Andrew's H8LV 4/28/11

          H8 #3: Comcast Cable
          This week I decided I love myself. "This week?" your cynical lips may cry. "Every word you've ever written has been soaked in adoration for both yourself and your nearly equally O'Dellicous brother(s)!" Well, in my defense, your honor, I would claim that there are two types of love: (1) Normal, over-the-top, self-obsessed love. (2) Love enough to buy yourself HBO. Last year, being all sweet and stupid, I bought HBO for my wife so she could watch Season 3 of True Blood. After suffering through what is possibly the most overrated season of a supposedly high-quality show ever made (even worse than the last two seasons of LOST) I kept HBO long enough to watch the second seasons of Eastbound & Down and Bored to Death. I attempted to get into Boardwalk Empire to no avail and finally just cancelled the channel. Well, now I need it back. I first started reading A Game of Thrones in 2001 and quickly devoured the subsequent two novels. I've obsessed over them, discussed them with friends, and casted all the various roles in my mind in the height of my nerd years. Finally the novels have been brought to the screen in the most ideal of circumstances - a series on HBO at the height of television popularity and quality. I could resist no longer - I must have HBO. So on Sunday, on my way home from my family's delightful little Easter celebration,  I rang up HBO to have a little talksie.
    
         My first call was answered by a fellow who asked for my name and number and then answered my question: "How much would it be to add HBO to my cable plan?" "$19.99" "Thank you, goodbye." So sweet. So simple. After talking things over with Margaret and deciding that I was powerless to resist the call of the direwolf, I called the same number back. This time I spoke with a lady, who asked my name, my number, and then asked me the address at which I would like to have Comcast set up service. "I already have service, I just want to add a channel," I tell her. She claims she still has to have my address so I give it to her, and then she asks for my e-mail address, "for confirmation purposes." I didn't even realize I needed to have some e-mail address to confirm who I was so I gave her one of my e-mail addresses and said, "Is that the one you have on file." "Oh, we don't have one on file," she tells me, "This is just so we can send you special offers." I explain to her that I'm simply trying to get HBO added, and she tells me I've called the wrong department and she'll have to transfer me. THEN she puts me on hold for five minutes, and comes back to say that she's ready to transfer me, but first wants to go over a few special offers. She launches into two long-winded sales pitches from some troubleshooting service called, "Save Squad" or something, and one for ADT HOME SECURITY!
          
          This is obviously ridiculous. Listen, Comcast. I am calling YOU trying to give you twenty extra dollars a month for you to do nothing. You don't produce HBO shows, all you have to do is simply press a button on a computer somewhere and then I get them! It will literally not cost you a dime, and yet you're making it as difficult as possible for me to give you my money. After I tell the saleslady no, and that I'm not interested six different times, she proceeds to transfer me to the department I should have been in the entire time. A computer answers, and I have to enter in some of the information I already gave the lady, and then go through a series of menus to let them know why I'm calling (so evidently everything I told the lady was for no purpose whatsoever) and then a machine comes on the phone to tell me that the department closed twenty minutes before.

           The happy ending is that I called Comcast back the next day and got HBO for ten, not twenty dollars a month. The unhappy ending is that both on Monday and Tuesday I got calls from Far Eastern salespersons who were, "returning my call" because they had heard I had, "expressed interest" in their Saveology products. Sometimes I use the word, "hate" loosely, and because over exaggeration is fun, but I'm being dead serious - I hate this sort of crap.

             H8 #2: Road Work

DEFINITELY DONE DURING THE DAY

             Okay we get it, roads have to be worked on. At one point (I'm too lazy to look up current statistics) during the last few years Georgia won two honors - the state with the best roads in America, and the state with the dumbest high schools in America (I assume all our drop outs go to work on road crews). Whenever I leave the state by vehicle (as opposed to the many times I've left it on foot, just three feet ahead of the local Sheriff's department, or by ferry, just a short jump ahead of the local Ringwraith department) the decline in the roadway is immediately noticeable. But listen guys, you don't have to work on the roads while people are driving on them. You know how all the time you go to throw something in a dumpster but the dumpster is turned upside down being dumped into a truck? You know how you try shopping at the local superstore but you can't get down any of the aisles because they're filled with pallets full of groceries that are being put on the shelf? You know how you send a package to someone across country and it takes weeks to get there because mail can only travel between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. No? That's because in every other industry work gets done at night so as to not get in the way during the day. See, day time is when most people are at work, or on the roads, or awake, generally. I get up at 4 a.m. in order to get into places when they aren't busy, so I can stay out of people's way - this is more convenient for others and for myself. I run into road work all the time that is being done during rush hour. I don't want to accuse any underpaid worker in any field of ever going on a power trip but you know - some people take their flag waving abilities a little too seriously.

