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Archives for Daily Life
The In-Store Activation Blues
The in-store activation for my wife’s iPhone took over two hours this morning, despite the fact that we were both completely “iReady” for the ordeal.
The phone migration process was complicated by a computer error at the point-of-sale, which landed us in a bizarre and somewhat Kafkaesque Catch-22. Because of a hiccup during credit card processing, AT&T had already associated the new iPhone with our service plan before they were able to charge us for it. Unfortunately, they were then unable to charge us for it because their system indicated the phone was already associated with our service plan.
In a rational world, a sales rep would just ring up a $299 charge on a register and straighten out the resulting inventory issue without keeping the customer waiting. Unfortunately, the iPhone 3G roll-out was engineered to remove the element of personal discretion from all AT&T store employees. There was an air of fear in the store, as the employees seemed to believe that any deviation from a strict set of procedures would result in immediate and merciless termination. Even the store manager was afraid to do anything to resolve the situation expediently.
Instead, he had to place a call to a conference-line they referred to as the “war room” to await instructions. When they told me about this “war room” I immediately conjured a mental image of a group of mid-level AT&T executives sitting around a large table in a dark room smoking cigars and wearing fake military uniforms (much like the type worn by high-level “officers” in the Church of Scientology).
Eventually, the manager was able to thoroughly cover his own ass, which allowed us to leave the store with our shiny electronic bounty in tow.
The lesson from all this is that rigid procedures only make difficult operations more difficult. Things will go wrong with any sufficiently large operation. You can either (1) anticipate every possible problem and have adequate provisions for “error-handling” well in advance, or (2) you can give actual people the authority to use discretion to make intelligent decisions on the ground.
Today, AT&T seems to have done neither.
Night Terrors
Wife: I had this horrible dream last night. Nicholas Cage was chasing me. He was so scary.
Me: What was he going to do if he caught you? Make you watch Ghost Rider?
The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease (if It Doesn’t Get Replaced)
I called Comcast yesterday to cancel HBO and Showtime.
The original programming offered by these two channels is great–some of the best shows currently on television. I loved watching this past season of Weeds, Dexter, Huff, and Big Love. I’m also eagerly anticipating the return of The Sopranos. It’s just that the movie selection has been sub-par as of late.
Combined, these two channels cost me $30.90 per month. I already have a Netflix subscription, so I figured I would just wait until my favorite shows come out on DVD to watch them and save the $370.80 per year.
So after I explained all this to the Comcast customer service representative, she offered me free HBO and Starz for the next 12 months with no further obligation. She couldn’t do anything about Showtime, but hey, I got free HBO.
I’m sure they figure I’ll forget to cancel it at the end of the promotional period and they’ll have me back on board. They’re wrong.
In any case, feel free to try this at your own risk.
The Quick Brown Fkdlsfjadskasjfskljsdkl
When I was in the third-grade, twice a week the whole class lined up single file and quietly walked down a long hallway on our way to the computer lab. It was there that a gray-haired lady with a cat applique sweater taught us “keyboarding.”
The typing program that we used on the Apple IIe computers had an overly-simplistic method of calculating the number of words per minute each student was capable of typing. It was simply the typing rate, minus the number of errors.
Within 15 minutes of the beginning of our first lesson, I learned that I could game the system simply by flailing my hands wildly against the keys. The error count was high, but it was nothing compared to the astronomical rates generated by my randomly thrashing sausage-digits.
I could (incorrectly) copy a whole line of 40 words in six seconds flat. Here’s how the math worked out:
400 WPM - 40 incorrect words = 360 WPM
Occasionally we had to turn in paper printouts of the computer screens showing our WPM ratings. The real trick turned out to be concealing my well-developing typing “technique” whenever this happened. I wanted to do well, but I didn’t want to stand out and attract attention. I figured 60 WPM wouldn’t raise any eyebrows, so I adjusted my keyboard-thrashing to hit that target.
Somehow I misjudged the rates of my fellow students. On the last day of class I was given a typing award.
I still feel guilty.
Sweet Home Chicago
So I flew everyone into Chicago for company meetings last weekend. While everyone was in one city, I figured it would be nice to have a group portrait done for marketing materials. I called on Neil Burger of Stronghold Photography for the job, and I’m very pleased with the results.
