Joe Millionaire by any other name would NOT smell as sweet

Well, The Next Joe Millionaire is certainly good eye-candy, and he seems a lot nicer than Evan (if not any smarter), but the whole redneck shtick is really bugging me. Nothing against rednecks as a rule, but everything about David's backstory and especially the Eliza Doolittle sequence just seemed laid on as thick as his abs. Can he really not manage to call Paul by his name? Is it at all possible that he really only makes $11,000 (especially after the mini-scandal with Evan's earnings last season)? And how much of a "good old-fashioned Southern boy" can you be if you're willing to go make an ass of yourself on television and deceive 14 women?

As for the women... There doesn't seem to be a Zora in the bunch, or a Mojo for that matter. They all seem dumb and shallow and trashy and spoiled, but in an extremely bland way, with nothing to set them apart but their accents. It was sort of fun watching a bunch of European women reacting to David being a "cowboy" (and, as Hosty McUseless called him, the son of "an oil tycoon who made a fortune in the oil business"), which one of them said is like saying he's Santa Claus. They all seem uniformly bitchy and snobby. But every time Paul or the Foxerific announcer says "We've found 14 women who've never heard of Joe Millionaire," I find myself adding, "living in caves with the Taliban." I mean, this is one aspect of American culture I'm glad hasn't spawned itself throughout the rest of the world (and there are many I wish hadn't), but at one point the drunken whores broke into a stirring rendition of the Dallas theme, so how out of it can they really be?

A lot of last season's enjoyment came from the sense that the girls (Zora aside) were so dumb and spoiled that they deserved to be deceived. But as trashy as the girls are this time, David seems to be the dumbest one there. He's definitely the prettiest (in some cases by a long shot). And I'll buy the premise that the women have never heard of the show and maybe never even seen any of the Bachelor clones, but David has no excuse to be crying (in the ads for later in the season) about how hard this all is after seeing Evan do the exact same thing.

So I hate them all. The magic is gone. I'm sure I'll watch it again, but probably on mute so that David remains attractive (most of the women get subtitles anyway, because the producers apparently think we're too dumb to understand their not-very-thick accents), and it's off my DVR's record list.

Then there's Skin, which seemed like it would be exactly the sort of trashy prime-time soap I would normally avoid. But I'm a sucker for a Romeo and Juliet rip-off, and I'm glad I am because I really liked the show. Good acting, good writing, very stylish design and photography. Like The OC, they're giving equal weight to the teen and adult stories, which is good because the politics of the DA vs. the porn industry is far more interesting than the limp teen romance. That said, I like the leads, and I'm curious to see how they keep the whole star-crossed lovers thing going for a full season or more. And like I said back in my fall preview, at series' end they'd better both die.

Well, that didn't take long!

NBC just announced that they've pulled Coupling until December. I'm still sort of mystefied about how they managed to screw this one up, but to those of you who haven't seen it (or who've only seen the NBC version), I say again: go rent the brilliant UK DVDs.

Someone else's take on customer service

Lest there be any doubt that this man is my hero.




Old Comments
good points, but who is this? i felt like i was missing some background.
me | Email | Homepage | 10.21.03 - 11:00 am | #

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I'm sorry, did you just ask me who BOY GEORGE is???
Adam807 | Email | Homepage | 10.21.03 - 12:43 pm | #

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He lived on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific during some formative '80s years. It makes things very confusing for him sometimes.
mcm | Email | Homepage | 10.21.03 - 3:57 pm | #

Random Thoughts

So I'm watching Talk Sex With Sue Johanson, and she's demonstrating (with her hand, thank god!), a dildo with a camera in the end of it, in order to see inside your orifice of choice. I have no joke, I'm just kind of speechless.

In other news, I've just learned of a Netflix-like site for video games. Since new Gamecube games cost about $50 and few are worth playing again after I've finished them, this seems like a really great plan. But I fear that if I sign up I'll never leave the house or get anything productive done again. If I stop blogging suddenly, you'll all know why.

I hope the real CIA isn't this dumb...

I've been very unhappy with Alias this season. It's still one of the best shows on television, but that just means I hold it to a higher standard. By now I'm used to the show surprising me by taking 180° turns in its mythology, so when last season ended with the cliffhanger that Sydney had lost two years of her life I wasn't the least bit surprised, and trusted JJ Abrams to make it all make sense.

But it just seems like everyone's become stupid during the two years that Sydney was away. I mean, we all know (and the characters do too) that Sloane and Sark and maybe Irina were responsible for the big fight that left Sydney unconscious at the end of last season. But now some other evil group we've never heard of is now believed to be responsible for Sydney's lost time. What, and they just happened to drop by to kidnap her and burn her house down right at the same moment that the other super-villains conveniently took her out of commission? Does no one at the CIA watch television?

As a loyal viewer, I got really invested in the Rimbaldi storyline, the one constant through the various twists and turns of Sloane and SD-6. To have it blown off with one line of exposition after the summer hiatus feels cheap. This is what Sloan has been obsessed over for his whole life, and what the show had supposedly building up to for 2 years, and there's no payoff at all?

Meanwhile, in the land of new characters, Mrs. Vaughn is so clearly evil it's painful. I'm not saying this because I'm all that upset about the whole Syd and Vaughn thing, but just because -- well, look at her, listen to her, how could she not be??! Of course, we all know that in the world of Alias, "obvious" rarely is, but I just really want her to be evil and die badly. Her hair is too shiny to be good. I think it's not the character, but the actress who bugs me.

But tonight things started to come together, and the show seemed to hit its old stride. I was extremely excited by [spoiler]

So things are looking up, and there's a crop of new premieres this week, so life is good. It's a good thing I don't have a job or anything to eat up my free time.




Old Comments:
I haven't watched last night's Alias yet, so I haven't read the spoiler section or know what you are excited about, but I still have faith. I haven't let go of the idea that Sloane and Co. are still at play in this some how. I mean, why keep Sark and Sloane around if they aren't still going to come into play? I could be way off, so we'll see. Oh, and also, I hate Mrs. Vaughn.
Carrie | Email | Homepage | 10.20.03 - 10:13 am | #

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Oh, I have complete faith that Sloane is involved, I'm just baffled that the other characters don't as well.
Adam875 | Email | Homepage | 10.20.03 - 11:58 am | #

Get off the road, you glasses-wearing pony-tailed freak!

Last night (or rather, early this morning), Not Another Teen Movie was on HBO. I flipped to it to kill ten minutes, and Boy and I wound up watching the whole thing. Again. It's an embarrassing movie to like, but no more so than the movies it spoofs, almost all of which I've also seen.

And it spoofs them so entertainingly that it's sort of impossible not to enjoy. It's not brilliant stuff, but I love it for sheer randomness, in the form of albino folk singers, retarded football players, and cheerleaders with Tourette's. Not that I'm all about the medical malady humor. There's a running gag of people off-camera shouting incredibly odd things at the people on-screen. It's definitely a "you had to be there" kind of joke, but Boy and I laughed at it until 3 am. It's just an intensely silly movie, and I'm a big fan of intensely silly. It's also a little bit cruel, and we all know how I like my pop-culture cruel.

Then there's intensely violent, and less-fun cruelty. This afternoon, as if for balance (though we'd planned it days ago), Boy and I went to see Kill Bill. I'd never actually seen a Quentin Tarantino film before; I've just never really been interested. (This tends to surprise people, but trust me there are far more surprising things I've never seen in my Netflix queue, which has just topped 400 -- I'd like to be a proper film geek but I just don't have the time or money.) The hype around Kill Bill, plus my affection for Lucy Liu, Boy's desire to see it, and my local theater's $4.50 matinees made me interested in this one.

I never thought I wouldn't like it, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I'd been warned that because of the way the film was never intended to be in two parts, "Volume 1" doesn't really have an ending, and I thought this would annoy me. But it's not really true. I thought the ending was just fine for a film you know has a sequel coming, a clear end of an act. At the same time, I can't think of anything that I would have wanted cut, even during the [spoiler #1], and yet if the film had been twice as long it would have been kind of relentless.

It's just a highly entertaining and beautifully shot film. I've never seen such inspired use of [spoiler #2]. Every shot was probably a reference to something I didn't get, but it didn't matter at all. I got totally wrapped up in the world of the film, and cared about the characters. I've never had any opinion about Uma Thurman one way or another, but she's kinda fabulous in this. And it's either some of the most impressive stunt work by regular actors I've ever seen, or some of the best editing of stuntpeople I've ever seen.

I'm a little afraid that I might actually become a Tarantino fan. I've always had the sense that he's incredibly vain and self-indulgent. Owen Gleiberman, whose reviews in Entertainment Weekly I usually enjoy, sounded like he'd been brainwashed by a cult in his review of Kill Bill. I hate to join that cult, but I suspect that's just my contrary nature coming out. So for now I'm going to rent Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction and say that I can't wait for "Volume 2!"





Old Comments:
I've actually read that some "industry insiders" hypothesize that Tarantino secretly always intended for it to be two movies - given the length of script/amount of footage that was shot, and his apparent lack of concern that he seemed to be making a 4+ hour movie (b/c only Altman's allowed to do that!).

I think you'll like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, btw. Just my two cents.
mcm | Email | Homepage | 10.20.03 - 9:56 am | #

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dude, your spoilercall links aren't working.

i saw it over the weekend too, and wow. i liked it, but i actually like tarantino's dialogue, which was, well, missing from 'kill bill'. there's lots more quentin to see, and personally i don't think this one even touched 'pulp fiction', which i really want to rewatch now.

go reorder your netflix list and enjoy.
me | Email | Homepage | 10.20.03 - 11:26 am | #

Talking Food

M&Ms has a fun thing on their website where you can vote for your favorite M&M commercials. I love M&M commercials, not just because they're usually funny and feature interesting guest stars, but because I have serious issues with talking food.

But Adam, I hear you thinking, the M&M commercials feature, um, talking M&Ms don't they?

Well yes, but I should be more specific: I have issues with talking food that wants to be eaten.

