Earthlink sucks.

I sent this to, I kid you not, markcanhelp@earthlink.net. It would be funny if it wasn't so stupid. I CC'ed the Attorney General of Washington State, who took an interest.

Dear Sir,

I hold in my hand, delivered yesterday, yet ANOTHER bill for account 1234567. This account was set up in error by Earthlink. I reiterate that I have never ordered, authorized or failed to opt-out of any business relationship with Earthlink. I have repeatedly, monthly in fact, requested that my name be removed from your records.

In my other hand I hold your letter dated May 23, 2002, assuring the office of the Attorney General of Washington and me that this issue would be resolved "easily." I am still waiting for that resolution. The effect of Earthlink's failure to correct this situation becomes onerous.

Earthlink also sent a bill last month but I ignored it as you requested that I allow two weeks for your accounting department to adjust the balance. This I did, hoping that some change had actually taken place. Clearly this is not so. It might have behooved you and your accounting department to adjust the balance in a more timely and permanent way to a more appropriate figure such as ZERO.

Please take whatever technical, administrative or legal steps needed to remove me from your records. The more complete this removal, the happier I will be with the situation. I suggest that you do not depend on whatever system has been deployed so far to so little effect, and instead just FIX THE PROBLEM. For me to receive another bill is not acceptable, as I am sure you must agree.

I would give my assistance if there was anything else I could do, but the situation was generated entirely within your system with no input whatsoever from me. I have nothing to offer except repeated complaints at receiving a bill.

My best but frustrated regards,

Kyle Beatty

I probably need therapy

Kyle says operator error wasn't the cause of my previously failed blog. This makes me feel much better. Better than knowing that my new passion for Qbert (for the PC, $5 at Half Price Books) may eventually lead me to throw up a web page like this.
I can never hope to achieve such heights.

I clearly need to view the help file to get this to work.

Today's Joy of Tech is blog humor. Funny because it's true!

From geekculture.com, some wet weather.

This is the anniversary of this blog! Huzzah!

Here's a fun, new game: try to tell if the customer support reps on the other side of these chats, are in fact human beings. During the exchange, I had the distinct impression that I was chatting with the old "Eliza" program. The end result was not satisfactory.

Impulse Purchase!

Ridiculous impulse purchase. O, buyer's regret!



Dark City (Jones)

Ravenous (Nyman)

The Powerpuff Girls: The City of Soundsville

American Journey - Winter Olympics 2002 (Williams)

Professor!

And ... ?

It's not entirely clear to me what the significance of this is:
"By 12:30 p.m., about 450 people had visited the seismology lab's Web site and people from Bremerton to Olympia reported feeling the earthquake. It also was felt in North Seattle and south King County."

The full article.

The Toa Maiden project continues apace. No new pictures. That is all.

Something Else I Covet:

I wouldn't mind having one of these Visors. I want a blue one.

It is, reportedly, a bird. Emu?

Birds, especially when rendered in Lego, are inherently funny:

Desperate Measures Already Forgotten

Brief note on Desperate Measures by Trevor Jones. I cannot remember a solitary thing about it except there was an annoying song at one point. It was mostly pretty dreary drones in the suspense style. No doubt functional. I'll listen again to see if I just failed to pick up on the point.

Neither Love Or Money Satisfactory

a brief note on Love or Money - This was a frustrating listen. The main body of the music is taken up with a trivial tune noodled on sax in the smooth "lite radio" idiom.Only a few hints of interesting orchestration kept me from taking it out of the CD player immediately. The frustration lies in that there are scattered throughout the score many isolated examples of Broughton's talent for melody. The overall effect is what might result if Bruce Broughton was hired to score your cousin's wedding reception.

My Birthday is Coming Up In ... Several Months ...

It would be outrageous and wrong to order these on the same day that they are released. See how I am resisting the impulse, born of pretty good marketing, to order these right now?