From left to right you will see Gary DuVall, Matt Niemi, Chris Cote, Jack Shedd, me, Matt Fetissoff, Brian Kieffer, and Michael Tseng.
And yes, I am wearing a seersucker jacket.
After the photo shoot, I took the team to play Whirlyball on West Fullerton. What? You’ve never heard of Whirlyball?
If you have ever read Brave New World, you might remember Aldous Huxley’s vision of a future in which all newly devised sports would require more elaborate mechanical and electronic equipment than previous existing recreational activities. This was a matter of public policy aimed at promoting consumption and driving economic growth.
That said, even Huxley couldn’t have possibly conceived of Whirlyball. It’s a bizarre and violent hybrid of lacrosse and basketball played on bumper cars. It seems to me the most quintessentially American sport ever devised, as it requires roughly $100,000 worth of equipment and 11 kilowatt-hours of electricity per game.
And you know what? I don’t want America to ever be energy-independent if it means we can’t have wonderful things like Whirlyball.
Hog Wild
On Saturday mornings during the summer I usually walk down to the farmers’ market by Lake Anne to buy bread, milk, and fresh produce. Occasionally I buy country-cured bacon sold beneath a tent with a sign that reads, “Fertile Plains Custom Pork.”
This always leaves me wondering what, exactly, “custom pork” is?
Hopefully I’ll find out next week when I attempt to procure a sow with tricked-out rims and a racing stripe down the side.
Cannes-Do Attitude
I’m a little bit jealous this week. Both of my two sisters are at the Cannes Film Festival–and I am not.
My younger sister, Katie, is working at the festival as part of the Kodak Student Filmmaker Program. My older sister, Angela, is once again covering the festivities for the Associated Press. This year, the AP seems to be doing some kind of informal pseudo-blog thing. If you’re interested, you can read some of Angela’s posts here.
Icing on the Cake
I sent a new client an email, inquiring about the sales of her new apparel line at an outdoor festival. Here’s the first paragraph of her reply:
The weekend was a decent test run for San Francisco. Seems as though my demographic is drag queens, hookers, new lesbians, cross dressers and boy toys. The cream of the crop always has the extra cash flow, somehow. About 2% of the people who saw it were actually offended–icing on the cake. Thanks for asking.
It’s Really a Cool Zone
What does Sperling’s Best Places to Live have to say about my city?
Reston is an unincorporated planned community and census-designated place located in western Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. As of the 2000 census, the community had a total population of 56,407.
A strain of Ebola called Ebola Reston was named after the community, after monkeys imported from the Philippines that were in the community were found to have the virus.
In case you’re not familiar with Reston, I would have you know that we do not, in fact, have free-roaming monkeys swinging from the trees in our backyards.
They were lab animals.
Sheesh. One lousy Ebola outbreak and your city will never live it down.
Silent Auction for Room Allocation
A friend of mine just rented a new apartment in Chinatown. It’s a two-bedroom unit and she has a roommate. For a number of reasons, both of them perceive one of the two bedrooms to be more desirable. As one might expect, they’re having a little difficulty deciding how to allocate the better room between them.
My suggestion is that they both write down the amount of extra rent they’re willing to pay for the larger room. The roommate with the higher bid gets the room and pays the specified premium on top of an equal share of the rent. Then the difference in total rent for the apartment would be paid by the roommate with the lower bid.
Can anyone think of a better way?
Sk8ter Boi
Another birthday is bearing down on me.
I decided several months ago that this would be the year in which I take up arms against my impending adulthood. This year I would fight back. This year I would stave off the demon.
But what would be my weapon in this battle? The question weighed heavily on me, not unlike the extra fifteen pounds I’ve gained since my last birthday.
Tonight Erin, Phil, and I were walking past a skate shop in Fairfax and the answer hit me like a thunderbolt. I would wage my war on maturity with a skateboard.
The store clerk at Asylum Skate Shop was very helpful. I would give him a public endorsement by name, but I don’t want to undermine the slacker image he seems to have put so much (inherently ironic) effort into cultivating.
The guy was even a sport about answering a barrage of my questions while he assembled my board:
- Which end is the front?
- Where’s the big plastic brake thing in the back? I seem to remember they had those fifteen years ago or so.
