Yesterday afternoon, I suddenly found myself without internet service here at home.  I’d been online a good bit of the day, writing and reading without any difficulty.  Then, at about 5:16pm, pages stopped loading.  Email stopped coming in.  Errors began popping up, advising that this page or that page was not responding.

I checked the little modem supplied to me by the New AT&T, which took over Bellsouth, and noticed that the internet light was red instead of green.

I unplugged the modem, waited about ten seconds, and plugged it back in, knowing that if I call them, this is one of the first pieces of advice their tech support people would offer.  (In TV, we call the act of turning something off and then back on again the “primary engineering solution” because that’s generally the first thing that’s tried, no matter what the problem actually is.)  In this case, the internet was still out.

So I called the tech support line and after entering my telephone number, I received a recorded message that my account had been “referred to billing which was closed for the day.”  I soon learned that billing on Saturday closes at 5:30pm, and they suspended my internet service at 5:16pm.  They’re not open on Sunday, so Monday morning would be my first opportunity to find out what was wrong.

But if you know me, then you know that I’m not the kind to sit back and wait patiently until Monday.

The other odd thing is that back in July, I signed up for the New AT&T’s convenient auto-draft service, which means that each month, when my bill is due, they just automatically deduct it from my checking account.  That way there’s never a late payment and it’s one less thing I have to worry about.

Except for last month, when they suddenly suspended my telephone service — that time it was just the phone, the internet worked fine — for “non-payment.”  I called, pointed out that I had already signed up for the auto-draft service, and was told that the auto-draft service takes more than a month to begin, so that my payment that should have been auto-drafted wasn’t.  “It would have been nice,” I suggested, “if somewhere on the confirmation email that welcomed me to the auto-draft program, it pointed out this little delay.”  The operator agreed and apologized.  She then assured me that the September payment, which she said was due on September 10th, would be auto-drafted and there would be no problem.

So here I was, on September 6th, (which most of us would likely agree occurs before September 10th has a chance to roll around), with no internet service and the accusation that I was somehow a deliquent.

I called the tech support number back and when it asked for my phone number, I said, “Agent.”  This eventually got me to a human being, albeit a human being with a thick foreign accent that made the conversation more difficult.  This person, after suggesting several tricks to try to get the internet service back up, finally looked up my account and told me it was a billing issue.  I explained the whole auto-draft thing and she said that there was no way she could access that information with my account since she was tech support only.

I then asked the big question, one that they’re probably sorry I asked:  “If I drive myself to my office, go online there, and pay whatever amount the New AT&T seems to think is past due, will that get my service restored automatically?”

She told me she couldn’t promise that, but that it was a possibility.

So I drove to work, signed on to the New AT&T’s convenient online account management system, and was met with the following piece of information:

BILL SUMMARY:

Due Date:  September 10

Current Balance:  $0.00

I actually printed out that page before I left work, and went back home to get back on the phone with tech support.  Needless to say, I was livid.  Livid because I knew I didn’t have a past-due balance, livid because I had taken the step two months ago of signing up for auto-pay so that there was no way a past-due balance was even possible, and livid because they cut my service while accusing me of not paying a zero balance that isn’t even due for another four days!

And the irony that since they now have my checking account number, and can now auto-draft my payment when it is due, and could therefore have automatically drafted whatever they thought was past due without cutting my service, was not lost on me, either.

I immediately asked for a supervisor this time around, explained the problem, read off the information from the printout, and said that waiting until Monday for the correction of a screw-up that was clearly not my fault was thorougly unacceptable.  The supervisor promised to send an emergency email dispatch to a billing manager, and that I should expect a courtesy call back between now and Monday morning.

Within the hour, my internet service suddenly, magically, inexplicably came back on.  The little red light became green again, like the dawn of a new day.  And as for the couresty call, it has yet to occur.

No explanation.  No apology.  Nothing.

I’m sure they’ll blame some random computer glitch.  I’m sure it won’t be anyone’s fault.  But I think they owe me the courtesy of that much at the very least.  And I’m sure they’re going to like it if I have to be the one to make the first contact on Monday morning.

Yesterday I had to drop by a home improvement store to buy two cans of spray paint for an upcoming project. When I got up to the cash register, the first thing I was asked for was my date of birth.