            H8 #1: Over Serious Sports Fans

Real tears, or a genius way to grope college boys?

              Sports are a lot of fun until I really stop and think about them. There aren't really many things that are more pointless that make so much money, or have such a dedicated following. I know there's the whole thing about how sports teach young men about teamwork and self-worth and all of that but that's a pretty flimsy justification for an entire multi-billion dollar global activity. I don't think events have to prove their own worth though - people like sports, that's enough of a justification for them to exist. This year the Atlanta Hawks are surprising everyone by actually winning some games in the post-season. Last year the Orlando Magic swept us four games in a row in the first round of playoffs, but this year we're rematched against them and winning the series 3-2. Tonight's game is at Phillip's Arena in Atlanta, and the Hawks are expected to win, thus moving ahead to certain defeat in round two. On sports radio today there was discussion about tonight's, "Dwight-out." You see, Dwight Howard is the star of the Orlando Magic, and tonight all Hawks fans are encouraged to wear white, in a show of team unity. Normally it's called a White Out, but tonight we're going to be especially punny. The radio hosts also mentioned how the people down in Orlando have been referring to the Hawks (and by proxy, us band wagon jumping Hawks fans!) as...bird brains! Oh course, as all Little Lebowski's know, this aggression cannot stand, man, so we'll just have to defeat them tonight.
 
             Sports are great and all, but sometimes I have the sneaking suspicion they were designed by women to make men act like little children. "You think Twilight is dumb? You cried when a group of overpaid athletes that have no affiliation with you whatsoever beat another group of overpaid athletes that have no affiliation with you whatsoever!" "You think my story about inter-office drama is boring? You got angry because someone in another state that you've never met called a basketball team, 'BIRD BRAINS'." Come on men, save your emotion important things, like the realization that Kurt Cobain would be 44 years old right now if he hadn't been assassinated.

           LOVE: Thunderstorms.

           This is an irreverent choice, as we just had a series of tornadoes across the southeast last night that killed over 200 people, but that's kind of what makes me love them. Not the fact that they kill folks, but for the sheer power weather contains. Weather is something that we now understand through science, but the raw display of force shown by something as invisible and mysterious as wind makes my thoroughly modern soul revert back to the days of pre-history and convinces me that the weather is an act of a vengeful random god. I can understand why so many cultures worshiped the weather - not only is there the importance of rain cycles to the survival of a people, but there's also nothing quite like a real storm. It comes out of nowhere, wreaks it's havoc, and disappears back into the unseen beyond. The randomness with which a tornado touches down - totally destroying one house but leaving the one next door untouched, is almost enough to build an entire religion around.
                I of course am no fan of people dying, or property being destroyed, or irreplaceable keepsakes being lost forever, or millions of dollars worth of damage - but I am a fan of thunderstorms. They are so other-worldly, and uncontrollable, and powerful, and amazing. There is nothing that has those four attributes that I could ever attempt to not love. Thunderstorms, I love you.

How is this not an alien invasion?

Fatherhood the Blog - Week 11

                While I won't deny I love writing about my tiny little child that is currently doing back flips inside of my wife's belly (like a creep!) I also won't deny that on occasions (like every day) I am a desperately self-centered, self-pitying little fool who is not above hijacking a blog dedicated to his own unborn child in order to wax on to pathetic lengths about his own crazy little life. I knows I switched from first to third person in that last paragraph, forgive me, Mr. Whatley of ENG1101. 


                This week my baby turned 11 weeks old. Or perhaps negative 29 weeks old. This week I turned 26 years and 40 weeks old. This week Margaret turned 23 years and 4 weeks old. Also, this week was a horrible week.

                 So many things went horribly wrong this week. It's Friday, and instead of feeling relieved that the weekend is (sort of) here, I feel like a half-drowned man realizing that he's very nearly out of the current, and the shoreline isn't quite as far as it was a moment ago. I have a pretty smooth life, and duck and dodge drama with a deft dip or a delightful dance-step and generally can in no way ever be called, "depressed." My life is a little boring, and not a ton of exciting things go down, but if I had to fill out a quiz every night as I lay my wet hair on my dry pillow, I'd almost always rate each day a 7.5 out of 10 or more. Not this week though. I'm sure it's just some perverse way our brains attempt to organize a chaotic world, but it seems as if disasters come in groups - like thunderstorms. There will be a long period of sunny weather, and then three bands of storms in a row.

