Thank God For Commercials

If it weren't for commercials, I probably would not have quit TV. I wouldn't have quadrupled my free time. I wouldn't have been able to double my reading list. My life has improved SO MUCH since I quit watching TV, and it all started when I realized that commercials were killing me.

The abuse of fallacy, shameless mind control, subliminal techniques, and downright stupidity of it all was driving me insane. I found that even when I could find an interesting program to watch, the commercial breaks were so frequent, the duration so long, that I would put on the mute button and go find something else to do. Sure I could get TiVo, but to be honest, the shows I was watching weren't much better than the commercials.

The realization came one day when I surfed channels for EIGHT HOURS STRAIGHT trying to find something to watch. Flipping channels to avoid the commercials whenever they came on, losing track of the show I was watching, finding another show, watching for the three minutes before the next commercial break, and then I was off searching channels again, desperate to find even five minutes of no commercial break. I did not find it. So I quit. Told Comcast to discontinue the service.

It was a wonderful day when I realized that I had forgotten all about the stupid commercials that used to annoy me so. The commercials I used to spend hours on the I Hate Commercials forum complaining about, gone from my life. I had two TV's and I sold them both at a garage sale for $15 and $20. Good thing those Mexicans wanted those TV's (no one else was even the slight bit interested) because otherwise they were headed for the shooting range for a meeting with my 12 gauge.

Spam Blocker Fail

If you got an email with the subject heading, "Best Prices on Viagra and Cialis," could you guess if it was spam or not?

Earthlink's spam blocker can't figure that one out.

Facebook Rant

What the fuck is wrong with facebook? A couple of things have been REALLY pissing me off lately, and of course since no one understands or cares or wants to hear about it -- and because, ultimately none of us can do jack shit about how much facebook SUCKS -- all I can do about it is post a rant on this goddamn worthless blog.

First of all, what the fuck is up with this "News Feed" and "Most Recent" crap? It makes no damn sense whatsoever. Why are there posts on "News Feed" that never appear in "Most Recent" and vice-versa? Why do posts 9 hours old appear ahead of items 3 hours old? Why do posts show up on both? The whole thing is just beyond any comprehension. It was a stupid change they implemented a few months ago and in doing so they fucked up the whole experience. Not to mention all the goddamn clutter now made by all the news of who friended who and who became a fan of what -- all right in the way of everything. Fuck, it would be SO MUCH BETTER the old way, where all that incidental crap that I don't give a shit about was off to the side. There's enough stupid posts to have to weed out from friends, why they'd go and add all that bullshit? And they couldn't put useful bullshit in the middle like when my friends birthdays are, they have to keep that off to the side? What the hell.

Secondly, half the time I post a link to a picture, it shows a thumbnail, the rest of the time nothing. Then sometimes the thumbnail is intermittent, showing up only every so often. Don't know what the fuck is going on, but it seems when my friends post a link to a pic, it shows a thumbnail 100% of the time. Those kind of numbers would indicate pilot error, so does anyone know how the FUCK to thumbnail a picture in a post (status update -- whatever the crap they call it) on facebook? What's the trick? Cos I haven't figured the motherfucker out.

Finally, the facebook iPhone ap just totally sucks ass. I'm fed up with it. The whole thing is a piece of shit. Some posts don't show up, it's missing all kinds of stuff I facebook for in the first place, and finally, the download said "free" but a $1.24 charge showed up on my iTunes receipt. Getting anything done about that would be an exercise in futility, and would cost way more than $1.24 of my time. Troubling thing is that facebook undoubtedly knows this, and has been making millions above and beyond the farmed demographic and trend data they sell to huge companies for untold billions.

Fucking facebook. Riding the trend of wildly popular things that inexplicably suck.

Cragslist Prank Reveals Spam Level

Just for fun I posted a sarcastic ad in the missed connections section on craigslist. Something about how her perfume obscured all other sensations... I was simply making an anonymous joke about women who wear too much perfume, I expected no response.

Instead I got a ton of emails. And all the same ones you might get if you had posted a true personal ad, too! "Hey I liked your ad" and "looks like we have a lot in common" and "here's my pic hope you like what you see" and all kinds of painfully obvious bullshit. Their responses inevitably had nothing to do with my ad, and the pic included was, inevitably, of some hottie with big tits dressed in hardly anything. How can I take something like that seriously?

Who the fuck are these spammers, anyway? Why do they send false pics and even bother to answer the ads? Even if they are just using bots, is it really worth all that effort just to farm a couple pics and email addresses? More importantly, do enough people fall for their scams that they can keep doing it? Incredible to think of the answer of that one (yes) but what's more incredible to me is how much of a shit dump craigslist has become.