Odd, I thought. But I gave it.

The cashier entered the date, then rang up the two cans.

“So why did you need my date of birth?” I asked.

“Well, that’s so they can track purchases to make sure people aren’t buying spray paint for young people to inhale.”

As I slid the credit card through the reader, I decided not to let that one just slide by.

“Well, how does having my date of birth prove one way or the other whether or not I’m buying spray paint for young people to inhale? Of the people born on the same day as me, how does it know which one I am? And if you’re just taking my word for it, how do you know that’s really even my birthday?”

He blinked at me for a moment, then smiled.  “Hey, they just gave me the rule.”

“Oh, no problem,” I said, assuring him that I wasn’t trying to be a troublemaker, but was just questioning a rule that makes absolutely no sense at all.

When I go to the drug store, I have to sign a register to buy Sudafed, which I only take when my sinuses are really acting up. But I have to hand over my driver’s license, too. So the information they’re getting is actually coming from an official ID. (Assuming it’s not fake.)

But just asking me to give my birthdate means that there’s no verification. I could make up a random date. Then just give the spray paint to some hoodlums.

With reliable information like that, it’s a good thing I’m not the type.

I keep getting someone else’s mail. It is actually a neighbor of mine, according to the address. But it’s not mine, so I’d just as soon not have it making surprise appearances in my mailbox.

This neighbor, named John, seemed nice enough when I handed him past months’ credit card bills and politely suggested that he call the credit card company, Capital One, to get the address corrected. But on the other hand, I don’t know for sure that the person who claimed to be John actually was; I just asked for John, and when he came to the door, I handed him the bill. This has happened twice before.

Prior to that, before taking a close look at the address and realizing the simple mistake they’d made, I just used my trusty “Return to Sender/No Such Addressee” stamp and dropped the bill back in the mailbox. That didn’t seem to work.

The mistake I mentioned, incidentally, is extraordinarily easy to fix. They just don’t seem interested in doing anything about it. Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that my address is 523 Charleston Avenue. And let’s suppose that John’s address is 522 Charleston Avenue. The mail coming to John is addressed this way:

522 Charleston Avenue
#523

That second number, unfortunately, is what the letter carrier is using for delivery purposes. But it seems such a simple fix: just make both numbers 522 and all is well. John gets his bill, Capital One gets their message through, and I don’t have to be bothered with this little exercise in credit card commerce.

I called Capital One this afternoon and asked them to look up the account. Surprisingly, I was able to give them the account number without opening the envelope because it was clearly visible right below the address through the envelope’s address window!

I explained before I gave them the number that this was not my account, but that I needed to advise them of an address correction. I read the number, and they immediately asked me for the last four digits of my social security number. (Way to pay attention, operator!) I repeated that it was not my account, and that I therefore had no idea what the social security number might be. I then read the address that they surely had in front of them — which they were hesitant to confirm or deny at first.

I pointed out the fact that the two different numbers were causing the post office to put John’s mail in my box.

The operator said she understood the mistake, but said there’s nothing she could do about it. The conversation then went something like this:

ME: So you’re telling me that after I’ve told you that I’m getting one of your customer’s credit card statements in error, you’re just going to keep sending me his bill with his account information?

HER: Well, could you walk the letter over to [John]?

ME: I’ve been doing that. But that’s not solving the problem. I don’t want to have to keep dealing with this month after month.

HER: Well, if you could ask him to call us, we can change it if he calls us.

ME: I have asked him to do that. He either hasn’t gotten around to it, or you guys haven’t gotten around to fixing it.

HER: Well, sir, the problem is that I don’t know who you are. I can’t confirm that you’re [John].

ME: Right. I told you that to start with. I’m not him. This is not my account. I’m someone else. If I were going to lie about who I was, I’d be claiming to be John, not a neighbor.

HER: Well, we can’t confirm that.

ME: You mean you can’t confirm that I’m someone else?

HER: Yes. Um, I mean no. That you’re not him.

Rocket scientist.

I was waiting, because I just knew this next line was coming. Sure enough…

HER: If you would just ask him to call us again…

ME: I’ll ask the person I give the bill to, for the third time, to call you. There’s just one problem with that: I can’t confirm that the person I’m giving the mail to is actually John.

