I was in college once. A while ago. For a long time. With very little to show for it. It was near the early parts of the Internet revolution. I remember needing to get a signature on a form before I could have my first internet account that let me do such awesome stuff as gopher and telnet and finger (if at least 2 of those don't make sense, you may was well stop reading. You're not in my age bracket).
A while after that is when Napster made it big. Those were the days. I was on a company-sponsored cable modem with a big fatty T3 backbone. I downloaded ill-gotten music like it was going out of style. I don't have the 'too many songs to listen to in a lifetime' disease that so many of my cohorts have. I was choosy. Underground grunge remixes and rare cuts were my trade. I downloaded like it was going out of style. And it did, in a big way. The heyday of stealing music from random strangers went by the wayside, as did my high-speed connection.
Fast-forward to a not-twenty-something age and now I'm back at college, this time in charge of whatever hapless youths I can keep interested in working for the university until they graduate. We're in the age of the download. No one pays for anything, music, movies, TV shows. Doesn't matter they're all sharing it with reckless abandon. Nothing new, again I was in college so the though of paying to download anything was pretty much unheard of.
So one day I wander in to my help desk, one of my students is busy helping a customer with some strange time-consuming dilemma. On the monitor behind him is running some nearly 1st run major blockbuster movie from not very long ago. Chinese subtitles flash on the screen, the colors are washed out and dingy looking, the resolution is straining not to pixelate on the 17' lcd panel, and every now and then you can hear an outburst of laugher or coughing or conversation from an audience that's obviously just off screen. We're talking major Hollywood Special-Effects flick, not some award-wining indie feature full of important dialog and deep messages. Stripped of all its luster and "oooh ahh" factor reduced this to looking like a video tape from a bad high-school drama.
I guess the part I'm missing is how that is enjoyable in any way. How bad do you need to watch this fantastic movie minus all the fantasy? Was my student just such a rabid fan of this Major Feature that he was willing to slog through the murky visuals and packed-house distractions? Was he unable to cough up the dough (or suck up to parents) to get in and see the thing in all its glory 4 months ago? Doubtful. This is just one example of what I've seen over and over. In college, and out. From the die-hard fan to the casual downloader. There's an urge. A compulsion to have the thing you're 'not supposed to have'. An unconscious need to buck the system no matter how bad the end product really is. But it's like doing a smash-and-grab in the second-hand store, filling your pockets with costume jewelery and broken pocket watches. Most of the time you're diluting even the minuscule elements that make the thing worth while in the 1st place. I hope you're getting something meaningful to your soul and intellect, since you're missing out on the cool stuff.
Of course there are better-quality downloads out there, and most of the people I know who engage in said behavior are choosier in their production values than I've been describing so far.
But maybe that's not what I'm getting at.
The funny thing is how well trained the media has us. How we can't resist seeing the next big movie until we've spent our hard-earned time watching it only to say "man the effects were good, but the rest of it was crap". It happens with books, music, tv, video games. They crank up the hype machine and we eat it with Soylent Green enthusiasm. We want it so badly, but we don't even know why. It permeates our culture so badly we're even willing to steal it (according to the current forms of copyright law anyway), or at least take it if it seems to be given away for free. The snake oil they're selling is often so awful, but we swallow it anyway. There seem to be precious few who can resist the lure of the blockbuster. Who are willing to pass up because it doesn't meet their needs or hold their interest. People who hold to a different set of standards. They can look at something critically and decide before hand that maybe it's not worth the time to get caught up in, rather than simply march forth with the masses to the beat of todays manufactured Top 40 hit.
Get what you want, but at least make sure you really want it. The machines have you, and they play for keeps Copper Top.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Tales from the Help Desk
A Play
Setting- Any small private liberal arts college. One that people like me could not afford to go to when we were going to school and had to settle for seven years of state school.
Location- A small but friendly Help Desk attached to the 24/7 computer lab complete with free printing for all.
Characters-
Me: Lowly help desk manager. Somehow keeps friendly attitude despite years of tech support experience.
Awesome Help Desk Student: Unshakable undergrad, capable of handling dozens of MPM (Morons Per Minute).
Some Douchebag: Hip-looking, sallow-eyed loser. Obviously puts higher priority in clothing choice than bathing habits.
Curtain Rises.
Some Douchebag- "Do you have any computer paper I could have?"Me- "You could go to the bookstore and maybe buy some."
Some Douchebag- "Yeah, but that's expensive."
Me-"So you'd rather just steal it from me? We have to pay for that you know."
Help Desk Student- "For a cheaper alternative you could shop at any of the large discount office supply stores nearby."
Some Douchebag- [walks away dejectedly... likely to come back and steal paper from the printer trays later anyway]
End.
Lesson- If you're going to an expensive college and can already afford a computer, printer, and ink/toner for said printer; please come up with a creative story to get the jaded help desk people to give you free paper you don't deserve.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Mostly harmless
It's one of those sun stabbing me in the eyes days. No warmer or brighter than the day before. Something just keeps my head down and lids half-masted. Makes the sunglassless steering more hazardous. Trips like this used to be mind-opening coffee and cigarette sessions and arrogant wait staff. Now the philosophic times are crammed into two hours of the back seat pickup because that's the only time the delirious little one will sleep. Barely enough time to circle the ways I don't know very well and hit the revolving door of complaining about everything a couple of times. Combine that with the fifty-dollar fillups and the shrink-fees start to sound worth it, I have good benefits you see.
Used to be able to get some distance on these things. Take a few days/miles and get ahead of the insects instead of watching them splash on my side of the windshield, right where I didn't want them to. Seems to be more like that lately. Can't be satisfied kicking up loose sticks in my face, instead less harmlessly splintering to pierce me in the eye, leaving only one left squinting at whats left of the glare on the road. Things can't just fall off the shelf, they have to fall, hit something else full and sticky and bring them both crashing down on your bare feet right when the eggs are done. Might just be me, but the random accidents are becoming perfect storms of mini-tragic events, ravaging my lack of calm into downright fury.
Somewhere along the sight-splitting road I blew a seal. Lost the ability to shift gears and run smooth on rough terrain. Went careening from easy-going to mercury-switch in a few miles of draining fluid. Shouldn't get out of whack like this. Stuff that used to shred my nails just glides, off, but little unworthy imbalances destroy my world in new and stupid ways. Faulty government, melting ice caps, email down? No sweat. Going to the dmv because my license expired two months ago and you're the first grocery store clerk to stonewall my post road-trip beer, I'll burst through the wall and take on slow-hour traffic with my bare hands and teeth. Alter the way I've decided things need go in my head and I'll detonate every blade of grass on this whole city block, leaving your upper-middle class sensibilities with an unmovable brown wasteland to unappreciate.
I swear I will.
One more move and the grass gets it.
Used to be able to get some distance on these things. Take a few days/miles and get ahead of the insects instead of watching them splash on my side of the windshield, right where I didn't want them to. Seems to be more like that lately. Can't be satisfied kicking up loose sticks in my face, instead less harmlessly splintering to pierce me in the eye, leaving only one left squinting at whats left of the glare on the road. Things can't just fall off the shelf, they have to fall, hit something else full and sticky and bring them both crashing down on your bare feet right when the eggs are done. Might just be me, but the random accidents are becoming perfect storms of mini-tragic events, ravaging my lack of calm into downright fury.
Somewhere along the sight-splitting road I blew a seal. Lost the ability to shift gears and run smooth on rough terrain. Went careening from easy-going to mercury-switch in a few miles of draining fluid. Shouldn't get out of whack like this. Stuff that used to shred my nails just glides, off, but little unworthy imbalances destroy my world in new and stupid ways. Faulty government, melting ice caps, email down? No sweat. Going to the dmv because my license expired two months ago and you're the first grocery store clerk to stonewall my post road-trip beer, I'll burst through the wall and take on slow-hour traffic with my bare hands and teeth. Alter the way I've decided things need go in my head and I'll detonate every blade of grass on this whole city block, leaving your upper-middle class sensibilities with an unmovable brown wasteland to unappreciate.
I swear I will.
One more move and the grass gets it.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The days of wiine and roses
If any of you follow console gaming, you already know that Nintendo's Wii is currently the the console to beat. Innovative, simple controls and a fetching price-tag have made it surprisingly popular. Developers are scrambling to produce content for it after they abandoned Nintendo during the GameCube years. Nintendo themselves didn't anticipate its popularity enough and are having trouble keeping up the supply chain. Since the day it was launched, stores can't keep them on the shelves for more than a couple of hours. Many of the smaller gaming stores haven't even seen any in shipments for months.