When I was a kid there was an ad with a claymation potato sitting on a couch and complaining to the camera that she wasn't "good enough" to be in a particular brand's frozen French fries. She seemed really hurt. Isn't this a good thing? I mean, I know actual potatoes don't have such feelings, but if you're going to be anthropomorphized, I should think you'd want to stay alive for a while and enjoy your TV and knitting.

The California Raisins were fun and all, but ultimately they were selling the public on eating their own kind.

The latest offender I've seen is this commercial for Warm and Chewy Chips Ahoy, in which claymation cookies sing, while they're in the microwave, about how they're about to die. Granted, this doesn't fall into the category of food that wants to be eaten, but it does fall into the category of things that creep me the fuck out! It makes me absolutely not want to go anywhere near those cookies. (Maybe the real enemy is claymation!)

Back in the day, the M&Ms themselves went to boot camp to become the best M&Ms they could so they'd be fit for consumption. (And they ran around naked, which never made sense to me.) But now the Ms have seen the error of their ways, and they address my bizarre issues and speak out for talking food everywhere. They don't want to be eaten, they actively resist capture and fear for their very chocolaty lives. These are some smart and sassy little candies.

Curiously, this only makes me want to eat them more. Well, the real ones. I feel very protective of the talking ones. But their tiny little bretheren are fair game.

I have so many issues.

(In case anyone is wondering, I voted for Hotel for best performance, Lick for best ensemble, Floor for best fall, Vending Machine for best action sequence, and Valentine for both best entrance, and best overall commercial. Yeah, along with issues, I have much too much free time right now.)





Old Comments:
Food that wants to be eaten has not entered the breakfast food commercial. I always thought that cereal commercials were out to create generations of paranoiacs. In every one, every time someone sits down to eat a bowl, all kinds of thieves and monsters pop up to swipe it. Lordy.
David | Email | Homepage | 10.19.03 - 6:01 pm | #

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True. And I've always been bothered by the Trix Rabbit, who seems to exist to teach children that sharing is bad and ridiculing those who are different than you is good.
Adam875 | Email | Homepage | 10.19.03 - 6:45 pm | #

In the Cell Phone of Good and Evil

I was on a fairly empty 7 train today, and a young woman across from me was talking on a cell phone. An older (and by that I mean older than the phone user and I, but certainly not a senior citizen) woman sitting next to me suddenly screamed, "Put the phone away, please! You’re very rude!!"

Now, I'm not one of those people who thinks that pointing out bad etiquette is the height of bad etiquette; I shush people in movie theaters and stuff like that, and I am a master of the Evil Glare (tm). But I do think it's much more rude to yelp at someone else on the subway than to talk in a normal voice on a cell phone. And that was the really odd part of the outburst: While we've certainly all seen people shouting into their phones on the street or disturbing the peace in a restaurant this woman was talking in, if anything, a lower than normal "outside voice." I couldn’t really hear her at all over the sound of the train itself. Certainly not over the shrill shrieking of the woman to my right.

It's not considered rude to talk to your traveling companion on the subway, so when did the cell phone itself become such an object of scorn? One could argue that talker was actually making less noise than if she'd been having a live conversation, since there was only one of her! Was the angry woman maybe just annoyed because she couldn't eavesdrop on the one-sided conversation? I wonder if that's the key: It's not rude to converse in public, as long as those around you can listen in?

I wanted to ask the screamer these questions, or at least point out how quietly the phone user was talking and that she didn’t deserve to be yelped at by a total stranger, but of course fear of tipping a clearly unstable woman even more off-balance and the undeniable fact that it was none of my business kept my mouth shut. Then she said to Cell Girl, who had wisely ignored her as well, "Fucking peasant!" and I knew I had made the right choice.

In some weird twist of (bad) karma, when I changed trains I was trapped in a crowded car with a small child -- a boy of about two or three -- who was playing with what I assume was a parent's cell phone. And he knew how to play its ring. The "1812 Overture." Disco version. Over and over and over again. Buy the child a damn toy!!! If anyone else's head was going to explode along with mine they showed no signs of it, and I wondered how that was possible. I actually wished the mean lady had changed trains with me, just to see what she’d do. I gave the kid an Evil Glare (tm) (his parents' backs were to me so I couldn’t EG them), and he actually closed the phone and looked at me sort of sheepishly. Ah, yes, train them young! I smiled at him, 'cause he was admittedly adorable, and for a second felt bad about giving the EG to a toddler. Then he opened the phone and played the 1812 again and all remorse fled.

The kid didn’t even really look like he was enjoying himself. He wasn't dancing or singing or even smiling to the music. That would have been cute and melted even my heart of stone. No, he looked very serious. As if it was in fact his sole mission to drive me completely insane.

I wonder if that's how Screaming Lady got that way. Check back with me in ten years, okay?

Rise of the Machines, Part Two

I totally want one of these.

I know (as Boy pointed out) this flies in the face of everything I said yesterday about not wanting machines in the house that are smarter than I am, and unlike the Explorer 8000 Home Entertainment Server, the Roomba can actually move about under its own power. But it's just so cool!

Boy is convinced that when you leave the house, the Roomba will sprout knives and lasers and kill your pets. Or (and this one is much more frighteningly plausible) take readings on the layout of your apartment and beam them to criminals. In the annals of science fiction, from The Matrix to Planet of the Apes, isn't it always the "helpful" robots (or descendents of time-traveling monkeys) we bring into our homes that rise up and destroy us?

Does it say more about me or about our tech-dependent society and the power of advertising that my desire for cool new toys outweighs my perfectly reasonable fear of a machine takeover? And what does it say about my enslavement to pop culture that I think that a fear of a machine takeover is reasonable?

But it's just so cool! It cleans under the furniture! While you're not even home!

Really, I want it because I think it's cool, not because I'm lazy.

Well, okay, yeah, it's because I'm lazy. I'd be a clean-freak if I were less lazy, so really this seems like a good purchase. And that's worth bringing on the extinction of humankind, right?

(In all seriousness, this article about the unfulfilled promise of consumer robotics is pretty interesting. Yeah, I'm a nerd. A big consumer nerd. Shut up.)

Rise of the Machines

So it's been a little over a month now since I got my DVR. Or, more accurately, my Explorer 8000 Home Entertainment Server.

And I'm enjoying it, but I’m also kinda terrified of it. Doesn't that name sound like a joke from Futurama? I mean, I love tech toys, but there's also a point where I start to get a little creeped out in a Maximum Overdrive sort of way. The remote, for instance, controls everything in my house. Seriously, I can microwave popcorn from the couch. If I leave food out on the coffee table overnight, it's gone in the morning, and I don't have a pet. Well, I guess I do now!

It does not do the thing I was most afraid of, that I heard somewhere TiVo does do: recommending shows it thinks I might like. This is a relief, because if it's anything like the recommendations system on Amazon we'd have trouble. (You buy a perfectly innocent David Sedaris book and it's like some buzzer goes off that says "Oooh, we've got a gay!" and for the rest of eternity it recommends every crappy gay novel ever published. Just because I like reading people who are smart and funny and happen to be homosexual doesn't make me queer. And just because I am queer doesn't mean I want to read a "a story of teen love, steamy romance, friendship, loyalty, understanding, and an ancient prejudice that still has the power to kill. ...A tale that breaks the stereotypes of the ignorant and peers into the soul of two boys who want what we all want; to love and be loved. The story of...two sixteen-year-old high school athletes, a tale of love and happiness torn asunder by a world that understands too late." (I didn't make that up, but I'm not going to link to it because I don't want to give it that much validation.) And anyway, I'm sure that not everyone who buys The Object of My Affection, thinking it will have something to do with Jennifer Aniston, also wants The Joy of Hot Man-Sex. On the other side of the spectrum, lord help me now that I've clicked on the Olsen Twins' game.)

But I digress. Unfortunately, I don't seem to need a machine to fill the recommendations function, I'm quite capable of destroying all free time myself. I decided on the second day that it would be a good idea to record shows that I really enjoy but often miss and don't care about enough to spend time and space taping on actual tapes. This requires very little effort. The Explorer 8000 Home Entertainment Server will now record Family Guy, the UK Coupling, Graham Norton, The Daily Show, South Park and The Sunday Night Sex Show, and while they're rerunning the Ritter episodes, 8 Simple Rules whenever they're on. And if I run out of room on the drive and haven't watched them yet, they will delete themselves, so it's no big deal to over-tape.

What I didn't think through when I set this up, is that there's now no such thing as nothing on. There's an excellent chance that I will always have something stored away on my little DVR. I've barely left the couch all week. I know in theory I could cancel all the timers and go back to my old channel-flipping ways, but...well, I don't think I have the strength to fight the Explorer 8000. I think it was the brains behind Arnold's victory. [I'm gladly accepting submissions for a better joke, by the way!]

The machine seems to offer a friendly level of control, though if I'm not careful I'll wind up taping Queer Eye all seventeen times it's used as filler for Bravo's overall lack of programming, and I'm worried about what else it might do when I'm not looking. The brochure calls it "A machine that thinks," and I'm fairly certain that one of the things the display said while booting up was "HAL." I'm not kidding. "Dave? What are you doing, Dave? I think you do want to watch that 90210 rerun, Dave. Donna, Donna, give me your answer, do...."

I'm sure I'm being ridiculous, but I'm nervous about having any machine in the house that's smarter than me...or is not as smart as me but still thinks it knows what I want. I really feel like the remote could strangle me in my sleep if I'm not careful. It's all very Terminator 3.

"Sarah Connor? Watch TV if you want to live."





Old Comments:
Why is it that when I worry that the robotic vacuum cleaner might take over the house you laugh at me, but then you go all Maximum Overdrive about the DVR? ;P

And I also note you (for the sake of decency) refuse to link that awful teen gay romance novel (Right here!), but you include two (TWO!) links on your blog to the Mary Kate and Ashley Video game?

I think your judg(e)ment about what is REALLY dangerous is faulty.
boy | Email | Homepage | 10.17.03 - 8:39 pm | #

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Well, I was laughing because you're funny, not because the notion of the RoboVac taking over the world is funny. You just presented it in an amusing manner. There's a forthcoming post about the Roomba and how its coolness just taunts my robot fears.