HER: (Pause) You don’t know him?

ME: No! Do you know all of your neighbors?!? The only thing I know about him is you guys seem to think he lives were I do. When I walk it over to the other address, I don’t ask the guy for his ID. He says he’s John, but I don’t know if he is or not. I just want to stop getting his mail.

HER: Well, there’s really nothing else we can do.

I asked to speak to a supervisor, who told me she wanted to put me on hold long enough to research procedure in such matters. After about thirty seconds on hold, we got cut off.

So I’m left with, “there’s really nothing else we can do.”

Sure there is, Capital One: You call John. You tell him that there is a question about the address on his statement. You then advise him that you are placing a block on his credit card until he calls the number listed on the back of the card itself — so that there’s no question that he’s calling a valid, real Capital One number — to confirm his address. You then advise him that if they do not hear from him in five business days, the account will be closed, thereby changing the interest rate to the default rate, which will probably cost him a hell of a lot more money. (That’s the incentive for him to get this fixed, even if they have no real intention of doing that.)

That way, he calls them, he gives them the information rather than them having to ask him, they get the right address, he gets his statements hereafter, and I don’t get bothered.

Problem solving doesnt have to be that hard.

I had an interesting dinner conversation the other night with a co-worker. We were talking about the 40 anniversary of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination in California, and we realized that this November 22nd will be the 45th anniversary of John Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas.

We discussed all of the JFK conspiracy theories, and my co-worker asked me if I thought there had been a conspiracy to kill JFK or if I thought Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone. I said that I believe a conspiracy was definitely possible, but that I didn’t think it was the level of conspiracy that movies like Oliver Stone’s JFK depicted.

I mentioned a quote from Walter Cronkite about Stone’s depiction of the events, which he had called a “bill of goods” that unsuspecting young people had fully bought into. Cronkite said, in effect, that if there had been that level of conspiracy from all angles of our government, organized crime and foreign powers, there is almost no way that by now, someone wouldn’t have come forward and spilled the beans, making every detail public.

Imagine the big book deal. Imagine sitting on that couch with a teary-eyed Oprah.

The co-worker then said something interesting: “I think bits and pieces of the truth have gotten out…they’re just small enough that they don’t get a lot of notice by themselves.”

That got me thinking about conspiracy theories in general. How can a piece of the puzzle about what some regard as one of the greatest murder mysteries of the 20th century go largely unnoticed? By making the murder itself the subject of so many conspiracy theories.

A conspiracy theory, in essence, makes even true facts easier to dismiss as fiction because it is assumed that what is really the truth is only part of the conspiracy theory itself. We see it every day.

So when some former gangster comes forward and says he was friends with Jack Ruby and Lee Oswald, and that he hosted a meeting of the two in his apartment in Dallas three days before the murder, it’s easier to write him off as being one of the “nutjob” conspiracy theorists than to take the time to try to verify his story. There have been plenty of nutjobs who have come up with their own reasons of why that shooting happened (as well as who pulled the trigger). (I made this scenario up, but I’m sure it has probably happened at some point.)

But what if his story is true? We could be missing a major piece of the puzzle, because we’ve been conditioned by the conspiracy theorists to believe nothing. So we don’t believe him, either.

Here’s another example, on a subject that’s everyone’s favorite: global warming.

I’ll start with a clip from January 2, 2007, of the Today show in which Willard Scott appeared on the set in New York with Meredith Viera:

Here, in case you miss something, is a transcript of what is said:

SCOTT: Well, listen are you a globing — a global-warming fan? Do you believe in global warming?

VIEIRA: I’m not a fan. No. No, sir.

SCOTT: Well –

VIEIRA: But I — something’s going on, ’cause it’s warm here.

SCOTT: Well, now, wait a minute — that’s it; it’s warm here. From Savannah [Georgia] all the way up to Boston, we’re having unheard-of warm weather, but ask the folks out in Denver and Colorado –

VIEIRA: That’s so.

SCOTT: — the coldest winter they’ve had in years. So it all depends on which side of the Mississippi you’re hanging your hat.

