some of this. some of that. and there. you. are.

I’ve started to write letters of complaint to companies that do things to annoy me. I wrote to BBC America to protest the huge banner that blocks the bottom of the screen during the entire broadcast of my favorite show.
The general manager at dealership where I took my car for repair last week got a stern letter from me about the bad service I received from their cashier.
And everyone remembers my famous letter to the Heinz ketchup folks last year.
I know this campaign of mine may not always produce results but it makes me feel better. If you want to start kvetching, there are several web sites that give advice about how to write an effective complaint letter.

Mark has some clever ways to deal with telemarketers. He comes up with funny lines to have fun when they call trying to sell things to him.
One bit involves the telemarketer calling and asking for his wife. Mark responds by asking “Are you the son of a bitch who is sleeping with my wife? Don’t ever call here again!” Click.
Another favorite is when they again ask to speak to his wife, he replies in a depressed tone “She’s not here right now and I don’t think she’s ever coming back.” Speechless, the telemarketer hangs up and never calls again.

Even at work I often hear him talking loudly into the phone acting like there’s a problem with the connection. “Hello? I can’t hear you. Hello?” Then he hangs up. Then we know its another call from a salesperson he’s trying to avoid. It’s very funny.

His tactics work well and the people rarely call back to annoy him.

It’s weird but for a short time now I’ve been noticing two phrases being used over and over.  “To your point” and “that being said” are being used in conversations all the time.  I don’t recall ever hearing them prior to about a year ago.  Just an observation.

New feature for the site: click on the links below each entry to add the article to your favorite social networking sites like Digg, Del.i.cious and StumbleUpon.  You’ll find the icons by clicking on the title of the entry.

So I attended a meeting this morning. It’s a rare occasion for me to accept a meeting invite since I think they’re all a huge waste of time. But a friend was presenting and I promised I would go to support her.

Yesterday the attendees received an agenda and presentation materials to review before the actual meeting. I read with interest all the new things coming up within the IT department. We’re getting an updated version of MS Office, there is a new trick to fixing a problem I’ve been having with laptops and our migration away from the previous owners network domain will soon be complete.

Then at the actual meeting, I listened with little interest the exact same things, word for word I just read in the presentation materials the day before. One by one these boring people (sorry friend), came up and read verbatim right from the slide. I just don’t see the point of these snoozefests. I read everything I needed before the actual meeting in a fraction of the time.

Then there are the  morons who ask questions by just restating something that was just said a moment ago. Speaker: “We’ll be migrating the domain over by the end of March.” Attendee: “Question. So when will you be migrating the domain over?” I wanted to slap him.

All these presenters should take a lesson from Steve Jobs. I like his style of presenting, he’s energetic and gets the audience involved. The visuals are creative and you never see him drone on by just reading what’s on the slide.

With my Tivo, I’ve always been able to stream music and photos from my computer to the TV. Now with the help of a Macintosh program called VisualHub, I can stream movies and video from my Mac to our Tivo-connected televisions. VisualHub unlocks a hidden feature of Tivo’s desktop manager which adds an additional tab to include not only music and photos but video also.

With my wireless-N configuration, I can start watching the video immediately after selecting it and the quality is pretty good. So now I don’t have to buy an Apple TV or Slingbox and can save the money for some other gadget that comes along.

It won’t be very long when we’ll be able to dump Comcast and rely totally on the Internet to provide our entertainment. The huge amount of money we spend each month for their service is outrageous. They do offer some good programming options but costs are not worth the hefty monthly price tag.

Here are some alternatives I’ve been using:

• Joost - from the makers of Skype, it has 400+ channels of music, TV and movies. I’ve been using it for about a year now and the programming choices get better each week. The best part is its all free.
• Hulu - now in beta, this is a very cool site that also has tons of programming with HD options coming soon. The streaming content comes up quickly and the picture quality is excellent. Since it’s ad-based the site is free.
• Tivo’s Unbox - you can download and watch movies right through your Tivo box. It’s a service from Amazon. I haven’t tried this one in a while but its like Comcast’s onDemand option.
• Torrent sites - no the legal ones. They are everywhere and give you free options to download media to your computer.
• Netflix - a per month subscription allows you to sign-out multiple movies at a time via the mail. I stopped using this a while back but if I ever ditch Comcast, this will be a good way to keep up with movies out on DVD.

Now I just need to find a better, and cheaper alternative to Comcast’s high-speed internet. AT&T’s U-verse DSL may be a good option.

Excalibur

Originally uploaded by frontsideback

My photo of a nightclub in Chicago is being considered for inclusion in an online tourist site called Schmap. I’m flattered.

from 2002…

So on Saturday afternoon we go to see David Copperfield at the Fox theater. We bought our tickets the night before on Ticketmaster.com and by luck got second row seats.

While we were waiting for the show to begin, a stagehand approached and asked if Pam and I were married. He said that David uses a married couple in his act and wanted to have us join him on stage. Yee ha!

The show began and we were called up for the first illusion. It involved a large steel plate and we were there to test its authenticity. David had us both knock, tap and even kick the plate to make sure it was real. He made a couple of married couple jokes and had us stand on each side of a large metal box.

He laid down in the box and our steel plate was placed on top of it. Next a large sheet was placed over the entire box.

Before too long, we saw the sheet rising up in the air! He was passing his hands and feet through the steel plate and making sheet rise up. Amazing.

We were standing right next to this box the entire time and still couldn’t figure out how he did it. Of course we were pretty nervous being in front of such a large crowd but the illusion looked very real to both of us. He finished the act to the sound of a roaring crowd.

“Everyone give them a big hand” said David and we were shuffled off the stage and back to our seats. During the rest of the show he glanced at us a couple of times. We were his new helpers, we thought.

After the show, we hopped over to the MGM Grand casino to check it out. We’ve never been to the one downtown. We had a decent meal at the buffet and quickly gambled away the $10 in quarters we got while playing the slots.

It was a fun night and one we will remember for a long time.

While I’m fiddling with the design of the site, here’s an entry from the archives:

So I take Pam’s PT Crusier in on Wednesday for an oil change and to have them check the brakes, they’re squeaking. I arrive right on time, check the car in and wait for the shuttle to work. 45 minutes later, I’m on my way.

Later, I get a call just before its time to catch the return shuttle “Mr. Feeeldstin, you car isn’t quite ready, we didn’t have a part, but it’s on the way.” I get on the 4 o’clock shuttle (it arrives 30 mins late), and go to the dealership and wait, and wait. Finally the tech tells me the part came but its the wrong one. “We’ll get a car for you, the rental car place will send one over momentarily.” I wait again. 30 minutes later they decide to take me to the car rental office. Once there I check in at the desk and then I…wait. Sheeeit! 40 minutes later I’m finally on the road with a smelly, dirty piece of crap car. But I didn’t care, I wanted to get home.

Today I call the dealer asking about my car and I’m told its still not ready. The correct part didn’t arrive but the truck is coming and it should be there. So I’m stuck driving the crapmobile home again. On the way, in a huge traffic jam, the car starts making this extremely loud screeching noise. It was loud enough to have everyone around me look over to see what the hell what happening. It did it again and again all the way home. I don’t know what the sound was, I don’t really care. I’ll leave the cursed car on the side of the road if it breaks down and have Pam come get me.

I’m a mess. First thing tomorrow, I’m calling my therapist to see if they can squeeze me in for an additional session this week.