Quite simply, spammers have destroyed craigslist. Come to think of it, I cannot recall one instance in recent memory, that is to say, within a year, that posting or answering a craiglist ad has resulted in anything but spam. No, in fact, not one ad or answer in the past year has resulted in anything except time lost to spam or mystery postings.

What I don't get is how can spammers have let themselves ruin the internet? Scum of the earth is too kind a term...

Earthlink Storage Almost Full

Since my last hard drive crashed and ended up a smoldering pile of unretrievable data, I haven't been able to get my email client to work. I know all the settings, or least know how to verify that they are correct. And they are correct. But still the damn thing won't go and get my emails for some odd reason, and I am forced to sift through various webmail programs to get my email and take care of maintenance duties such as sorting and cleaning out my inbox by hand. Frustrating enough.

To make matters worse, some of the email accounts come with vast storage, others with limited space. And here lies the crux of my complaint. The ones with limited space always send you HUGE emails warning you that your email storage is almost full. It's like they want to fill it up and start deleting your data. It's bad enough that I get ten thousand viagra-cialis-work-from-home/regarding-your-inheritence-dear-kind-sir emails a day to fill up my minuscule storage space. But to get a 10MB (<-- admitted exaggeration) file to let me know my space is full? That's like chopping off my finger to tell me I have a hangnail!

Update: I re-entered all the fields for the email client set-up and it still wouldn't work so I called tech support and waited on hold so long I tried it again and all of a sudden it worked.

Qwest Fail

Waited nearly all day for Qwest to come and hook up the phone/dsl line. They finally showed up around 2:30 and hooked up the phones in about 15 minutes. On the way out the dude goes, "okay you're all set, the bottom jack is good to go." Shit. "Um, dude, the bottom jack is a LAN line, not a phone line, bro." (Dumb ass). "Oh my," he says, "that is a little loose, give me a minute and I'll fix it to the top jack." Yeah. Good idea, buddy.

So he does that and pulls away narrowly averting a stupid mistake that would have cost me countless hours of headaches on the phone with tech support. I seriously doubt that in their little techy manuals they've got there at Qwest you're going to find a chapter on poor suckers who have had their LAN jacks hooked up to phone lines. Jesus.

And now I've got a DSL line! But no modem. Qwest, in their infinite wisdom and customer service expertise, has decided not to have the installer carry a few modems along to give to the customer all at once. No. That would make far too much sense. The big business geniuses at Qwest have decided it better for UPS to deliver the modem separately, and hopefully on the same day. Grrr.

To the veritable singing of angels, up drives the UPS truck with my modem before too long. Excited, I tear open the box and find my shiny new $90 modem/router (more than I've paid for any of the other four modems and/or routers I already own, all in perfect working order but not 'compatible' with Qwest's *NEW* all-in-one wireless modem -- don't get me started -- I don't have the energy for a tangent rant) and the glossy instructions. The first thing it says is "DO NOT PLUG IN MODEM BEFORE SPECIFIED START TIME: SEE ENCLOSED LETTER FOR TIME AND DATE."

Rummaging through the box I find the letter that says that I must wait until 5pm before plugging in the modem. The letter might as well have said, "Now that you've waited a week for your Qwest appointment, and nearly all day for the installation, and then even longer for the UPS delivery, now that your DSL line is installed and your modem IS HERE you must now only wait ANOTHER TWO HOURS to access your precious high speed Internet!" My God. Get me the suicide prevention hotline: NOW!

Naturally I wait the two hours. Can't say patiently, but I waited. Then I plugged in the modem. Lights on, taken to ridiculous website for registration and all kinds of BS, another user name, yet more friggin' passwords, another login bookmark, fucking hell. A page is stuck, open up Live Chat and ask the bots how to avoid all this shit and just get to surfing. They casually inform me that I am already surfing. Just close the window and go, they say. Sweet. Glad I followed the Set Up For Dummies instructions, not like I know how to join a friggin' wireless network... done.

The first thing I do, of course, because I like to torture myself, is go to speedtest.net and see what kind of throughput I've got here. A big 1.27 megs the results say. Wow: Dial-up on drugs!

Damn, Qwest.

Craigslist Twighlight Zone

I have no idea how it happened, but I answered the wrong craigslist ad and ended up going down a very strange road.

Yesterday there was a Strictly Platonic ad in craigslist that said, “C'mon guys no takers? See March 27th post.” There were only two posts on March 27th, one older guy looking for a woman friend, and one post from a 23 year old female looking for hiking partners. So I replied to the ad figuring it was the female, and was psyched when I got emailed back. They even had an androgynous name to make the joke even more cruel: Alex.