When Media Matters, a watchdog organization that describes its goal as “comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.” Yet when it posted the clip on YouTube, it gave it this headline:

“Willard Scott Denies Global Warming”

Trouble is, he didn’t deny that global warming exists. He merely pointed out that while it’s hot on one side of the country, it’s cold on the other; he suggested that it is easy to characterize hot weather as part of global warming, but that when you’re dealing with particularly cold weather, the concept of global warming isn’t necessarily rolling off your tongue.

Does Willard Scott personally believe in global warming? Maybe he does or maybe he doesn’t. The answer isn’t clear from that snippet. If anything, he believes that the hot weather Viera describes isn’t solely a result of global warming, particularly when it’s not being felt uniformly everywhere.

But one might hope that a “watchdog” group designed to weed out “misinformation” wouldn’t feel the need to resort to hyperbole to make its points. Even on its own website, the group posted a headline not quite on the mark:

“Willard Scott suggested weather ‘in Denver and Colorado’ casts doubt on global warming”

Again, it isn’t really what he said, but it’s possible to assume that he’s saying something along those lines. It’s also possible to assume that he’s saying that these two weather extremes aren’t necessarily clear examples, like, say, melting polar ice caps are. But we’re not in Willard’s head, and he doesn’t elaborate there, so the best we can do, one way or the other, is assume. And that shouldn’t be a valid base for criticism.

On the other hand, it’s easy for people like Scott to make a statement about global warming because there are so many global warming enthusiasts out there who tend to want to make everything about global warming. Here in Charleston, it’s 88 degrees outside as I type this post. The high today is 93. That’s hot. But we’re just days away from the start of summer, so it’s supposed to be hot.

But the environmental conspiracy theorists, those so quick to point to every little symptom as that pesky global warming again make easy for the rest of us to roll our eyes and dismiss what they’re saying.

In essence, conspiracy theorists who are a little “over the top” about making their case, tend to make the rest of us blind to the elements that may genuinely be true, just because we’re so tired of hearing about the constant “worst-case scenarios.”

Somehow, I don’t think that helps their argument.

So I am trying my best to adopt a new attitude starting today.

I’ve been quite frustrated lately in a variety of directions. So I am making a concerted effort to just “get over it,” a trick that does not come easily to people who suffer from various anxiety disorders that make it something of a challenge to let go of things.

There has been a slight change — although I’ve not let it feel so slight much of the time — at the old workplace involving one of my responsibilities. It was one that I enjoyed, but one that was admittedly taking a little too much of my time. I feel silly saying this, but I think I actually experienced the five stages of grief when the task was reassigned. Maybe I didn’t hit all five; I don’t recall bargaining for anything other than to go on doing what I was doing without any change (which isn’t much of a negotiation, unless you’re George W. Bush). It’s entirely possible that I hit anger before denial. (And likely after as well.)

But I know that I have reached the final stage: acceptance. It’s okay. It’s less stress for me to have to deal with on a daily basis. That’s a good thing. (And no, I’m not just saying that to convince myself: I’m convinced already.)

I’ve also been dealing with other frustrations, including one of my biggest pet peeves: broken things that remain unfixed. Things change, I am often reminded. Old systems that are no longer efficient get replaced by newer systems that promise to be at least as efficient. Sometimes, newer technology isn’t so efficient because it means jumping through additional hoops to get the same things done.

I hate that. If it slows me down, it’s not better. It’s only slower.

But there comes a point at which the old systems become too expensive to fix. There are few things that get me more fired up than having the same problems continue because a problem everyone knows about just keeps right on going. Fix it! Now!

I’m trying to get over that, too.

Some things aren’t going to get fixed. They’ll be replaced. By things that aren’t as efficient in certain ways.  But by things that generally have a better chance of getting the task accomplished in the end.

And as much as I’d like to wallow in the aggravation, because we anxiety sufferers tend to find some perverse pleasure in wallowing in such things, I have to move forward. I have to learn to embrace something different. Even though it will certainly cause a new set of problems. (New things always do.) I have to accept the fact that some things won’t be able to be done as easily or quickly. So I will have to be the one to adapt. (Technology always makes us adapt to it rather than the other way around.)