                Monday - I don't remember Monday, really. That can only be a good sign. I know we re-planted some peppers in our garden, but then like two days later the peppers we planted a few weeks ago sprouted. PEPPER WARS! My baby reached the size of a medium goldfish. 2 1/2 - 3 inches long.

                Tuesday - At work my handheld computer quit working and, long story short, I had to work 9 1/2 hours straight, without a break. After a few hours at home Margaret and I went to my sister's house. She, her husband, and their three wild indians just moved to Georgia from Los Angeles, Mexico. We had dinner over there and then sat out in the front yard watching the kids ride a bicycle, a tricycle, and some creepy little car with eyeballs. They borrowed a shovel from me, and I borrowed a BB rifle from them. Watching Siobhan, the  five year old, ride a bicycle with no training wheels, take a turn, and then the bike wobble back and forth as her eyes cartoonishly pop out of her head and she comes dangerously close to scraping all the skin off of her legs with the pavement, I learned a lesson about fatherhood: I never want to have a kid. It's just too terrifying. I think I would be running behind the bike ready to dive and catch the child before he or she came close to the ground - and I'm an extremely laid back guy! My baby experienced something amazing today for the first time - the sound of his or her mother's voice. I don't think she/he can hear me yet (but maybe, I don't know) for which he/she should be grateful.

              Wednesday - Wednesday started at midnight (as days often do). Wednesday is my day off, and therefore I still had not gone to sleep. I was sleeping on and off throughout The King's Speech (it's a fine movie, but best picture? Really?) when I got a phone call. This is a top secret phone call which I am completely unable to relate here, or to brag about what a good person I am, but mysterious details aside, my heroic misadventures resulted in me driving several hours, falling asleep on a stranger's couch at 5:15 a.m., waking up at 7:30 a.m., doing a few other secret agent type things, and then driving back home. Margaret was visiting her parents, so I spent the rest of the day (aside from the hour I had to work) lying on the couch feeling exceedingly crummy and fading in and out of sleep. During this time my baby was checking out it's new organs - a gallbladder, a pancreas, and some other stuff which it doesn't know the names of yet.

               Thursday - I got up at 4:00 a.m. and went to work. I spent just over an hour sorting my product and loading my truck and then hopped my sprightly self up into the cab, turned on the vehicle, turned up the radio, shifted that baby into drive...and rolled forward about four feet. My transmission had magically gone out. There was no choice but to get a giant rental truck, but the local Giant Rental Trucks R Us doesn't open until 8 a.m. After a series of headaches and trials that can only have been designed by the god of drill sergeants (and basically amounted to running through mental tires, crawling under cosmic barbed wire, and leaping karmic walls) I was able to get a vehicle with which to do my job. This means my job ended up taking over ten hours straight, and I had to make over twenty phone calls. It took about half an hour on the phone with some barely-English-speaking guy from Allstate to finally get my work truck towed. In despair we went out to eat Mexican food that night, because I needed my margarita medicine. My baby, not at all fazed by my terrible day, spent most of it stretching and flexing it's rapidly developing muscles, focusing on the day when it can hit me in the eye.

                 Friday - Friday wasn't actually that terrible of a day, all things considered (or, at least in comparison with the three days previous). It was bad because I got the news that I needed a new transmission, it'll be over a week before my truck is ready, and my warranty - though it doesn't expire due to mileage for another 50,000 miles, it's one year past the three year warranty date. Translation: No warranty. Also, while having a rental truck is great and obviously necessary, it isn't my normal truck, and isn't the same size, or have the same features, or even the same doors. All of this makes my job much more annoying and makes it take a much longer time. Today my child tested out it's vocal cords. They are very small (since they are on a 2.5 inch creature, after all) but vibrate wonderfully and, I can only assume, in perfect tune. 


             And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we fold our hands neatly in our laps and smile for the cameras. We've done it folks, the first trimester is complete. Margaret hasn't thrown up ONCE.

              UPDATE: It is now actually Monday, and the weekend was busy, but nothing horrible happened. I'm still in the rental truck, and still have no news on my broken truck, but the weekend was enough of a breather that I can survive this upcoming week.  Also, the Hawks are miraculously up 3 games to 1 versus the Orlando Magic, and the Braves just swept the World Champion Giants. There is joy in Mudville.