That's because they're all hiding in Vancouver Washington. I have it on good authority that the Fred Meyer store in Vantucky there keeps a constant supply of Wiis. But, hey. Since it's not the day after Thanksgiving, no one really cares about How 'Drink got is Wii. I could have grabbed one before, lots of people did. Needless to say I have one now.
It is cool, innovative, and fun. I can play video games without the usual butt-cramping, and thumb-wear I'm used to for marathon sessions. Games are intuitive, and family-friendly. Inadvertently or not, Nintendo has re-awakened the parlor-game niche for the console market. You think anyone's going to shell out for a dumbed-down tennis/golf/bowling/pool game for their spanking-new now-gen state-of-the-art console? Not on your life. But wait, to play tennis I swing my little wii-mote like a real tennis racket? Sign me the fuck up! The possibilities for cheesy, simple games that use even a shred of real-life activity in the wii-mote are endless (although most possibilities are already covered in the WarrioWare game- trust me).
Getting the thing started was not all booze and daises, there's a couple of quirks I didn't expect that left a sort of tangy taste in my mouth from something that's supposed to be sexy and elegant from start to finish.
Sensor Bar: Once I decided where to put the sensor bar on the top of my not-flat-topped TV, I was cruising along just fine. Until I noticed some colored splotches marring the stark-white background of the Wii menus. I don't have a new TV, it's a couple of years old and shows a little bit magnet-wear, and don't commonly stare at a completely white background so at first I thought maybe my tube was just showing its age. The more I stared, the worse it got, and soon enough a casual flip of the channels was enough to confirm that something had affected the screen magnetically. Sure enough moving the bar away from the TV for more than a few seconds started the screen down its slightly less blotchy look. Swell. This of course prompted me to move the bar from one frying pan into another fire: on the TV stand, in reach of my toddler. Needless to say we can now play the Wii blemish-free, but occasionally have to pry the sensor bar away from the little bandit before he rips the cord out during his getaway run. Silly Nintendo, if the thing was meant to be put on top of or as close to a TV as possible wouldn't some better video shielding been in order? Or have we simply crossed over the event-horizon of old cathode tubes, while I'm still spinning in an ever-smaller orbit on my 3-year-old, not LCD, non HD junker?
WiFi: One of the coolest features of the Nineteno Wii is the built in WiFi access. No extra network adapters to buy, just plug and play. Sort of. Setting it up was easy, I keep my wireless wide open these days (drop me a line, I'll give you my address and you can sit out front of my house and hog my bandwidth all day if you want) so I didn't even have to deal with any WEP or WPA hoopla. Click the button.. searching...searching.. squat. I scratch my head and take another look through the settings: all of which are correct (hi.. part-geek for a living, I know how to configure wireless junk). Nothing. Now I'm grumpy because I have to get off my lazy couch and dive into my wireless router to see what's up. Big surprise, everything is fine. Other computers are connected, the Wii just doesn't even show up on the list. Start to wonder is the Wii 802.11b or g? I have my router set to deliver g-only, since none of my devices are Neanderthal enough to only have b capabilities. 'Cept for my Wii apparently. Switching up my signal to broadcast both b and g ranges got the Wii happily on its way and (slowly) downloading updates. Maybe it was a cost-cutting decision, the Wii packs in a lot of mojo for a small price-tag. Perhaps it was a reliability and range issue. I was just a little disappointed inside to take what I felt was a step backward in my digital life.
That's it, that's all. Just two little issues in an otherwise worthy device. Maybe it's just me: my TV is too old, my router is too new for the Wii (hint, the TV and router are the same age = 3 years older than the Wii).
Oh and watch out for the tennis game, it's a doosey on the medical bills.
That's because they're all hiding in Vancouver Washington. I have it on good authority that the Fred Meyer store in Vantucky there keeps a constant supply of Wiis. But, hey. Since it's not the day after Thanksgiving, no one really cares about How 'Drink got is Wii. I could have grabbed one before, lots of people did. Needless to say I have one now.
It is cool, innovative, and fun. I can play video games without the usual butt-cramping, and thumb-wear I'm used to for marathon sessions. Games are intuitive, and family-friendly. Inadvertently or not, Nintendo has re-awakened the parlor-game niche for the console market. You think anyone's going to shell out for a dumbed-down tennis/golf/bowling/pool game for their spanking-new now-gen state-of-the-art console? Not on your life. But wait, to play tennis I swing my little wii-mote like a real tennis racket? Sign me the fuck up! The possibilities for cheesy, simple games that use even a shred of real-life activity in the wii-mote are endless (although most possibilities are already covered in the WarrioWare game- trust me).
Getting the thing started was not all booze and daises, there's a couple of quirks I didn't expect that left a sort of tangy taste in my mouth from something that's supposed to be sexy and elegant from start to finish.
Sensor Bar: Once I decided where to put the sensor bar on the top of my not-flat-topped TV, I was cruising along just fine. Until I noticed some colored splotches marring the stark-white background of the Wii menus. I don't have a new TV, it's a couple of years old and shows a little bit magnet-wear, and don't commonly stare at a completely white background so at first I thought maybe my tube was just showing its age. The more I stared, the worse it got, and soon enough a casual flip of the channels was enough to confirm that something had affected the screen magnetically. Sure enough moving the bar away from the TV for more than a few seconds started the screen down its slightly less blotchy look. Swell. This of course prompted me to move the bar from one frying pan into another fire: on the TV stand, in reach of my toddler. Needless to say we can now play the Wii blemish-free, but occasionally have to pry the sensor bar away from the little bandit before he rips the cord out during his getaway run. Silly Nintendo, if the thing was meant to be put on top of or as close to a TV as possible wouldn't some better video shielding been in order? Or have we simply crossed over the event-horizon of old cathode tubes, while I'm still spinning in an ever-smaller orbit on my 3-year-old, not LCD, non HD junker?
WiFi: One of the coolest features of the Nineteno Wii is the built in WiFi access. No extra network adapters to buy, just plug and play. Sort of. Setting it up was easy, I keep my wireless wide open these days (drop me a line, I'll give you my address and you can sit out front of my house and hog my bandwidth all day if you want) so I didn't even have to deal with any WEP or WPA hoopla. Click the button.. searching...searching.. squat. I scratch my head and take another look through the settings: all of which are correct (hi.. part-geek for a living, I know how to configure wireless junk). Nothing. Now I'm grumpy because I have to get off my lazy couch and dive into my wireless router to see what's up. Big surprise, everything is fine. Other computers are connected, the Wii just doesn't even show up on the list. Start to wonder is the Wii 802.11b or g? I have my router set to deliver g-only, since none of my devices are Neanderthal enough to only have b capabilities. 'Cept for my Wii apparently. Switching up my signal to broadcast both b and g ranges got the Wii happily on its way and (slowly) downloading updates. Maybe it was a cost-cutting decision, the Wii packs in a lot of mojo for a small price-tag. Perhaps it was a reliability and range issue. I was just a little disappointed inside to take what I felt was a step backward in my digital life.
That's it, that's all. Just two little issues in an otherwise worthy device. Maybe it's just me: my TV is too old, my router is too new for the Wii (hint, the TV and router are the same age = 3 years older than the Wii).
Oh and watch out for the tennis game, it's a doosey on the medical bills.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Out with the trash, eh.
Not surprisingly, I've done some stupid things in my life. The vast majority of which I can admit without too much anguish. Hiding out from the entire summer day-care class under a bean-bag for hours because I didn't want to go swimming comes to mind. 1. Why the hell didn't I want to go swimming on a hot summer day? 2. I managed to ruin the day for everyone: the teachers, all the other kids who were lined up waiting to go swimming, even my parents who got called when they couldn't find me. Without getting too deep into my childhood psychosis, you see the potential for stupidity. Countless bad driving decisions, social faux pas, etc. With certainty I can pinpoint to my own misfirings and lay the blame firmly on myself.
Every once in a while one of these stupid acts can be attributed to pure chance. It's kind of relaxing, to know I've done something supremely inane and really couldn't have done something to prevent it. Takes most of the cudda/shudda/wudda headspinnig out of the equation, and frees my to ponder the sheer chance by which the stupid thing occurred.
So, last weekend -being the first weekend we've been home in months, I decide it's time to clean out the shed and haul everything to the dump. This has been a long time coming. Plies of Styrofoam -big presents from my son's birthday (6 months ago), old vaccum cleaner (replaced 4 months ago), the metal realty signpost that the sellers of my house apparently did not want to keep (almost 2 years now), and even junk from the previous home owners all gets loaded in the trunk and driven away.
All right, so aside from being incredibly lazy, I hadn't done anything stupid.
