January 30, 2009

Yesterday, Today and ... Facebook

There are numerous people from "back in the day," as we say, with whom I would love to catch up. Some of them I need to apologize to for being, well, for being a kid, but still ... it's important to me that they know I'm sorry I was a dork. (Or, in some cases, a total jerk.)

Take, for example, someone I'll call Lana. Now, in the fifth grade, Lana liked to keep all of her duckies in a row. Each textbook was neatly stacked on the one below it in perfect order. Her pencils and pens were neatly arrayed across the top, in descending order of height, with her eraser finalizing the deal.

It drove me crazy.

So, like the chaotic thing that I was (am?), I would move a book 10 degrees when she wasn't looking. Or I would put a short pencil in the middle of the pens. Anything to disrupt poor Lana's perfect order. And then I would giggle like a mad thing when she discovered the disarray and set about correcting it.

What a jerk I was.

Today, we'd probably both be diagnosed with something or another. Me with something oppositional and Lana perhaps with OCD. The truth of the matter is that I could no more help messing up Lana's order than she could help needing to impose it. Today, if I sat next to her in class, I hope I have learned to restrain my impish self somewhat ... and I feel bad for just having to poke that button way back then. I'd like the opportunity to - well, taking it back is beyond what could happen, but I'd like to at least let Lana know that I'm sorry I was a jerk about it.

Sure it was a relatively small thing in the scheme of humans picking on each other. But it bugs me to this day.

Then there was ... I'll call her Ender S, since back in the day we shared the same first name. (Do you remember back in elementary school when kids were punctuated by the first letter of your last name? Poor Tim Eddlemon made the mistake of writing his E too close to his Tim and we all called him Time. To this day I can barely spell Tim without wanting to add an E at the end ....)

Anyhow, Ender S. was someone I admired ... but who confused me. It was like she got this whole being human thing better than I did. Of course, that says a LOT more about me as a kid than it does her. I can remember wanting to understand her, but never ever getting close to it. I was confused when I upset her and always felt like I was a kindergartner trying to run with sixth graders when I was around her.

At the same time, Ender S. was someone who was easily swayed by a strong personality and I just didn't get it. How could someone I admire be so easily swayed by someone through whom I could see so easily? Ultimately, I fell prey to my usual flaw - I couldn't understand what was going on, so I gave up. I let Tabitha "win." I stopped fighting Tabitha and let whatever she said, stand as truth because I didn't understand how people could believe her. Particularly Ender S, who knew me better than that, I thought.

But then, we were in perhaps fifth grade and maybe I was too logical. What Tabitha was good at was exactly the thing I didn't understand at all - emotion. Tabitha knew how to manipulate phrasing and a look to gain maximum sympathy. And me? Well, I was a lot like the character of Temperance Brennan on the TV show Bones. Actually, I was probably more like Zack. Emotions were illogical and therefore didn't matter and I honestly couldn't understand how so many of my classmates - and to be honest, teachers - were so easily affected by emotional manipulation.

Today were I to meet up with Ender S., I'd let her know what I felt back then, which was simply that I thought she made a better friend than Tabitha, but that I was terribly confused as to just how to be a friend back.

There are countless others through elementary school and junior and senior high with whom I would also like to ... if not make amends, at least explain what was going through what passed for my brain back then. I don't know if this is a factor of growing up the child of an alcoholic, or having Asperger's (or skirting the near edges of it - who knows which) or something else entirely ... but there are people who were very important to me back then whom I would love to know are doing well now. I'd like to tell them I'm sorry for the stupid things, the things I didn't understand ... and at the same time, I'd like to make sure they pursued the things that were so important to them back in the day. Even if they only pursued it for a while before discovering that it wasn't their thing after all ....

I'm not sure I'm expressing any of this well at all.

Let's just say that there are a slew of people I recall fondly. And I hope that they are doing well. More than that, I hope they've found peace and happiness. I hope I didn't cause much pain, but that in some small, inconsequential way, they remember me fondly as well.

Let's just say that there are also those folks whom I recall fondly and hope that I did not impede them or aggravate them too much. I looked at my junior high yearbooks not long ago and I was appalled at the good friend who told me they were glad they knew me even if I "drove them crazy" sometimes. That's not the memory I want to leave behind.

Damn.