As for Mary Kate and Ashley, I only link to the game once. The link in this post is to that other post, not to Amazon.
Adam875 | Email | Homepage | 10.17.03 - 9:43 pm | #

TV Executives Are Stupid

MAK was kind enough to link to this article this morning, confirming that baseball is the reason for all the reruns this week. (Not that I didn't believe MCM when she said it, but CNN has quotes.)

And that's fine, and understandable. It's why we have to wait til the end of the month for 24 and The OC (bitch) because Fox is airing the actual baseball instead, as they do every year.

But what I don't get is why the World Series seems to have been a surprise to the NBC and CBS execs. I know when it is and I couldn't have any less interest in baseball. I also know that lots and lots of people watch the World Series (and playoffs), to the detrement of other shows' ratings, and I don't work in television either.

So why must they toy with our emotions by announcing new shows, only to slap us in the face with a Whoopi that was bad by even Whoopi's standards? So mean!

Ludicrous!

Does anyone know what happened to NBC this week? They announced a full schedule of new stuff and instead they're showing all reruns. Reruns three weeks into the season? It's absurd! What a tease!

For god's sake, I was forced to watch Whoopi again!

Anyone know what the deal is?



Old Comments:
Baseball, dude. It's all about the baseball - last night was a pivotal (if ultimately DEPRESSING) game.
mcm | Email | Homepage | 10.17.03 - 9:56 am | #

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Yeah, but it's not like NBC didn't *know* there'd be a game. Yes, I know there might not have been a 7th or whatever, but they shouldn't have announced a week of new eps and then pulled them! Bastards!
Adam807 | Email | Homepage | 10.17.03 - 11:12 am | #

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very, very depressing.
me | Email | Homepage | 10.17.03 - 3:43 pm | #

When Toys Attack

So September was not a good month for me and customer service. Yes, it's rant time!

I got a new Palm Pilot in December. It had more memory than my old one and was all shiny and happy.

Until mid-spring, when the digitizer started to fail. It started small, little drifts in the screen's calibration so I'd have to click a button a little off-center for it to take. Then Graffiti (the handwriting recognition program with which you enter data into a Palm) started to mess up. I went to their website for tech support and found a software patch that addressed the problem. I installed it and it helped for a little while, but the problem soon came back, and by May I was unable to write anything. I tried e-mailing them, but they must have the same people reading e-mails as Amazon because they said if I was having problems with Graffiti that there was a tutorial built right in to the Palm! Really? Thanks, 'cause I haven't been using one of these for three years now.

So I called tech support, and a very nice and helpful man told me that the only thing for me to do was to mail the Palm in to them for repair and have it mailed back to me. Now, the Palm of course is an organizer. It's pretty much designed to be indispensable. If you use the way it's meant to be used, you're not going to be real happy about being without it for a week.

I said to the tech support guy, "So, this patch on your website...that kinda implies that you guys knew something was wrong with these units."
"Um...yeah. There was a problem with the digitizer on some of those models. The patch works for a lot of people, but not for everyone. We need to fix it here."
"So basically what you're telling me is that Palm shipped and sold faulty merchandise, and now I have to be majorly inconvenienced for something that's Palm's fault."
"Well, I'm not exactly telling you that..."
"Right, well I understand that you're not allowed to say that, but I'm right, right?"
"Um...yeah."
"Okay, well I appreciate your honesty and your help. Now what do I do to get this thing back to you...?"

I pulled out my old DayRunner and printed out a month's worth of pages for it from Palm Desktop, hot-synced and backed everything up, and put the Palm in the mail. To their credit, I had it back in three or four days. They'd sent it to my theater (I was working at the time, so none of these crazy UPS issues) via Airborne Express apparently the same day they'd received it. It was all fixed and happy.

Only it wasn't. In August it started to break down again, exactly the same way it had before. Only faster. So I called tech support again. "Yeah, that's a problem with the m125s," they told me. I'd have to send it back again. Once again, the tech support person (this time a woman with a very charming accent) was very casual and nice and straight with me. She reiterated what the first guy had told me about the bug being Palm's fault, and she told me about an upgrade program I could use if I'd had the Palm for a year. Unfortunately, I hadn't had it for a year. "And besides," I asked her, "how do I know this won't happen on another model?" She assured me that the problem was only on the m125s and not even on all of them. "So if I went one model up, in the same series, you can assure me I won't have any problems?" Yes. I asked her to put me through to customer service.

Apparently, all the smart people at Palm work in tech support, and they'll put anyone who can operate a phone in customer service. After explaining my situation I was told that all I could do was a "return-and-repair order." I asked to speak to a supervisor.

After a long wait, during which I assume the man I'd been speaking to was telling my story to his boss and calling me all sorts of nasty names, a lovely-sounding woman came on the line and asked me to explain it all again. Okay, well, I have this Palm, I'm really happy with it except that it keeps not working, and I'm wondering what we can do to fix it since the problem was caused by a bug on your end in the first place. Yadda yadda.

"Okay, sir, no problem. We can just go ahead and start a return-and-repair order."
"But I've done that already."
"Yes."
"And it didn't work."
"I'm very sorry about that, sir."
"I appreciate that. So what can we do about it?"
"Well, I can initiate a return-and-repair order and you can mail it back to us."
"But I already did that and it didn't work."
"That's all I can do for you."
"Even though it doesn't work?"
"Sir, it works just fine, we'll have it back to you in a matter of days via Airborne Express."
"No, I don't mean the system doesn't work, I mean the Palm doesn't work after it's already been 'fixed.' And there's no way to guarantee that if I do this this time it won't break down again?"
"It's very unlikely, sir."
"Wasn't it very unlikely last time?"
"Well, yes."
"I don't mean to be difficult, it's just that...well, it's not like I dropped it or dunked it in water or something. This problem was caused on your end. Palm shipped faulty merchandise, and now I'm suffering for it, so I don't think it's unreasonable to ask if perhaps there is a better way to solve the problem."
"I'm sorry, sir, that's our policy."
"Can you send me a new unit before I send mine back? I know some companies do that with a credit card number so I can't screw you."
"We don't really do that, but hold on." She put me on hold and when she came back she told me that there were no m125s in stock to send me even if she could. Fishy.
"Okay, what about an upgrade? I'm not suggesting you send me a free m130, I'll pay the difference, I just don't trust the m125 anymore, I don't believe that it won't break down again."
"We do have an upgrade program..."
"But I have to have had my Palm for a year."
"That's right."
"And I haven't."
"Oh."
"I've had it for nine months and it's broken twice because of a bug in your software."
"Ah."
"So is there any way we can solve this?"
"Well, I can initiate a repair-and-return..."

Yeah, that would be when I hung up on her.

I repeated this conversation to the manager at my old box office job and she was appalled. The beauty of being in charge is that you sometimes get to bend the rules. Especially when the rules clearly don't work for a given situation, and you're faced with possibly losing a loyal customer. I've often spouted policy at people only to be overruled by my boss. In fact, I've often said to my boss, "I have a really nice person on the phone with a really shitty situation, is there anything I can do for her?" Granted, Palm is a much larger corporation than our little non-profit theater, but that also makes it all the more baffling that there were no other options available.

Since I was willing to spend some money at this point, I devised a plan. I would find a good deal on a new PDA, buy it, transfer all my information, then send back the old one for repair and sell it. The ideal version of this plan involved getting a Handspring or a Sony, but in the end they were too expensive and they had a great deal on a Palm m130 on Overstock.com. (For the record, Overstock's customer service is phenomenal -- of course, that doesn't make for a good story, but I want to give them props amid all my whining). Unlike the customer service people, the tech support folks at Palm had been pretty straight with me. After all, they had both admitted outright that the company had messed up by shipping a buggy product. So I trusted the woman who told me that the m130 was safe, and this way I could keep my case and other accessories since they were the same shape. (Later on, Boy had an experience with Sony's customer service that makes this all look like a walk in the park, so I guess it's for the best that I stuck with the devil I know...though it does often seem like he and I should move to a cabin in the woods without any machines.)

So I got the new model -- rechargeable, color, happy -- and sent the old one in to be fixed. It returned promptly. I can't be 100% sure, but I'm pretty positive that after all that, they sent me a new unit. You know, that they couldn't possibly send out without having my old one back because it wasn't in stock. Bastards.

Still, I suppose all's well that ends well. And if anyone is in the market for a freshly reconditioned Palm m125, you can buy mine here.


Old Comments:
I don't know what's more shameful...that I went so far to plug my Ebay item, or that I actually thought anyone would even consider buying it after reading that.

Well, it's sold now, presumably to someone who doesn't read my blog, so the story ends happily all around.
Adam807 | Email | Homepage | 10.16.03 - 3:06 pm | #

I don't quite know what to say

Nine minutes into It's All Relative, and we already have an "anal" joke, and the term "fagaccino maker."

Ah, television is a wonderful thing.

Fashion Karma

Very gradually over the past couple of years I've been sorting through all the stuff I have stored at my mother's apartment. It's taken so long mostly because I'm lazy and don't go over there very often, but also because I'm an unimaginably obsessive pack-rat. I just have a hard time throwing things away. I'm not like one of those crazy old ladies with a kitchen full of take out containers, but I don't like parting with anything that "means something." Cleaning out my old room has been an interesting exercise, because seeing what I thought "meant something" in high school that's going straight into the trash now is actually making me less obsessive about my present pack-rating. So hopefully in ten years when I do all this again it will be a much smaller project.

A lot of stuff I had good reason to keep at the time but the reason is gone. For instance, I once thought I might teach, so it seemed useful to keep papers I'd written, complete with grades and comments. Now that I'm most definitely not planning on teaching at all (what with the realization that I hate children and all), I really don't need that essay on Hamlet from freshman year of college. If I'm dying to read it, I have it on disc, and I no longer care what Professor Sun thought. Well, actually, I never cared what he thought, as English wasn't his strongest language, but that's another story.

