Mostly Annoyances

- What is your favorite sugar?

The white kind.

- What is your favorite song?

Uhhh.... mmmh... well... "Follow The Hollow" by Soilwork?... but...

- What are your 25 favorite colors?

Purple
Blue
Green
Yellow
Orange
Red
Pink
Turquoise
Brown
Black
Beige
White?
Grey... yeah I love grey...
Um...

Results from your answers: You are a very indecisive person.

This is an ANNOYING survey! They could at least have asked which is my favorite spoon!!

Tonight (well, last night, I guess, since it's after midnight,) I was playing with my little rats while watching TV. I yawned, my mouth wide open and... Jigsaw, our smallest ratty, plunged head first into my mouth. She had half her body in there and, fortunately (for her, because I'm sure she'd be quite tasty,) I had the reflex of pulling her out before snapping my mouth close. Maybe she hasn't yet realized that she no longer needs to rehearse her part as a snake meal (or that she was supposed to run OUT of the mouth, not IN.)

If I were to be a contestant in Fear Factor (fat chance -- I'm not skinny enough,) the only "stunts" I would manage would be those related to live rats :)

Have you seen the Joe Schmo Show? We thought it would be just another stupid reality show (to which I usually become addicted -- and John does too (come on, admit it to the world, honeyhoo!) ) but no. It's funny. Well, maybe it is stupid, but it's still funny. The guy they're playing a trick on (Matt,) which looked like a total idiot in the preview clips (especially when saying "I didn't want to look too small on TV, huhuhu."), turns out to be reasonably intelligent. A very nice guy in fact. So now they're all feeling bad for doing this to him. We had a good laugh watching the last episode, when one of the actors pulled his pants AND underwears down, shaking it all in Matt's face and then climbing on his back. Aaah, the delights of a liberated TV network...

I don't like Gary The Rat though... Not ratty enough for my taste.

Couple nights ago, I open my trustworthy newsreader to check the newsgroups out, as I often do, and find out that all groups are empty except for a single message from Earthlink. The message was very clear and said that they upgraded their news server (that was 2 weeks ago, but we were on vacation) to provide many "great improvements" to their customers. Ok. No problem.
The message conveniently gave the necessary details for the change (new server name and login with full email address instead of just the user name.) Easy. I quickly change the stuff in Agent's settings and try to retrieve the new headers for groups which I know are very active. Nothing. Not even an error message from Agent. No new message headers, no message from Earthlink, no errors. Just nothing at all. It just logged in and out.

So I think: "Mmh, should I waste my time trying to contact Earthlink and ask them about it?" Like a dream customer, I first try to see if their site provides any info as to the status of their news server. I find nothing. So I go to the support section to double-check that I haven't done anything wrong. I follow everything again, step-by-step. All the settings I changed in Agent are correct. Since the chat support was just a click away I decided to give it a try.

When the Earthlink agent welcomed me and ask how he could help me, I explained what was happening in detail. Hear me: I didn't just say: "The newsgroups are not working." I told them about the server change, that I changed the settings accordingly, that no groups headers were being downloaded, and that I was not getting any error message. Pretty clear, no?

The agent says: "What is your email address?" (which I had already given in a preliminary questionnaire before entering the chat session.)

I answer: "Like I explained, I'm having a problem with the *newsgroups*, so I think that my email address is irrelevant at this point.

He says: "What email program do you use?"

I answer: "I don't read the newsgroups with my email program. I use the Agent newsreader."

Long pause.

Then he pastes a link that goes to their "Email Settings" support page and tells me that I have to follow the steps outlined there (I clicked the link out of curiosity, and there were no steps whatsoever there, let alone anything related to usenet.)

I say: "You sent me a link about email settings, which has nothing to do with the problem I described."

He says: "You need to change the news server name in your newsreader following the steps at the link I just sent."

HELLO?????! Are you reading anything I type, STUPID?!

I take a deep breath and reply: Like I said, again, I have already changed the server name exactly as explained in your support pages. I have already double-checked everything. And, BTW again, the link you sent me is related to email anyway. You are acting as if I had just typed "newsgroup problem" without giving any other details. Please scroll up and read what I typed."