Yet.
On the last throw of trash out the back (a fungusy piece of particleboard) my wedding ring slips of my finger and follows behind. It moved slow, not like bad movie slow-mo, but I had time to watch the symbol of my undying love fling from my hand and and clink down into Transfer Station Never-Never Land. I take a few moments to ponder. My "what the hell do I do now" train goes like this: I think I saw where it lands, I could almost just jump down there with all the rusty things and look for it. Should I just forget about it? Id better make some calls. Uh... In the end I flagged down a sympathetic worker name Joe. Joe took my name and number and had his guys spend the rest of the day scraping off piles and sifting through the rubble looking for one stupid guys wedding ring. They never found it, but were nice enough to look and give me a call at the end of the day.
The good news: 1. My wife took it well, she's not super-attached to material things. 2. It wasn't a really expensive ring.
The bad news: My wife has informed me that a flat-screen TV is not an acceptable symbol of undying love, so we need to buy a ring instead.
Every once in a while one of these stupid acts can be attributed to pure chance. It's kind of relaxing, to know I've done something supremely inane and really couldn't have done something to prevent it. Takes most of the cudda/shudda/wudda headspinnig out of the equation, and frees my to ponder the sheer chance by which the stupid thing occurred.
So, last weekend -being the first weekend we've been home in months, I decide it's time to clean out the shed and haul everything to the dump. This has been a long time coming. Plies of Styrofoam -big presents from my son's birthday (6 months ago), old vaccum cleaner (replaced 4 months ago), the metal realty signpost that the sellers of my house apparently did not want to keep (almost 2 years now), and even junk from the previous home owners all gets loaded in the trunk and driven away.
All right, so aside from being incredibly lazy, I hadn't done anything stupid.
Yet.
On the last throw of trash out the back (a fungusy piece of particleboard) my wedding ring slips of my finger and follows behind. It moved slow, not like bad movie slow-mo, but I had time to watch the symbol of my undying love fling from my hand and and clink down into Transfer Station Never-Never Land. I take a few moments to ponder. My "what the hell do I do now" train goes like this: I think I saw where it lands, I could almost just jump down there with all the rusty things and look for it. Should I just forget about it? Id better make some calls. Uh... In the end I flagged down a sympathetic worker name Joe. Joe took my name and number and had his guys spend the rest of the day scraping off piles and sifting through the rubble looking for one stupid guys wedding ring. They never found it, but were nice enough to look and give me a call at the end of the day.
The good news: 1. My wife took it well, she's not super-attached to material things. 2. It wasn't a really expensive ring.
The bad news: My wife has informed me that a flat-screen TV is not an acceptable symbol of undying love, so we need to buy a ring instead.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Pulling out the big guns.
Cheating cheating cheating. I love cheating. This is supposed to be the place I practice, but instead today I'm just going to give you a dose of something I've done before. Mostly it's a trick so I can reaffirm the idea that I may have once been halfway good at this kind of thing. I've also learned somewhere along the way to "lead with your best stuff". If you don't get people hooked early, then no one will be around to see the good stuff.
Unfortunately, as far as I'm concerned this is my good stuff. My only good stuff. But hey I should let you decide if you like it or not.
This will be long for a blog posting, short for a short story. Sit closer, let your eyes bask in the glowing screen and behold: Something I wrote a long time ago that kinda doesn't suck.
Unfortunately, as far as I'm concerned this is my good stuff. My only good stuff. But hey I should let you decide if you like it or not.
This will be long for a blog posting, short for a short story. Sit closer, let your eyes bask in the glowing screen and behold: Something I wrote a long time ago that kinda doesn't suck.
Empty Rooms
They don’t board up houses they way they used to. The door on its flaking hinges only holds its secrets by the philosophical meaning of door. No Physical obstruction would stop anyone from entering. Just a closed door hiding cold rooms. The sentinel portal who is as strong and protective as the day it was installed. Who’s only sign of time passing is a fourth coat of paint and the dent in the left door-jam where the wheel of the nuptial couch grazed it. That persistent door where every morning Mr. Havsham walked out with a thermos and lunch box and his pristine hat. Where very day Mrs. Havsham kissed him good-bye and retired to the kitchen where she read the paper and drank virgin coffee until it was time for her college Psychology class. The kitchen where dishes piled in the sink to be to be washed and stacked every other evening by the serene couple. Where the microwave worked harder the oven and TV dinners prevailed unless they had time to cook. Although there was no television they would reside in the living room where they would read or talk or listen to the radio or go dancing or cinemaing. Then walk down the hall to the nuptial bathroom where they would take turns brushing their teeth then out the second door to the master/mistress bedroom and turn out the lights and Mr. Havsham would wake up to piss in the middle of the night then stumble back to bed and throw his arm over the unconscious Mrs. Havsham until the alarm bell rang them awake to start the next day as the last.
To look through the smudged windows only reveals the vastness of absence in the house. There’s not even fading sharp-edged lines where the furniture once stood in the living room. The cramped kitchen through the back door is hollow and grey, no food stains or fruit bowls anymore. Heavy curtains drawn refuse insight to the empty bedrooms. The only signs of use in the ivy-grown back yard are the wooden rows where Mrs. Havsham would grow marigolds and white roses and four concrete holes that anchored the aluminum swing-set where Little Billy and his school buddies would swing as high as they could on warm sunny days and see how far they could jump onto the grass. Even the pole they implanted where they used to tether Noisy Pete has been fallen and cocooned by grass. In the front lawn thistles and ivy have stormed the snap-dragons and bougainvilleas that she would trim and dote on before studying Psychology until Little Billy came home from school and she would make him do his reading/writing/arithmetic at the table for an house then he could go be a robber in the neighborhood games of cops-and-robbers while she read on the same chair that Mr. Havsham sat when he returned through the monolithic door and relieved his feet from the black shoes and hung his service hat on the coat rack. He would kiss her hello and pat Little Billy on the head and change into a white tee-shirt and slacks and sit on her reading chair and watch the new color TV set and won’t you bring me a tv dinner honey. She brought them fresh TV dinners with the foil torn off and nursed Baby Jenny in the mistress/master bedroom and wrote term papers until the TV was over and Mr. Havsham tucked in Little Billy and read him Reader’s Digest abridged Melville and Hemingway and turned out the lights, brushed his teeth in the nuptial bathroom and drew the shades in the master/mistress bedroom.
Mornings the sun even now burns through the dirt on the front window where Mrs. Havsham would watch Mr. Havsham pull away and worry would he come home safe again and make Little Billy eat his oatmeal before school and nurse Baby Jenny before daycare and walk to the college for capstone meetings and counseling undergraduates. Then back to the kitchen with Baby Jenny in one arm, a glass of milk for Little Billy when he returned from school in the other. Then an hour at reading/writing/arithmetic oh mother did you see the picture i drew in class today, why yes its lovely but why so many gravestones? And while Mrs. Havsham boiled eggs for lunches and put the TV dinners on the counter to thaw Little Billy commanded straight rows of classmates to play Army in the back yard and Noisy Pete yapped and yapped and don’t throw dirt clods children it only makes him bark more. Mr. Havsham would purr into the driveway and throw open the sturdy door to her smile and Baby Jenny cries and can’t she stay quiet even when she’s happy? He changed into slacks and slippers and smoked a pipe and read the paper and Little Billy came home after this mother’s call with mud on his face tracking dirt on the kitchen floor; little billy go wash up this minute before dinner and no tv tonight because it’s a school night and you haven’t done all your homework. Then they all do dishes with water-bucket efficiency and read/talk/watch until its time for Little Billy to brush his teeth and pray that he lives one more night like all children do and they retire to the mistress/master bedroom which is the only room in the lonely house with a lock on it since one night when Little Billy ran screaming from a nightmare of bones and darkness and saw Daddy on the bed in leather and Mommy wearing a cucumber-sized phallus on her hips and um.. er.. well. son it’s like this you see.. and Mommy’s crying in the bathroom and Baby Jenny’s screaming and let’s just all go to bed and forget about it in the morning.