I had a specific goal in mind when I started this post ... but I think I've strayed away from it. Maybe I'll be able to get it back another day.

Until then, remember this - the person you friend on Facebook is quite likely NOT the person you knew back in the day. Some of us are smarter now than then. Some of us only wish to make amends. Some of us only wish the best for those they recall.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:37 PM | Comments (3) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble

January 27, 2009

Hell Hath Frozen Over

I have always been accused of having a sick sense of humour and I've never denied it. I am, undoubtedly, a bit warped. I've found Despair funny since my teaching days. In 2006, I discovered this little t-shirt place which made me guffaw at damn near every shirt. It's one of those places that does social commentary that hurts and it's only for those who have a warped sense of humour.

I mean, you can take "Arrest Black Babies Before They Become Criminals" one of two ways. Either the person saying such a thing is a freaking racist dumbass ... or they're making fun of the freaking racist dumbass idiots who think that statement isn't too far off the mark.

Of course, I found the "Don't Mess with Texas ... it's not nice to pick on retards" offensive (no, not really, just cringe-worthy) because there's just no truth to that one at all, and I got sick of some of the drinking/sex shirts. But that's just me, those aren't my taste.

"Slavery Gets Shit Done"
Pezbians (you have to see the image on that one)
"This T-Shirt is 100% Organic"
"You Can't Have Manslaughter Without Laughter"
"White Flour" (I still snort every time I see this one. No, not snort the white flour OR the white powder. Sheesh.)
"I Put the Syn in Synagogue"

These are just a few of the ones that make me snort, guffaw and chuckle.

Of course, skating the knife edge of satire means that some folks just don't get it. My mom, for example, would be highly offended (or think she should be offended - there's a difference) by most of the shirts at T-shirt Hell. Some folks are looking to be offended. Some are born without a funny bone ... and some just honestly don't see the black humour as funny.

Unsurprisingly, people who don't get it have to bitch about it. "We're not going to buy your shirts and we're gonna tell our friends not to buy your shirts." Uhh, fine. You're not the target audience anyway.

Apparently, though, some folks took their little whine-fest threats further. The owner of T-shirt Hell is sick of the idiots. Sunshine Megatron (really? Please tell me that's a screen name. Or that Sunshine's mom was the hippy from hell) has announced the closing of T-shirt Hell.

I'm done. I'm finished. I can't take the stupidity anymore, so I'm leaving and I'm taking my website with me. As of Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009, T-Shirt Hell will be no more.

Most of my longtime readers (I know, there's like one of you and even my best friend from high school quit reading this blog a long time ago), know that I'm gay. A queer. One of "those" people. My other half, in my opinion, often is a little too quick to be offended by something she thinks is directed at gay folk. But apparently, the straw that finally broke Sunshine Megatron's happy centered around a t-shirt that made me and my other half guffaw:

I just don't feel like dealing with idiots anymore. I'll give you an example of the kind of misguided morons we deal with on a regular basis at T-Shirt Hell. We released a new shirt a couple weeks ago that says "It's not gay if you beat them up afterwards". I will not explain the irony or the social commentary of the slogan because anyone with half a brain should be able to handle that on their own. Problem is, we've been besieged with emails from angry people complaining about the "fact" that the shirt is hate speech or that we're promoting gay bashing and should take it down immediately. ...

Now, I can't say I'm surprised we're getting hate mail from people who have nothing better to do than to start half-assed campaigns because of their lazy, just enough passion for an email, ideals towards a misguided cause. It happened when we did our first really controversial shirt, "The School Shootings Tour", it happened when we did our "What About All The Good Things Hitler Did" shirt, it happened when we did our "Arrest Black Babies Before They Become Criminals" shirt (boy did it happen then). It used to happen all the time when we did more social commentary and didn't give a fuck about what anyone thought and did shirts that did not leave anyone out. Unfortunately, as a concern for the safety of my employees, we don't push the envelope as much anymore...and I can't say I feel good about having caved in.

And so, if you want any shirts from T-shirt Hell, you've got a very limited time to get there.

And that makes me sad. The world needs more funny. Even warped, biting funny. Hell, especially warped, biting funny that reminds us what effed up critters we really are as a species.

Things like losing T-shirt Hell makes the economic downturn even more depressing.

The world just got a little colder.