Then after three or four emails back and forth of 'getting to know' they mention, “I used to be a Boy Scout,” and I was like… wait, WHAT? What the fuck happened? I went back and looked at the 27th ads but there were no clues there, I had not misread the ads. WTF? So I emailed back and said, sorry for the mix up, dude, but I’ve got enough guy friends already. He understood, but I still don’t get how the whole thing happened. Had it been a joke played by him? Had he forgotten that he had removed his March 27th post? Was it flagged and he didn’t know? Did he get his dates mixed up? All I know is that no March 27th post added up to this guy's story.

Whatever the reasoning, I learned my lesson: 99% of craiglist personal ads are SPAM, so if you’re going to be a fool enough to answer one, be sure to answer the ad itself and not an ad that mentions another ad. Dumb ass.

False Advertising

So I move into this place for lots of dollars a month. The ad says it comes with internet. Turns out it comes with intermittent, weak signal, 57k wireless from Qwest. Those of you lucky enough to live anywhere except where Qwest is the phone/internet provider, believe me, you don't know how good you have it. Qwest customer service is even worse than Comcast. But at least they don't have commercials that make me want to kill myself, so that's one point in their favor.

Anyway, I complain about the Internet signal sucking ass and the landlord just smugly says, "well my brand new laptop gets a full signal..." Great. Insult my computer equipment and how I don't happen to be able to afford a shiny new computer with 802.11Z wireless right now. Sweet. The ad should have said "includes Internet if you are up to date with your computer equipment because our router is only 802.11g and has a range of about three yards."

Knowing that the landlord's Internet is worthless, despite it being included in the rent, and having pulled all my hair out waiting 30 minutes for a 2 minute you tube video to load one too many times, I finally gave in and ordered Qwest Internet for myself. Last week. Costs more than Comcast and is approximately 1/4th the speed (that's 75% slower for the math challenged) despite what their commercials try to feed you as far as bundling your services and fast speeds and what not. Problem is they don't have high speed lines in place everywhere, so there are more homes (here) that cannot get Qwest Internet than those that can. How's that for customer service?!

And lastly, a complaint that is not at all rare. Qwest said they would be here to hook up the Internet sometime between 8am and 6pm. Awesome!! Only a ten hour window to wait for something that will take, literally, one second! Wouldn't it be great if I could tell them, "My payment will arrive sometime between before the due date and after the due date. Please make sure someone is there in case you decide to open the envelope and accept the payment which will not be considered late under any circumstances."

Google Rant

My intro post mentioned that I forgot my password for my other blog. I know that sounds ridiculous. Pilot error, right? But I could rant forever about this because last time I tried to reset my password with blogger (google), I just wasn't able to do it. The reset email never showed up -- yes I checked the spam folder -- so I tried again and got nothing. Emails to google help didn't help. They sent a link that I had to check all of the google services I had with that account to get in, but wouldn't you believe it? One of the services I had, Maps, wasn't one of the choices! So of course it said that I didn't answer the spot question right and shut me out. Emails to google got the same no-one-is-home response. As in none.

I was so pissed off about it I boycotted google for as many weeks as I could stand. Switched my searches to yahoo and said fuck it. But of course, here I am, back again to google. The microsoft of the internet.

What Is This?

I’ve done this blogging shit before. Got a lot off my chest when I did, but I guess what I had to say was interesting, so naturally there ended up being a bunch of followers, and with it the natural tendency to feel obligated to my subscribers. Soon the blog became a burden and began to soak up my creative time and energy. So after six months I left it to rot forever on blogspot. Probably a bunch of people still reading it and commenting on it to this day, but what could I do even if I cared? I forgot my password and wasn’t able to navigate the reset process, so there it sits. I couldn’t even delete it if I wanted to. And there’s some seriously personal shit on there.

So just yesterday I get the urge to blog again. Just post random thoughts and writings, nothing serious or demanding, just a place to take the proverbial mental dump every once in a while. And so here we have this post.

This shit will get personal too. Sometimes it will be lucid, abstract, sometimes obscure, sometimes perverted, poignant, preposterous or positive. Always verbose cos no dude, I’m not into the whole brevity thing. And I probably won’t hold any punches or grudges, for all the trolling crazies out there who love to try to tear people down. Let them be and let me be me. I’ll keep writing and churning out creativity while they go on to surf a thousand other blogs and sites with their venomous intent.

My intent is to ruminate and postulate: Rants Raves Can'ts Craves.