The shaken house won’t tell these things even if asked. The new carpet won’t show the wear where Mrs. Havsham paced by the window after he clipped his badge on his chest kissed goodbye and swung open the gate-like door thermos and pail in one hand, pristine hat tucked under his jacket against the rain with the other, thinking please god let him come home today, or the dust skirt from the bed in Little Billy’s room where it sat for years over the bloodstain after he cut himself with a kitchen knife and wailing all the way to the hospital, it’s all right ma’am/sir it wasn’t deep just ugly and well dear if maybe you were home more often with the kids this kind of thing wouldn’t happen and don’t give me that patriarchal oppressive bullshit Mrs. Havsham shouted while Baby Jenny hid behind her blouse suckling obliviously. Back through the horrific door with bandages and sponges and damn it this won’t come out and damn it it’s getting late so put the kids to bed and damn it when will baby jenny be able to sleep through the night. But Sundays is church so they’ll put on they’re whites clothes and blame Noisy Pete who will bark his own acquittal from the immaculate yard while none of them lay any sins before god who won’t ask for any and return through the indifferent door for Pythagreanistic cheese sandwiches and Little Billy’ll lead his Reich down the street to onslaught empty-lot weeds, emulating the endgame ward of the living room while Baby Jenny doesn’t nap but waits until nightfall to wake with endless crying and it’s your turn to feed her there isn’t a bottle prepared so you’ll have to do it again this time and i know i prepared a bottle but it isn’t there now but i made one but it isn’t there until the stars’ sand-dance lures them all to sleep again.
In the coldness of the night the empty house is dry and peaceful, unhaunted by poltergeists or spirits despite it’s accessible vacancy. Moonlight illuminates the jungles back yard where Noisy Pete stalked/tortured/killed the moaning snakes and pleading mice and won’t penetrate the master/mistress bedroom window which wasn’t tinted until faces in the glass appeared and little billy you and your friends shouldn’t be out past your bed-time damn it and Mrs. Havham is weeping in the nuptial tub because she forgot to pull the shades and Baby Jenny is undressing her barbies in the too-small crib while Mr. Havsham cleans his naked pistol that he straps under his shoulder every morning before a peck goodbye and be careful dear the world it more dangerous than it was back then like he always does now after his two-am piss. Now the bloated light reflects in Little Billy’s room showing no trace of the black/red/white paint, so why did you let him do that it’s only feeding his depression, it’s just paint it’s not like he’s mutilating cats or anything. It glows through the cobwebs on the now sanded-while concrete floor of the lonely garage where they put rug food and water for Noisy Pete after the neighbors cat lay dismembered on the front porch causing Mr.s Havsham to almost as he veered from his processional march to the translucent car in the driveway wan Mrs. Havsham just had time to clean up the mess and find the tether chewed-through in the back yard even though Noisy Pete’s teeth were so weak he at to eat canned dog food before sending the kids off to school before her first client arrived except for Little Billy who went to school early today because of wrestling practice. Then the gurgle in the driveway of Mr. Havsham’s customary two-hour late return to the folded arms toe-tapping of we need to talk about our son because this afternoon when she was washing his black jeans she found the bloody cat’s Van-Gogh in his pocket and that’s it damn it that boy is going to military school once and for all and no way in hell he needs to go to the psychiatric hospital those warmongering neanderthals will only give him a medal, he doesn’t need a head-shrinker like you to tell him to blame it all on me that boy needs discipline, hospital, military school, hospital military school hospitalmilitaryschoolmolotaryhosposchool all throught the night in a hoarse mantra to the gods and now Baby Jenny’s showering in the barely-nuptial bathroom with tears until she falls asleep with her head on the toiled like she’s heard Daddy do so many Friday nights and Mr. Havsham challenged the everlasting door to break as he slammed it over the dent where the not-so-nuptial couch had grazed and no one knew Little Billy was home hiding in his lugubrious room and Mrs. Havsham flung herself on the m/m bed and screamed in her malestromatic sleep until the accursed alarm-clock was flung to it’s timely assunderance as the crack of day widened through the broken window where she paced and read the note over and over again.
By now the cracks in the unhindering door have been repaired. The split windowsill that gave in to Little Billy’s escaping weight is square and level again. The weakening soil of the seething front yard has filled in the holes that Mrs. Havsham’s heels tracked the next morning, the left deeper than the right because of the weight of her suitcase. And the dust on the mantle has been wiped clean around the shine under where both notes lay as a trophy to Mr. Havsham’s emptiness after he read them over and over again. Where did mommy go Baby Jenny asked over and over again over toaster waffles and powdered milk and um.. er.. well.. these things happen you know and make sure you get yourself off to school tomorrow because i start the early shift again then out the vault-like door coat blanketed around him to keep off the hot icy snow. Back through the listless door behind brown tracks in the afternoon-white yard and driving off again so he could make city council meetings and Baby Jenny wanders the empty house alone and hits the reception on the old color TV set or sits on her down bed practicing lines for this semester’s play or hides in the solitary bathroom where she practices her blowjobs and brushes her teeth because she can’t stand the taste of football players and pushing them out the silent door, my daddy can’t see you here or he’ll kill you, yes of course i’ll call you tonight now leave before headlights glare around the corner through the static of the falling snow. He would knock his shoes on the absent welcome matt and dust the shards of cold from his fading service hat and be a dear and fetch day some coffee and she would serve him fresh reheated coffee from this morning, did you feed noisy pete this morning darling, no i thought you did, but it was your turn, so it was your, no go and do it anyway and i’ll make sure to do it tomorrow. She would kneel and look Noisy Pete in this sullen eyes watching him slurp tepid water and soaked bread, then make sure the space-heater was turned up and return to the week-old pile in the kitchen to stir family-sized portions of cheese and macaroni that would serve as breakfast and lunch. So when is mom coming home she would ask between commercials, well we’ll see what we can do about that would you grab me another beer out of the fridge and i think it’s time for you to go to bed and don’t forget to brush your teeth, Baby Jenny would lie in her fluff down bed and clench plush horses under screaming branches outside and two-hour screaming phone wimbledon inside and her pillow would be wet from tears when the time beeped daylight again.
Spring hail or summer rays won’t penetrate the sad a-shaped roof even after so many years of unrelenting season. Except once, though all the damage has been repaired, when an autumn leak pushed through the straining singles and a river of childhood toys, unwanted hand-me-downs, dusty dog leashes/collars/bowls, shattered picture frames tsunamied through the smudged hallways, marshed the unvacumed carpet and wet their toes like beach water while they strained their eyes to see the crippled TV with cold TV dinners on their laps saying isn’t that little billy again on the news i thought they’d catch him by now before it gave its last drowning speech of slight chance of rain. By now even the smell of rotted wood has evaporated from the sordid attic where Baby Jenny and her thespian comrades, snooping, bumped into the deflated corpse of Mr. Havesham’s mistress whom they revived with duct tape and a tire pump and took turns lobbing lawn darts at her not-so-private parts until he came shouting up the trap door stop that you’re punching holes in the ceiling and jesus christ will you kids never leave me alone. The sun has dried out the mattress of the mistress/mistress bed where Baby Jenny practices what she learned from Mommy and Daddy and doesn’t brush her teeth in the quite un-nuptial bathroom because valley girls taste so sweet. And the unchipped paint on the water-logged door won’t show where they scraped the anuptial couch on its final voyage to moldy oblivion to make room for new barcoloungers where Mr. Havsham would sit and Little Billy’s five-o’clock bloodbaths would reflect off his tarnished eyes as he peeled apart his treasure of empty weapons that bred like gnats under a smothered service hat and i’m gonna stay at mom’s this weekend is it all right if i take the car and sure honey let me write you a check for this month before you go. Then Baby Jenny packed too many suitcases and listened to the lukewarm water running through the crumbling pipes as he drew his nightly bath after slipping a check with too many zeros that she wouldn’t notice until the deposit under her pinkish door. The old house won’t remember these events, no matter how many times you search the new wall-paper or investigate the antiseptic closets. The won’t show the new tile of the anuptial bathroom after the standing water melted through staining the blue linoleum purple or the unseen heel divits tracing an imaginary line from the bedroom to the tiring, shut door.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Just come back running.
Ahh those pesky customers/clients/end-users. What would we do without them (other than lead a life of sanity and bliss)?
The really scary ones are starting to come out of the woodwork here. We're not talking about the masses of people who just don't have a clue, can't find the 'on' button, don't know what the right-click is. Those hoards are my jam and peanut-butter. Solving their trivial woes and watching the light shine on their heads when they get something new fills me with a sort of magical laying-on-of-hands healer joy. Nor am I talking about the really squeaky ones, the pet customers. You know, the ones who have adopted you because you're the "only one who can help me". They have that supernatural ability to break any electronic device/software they come near, in ways you've never seen before - and with frequency that's just plain alarming. Somehow this also gives them an aura of pushiness. The things just break and they have no idea that they have no control over their energy field, and so they get uppity. These are the 10% of the customers that take up 90% of your time. I'm not talking about those either. Those I keep close to me, gather them around like leaves on a freezing castaway night. They keep me safe and secure when the bosses start to wonder how much work I'm actually doing.
