JonahWeiland.com

Does This Happen To You? Generally when I talk with a customer service rep, whether it be in person or on the phone, I get all, well, clenched. I get agro. Murderous thoughts spring to my mind. It’s worse in person. When you’re on the phone with a “customer service representative” and you hear those dispassionate, insincere words, “We’re so sorry you’re having these difficulties with your service, sir,” it’s annoying, but you can let it slide. But in person … in person … it’s just not so easy to ignore. The disingenuousness of their statement screams from their face and my first thought is to usually take them by collar, pull them in close and, with as much flying spit as I can possibly muster, say, “Look you unbelievable shit bag, I know you’re just spouting things you were taught at a training seminar and don’t mean a word of what you say. So, why don’t you just take your bullshit empathy and shove it back in the manure pile that is your fucking head.” Then there’s usually something with a pipe and blunt head trauama and what not. Of course, in reality I just nod along nicely and say, “Ahh, thank you. You’re so sweet. Can I father your children?”

I hate customer service people. If you’re one, you have my sympathies and better pray you don’t have to deal with me. Or else I might have to father your children.

I’m not much one for discussing dreams. I mean the kind you have when you’re asleep. I rarely remember my dreams and I generally just don’t find them that interesting. Except last night I had one of the weirdest dreams I’ve ever had. First, it was a nightmare, which I very rarely have. Second, it was a science fiction dream, something I’ve never had before, which made it all that much more strange.

Of that which I can remember, basically human beings had become something of an endangered species here on Earth. I was part of a group of people, constantly on the move trying to avoid our alien invaders or some sort of “Terminator” style robots that had been wiping out the inhabitants of this planet. I’m not sure who the attackers were, but I do know they weren’t human. For the purpose of simplicity let’s just call them aliens. The aliens themselves never actually showed up in my dream, but I was witness to the destruction they lay and felt the need to keep constantly on the move, one step ahead of them, so that I wouldn’t end up dead myself.

I remember one portion where we were walking through a part of Downtown Los Angeles and were surround on three sides by large, heavily damaged buildings, with an open area behind us. We all carried rifles. Suddenly we were ambushed from behind, lots of firepower coming at us. My group and I, scared to death, ran in to one of the burned out buildings. A number of my group were killed as we ran. Once inside we found a large group of people camped out in there, fighting for their lives. People sat in windows with guns of all sorts, fighting our attackers. Their “leader” explained this was a very bad area to be in, swarming with our attackers, but that we should continue traveling in the direction we had been as the “alien invaders,” or whatever they were, hadn’t made it that far. This was a front for the human fighters, if you will, and they’d been holding them off for many months.

We did move on, hitching a ride in the back of a heavy-duty truck. There was probably 20 or 30 of us in this truck, and we ended up in a hilly, run down community overlooking Los Angeles. I remember it being a quiet place, a sanctuary from the constant barrage of attacks that I’d become used to. I was put up in some house with a large, panoramic window that looked down on to the houses below. There was a view of Downtown LA, maybe we were in the Hollywood Hills, but the view showed us a number of half broken buildings.

In our neighborhood there was a good amount of street traffic and people walking around. I remember looking out at one point with a friend and witnessed a man come out of his house and just start blowing people away. As cars passed by he’d shoot in to them, shooting people on the streets, anyone who came near. My friend and I got down, out of view of the gunman. Over the gunshots, my friend explained that this man lost his wife and three children the previous week, the aliens having captured and killed them at some point. The gunman was yelling something about how if we were all going to die anyway, why not now instead of later. Why not let him be the one who brings about the end instead of our alien invaders? He’d gone completely crazy. Suddenly, the shooting ended. We looked up to see that someone had shot the gunmen. He lay dead in front of his home. The chaos had ended, but the aftermath included crashed cars and dead and wounded bodies laying everywhere. My friend and I ran out to assist the wounded, at which point I woke up.

I don’t know if I’m effectively conveying the horror of the story, but I woke up in a deep sweat and oddly freaked. Like I said earlier, I rarely experience nightmares and even when I do, I generally forget them quickly and they don’t affect me that greatly. This one was bizarrely different.

A couple of posts back I bitched and moaned and basically complained about Verizon cellular service in my area. Measured against the challenges of life, it’s a mostly inconsequential complaint, but it does add a level of frustration that should be avoidable. Well, it continues. Lots of missed calls, sometimes a fifteen minutes goes by without the ability to make an outgoing call.

