Well today started out pretty bad, but I think I got some perspective from it.

There has been a collection company that got my phone number from their database listings as being a potential point of contact to track down their debtor. Great, just what I need to deal with is another phone tree where I am put on hold so that I can tell them to stop calling me. They called 9 times before I got sick of deleting their messages and called them.

So I call them up and ask "hey what is the deal here? Why are you calling me? I have nothing to do with this person and you keep calling me." So the guy on the other end says, "well our database matches similar names and calls people who *may* be related.

I started turning red instantly. So I said to the guy, "Ok let me get this strait you harass people who's names are nothing more than similar to the people you are looking for?", and he says "get your vocabulary straight mister, its not harassment, all you have to do is call us and we'll leave you alone".

Am I the only one who thinks this is absurd?

Well I told the guy I wanted to make a formal complaint and he just hung up on me. So I call back and ask to talk to a manager, she hangs up on me when I ask to file a complaint. Ok so the next part of this seems insane but it really happened, it goes all the way up the chain, each one as rude as or ruder than the previous all the way up to the General Manager.

I explain that I am planning on investigating the legality of their business practices, and that the main reason was that his entire company treated me without respect or dignity. At first he was just as big a jerk as the rest of them and asking "are you harassing us?", I said "no I am escalating". After 15 minutes of explaining where I was coming from he did the previously unthinkable: he apologized.

Is it really that hard? Really I never would have wasted my, his and all of his employees time if they had just been willing to show a bit of humanity, and compassion. I was fighting against the machine of dehumanizing phone operators whose psychic message tells you to talk to the hand. The anti life equation, the same equation that let us slaughter each other in grand numbers, the same equation that lets us step over the homeless on our way to the sushi restaurant.

This whole line made me put things into perspective though, my life is pretty good. I am not starving. I am not a political prisoner. I have goals and some sense of purpose. I have a girlfriend who I love, man I am really lucky! So if the whole of my problems is that some stupid collection agency in Florida treated me badly then my problems are probably pretty small.

Ok, so are you ready for a major rant about the mundane? I am f*n sick of the number of AC power adapters that I have to deal with on a normal day. I pack about 7 of them every single day. I am the Sisyphus of modern day mobility for crying out loud! And if that wasn’t bad enough I am constantly confronted with power strips that come from a planet where there are no AC adapters. The whole system is utterly rediculous.

So if you own a power strip company and you design your stupid strips so that only half of the plugs can even accept inputs because you placed them too close or even worse not a 90 degree angle from the length, or adapters flip the power switch because the plugs are idiotically placed next to them then I swear I will go to Hong Kong, find out where your factory is and go Columbine on your ass.

Here is the basic question, why is this stuff so hard? Not the software development, or bugs, or network configuration, why is the basic stuff like power adapters so stupid? Why does my phone need its own power adapter? I know the technical answer now tell me the real one, like they don’t care and haven’t for 20 years about solving the basic stuff. They can market to us new MP3 drives, and 1.5 GHz PDA but they still need these stupid AC adapters?

Please sell me a 750Mhz PDA that does not require an AC adapter instead.

What depresses me most is that I feel alone in this rage, am I really crazy? Well I may be, but not because of my feelings on this. Its like people are just focused on the wrong things, like having the new stuff, and we just don’t ever face how we never solved the basic problems in the first place. Could this problem be a symptom of the bigger problem in the rest of our world maybe? Like cars fueled with gas or sexuality being a substitute for creativity?

Here is what I want the talented Electrical Engineer to invent for me to consume in the meantime: A power system that lets me plug all my devices into one power bus. This bus is plugged into a single 110V power source and has an onboard computer to manage the power supply to the multiple devices. It should cost around $100 and be able to provide power for up to 5 DC devices. If you know where this device is for purchase I will pay you a $10 finders fee upon first successful use.

Well it is morning so I guess I will start with my dream. I had a dream that I was with the FBI. I don’t think I was an agent, just an observer. There were an insane number of agents on the raid like 200 or so, and they all converged on the place like a swarm. I think it was one of those Ruby Ridge type raids where the people had too many guns or missiles or something. The raid started to happen and it was like a choreographed dance, they would stand up in phases and fire. Suddenly shots came out of the house and there was mortal gunplay. Amazed I waited for the scene to unfold and suddenly a hand grenade came out of the house and landed 5 feet from me. I was paralyzed with fear, and one of the agents landed on it and threw it away saving my life. Shocked and grateful I look to the agent to thank him. I reach out to shake his hands I notice he is wearing my clothes and slightly resembles me in appearance and personality.

I haven’t gotten back to writing "skin", I guess the feeling hasn’t hit me yet. I wonder if a compulsion will move over me like a ghost possession and I find that I am driven to finish it. That is usually how things get done around here.

Well she really liked her birthday, but she is not into the day after too much. Parallel 33 was good, I would give it thumbs up but its a little pricey. Basically we had split two appetizers and one main dish with a bottle of wine and it came out to 90 bucks. Very good, but for special occasions I think.

I had a dream about my cat Corbu. There was this television host who was doing a documentary type thing on how people eat cats. He took Corbu and skinned him right in front of me. Removed his eyes , tore off his skin. I could here Corbu purring, blindly, like he was in so much shock that he just broke down and let go completely. I was furious with the man I starting yelling at him "you have no right". He responded by saying "Corbu is sick and just a fag anyway, you have better cats". I told him I don't care, if I had a son that was gay I would accept him anyway.

This is pride week in San Diego.

More rambling about the gay lifestyle from a strait perspective later.

Today: Stephanie's B-Day. We are going to Parallel 33, which is supposed to be a fusion of all the countries on the 33rd parallel, is that post-modern or what? I will report back if it is good.

I wanted to rant about cars, and oil money in general. I am probably about 1 in 20 million people who is bitching about this sort of thing, which I think is a good thing because obviously it is a factor in the collective unconscious. I am really surprised how people think burning tons of oil in their SUV is patriotic. Isn't allot of the money going to foreigners, like the kind of Arabs we just fought a war with?

Maybe the government agrees on some level, maybe that's why we invaded. Iraq certainly isn't run by foreigners any more...

The enigma is Saudi Arabia. When you see adds on TV about how drugs are funding terrorism you really have to think, is this truth? What seems more true to me is that SUVs are funding terrorism. When over 90% of the Al-Queda operatives on 9-11 are from Saudi Arabia don’t you have to ask yourself where this global terrorist network is really getting its money?

Why do we protect Saudi Arabia? Why is their oil money permitted to continue to harm America? Two primary reasons: Their money lives in western banks, and we are beholden to the oil re-sellers who add their profit onto the trillions we already pay for crude oil.

A true patriot would back the farmers of America and attempt to create a fuel from grains or other sources of energy that are sustainable (trees, etc.). It doesn’t cost that much more to run your car with American home grown products, and it would be much better for the American farmer and therefore the American economy.

Create American jobs or fund Arab terrorism? What sounds better to a patriot?

This is my new blog. I guess I started it so it would be easy for me to just wrap about stuff that I am thinking about. So here's a start:

My website: This is just the start, I really need to write more in general. Here is a test of my crontab which should automatically update my blog.

Tommarrow is my girlfriends birthday, I wanted to get her another present but she found out about it early. That was a real let down, now I know why mys sister hated it when I did that. Well we'll se if she likes her present.