned) Russian “blonde” selling really inexpensive phones off a cart at the mall is the one who lied to you. Did you read everything that she gave you, or were you distracted by her hand on your lower back and just sign where she pointed?  No…I don’t think she’s still there, she’s probably in another state at another mall by now and I’d give you a month’s pay if you could pick her out at a lineup.

Can I just say….

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…that I hate, loathe & despise packing? LOL

Moving Day is Nov 1, and I’m probably about half-packed, although my back thinks I’m all done (silly back – what does it know?). The last couple weekends have been spent purging and packing and cleaning, and it’s finally beginning to look like I’m making at least a small dent in it all. Of course, this week I’ll be commuting 30miles each way to a client site, and next week I’m out of state on a business trip. So I have 2 more weekends before Moving Day. And somewhere in there I need to find time to paint one of the rooms in the new house (schoolbus yellow is not a peaceful color, for me). Which means making time to figure out what color I want that room to be. Maybe I’ll wait and have my artist friend create a mural on the walls in there.

Next weekend I’m moving my storage shelves into the new garage, and my container garden to the new yard. It will give me a nice break from packing. I’m hiring a moving company for the actual move, but trying to do all the packing myelf.

A word to the wise…if you ever think about becoming a book collector, try to talk yourself out of it (it’s too late for Julia, I know). My thousand-volume library has taken forever to pack up, and bears most of the blame for my aching back.

All the News…

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…That’s fit to print.

Or not, as the case may be. My own disillusionment with legacy media over the last three or four years has been pretty profound – not that I had them on all that high a pedestal to begin with. Being in the military media afforded enough occasions for brushing up against the big guys, either at first hand, or at second. There were enough stories filtering around the world of military broadcasting, of incredible arrogance, lack of accuracy and lack of professionalism displayed by the big names to give me a bad taste in my mouth anyway. I was already aware of the tendency for blow-dried big-name anchors and reporters to helicopter in, do an on-scene standup reading words that some lowly staffer had written for them. I already knew of how news luminaries like Peter Arnett had to back down over the bogus ‘Tailwind” story – which had made my eyebrows raise skeptically from the very first; I mean, guys handling a chemical so dangerous that a single drop on bare skin could be fatal? And not being in MOPP-gear (or the Vietnam-era equivalent) up to their eyeballs? Pull the other leg, chaps – that one has bells on it. I could cheerfully write off the cack-handed treatment of all things military by the legacy media to sheer bloody ignorance – after all, the military is a weird and wonderful world, all to itself.

What became harder to take over the last couple of years is their ignorance, credulity and bias regarding just about everything else. This list is a pretty comprehensive encyclopedia, although I am given to wonder how many bogus stories were never noticed until the rise of the internet, and the ability of astute news consumers to fact-check legacy media asses from here to the ends of the earth.

And to add one more depressing example, there is the matter of General Sanchez’s recent double-barreled blast. Of course, it was relayed to us by legacy media in the manner which we have come to expect of them; omitting the withering criticism directed at them… which formed the larger part of General Sanchez’ remarks. (linked here) Now that’s a shocker – one might think they didn’t care for criticism directed at their impartial and noble selves, so down the memory hole it goes, at least as far as the headlines are concerned.

And finally, another writer friend of mine is curious about this photograph – an AP stock photo which has been used lately in venues such as the LA Times and Newsweek in their stories about Blackwater. He is a veteran, a combat photographer and former AP editor himself – and he thinks it is a little too perfect. Well, the two Blackwater guys rushing towards the camera while the guys behind them are all sitting about, in apparent relaxation. Take a look – what does it look like to you? Firefight or lunch break? Both? Or just another example of AP faux-tography?

Confessions of a Wireless Customer Service Rep, 071014

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Here’s something that completely blew my mind recently. Apparently it’s common practice in some circles for women to carry their cell phones, and I shit you not about this, in their panties right up against their coochie. There’s a plethora of jokes to be made about the phone in vibrate mode etc., but I’m going to leave those alone and talk about why this is just a BAD idea. The cell phone is a small computer with all sorts of chips and electricity running through those chips, not to mention a lithium battery that’s meant to hold enough power for up to a four hour phone call. Do you really think it’s a good idea to keep an electronic device that isn’t made for that part of your body down there? Never mind the fact that it’s not good for your phone, would you put a computer down there? No, you wouldn’t. You would intuitively know that it’s a bad idea. Yet, I’ve learned that there are a LOT of women who do this every day. Don’t even get me started about the fact that you’re going to be putting that near your mouth. And for God’s sake don’t tell me that you wash it regularly, your phone I mean. I assume everyone practices decent hygiene…well at least in this country…mostly.

This is something you couldn’t talk a guy into doing. “You want me to put a cell phone in my shorts next to Mr Happy and The Twins? I don’t think so sparky. I know those things give off some sort of radiation and I’m not about to risk anything nuking my package. Aren’t I worried about my brain then? I’m a dude, why would I worry about that?