The Expert Builder Set:



The Boxor:



The Exo-Toa:

Victorian Child's Picture Book

It occurred to me during my morning commute that it might be a symptom of a healthy human ecology if the widest roads in general use were no wider than two lanes. This actually is more of a symptom of my fantasy life which bears a substantial debt to The Shire. That seems like a fine place. In the matter of the roads, those neare to great cities would have to be wider. But the cities themselves would not be the appalling excesses that exist now but would be much smaller and far fewer. Perhaps limited to cobbled London, Gothic Paris, ancient Rome, storied Athens and spirey Baghdad. That this sounds more like the captions on color lithos in a Victorian child's picture book is another symptom of my fantasy life.

FW: Mariners vs the Cardinals

I had fun at last night's game, mostly because of the nice company that I keep, but I'm afraid that the Cardinals were not looking their best and the actual play was uneventful. The Mariners offense was better than usual.
Greatest discovery: the seats above the midpint of the first base line are amazingly good. Second greatest discovery: the garlic fries are good food. It's hard to go wrong with garlic and potatoes, but these were exceptional.

I can't recommend the Kölsch from Pyramid brewery. Just not an interesting beer. All praise to their IPA, of course.

The new football stadium lacks the architectural detailing that would give it some character. The roofs (rooves?) over the seating are supported on dramaticaly bifurcated pylons, but the rest of it is blah. The two stadiums are very similar in overall appearance. That's my ruling.

Mt. Baker Expedition reported to me that contrary to the standing order, "summit at all costs," reason prevailed under the onslaught of strong winds, equipment difficulties and inexperience with knots. Commander Scott has been sacked and his dogs eaten. No negative impact on the Yeti expedition is expected.

And just to clarify, Dmitri Tiomkin never wrote a score for This Island Earth. Although he could have if he wanted to, I guess. But he didn't. Anyone who tells you that I told them that there ever was such a score is either mistaken or a liar. Shun him.

And the eclipse was not very noticeable. We were looking for it but didn't see a darn thing.

An improved rendering of the Exo puzzle:

CDs Purchased

Bought used:



Lover's Prayer (Joel McNeely)

Men With Guns (Mason Daring)

The Portrait of a Lady (Wojcieck Kilar)

The World Is Not Enough (David Arnold)

For Love or Money (Bruce Broughton)

Desperate Measures (Trevor Jones)

A Puzzle

From this Bionicle fan site comes a puzzle. My partial solution:

Spines Printed

Made spines for those pesky uninformative and/or illegible CDs:

Ginny Brings Back Spoils from the Hunt!

A garage sale find:

Remains of the Day (Richard Robbins)

Goozle Animations

These files are not as small as they could be. Patience.

Timmy Fell Down a Well.

Oops. Maneuvered the cam right off the pile of Rubbermaid containers that it was sitting on. Not so good. Beep. Beep. Beeeeeep. Beeeeeep.

"I can see where the booze goes!" - Uncle Gabby

Sent an email to Tony Millionaire (he of Maakies) a link to a page that has an old poem by Ye Olde Girlfriend. They have not dissimilar themes.

Obligatory Recursive Link

Brunching Shuttlecocks take aim at blogging here

So the deal with posting by mail is that sometimes there is a delay. Sometimes it's a pretty lengthy delay which can is confounding because I'm used to instantaneous response. As has been pointed out by people who are in a position to know, I am not the most patient of persons. But the convenience to less frequent posters should be worth it. I anticipate posts by phone soon.

Goozle Is Here

The Lego Duplo toy, Goozle, walks among us now. Be very still children and Goozle may not do whatever it is that Goozle does. Equal parts Cthulhu and the Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh!

CDs Arrive

Dogma (Howard Shore) and Gormenghast (Richard Rodney Bennett) arrived today.

End of Blockbuster. The Fiasco.

Blockbuster issue resolved by Higher Power. No, the manager wasn't hit by a bus (although that would be altogether acceptable), my girlfriend paid the store a visit. There were no problems after that.

EXTRA: Blockbuster Manager Is Not Entirely Credible!