Long long pause.

He types: "You need to completely delete the account and set it up again. Make sure to follow the instructions."

Whatever, IDIOT.

I say: Could you maybe check on the news server status for me?

He replies: If it is still not working, I would advise you delete everything and re-create the account. May I help you with anything else?"

I reply: "With anything ELSE? You were of no help at all." And I closed the chat.

Wasted time.

Turned out that the news server was down, as everything was working fine the next day. If the guy had had a tiny bit of brains, it could all have been taken care of in a minute.

To the Earthlink agent, I would advise that you get another job, maybe selling burgers or something (although even that may be a little too elaborate, I assume, as even those guys get it all wrong most of the time. Must be a tricky job.) Maybe pick on your nose and reflect on how wrinkled your toes are when you get out of the shower? Might be in your line of expertise, you think? In any case, make sure to check your email settings, and then delete the account. What's your email address BTW?

I go out to the curb-side, rural-style mailbox to see if the postman has brought me any good news. It is crammed full this time. I grab the letters and begin to walk back as I read. 5 of the letters are for the next-door neighbors. Every envelope was from the Wellfare Department, addressed to 5 different people. While still being perplexed at the thought of them all dancing around the living room with free money in hand, I walk across my lawn to deliver the obviously ill-gotten money. I knock. The door flies open to reveal about 10 people, all pushing for a spot in the doorway. I say, "The mailman mistakenly delivered your mail to my address." The screen door pops open about an inch and a fat hand reaches out to snatch the monthly wind-fall. "Thanks," says the monsterish matriarch of this undulating mass of door crowders, and slammed the door. THis whole experience bothered me for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that this had been my first day off from an incredibly stressful and demanding job (the one I am forced to endure to pay for all those jelly-faced children that scream and ride motorcycles and go-carts up and down the property from the second they get home from moron school until dark?)
Why then do they purchase and abuse their menagerie of luxuries that clutter their yard and driveway, flaunting the fact that they are stealing my money and that of every hard working American citizen? How do they get away with being so nasty and horrible to everyone around them?
Once my lawnmower blew up and the grass grew taller than normal. The giant wellfare-bitch had the nuts to say something crass to me about how they have to 'put up with that unmowed lawn', and that she could do something about it if she wanted with one phone-call (presumably to the lawn-police?) Ok, ugly....you want to play? I think an investigation is in order to find out just how much your worthless husband is making 'under the table', and how much you owe me in back Wellfare payments. Get out there and mow my lawn, bum! Maybe I'll throw some leftovers over into your yard when they take the free-ride away! Heh-heh.....

Sump pumps and the holes they sit in are stupid. Why in the world would you want to bring surrounding water INSIDE the house, and THEN pump it back out?? That's ludicrous. Why not build a system that gathers water and directly puts it right where it belongs, without first doing a little trip to the basement with the fierce desire to flood it at the first power failure available? Nobody in Europe has ever heard of a sump pump so, believe me, it's very possible. They go on the moon but then can't figure out a way to bypass the ridiculous sump pump "system"...

We got a new 3-pack of baby rats last Friday! :) They are so cute and kissable! There is Q-Tip -- "The Brown Rat", Bristle -- "The Nice Rat" (John picked her,) and Jigsaw -- "The Baby" (my pick, although Q-Tip has now won me over.) They are all very friendly already, even though they've only been with us for a week. We put together a little playground for them in the living room, as we don't dare to let them roam free in the house yet.

Why would you bitch about having an extra set of everything to share some of the load this day-and-age forces on us. Why, just now I was creating a sweet website and had to completely abandon it to climb through the steps to get into this blog. Listen "brothers" and "sisters"...with all FOUR ears...CHILL OUT AND ENJOY THE TEAMWORK! They cut you apart and you are just like the rest of us; HALF-ASSED!

I was going to say "I'm not annoyed yet", but I am. I chose a startup blog template that shows titles for each post, and there I come to type my first entry and there is no "Title" field to enter one for the post! Took me a while to see that the stupid feature has to be turned on first! Um... why not have it turned on by default when most templates DO show a title field?? Dumb thing (not me, them.)