The Funniest Thing Happened @ Work Yesterday....

Now, I've been in support off and on, and in the Tech Sector for a long time. And I love hearing the hilarious stories of customer mishaps, brain farts, and other outrageous acts. Now these are funny for any number of reasons; the base stupidity of the customer, the reaction a customer gets from tech support, or how easily a "major problem" was solved. One of the reasons I love hearing about them is because they rarely happen to me. As you know, dear readers, I work as a support person for a company called Pinpoint Global. For the first time in years, I got a funny story to tell.

Yesterday, I got a support ticket from the support team of a firm which I shall name "Company". (I know original, right? I'm a beacon of creative potential, I am. BTW, all the names have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.) After reporting back to Company's support team that I fixed what I thought was causing the issue, I get this cry for help directly from the troubled soul drowning in the darkness of malfunctioning websites:

Hello,
My name is Gabriel and I have been selected by the Gods to endure the endless torture of not being able to access Step 2 in the Company Broker Portal despite the honorable and steadfast deliberations from some of the most knowledgeable souls and sages that have become snared by this curiosity.


Alas, the last fix did not hold and so I have taken extensive screen shots to document the process and its failure that plagues us. These I have attached so they may be examined and scrutinized in hopes a solution will show itself.

I do a little more digging and find a secondary issue. I cleaned up their account and force the fix through, so this guy no longer has to go through the registration process & can just log in directly to the site. Meanwhile, my co-workers are getting a kick out of this guy's email. It's so rare to see a customer with a sense of humor about all this. Me being who I am, I have to keep this going. So, I respond in kind:

Hi,
My name is Rodney and I am an Agent of Necessity, that force which compels even the Gods to succumb to Its will! As such, I have endeavored to break their stranglehold on your fate. With the arcane magic buried deep within the Access Code, I was able to restore your destiny to its proper place of greatness among the pantheon of warriors and successfully registered you on the site with the following logon information:

Username: xx

Password: xxx

At this point, Warrior Gabriel, you can just log into the site and continue on your quest to complete the rest of Company training. The Talisman of The Initial Training has already been emblazoned on your account and is displaying properly on your transcript.

Please do not hesitate to call upon myself or my fellow agents of Necessity to assist you on your path to greatness.

Thanks,
Rodney
Pinpoint Global (Necessity's Cover in The Mortal Realm)

The support team at Company were CC'd into this email exchange and one of them responds to me, quite unexpectedly with this:

Rodney,
That was such an awesome answer. I think I will keep it so that I can refer back to it from time to time. I wish that I could forward your answer back to the actual broker. You should have been a writer!

Thank you,
Vanessa

Now, I'm worried that the guy didn't get my email. So, I dig in and find his email address and send it to him directly. After about an hour or so, he responds with the following:

Thank you so much.

You must be a Titan or something because for the last three weeks: nothing. Rodney gets on the horse, and off we go into the blazing future like quicksilver.

SWEET, SWEET VICTORY!!!!!

(You are right though, my journey has just begun, it would wise to leave the celebrating to the God-wranglers and keep steadfast to the path...) Thank you again, and a thousand blessings to you and your own

Sincerely,
Gabriel

Thus the story ends, with evil vanquished and the Pure-Hearted Warrior victorious and ready to face the next challenges the Gods place in front of him….

Exploring the next frontier in Movies...

As a side bonus, my new PS3 is also a Blu-Ray disc player. And I went and bought my first Blu-Ray movie to see for myself what the hype is about. I wanted this to be a true test of the Blu-Ray, so I had to have something to compare it against. Therefore my first BR purchase had to be a movie I already owned on DVD. After much deliberation, I made what should have been the obvious choice from the start, and purchased: Terminator 2: Judgement Day

You might not follow why this is such an obvious choice for me, so let me explain. Starting with the obvious: I already had T2 on DVD and have watched it TONS of times, so I'm very familiar with how awesome it looks on DVD. This gives me a strong control group to test the BR disc against. This is a solid base for comparison. But not the full reason why it was such an obvious choice.

The true test of any new visual enhancement technology is NOT how it replicates the latest visuals. That should be easy since those visuals are being made with the new technology in mind. Filmmakers are shooting their movies with the latest HD or IMAX cameras, whose high resolution capabilities is tailor made for transfer to Blu-Ray. No, that's not a true test. A true test of the visual enhancement is what it can do for visuals that were NEVER meant to be displayed like that.

T2 was released in 1991. This was even before DVDs were developed! Now, the transfer of that movie from VHS (yes, I bought it on VHS) to DVD was amazing enough! But at the time the movie was filmed, Blu-Ray wasn't even a twinkle in Sony or the Blu-Ray Disc Association's eye. So, my eyes already having been wowed by the DVD transfer should fall out of my skull and go to the nearest church and praise God for 40 days and 40 nights if BR is even half as good as it's hyped up to be.

Yesterday, I watched T2 on Blu-ray and I was truly impressed. It wasn't all the special features, or any of the Internet available content. It was just watching the movie. Just the quality of the film transfer itself. I could see individual pores on the actors faces. The sharpness of the image was astounding, the richness of the colors was truly remarkable. I can officially say, I am impressed with Blu-Ray.

Now, it's not as major a jump from DVD to BR as it was from VHS to DVD, so despite my newfound amazement with BR, I am not going to be transferring my DVD collection to BR. Honestly, most of my movies just don't warrant that kind of high-res viewing. But, I can see myself making certain purchases to upgrade the movies that would benefit from it: The Matrix series being another perfect example.

My next purchase to test for BR should also be obvious. Given how awesome the picture looks, there is only one possible next step: Porn!

A New Acquisition...