Unable to get simple facts understood by the manager at Blockbuster, I chose to use the alternate route:

ME: What number should I call to talk to your boss?
HALFWIT: I already gave it to you. (true enough, but irrelevant. -ed.)
ME: What is the number?
HW: 568 2100.
ME: Who will I be speaking to?
HW: Christie.
ME: Christie who?
HW: I can't give you that information. We don't give it out.
ME: What is her last name?
HW: I know it, I'm just not going to tell you.
ME: And what office does she answer to?
HW: What?
ME: Who is your boss's boss?
HW: 748 0800
ME: And who is that?
HW: That's the number for the Regional Office. Andrew.
ME: So if I ask for Andrew, they will know who I need to talk to?
HW: It's an automated system.
ME: What's his last name?
HW and ME: I can't tell you that.
ME: So, I'm going to call Christie, no last name and Andrew, no last name.
HW: Thank you for the sarcasm.
ME: Good-bye.

I dialed the first number. A machine answers:
MACHINE: You have reached Christie Santana ...

I dialed the second number:
MACHINE: Hello, this is the voice message system for Andrew Steeles ...

MORAL:
It's one thing to be an evasive weasel, but it's altogether pathetic to be an evasive weasel about things that don't matter. It's easy to see why I don't trust the manager.

Feature I didn't know I needed

Oo! Now I have a function that allows me to add titles to each post. I hope that someday I can write headlines as well as the editors of the P-I.

One door closes and another shoe falls

The post-by-email function worked flawlessly for the previous post. Hooray! One door closes and another shoe falls.

Webcam is in a state again

The addition of the Internet Pro keyboard (with USB ports) has played
havoc with the webcam setup. Drivers are in a state of confusion.
Streaming is intermittent. A bit of a problem.

Blockbuster Video makes me think of dirty dirty dooky

I was going to post a scathing and inflammatory rant about that no-headed abomination of Judas' loins, Blockbuster Video, but instead will just post the following. I posted it at www.moviemusic.com, www.filmscoremonthly.com, www.geekculture.com and at www.lugnet.com. Not because they are especially visible to the world or because the people there are any more likely to be sympathetic to my situation, but because I want them to have an opportunity to know that someone very much like them is being abused. Think meercats. I'm the meercat in the tree looking out for hyenas.

---

Blockbuster claims that I failed to return a DVD. They are in error. That's bad, but it happens. They are rude and inefficient, which is as avoidable as it is inexcusable.

I encourage you to get your videos from somewhere else than Blockbuster. I'll happily go across town to a good store.

If my complaint inspires you to cut up your Blockbuster card in front of an especially clueless clerk, please let me know. If you want to tell this particular store that you heard that they are circus clowns but not funny like circus clowns, their number is 206 522 0397. (Don't bother asking for the manager, he may not even exist.)

You can call Kristi at 206 568 2100. She's a middle level manager of some sort. You can also call 206 748 0800 and leave a message at their district office.

It would be swell if you could take a moment to pass this along to your video renting friends. Let's not encourage the corporate entity that has created this slackerly and cynical environment.

Posting by email apparently has bugs.

I have ponied up a few dollars to Blogger to activate some useful features. Primary of which is the ability to post by email. As I am doing now. There is also a handy button to upload files from one's host computer to one's webserver. Hosting those pics is one's own problem, though. Blogger: not an ISP. If it's pictures of Lego, Brickshelf will stow those pics for you. But Brickshelf does not support FTP. Anyway.
It'll be fun, I swear.

The first post mentioned The Chair. I think I was being unecessarily harsh. The chair is in my car now to be delivered to Alf's place when he finds it.

Whither the Fly II?

My on-again off-again search for the Fly II (Young) was on again last night. I think it might be off again for a little while. (update But see here.)

Reordered The Game (out of stock!)

Had to re-order The Game (Shore). Also ordered, at long last, A.I.** (Williams).

* received 20020610 ** received 20020614

CD Arrives

Impulse purchase of White Man's Burden (Howard Shore) arrived today. Some merely OK songs but mostly drivel. Howard kindasorta owes me one.

CD Purchased

Picked up a used copy of Elfman's Planet of the Apes.