No one ever called me back from Microsoft.  On Tuesday, I called them again.  I actually stopped writing down their names because, really, what was the point?  So the person I spoke with on Tuesday wouldn’t let me talk to a senior engineer.  Apparently, that sort of thing needs to be scheduled.  Right.  And apparently someone had been trying to contact me by email and I wasn’t responding.  Could that be because you people at the Microsoft call center couldn’t write down my email address correctly?  And that whomever was supposedly contacting me by email was not actually contacting me?  Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s the reason.  So, still on Tuesday here, I requested the email address of the senior technician.  After all, if I send her/him an email, then s/he will have my email address.  That makes sense.  I repeated the email address back to the call center employee twice, so I knew I had the right email address.

Oh, except that I didn’t.  When I sent the email off, it bounced back with a message saying that the email address didn’t exist.  WTF?  So, yet again on Tuesday, I called the call center.  I don’t know why they want to go through all the gory details of the ticket each and every time I call.  This conversation went something like this:

“I just need the senior technician’s email address.”

“But, ma’am, I don’t have that information.”

“Ok, just transfer me to the technical team so they can give me that information.”

“But I need to know why you are calling tonight.”

“You have my case number, and I’m calling to get an email address.”

“But, ma’am, I need to know which team that is.”

“Well, you have my case number.  I’ll wait a moment while you read the file.”

I don’t think he actually read the file, but he did transfer me to the technical team.  I finally got a technician who read my file and gave me the correct email address for the senior technician.  (And this is why I should be talking to customer support people who speak the same dialect as I do: when you say VEE and I hear THREE, then I repeat back THREE to you twice and you hear VEE, this does not make for a very happy customer service experience.)  I resent the email (which never bounced back), requesting that the senior engineer call me at 6pm the following evening.

Now, despite the fact that I was feeling extremely unwell on Wednesday, I sat by my phone and computer from 6pm until 7pm without a call from anyone.  Since I was pretty sure any further sitting up would cause me to vomit, I headed back to sleep for another 12 hours.  On Thursday, I sent another email to the senior engineer requesting a call for Friday at 6pm.

Now, on Friday, I received an email asking me to rate the service I had received from Microsoft… seeing as they had closed my ticket.  Again… WTF??  So, yes, I filled out that survey.  I gave Microsoft the lowest possible rating in every category.  Ah, if only I could have used negative numbers!  They wanted to know how they could make Microsoft support better.  Well, gee.  How about if you hire people who can actually help?  That would be swell.

Instead of any kind of fun on Friday night, I gave Microsoft yet another call.  I bullied my way past the gatekeeper.  I refused to speak to the technical support person.  I only wanted to speak to a manager.  From this point, in all fairness, my association with Microsoft improved ever so slightly.  Rochelle was very accommodating.  Since I’d been waiting for a call back from a senior engineer since Sunday, I told her I really didn’t want to have to wait another two or three days for a senior engineer to get around to contacting me.  In fact, I’d really prefer if she would get one on the line right away.  It wasn’t right away, but she did call me back in about 15 minutes.

I then proceeded to spend the next three hours on the phone with Anthony.  After about two hours, the phone lost its charge and cut us off, but he called me right back.  He tried all manner of things — again, in a spirit of full disclosure, some things I would not have thought to try.  Finally, he decided to conference in a technician from Dell Support.  After about 15 minutes, Mark at Dell found one of their knowledge base articles that stated that there’s some peculiarity with the Vista installation on my specific model of laptop and that the only way to install Windows 7 is to perform a custom (i.e., clean) install.

As disappointing as this was, Anthony was good enough to provide me with the phone number for Microsoft’s “Money Back Guarantee Team” who, according to him, would be happy to assist me in getting a full refund for the software.  Of course, I have to wait until Monday for that.

As you know, Microsoft, I’ve never really been a fan of your Vista operating system.  So I decided up upgrade to Windows 7.  But you don’t want me to do that, do you?  I spent two hours on Saturday trying to get Vista to upgrade to Windows 7.  My computer passed with flying colors when I ran the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, but the upgrade wouldn’t get past the download of files phase.  It didn’t matter, Microsoft, whether I was online or offline, whether I had peripherals plugged into the laptop or every darn thing unplugged.  So I made the further mistake of trying to contact your “Customer Support” center.

Microsoft, I don’t like telephones.  I have a hard time understanding people when I’m on the phone.  I especially have a hard time understanding your outsourced customer service people.  Still, I gave Komal a chance to try to fix the problem.  Sadly, after two hours on the phone with him, the only thing that was accomplished was a complete deterioration of my patience and a growing desire to reach through the phone and strangle him.  Oh, and then he hung up on me.  (What is it with customer service people hanging up on me?)