Kiddie stuff, amateur night compared to the really scary customers. The ones I'm afraid of are the ones I don't expect. They lurk in the woods, keeping their eyeshine deftly away from my spotlight until I've passed them over, then pounce on me with bloody precision. Those are the ones that shake me to my core, get me thinking what a lovely career choice ditch-digging must be.
Example One: The Guests.
Boss Person - "Hey 'drink, we've got some people using facility-x here about two months from now, they need something taken care of up there before they arrive."
Largedrink -"No problem. They want something simple. I'll do my best to remember to get up there by then."
Forward by Boss Person from Guest Wrangler: "Do we need to have the guests give Mr. Largedrink a reminder? If facility-x isn't ready for them in two months we'll be in breach of contract with them."
So we have a five-minute fix that needs to be done in two weeks, and because I was quip enough imply that I could forget to do it someone is throwing breach of contract caltrops at my feet already? Slowing me down so the predators don't have to break a sweat before they eat me alive.
My fault I suppose, but you get the picture.
Example 2: The Lifer.
Around here we have a lot of lifers; customers who stake their claim on some old piece of technology. They hang on it and worship its black monotilthy goodness while the rest of us make fire and tools to fend for ourselves. No big deal. I'm all for it, technology forces people to change and not always in a way that makes their lives easier. If it's working, more power to ya. Our example Lifer is perhaps the kingmost of all the lifers I've met. He has said in nearly as many words "I'm going to keep technology-x until the day I retire. I want the organization to buy me a closet full of them so when one breaks I can just take the next one off the shelf and use it." Again, no problem, whatever. The only important items to note for this example are that A) Lifer needs technology-x and B) he does not have a closet full of them.
Here's a surprise: his favorite piece of technology-x broke. He brings it over, we look at it. Yep sure is dead. The good news is that he has a backup (he's learned that his Neanderthal tendencies have consequences and has planned accordingly). Not his primary choice of backup, but something workable for a while. Which is good because technology-x is so old we don't have any more of it around -kind of surprising where I work really. Broke technology-x goes off to the hardware department where they agree it's broken and unfixable. They proceed to scrape his personal belongings off it so he can move it to his backup.
Days go by, I get an email from Lifer:
"Been starting to worry - it's been an awfully long time for someone of my stature to be without his primary monolith, especially at this point in our cycle. My backup is doing okay (barely), but it's not something I can count only for heavy duty use. Should I have already sent the broken unfixable technology-x to the mothership if I expect to have it working before the crunch hits?"
Okay so I guess this one again is my fault. I had no idea how urgent his need to have the unfixable technology-x fixed, since it never came up in conversation. He wanted it evaluated, and fixed if possible, but never indicated how desperate his need was.
Having been in this world as long as I have, I can cope with these kinds of instantaneous unreasonable expectation turnaround menaces. Duck, weave, play dead.
The Guests: "Hey tell them not to worry, I'll have it all taken care of in time."
The Lifer: "Oh my goodness, I had no idea how urgent your needs were. My fault, I'm sorry. I'll get right on it an do everything I can to get it resolved as soon as possible."
Meanwhile I'm sharpening my pungi-sticks and mixing up my dung-and-clay facepaint. It's only Tuesday (yes as in O-n-l-y T-u-e-s-d-a-y (another inside joke)). Completely-out-there customers are getting restless, starting to climb down into the feeding grounds. Around here they're a tricky lot. They've been at their game along time. Unlike the natural world around here the old ones who are the strongest and most dangerous. They've gone almost senile in their instincts. They don't know when to strike. At any moment a seemingly placid customer will lash out like an injured lion. And me the lowly customer service dweeb; part doctor, part game warden. Save the ones you can. Keep a hefty stash of tranquilizer darts for the rest.
Any of you in the support/customer service industry know what I'm talking about. Wrangling customers is like herding ferrets. None of them do what you want. They're squirmy and hard to handle. Not to mention no matter how hard you try they all still smell like ferrets.
-'drink
The really scary ones are starting to come out of the woodwork here. We're not talking about the masses of people who just don't have a clue, can't find the 'on' button, don't know what the right-click is. Those hoards are my jam and peanut-butter. Solving their trivial woes and watching the light shine on their heads when they get something new fills me with a sort of magical laying-on-of-hands healer joy. Nor am I talking about the really squeaky ones, the pet customers. You know, the ones who have adopted you because you're the "only one who can help me". They have that supernatural ability to break any electronic device/software they come near, in ways you've never seen before - and with frequency that's just plain alarming. Somehow this also gives them an aura of pushiness. The things just break and they have no idea that they have no control over their energy field, and so they get uppity. These are the 10% of the customers that take up 90% of your time. I'm not talking about those either. Those I keep close to me, gather them around like leaves on a freezing castaway night. They keep me safe and secure when the bosses start to wonder how much work I'm actually doing.
Kiddie stuff, amateur night compared to the really scary customers. The ones I'm afraid of are the ones I don't expect. They lurk in the woods, keeping their eyeshine deftly away from my spotlight until I've passed them over, then pounce on me with bloody precision. Those are the ones that shake me to my core, get me thinking what a lovely career choice ditch-digging must be.
Example One: The Guests.
Boss Person - "Hey 'drink, we've got some people using facility-x here about two months from now, they need something taken care of up there before they arrive."
Largedrink -"No problem. They want something simple. I'll do my best to remember to get up there by then."
Forward by Boss Person from Guest Wrangler: "Do we need to have the guests give Mr. Largedrink a reminder? If facility-x isn't ready for them in two months we'll be in breach of contract with them."
So we have a five-minute fix that needs to be done in two weeks, and because I was quip enough imply that I could forget to do it someone is throwing breach of contract caltrops at my feet already? Slowing me down so the predators don't have to break a sweat before they eat me alive.
My fault I suppose, but you get the picture.
Example 2: The Lifer.
Around here we have a lot of lifers; customers who stake their claim on some old piece of technology. They hang on it and worship its black monotilthy goodness while the rest of us make fire and tools to fend for ourselves. No big deal. I'm all for it, technology forces people to change and not always in a way that makes their lives easier. If it's working, more power to ya. Our example Lifer is perhaps the kingmost of all the lifers I've met. He has said in nearly as many words "I'm going to keep technology-x until the day I retire. I want the organization to buy me a closet full of them so when one breaks I can just take the next one off the shelf and use it." Again, no problem, whatever. The only important items to note for this example are that A) Lifer needs technology-x and B) he does not have a closet full of them.
Here's a surprise: his favorite piece of technology-x broke. He brings it over, we look at it. Yep sure is dead. The good news is that he has a backup (he's learned that his Neanderthal tendencies have consequences and has planned accordingly). Not his primary choice of backup, but something workable for a while. Which is good because technology-x is so old we don't have any more of it around -kind of surprising where I work really. Broke technology-x goes off to the hardware department where they agree it's broken and unfixable. They proceed to scrape his personal belongings off it so he can move it to his backup.
Days go by, I get an email from Lifer:
"Been starting to worry - it's been an awfully long time for someone of my stature to be without his primary monolith, especially at this point in our cycle. My backup is doing okay (barely), but it's not something I can count only for heavy duty use. Should I have already sent the broken unfixable technology-x to the mothership if I expect to have it working before the crunch hits?"
Okay so I guess this one again is my fault. I had no idea how urgent his need to have the unfixable technology-x fixed, since it never came up in conversation. He wanted it evaluated, and fixed if possible, but never indicated how desperate his need was.
Having been in this world as long as I have, I can cope with these kinds of instantaneous unreasonable expectation turnaround menaces. Duck, weave, play dead.
The Guests: "Hey tell them not to worry, I'll have it all taken care of in time."
The Lifer: "Oh my goodness, I had no idea how urgent your needs were. My fault, I'm sorry. I'll get right on it an do everything I can to get it resolved as soon as possible."
Meanwhile I'm sharpening my pungi-sticks and mixing up my dung-and-clay facepaint. It's only Tuesday (yes as in O-n-l-y T-u-e-s-d-a-y (another inside joke)). Completely-out-there customers are getting restless, starting to climb down into the feeding grounds. Around here they're a tricky lot. They've been at their game along time. Unlike the natural world around here the old ones who are the strongest and most dangerous. They've gone almost senile in their instincts. They don't know when to strike. At any moment a seemingly placid customer will lash out like an injured lion. And me the lowly customer service dweeb; part doctor, part game warden. Save the ones you can. Keep a hefty stash of tranquilizer darts for the rest.
Any of you in the support/customer service industry know what I'm talking about. Wrangling customers is like herding ferrets. None of them do what you want. They're squirmy and hard to handle. Not to mention no matter how hard you try they all still smell like ferrets.