- Why do all these skateboards have people’s names on them? If I order one, will it have my name on it?
- Will I need to grow floppy hair? Is it protective? No? Then why do all your customers have floppy hair?
Two minutes after purchasing the skateboard and taking it for a spin on the sidewalk outside I was struck with a new set of questions for the clerk, so I returned to the store:
- Do you have any Band-Aids? Would you mind if I used your sink to wash my gaping hand-wound?
Return ‘Rewards’
Last week, the Chicago CBS affiliate’s news division interviewed my dad, who is a personal financial planner, for a story on responsible ways to spend your tax refund.
Here’s the streaming video in several formats for your viewing pleasure:
Courtesy of the K-Dawg
My little sister Katie has been doing camera work at the GWU basketball games this season. Some of her footage recently got picked up by the local NBC affiliate. For your viewing pleasure:
- Segment Teaser (QuickTime)
- Dunk (QuickTime)
What Does the Fictitious Man on the Street Think?
My friend Mike Kahn was quoted in an article on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Paul Kane, 28, a songwriter and unemployed paralegal who also was having lunch at the Grove, said he would opt for a private account because he doesn’t trust the government with his money.
Even though Bush would have the government select the investment choices for private accounts, Kane thinks that’s better than nothing.
“I’d rather have some options as opposed to it just sitting in a so- called lockbox,” he said.
Lately he’s taken to using an assumed identity. But if you look, you’ll see the photos him. The anti-government paranoia also confirms it.
The Bionic Cat
Basie has a chip on his shoulder.
Actually, it’s in his shoulder.
I had to take him to the vet yesterday because the pad on his paw was swollen and bleeding. It seems he has a slight case of plasma cell pododermatitis, for which he was given a prescription for Prednisone and some antibiotics.
Since he was already at the vet’s office, I figured it was a good opportunity to take care of something that I had been meaning to do for a long time.
I’m firmly convinced that one day Basie will pull an Andy Dufresne and successfully mount the escape he’s been plotting for the last few years. I already bought him a collar with an identification tag, but I’m afraid it could break off easily. That’s why I decided to have the vet inject one of those newfangled RFID chips into his back.
After you get the chip injected into your pet, you have to mail a form to the company that makes them and register the number encoded on the chip with your pet’s information. I think it would be cool to get one injected in my back and then register myself as a Pekingese.
Just Big Enough
A one-pound bag of baby carrots is not entirely unlike a full-size Pringles can.
It is just large enough that you can finish it in one sitting and give yourself a horrible stomach ache.
With Two Cats in the Yard…
On Wednesday Erin and I closed on a new townhouse in Reston, VA. Actually, it’s not new. It’s almost forty years old.
It was designed by Charles Goodman, a modernist architect whom The City Paper profiled last year.
It has windows spanning the entire front and back of the house on the second floor, so I guess I’ll have to stop throwing stones.
Dead Men Write No Letters
You may remember that two years ago I took a tour of the “Founding Church of Scientology.” I’m happy to report that I still receive hand-addressed letters in the mail, inviting me to “overcome the blocks to using [my] mind’s full potential.”
The letter I received today bore the xerographically-reproduced signature of L. Ron Hubbard.
The man has been dead for over eighteen years. He must have been cursed to an eternity in the direct marketing level of hell.
Why the Ewoks Spoke Tibetan?
So there are all these Metro bus posters around town for the new “Return of the Buddha” exhibit at the Sackler Gallery.
One of my friends saw the original design, back when the exhibit was called “Revenge of the Buddha.” That was, of course, before George Lucas decided that the Buddha is not vengeful.
These Folk-Music Consumers, Birkenstock-ed Baby-Boomers…
Tonight I went to see Susan Werner perform at the Wolf Trap Barns with my wife and my friend Steve. Susan Werner is a tremendously talented singer/songwriter and her shows tend to attract the typical folk-concert crowd.
Before the show started, I turned to Steve and poked fun at my fellow concert-goers: “It looks like everybody here in the audience probably has an opinion regarding NPR’s decision to replace Bob Edwards on Morning Edition.”
The woman sitting next to him, who probably only heard the end of my remark, immediately felt a need to chime-in:
“I can’t believe they got rid of him! Have you seen SaveBobEdwards.com?”
And I thought it was a joke…