Not long after Komal hung up on me, I started getting calls from Cincinnati,  OH.  Since I don’t know anyone in Cincinnati, I ignored them.  (Did I mention I don’t like phones, Microsoft?)  But whoever that was in Cincinnati was pretty damn persistent.  Finally, the Offspring answered the phone, but thought it was a sales call and hung up.  Ah.  Turns out it was somebody at Microsoft calling back.  So the next time the call came in from Cincinnati (and I don’t believe for a second that the call actually originated in Cincinnati), I picked up.  It was Ahmed, a manager at Microsoft.  Or a manager at the call center.  Ahmed assured me that his only wish was to make me happy, and that he would have another engineer give me a call back on Sunday.  He seemed so sincere, but it turns out he was not.  We agreed that the engineer would call me back at 2:00pm on Sunday.

Apparently, they don’t have Daylight Saving Time wherever Ahmed and his merry band of engineers are, because Kapil did not call until nearly 3:00pm.  Kapil did all the same things Komal had done on Saturday.  Except this time, when we got to the part where the error popped up, Kapil had disappeared.  He hadn’t hung up on me… I was still connected.  But all the yelling into the phone did not bring him back.  So I had to hang up on him, and disconnect the remote session so I could reinstall my anti-virus software.

Around 5:15pm, I tried calling Microsoft again.  This time, I spoke to Sari, who said a senior engineer would call me back within an hour.  Guess what, Microsoft?  Right.  No one called me back.  And when I tried calling the support line again, it seems that everyone had gone home for the day.

Now I just want Ahmed to call me back so I can get a refund for this software.  I’ve invested entirely too much of my life, Microsoft, in trying to get your stupid software installed.  I’ll suffer with Vista.  Rest assured, Microsoft, I will take every opportunity to tell people how much your customer support sucks.  It’s really awful.  Quite possibly the worst customer service except for Sears.

Yep, Microsoft… I really understand why so many people like Linux.

I found a fantastic article by Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle.  It made me smile and it almost made me want to run down to the local Unitarian Universalist church to join up.  Since I went to UU churches in Chicago (a shout out to Second Unitarian in New Town!) and Denver (went to all of the UU churches in Denver, Jefferson and Boulder counties, and never could decide which was my favorite), the article brought back some great memories.  I’d reprint the whole thing here, except, you know, that’s wrong.  So quick, go read the article, and come back.

Was that great, or what?  I really think I’m going to go join the Unitarian Jihad.  In fact, my new Jihadist name is Sister Flaming Shuriken of Acceptance. If you’d like to join us, you can get your own Unitarian Jihadist name from the Naming Committee.  I have to go make some flower arrangements now.  And then I will probably bake some cookies.

Every now and again, I check the spam comments that spammy spammers leave on this here site.  Gotta say I really hate these “people.”  A couple of them recently left comments similar to “Loved your post, I’m going to copy it to my blog.”

What the fuck?  You think it’s ok to copy stuff that *I* write to your crap shithole of a blog?  I call down the curse of ages on you!  May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your genital region and crawl up your ass.  May you always have watery diarrhea.  May all your hair fall out, except for that in your nose and ears.  May your eyes cross, and stay that way until you’re dead.  No, they should stay that way even after you’re dead.  May you have hangnails on every finger… every day.  May you have paper cuts galore, and always manage to spill lemon juice on them.  May your toenails continue to grow, and resist all efforts at trimming.  And may a tattoo saying “Loser” suddenly appear on your forehead.

Ah.  I feel better now.

What the frack, guys?  The last time I had a problem with an appliance, I gave you a call.  The customer service people on the phone were polite and helpful.  The service person arrived in a timely fashion, and fixed the problem.

This time, however, you completely fucked up.  When I called, the “customer service” representative was robotic rather than polite, and couldn’t be bothered to find a technician who could fix my washing machine in a timely manner.  I should have picked up on this clue.  I should have started calling all the other appliance repair people in the area right then and there.  But no.  I made an appointment for a service call a week and a half in the future.

When the day of the service appointment arrived, I drove home at lunch time to meet the technician (who was supposed to arrive between 1pm and 5pm).  Because I’m apparently a little bit psychic, I decided to check the voice mail messages (I generally only do that a couple of times a week).  Oh gosh!  The “customer service” people had called at 11:30am to tell me the technician wasn’t going to make it that day.  WTF?

So I called them back to find out when I could get my washing machine fixed.  This “customer service” representative was even more robotic than the initial one, and couldn’t have possibly been less interested in helping me.  He wanted to reschedule the appointment for yet another week in the future.  Uh… no.  I requested an appointment for the following day.  Robot Man simply kept repeating, “I can reschedule this appointment for next week.”  I reiterated that I had already been without a washing machine for 10 days, could not wait another week to get it repaired, and really needed to get it fixed immediately.  Instead of transferring me to his supervisor (which I understand is what you are supposed to do with irate customers — and believe me, I was IRATE), Robot Man HUNG UP ON ME.  Hung up on me.  Yes.  He did.

Once the thoughts of stuffing Robot Man into the washing machine passed, I started calling repair people.  On the fourth call, I found someone who will actually come out early on Saturday morning.  If he actually does get my washing machine working on Saturday, he will totally be my go-to guy for appliance repair!  And if he doesn’t, I’ll have to go shopping for a washer.  Bah.

