Thursday, February 28, 2008

CrumbCast - round one thousand

Before I start, THANK YOU for all your wonderful words of support. I had a really crappy couple days Tuesday & Wednesday, topped off by a meltdown in traffic while I was already a half-hour late to something I really didn't need to be late to. I missed a turn in the dark and drove three miles in the wrong direction looking for a turn lane or a median cut or anything – damn "NO U-TURN SIGNS." I went to work yesterday, basically because I had to – but locked myself in a conference room and didn't come out until 2 p.m. I told everyone I had bad vibes. They just think I'm unsociable. Whatever. Anyway. My GMAIL notifier kept going boing-boing and I'd read another comment and I just finally had to smile. Thanks. I mean that. I might be a shitty writer, but you're all fabulous, wonderful individuals.


On that note …

CrumbCast just sucks huge and major dick. I don't even call and complain anymore – it does no good. There is probably a note on my account "customer suck – ignore and promise service call – listen to strangled screams of rage."

If it rains, the line goes out. If the wind blows, the line goes out. If it gets cool, the line goes out. If a bird takes a crap, the line goes out. If a leaf falls the wrong way, the line goes out. It is a complete joke that a First World country has such poor infrastructure.

This is what monopoly has wrought upon the American people. I think I'm going to cancel my HBO & Showtime as soon as this season of "The Wire" is over – and possibly cancel my cable altogether and see about getting an aircard.

When I call to cancel, I am going to tell them – "You cannot provide me with Internet service, you do not deserve my dollars." Sadly, CrumbCast or Embarq (that motley collection of dog feces) are the only games in town. I long ago gave up on Embarq – back when they were Sprint and gave me a 10-day install time just to turn on the phone service in my apartment.

I downloaded the Scissor Sisters mashup album "Da-Tah" from arjanwrites – and I'm sort of liking it. I'm not a huge Scissor Sisters fan, but I love how the Internet and cheap/free software have inspired all sorts of new creative expression built upon the bones of established art.

Apropos of nothing, I had a late dinner with a friend last night. Word of advice to anyone considering Jack Daniels bourbon sauce for the hot wings – "avoid." Gastric distress – I CAN HAZ IT. I was driving home and had to make an emergency stop by the office park where I work and visit the necessary.

Of course, when you're in a "hurry," the parking lot seems ten miles long and the security measures just seem to slow you down. Badge. Elevator. Badge again, because we only get specific floors of the building, and maintenance is in the bathroom. I went anyway. I told the 700-year-old Eastern European man that does our maintenance "I have to go." He stayed for a second scrubbing the sink but left when I went into the stall. How nice of him. I have no shame dropping a deuce with people around though. I had to GO.

Going to every sleazy dance club and gay bar in three southern states teaches you real quick not to be particular about the facilities. If they have toilet paper and it flushes, count your blessings. If there's a sink with running water and some paper towels, you need to go buy lottery tickets and hire an investment attorney. And the signs on the door in these types of places are essentially just "suggestions," – and the more people that get comfortable going to the loo together the better. That just means you get back to the dance floor sooner.

Lord, the things I did back in the college days. There was this one club in Mississippi, called "Club City Lights," that was in a, shall we say, "not so good" area of town. (they always are). To get through the door, you had to go through a metal detector. Then, there was the pat-down from a six-foot-plus bouncer that could have started at linebacker on any NFL team.

It was a fun night though – it was just insane. The club had table service, there was great dance music and underground club cuts I'd never heard before and I think they had some live jazz around 4 a.m. – which was just amazing. The place was open all night – right up till 5 a.m.; we ate breakfast on one of the floating casinos on the Mississippi River sometime around 7 a.m. and watched the sun rise. I remember thinking that even at that hour on a Monday morning, there were some hardcore gamblers up in the joint pumping money into the slot machines or looking grim over the blackjack tables.

I miss the circle of friends I had then; we fought like dogs sometimes, but we did love each other. I work too hard now, and don’t play enough – and there's no one around me that has that same sense of carefree whimsy that we seemed elevate from character trait to lifestyle.

Being an adult sucks.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

We use several dozen aircards at work, placed around the country, including the Florida area.

Sprint has given us pretty good service so far, and the opportunity to test of many several different models of aircard.

Currently I'm preferential to the Novatel U727. It's an EVDO Rev A device, which (on a good network) can get you up to several hundred k a second. It also features a built in GPS receiver, a MicroSD card reader, and is small enough to be rather unobtrusive.

Conversely I have had nothing but problems with the Sierra Wireless 595U. It has an odd built-in battery and is rather ugly.

Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Good luck w/ the internet. I miss my college friends too. I don't think I'll find friends like that again. I do not miss nightclub facilities! You are damn right about those. If the stalls had doors that stayed shut, you were lucky.

Larry Kollar said...

I hear ya about "gotta go" — sometimes, the person cleaning the men's room at the office isn't a man (or a boy). I just go into a stall & close the door, and she vacates. Like I care; there's a door in between us after all. It's either that or trek all the way across the office to the bathroom in the other section, and that's a significant fraction of a mile.

AT&T also has EVDO cards, if you still have lingering animosity toward Sprint. I don't know if they run on the 3G network; if they do it will be significantly faster (if you're in 3G range).

Echoing anonymous #2, I miss my college buddies too. I found my old roomie on LinkedIn yesterday, shortly after joining, and I'm hoping to hook up with him again.

Anonymous said...

So Comcast has your city? Time Warner has mine. Check this out:

http://media.www.dailynebraskan.com/media/storage/paper857/news/2008/01/25/News/Time-Warner.To.Cease.Problematic.Software.Testing.In.Lincoln-3168124.shtml


They suck ass!

Anonymous said...

lmao at your post about "I can haz it" -- hilarious! Have you ever poured through the "best of craigslist"? Some of the best stomach distress writing I've ever seen on the internet. Can't believe the dude wouldn't leave. Well he would deserve what he got then... lol

I also miss the good old days.