Here’s what I would like — I want Verizon to install a cell site on the roof of my apartment building. It’s four stories tall and would likely add good coverage. I don’t care if the radiation in eminates would turn my sack into two dried up prunes. It’s a trade off I’m willing to make.

I’m going to have my sister come over with her Sprint PCS phone and measure what kind of signal we get in different areas of my house. If it works, I’ll be saying goodbye to that “Can you hear me now” prick. How about, can you hear this? Up yours! I know I’m not alone when I say I hold a great deal of hostility toward that twit.

Verizon says they never stop working for you. The problem is it really helps if they work in the first place.

I sat down tonight to write something. Nothing in particular, just something. But nothing came to me. I thought about writing an ode to this season of “The West Wing,” but I reconsidered. Not because I haven’t been happy with the show, no. On the contrary it’s been really quite phenomenal this season and Jimmy Smits is kicking some serious ass in his role as Congressman Matt Santos. But I’ve already ranted about “The West Wing” recently and felt it redundant.

Someone I’ve known for a long time who only recently found this here blog asked me why I don’t talk about my personal life more. Why I don’t talk about what I’m doing or what I want to do or blah blah yada blah blah. While I love reading about what other people do on their blogs, I rather eat it up in fact, I’ve always felt that if you want to know more about me you need to ask or be with me. It’s cheating for you to just read my blog to get updates on my life. Now, of course saying that I’m hoping those people whose “meme” blogs I read don’t read the above and decide, “Fuck you fuckers, I’m not revealing crap anymore.” At any rate, instead I’ve decided that this here blog, for what it’s worth, will be mostly crazy stories and weird ideas and dumb shit that shifts around inside my head. A creative outlet, sort of, with a bit of self-indulgence thrown in. That’s not to say it’ll never contain personal thoughts, but the focus won’t be on me.

Of course this post is among the more dull things I’ve posted here and there’s nothing worse in life than being dull. Sure, cancer sucks as do a number of other ailments and personality flaws, but dullness is death.

One thing I realized recently was that 2004 was a serious wash for me. Nothing really happened. I didn’t learn anything new. I had a number of personal challenges that took the wind out of my sails and I let them overwhelm me. Some were understandable, such as the decline of my father’s health, but others weren’t so. 2005 has to be different and I’ve already made moves in that direction. It may take a while to pay off, but restarting a once dead engine sometimes takes a few times before it turns over.

To use a boxing metaphor in this time of “Million Dollar Baby” celebration, it’s not how often you fall that counts, but how often you get up back up off the mat. I’m up off the mat and ready to box. Or something akin to that.

Ok, I’ve had it, will somebody please explain to me the logic behind the layout of Rite-Aid drug stores? I’m talking the relatively new ones, those stand alone buildings, with the bizarre layout?

Me, I try to avoid the pharmacies like Rite-Aid or Sav-On or CVS because generally I’ve found them to be staffed by complete morons (my friend Augie being the notable exception, although that was 10 years ago). It’s really quite astonishing how disconnected the people who work at these stores tend to be. Well, except for the phramcists and their assistants. I’m really talking about the staffers who take your money on the way out. They all get recruited from the idiot farm, I’m certain.

Back to my original point, the layout of these stores is completely insane. They work on a grid system, then turn most of it 45 degrees or something, forcing you to walk inside a very strange, maze like pattern. I can never find anything. I tend to only stop by Rite-Aid about once every six months, which seems to coincide with their store reorganization. “Where are the God damned cotton swabs,” I screamed from inside the store Sunday afternoon. I pointed, “They were right here six months ago! Where the fuck have you gone with them? Show me the mother fucking cotton swabs right now, or the crack-selling Girl Scout outside gets it!”

No, the Girl Scout isn’t selling actual crack, but crack designed to look like cookies. Don’t go to Rite-Aid looking for the rock, yah fucking crackheads.

Dear TiVo People,

I am a proud and happy owner of one of those TiVo boxes you guys invented. Oddly fantastic machine that TiVo is, it really has become the most important appliance in my life. Well, except for the fridge since I really can’t go without refrigeration. But, that being said, it’s still an amazing and integral part of my daily life and I know full well how pathetic that sounds. I love television and the TiVo gives me back a good four or five hours of my time if I had been watching these things live. And that, to me, is valuable.