My friend Archie, a pastor at my church, has recently started a blog, and his latest post is called “Here’s to new beginnings.” Archie and his wife, Rebekah, are moving to California later this year, and in that post, he talks about the thought of looking forward to making changes he wants to make and a move as an opportunity to make them:

“But then the thought hit me… If I’m not starting that stuff now, I’m probably not going do it out there; just because I’m in a new place doesn’t mean that I change on the inside. BUT on the other hand- why wait to start out there? God tells us in scripture that his mercies are new EVERY DAY. So here’s to a new beginning on life… today.”

Here, here.  I’m trying.

Today.

South Carolina, my native state, leads the nation in something.

For those of you who haven’t figured it out by now, whenever South Carolina leads the nation in anything, it is almost always bad. When they trail behind all the other states, it’s usually for something good.

Here’s a perfect example. This time, South Carolina is #1 for drivers who send cell phone text messages while driving.

The study, according to the Post and Courier, was commissioned by a company that offers a solution to the problem. That particular solution, it turns out, is an application that allows people to record a voice message that will then be translated into a text message.

I trust that most people will immediately recognize the idiocy of such a plan.

Why not just plug in the headphones or your Bluetooth ear bob and just call the person?!? If you’re going to leave a voicemail that will have to be translated into a text message, why not just leave the voicemail and call it a day?

That’s if you absolutely positively can’t wait to make the call until you get where you’re going.

Personally, I have never understood the whole text message thing. I’ve sent maybe a dozen since I got my first cell phone years ago. They’re annoying. They take more time than just calling the person. And for most people, they require that ridiculous internet shorthand that almost takes a college course to decipher.

I’m not one of those who favor laws requiring people to stay off the cell phone while they’re driving, because there are legitimate times when you need to make a call. But text messaging ought to be against the law. If it isn’t already.

When it comes to driving, what we should be reaching out to touch is the steering wheel.

If you’re a fan of CSI:, the original version, then it’s almost impossible for you not to know that one of the original cast members is leaving after tonight’s episode.

If you somehow have remained clueless, stop reading now.  Otherwise, you might just end up feeling the way I do about these constant “behind the scenes” details and “spoilers.”

In case you don’t know, and you’re stubbornly still reading this, I’ll throw in one more delay before getting to the meat of the issue.  Actress Marg Helgenberger has just signed a two-year contract extension.  That will keep her on the show as long as William Petersen, who signed his extension back in April.

Just knowing those two details, it seems to me, kills a lot of opportunities for suspense in the medical drama.  Odds are if either of their characters fall into a life or death situation in the next 15 months or so, they’ll probably survive.  (They could always die and come back as their own ghost, but that’s more of a soap stunt.)

Actor Gary Dourdan is leaving the show and tonight is his last episode.  There may be suspense in how he departs:  will he be shot to death by a perp or arrested for something he’s done?  Will he catch a contagious virus from a contaminated crime scene or get hit by a drunk driver running from police?

Who knows.  But he’s leaving.

The thing is, why do I know that?  Why do I need to know that before I see it actually happen?

Shows like Entertainment Tonight, which used to be a decent show in its early days before it turned more tabloid than the National Enquirer ever dreamed of being, are constanty revealing details that the audience really shouldn’t know going in.

I watch all of those behind the scenes documentaries about how this effect was done or how that trick was pulled off, then I see the show and can’t help but be less than impressed with the magic because I now know there’s no doubt about it being a trick.

Sometimes I actually want to be surprised.  Just once — and this is quite a fantasy these days — I’d like to know what the ending will be only after I see the episode actually end.

Sometimes, I wish these behind the scenes reports would just shut up.

Oh, the craziness that exists in my home state of South Carolina.

Over the weekend, I visited family and friends who live in Lexington County. I was reminded of a ridiculous set of laws I had forgotten even existed. The laws in question are known as “Blue Laws” and were originally enacted to prevent businesses from opening on Sundays, to allow for employees to attend church.

Over the years, much of the state has eased or thrown out blue laws altogether. For example, in Charleston County, I can go to a Super Wal-Mart at any hour of the day or night, and buy anything they sell. (The one possible exemption to this is alcohol, but since I almost never buy even a bottle of wine, I wouldn’t know, anyway.)