(Full disclosure - yeah, that's an affiliate link (most of the time) when I'm talking about T-Shirt Hell. If you click thru any link except the one to Pezbians, and then you buy a shirt, I get $4. Well, I only get $4 per shirt if four more shirts get sold before they close. Yeah, I suck. In three years of being an affiliate, only 9 shirts sold through my links. That's $36. They pay out at $50. I sooooo suck.)

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:31 AM | Comments (2) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

January 19, 2009

At Least Something Made Me Laugh Today

Ahhhhh, you just gotta laugh at the spammers sometimes. And just LOVE that last bit - don't communicate with the impostors, now, ya hear?

Attn: Beneficiary,

This is to Officially inform you that it has come to our notice and we have thoroughly Investigated with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network System that you are having an illegal Transaction with Impostors claiming to be Prof. Charles C. Soludo of the Central Bank Of Nigeria, Mr. Patrick Aziza, Mr Frank Nweke, none officials of Oceanic Bank, Zenith Banks, kelvin Young of HSBC, Ben of Fedex, Ibrahim Sule,Larry Christopher, Puppy Scammers are impostors claiming to be the Federal Bureau Of Investigation. During our Investigation, we noticed that the reason why you have not received your payment is because you have not fulfilled your Financial Obligation given to you in respect of your Contract/Inheritance Payment.

Therefore, we have contacted the Federal Ministry Of Finance on your behalf and they have brought a solution to your problem by cordinating your payment in total USD$11,000.000.00 in an ATM CARD which you can use to withdraw money from any ATM MACHINE CENTER anywhere in the world with a maximum of $4000 to $5000 United States Dollars daily. You now have the lawful right to claim your fund in an ATM CARD.

Since the Federal Bureau of Investigation is involved in this transaction, you have to be rest assured for this is 100% risk free it is our duty to protect the American Citizens. All I want you to do is to contact the ATM CARD CENTER via email for their requirements to proceed and procure your Approval Slip on your behalf which will cost you $180.00 only and note that your Approval Slip which contains details of the agent who will process your transaction.

CONTACT INFORMATION
NAME: Kelvin Williams
EMAIL: williamskelvin227@gmail.com
Telephone Numbers: +234-702-958-3788

Do contact Mr. Kelvin Williams of the ATM CARD CENTRE with your details:

FULL NAME:
HOME ADDRESS:
TELL:
CELL:
CURRENT OCCUPATION:
BANK NAME:

So your files would be updated after which he will send the payment informations which you'll use in making payment of $180.00 via Western Union Money Transfer or Money Gram Transfer for the procurement of your Approval Slip after which the delivery of your ATM CARD will be effected to your designated home address without any further delay.

We order you get back to this office after you have contacted the ATM SWIFT CARD CENTER and we do await your response so we can move on with our Investigation and make sure your ATM SWIFT CARD gets to you.

Thanks and hope to read from you soon.

FBI Director Robert S.Mueller III.

Note: Do disregard any email you get from any impostors or offices claiming to be in possesion of your ATM CARD, you are hereby adviced only to be in contact with Mr. Kelvin Williams of the ATM CARD CENTRE who is the rightful person to deal with in regards to your ATM CARD PAYMENT and forward any emails you get from impostors to this office so we could act upon and commence investigation.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:57 PM | Comments (2) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble

January 18, 2009

Wrong Planet

I have often been accused of being an alien creature. Kids in elementary school often didn't quite know what to do with me, and, I admit, I really didn't quite know what to do with them either. I can remember the summer before oh, probably eighth or ninth grade when I spent time with my much beloved aunt and uncle who lived in Milwaukee.

I saw the old Brewer's logo for the first time. A baseball glove made up of an m and a b ... with the baseball the negative space inside the lowercase b. I was completely enthralled. (Check it out in desktop size here.)

I loved things that were made from ... well, from themselves. Milwaukee Brewers ... m b ... in the shape of a baseball glove and baseball. It just struck my symmetry bone, I guess.

This conversation all comes about because of the logo of the Minnesota Wild - a bear's head logo that's a nature scene (check it out here) ... the mouth of the bear is a river ... the eye is a star (yanno, their old hockey team was the Stars). These kinds of double meaning logos just utterly enthrall me.