Then there are the multiples. Sure, I want to keep a programs from shows I did in college, and articles I wrote for the high school newspaper, but I really really don't need 20 copies of each. I'm not exaggerating, I had stacks of these things. So into the trash they go, with one copy saved.

But to be honest, the largest category is the "What the fuck was I thinking?" category. I don't have anything hugely embarrassing like leisure suits, it's just that I can't imagine why I kept this stuff. Newspaper clippings of minimal interest, McDonald's Happy Meal toys! Sure, a t-shirt may have sentimental value, but if you know you're never going to wear it again, what are you going to do with it? Frame it? Make a quilt?

Well...unless the t-shirt that was once tragic is now, through the magic of irony and nostalgia, tragically hip.

Last month I cleaned out the dresser. It was like time had stopped in 1995. I was a pretty big dork in high school and college. Not like a scary Revenge of the Nerds Anthony Edwards pocket-protector type, and certainly not as bad as someone who uses the word "meme" as often as possible just to hope it catches on, but definitely not a snappy dresser. Jeans that didn't quite fit and "clever" t-shirts that weren't actually clever at all. I'm still a big dork but my fashion sense has improved.

And so, it seems, has my fashion karma. Most of the stuff in the dresser went straight into bags for the homeless. But amid the high school play t-shirts and way-past-its-expiration-date underwear I found two gems: Twin Peaks Sheriff Department and Energizer Bunny t-shirts. Since the Peaks fad came and went so quickly, I had only worn the shirt a couple of times and it was in really good shape for a 13-year-old piece of cotton. I think my mom sent for the Energizer one with proofs of purchase, because she'll never pass up a freebie, and I never wore it at all. Now, of course, Twin Peaks is retro cool (it's like the second season never existed!) and the pink version of the Energizer Bunny ("Nothing lasts longer") is drenched in irony. Both shirts have been met with compliments when I've worn them recently.

There's something really pleasing about things for which I was mocked in high school now getting me praise. The meek shall inherit, indeed!

So yesterday I went looking for more, including one in particular I was desperate to find. The box in the closet was frozen a few years earlier than the dresser, because I obviously knew I'd never wear this stuff again, or I wouldn't have boxed it up. There were some souvenir/gift type tees in there I'd never worn in the first place, and stuff that was 5 years old and past its prime when I packed it in the first place. Why why why did I not just throw them away? I was also a little appalled by the Pigpen-like state of some of the older ones and couldn't believe I'd worn them in public in that state at all. Well, psychoanalysis and scary teen hygiene aside, I found some more good ones in there too: another Twin Peaks shirt, The Lost Boys (extra-ironic now that Kiefer Sutherland has made a comeback -- here's hoping he never forgets the days when he had a mullet), Ren and Stimpy from back when it was on Nickelodeon trying to pass itself off as a kids' show. And, at the very bottom of the box, what I'd set out to find:

That Bloom County was eerily prescient is hardly a surprise, but who knew I'd want to wear this shirt again even more than I did in 1988? I can even overlook the missing apostrophe.

The only problem is, in my memory this shirt was black. I think I may have had a black one at one time and outgrown it, and only been able to find it in white to replace it. Aside from the fact that I rarely wear white (self-conscious about my weight, but more importantly, prone to spilling things!), the photo doesn't really do justice to how dingy this thing is. I'd love to wear it out and about, as it's the perfect fusion of political angst, nostalgia, and retro geek-chic, but there's a fine line between "nostalgic" and "squalid."

So I have a new mission. if anyone knows where I can find a black "Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Bill 'N' Opus" t-shirt in large or extra-large (um, preferably one in relatively mint, un-gross condition), I will be eternally grateful.




Old Comments:
I'm going through the stuff at my mom's house, too. Found 5 or so Bloom County shirts. Plus all of my old Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, etc., Christian "rock" concert shirts.

It's a wonder I was getting laid at all back then.
Crash | Email | Homepage | 10.17.03 - 12:59 am | #

Squawkbox Sucks

In my ongoing mission to publicize (to all ten of my readers, at least) bad business practices and customer service trickery, allow me to rant about this blog's former comment provider.

I'd been warned by the always-helpful MAK when I started my blog that Squawkbox was only free for a year, and then they made you "upgrade" to keep using them.

But when I was looking for a comments client Squawkbox seemed to be the best one for my needs, so I read their terms of service very carefully (something I rarely do -- you know, click "Agree" and get on with my life) and found no mention whatsoever of the only-free-for-a-year policy. So I decided to go with them, and I figured I could throw a nicely-justified fit if they tried to make me pay them in a year. (It's not like it's very much money at all, and they are providing a service, but on principle I don't like being bait-and-switched!)

Sure enough, once you're all set up with them and they're happily embedded on your blog and people have left witty comments for you, you start getting this message when you log in: "Note - to continue using your SquawkBox account after the expiry date, you must upgrade or renew your subscription to Squawkbox Pro." Bastards! Tricky rat bastards! (And I'm usually a big Anglophile, but come on, "expiry??")

Since I'm still just a casual blogger, I held on to my wait-a-year-and-throw-a-fit plan. But recently, I've been noticing comments on my Squawkbox controls that I can't seem to find on the blog itself. And MCM just mentioned a comment to me that I couldn't find on the Squawkbox page, but was there when I clicked the link in the post...even though that link said I had no comments. (I think that last part may be a Safari issue and not really Squawkbox's fault, but I don't want to be using something that isn't compatible with my home browser -- and it's not like that's some little piece of shareware, even if it isn't Explorer. Anyway.)

Meanwhile, I've noticed Haloscan popping up on a lot of other blogs (including MAK's -- to whom I should have listened in the first place) so I decided to check them out. They seem to have no sneak-attack payment plans, and if I do decide to upgrade it costs less anyway. I may give them money now just to spite Squawkbox.

This is the very long explanation of why all the old comments have vanished. Next time I'm bored out of my skull on a temp gig I may try to transfer them over but you know, I also just may not. Please don't take it personally -- you're all fabulous people and I love hearing what you have to say, so enjoy the new system!

Pitying the Fool

I'm so glad this technology exists. The world truly is a better place.

I think I might be a bad person...

I was just in Best Buy and I noticed that there's a Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen videogame.

My immediate thought was, Oooh, do you get to shoot them?





Old Comments
I'm thinking Resident Evil but instead of zombies you get to smoke the Olsens. I'd buy that for a dollar!
Crash | Email | Homepage | 10.15.03 - 5:16 pm | #

Lawsuit...Lottery...close enough.

"He said to me, 'we won,' and I got so excited because I've never won anything before!"
-TV commercial for Jacoby & Meyers, a law firm


What the hell is wrong with this country???

Wash your mouth out with soap...and then clean up that blood.

I got a new videogame last week, and, though it's one of my personal favorite words in the English language, I was a little bit shocked to hear the lead character say fuck. Frequently. Sometimes with a subtitle.

Mind you, said lead character is a scantily clad half-vampire, whose primary M.O. is to hack people to bits, quite graphically (limbs flying and twitching, blood spraying in slow motion...), with a pair of swords. When her health is low, she drinks someone's blood while (just for added effect) she wraps her legs around them and moans with pleasure. At one point, she winds up in a Nazi gas chamber.

But for some reason, I just feel like videogames shouldn't say fuck!

clapclapclapclap

Because I know some of you tape television and watch things later (as do I), and because I'm just a wee bit compulsive (as are some of you) I've created a sattelite blog for spoiler-proofing purposes so I can write about things a little more freely.

My first use of it is pretty inconsequential, but I just watched last night's Friends and... [spoiler]

Fascinating

My blog had more traffic today than on any other day since I started it.

Almost every single one of these hits was through a search for "Siegfried and Roy" (though apparently I misspelled Siegfried, but so did everyone who searched for it). Who knew?

The really odd thing is that about half the searches also included the words "gay" and "homosexual."

I wonder what else I can write about that will make me feel popular?

Well no one told you life was gonna be this way...

Am I the only one who feels a pavlovian urge to drop whatever I'm doing and clap along with the Friends theme song?

Bartlet For America 2004

For the past four years, President Josiah Bartlet has led the United States with an intelligence and dignity certainly not seen in my lifetime, and I believe for quite some time longer than that as well.

President Bartlet is a liberal, to be sure, but he has always avoided partisan politics as much as possible, and has accomplished an astonishing amount in the face of staunch Republican opposition. He does what he believes is right, and what the people who elected him want, regardless of party platforms.

In his first year he may have been a little soft, not quite "presidential enough." But since then he has pulled the country out of a recession, enacted sweeping education reforms, passed a strong hate crimes bill, supported gay marriage, pushed for broader drug treatment programs, and fought for human rights abroad, to name but a few of his accomplishments. With his equally talented wife, Dr. Abigail Bartlet, he has made seeing adequate medical care for all Americans a top priority.

And with his fierce loyalty to his family and his religion, how can anyone say he doesn't also embody traditional values? You might call Bartlet a progressive traditionalist. He understands the Constitution exceptionally well, and both respects its power and limitations, and the fact that it was designed to evolve over time. He has strived to bring this country forward into a bright 21st Century without losing touch with the ideals of the Founding Fathers. I can't help but think that they would approve.

More recently, my heart goes out to President Bartlet after his recent time of personal and national crisis? Some have criticized him for temporarily resigning his office, but I think it takes great courage for a leader to say admit that he is flawed, and when faced with a situation in which he knows he cannot make objective decisions, to step aside. I may not approve of how the succession worked out, but Bartlet's refusal to put party politics above the good of the nation and his family, is honorable..

This is a man I want in charge of our country.

Plus, he has the classiest, sassiest, sexiest press secretary in US history.

This is why I say, without hesitation, Re-elect Bartlet in 2004!

What's that? What do you mean he's not real? Fictional...TV show...?

George who?? Arnold what????

Oh, crap.

Eye of the Tiger

I'm finding myself strangely moved by the plight of Roy Horn and I'm not sure why. I mean, not that I'm callous enough to not be moved at all by another person's pain, but come on, it's Sigfried and Roy! So easily and frequently mocked are Sigfried and Roy! (And the photo in that CNN article is proof of why.) But I can't deny that they're talented, even if I don't personally enjoy their particular brand of "magic" and cheese. And by all accounts Roy is a very nice man. Then there are all those people (over 200) the show employs.

