Yes, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is THE MOST BRILLIANT SHOW ON TV. A friend asked me a couple of weeks ago if I'd seen it. I had not. But when I did, I couldn't get enough. I wanted to run to Chelsea and turn myself into a gay male. My roommate, Kristeena is actually going to the Mud Honey Salon this weekend; a salon recently featured in an episode of QEftSG.

I like the way she thinks.

so I've been off the blog because a lot has been going on. work stuff and school stuff and home stuff and diet stuff. I hate this diet. Probably only because it's a diet. I must have been completely addicted to carbs because I sure notice all the carbs I can't have. The first week and half really was torturous. Then I cheated so I ended up with a net loss of five pounds. I'm back to square one now and we'll see how I measure up at the end of two weeks.

The cool thing that has come out of this is that I made my own blue cheese dressing which kicks ass across america. It kicks the ass of america.

Speaking of america and ass kicking. . .my new treastise on the de-evolution of American Politics will be coming out shortly, entitled 'Bullets and Mullets: The Dehumanization of American Government under the Bush Regime'. Honestly. Pictures of Uday and Qusay or whatever his name is. . .I'm surprised GWB didn't just put their heads on stakes in front of the American Embassy and run around in front shooting a rifle in the air. Oh crap. I spoke out against the Man. That's just cause to invoke the Patriot Act and start monitoring all my electronic communications, bugging my phone and maybe some sneak and peak searches of my apartment.

This effing cowboy government can kiss my ass. There are soldiers dying in Iraq and Afghanistan EVERY DAY STILL. The war is not over just because the networks are running out of sponsors or the white house needs to boost George's ratings for the week.

Anyway, enough of that preachy rant.

Phone cutover last night until 3am. Still ironing out the bugs. There's still a lot to do and the phone vendor will not be on site after today. My brainpan is leaking. I need to eat. Ordered Chinese. Atkins has gone to hell today. I will get back on the blog horse tomorrow.

In the meantime, for your blog reading pleasure, I am posting a great story from a dear friend that is worthy of your attention.

---

This story is excerpted from an e to Jeff, but I thought you might like to hear it. These are the days of manifestation.

So, Lesa came over and we walked down to Lincoln Park, along the beachfront, down the back of Beach Drive, up the hill to the Kenny Home, and further up the hill back to my house. We then lounged about on the shady grass in the backyard and giggled and talked at great lengths about our loves, our triumphs, our friendship, and all other manner of this-and-that.

We got hungry and went to Lou's. Which, as you may or may not know, is just about the last place in town where one can get real hand cut fries and a cherry coke made with cherry syrup. It's one of my favorite places in the world. Yes, the world. They have pinball machines, too, which never hurts.

But before Lou's and before the happy girltalk, we were on our walk. And, while we were on our walk, something remarkable happened.

As we were crossing Fauntleroy, about to enter the park, we were in the process of describing our coming week to each other. We were marveling at the demands that are put upon us in the course of our work day and our conversation went a little bit like this:

Michelle: "I'm going to have to perform several miracles this week. The customers will be wanting things we just won't have time to produce. And I'm getting tired of constantly having to pull rabbits out of my hat."

Lesa: "Or your ass."

Michelle: "Or any other place. The thing of it is, they aren't even asking for rabbits..."

And, Jeff, I shit you not, a giant brown rabbit stepped right in front of my feet and sat there looking straight into my eyes. It was beautiful, magnificent, and, obviously, someone's abandoned pet. We stood there for many minutes, Lesa, the rabbit, and I. Rabbit hopped over to some shade and dug itself a cool spot in the dirt.

Now, Lesa and I were on foot, so there was no way we could scoop Bunny up and take Bunny home. It's the first time I wished I had a cell phone so I could call up mom or dad and have them bring the cat carrier down to the park. Since there wasn't much Lesa and I could do, we wished it well, Lesa adding a witchy blessing, and went on our way.

Later, upon returning from Lou's, Lesa and I said our good-byes. I then loaded up the cat carrier and some carrots into the car and headed back to the park.

I spent about an hour looking under the brush - which is a little creepy to do in a public park, I kept expecting to interrupt clandestintines behind the bushes. Or worse, be mistaken for one -- (I DID however find a lovely secluded spot that I would like to take you to more than just about anything...but, I digress). Eventually, I found droppings and pile of fluff which showed no sign of harm. After half-a-dozen or so passes through the part of the park where we'd seen the rabbit and where I'd found the other evidence, I reluctantly started back for the car.