-'drink
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
It's kind of exactly like- well you'll see.
Rarely do we get to appreciate our cliches like this (okay fine, I couldn't figure out how to do the little apostrophe thing over the 'e'. More work than I felt like looking up this evening).
In a former life I thought I could be a sound-guy. I studied theatre, did lots of shows, and ended up working professionally for a little while. The job I had straight out of college I will directly blame as the reason I am no longer working in theatre (don't worry, the Green Show Chronicles will be coming. I just have to dive deep into a very dark place to pull that out).
As fortune would have it, the career I ended up in -Internet Technical Support- offered me an out in the form of a convenient layoff. I swore I'd never do support again and proceeded to apply for any sound job in the country I could find. What landed most quickly was a job on a cruise ship.
If you've ever worked on a cruise ship, you may as well stop reading now. Nothing I'm going to spill here will be a surprise in any way. I'm sure my tales here will pale in comparison to yours. Save me the embarrassment, stop now.
For anyone who hasn't worked on a ship, anyone who's considered it, just gone on a cruise, or even wants to go on a cruise: please read on. I won't ruin the whole thing right away. I won't tell you how much we pay at the crew bar for the same drinks you do as a passenger. The penalty for 'cone-snoging' will remain safe for now. But even after this, if I convince at least one person not to join the crew of a working cruise ship: my mission will be accomplished.
Working on a ship might seem glamorous, but like most things that seem so, as soon as you are in the thick of it you realize that you were horribly delusioned from the get go. If you've taken a cruise you know what I mean. You get a room about half the size of a normal hotel for about ten-times the price and sometimes a pizza-sized porthole to look out of. The toilets try to suck you out to sea every time you flush. Dinner times are set and you have no idea who the other people at your table are. Despite the cost of your ticket, everything but the food has a cost, and is expensive. Unless you are on the biggest-newest-coolest ship out there everything just seems a little 'off'. The decor is just a little worn-down, the food isn't as good as you expected, everything but the water you are surrounded by has is lacking a certain shine you expect from your Vacation of a Lifetime.
Trust me when I say that your accommodations as a passenger reek of royalty and sin compared to what the crew is put through. Before I got on board my ship, I was expecting something roughly dorm-room sized: small but survivable. Perhaps there was no greater shock for me in that career than when I walked in the door of my cabin. No window, porthole etc, this was somewhere below sea-level. Only a set of bunk-beds, one tiny desk, one tiny chair, and a Refrigerator-sized closet. All of which was to be shared by two people for the duration of my serfdom. For you gamer nerds, think 10' x 10' stone corridor with a bathroom crammed into one corner.
The crew areas were all cramped and dirty and stank of smoke (you could light-up anywhere). Our food was worse, and harder to get. The serving times weren't exactly synchronized to all of the positions on board. We couldn't be seen anywhere in passenger areas unless we were in 'uniform', even for a few minutes. Generally speaking it was not the lifestyle I was prepared for. Back on land I was enjoying my funemployment. Biking, rafting, cooking, anything slightly outdoorsey and not-work related.
Like I said, I was an audio person an "Entertainment Technician" as the official shirt said. Between the main stage shows, rehearsals, welcome-aboard shows, Captain's Cocktail party, stand-up comedians, midnight shows, silly on-stage game shows, and the dreaded guest talent show there was plenty to do. Plus the boat I was on did the 3 and 4 day cruises, so we got twice the lifeboat drills, twice the formal nights, and twice all the afore mentioned shows. We worked seven days a week, all the odd hours you'd expect from a theatre gig, and essentially lived and worked inside a big floating office building. We wore what the company told us to wear, did what they old us to do and spent our off time trying to get off the boat for as long as possible.
All jobs have their level of stupidity. Big corporations, small shops, everything in between. There are always dumb policies and silly, tedious tasks that you the hard-working employee must endure. We are lucky when we finally land that job with a minimum of idiocy. Or better yet, we end up in charge of all the morons and can send them off in vengeance on all the horrible things we had to do.
But that's not what happens here. On the ship you have the combination of very large corporations, and limited availability of people on board. This leads to a lot of people getting a lot of stupid things to do.
Which leads us to my current favorite anecdote. An example of such utter mundanity, it makes me glad every day that I don't have to deal with crap like this anymore:
The main-stage shows I mentioned were run of the mill 'vegas style' stage shows. Horrible music and dance numbers with just enough glam and scantily clad dancers to keep the audience in in their free-ticket seats. Part of the pizazz were various pyrotechnics. Plumes of fireworks and smoke ignited to get an 'ooh' and and 'ahh' out of people. Not much compared to any Broadway show, but exciting enough for your average community-theatre goer. We performed these shows four times a week, so a substantial amount of the pyro was held on board. When not employed on-stage, the pryo was stored in a water-tight, blast-proof locker out near one of the outer decks. Anything exposed to the salt air of the sea is under constant wear from the elements, so everything on the outside of a ship is under repair. Always. Everything gets painted over, a lot, to keep the rust from forming. So naturally it came time to have the pyro locker painted, inside and out. Paint fumes and gun-powder aren't exactly a good mix, and there is no circulation in the everything-proof locker, so of course the door must stay open. It's also in a place where some confused passenger could happen to wander by if they got just a little bit lost. Keeping track? Explosives + paint fumes + open door + chance of visitors = bad.
Answer? Someone has to stand guard. Who? The stage crew of course! The Irish lighting guy, the Trinidadian stage manager, and I rotated in two-hour shifts. Watching paint dry. For real. Every once in a while the safety chief would come by and inspect the work, poke at the fresh white paint, shrug and wander off. Was it hours? Days(no)? I don't remember how long it actually was before he gave the all clear. That's not the point. The point is while 'watching paint dry' might be one of the most common cliches in the American vocabulary, few of us have a base-line for comparison.
I had already given my two-weeks notice by that point. I realized very quickly that I wasn't cut out for boar life and was just waiting out my allotted time before getting off-board for good.
That would have been the last straw, I would have walked into the Cruise Director's cabin (a mansion compared to our quarters by the way) and demanded they stop the boat and send me on a life-raft to the nearest port of call. Mexico preferably.. booze is cheaper there.
For anyone who's ever had to endure the brunt of what the rest of us joke about: this 12-hours of sleep I'm about to have is for you.
In a former life I thought I could be a sound-guy. I studied theatre, did lots of shows, and ended up working professionally for a little while. The job I had straight out of college I will directly blame as the reason I am no longer working in theatre (don't worry, the Green Show Chronicles will be coming. I just have to dive deep into a very dark place to pull that out).
As fortune would have it, the career I ended up in -Internet Technical Support- offered me an out in the form of a convenient layoff. I swore I'd never do support again and proceeded to apply for any sound job in the country I could find. What landed most quickly was a job on a cruise ship.
If you've ever worked on a cruise ship, you may as well stop reading now. Nothing I'm going to spill here will be a surprise in any way. I'm sure my tales here will pale in comparison to yours. Save me the embarrassment, stop now.
For anyone who hasn't worked on a ship, anyone who's considered it, just gone on a cruise, or even wants to go on a cruise: please read on. I won't ruin the whole thing right away. I won't tell you how much we pay at the crew bar for the same drinks you do as a passenger. The penalty for 'cone-snoging' will remain safe for now. But even after this, if I convince at least one person not to join the crew of a working cruise ship: my mission will be accomplished.
Working on a ship might seem glamorous, but like most things that seem so, as soon as you are in the thick of it you realize that you were horribly delusioned from the get go. If you've taken a cruise you know what I mean. You get a room about half the size of a normal hotel for about ten-times the price and sometimes a pizza-sized porthole to look out of. The toilets try to suck you out to sea every time you flush. Dinner times are set and you have no idea who the other people at your table are. Despite the cost of your ticket, everything but the food has a cost, and is expensive. Unless you are on the biggest-newest-coolest ship out there everything just seems a little 'off'. The decor is just a little worn-down, the food isn't as good as you expected, everything but the water you are surrounded by has is lacking a certain shine you expect from your Vacation of a Lifetime.
Trust me when I say that your accommodations as a passenger reek of royalty and sin compared to what the crew is put through. Before I got on board my ship, I was expecting something roughly dorm-room sized: small but survivable. Perhaps there was no greater shock for me in that career than when I walked in the door of my cabin. No window, porthole etc, this was somewhere below sea-level. Only a set of bunk-beds, one tiny desk, one tiny chair, and a Refrigerator-sized closet. All of which was to be shared by two people for the duration of my serfdom. For you gamer nerds, think 10' x 10' stone corridor with a bathroom crammed into one corner.