I stand by my conviction that if you choose an exceptionally dangerous line of work, you have to expect this sort of thing (and after 30 years or so without an accident, you're tempting fate), but it still must just suck to get mauled by a tiger.

In a curious bit of timing, there's been a local story about a man who was keeping a tiger and a crocodile in his apartment. His Harlem project apartment. They discovered this when the tiger (I imagine quite understandably pissed off about the cramped quarters) took a chunk out of the man's leg and he (the man) had to go to the hospital. Apparently the downstairs neighbor had been complaining about the noise, and about the tiger urine leaking through the ceiling, but that didn't get the Housing Authority's attention. I imagine she didn't actually know what the source of the problem was, or she would have called the Animal Cops.

This time it's the tiger for whom I feel sorry, not the mauled man. He (the man again) has said that he kept wild animals inappropriately because he "wants to prove that we can all get along." The hell? It's not like you were keeping children of all races in your bedroom (though now that I write that I realize that's icky in whole new ways), you were keeping a freaking tiger and crocodile, two animals that were never meant to coexist with each other, let along with a human. He's said that the tiger was like a brother to him. Yeah, a brother who bites your leg down to the bone. The tiger seems more evolved than the human.

It's just a bad week for tigers and flamboyant German queens alike.

After all my bitching about bad customer service this week, I want to share my favorite local news story from this week. It sheds some light on the other side of the argument. Not on good customer service, mind you, but on bad customers.

Apparently, Yankees playoff tickets are sold in books which you tear the tickets out of. I have no personal experience whatsoever with this, I'm just going with what I gathered from the news. At the first playoff game, a few hundred fans weren't allowed into the stadium because they showed up without complete tickets. It seems that rather than tearing the entire ticket out of the book, they had torn it at the stub the way the ushers do.

Everyone was issued new tickets, but it took time and most of these people missed about half of the game.

On the radio report I heard (which, curiously, I'm not finding on their website), one of the patrons interviewed said, "Someone came down from management came down and basically said it was our fault because we couldn't follow instructions."

Well...yeah.

Having not seen these ticket books, I can't say how clear (or not) the instructions were. But I'm gonna guess that they were pretty clear. And besides, have you been to a single major entertainment venue, be it a stadium or a movie theater, where your ticket doesn't come in two parts? It's not arbitrary. The venue needs a record of how many people are inside and where they're located. That's their half. The patron needs a record of having paid and been admitted (and nowadays, having been through security), where his seat is, and proof of all of the above so that he is free to move around. It's pretty straightforward, whether it's a $6 movie or a $100 baseball game.

For the next game of the playoffs the Yankees put on more box office staff and kept more windows open after the game started so that they could print duplicate tickets faster and get people inside. So they did their part. Once they knew there was a problem they addressed it.

But come on, how hard is it to tear a ticket out of a book? I just have no patience for stupid people. And I can only pray that the people at Amazon and UPS aren't saying the same thing about me right now.

Northeasterners Unite!

Eveyone who says "soda" instead of "pop" (ie, everyone normal) go here and vote, as we can't let pop win!! (Thanks to iBartz for the link, even though he's a pop-sayer.)

In all seriousness, I'd love to see a survey like this for sprinkles vs. jimmies (I say sprinkles and I don't want to hear a single argument) which doesn't seem to be as cleanly regionally broken up as soda/pop/coke is. I'd never heard jimmies until I got to college, and I honestly had no idea what was being talked about.

And if you call water fountains "bubblers," I just don't want to hear about it.

I hate everyone

One of the bits of useful information I got from the Amazon phone lady was that while they can't control which shipper their various warehouses use, if you have a PO Box, they will have to use US Mail, or another shipper that can deliver to a post office. In other words, not UPS.

There is a post office a half block from my house. Unfortunately, due to some quirk of ZIP code planning, it is not my post office. I live on the edge of a postal zone whose office is a mile away. So even when I do get a package delivered by regular mail, I have to get on a subway to go and get it.

What's worse, my mail carrier is not exactly reliable. I'm convinced that there are days when he just doesn't bother to show up, and my magazines are often missing.

So this morning I thought I'd just kill three birds with one stone and get a PO Box at the local office. Solve all my problems at once.

There's a freakin' waiting list.

I'm back on that gypsy curse theory.

"There are no homosexuals, only peoplesexuals."

The American coupling seems to be improving steadily. That doesn't make it any less pointless though.

UPS Saga, Part 4 (More frustration followed by a happy ending)

From the latest in the Amazon corresponence:

Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com.

I am sorry to hear that we had difficulty delivering your package.

As stated in our previous e-mail, your package was returned to us on September 24, 2003 for the following reason: undeliverable for unspecified reason.

While we do not have any further information about your package, you can find some common reasons for undeliverable packages here...

Please note that refund for this shipment has been completed...

You're kidding me, right? If I can see in my account page that the order was sent in two shipments, surely customer service can too, right? I mean, how fucking hard is it?

I've worked customer service, and I know what a terrible and thankless job it can be. But also know that it's not really all that difficult to do it well. The customer is not always right. But he always deserves your full attention. I would have been frustrated, but not upset with, "We understand your situation, but need to wait for UPS to finish their investigation and get back to you," or some other very not instantly gratifying response to my complaint. But the mystery e-mailers at Amazon weren't even taking the time to look at my history and actually pay attention to the problem before reciting irrelevant policies or inaccurate information. This is inexcusable.

But there is a happy ending. This last e-mail, while perhaps the most frustrating of all, included a phone number. A phone number which I will now share with you all in case you ever need to contact Amazon customer service yourselves: 1-800-201-7575 .

Rather than fire off one of my bitchy e-mails (which was my first instinct), I called and spoke to a very nice woman who was very sympathetic. She offered to re-ship the item or issue a refund on the spot. I took the refund. I'm somewhat mystified as to why the e-mailers couldn't do this, but I was very happy to have it resolved. I lodged my complaints about my experience so far and felt like someone was actually listening to me. (This is a vital trick to good customer service: She may well have bitched about me and made fun of me and stolen my credit card number once she hung up the phone, but she made me feel like I was being listened to and she gave a shit.)

There's still the UPS end of things to be sorted out, but now that I have my money back I really don't care. I'm sort of hoping the now-unpaid-for package will make its way here and i can keep it, but I suppose that would be bad for my karma.

UPS Saga, Part 3

Excerpt from the e-mail I just received from Amazon.com:

I have reviewed our previous correspondence with you, and I offer my sincere apologies for any misunderstanding thus far.

Further, I am sorry that even the second shipment did not reach you because of a problem with the shipping address.

In such cases, the packages are typically returned to us by the carrier, and upon receipt of the return we will issue a full refund...Unfortunately, we are unable to re-ship orders that are returned to us as undeliverable....

If this is an outdated address, you can remove it from your account by clicking the "Your Account" link at the top of our home page...


And my response:

> I have reviewed our previous correspondence with you, and I offer my
> sincere apologies for any misunderstanding thus far.
>

Well, that's great, but you obviously still aren't paying attention. Please stop parroting policy at me ("We are unable to reship orders...") and read carefully.

There is no "problem with the shipping address." The shipping address is my home. I am not stupid. I would not have something sent to an "outdated address."

The problem is that UPS has delivered this package to SOMEONE ELSE. I understand that orders that are returned to you will be processed for a refund, and would wait patiently IF the package were on its way to you.

However, the package is NOT on its way to you, because it was delivered by UPS to SOMEONE I DON'T KNOW.

I have initiated a trace with UPS, and I understand that we may have to wait for them to figure out what went wrong in order to process my refund. However what I asked in my original e-mail to you, was if there was anything you could/should do on your end to expedite this process. The answer to this question may well be no, but the question has not actually be answered.

I do understand your policy on undeliverable packages and refunds, and I also understand that I may have to wait. However I would like YOU to understand that this particular situation is an unusual one, and it's not clear to me how it fits in with your normal policy.

As you can see from my account history, I am a loyal and long-time Amazon.com user, and I would like to continue to be one. But you have got to improve your customer service procedures. How about making it possible to find a phone number on your website? How about making it possible to reply directly to the representative who contacted me originally, instead of the generic "orders-reply" address?

I am perfectly capable of reading the Help section of your website. It is very clear. If I am writing to you it is because, as the link to do so states, I did not find what I was looking for. It is not the least bit helpful when you reply to my e-mails with a stock answer from the FAQ, apparently without even taking the time to read them all the way through.

Thank you,
Adam875

Clearly, I'm over this.

Strange Costume Choices

My post office apparently employs only 3 people. It doesn't matter what time I go there or how big a crowd could be reasonably expected, there's always at least a 20 minute wait.

So when I was there the other day I had lots of time to stare at the strangest drag queen I've ever seen.

I suppose I've actually seen stranger, but that's been part of their characters. It's all about context, and this was the Woodside post office, not Lucky Cheng's.

The tall, muscular African American man was wearing a small blue top with thin shoulder straps, matching hot pants, and blue high heels with white ruffled socks. On his wrists were a woman's gold watch and matching bracelet, and around his neck were 3 strands of pearls. This outfit would have been trashy and odd on anyone. It was like a bad costume designer's idea of a hooker from the 80s. On him it was simply odd.

I usually use female pronouns to describe drag queens/transvestites/transsexuals, as they are presenting themselves as women, but this guy couldn't have made less of an effort to disguise his masculinity. His most feminine feature (apart from his clothes) was his curly medium-length hair, which may or may not have been a wig. Otherwise, his body was extraordinarily visible: huge bare arms, clearly a man's torso under the tight shirt (he didn't have any kind of fake breasts), and the pants, well, they left little to the imagination. He wore no makeup. It seemed odd to me, but in a way I had to admire his guts in going out in this neighborhood like that...though he could probably beat up anyone who messed with him.