There was a car parallel parking just behind mine and once they had stopped and shut off the ignition, what should come bounding out of the back seat? A bloodhound! Yup, a beautiful, intelligent, TRAINED bloodhound. So I says to the dog's owner, I says "Can I ask you about your dog"? And he says "Sure."

So I ask if the dog could find a rabbit, and again, Sure. So, I ask if you could indulge me for just five minutes to look for the rabbit I'm trying to rescue. (I have found the word indulge quite often works like a magic key, but THAT is another issue altogether). So I show Doggy the fluffy pile of fur and Doggy does his job. We go trotting through the park like kids at an easteregg hunt. And you know what we found? Nothing. The scent ended near the parking lot.

So someone else must have rescued Bunny. The End

True story. This happened yesterday. There was also a hummingird and a very strange crow, but they aren't related to the rabbit.

---

I love that story.

I'm being facetious about Soft Cell BTW. They weren't prolific.
Duran Duran had prolific in the bag.


I'll be back when I'm fresh as a spring daisy douche and when I have something real to say.

It's 1:41 AM Eastern Standard Time and I'm typing on this blog and I just realized that my desk is too high for me. I rarely type on this keyboard so I never realized it before.

Oh yeah, and I'm listening to Sex Dwarf by Soft Cell. Everyday is Halloween just preceded it. I'm having goth night at chez krixfort.

I suppose I was going to write about something but I think it's too late and my brain needs sleep.

Three more games of Tetris and then I can go to sleep.

We can have playtime, in my little playroom. Disco dollies, my sex dwarf, and my dumb chauffeur.
--Soft Cell, the prolific band from the 80's that brought you the hit Tainted Love

okay, so, getting back to the reunion and all. I started the stupid Atkins diet. Over the past ten years I've steadily put on weight until I've finally reached a weight that I no longer feel comfortable with.

The weird thing about it is that I never see myself as too overweight; I'm just surprised when I go shopping and suddenly I can't fit anything. I mean everyone can stand to lose a few pounds now and again, but I guess I'm beyond the, "I'll just skip dessert" phase and into the "I need an eating habits overhaul" phase. So Atkins it is, mainly because I have a friend who had great results and I've tried the opposite, low fat high carb approach to eating and that had no results. I know that maintaining a healthy weight is a combination of a sensible diet and excercise plan. . .I just wanted to kick start the process.

What does this have to do with the reunion? Well, besides dieting for health purposes, I really want to get back down to fighting weight before I have to subject myself to this experience. I don't want to be the one that everyone looks at and says, "whoa, what happened to her?"

So there you have it. All I want is a bagel in the morning and a beer in the evening and I can't have either. I walked into the McDonalds at Newark Penn Station, stared at the menu, and bargained with myself for awhile:

Me: I can get the sauasage biscuit and then just throw out the biscuit part. . .
Me: no, you'll just eat the bicuit part if you get it. Don't do it.
Me again: No, I won't I promise I won't why can't I just have a sausage egg and cheese bagel? WHYWHYWHY!?!?!?!
Me: Hey, you said you were getting the biscuit and throwing away the biscuit. You're already cheating

So, I shed a tear and walked out like a little homeless orphan who had no money for McDonalds. The kids at McDonalds probably thought I was a retard. I don't even like McDonalds, I just don't like telling myself no. Talk about no self discipline.

OOOF. For me, Amazon.com has been an effective e-tailer, nothing spectacular. You know, when I paid for second day air for my sister's birthday present so that the item would get to her on time, and then it basically didn't ship for 2 weeks, but I had no notification that the item wasn't in stock and no chance to cancel the order and bascially didn't find out that it didn't get there until I called my sister and found that she never received it. . .well, there's that. I let that go. It was a couple of years ago when dot.coms were booming and I figured, well, things fall throuh the cracks, etc.

And then there's the fact that everyone I've met that works for Amazon has this huge attitude. Like it's a big badge of honor that they work for this company that makes a lot of money providing shitty customer service. And the fact that back in 1999 etc, when I was living in Seattle and looking for a job, they were requiring people to have degrees and ridiculous qualifications in order to pick stock in their crappy little warehouse. PLEASE! And the fact that my friend dated this woman who was so completely arrogant and had a high level position at Amazon, and she knew Jeff Bezos, blah blah blah, and she told my friend that she couldn't believe he was thirty years old and didn't have his shit together because he hadn't finished college (he was currently working on his degree in software engineering and had spent the last eight years studying opera which I find much more interesting than her shitty silver-spoon upbringing and Stanford degree in FINANCE--ARGH!!!!!!)

I'm digressing.