Last Friday, I received a exceedingly pleasant surprise: a bonus in my paycheck. As you know from last posts (and from how few there were during Sept), dear readers, my life has been exceedingly stressful of late. So, I decided to use this money to get something that could provide stress relief. After an initial desire to hire a hooker for a half-hour session (it wasn't THAT big of a bonus, people!), I decided to go for something that would provide more long term stress relief: a new video game system.

Once that decision was made, an immediate debate started as to which console I should purchase. Factions formed around their token consoles: the Wii, the Xbox 360, and the PlayStation 3; and then the inevitable battle raged. Blood stained the air, fire rained from the heavens, the earth trembled, and the oceans boiled. In the aftermath of that great war, one warrior was left standing. The chains bonded to his arms rattled with each step he took walking towards me. As I stood frozen in shock, and fear, he pointed his twin blades at me and roared.

"I am Kratos! God of War and you will buy the Playstation 3 to relive my adventures or you will feel my wrath!"

Needless to say, I bought the PS3.

Now, I want to be clear on this. I did not buy the PS3 because I was afraid of Kratos. Not at all. Deep down, Kratos is just a big softie. But he seemed awfully determined, and I didn't really want to disappoint him. Since Kratos didn't really specify where I should purchase the PS3, I went on CraigsList and got a great deal on a first generation PS3 that is backwards compatible! I also got 3 games with it, but I traded them in for 3 others. Currently, my PS3 video game library consists of:

Bioshock
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands

I'm sure more games will soon be purchased (probably as Christmas/birthday gifts *cough* *cough*) in the future, so please don't balk that the small size of my library. Remember, size doesn't matter!

This time of year...

Once I put some thought into it, I realized that October is my favorite month of the year. By this time, Fall is in full swing and the trees are changing into a dazzling palate of colors. Women are still wearing form revealing clothing, but no longer to the extent that it's mind numbingly distractive. Restraint has once again become the order of the day, cause a halter top doesn't give much protection against the bite of that cold October wind.

And the rest of the country seems to join me in the celebration of the coming of what has been known to be the height of the power of darkness: All Hallow's Eve. Known to the rest of the world as my favorite "holiday" of the year: Halloween. It brings a smile to my lips, puts a bounce to my step and a song in my heart to see all the little nods to evil Jack-O-Lanterns, images of cackling witches riding their brooms as they contemplate the wickedness they will bring.

For Halloween, it seems like the whole world steps through the looking glass and sees things in the way that I do all the time. Demonic omens in the rush of wind playing with the carcasses of fallen leaves, flashes of evil in the eyes of your loved ones, and whispers of madness settling noises of your familiar home!

I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR!!! Too bad that come November 1st, it's all over.

My recent postings

It's been commented in previous posts, and by some of my friends, that my posting recently has been laser focused on movies and TV. At first, I didn't believe them, but then I actually went back and checked and it turns out they're right.

Now, I do have to admit that Movies & TV take up a more than normal share of my life, since that is my default pass time and a major passion of mine. But I started this blog to express my feelings and to place my deliberations on a public forum to be commented upon and argued. But also to extract all the thoughts buzzing in my brain and give myself room to create NEW thoughts. Or at the very least, examine my old thoughts from new perspectives.

So, from now on, I shall endeavor to touch upon more diverse subject matter. There will still be a great deal of tv & movies, but I'll spread them out more evenly. Case in point, this post and my last one!

An Apology

September was a very busy month for me. I found out my contract job was going permanent. And that the very same job that I thought was doable turns into an insane avalanche of work during the fall, eating up time in a way I didn't think was possible. I was warned about it, but knowing something and experiencing it are two very different things.

I also made the decision to go out and get an apartment on my own. While mostly a financial decision, it was also a lifestyle choice. I wanted to get an apartment I could afford and after living with people for six years, I needed my own place again. So, while stressing out about a job, I also was piling it on by conducting my own apartment hunt. Most of which was online, with the finalists getting calls from me to set up showings. And I managed to get a really great place and have it be within my budget.

And then, of course, there was the actual MOVING to the new place. Packing stuff up, etc.

All of this took huge chunks of my time and neural energy. As a consequence, I didn't get to post much on here. I dropped the ball, dear readers, and for that, I apologize. I can't say it won't happen again, but I will try to maintain a steady stream of new content.

Thanks for reading!

On My Own, Again...

I'm on my own again. It's been three days, and already this apartment feels more like home than the place in Manchester. As I write this, I'm trying to figure out why. I have the same stuff. It's in the same boxes. I'm the same person, and I have the same job. Everything is the same, yet I feel different. It's not the place itself, although it helps. It's that I'm on my own again.

Many times, in many places, to many people, I have said that being alone is my default state of being. It's in my nature to desire to live in solitude. While people have refuted my claims, citing personal history or depression or some other reason why I don't really want to be alone, it's in moments like this that the truth of what I am resonates within me. This new apartment feels like home to me, and it's because I'm on my own again.

I had a three bedroom apartment in Manchester. Ninety percent of the time I spent in the apartment was spent in my bedroom. With my door closed. Despite the fact that I was living with TWO other people, I spent my time alone. It's kinda sad when you think about it. I was paying for a five room apartment and was only living in one of those rooms. I was living with two other people, and I spent most of my time ignoring them. And even though I lived there for a year, that apartment was nothing more than a rest stop for me. Despite my fondest desire, it never felt like home for me.

I don't have to worry about hearing things that I shouldn't. I don't have to worry about things not being where I left them. I don't have to worry about people I don't know appearing with no warning at all. I could go on for days about all the things that I don't have to worry about anymore. I feel remorse about uprooting the lives of the people I lived with, but sitting here in this place, my place, in the still of the night, I know it was the right thing to do. Not for someone else, which is mostly the reason I do the things I do, but for me. I made this move because it was the right thing to do for me.

I'm on my own again and I'm at home.