What really struck me, though, was that I seemed to be the only one staring. In this room full of mostly middle-aged, working-class immigrants, no one batted an eye at the man in inappropriate woman's clothes. But come on, pearls in the morning? At the post office??

I thought of this man again today when I got on the subway and saw a boy in full goth-parody drag. Like Marilyn Manson a few years ago. White face-paint with black lips and eyes, long dyed-black hair, a leather/pleather trench coat, safety pins in odd places, the whole nine. He was sitting next to a businessman in a three-piece suit who appeared utterly unfazed. As I settled on the train our eyes met, and I smiled. Almost laughed, really. I mean, he just looked so silly.

I don't think it was the reaction he was looking for.

Hilarity

This is the funniest thing I've seen so far today.

Moving on...

As I do every season, I watched Smallville to see if it might by some chance suck less. I don't know why I get this optimistic streak every fall. I guess I just like the idea of the show. And Tom Welling is so purty... But yeah, it sucked great big donkey dick, so it stays off my list.

So I switched over to It's All Relative and was quite pleasently surprised to find that it was actually, well, funny! Sure, it's a parade of gay stereotypes on completely desexualized men (it's like Will & Will) but as long as they're funny gay jokes I won't complain, and these actors (all with theater backgrounds) are really making it work. Above all, Harriet Harris, as always, is pure genius. She can make anything funny, or at least always make me want to watch her try.

Curiously, I watched Fraiser on a whim last night (having not watched a new episode in years) and was shocked to find that it too was really very funny. The thing is, it was also a parade of gay jokes. A caller mistakenly outed Fraiser on his show ("mistakenly," riiiiiight) and for the rest of the episode Patrick Stewart hits on him. It's a long overdue joke, since viewers have said for years that Fraiser and Niles seem more like a gay couple than brothers, and it really worked.

I feel like I should be more offended, but funny is funny!

The saga continues...

Okay, I just have to rant for a minute here...

So I had the rest of that Amazon shipment coming from UPS, and I wasn't home the 3 times they tried to deliver it, blah blah blah. I was prepared this time, so I waited for my little postcard to arrive and then called them to arrange to pick it up since I actually have some time this week.

They told me, quite calmly, that a delivery address change had been put in on the 29th, and the package had already been delivered...TO SOMEONE I DON'T KNOW, IN ANOTHER PART OF QUEENS!! My postcard was postmarked the 30th. So on top of sending my package to a complete stranger, they did so before contacting me at all. And on top of that, what on earth was someone else doing signing for a package that wasn't addressed to him, or to anyone he knows???

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?????

Maybe she gave me a soul

I got on the train this morning and noticed a single empty seat. I was one of the last people at my station to board, and several people were standing, and my first thought when I saw the seat was actually What's wrong with it? There didn't seem to be anything unseemly on it, nor anything amiss about the people on either side of it (they weren't even spilling over their own seats, as is so often the case).

I had a very full and heavy backpack on, and my laptop case over my shoulder. I stood by the seat and put the laptop on the floor between my feet, and the backpack was halfway off of one shoulder when a short middle-aged white woman wedged herself between me and the seat. Instinctively, I stepped a bit closer to the seat as I slipped my backpack strap the rest of the way off my arm. "Excuse me," I said.

"This my seat," she said in some kind of Eastern European accent. "I was here." What, had she gotten up to look around the subway and then come back? Was the MTA selling popcorn now?

"Um, no you weren't," I said.

"This my seat!" she said, and she pushed me, but not hard enough to move my feet.

Without touching her, I sat down, as I said "Ma'am, I was here first, I was just taking off my bag so I could sit down." This would have been clear to anyone. Including me, had the tables been turned. There's a definite dog-eat-dog mentality to the subway at rush hour, but within that is usually a willingness to admit when you've been beaten. You concede the seat or the prime spot to those who are faster or ruder than you are.

The woman bent down and looked me in the eye, and said, shaking her finger, "You have no education, and you are never a gentleman!" With her Slavic accent and piercing stare, I had the unshakable sense that I was being placed under a Gypsy curse.

Rather than tell her about my excellent education, or that I am often a gentleman, I smiled and said "Thanks," as she walked away. I kept looking around for her, partly out of concern but mostly out of fear, but she seemed to have disappeared. The train wasn’t that crowded and I assume she got a seat elsewhere.

I can't argue with her that a "gentleman" would have simply given her the seat. But would a "lady" have shoved me? If she'd been more polite about it, I probably would have given her the seat. I've always considered chivalry, in the traditional sense of the word, to be a sexist concept. The idea of men holding doors and giving up seats for women implies that women are incapable of opening doors or standing. This is not to say that I don't believe in being polite; I hold doors for all sorts of people all the time, and give up seats for anyone who needs them more than I do. While I have no rules about not hitting women, I do have rules about not hitting anyone. And I know plenty of women who could beat the crap out of me if they chose to.

The Gypsy Queen wasn't old (though she was older than I), wasn't carrying anything heavy (as I was), and clearly wasn't infirm if she was willing to pick a fight with me. I had as much right to that seat as she did, perhaps more as it got me and my gigantic bag out of the way of other passengers. And I did get there first.

In the end, I felt a little guilty anyway. But by then it was a matter of principle. I wasn't going to let her shove me when a simple "Excuse me," would have gotten her what she wanted. So I sat for the entire ride. I was afraid the entire train now thought I was an asshole (well, a bigger asshole than I deserved to be thought of as), but took comfort in the fact that the woman's outburst had also made her look like a complete nut-job.

I suppose the up-side is that a Gypsy curse would give me something to blame for all the stuff that goes wrong normally.

Proofrding

The main headline on Playbill Online this morning read "Elia Kazan, Inflential Stage and Film Master, Is Dead at 94." Then, the first line of the article, slightly differently structured, started "Elia Kazan, the inflential and controversial stage and film director...."

INFLENTIAL????

I mean, this is a headline. Big, bold letters. I took one look at it and knew something was wrong, even without being sure what until I really read it, and it's both before 8:00 and before breakfast. So how on earth did someone whose JOB this is not notice that there was an entire syllable missing from the top of a web page that has thousands of readers a day? And presumably, someone had to type "inflential" TWICE.

Hopefully by the time you click the link it'll be fixed. But this the kind of thing that makes me crazy, and I suspect it will bug me all day.

Sunday Premieres

So if you're a government agent and your house burns down and you're believed to be dead for 2 years but then you show up in Hong Kong with no memory of your time away, does the CIA buy you a new wardrobe?

Alias didn't disappoint. An edge-of-my-seat excitement and suspense that I haven't felt all summer. I'll say no more because I know some people have taped it and I don't want to spoil anything.

The Lyon's Den, on the other hand, is incredibly dull. Too bad, since I really like several of the actors. Not that too bad, since as the season goes on I find I'm actually liking the idea of watching less TV this year. Oh God, what's happening to me?

You are the Weakest Link...Goodbye!

Wow, that show lasted all of five minutes, didn't it?

Anyway, I've done my first major overhaul of the links in the sidebar. Check it out!

More belated Emmy commentary

I'm so glad Jennifer Garner got to present with Victor Garber this time and not with Mickey Mouse. This may be a weird show but at least it's not as embarrassing as the Oscars.

Yay, Debra Messing!!

Boo, Debra Messing's gown!!

Okay, yay Debra Messing again -- she's so cute!

I suppose I should say something snarky about the speech by the president of the Academy, but I'm just going to fast forward through it.

God, he's even boring on fast forward.

Aw, Walter Cronkite is cute on fast forward. He looks lke a Muppet.

Ooooh, a 24 commercial! They've kept a tight lid on the new season, so that was exciting!

Martin Short has an Oscar? Seriously? That's a joke, right?

I've always liked Tony Shalhoub, but I've never seen Monk and probably never will, so I'm disappointed anyway.

Where did Henry Winkler's neck go? Okay, no snark, he's doing a John Ritter eulogy.

Oh, God, I hate the Death Montage. There are always people I'd forgotten had died. This year it's Nell Carter and Lynne Thigpen. It would have been nice if they'd spent a little more time on a tribute to Mr. Rogers (I realize you have to pay for the full article in that link, but I guarantee it'll make you cry if you grew up in the Neighborhood).

I don't really have anything to say about Marg Helgenberger, I just like saying "Helgenberger." Helgenberger, Helgenberger, Helgenberger!

Oh good, Steven Spielberg won an award. He doesn't have enough of those.

Hm...the DVR has officially let me down for the first time. The Emmys ran over and I didn't record it. Oh well. That's the end of my Emmy commentary then!

Another one bites the dust

Miss Match is fun, and Alicia Silverstone is adorable, but it's definitely not appointment television for me. I'll watch it if I'm home and have nothing better to do.

At this rate, I may actually have to get a life.

At least they know...

According to SiteMeter, someone else has found me by Googling "kim bauer cougar." This amuses me greatly. I took a look at the search results myself out of curiosity and found this article, in which the writers of 24 acknowledge their mistakes with Kim last year. And since I always like it when people acknowledge their mistakes (I try to do it myself as often as possible...not that I ever make mistakes, of course!) I thought I'd share.

Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps

So the American Coupling doesn't suck completely, but the whole exercise seems kind of pointless to me. I suppose if I'd never seen the original it would be fine, but I have and there's just something not quite right about the new version. Especially the actor playing Jeff. No one can possibly match the brilliant oddness of Richard Coyle.

Plus, they cut my favorite jokes from the British pilot: Jeff's definition of unflushable, and Sally's unwillingness to smile and "lose elasticity" for anyone but single men. At least they left in porn buddies. Fortunately, BBC America ran the original pilot last weekend and it's stored away on my trusty DVR.

On a happier note, as the NBC season continues, Friends and Will & Grace both gave me several out-loud laughs (plus half-naked Will and Jack), and the first post-Sorkin West Wing was quite good.

What Can't Brown Do For You?

So I had a package from Amazon delivered via UPS a couple of weeks ago. Only it wasn't actually delivered because I was never home. And I couldn't go pick it up, because while my local warehouse isn't a bad walk from my apartment, it's only open Monday through Friday from 9 to 5.

