Entries from June 2006 ↓

Bookslut’s Michael Schaub snaps on the publishing industry’s love affair with the war between Stay Home Mom & Working Mom.

Sure bet Unemployed Again Daddy would settle for some peace and quiet over a book deal any day.

“I am going to write a book saying that parents who want to work should work, and parents who want to stay home with their kids should stay home with their kids, and I will be hailed as a conquering hero of intellectual moderation. I’m going to call it Can We Please Talk About Something Else Besides People Who Have Kids Before I Sever Every Fucking Artery in My Body with This Butter Knife? Also Your Baby Isn’t Cute, It Just Looks Like a Baby, They All Look Alike and Deep in Your Heart You Know This is True. Anyone interested? Random House? Anyone?”

Kicking the habit no monkey business for chain-smoking Chinese chimp

AOL and Comcast’s recent P.R. snafus have been given airtime on many “investigative news” segments this weekend showing the evils of the big corporate telecommunications giants screwing the little people. Can’t wait until Time Warner gets their moment in the spotlight too!
A Comcast Technician Sleeping on my Couch illustrates the everyday reality that is being a tech. You see a lazy, ignorant motherfucker asleep on a couch. I see myself the day after my fourth 14 hour day-in-a-row, on hold, again because their cheap-ass equipment isn’t working. Nothing speeds this process up and this, THIS IS WHY WE ARE FUCKING LATE TO YOUR APPOINTMENTS!!

Customers can’t believe it, but techs spent just as much time on hold. We are more meaningless than you are, and they don’t let us forget it. Most of the time falling asleep would be an impossibility because the customer’s too busy asking for another goddamn explanation on how to work the volume on the remote, like this is the first time they’ve ever seen a fucking remote control in their lives. Most customers hover, trying to keep an eye on you so you aren’t able to walk off with their John Melloncamp cds or damage that antique Wall Mart entertainment center they’ve had in their family since their Mama’s mama moved into town.

WNBC broadcasted Call To Cancel AOL, in which Vincent Ferrari (a porn name if there ever was one) attempts for 21 minutes to cancel his AOL. Boo-hoo, boo-hoo Vincent. Twenty-one minutes is quick.

What is that I hear? Is that the crumbling of AOL? Nope. That’s the sound of all the money they’ll still be raking in, because most people are too ignorant or passive to change their ISP if it becomes a problem.
Just because this dope recorded this customer service rep doing his job a little too desperately doesn’t change a damn thing. Do you think AOL would employ an entire department dedicated solely to cancellations without actually trying to keep people? Any company that offers a service has a retention department and they do the same thing. Credit card companies? Banks? Any other ISP? Everyone of them do the exact same thing. They want your business. They’ll offer you everything under the sun because they want to retain your business. Customer service reps attempt to keep their jobs by saving customers. A save consists of just not having your name on record as being the rep to cancel his account. Chatting at Vincent, questioning his usage, and problems with AOL gives this rep the wiggle room to possibly pass jolly ol’ Vincent to somebody else or just get Vincent to hang up. Then when Vincent tries again, somebody else will have to deal with him and they’ll look bad.

In Milwaukee, none of the local news stations will not mention Time Warner by name when speaking ill of their service, because Time Warner advertises on all of these stations. Everybody knows telecommunications companies, credit card companies, banks, etc are pains in the ass to deal with but, it’s just a fact of life. Most of the customers are ridiculous pains in the ass who have no clue about the service they ordered or currently have, they just want it to work. These places will never change because we give them our money regardless of their service issues and they know it.

George Lucus never thought it would go this far.

There’s never enough Star Wars parodys and yet, I do believe you may think otherwise.

You’re wrong.

David Sedaris:

“In truth, I had no idea what I wanted to study, so for the first few years I took everything that came my way. I enjoyed pillaging and astrology, but the thing that ultimately stuck was comparative literature. There wasn’t much of it to compare back then, no more than a handful of epic poems and one novel about a lady detective, but that’s part of what I liked about it. The field was new, and full of possibilities, but try telling that to my parents.

Dad followed his “I’m so disappointed” speech with a lecture on career opportunities. “You’re going to study literature and get a job doing what?” he said. “Literaturizing?”

Port Washington, WI resident Dustin “Screech” Diamond need your help!

• Louie C.K.’s new show Lucky Louie premieres this Sunday on HBO. A Special Thing interviews Louie C.K. about his comedy roots.
• Bob Saget: The illest mother fucker in a cardigan sweater. Check out his rap video Rollin’ With Saget.

• If you’re the X-Men-as-a-metaphor-for-supressed-sexuality-and-AIDS kind of viewer, maybe young Rogue and Iceman’s biggest source of oppression was the limits of their imaginations?

From WIRED:

“In the fictional X-Men universe, the technological options are even greater. The school’s training simulation room bears an uncanny resemblance to the Enterprise’s holodeck. Surely the young lovers could find adequate room for exploration therein?

My point is not to destroy the romantic agony of a fun blockbuster movie. It just struck me that sometimes the obstacles preventing us from love or sex are not quite as insurmountable as we believe. And that often it is our beliefs, more than the reality, that hold us back.”

• Check out the teaser trailer of Last Kiss over at ZackBraff.com, which a significant amount was filmed in Madison.
• More Danger Doom! AdultSwim.com offers up their new EP The Occult Hymn for free.

• Graphic designer extraordinaire Chip Kidd blogged this last week for Powell Books. He talks a bit about Anderson Cooper and his new really, really great book that’s kicking ass on the New York Times Best Seller List. Sure bet that his sit down with Oprah didn’t hurt its sales.

I recommend the audio book verison narrated by Anderson Cooper. You get to hear Anderson for some reason break into a British-East Indian accent for a few lines of dialogue and you get to hear him recite a few lyrics from Kelis. “My Milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, And they’re like, It’s better than yours, Damn right it’s better than yours…” Just remember that when he’s reporting the at the scene of the next disaster.