Ladies, please, think before you store your cell phone in what, on a good day, could become a warm and wet environment. At the very least you’re risking shorting out your phone. And NO, it’s not covered under the warranty…which quite honestly is the phone call I got this past week which triggered this rant.

Jericho – Season One: DVD Review

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I have now come to that stage of life where I have seen every standard TV plot so many times that I am now able to predict the denouement almost as soon as I see the setup and have declared a personal embargo on watching any more shows about doctors, lawyers or cops. While some of the current offerings (House, Scrubs, etc) are quite passable – there are other occupations, and other situations which in the hands of the creative, will offer sufficient interest to keep viewers returning on a regular basis. Shows like “Lost” and “Ugly Betty” are splendid examples of what can be done by stepping outside of the cop-lawyer-doc box, and “Jericho – Season One” is another. Take an intriguing and (for television) a semi-original situation, involve a large cast of interesting people reacting to it and voila – something that will bring back the audience, over and over. Especially when it is a situation that we might imagine happening to ourselves. After 9/11, and Katrina (which provided the genesis of “Jericho” to its creators) it is all to easy to imagine what happens when the world we know suddenly ends, right in the middle of all our mundane plans for a perfectly ordinary day.

Which is exactly what happens to the citizens of the small town of Jericho, Kansas, to the family of Johnston Green (Gerald McRaney) and their neighbors and friends. Jericho is a small, pleasant place, full of people going about their own business – farming, stocking the grocery store shelves, going through a mayoral election, planning a wedding and enduring an audit by a visiting IRS agent. The school children are off on a field trip and the Green’s black-sheep son Jake suddenly appears needing a great deal of money – the only ripple in the pleasant still pool of a modern American life. In one of the most quietly effective sequences, the camera follows two children, playing hide and seek in a back yard, while one climbs on the roof of a shed, and then onto the house roof. The boy suddenly freezes there, silhouetted against the clouds and the sky – and then we see what he has seen; a mushroom cloud, coming up from a line of mountains on the distant horizon.

And that is the exact point where the people of Jericho, and a handful of visitors who just happen to be there begin a long slow devolution from the twenty-first century into something that more resembles the frontier West… and then to a condition that looks more like the warring city-states of Renaissance Italy, or classical Greece. First they struggle to figure out just has happened to the rest of the country – and then begins the fight to survive, ending in a cliff-hanger which promises a large audience for the second-season premiere. It makes for a more interesting television show than I had thought, when I first heard about it. The first season set of 22 episodes is neatly packaged on 6 discs. Commentary and deleted scenes are included for selected episodes on the same disc. I would have much rather that deleted scenes be edited into the episode where they belonged, to make a sort of “director’s cut”, rather than having them tacked on as an appendage. The omitted scenes would have done a lot for the overall story; it’s clear that they were omitted to shorten each episode for broadcast.

It’s an interesting show, on the whole – well worth watching, although I hope that it won’t disintegrate like “Lost”. I think of Jericho as a remorseless study of what people will do under prolonged stress in a particular situation. There are some who adjust to the situation without losing their own core values, some who can see into the situation and confront the unthinkeable without flinching. And then there are those who can’t and won’t… and you can never really tell in advance who will be one or the other. But as I wrote earlier this week, just having to think about this sort of thing is the first step in beginning to cope – should such a situation ever arise.

Cross-posted at Blogger News Network.

Happening Here

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Tuesdays and Thursdays are mornings when Blondie and I can take our time, letting the dogs drag us briskly through the neighborhood, especially those days when I am not needed at the ranch realty office. We talk about things we notice in the neighborhood, like who’s house is for sale, how the renovation work on the “burned” house three streets over is going, say hi to some of the neighbors and/or their dogs, note any interesting garage sales shaping up on the weekend, encourage Weevil and Spike to piss on the lawn of the neighbor who yelled after us last year because someone else had let their dog poop on her lawn… and us with our pockets bulging with plastic bags, I ask you! She has moved away, but we like to see our dogs carrying on with the tradition. It does get pretty dry around here: moisture is moisture, y’know.