Now, this is something I will never understand. Most people in this country work Monday through Friday from 9 to 5. So why on earth would you have a service that involves going to people's homes (or having people go to a place near their homes) that only operates Monday through Friday from 9 to 5?? I'm not saying they should work all day, but how about noon to 8? How friggin' tough would that be?

This is also a problem I find frequently with national companies not really understanding the geography and culture of New York City. We don't, in general drive. Nor do we, in general, work all that close to where we live. So going to the UPS place isn't a lunch-hour activity. When I lived in Inwood (the northern tip of Manhattan), my "closest" UPS warehouse was in the Bronx. I suppose on a map this looked very close indeed. But what I couldn't explain successfully to the nice lady on the 800 number who I believe was in Texas, was that there was actually a river between me and the Bronx, and the only way for me to get to this particular area would be to take a subway 8 miles in the wrong direction, then another to get to the East Side, then another back north and into a section of town I was entirely unfamiliar with. Round-trip this would take at least four hours.

Still, I suppose "most people," even here, can have things delivered at work, but since I'm a short-term temp I can't. But what if my package were big and heavy? Isn't this why we have big burly professionals to deliver things, so we don't have to schlep them home on the subway?

Anyway, after the third delivery attempt I got a postcard saying my package would be returned in a week if I didn't call an 800 number and deal with it. I dutifully called right away, and was told that if a fourth delivery attempt failed, that was it, it would be returned to the sender no matter what. I asked why the driver hadn't simply left the package with my super, and they couldn't answer that. I said I had to call them back.

A few weeks ago, I cat-sit for a friend who lives a couple blocks away. I called and asked her if she'd mind taking this delivery at her office and then bringing it home for me (it was not, in fact, big and heavy) to return the favor. She agreed, so I called UPS back and gave them the new address. This was on a Thursday. They said the package would be delivered the next day, which sounded suspicious to me, since I knew it would first have to go from the Queens warehouse to the Manhattan one.

On Friday morning I got a call from the Queens warehouse directly, telling me the package would be delivered on Monday. Great, I said, thinking it was all settled.

A week later, nothing had arrived at my friend's office, so I tracked the package online. It had been returned to the sender. I immediately called the Queens people (knowing that the 800 number people are in a different state and probably wouldn't be much help) and asked them what had happened. They had no record of a delivery address change. How is this possible, I asked, since you called me to confirm it?! They didn't know. And as far as they were concerned it wasn't their problem anymore, since they couldn't just go get the package back. I was furious.

So I emailed Amazon, who informed me that there was "a problem with [my] shipping address," and that they therefore couldn't re-ship the package, they could only issue a refund and I was welcome to re-order. Oh, and the refund wouldn't include shipping charges. I fired back that there was no problem with my shipping address, the problem was with the UPS people being morons, and that the package had already arrived at their warehouse so give me my refund now, please.

They emailed back, somewhat sheepishly (part of the problem is that their customer service emails all go to one generic customer service address, even if you're replying, so I never heard from the same person twice) to confirm that the order had arrived at their "returns center," (is it a bad sign when you need an entire center to handle people's complaints?) but it would take a few days to process my refund. Fine. And since the shipping had been free, I was only grumpy about that on principle.

I didn't work on Monday, and happened to receive another package from UPS (this one is the happy end to a good customer service story, but those are boring). When I opened the door, the driver said cheerfully, "Hey, you're home!" And I said, "Yes, well, I usually work," all happiness at the box I was collecting washed away in a sea of snark by this guy trying to be funny with me and acting surprised that I might actually leave the house during the day sometimes. I should point out that this same UPS guy has, in the past, left packages at my door, downstairs by the mailboxes, and with neighbors whom I had never met. (Falling into the last category was my DVD player, which was shipped in the manufacturer's box and clearly labeled "DVD Player.") As theoretically insecure as all those delivery methods are, every one resulted in me actually receiving my merchandise. Why was he now being a huge pain in the ass?

"Listen," said the driver in slightly broken English, "I come here usually late afternoon, so when you come home and see slip, walk over to 43rd or 42nd Street and look down the block. If you see truck, come find me, I give you package. I sometimes there 'til 8:30 or 9."

Hm. An interesting solution, but can I just point out again that this is not my job? I signed for my package and slammed the door in his face. Well, okay, I actually said "Have a good night" and closed the door gently, but in my head I was slamming it.

The sad thing is, I won't stop shopping online. You get better deals, the shipping costs are low or free, and you usually don't have to pay the exorbitant NYC sales tax.

I think the real moral of the story is that I need a steady job soon so I can have stuff delivered to work like "most people."

Karma Chameleon

I swear I'm not trying to copy or trump MAK's enlightening post about Margaret Cho today, but I've just discovered (thanks to this site) that Boy George has a blog!

I'm usually pretty immune to celebrity worship...or at least star-struckness, working in the business we call show as I do. I'm sure if I were working on Taboo I would be totally cool and professional with him.

But I'm not working on Taboo, and dude, Boy George has a blog!!

He seems to have similar views to mine on stupidity, rudeness, and customer service. He's also a David Bowie fan, but I suppose that shouldn't come as any kind of surprise. He also, though British, spells judgment without the extra e.

This is the most exciting thing to happen all week.

Man Overboard!

After being totally bored by the whole phenomenon since the first week of Season Two, I watched Survivor last week because I was intrigued by the cruelty of throwing the castaways overboard and springing the start of the show on them when they were all dressed up thinking they were going to a photo shoot.

And I'm completely hooked.

My entire value system is crumbling.

The Season Continues...

So I just watched 8 Simple Rules... for the first time, and I really regret not watching it sooner. Not, clearly, like I need to watch more TV, but it's really surprisingly good, and Ritter is fantastic. Which made me sad.

I love Teri Polo. I really wish her show were better. It could definitely be much worse, but I don't think it's a taper.

Cable, Vinegar and Cookies

Sometimes my convictions last a very long time. Like that Peter Gallagher hang-up. Or my assertion that Boy George is the most underrated popular performer of the Twentieth Century (seriously). Sometimes they don't last very long at all. Not two months ago, the Boy told me he'd considered getting me TiVo for my birthday, and I said, quite sincerely, that that was okay, since I didn't like the idea of paying more per month than I already do for cable, and I already watch too much TV anyway. Not two weeks ago, I said right here on this blog that any TV-viewing I couldn't handle with my trusty VCR was more than I should be allowed to handle anyway.

Then I realized I'd forgotten to tape The West Wing twice last week, and had totally forgotten that The Reality of Reality even existed, and I'm never aware enough in the morning to think to tape Ellen's new talk show (oh how I hate working days!), so I swapped my digital cable box for Time Warner’s new Digital Video Recorder.

My other arguments for not wanting TiVo were price, lack of space to put another piece of equipment, and the fact that I don't have a phone line (cell and broadband only for me).

Lest there was any doubt that Time Warner is an evil, evil organization, they've managed to destroy all of these arguments in one fell swoop. This thing replaces my cable box, so it's not extra stuff, and it doesn't cost anything since I don't technically own it. It gets its data through the cable, so it doesn't need a phone line. And the service only costs a few dollars more than my digital cable did.

So of course it was too good to be true.

Last Friday I brought my trusty little cable box to work with me. I kept checking on it under the desk and feeding it scraps when no one was looking. I don't think it had any idea I was giving it away. Poor thing, it made me sad. I stopped by the Time Warner center (is that what you call it? it's not really a store) on 23rd Street on the way home, grabbed my high tech take-a-number ticket, waited about half an hour and walked out with my new DVR box. (They promised me my old box would be given a lovely new home in the country with fields and trees and other cable boxes to play with.)

The DVR is about twice as big as a dTV box, and much heavier, so it already had the perk of giving me an excuse not to go to the gym on the way home (it wouldn't fit in a locker). So I went straight home and set up my new toy and played for a bit. It worked really well and was pretty much the coolest thing ever.

Until around 11:15, when Joey froze in the middle on Monica's living room.

The new box looks a lot like my old one, so I figured it would reset the same way. It did, and I got my signal back, but none of the DVR features worked. All the timers I'd programmed in the guide were gone, and I couldn't access the "List" (where it shows the stuff you've recorded and all your timers and preferences) at all. So I called tech support, and felt really fortunate to be connected with a man who spoke English as his first language. Oh wait, no he didn't. He had me reset the box again, even though I told him I'd already done it. Then he had me kill the power, then he sent some sort of signal through the cable...basic things you'd do with any kind of electronics that aren't working. (I should point out that this thing came with no kind of instruction manual.) It was pretty clear that he was completely unfamiliar with the new technology and was just going through the motions of helping me. Finally he said, "I think something is wrong with that box."

"Oh, ya think?" I said, trying to keep a sense of humor but instead coming out extraordinarily bitchy. No matter, because English not being his first language, Tech Support Guy missed the sarcasm completely and said "Yes, I do. You have to go get a new one, or we can schedule a service call."

Well, I had TV plans for Sunday (catching all that stuff on Bravo I'd missed during the week, and the rerun of the PBS documentary on the building of the World Trade Center, which I'd also managed to forget was on), and while the box was able to tune channels it wasn't able to change channels magically the way regular cable boxes can (the DVR actually never does that, it just records things to its little hard drive) so I wouldn't be able to tape anything if I wanted to, you know, leave the house. Which I do sometimes. So I didn't want to wait for a service call and besides I really can't afford to take off work for this sort of thing. So I said I'd just swap the box out again.

Surprisingly, after snarking at the guy on the phone (it's not like it was his fault, but it pissed me off that he so clearly didn't know what he was talking about) I wasn't crabby at all. Boy had to get up early on Saturday so I got up with him and schlepped the DVR back in to Manhattan. After waiting 20 minutes for a 7 train (with no announcement as to why it was delayed), I had a fairly pleasant experience back at the cable place. I didn't have to wait long, I was helped by a very sweet woman who was very apologetic about the error

She got me a new box, and told me that you can only exchange a DVR box once. Apparently, because the technology is so new, if it doesn't work for you twice, chances are the problem isn't with the box, but with your cable set-up, so they need to send someone to the apartment to look at it. This was not a good sign.