The crew areas were all cramped and dirty and stank of smoke (you could light-up anywhere). Our food was worse, and harder to get. The serving times weren't exactly synchronized to all of the positions on board. We couldn't be seen anywhere in passenger areas unless we were in 'uniform', even for a few minutes. Generally speaking it was not the lifestyle I was prepared for. Back on land I was enjoying my funemployment. Biking, rafting, cooking, anything slightly outdoorsey and not-work related.
Like I said, I was an audio person an "Entertainment Technician" as the official shirt said. Between the main stage shows, rehearsals, welcome-aboard shows, Captain's Cocktail party, stand-up comedians, midnight shows, silly on-stage game shows, and the dreaded guest talent show there was plenty to do. Plus the boat I was on did the 3 and 4 day cruises, so we got twice the lifeboat drills, twice the formal nights, and twice all the afore mentioned shows. We worked seven days a week, all the odd hours you'd expect from a theatre gig, and essentially lived and worked inside a big floating office building. We wore what the company told us to wear, did what they old us to do and spent our off time trying to get off the boat for as long as possible.
All jobs have their level of stupidity. Big corporations, small shops, everything in between. There are always dumb policies and silly, tedious tasks that you the hard-working employee must endure. We are lucky when we finally land that job with a minimum of idiocy. Or better yet, we end up in charge of all the morons and can send them off in vengeance on all the horrible things we had to do.
But that's not what happens here. On the ship you have the combination of very large corporations, and limited availability of people on board. This leads to a lot of people getting a lot of stupid things to do.
Which leads us to my current favorite anecdote. An example of such utter mundanity, it makes me glad every day that I don't have to deal with crap like this anymore:
The main-stage shows I mentioned were run of the mill 'vegas style' stage shows. Horrible music and dance numbers with just enough glam and scantily clad dancers to keep the audience in in their free-ticket seats. Part of the pizazz were various pyrotechnics. Plumes of fireworks and smoke ignited to get an 'ooh' and and 'ahh' out of people. Not much compared to any Broadway show, but exciting enough for your average community-theatre goer. We performed these shows four times a week, so a substantial amount of the pyro was held on board. When not employed on-stage, the pryo was stored in a water-tight, blast-proof locker out near one of the outer decks. Anything exposed to the salt air of the sea is under constant wear from the elements, so everything on the outside of a ship is under repair. Always. Everything gets painted over, a lot, to keep the rust from forming. So naturally it came time to have the pyro locker painted, inside and out. Paint fumes and gun-powder aren't exactly a good mix, and there is no circulation in the everything-proof locker, so of course the door must stay open. It's also in a place where some confused passenger could happen to wander by if they got just a little bit lost. Keeping track? Explosives + paint fumes + open door + chance of visitors = bad.
Answer? Someone has to stand guard. Who? The stage crew of course! The Irish lighting guy, the Trinidadian stage manager, and I rotated in two-hour shifts. Watching paint dry. For real. Every once in a while the safety chief would come by and inspect the work, poke at the fresh white paint, shrug and wander off. Was it hours? Days(no)? I don't remember how long it actually was before he gave the all clear. That's not the point. The point is while 'watching paint dry' might be one of the most common cliches in the American vocabulary, few of us have a base-line for comparison.
I had already given my two-weeks notice by that point. I realized very quickly that I wasn't cut out for boar life and was just waiting out my allotted time before getting off-board for good.
That would have been the last straw, I would have walked into the Cruise Director's cabin (a mansion compared to our quarters by the way) and demanded they stop the boat and send me on a life-raft to the nearest port of call. Mexico preferably.. booze is cheaper there.
For anyone who's ever had to endure the brunt of what the rest of us joke about: this 12-hours of sleep I'm about to have is for you.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Situation Normal
Maybe it's the lack of sleep and 'a case of the mondays' talking, but I'm cranky today. Shocking, I know. It's one of those "don't let me near the customers" kind of days where everything bugs me. Even the pleasant, simple people asking easy questions are bugging me. Normally I need to go farther along in the week, build up a few days' worth of jaded before I start wanting to take it out on the innocent users. Hmm.. this may be a good time to call up one of my PC sales reps and yell at them for no reason. That sounds fun.
On top of that some moron tried to start an XBOX Live! account using large.drink@gmail.com for a userID. Someone missed a dot somewhere and now I'm getting all the confirmation email. Now, I'm all about a free XBOX Live! account based on someone else's stupidity, but my home network is too far away from the TV and I'm not about to throw down the scratch to buy a wi-fi adapter just for the privilege of hooking up my old xbox to get myself slaughtered by all the TWIBs in Halo-2-land.
HEY GENIUS: Get out of my inbox!
And find an original email address. Please.
On top of that some moron tried to start an XBOX Live! account using large.drink@gmail.com for a userID. Someone missed a dot somewhere and now I'm getting all the confirmation email. Now, I'm all about a free XBOX Live! account based on someone else's stupidity, but my home network is too far away from the TV and I'm not about to throw down the scratch to buy a wi-fi adapter just for the privilege of hooking up my old xbox to get myself slaughtered by all the TWIBs in Halo-2-land.
HEY GENIUS: Get out of my inbox!
And find an original email address. Please.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Monday Part V, Monday Lives.
Longstanding workforce tradition has taught us to hate Mondays. Start of the workweek, get up early, lots to do etc etc. I have come to find a new enemy: Fridays. I tried to introduce "no-work Fridays" to my current job. Slack off, get as little done as possible etc. Unfortunately it never came to pass. Fridays invariably become the day everyone else waited for to get things done, the day they have free time to come in and bug me, the "oh my god it has to be done before 5" day. Therefore my Fridays tend to be the busiest, most sucky day of the week. I've resigned myself to this now, just recently.. found the zen in the ultra-crappyness that has become Friday.
I still look forward to Friday, since it's the day before you get two whole freaking days off. Of course I'm only talking to the M-F crowd, and the 8-5 crowd. Many people I know work odd hours, strange shifts, varying days-per week. I've lived that life and I know how you treasure your time off when you're working 60+hours a week. No matter what day it is, the day before your day/days off is always a boon.
Happy Friday, fuppers. I have a nice long, cranky post in the works for you all. You may have to suffer through some smaller crap first. Depends on how much I can pull myself away from my distractions this weekend.
I still look forward to Friday, since it's the day before you get two whole freaking days off. Of course I'm only talking to the M-F crowd, and the 8-5 crowd. Many people I know work odd hours, strange shifts, varying days-per week. I've lived that life and I know how you treasure your time off when you're working 60+hours a week. No matter what day it is, the day before your day/days off is always a boon.
Happy Friday, fuppers. I have a nice long, cranky post in the works for you all. You may have to suffer through some smaller crap first. Depends on how much I can pull myself away from my distractions this weekend.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
From the Trying to Trick You Out of Your Money department.
So I'm surfing around computer shopping, an exercise that has proven to making me ill lately. Now, I'm a geek by trade (I suppose). I'm pretty up to speed on what goes into a computer, about what it costs, and what gear you need to fit whatever lifestyle you have. The sheer number of choices these manufactures have today is maddening. They'll throw any weird combination of junk in there to meet whatever kooky price point they need to meet. How about the newest-baddest chip made by Intel? Throw in a small amount of memory, no DVD burner, and some tiny hard drive and you have the "budget computer". Or you can choose one with all the goodies you like: big drive, extra ram, burning o-plenty.. but this one has the not-so-cool proc. Fine, so you can try the good proc, extra goodies, but they go PATA instead of SATA on the hard drive. All of these add up to something that meets an attractive price, but is lacking some key component that makes someone like me from pulling the trigger. Fine for Mom and Dad, not fine for someone who has a clue.
In any case, we're not here to discuss all the possible spec-per-dollar combinations. that the PC manufacturers have available. They go beyond even mish-mashing components to match up to nice-looking prices with 49 and 99 at the end. It the marketing mo-fos who try to nudge you into the bigger purchase with just the advertisements. Today I'm shopping on the of the big boys in PCs and they have a side-by-side look at two of their models. Two flavors of the same model actually. One they consider "sexy performer" the other "photo frenzy". Allright I've paraphrased the actual quips the marketing morons have used -mostly to cover my own ass in case the Nameless Company in question decides to get nasty (That happened to me with "ClimateInsect".. it was silly, I'll tell you all about it some day). Heck they all do this kind of thing, so they can all come sue me for slander.
So, obviously they are trying to insinuate that one is a good overall PC and the other might be be a better choice for someone looking to mess with their photos. They don't come out and say anything like that, they just label one differently than the other.