This morning we were carrying out a practical exercise, brought about because last night we had been watching the DVD of Jericho- Season One. I’m doing a review, and had to catch the ones that I missed, early on. Chilling stuff, actually; how the world ends, in the middle of the morning with hardly anyone noticing, until static fills the broadcast channels. One thing and another reminded me of a story about a poor neighborhood in New Orleans, whose residents rode out Katrina and the aftermath comfortably tucked up in a local school. It was one of those small stories which didn’t get much play, probably because most of the reporters were drooling over what was supposed to have been happening at the Superdome and the Convention center. I did hear of it on NPR, and read a brief feature on-line, and of course recall nothing but the general outline of events. Basically some of the neighbors got together, led by a couple of local military veterans, and set up their own shelter on the upper floors of the school, which they assumed would be safe enough, as some of the older neighbors remembered taking refuge there during the last ginormous hurricane. They laid in plenty of supplies, bedding, cots, lamps, batteries, cooking equipment – everything they would need. And there they remained, setting up a soup kitchen for themselves, looking after elderly neighbors who refused to leave their flooded houses; tidy, efficient and comfortable. They had even thrown out a couple of thugs, who came looking for trouble… and when anyone came around asking if they wished to be evacuated, no one really wanted to, as they were doing quite well through their own efforts.

So Blondie and I were thinking out loud of how our neighborhood could be organized; we’re on high ground, so flooding wouldn’t be so much of a problem, but no electrical power and a breakdown of local law enforcement would present a bit of a sticky wicket. The neighborhood is thick with military retirees, and active duty; we agreed that the problem at first would be everyone trying to be in charge, before sorting out how everyone’s experience and training would best be applied.

In the interests of security, we’d have to cut off access into the neighborhood, first. There are four main entrances, and privacy fences along all four sides. So, block three of them with parked vehicles, and keep the gate nearest Stahl Road and Judson open, set up roving armed patrols of two or three each, along the outside fences, and guards at the entrances. Mark them with some kind of armband, nothing fancy, just a strip of cloth. This is Texas, god knows if you canvassed the neighborhood, there’s probably enough weapons to supply the army of a small European state, and their police force, too. Secure the perimeter, and begin canvassing every house. Who is home, who is in need of medical attention, who is gone, but has left pets or children alone? We’d have to assume that the active-duty military would be gone, and so would the reservists, leaving us with a lot of retirees in varying degrees of fitness, and a lot of family members of all ages. Who has a portable generator, a charcoal or bottled gas grill? A freezer full of food which will thaw, when the power has been off for a week? Who has large cooking pots, has managed a restaurant or a dining hall kitchen? Who is a doctor, a nurse, an electrician? Can we set up dining facility at the elementary school, and is there a generator there? What about the assisted living facility and the day-care just outside the entrance at the other end of the neighborhood? If we could secure them, we’d have a facility to care for the frail and elderly… even better, if they have generators. Canvas the neighborhood; collect batteries and over-the-counter drugs, medical supplies, bleach, pet food, lanterns and candles, blankets and bedding. Trees, Blondie pointed out. After a bit, we can start cutting down trees, and taking out wooden fences within the neighborhood. Most houses have functioning fireplaces – not terribly efficient when it comes to keeping a room warm, or to cook over, but better than nothing. Blondie also favored dividing the neighborhood into quadrants as far as security patrols went, and stockpiling food at one house within each quadrant.

We’d be good for at least a week, we agreed, but after that, we’d have to send out foraging parties for food supplies, gasoline and medicine. A slightly off-kilter way to spend a morning, but sometimes just having thought about things like this is a good way to begin coping with the situation, should it ever arise.

Sucker for Our Dumb Chums

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There may be a chance – albeit hopefully a distant one – that at some point in the future either Blondie or myself will be taken away by kindly attendants in white coats while horrified animal control authorities remove a zoo of cats and dogs from an unspeakable house as neighbors gape in horrified disbelief and the news cameras roll. Unless there has been a mega-spectacular crackup in rush-hour traffic or Teddy Kennedy has been found in bed with a live boy or a dead woman, the resulting story will be about third or fourth down in the evening newscast.

Sigh.

Which is by way of saying that my daughter has brought home another animal! To add to the menagerie! In a very small house! And like a sucker, I said yes! Like a sucker I tried to insist that this one MUST go to the no-kill shelter eventually! Like a sucker, I know that it probably won’t! As soon as it has finished a period of quarantine in the garage, it will join the rest of the happy clan, shredding the furniture, shedding drifts of hair all over the house, fast asleep on anything soft, and it will remain until it pops off of old age!

Or Blondie takes it with her, when she finishes veterinary school and has a place of her own. Jay-sus, she had better qualify as a vet, it’s the only way we’ll ever afford to keep all the furry freeloaders in the manner to which they would like to become accustomed.

This one is named “Meek”. He is a cat, a neutered male, white with a brindle saddle and ears, about three years old. He’s been hanging out at the place in Selma where Blondie works part-time, one of the herd of tame and semi-ferals which she has fed off and on for the last year or so. He’s one of the tamest and the most slavishly devoted to her; she has always thought he was dumped by his previous owner. One of the other tame ones was run over and killed by a car a couple of months ago, and this morning when she left the office to run an errand, Meek ran after her and followed her car almost to the highway. Evidently, he has decided that if he can’t live with Blondie, he doesn’t want to live at all.