What it comes down to is arrogance. Amazon is, and always has been, an arrogant company. I believe when your primary business is to sell ITEMS to CUSTOMERS that customer service should be a major focus for your company. I believe that good customer service is a mix of empathy, ownership, action, and a little humility. All too often e-tailers adopt this 'end-user replacement necessary' attitude when it comes to customer issues concerning the use of their website or problems with products. This arrogance aggrieves me to no end which is why I am ranting. I've worked in serveral companies where the kind of customer service either internally and externally, that Amazon provides, would be completely unacceptable. ARGH!

Okay, so why is this a big deal today. I bought a book from a third party reseller on Amazon. Unfortunately, the seller had just sold the book on half.com and hadn't updated his information on Amazon. In the meantime, my credit card was charged and the money was credited to him through Amazon. I contacted him about estimated shipping time. He told me that the book had been sold and that his secretary had taken care of the refund and that I should check with Amazon to make sure it had gone through. Don't get me wrong, the reseller was very help and great to work with. It's Amazon that I have the beef with.

So I told them (some info changed to protect my privacy):

Your Name: Krixfort

Your E-mail Address: krixfort's email address

Subject: Feedback to Amazon.com

17-digit Order Number: ###-#######-######

Comments:

Yesterday, July 16th, I sent an email asking for information on how third party seller refunds are processed. In the email I stated that I had ALREADY contacted the seller and that the seller had ALREADY performed his portion of the refund process. I asked if Amazon had information on this transaction.

What I received from Amazon was a condescending email restating the third party seller policy and a reiteration that I must contact the reseller regarding the refund which clearly demonstrated to me that the respondent did not thoroughly read my email or that a canned answer had been generated.

Perhaps my question wasn't clear. I will phrase it in a different way.

Once a third-party seller has provided a refund through the Amazon payments system, how and when is the refund credited to my account? Does Amazon have a record of the reseller's submittal of refund and can I confirm that this has indeed been entered into the Amazon payments system and is in the process of being credited to my account?

The amount of the refund isn't huge; what I am most displeased with is the assumption that I did not clearly read the policy, which I did. Perhaps there should be an section on the website which explains the Amazon payments system process a little more thoroughly, in which case I wouldn't find the need to trouble your customer service staff with such obtuse questions.

I hope this clarifies the question.

Respectfully,
Kris


It's just irritating. Maybe I am in the wrong. Who even knows at this point. I'm just sick of the arrogance and attitude. AND I'm ON FIRE!!! I should write all those letters to my congressmens that I've been putting off.

ergh--

A train derailed near my home yesterday morning. It was the NJ Transit Northeast Corridor line which runs between Trenton and New York Penn Station. It's the train that I ride to work. I was not on it. No one was hurt. Well, 10 people suffered minor cuts and bruises, but no one was seriously hurt.

So I'm thinking that I'm not so sure I like the train anymore. I certainly know I don't like planes. I've had three missed approaches on commercial flights (whereby something goes wrong just as you're about to land and the pilot guns it and you go right back up into the sky to try it again. I just want to say that a missed approach sucks. The last one was in Seattle and they had the entire port of seattle fire department out on the landing strip with their sirens and lights all on as we came down on the second landing. And then camera crews were waiting for passengers at baggage claim. So you know it wasn't really all that minor.) I also used to take a certain Alaska Airlines flight from San Francisco to Seattle every other week. Two days after I flew it, one of the planes on the route had a malfunction and crashed into the Pacific Ocean.

I've been pretty lucky but all the same, it doesn't make me like flying all that much. And now I'm developing a train complex. Maybe I'm too neurotic. But I think that kind of stuff would give anybody some trepidation, right? I mean I'm not going to say that I'll never fly or take a train again. I had to take the train today. I'm just saying I don't like it so much.

Not so much.

oh by the way. . .I love oddtodd. there. I said it.

you know how sometimes no matter how hard you try to make your brain box work, it just doesn't want to. My roommate keeps talking about cleansing her 'sluggish liver' but I think I need to cleanse my sluggish brain. All I have is bran. The I is gone. There is no me. okay, what the heck was I talking about. . .oh yeah, slug bran.

I used to be a good coder, good at logic, sharp, picked up things really quick. Now all the time, someone explains something and I'm like, 'huh? wha?' or I nod like I'm getting it but it's like they're speaking latin or something. Maybe I have a tumor that's dumbing me down. Maybe I killed too many cells in SF. Most likely. In any case, there's definitely fog in my little teeny brain box.

I'm working on a simple scripting problem that would take a normal coder about 20 minutes to script. For special olympics style coders like me, the task will probably fill my entire morning.

excerpt from the emails. . .
Did I tell you I went to Philly last weekend. I had a little historical freak-out. Well not a freak out but I got really excited because they did a huge fireworks show on the 5th of July. We were kind of wandering around and didn't know about it and just about the time we hit Independence Hall, BOOM! all these crazy fireworks started up. I had a little revolutionary war flashback.