But rest assured, I will never call Sears again for any reason.  I probably won’t even shop there anymore, either… because, hey, it’s not like it’s convenient or anything to get there.

I’ve been watching Psych with the Offspring the past few weeks.  I had watched maybe a half dozen episodes of the first season when it first aired, and then stopped watching it… probably for some silly reason like I needed to go to sleep early.  But I had a coupon from Amazon for a Video On Demand offering, so I bought the first season of Psych.  We’ve been watching it on the internet-capable Blu-Ray player Santa brought us for Christmas.

So here’s what I don’t get: why the hell did I stop watching Psych in the first place?  It’s freaking hilarious!  Shawn and Gus crack me up, and at least half of the time so does Lassiter.  We’re done with season one, on to season two.  We’re going to watch another three or four episodes tomorrow night, so leave us alone.

There are some people who sing with such purity and emotion that their voices reach right into my heart and squeeze.  k.d. lang is one of them.  Her performance at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics is testament to her astounding skill.  When I read the words to Hallelujah, I thought, “Meh, ok, might be a nice song… but might not.”  But while listening to k.d.’s rendition, I had tears streaming down my face.  That’s not a nice song, that’s a shatter your heart into a million little pieces with the longing of it all kind of song.  She did the same darn thing to me the first time I heard her singing Crying, too.

I think I’m going to have to dig out all my k.d. lang CDs today.

It would seem that Amazon delisted all the books from Macmillan over the weekend.  I’m not going to pretend I have any knowledge of publishing or bookselling, so I’m going to refer you to John Scalzi’s analysis of the situation.

I have a Kindle.  I’m rather fond of my Kindle.  But if I can’t get the book I want to read for my Kindle, I’m not above buying those things made from tree mulch.  At Barnes & Noble or Borders or the local independent bookstore.  Or even the newly-renovated public library up the street!  I go to Amazon for convenience.  If they take away my convenient, it’s their loss when I jump in my car and visit their competitors.

Also?  Why I’m not getting an iPad:

According to the decidedly bizarre people at Westboro Baptist Church, God pretty much hates everything and everyone… including the good ol’ U. S. of A.

This brings all manner of thoughts right to the forefront of my mind, causing a collision that makes it difficult to write about any one thing.  But I’ll work on separating it all out.

First, can you say “hubris”?  Wow.  Going with the assumption that the Entity Known As God is greater than anything a mere mortal could comprehend with the three-pound (give or take) lump of goo in our heads, how could a mere mortal say that he or she knows anything about the mind of said Entity?  On a tangent to that, how do we even know whether or not something godlike even has emotions?  The honest answer is, “We don’t.”  Also tangentially, it would appear that mere mortals have a fondness for anthropomorphizing, well, everything, really.  So the Entity Known As God has emotions because we mere mortals have emotions.

I’m not arguing for or against the existence of the Entity Known As God, by the way.  But all mythology makes the Entities Known As Gods look and act and think and feel an awful lot like the people who are writing the stories about the ENAG.  I’m just saying that we mere mortals are kind of arrogant in thinking we might know what the ENAG is or is not thinking or feeling.

Next, I think I’ve figured out those bizarre people of Westboro Baptist Church.  Since they say that God hates America, they themselves must be anti-American, and not even Americans at all.  But I don’t think ENAG cares much about arbitrary geopolitical borders on this, or any other, planet.  Kind of like how I don’t care what the ants in the colonies are doing under my lawn… as long as they don’t put their little piles of sand in my driveway, I won’t run them over.

And then there, “God hates…”  Wait.  What?  No.  Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.  (Catholic grade school… give me a break.)  Does that mean that Jesus isn’t God?  Well, some people believe that.  But I thought Christians believed that Jesus is God.  So that means that the bizarre people of Westboro Baptist Church aren’t Christians.  Ah!  Now we’re getting somewhere.  Now it all makes sense!

Being the happy science fiction loving nerd that I am, my theory about the bizarre people of Westboro Baptist Church is that they’re aliens from another planet (atheists, of course) that have come here to sow negativity and dissent so we mere mortals are ripe pickings for their evil overlords who will show up here one of these days to harvest the lumps of goo in our heads as a gourmet appetizers.  And then they’ll build a galactic bypass.

There were some Russian scum ditty pus balls who had been trying to post spam comments here for a couple of weeks.  These posts were all in Russian (and Google kept offering to translate them for me… I naturally declined), and they all something like 100+ lines long.  There were a lot (like almost all the lines) of links, and I’m pretty sure it was all porn.  At first, only two or three of these spam comments would come in each day; then 25 or 30.  That may not seem like a lot to some people, but I’m not sure there are that many legitimate readers out there.  Then there was the day I received 85 spam in one day.  On one post.

While it was extremely annoying to see all those comments in the Akismet spam folder, I really appreciate the fact that Akismet is so diligent in keeping them away from those of you who are real people.  I say, “Three cheers for Akismet!”  Oh, and “Thank you.”

And since I closed comments on that post, I haven’t received a single spam comment at all.  Ah, spammers.  May you all rot in hell.