Rants

I Hate Christmas

It is easy to buy something for someone close to you, with personal interaction you get an idea of what they want by how they react to the world or even through blatant hints from them.

I speak to my mom on the phone once a month or so. I get to say a few words to my brother if he happens to answer the phone when I call mom (he lives with her.) A stray email passes between my sister and I. Approximately once a year Donna and I pop in for a visit ranging from a few hours to a few days. So buying gifts for my family back in Connecticut is difficult, they are practically strangers. In a the 30-odd years since I left the Nutmeg State behind when I joined the Navy, the gift giving process has morphed from traditional to meaningless in a pace slightly faster than geological.

At first we exchanged gifts based on our mutual knowledge, but as the years apart grew, our tastes changed and the gifts given and received no longer were relevant.

Next we graduated to swapping lists. For a short while the generic ones would suffice; v-neck sweater in large or jazz records, but we soon decided that there were still more misses than hits.

The next level was the detailed list. J.C Penny Fall/Winter Catalog, Page 436, Item A, Men’s Mock Turtleneck in Heather, Size Large, etc. We got just what we asked for, but colors, textures and sizes were not always what we expected.

In the never ending quest for the perfect gift, we next ushered in the Gift Card era; Best Buy, Old Navy or B.Dalton Books thank you very much. I really don’t like the idea of trading gift cards in the mail. Suppose my brother said send me a gift card to Lowes and I tell him that I would like a gift card to Lowes too. Shouldn’t we just skip mailing them to each other? Save the time and energy of mailing them to each other. For that matter why even buy the gift card at all. Sometime in December go to the store and buy something you like and thank him for it in his Christmas card, “Love than cordless drill you got me bro’, it was just what I needed!”

The end of the gift card era is coming and I’m not sure that the next step is any better. Last year I gave my sister a gift card for Amazon.com. I bought it online, they mailed me the plastic card, I mailed the card to her and she redeemed it online. Which leads to the 21st century digital gift giving era…online gift certificates. You just cut out that whole messy US Postal Service middleman. Deadline, schmedline, you can get up Christmas morning with mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap, log on to the net and email everyone an electronic gift card redeemable for merchandise available at an online store.

Well, I’m not going there, Donna and I are going down to Hilton Head Island this weekend and my mother, brother, sister and her husband are getting gifts with an HHI theme whether they want or like them.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 376

Empty TV Night

I want my West Wing!

It was a nice enough day that we could ride around with the top down, but the cloudy skies and weather forecast got us to put the top up if we were away from the car for more than 2 minutes.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, down again, up again, down once more, up yet again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 366

Or Bearer

Like frightened ducklings we have taken to shredding all the junk mail we receive so that identity thieves can’t get their greasy lunch hooks on our name and address. The quantity has become large enough that we now need to sort through and only shred the pages that actually has our names on them and just trash the harmless prepaid return envelopes and fake credit card looking bits of plastic for fear of overloading the industrial strength shredder at work.

Today, during a quiet moment, I was sorting through a heap of snail spam, and came upon one of those sneaky checks that they hope you will cash and unknowingly sign up for something. This one was from our friendly credit card issuer and was for the princely sum of $20. By cashing this check you would agree to be enrolled in the Payment Protector Plan at a cost of 89¢ per $100 of the ending monthly balance. I’m not sure what the heck the Payment Protector Plan is because I had already discarded the rest of the mailing, but I’m betting I don’t really need it.

What caught my eye about this particular check were the words printed right above my wife’s name, “Pay to Donna Bogardus or Bearer.” So, if I had thrown this bit in the trash and it found it’s way into the hands of a nefarious individual, he would not only have a name and address to do his worse with, but he would be paid twenty dollars for his troubles. And on top of that, we would be paying an extra couple bucks to our credit card company.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 358

Shades of Milli Vanilli

Due to circumstances beyond my control I attended the Aiken Kidney Benefit production of Oliver tonight. Cockney accent, nearly incomprehensible. Southern accent, sometimes difficult to understand. Residents of Aiken, South Carolina playing Londoners, unintelligible.

I can only hope there was a good reason for it, Fagin was lip-syncing his songs. At intermission I told Donna that I thought he was doing just that, but I wasn’t positive. In the second act Fagin has several solo numbers and it was confirmed in Ashlee Simpson-like fashion when the actor stumbled on a couple of words and the song never skipped a beat…

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 349

Help Desk?

I got a new mouse at work today. Spiffy new wireless jobbie with a tilt wheel (AKA: horizontal scroll) and because I’m a lowly user, I cannot install the drivers and I can’t even plugin a different mouse and have the system recognize it, it takes an administrator. Our local IT guy was off, so I called the Help Desk in Florham Park.

Mike answered the phone. When I explained what I wanted to do he assured me that just unplugging the old mouse and plugging in the new mouse to the same USB port was all I needed to do. He said it works 9 out of 10 times. I said, if I happen to be a number 10 I’d call him back.

Every contact with the help desk generates a ticket number. I got my email telling me that a ticket had been created with the trouble listed as: “client had new mouse he thought he needed someone to install the software. ” Time on the ticket was 3:09:41.

Because I wasn’t sure if the weasel was going to check on my PC status, I went through the motions even though I knew it wouldn’t work. Shutdown PC, unplug old mouse, plug in new mouse, restart PC. Oh, geez, the mouse doesn’t work. Shutdown PC, unplug new mouse, plug in old mouse, restart PC. Look at that, the mouse works.

Once I’ve logged in I notice I have new mail. The trouble ticket has been closed with a solution of: “explained to client that software is not required to operate new mouse.” Time of closure was listed as 3:09:45.

Elapsed time from opening to closing, 4 seconds. Didn’t even give me a chance to see if it was going to work. You don’t think the Help Desk Grunts are graded on average ticket closure time, do you? As I stew whether to call back and open another ticket or not, I get a new piece of email with the subject line of: “Help Desk Customer Satisfaction Survey for Ticket # 26443.”

“The Help Desk is committed to delivering the best service to you our customers. As part of our commitment, we would like to invite you to participate in our online satisfaction survey.” Perfect, I’ll fill out the survey and give them a piece of my mind. There is a clickable link in the email that goes to a server in Florham Park where the survey is hosted. So I click. Nothing happens for a bunch of seconds until the connection times out and I get a “the page is unavailable” error.

Nice service guys. I think I’ll just wait to Monday to let the local guy do it…

Random Event Reinforces Moronic Behavior

Sitting patiently, second in line behind an Acura MDX at a stoplight tonight and after waiting for what seemed a long time, but was perhaps only a couple of minutes, he crept up a foot or so in what I can only assume was a threatening gesture towards the light or perhaps just frustration at having to wait for practically no vehicles, when the cross traffic light goes yellow and ours soon follows by turning green.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 347

Boxes

The Halloween look is gone from the blog. The vampire teeth are off the Miata. Time to return to our normally scheduled lunacy.

Tonight when I got back from Albemarle, NC there were three boxes waiting for me on the dining room table. 1) Plug wires from Rspeed, 2) air and oil filters, plus spark plugs from Trussville and 3) a cell phone from Tracfone. Boxes 1 & 2 are for this weekend’s 30,000 mile service for the Miata in my driveway. Box 3 is nothing but trouble.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 345