Not good survival instincts for an outdoor cat, living adjacent to a highway. The veterinarian pegs him to be about three years old, a real sweetie… and it appears that he has already survived a traumatic event that broke one of his legs and ribs. Hard to say if he was dumped first and then injured… or more horrible to imagine, injured and then dumped.

Sigh. There is a kind of symmetry to it, though. Two dogs, two gimp cats, two grey and two black. I swear on a stack of bibles, though; Weevil, Sam and Meek are Blondie’s critters. And there won’t be any more. Really….

My Last Five Music Purchases

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This is supposed to be My Last Five Songs but I’m one of those folks the music industry loves.  Rather than just buy the song, I tend to buy the whole album the song is on, so I’ve generalized it to My Last Five Music Purchaces. Bring up iTunes, the best computer jukebox there is, and sort by “Date Added.” Here ya go:

Bruce Springsteen – Magic. See my letter below. I’m glad I bought it at mp3sugar.com instead of paying full price through iTunes.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Once More With Feeling. I’ve become a huge BTVS fan. Joss Whedon and his crew might be the smartest, funniest and most entertaining people on the planet. “Spike’s” Rest in Peace is perfect this time of year with Halloween approaching. The Billy Idol thing comes full circle. All of the internal dialogue gets revealed in some seriously entertaining numbers that had my ribs hurting. The musical episode of Buffy is pure cheese and it’s warm and tasty.

Elvis Costello – Rock and Roll Music. For the folks who say that EC never did punk, there’s this compilation from when that was all he did. His version of Nick Lowe’s “Girls Talk” is the one that gets stuck in my head. “I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea” may be my favorite Costello song.

Joe Satriani – Strange Beautiful Music. I’m sure somewhere here turned me on to this album…Radar? Joe? Sleep Walk makes me want to dance with my wife.

Lacuna Coil – Karmacode. Again, I have the folks who respond to this blog for turning me on to this band after I wrote a piece on Evenescence a couple years ago. This download completed my collection. Basically if you like Evenescnece, you’ll love Lacuna Coil.

First Listen, Magic – Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band

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Dear Bruce,

Look. I really appreciated hanging out with you in the summer of ’84 at Uncle Steve’s Blues Bar and playing pinball. It’s an hour in my head that makes me smile because I never expected you to be such a regular guy. But I’m sorry…

I’m not hearing anything NEW on this NEW album. I’m hearing bits and pieces of a lot of your old stuff. Jeez, you even revisit “10th Avenue Freeze Out” on “Livin’ in The Future.”

How about a new album with something…I dunno…new?

Astronaut Update

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RHG called to let me know that they are dead in the water mear Nashville. In her narrative, a steel bar was dragging from rear of the bus leaving a trail of sparks. Again according to the narrative, a state patrolman followed them for five miles and finally pulled them over with lights and siren and advised the driver that the situation had to be corrected before proceeding. RHG, knowing the protocol, advised that there were three scenarios: driver fixes problem, mechanic is called, or new bus comes from Peoria. Later comm advised that scenario two played out. Advice to RHG – get sleep while you can (earlier advice #1) and enjoy adventure. Comment to Real Wife – by the time RHG is 30 the rear of the bus will have been fully engulged in flames.

Timmer, right now I am listening to Billy the Kid by Aaron Copeland. Try it, you’ll like it (well, maybe not all of it).

Radar

Just for Fun

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Another writer sent me this musical parody, to be sung to the tune of “Back in the Saddle, Again”. It was composed especially for me, as he was inspired upon actually recieving a copy of “To Truckee’s Trail”.

“BACK IN THE BOOKWORKS A’GIN”

Well, she’s back in the bookworks a’gin.
Writin’ away when she kin’.
‘magination’s never dry,
When there’s his’try there to ply,
‘Cause she’s back in the bookworks a’gin.

Writin’ ’bout his’try once more,
Poundin’ her ol’ com-pu-tor
She’s describin” Truckee’s Trail,
Starvin’ and tra-vail
Back in the bookworks a’gin

Chorus:
Whoopi-ty-aye-Oh
Writin’ to and fro
Back in the bookworks again
Whoopi-ty-aye-Yay
She goes her own durn way
‘N’ she’s back in the bookworks agin.

Now, the first book’s the worst
You think the whole durn thing’s cursed
But you stick right to the trail
And you know, you’ll never fail!
You’ll be back in the bookworks a’gin.

I’ll send her a cowboy’s farewell
Pop off a round, bang the bell
She’ll be back someday, I know
An’ a-writin’ she will go
Back to the bookworks a’gin.

Chorus:
Whoopi-ty-aye-Oh
Writin’ to and fro
Back in the bookworks again
Whoopi-ty-aye-Yay
She goes her own durn way
‘N’ she’s back in the bookworks agin!

(I’m also working in one office or other, every day this week – even parttime, it does cut down on the blogging time – sorry!)