And all of this reminds me that not everyone is fascinated with what I'm fascinated with. I no longer always think that makes me an alien ... but this particular instance I'm about to relate ... well, it certainly made the sales clerk think I was at least "special."

Mom and I were in some stupid girly store that I wanted to leave as quickly as possible. High end this and that which I cared nothing about. We go over to the sales counter to check out and there's a little display of girly jewelry. Including necklaces similar to this:

I instantly began giggling like a mad thing. I could barely stand upright. Finally, I managed to weakly whisper, "Gold leaf" and then immediately collapsed in a fit of guffaws the likes of which the poor sales lady had apparently never seen before.

I, on the other hand, could not only not stop laughing, I could not understand why everyone who saw a necklace representing a gold leaf and which was made out of something similar to gold leaf (think old leather books embossed in gold - that stuff was called gold leaf), I could not understand why everyone who saw that necklace did not see the humour inherent in it.

My mother, luckily, chose that moment to listen and understand me. She smiled and tried to explain to the saleslady that I was laughing because the gold leaf was made of gold leaf, but the sales clerk just gave mom that "oh you poor thing having to deal with a special child" look. Which both offended me and made me laugh harder.

Oh my, but I was rather a child from another planet. Good thing I've always enjoyed being that way.

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:03 PM | Comments (1) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

January 11, 2009

AT&T Works on Sunday?

Colour me stunned.

After the crappy service I had last week during the DSL outage and general landline intense static, I received a phone call from AT&T yesterday afternoon around 4. A very sympathetic AT&T employee asked how I was doing.

"Cranky," I replied ... not nastily ... after all, this woman did not come out to the house and sever my landline. It's not her fault my DSL is down. Of course, being cranky meant my tone of voice was off, I'm sure. But I tried.

She was sympathetic some more. First, she let me know that the tech who'd been out Friday had been turned in to his supervisor. One, because the dude was supposed to call me and he didn't. She even sounded rather outraged. "It was in your file. The phone number and that you could be there in 15 minutes." Next, she was a bit miffed because he hadn't fixed the problem - their remote test could still hear noise on the line even if it was more sporadic than before. And because the tech had closed out the trouble ticket as if he'd fixed everything.

Now, I don't know. Maybe the dude had a bad day. It was a Friday and it was snowing. Freaking cold. Windy. But, to be honest, his job is to be out in that weather and repair phone lines. He knows there's gonna be bad days like that. Still, everyone has an off day. Like when I started a design for a site and forgot to make sure it would fit in a 1024x768 screen and made it too damned big. Argh.

At any rate, this woman cautiously asked if I was going to be home Sunday morning. Honestly, I had been planning on going to church since we were having our annual congregational meeting and voting on this year's budget ... but hey, if they would come out on a Sunday, then I wouldn't have to miss a day of work to make sure this thing was fixed. "Yes, I'll be home." She scheduled the tech to arrive between 8 a.m. and noon, apologized for the problems and issues.

Now see, here's the thing. That's all I wanted. I'm really not all that hard to please. A little common courtesy and to feel like I've been heard. It's all most of us want, really. And it seems like between the "hypochondriac" and "DEAL WITH ME NOW" folks who don't really need help right away ... and the business "bottom line" ... so very many companies have just tried to outsource customer service, if not do away with it all together. In my opinion, help desk work is customer service work and outsourcing that work to anyone with any kind of thick accent is bad news.

I know, that was a bit of a leap, wasn't it? Bear with me.

I'm not going to get into the whole sending jobs away from Americans and to people in India or Pakistan. That's a whole different issue than what I want to deal with. Honestly, if a customer service/help desk rep has a thick Boston accent OR a thick Pakistani accent ... how helpful are they going to be over the phone? That person may have superior knowledge and be able to really help out ... but if I'm already an annoyed customer with whatever service ... I don't want to have to decipher an accent AND the tech issue I'm having.

The help desk person I spoke with Friday night seemed like she was reading a script. She went through a litany of common problems despite the fact that I mentioned I'd been through them all already. I could practically hear her clicking keyboard keys to check off the radio boxes of things she was supposed to ask. These, by the way, are also on AT&T's website ... and I'd been through everything already. A couple of times. Their little boxes did not cover our actual problem.