Back to the real world now.

Work is intense today. Must concentrate and not blog it.

PS. no dreams about sharks recently but I have decided that trains are steadily moving up the list as one of the things that I have an irrational and uncontrollable fear of. Not riding on trains but being hit by a train. They say that Neal Cassady died because he was drunkenly walking along the rails and got hit by a train. Can you imagine getting hit by a train. And I'm not talking about those stupid slow ass freight trains. . .that would be like that scene in Austin Powers number one where the guy takes five minutes to get flattened by the steam roller. No, what I'm talking about are those fast ass trains like the Acela Express. The thing goes by so fast that when I'm on the platform waiting for my little engine that could NJTransit train, I get heart palpitations. I have to put my head down and close my eyes. I practically go into fetal position.

So the three things I am most afraid of right now are:
1.) Sharks, especially Great Whites but hammerheads run a close second. I suppose tiger and mako sharks are right up there as well.
2.) Electricity and electrical shocks or being struck by lighting. I even hate static electricity. I had to quit a job at the Pacific Science Center when I was in college because they said I would have to start doing the Van de Graf generator demonstration. And I said "eff that." Plus I broke the molecular motion machine and didn't want to take responsibility for it.
3.) Fast moving trains or getting hit by a train. ooof. nuff said.

Okay. Went to Philly. Really liking Philly. I'm not sure if I like Philly because it's new or because I like it. I'll have to go down and explore more.

I was late again today. This time through no fault of mine. Apparently someone threw themselves on the tracks in front of a train this morning somewhere between Edison and New Brunswick. That's completely awful to contemplate. Of course while we were on the train, no one knew what was going on so it was basically 2 hrs of stress that I was going to be late AGAIN!

The car is now in a lot, guarded by mean junkyard dogs and angry Puerto Ricans. They've got my back.

We may take it out this weekend for a spin down to Philly. I've never been there but I have a friend who just moved there and another friend who is in town visiting his family. Two good reasons to go.

First of all, getting the car back was a complete nightmare. The state of New Jersey and it's motor vehicle insurance laws completely suck. No insurers even want to deal with this state because the policies are so effed up. In any case, my old insurance company wanted to charge me $2400 to re-insure the car for SIX MONTHS! Paid up front. 100%. Ridiculous. I basically had to sell the car to my roommate who got the car insured and registered so that we could get it out of the $30 dollar a day impound yard before I owed THEM too much money. The police that recovered the car wouldn't sign a release on the vehicle until it was legal. It's just another method for everyone to get their hands in your pocketbook.

enough about that.

This morning I realize that one of the modifications the thief made to the car was to automate the latch that opens up the gas tank. It used to be a lever on the driver's side that you pulled up and the little door popped open. Now there is no lever and I have no idea how to get the thing open. So, I'm driving from Brooklyn to Jersey and I realize that I'm flirting with an empty tank of gas. And then the traffic comes to a complete standstill. I basically start chain smoking and sweating, praying for the car not to run out of gas and trying to rack my brains on where the gas tank relaese could possibly be. Then I think, maybe it's on the little car alarm pad that the thief gave me. Maybe one of those little buttons will open the gas tank. I'll stop and try it. I see a gas station on Staten Island, pull over and try the green button. No dice. Then I think, well, maybe the car needs to be stopped and then the green button will work. I'll keep praying that I make it to work and figure I'll try it there.

I make it to work.

So, now, I'm standing outside the car with the driver's door open because everytime I close it the alarm turns on and then I end up setting the damn thing off. So I try the green button while the car is off. Still no dice. Then I try this button that says 'option'. Suddenly, the car, which is in 1st gear, starts automatically and starts DRIVING AWAY! After a split second I realize what's happening and then all Duke's of Hazard-y, jump in the driver's side and jam on the clutch. I narrowly missed sending my car into a brick wall. I let the engine die and immediately the car alarm goes off. I'm really sweating and my adrenaline is at max capacity and I'm still sitting there with the stupid key and alarm pad in my hand. I turn off the alarm, jam the key in the ignition, throw the car into reverse all shaky like and back it back into my paking spot, making sure to leave the car in neutral. Good lord. I'm used to living in SF where you never leave your car in neutral. AHHHHHHHHH!!!

AND I STILL HAVEN'T FOUND THE GAS TANK RELEASE!!!

I just pried it open with a screw driver and left it like that.

Hello today.