While I was shopping in this Lexington County Super Wal-Mart, I noticed that sections of the store had been roped off with a single line of thin yellow rope. I didn’t really think anything about that, since most of the time when I’m in a Wal-Mart store, something is always blocked off, either for floor cleaning or restocking. I got the items I needed and proceeded to the checkouts. That’s when it was pointed out that I wouldn’t be able to buy the majority of what was in my buggy until 1:30 that afternoon.

At the time, it was 12:15.

Ironically, on my way to checkouts, I stopped and spoke to a man named Tony, who attends my parents’ church. He’s a worship leader and Sunday School teacher. He was all suited up, and clearly had come from church. So my shopping in the store at that time would have been absolutely possible even if I had attended church myself that morning.

Back in Charleston, my pastor has a great phrase for the kinds of people who would enact Blue Laws to begin with. He refers to them as “J-FARS.” That’s Jesus Followers Acting Really Stupidly.”

Does anyone believe that Jesus really cares whether I buy a pair of khakis at 12:15pm or 1:30pm on a Sunday? Wouldn’t He be much more interested in whether or not I believe in Him? (And contrary to what some overly-righteous might have you believe, you do not have to be in church every time the door opens just to do that.)

Blue Laws were never a good idea. But in this day of churches offering multiple worship times, plus the internet offering new and innovative ways to worship, they’re now not only a bad idea, but a hopelessly backward example of J-FARS.

They need to go. At once.

Can I get an “Amen?”

I saw this at a local coffee shop yesterday afternoon.  The message is taped just below the cash register display, which I caught in motion as “Good Afternoon’ was scrolling across the display:

What’s your reaction?  Would you see this and think, “It’s about time a business took a stand against rude cell phone customers,” or would you wonder, “Who do they think they are?”

My reaction is definitely the former:  years and years ago when I ran a cash register, there were a few times when I’d just stop and wait, without giving a customer talking a cell phone their total, until they gave me three seconds of their time; after all, as customers, don’t we get bent out of shape when cashiers won’t pay us any attention?

Fair is fair, after all.

Last night, I went to the gym for a grueling leg workout.  Seriously…it was grueling.  By the time I got inside the house and sat down with some ice water, my legs were just making their way in the door.  That was as fast as they could move.

Anyway, I suppose I was in such a level of discomfort — the kind gyms and trainers like to try to convince you feels “great” — that I left my iPod in my car overnight.  Cut me a little slack at least:  it was closed up in the center console, certainly not out in plain sight.

But this morning, as I was walking to my car to drive to work, I noticed something very odd:  the driver’s side window was rolled down about three inches.

For a split second, I did what everyone does:  I tried to review that mental “videotape” of the last evening, searching for the moment that I would have inexplicably rolled my window down while it was drizzling outside.  Naturally, I could find no such scene.  I was sure I hadn’t left the window down.

Then I immediately remembered the iPod.  Well, that’s gone, I told myself.  But it wasn’t.  Everything was there, just where I’d left it.

I started the car and pressed the window button.  It didn’t move.  There wasn’t even the labored sounds of a motor fighting the good fight to raise the glass.  Nothing.  I then did what seemed like a good thing to try at the time:  I tried to pull the window up higher.  It was definitely not a good idea, though, because while I was able to make the window move up to about an inch from the top of the window frame, when I let go, the entire window just slid down into the door leaving not even a millimeter of the glass visible.

Curses.  Foiled again.

So I dropped the car off at a local mechanic.  This afternoon, I picked up the car, which now contains a new “regulator” and motor for that window, to the tune of $325.

The mechanic explained that sometimes, the cables that run power windows can just become frayed and snap.  With no notice.  You’d never know there was any problem with the window until it just fails.

That should make us all take a quick inventory of what’s in our car, and particularly, what shouldn’t be.  If a window can just drop down out of the blue, anyone can get into your car.  And as fate usually does things, it’ll happen at the worst possible time.  We can lock our cars — and we should already be doing that, anyway.  But even with a locked door, we can’t be certain our belongings are safe in there.