I had much better train karma on the way home, arrived in time for my shows, and plugged in my new box.

Which didn't work. To make this process even more fun, it was a whole new kind of not working. Now I didn't have the guide or any program info or some of my channels. I called tech support again, and this time got a woman who did speak English, but was no more helpful, really. At one point she said, "Reset the box and tell me when the clock comes back up...wait, does it have a clock on it? I've never actually seen one of these." At least she was honest about it, but how hard would it be for the Powers That Be to show their staff a picture of the new and apparently highly buggy equipment they're giving the public?

Tech Support Lady said I needed a service call. I said screw that (only I said it more politely) and asked her to put a note in my account saying that I'd be back on 23rd Street in an hour or less to get my old digital box back. I'm sure by now it was starting to miss me. And clearly, my first instincts about TiVo were right. I was not meant to have it.

So, back in the shopping bag, back on the 7 train (brought a magazine this time!) and back to the counter for my high tech take-a-number ticket. 327. I walked over to the counter and saw, to my horror, that they were Now Serving 211. I scanned the room and saw masses of people, sitting on the floor, leaning on walls, every chair filled. Lots of them had dTV boxes, and I suspected they were all here for the DVR. They have a few computers hooked up to the internet, and 4 TVs with remotes in the waiting area, and people were starting to come to blows over them. I looked at my ticket again and saw the awful words, "Estimated wait time: 1:45." I almost started to cry. I went back to the front desk and explained that I was on my second DVR box in under 24 hours, I had already been here today, and I just wanted to switch back to digital, was there any way I could do that without waiting for another 2 hours? He told me to go to the "window" and ask for a supervisor. I turned around and realized the only window was the billing center, and all the tech people sat at a counter. I turned back to ask him which window he meant, and he was gone. Literally, vanished in to thin air. In his place was a mean-looking woman in a security guard's uniform. Near tears again.

So I just headed towards the billing people and got on line. A minute or so later, the woman at the end of the non-billing counter by where I was standing finished with her customer. I approached her meekly and told her that the man in the front had told me to come ask for a supervisor.

"Why," she asked, without looking up.

"Well," I said, trying to figure out how to be brief, "because I'm really pissed off."

Not the right approach. "Sir, everyone in this room is really pissed off about something. You're gonna have to wait."

Sass is perhaps not the best customer service approach, but it works for me, and I decided I liked this woman. That wasn't actually helping my situation, but I tried to stay calm. I've worked customer service jobs and know how much they suck, and I know that none of my problems were this woman's fault. Still, she had the power to fix them.

"I'm on my second DVR box since last night," I explained again. "I was already here this morning to get this one, which doesn't work either. I just want my old box back, please, and I don't think I should have to spend my entire day here to do it, since you guys keep giving me faulty equipment."

"Okay, wait over there," she said sweetly. Then, as soon as I had gone back towards the huddled masses, she yelled "212!"

Played! The bitch totally played me! I got back on the line for the billing people so I could ask for a supervisor. The woman (I'm gonna start calling her Wanda because she needs a name and kind of reminded me of Wanda Sykes) saw me there and said "You're just going to have to wait your turn."

"The guy in the front told me to see a supervisor," I said. "Are you a supervisor?"

"I'm one of the supervisors here, yes," she said.

Fuck.

"Look," I said, raising my voice just a little, and fighting back the urge to cry again. "This DVR thing does not work." I was banking on the fact that almost everyone in the room was waiting for their own DVRs, and thought if things got bad enough I could start yelling about how shitty the service is and cause some trouble. I wasn't there yet, but I was hoping she'd catch on. "I understand that I need to wait my turn, but I've already done that once today, and I really don't think it's fair for me to have to lose an entire day of my life because you guys fucked up!" I'd gotten louder and felt a little bad about cursing at her, so I pulled it back and said "Look, I know this isn't your fault so I don't mean to yell at you, but I'm really frustrated by this process."

"I didn't even take it that way, sir," Wanda sassed as she got up to get something for her other customer. I started to think that she didn't take anything any way, because she wasn't really listening to me at all.

I'd meandered off the line during that last monologue, and I decided to just stay where I was. I didn't want to make the new customer uncomfortable, so I hovered a few feet away from Wanda's desk, but clearly waiting for her and watching her. She came back and looked at me and said, again, that I'd have to wait, and then went back to #212. I started eavesdropping and heard Wanda trying to explain to 212 that the package she was offering her would cost 212 less money for more stuff, but 212 was convinced she was being scammed. My affinity for Wanda returned; She was clearly having a bad day.

Then, as if she'd read my thoughts, Wanda suddenly looked up at me, interrupted whatever 212 was going on about and said, "Wait, did you say you were already here today?" I knew it! She hadn't really been listening at all! Affinity gone, pissed now.

"Yes," I growled. "I was here last night, that box didn't work, and I was here again two hours ago, and now this box doesn't work."

"You were here today?" Wanda tried to confirm.

"Yes. Last time I checked, two hours ago would be part of today!"

"Oh. Give me a minute." Wanda finished with 212 (who never grasped the concept that Wanda was trying to help her), and she waved me over. You have no idea the relief I felt sitting in that chair. "Give me that," Wanda said, indicating my ticket. She looked at it, shook her head, and threw it away. My anger at the fact that she hadn't been listening to me before went away and didn't come back until I told this story to the Boy hours later. For now, I felt like we were in on something together.

Wanda was clearly having a bad day and her filter was off. "I was trying to help that woman," she said to me, "and she just wasn't getting it." Now I felt a little bad for being an asshole, but hey it had gotten me what I wanted. Well, I was still there, not home watching TV, so I thought it would pay to start being nice again.

"I know," I said, "I couldn't help overhearing. I don't envy you your job. You have to deal with morons like her and assholes like me all day."

She laughed. "I like my job," she said, "it's just crazy in here today. I think I just need to eat lunch." It was 2 or 3 o'clock now and I don't think Wanda's break was anywhere in sight.

Without really thinking about it, I said "Do you want me to bring you something when we're done?" Wanda looked at me like I was insane. "Seriously," I said, "you just let me cut over a hundred people. If we get all this straightened out I'll be happy to get you a sandwich." And I meant it too. It's not like you can tip most customer service reps, and even though it had taken a little ranting, I was really grateful to not be sitting on the floor for an hour and a half.

"I just need some sugar. I need cookies from Subway."

"Done," I said, and we got down to business. I told her the whole story again, and she apologized and turned in her chair to get up and get me a regular box. Then she turned back and looked at her screen again as she noticed what was wrong.

Apparently, they have different boxes for Manhattan and Queens. It seems I'd been given a Manhattan box earlier in the day. Wanda explained that the woman who'd helped me earlier in the day usually worked in Flushing, where they only carry Queens boxes (because why would anyone schlep all the way out to Flushing from Manhattan) so she must not have realized. The she said with a smirk, "Oh you need to go yell at her. And if you have any more problems, go on out to Flushing and see her."

I didn't know what to do. I couldn't bear the thought of going through all this again, but I also didn't want to leave empty-handed. Wanda and I had formed a bond, and I felt like I could trust her. "Look, tell me honestly," I said, "have you been seeing a lot of problems with the DVR?" She told me no, not like this. She said it was still new but most people seemed to be very happy with it. "Okay," I said, "I'll try one more time. But please make sure I get a brand new Queens box."

She got up and headed off, I assumed to get the unit. But then she came back with the woman who'd "helped" me earlier, who apologized profusely. I'll say this for these ladies, when they screw up they do try to make up for it. Wanda got me a new box, showed me the "Q" in the serial number that means it's programmed for Queens, and threw in an extra remote (I hadn't brought that back) "for your trouble."

I'm sure she thought she'd never see me again, but five minutes later I returned with six cookes -- 3 chocolate chip, and 3 white chocolate macadamia -- from the Subway down the block. I set them down on her desk without a word so as not to interrupt her new customer, who looked confused. Frankly Wanda looked confused to, and something else that might have been grateful but might also have been scared. I didn't wait around, anxious to see if this thing worked (and still have time to get back before they closed and swap it again if it didn't), but I hope she ate the cookies and wasn't afraid I'd poisoned them or something.

I've taken so long to blog about this mostly because I was afraid of the power in writing these words: Everything seems to be working fine now, and I love my new toy. I'll do an update on actually having it soon.

So what have we learned, kids?
1. You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but sometimes flies are stupid. In which case a little vinegar goes a long, long way.
2. When you're mean to people, and then they're nice to you, get them cookies.
3. And if you're a Time Warner Cable customer in NYC, and you self-install DVR, make damn sure you get the right fucking box for your borough, and pray you don't have to call tech support.

A running commentary on the Emmy Awards

Tyne Daly?? Tyne fucking Daly???? I mean, I like Tyne Daly I guess, but Lena Olin, Lauren Ambrose, Rachel Griffiths and Stockard Channing were ALL robbed.

What the hell is Wanda Sykes wearing?

Jon Stewart is my hero.

Should I know who this guy playing Schwarzenegger is? I'm 30 minutes in and I'm already tired of California governor jokes.

Am I the only one who just doesn't think Wayne Brady is funny at all?

I was doing okay with the orchestral versions of everyone's theme song until they got to American Idol. That just doesn't work with a brass section.

Victor Garber was robbed. He and Lena Olin should form a super-secret evil spy group, have a daughter together, dress her in kick-ass outfits, go steal a bunch of mystical artificats, and use them to get their Emmys.

The Angels in America commercial gives me chills every time I see it.

Jon Stewart is my hero.

Oh, that's Darrel Hammond playing Donald Rumsfeld. That's who was playing Schwarzenegger. He's still not funny. I think it's time to start fast-forwarding.

I love that Allison Janney can pull of a dress that pink. She rocks.

Okay, this is just getting less and less funny. I think it's a sure sign that I should get off my ass and do some laundry. More later.

I'm blind!!

Short shorts and a baggy tank top have their place in an aerobics class, but perhaps someone should tell Richard Simmons that they are not appropriate attire for a talk show.