So let's compare the "sexy performer" to the "photo frenzy"
Processor - same
Memory - same
Hard Drive - same
Optical Drive - same
Video Card - same
Monitor - same
Speakers - same
Ports - didn't day, I'm guessing same.
Did I fail to mention that the "photo frenzy" pc clocks in at about $250 more than the "sexy performer"? Given that every piece of hardware spec I can find puts these guys at dead even, what could possibly separate these two enough to make it more photo-worthy and therefore cost more?
Oh that's right: it's the Warranty! "Sexy performer" only has the pesky one-year variety, and "photo frenzy" comes with a whopping 2 year warranty. But hey, that's not right. Adding the identical warranty to the "sexy performer" doesn't jack the price up that much. There must be some other difference, or else Nameless Company is just trying to steal money (shock, horror). After some digging (sifting to pages and pages of "customize" options), I found one other difference: Software! Hooray, they must have thrown in some cheesy photo-editing program right? Maybe a watered down Adobe product eh?
Nope It's Office. Office 2007 Student edition. The custom options confirm it, adding Office and a two-year warranty to the "sexy performer" makes it exactly the same price as the "photo frenzy".
Does Office now have some secret photo-editing suite built in that makes messing with your photos that much better? Maybe, but it doubt it.
I'll have to check with my photographer friends (not that I have any, I'll have to make some), but if my guess is correct I doubt they would say "Oh hell yeah, for my job I wouldn't be caught dead without an extended warranty and the Student version of Office."
Again, no where does the company outright say "this computer is better for photos". What they are doing is simply not saying that about the "sexy performer" in hopes that JoePhotoGuy who's shopping on-line for a new PC will identify with the phrase "photo frenzy" and immediately click on that model, without giving a thought to what is going on inside the computer.
Also to be fair, it's not like the company is outright stealing from you, the same services can be had for the same price with other models offered by the same place (funny though.. there is no option to reduce the warranty in the "photo frenzy" pages). They are simply bundling more profitable services into a build and trying to head-egg more people into buying it with advertising. It happens a lot. Far too often for us to catch it all.
The lesson we learn from all this is just be careful what you buy. If you're smart enough to have found your way through this blog and patient enough to have read the whole thing, you know this already. You're smart enough to resist the constant deluge of BS flowing from anyone who wants your money. But not everyone is that savvy. Do me a favor, help the nermals (not a type-o, just an inside joke), make sure your Mom doesn't buy 'photo frenzy' thinking she's going to be the next Ansel Adams. Businesses are always going to find clever ways to take our money. Stay sharp, and lend a hand to those who have less Marketing Resistance.
(P.S. Were there enough parenthesis for you? I didn't think so)
In any case, we're not here to discuss all the possible spec-per-dollar combinations. that the PC manufacturers have available. They go beyond even mish-mashing components to match up to nice-looking prices with 49 and 99 at the end. It the marketing mo-fos who try to nudge you into the bigger purchase with just the advertisements. Today I'm shopping on the of the big boys in PCs and they have a side-by-side look at two of their models. Two flavors of the same model actually. One they consider "sexy performer" the other "photo frenzy". Allright I've paraphrased the actual quips the marketing morons have used -mostly to cover my own ass in case the Nameless Company in question decides to get nasty (That happened to me with "ClimateInsect".. it was silly, I'll tell you all about it some day). Heck they all do this kind of thing, so they can all come sue me for slander.
So, obviously they are trying to insinuate that one is a good overall PC and the other might be be a better choice for someone looking to mess with their photos. They don't come out and say anything like that, they just label one differently than the other.
So let's compare the "sexy performer" to the "photo frenzy"
Processor - same
Memory - same
Hard Drive - same
Optical Drive - same
Video Card - same
Monitor - same
Speakers - same
Ports - didn't day, I'm guessing same.
Did I fail to mention that the "photo frenzy" pc clocks in at about $250 more than the "sexy performer"? Given that every piece of hardware spec I can find puts these guys at dead even, what could possibly separate these two enough to make it more photo-worthy and therefore cost more?
Oh that's right: it's the Warranty! "Sexy performer" only has the pesky one-year variety, and "photo frenzy" comes with a whopping 2 year warranty. But hey, that's not right. Adding the identical warranty to the "sexy performer" doesn't jack the price up that much. There must be some other difference, or else Nameless Company is just trying to steal money (shock, horror). After some digging (sifting to pages and pages of "customize" options), I found one other difference: Software! Hooray, they must have thrown in some cheesy photo-editing program right? Maybe a watered down Adobe product eh?
Nope It's Office. Office 2007 Student edition. The custom options confirm it, adding Office and a two-year warranty to the "sexy performer" makes it exactly the same price as the "photo frenzy".
Does Office now have some secret photo-editing suite built in that makes messing with your photos that much better? Maybe, but it doubt it.
I'll have to check with my photographer friends (not that I have any, I'll have to make some), but if my guess is correct I doubt they would say "Oh hell yeah, for my job I wouldn't be caught dead without an extended warranty and the Student version of Office."
Again, no where does the company outright say "this computer is better for photos". What they are doing is simply not saying that about the "sexy performer" in hopes that JoePhotoGuy who's shopping on-line for a new PC will identify with the phrase "photo frenzy" and immediately click on that model, without giving a thought to what is going on inside the computer.
Also to be fair, it's not like the company is outright stealing from you, the same services can be had for the same price with other models offered by the same place (funny though.. there is no option to reduce the warranty in the "photo frenzy" pages). They are simply bundling more profitable services into a build and trying to head-egg more people into buying it with advertising. It happens a lot. Far too often for us to catch it all.
The lesson we learn from all this is just be careful what you buy. If you're smart enough to have found your way through this blog and patient enough to have read the whole thing, you know this already. You're smart enough to resist the constant deluge of BS flowing from anyone who wants your money. But not everyone is that savvy. Do me a favor, help the nermals (not a type-o, just an inside joke), make sure your Mom doesn't buy 'photo frenzy' thinking she's going to be the next Ansel Adams. Businesses are always going to find clever ways to take our money. Stay sharp, and lend a hand to those who have less Marketing Resistance.
(P.S. Were there enough parenthesis for you? I didn't think so)
Monday, March 26, 2007
Cranky Bastard
Lets get one thing straight. I am a cranky bastard. I have a job I’m not exactly in love with, a wife I am, and a kid who is just amazing in every way. Things bug me. People who get in my way. The crap that media jerkoffs try to feed us. Anyone who thinks they know it all. Things businesses get away with in the name of selling us stuff. You name it, it probably bugs me. I see too much to just let it go, but I'm too lazy to do anything about it. Once I thought I could be a writer, but like any true lazy smart-ass I don’t practice. That’s what this is, practice, you are my guinea pigs while I try to sound intelligent and clever. I should practice behind closed doors, far away where no one can see all the crap. Wait until I have something decent to spew down on the world. But this is the world of nudity. Everyone with an internet connection and a keyboard/microphone/video camera is hanging it all out, showing their bits for everyone on the web to behold. The place is run by amateurs, geeks, freaks, jerks, hack, and jackasses. I like that.
Move over turds; I am a stupid, useless, cynical, doesn’t-know-anything-asshole. Half amateur, part geek, total freak, utter jerk, complete hack, and willing jackass. I have 7/4ths of a college degree and a job that keeps me just brain-busy enough to keep me from causing any real damage. For now. I’m tired of being an unadventerous wallflower. It's time to hang it all out there on the innerwebtubes and let it dangle. You all can do it. Now it's my turn.
I don't even know what I'm going to say. But if you're interested enough, come back for more. Not? Groovy. Like I said: you're my experiment, my practice. Come with me and we might all find something useful. If not, we'll just fall into the web (yeah yeah.. pun intended) of obscurity, maybe if we're lucky we'll make a Top-ten-worst-blogs list.
I should be so lucky.
Move over turds; I am a stupid, useless, cynical, doesn’t-know-anything-asshole. Half amateur, part geek, total freak, utter jerk, complete hack, and willing jackass. I have 7/4ths of a college degree and a job that keeps me just brain-busy enough to keep me from causing any real damage. For now. I’m tired of being an unadventerous wallflower. It's time to hang it all out there on the innerwebtubes and let it dangle. You all can do it. Now it's my turn.
I don't even know what I'm going to say. But if you're interested enough, come back for more. Not? Groovy. Like I said: you're my experiment, my practice. Come with me and we might all find something useful. If not, we'll just fall into the web (yeah yeah.. pun intended) of obscurity, maybe if we're lucky we'll make a Top-ten-worst-blogs list.
I should be so lucky.
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