One of the featrues of your neat little box of magic is the ability to record programs the machine thinks will interest its owner based on his thumbs up and thumbs down ratings for teleivision programs. For instance, I have a thumbs down for the Jay Leno Tonight Show because I find it wholly unfunny and don’t much like the show. I have thumbs up for shows like “The West Wing” and “NYPD Blue,” wonderfully well made programming. So, it was with that in mind that I was shocked and apalled to discover recently that my TiVo had recorded the film “Look Who’s Talking Now” starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley and a bunch of mother fucking talking babies.

I’ve dealt with my fair share of indignities in life, but this has got to be the lowest. I have never before been quite so insulted or publicly humiliated. A friend was over when I turned on my TiVo and she saw the indignity on the screen. She laughed and pointed and shreaked with laughter. It was as though I had been pantsed and my penis was the size of a short snack carrot found at many of your cocktail parties. This has sent me in to a deep depression since it first ocurred some eight hours ago. I feel as if I am spiraling out of control.

It is with this knowledge that I must demand an apology be issued by the CEO of TiVO Inc. to be dispatched to my office post haste. A letter couriered to the above address or sent to my electronic mail address below would go a long way to alleviating my heightened displeasure with your company as well as my own current state of emotional instability.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Jonah Weiland
Concerned And Annoyed And Kind Of Upset TiVo Owner
me * @ * jonahweiland.com

In this technology driven world there’s one item 9 out of 10 people probably have – a cellular phone (mobile if your English, git). They help us out when our car’s broken down and we need to call for a tow truck. SMS messaging is proving to be more and more useful. Camera phones even come in handy at times. But there’s one thing we all have in common when it comes to this little bit of pocket technology – cellular phone frustration.

A while back I spoke about my excitement in switching from what was then AT&T Wireless (now Cingular, whatever the fuck that means) to Verizon Wireless. I had decided I wanted to drop AT&T Wireless because of truly abysmal customer service as well as impossible cellular coverage in my own home (practically none). Verizon had a far better service and customer satisfaction record, so I figured if I’m going cellular only, it’s time to make the switch.

So I did and about two weeks after I switched providers I turned off my home number for good. I was happy to have one less payment to those bastards at SBC (interesting how the bastards at SBC, the parent company of Cingular, ended up purchasing that other bastard company, AT&T Wireless. Interesting.). And at first I was mostly happy with the service they provided me, although over the past three or four months it’s gotten increasingly worse. The number of completely missed calls while I was in my home increased. Suddenly, two hours after a message was left I’d get a notification. That’s annoying. And the number of dropped calls, happening while I sat in a stationary position, also continued. This past weekend was the most ridiculous as I missed at least five calls on Saturday (I left my home at one point to discover five voice mails, while the phone never rang once). Sunday was about the same and both days I dropped calls three or four times. Seriously high shit levels of service.

I bitched and complained to Verizon on Monday, following the lead of my friend Charles who filed his complaint on Sunday (Charles lives three short blocks from my location). In fact, I called Verizon three times from my cellular phone and lost the call, so ultimately had to call back on my business line. That’s how bad it was. I bitched, I complained, I said if this pile of manure doesn’t get cleaned up shortly I want out of my contract and I’m moving over to Sprint PCS, which I know works well in my ‘hood. They asked lots of questions, many I deemed pointless, switched me to a “level 2″ representative (level this) and asked me many more questions, still many of which seemed totally pointless. They told me within 24 hours I’d hear from a technician.

Well, technician called me today and said they’ve been looking in to things. Apparently the cell site nearest me was not operating at full capacity and was having “low frequency” issues. They power cycled or rebooted or took a piss on the cell site and the tech said things should be working much better now. So far, he’s right, but really time will tell. It’s been rather quiet tonight, but I have had some calls come through without incident, haven’t dropped one yet and seeing as how I don’t have any voice mails without calls attached, I’m guessing all the calls are making it through.

I was impressed, though, as I have been in the past, with Verizon’s customer service. They do seem to be responsive and generally happy to take complaints with ease. Cellular phones are possibly today’s most frustrating appliance (they really are more an appliance versus an accessory), so I imagine Verizon’s customer support people hear it constantly: “This fucking service is bull shit. Fix it so I can bitch to my girlfriend about how bad your service is” or “My wife’s having triplets and I’m on call 25 hours a day and if you guys don’t fix this I may miss the birth of my own children” or “So, what are you wearing?” For putting up with incensed telephone users, the VZ CS folk deserve some kudos, or at least a package of M&Ms.