Not long ago, I was in my office at Channel 37, when I heard two short beeps. The first time I heard it, it took a few seconds to even register that I had heard it. About thirty seconds later or so, it happened again. I walked out into the larger adjoining office and checked out the new printer our IT team had installed, suspecting that it must be the culprit. There were no blinking red lights and no message that anything had run amok. I stood there for a moment, waited, and heard nothing.

As I was almost back in my office, I heard the beeps again. From the same general area. It turned out, to make a long story short, that one of the photographer’s cell phones had received a call that he had missed, and the cell phone was beeping to alert him to the missed call. He returned to his desk just moments after I had heard the fourth set of beeps and realized where they were coming from.

I mention that little story to point out that while some people (like me) would be happy just being amused at my own frustration, others (like the inventers of the Annoy-a-tron) decide to find a way to capitalize on it:

“The Annoy-a-tron generates a short (but very annoying, hence the name) beep every few minutes. Your unsuspecting target will have a hard time ‘timing’ the location of the sound because the beeps will vary in intervals ranging from 2 to 8 minutes. The 2kHz sound is generically annoying enough, but if you really really want to aggravate somebody, select the 12 kHz sound. Trust us.”

It’s unusual appearance, apparently, is part of its charm:

“Assuming you have done your part in selecting a suitable hiding location for the Annoy-a-tron, it will do its part to drive your co-workers slowly mad with its short and seemingly random beeps. And when someone does locate the Annoy-a-tron, they’re really not going to know what it is - which is almost as much fun as watching them search for it. Muahaha.”

(Via J-Walk Blog)

I generally don’t talk about specific incidents at work, because I don’t wish to be accused of spilling anyone’s secrets.  (Although I’m smart enough not to do that, anyway.)

Sometimes, when I know that what’s happening at my own station is happening at others, I’ll make reference to such occurrences.  This is such a case.

Recently, I was sitting at my desk at Channel 37, when an email popped in from a man who complained about something we had said.  We have since received a couple of similar complaints.  I’m not sure where they’re coming from, but I am beginning to suspect some grassroots movement.

The complaint concerned the way we were being disrespectful to President Bush…by referring to him as “Mr. Bush.”

“He is not ‘Mr. Bush,’” the gentleman said in the complaint.  “He is President Bush.”

I responded to a more recent complaint, and I figured I’d explain the reality of the situation here in case someone else out there in blogland is upset about such a practice.

There are two main schools of thought about how to refer to a person in a news story.  Both begin with the notion that you should refer to a person by full name in “first reference,” or the first time you mention the person by name.  In the case of the President, it is understood that he would be referred to as “President George Bush” or at least “President Bush” on first reference.

But the second time (and each time thereafter) that he is mentioned by name, those two schools of thought differ.  One says that it is both sufficient and appropriate to use only his last name, as in, “Bush says he will veto any such bill that crosses his desk.”  The other says that it is appropriate to use Mr., as in “Mr. Bush is spending the weekend at his Texas ranch.”

I explained to the viewer that Mr. is a “courtesy title,” with courtesy being the operative word.  It is hardly meant as a sign of disrespect when a reporter refers to Bush as “Mr. Bush,” even though he is, by title, “President Bush.”  On the contrary, it is a sign of respect to add the title before the name.

Bush is also, according to basic rules of etiquette, “Mr. President.”  So it should be clear that Mr. is far from a dirty word.

Personally, I prefer to do without courtesy titles.  When I read a news story, I find them cumbersome.  And having been influenced by stylebooks that suggest their omission as far back as my middle school newspaper days, I have long been conditioned to do so.  That’s why it is rare to find a courtesy title on this blog.

I wonder why, though, some people seem quick to assume that what one intends must have been to offend.

I had noticed something missing lately from Tivo’s offerings: classic game shows, like those typically found on GSN (which used to be Game Show Network and now goes only by initials).

For the past week or so, apparently, GSN has been MIA. I called Comcast to ask WTF, though not in those specific terms, and PDQ after pressing the button indicating a “problem” with my service, a recording came on telling me that as of November 16, GSN had been moved to the digital tier at channel 179.

To continue receiving it, the recording explained, I would have to upgrade my service. (Translation: I shell out more money and they’ll give me the channel I’ve been getting for less out of the goodness of their hearts.) Continue reading “Comcast’s Quick Switch”