Between my having to strain to hear over the static-y phone line, strain to decipher her accent (I'm not going to say if it was an American regional accent or a foreign accent ...) and to get through the tech - which I understand but was getting stressed out by - I was ready to scream. The fact that using the phone line made the DSL come back up was irrelevant to the help desk worker. Instead, she could tick off the radio button that said "All better" and chalk up another victory for herself.

Frustrated, I sent an email to AT&T listing out all of the issues. The things I'd tried, the fact that as a web designer I was pretty "cheesed off" (I said pissed off, but the email bounced back and said we don't accept email with profanity in it - I had to extemporize) that I'd been without internet service for a full week. That's a LOT of lost work time that I couldn't really afford to lose. That email is what caused the sympathetic response and the promise of a tech's arrival on a Sunday morning.

It shouldn't require - from any company - an irritated email after already filing two trouble tickets to get a reasonable response about service.

This DSL saga seems to have a good ending, though. The tech called around 10 a.m. and came over soon after that. He started outside the house at the box, got something squared away there and then went out to the pole. Then came to the door to say he knew my line wasn't fixed, but not to worry - he was driving down a few blocks to another pole where he thought there was some more noise on the line.

Turns out there was noise at the box outside the house, more noise at the closest pole and some more noise a few poles down.

AND there was one jack in the basement which had gotten corroded and ucky.

Apparently all the first tech did was come out, look at the box, probably cleared a little bit of noise out of there ... and called it good enough.

Luckily, the tech today was quite thorough despite the snow, the cold and the fact that it was Sunday morning.

Now I have a crap-load of work to catch up on this week.

But at least the DSL seems to work whether we use the landline or not!

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:25 PM | Comments (2) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble

January 10, 2009

AT&T Sucks Some More - Or Not...

Continuing the saga ...

The DSL keeps going out. I pick up the phone, call my cell ... wait about 15 seconds, hang up. Voila! The DSL goes green again.

I head over to AT&T's site to get some answers. First off, they want MORE money to help with high speed internet. Really? Because the ridiculous amount I spend every month doesn't cover that? Great good gods, you greedy little assholes. Fine, I sign up for their account manager program. Dink around trying to figure out how to update my ticket. I can't change the type of ticket. It has assumed I have no dial tone. There is NO OPTION TO CHANGE IT! That's not the issue and that's never been the issue. Where did they get that???

Rather than fill out a ticket that says I have no dial tone - because I know this literal-minded jerks and they will damn well run a test that says yes, you do have a dial tone and then they will pat themselves on the back for fixing the issue - I backed out of that page and hunted around for another option. Nothing.

Fine. I replied to the trouble email from the seventh instead. I have listed all the issues, what DSL modem/router I have, the number of machines and operating system, the phone issue, the call the cell phone issue, the static ... and I pointed out that "I have turned the modem off and on and no, that didn't do a damn thing" only to have AT&T send the email back to me telling me their system automatically rejects email with profanity in it.

You know, if you people at AT&T would actually engage in some customer SERVICE and actually attempt to help people with their issues with the "service" you offer, you might not have so many profanity-laden emails being sent to you. Just a thought.

I'm curious to see what the next step in the saga will be. I'm assuming a phone call to the static-y landline will be next. Then they'll point out that the issue is in the house and they can't do anything unless I pay for their in-home service repair. Since I do already subscribe to that, I will point that out and they will say oh. Eventually they'll tell me to take an entire day off of work so they can come out and take a look.

My guess? It's the same issue we had about four years ago. Where the line comes into the basement ... something happened there and the jack got damp and we had static on the line. I'm betting it's the same thing now.

The better question is how to prevent it from ever happening again.

Great. The DSL went out and I just tried the call my cell trick. The router is blinking orange at me. Mocking me.

*sigh*

UPDATE 6:15 p.m.
Well, I tricked the DSL into working for a while and then it up and died a hard death until just now. In the meantime, someone from AT&T called ... very apologetic and a little miffed that the tech didn't call me Friday. Long story short, they are sending someone out tomorrow morning.

I am mollified. Frustrated, to be sure, but this was actually some nice and coherent customer service this afternoon. Now, hopefully, all of the DSL and phone line problems will be completely fixed by noon tomorrow.

I hope, I hope.

Maybe I don't hate AT&T so much.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:52 PM | Comments (3) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble