Yesterday in a meeting someone told me they thought I had a “techno-granola” look. I had never thought of myself that way, and I don’t think I’m any of either, let alone a mix of both, but I can understand why they said that.

Sure.

We received a call today from a gentleman who needed multiple copies of EZ Maintenance for his truck centers over a tri-state area. Unfortunately, the caller did not leave a call back number.

If you were not the caller, our apologies for sending you this E Mail. If you did call us, we are quite interested in working with you, and if you would be so kind as to call (661) 286-0041 and leave your call back number, we will contact you immediately.

Regards,

Wayne D. McFarland
EZ Maintenance Software

The Tragically Hip played a club show at Lee’s Palace in Toronto last night. One person who got in wrote this interesting summary of their experience:

last night at lee’s palace was THE BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE. Gord was so perfect, as usual and the band rocked! New songs were good, one of them really kicked ass.

Only issue was that my friend passed out (she was convulsing) and NOBODY would help us. we were yelling for someone to help and the asses just ignored. AND these two idiots were pushing us all night.

But whatever- at least I was there

Marsha

This would be funny if it didn’t piss me off so much. I called Wells Fargo and politely asked about that extra charge. They explained that (of course) this was all in the disclosure of terms that I received. Yeah, right. The point is, that you are allowed to go over a certain percentage, the card is set up for “emergency use” - that’s the point. And they charge you for it. I told them that was pretty much the end of me as a customer, that it was ridiculous, and they were unable to remove the charge. In fact, before they would let me hang up, they tried all sorts of verbal pressure tactics to get me to commit to a specific date I would pay the overage so that I didn’t receive another $29 charge. How nice of them.

Have I mentioned that Wells Fargo sucks?

This evening I went to see Monster’s Ball, and as usual, I end up in the part of the theater filled with idiots. We had (only) one cell phone ring, but no one moved to answer it or turn it off. Four rings. Sheesh.

And I had the people behind me. Those ones who always say the most inane and obvious things in a stage whisper. When the doctors pull the sheet over the person’s face after the operation failed, they say “He’s dead.”

When one character is drinking multiple small bottles of whisky, slurring words and being rather gregarious, he tells her “she’s drunk.”

As the camera pans across the backyard, with several gravestones visible he says “they buried them in the backyard…”

When the credits started rolling, their cellphone rings, and he has an unecessarily loud and lengthy conversation, which he then debriefs his wife on (”it was our DAUGHTER! Who else would it be?!”) and then starts complaining about the pointless credits listing crew etc. when what he really was interested in was the cast (ahem, buddy, that’s when you were talking?).

Today I got my credit card bill. This is a new credit card that I got for business. I discovered, on a recent business trip, that it only had a $1000 credit line (my personal credit card is something like $25,000), which made hotels, flights, rental cars, and meals kind of a problem. Eventually I had to switch credit cards when this ran out. Anyway, the bill arrives, and they are charging me $29 for exceeding my credit limit?

Excuse me? Didn’t they authorize the charges beyond the limit? I can’t believe that. I’m going to call and complain, we’ll see what happens. But either way, I think that’s the end of that particular Wells Fargo service. They have this way of making things more trouble (and expense) than they are worth.

Received this week from Steven A. Burd, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Office of Safeway, in response to a faxed copy of a recent issue of FreshMeat.

Dear Mr. Portigal:

Thank you for suggesting that we use some of the new software that translates text into speech, in conjunction with our ongoing customer service initiatives. We appreciate your interest as a good customer whose name has been mispronounced occasionally by our clerks.

It’s an interesting idea, one we have considered before - but using voice recognition technology, the opposite of what you propose. To be honest, we haven’t pursued this since our initial research, because the applications available at the time were expensive, slow and ineffectual. Whjile we have similar concers about the technology you mentioned, our industrial engineers may wish to visit the two web sites cited in your newsletter.

Meanwhile, we’ll review our stores in your area to be sure any employees who are having difficulty thanking customers by name receive redmedial training. If our clerks are unsure of how a name is pronounced, they are to ask the customers. Admittedly, this is a low-tech solution, but it seems to work well.

Thanks again, Mr. Portigal. We value your constructive criticism, and the friendly spirit in which it is offered.

From: “Hotel Asena Beach”
To: steve
Subject: sales dep.
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 02:33:16 +0200

Dear Sir/Madam,
We are hotelier in Turkey / Fethiye
our hotel is by the Oludeniz which is the best beach choise in Turkey.
We woul like to work with your company for summer 2002.
For more information please contact us.Here are our room rates for your company

PER�YOD DBL.PP.HB SING.SUPP. EXTRA BED CHD 7-12
APRIL 10 EURO FREE %50 FREE
MAY 18 EURO %50 %50 %50
JUNE 25 EURO %50 %50 %50
JULY 37 EURO %50 %50 %50
AUGUST 37 EURO %50 %50 %50
SEPTEM 27 EURO %50 %50 %50
OCTOBER 18 EURO %50 %50 %50

PS:PLEASE REPLY TO FAX:+90 252 617 0487

With Sincere Best Wishes
Suleyman BUYRUK
Reservation Supervisor

HOTEL ASENA BEACH
Belcekiz mevkii
Oludeniz/Fethiye
48340 Mugla/Turkiye

TEL :+90 252 617 0154
FAX :+90 252 617 0487
GSM :+90 533 650 0239
http://www.asenabeach.com
e-mail :info@asenabeach.com

Yesterday I got a call from a market research firm who wanted to ask about my TV habits. It was the end of the day and I was just waiting it out til dinner time, so I figured what the hell. I’m always curious to hear about what other people are doing, research-wise, if only to give me the chance to feel smugly superior. It was a survey about watching local news. Now, I don’t know which channels are showing news at which times, nor do I watch anything with much regularity. Like many folks, I won’t change the channel after a show, and then the news comes on while I clean up and go to bed, or something. Anyway, detailed questions ensued
How many days a week do you watch any part of a local TV news show between 4 and 7?
How many times a week do you watch any part of a local TV news show betwen 4 and 4:30? 4:30 and 5:00? 5:00 and 5:30? 5:30 and 6:00? 6:00 and 6:30? 6:30 and 7:00?
On nights when you have the TV on between 4:00 and 4:30, which of the following shows would you be watching (detailed list of show, and channel, or “other”)
For each of the following news anchors, please rate them between 1 and 10, where 1 is the worst and 10 is the best (long list of local anchors)?
Since Pete Wilson has moved to the ABC news at 6:30, do you feel the program has improved, stayed the same, or become worse?

On and on, for 17 minutes. Which channel is the best for investigative news reports? Yeesh. But what the hell, right? The only open-ended question was one about what they could do to improve the quality of local TV news. I suggested “less fearmongering and sensationalism.” So he typed it in…”less….sensa—tional—ism…” and then asked me “and you would replace that with what, then?” I paused, “umm…straight-ahead news???” and he typed “more….straight….for….ward….news”

As the time passed, we obviously were wrapping up, and we came to the demographic questions. Age. Highest level of education. Employment status - which offered no category that I felt was appropriate for me. So I said “decline to answer.” He stopped short and said “Can I ask why? I mean, I have other people decline questions, but usually not that one.” I was kinda stuck - I mean, if you aren’t going to answer, why should you have to say WHY you aren’t going to answer. I didn’t say anything, and I got this pretty intense routine about how important this data was, etc. in order for them to better target their information. I repeated that I wouldn’t answer it, and he get pretty flustered and said “look, are you employed or NOT?” which I don’t believe is actually on their interview guide…

It got worse…the next question was about income, and I interrupted him and said “I’m not going to answer that one either” and he kinda flipped - he got incredibly loud and agressive, telling me that it’s all collapsed into a big pile of data, blah blah blah, and I was amazed. I understand he probably gets paid per complete, but they’ve got to have something in place where you can just skip a question. I certainly didn’t need the abuse, it was amusing at first, but not a good use of time at this point. I interrupted his tirade and told him to take me off their list, “too bad for you buddy” I muttered, and I just put the phone down.

Crazy!