POSTS FROM April 2002

More pictures

I got back from New Orleans yesterday after exhibiting at the CardTech show this week. Sadly, I found New Orleans to be quite lackluster because there wasn't much to do outside of bars and strip joints. It's not that I don't like those things, but it wasn't Mardi Gras so I wanted to be more tourist-y instead of fratboy-y.

What really put me off was the local cuisine and it's limited repertoire of crawfish, shrimp, oysters, catfish, and fat. Take those 5 ingredients, mix and match them into 6 combinations and you will have the menu for about 90% of the restaurants in New Orleans. Sure, they catch their own seafood and serve it fresh, but everything is deep-fried in lard anyway so it doesn't matter whether or not the seafood is fresh or not. Seriously, fat-free foods do not exist in any form. The real clincher though, was that the one chinese restaurant we ate at also succumbed to this local vortex of fat-laden cuisine. The only fish they served was fried catfish, and their selection of “chinese vegetables” consisted of peas and carrots. I don't think I've ever heard of a chinese restaurant that had to alter their menus (most chinese places use the same exact menu). The funny thing is, the people of New Orleans seem to be proud of the fact that they have the highest rate of arteriosclerosis, citing logic such as, “I know I'll die a happy man!”

Nonetheless, it is a very laid-back atmosphere and the people are genuinely friendly. The Louis Armstrong Airport pipes classic Louis Armstrong tunes over the speakers, and convenience store clerks actually acknowledge your presence and smile quite a bit—certainly a foreign concept to us yankees.

In a vain attempt to get more people to email me, I sent out this change of email announcement:

Hello everyone,

Due to the end of Yahoo!'s free POP email, I have changed my address to:

egö@johnvey.com

In celebration of this momentous occasion, I would also encourage you to take this opportunity and tell me how awesome I am by sending a message to my newly created ego.

If you believe you are receiving this message in error, please accept my apology and pass this message along to someone else who would like the opportunity to tell me how awesome I am.

Thank you. That is all.

The responses I received were not as snide as I had expected them to be. I'm a little disappointed in my friends.

You suck, dude.

You are the coolest, most techno savvy, demi-god on the face of the earth. A cut above of of the rest, a leader of the pack, a man amongst boys... Hope this is sufficient.

You are a complete dork.

I love you and I want to have your baby.

You are truly an awesome scum bag ;-)

"you're awesome." (did that sound stitlted? coerced? cuz it was)

Congratulations on this momentous occasion, you are AWSOME!

I was at Exodus a couple days ago to take care of some business for my “downsized” dot-com, and found that the data center was nothing but a bare cavern of empty racks. I remember back in 2000, the place was packed from floor to ceiling with ungodly amounts of Sun enterprise servers, BigIP-F5s, and refrigerator-sized Cisco switches. Now the cages are empty, only with an occasional rack holding a hodge-podge of home-built generic systems, or some converted Dell desktops—and that was only the first floor. The second floor was so empty that there were probably more Exodus owned servers and routers than actual customer equipment. I also remember that there used to be a security guard who sat in the stairwell all day, just to keep an eye on things. Didn't see the guard or even a chair this time through. It was a sad, sad sight.

I had my first Jehovah's Witness visit me the other day! I was really tempted to take a picture of the guy, but he seemed very nervous and wasn't making a coherent argument so I decided against it. He started off with a question about all the violence in the Mideast, and told me the root cause was Satan. At that point, all I was seeing in my mind was my friend Leo, going “Satan! Satan! That will be your ultimate demise, Johnvey!” Yeah, Leo's quite demented.

Since we have entered the new millenium, many ideals and values in our society have changed dramatically. Therefore, it is prudent that we also change the definition of the American dream. Here are 3 easy steps that will help you realize The Good Life

There is a very simple solution to the mideast crisis: hand control of Jerusalem over to the international community. It is clear that both sides are not willing to compromise, and their intent has degenerated into a drive to obliterate the other side. Israel and Palestine are acting like bickering children and so we should treat them as such. This solution should sound familiar, as parents and teachers have used this tactic for as long as I can remember: if two children can't learn to share, then nobody gets it. Actually, both sides did agree to a similiar accord back in 1947, but then the neighboring states got involved and messed it all up. Of course, it will work this time because Dubya has put his foot down and said, “C'mon guys! I really mean it! Guys!?”

I had no idea that telling time in Australia would be so difficult.

Americans are now making up lawsuits as they go along. In Escondido, CA, a man is suing the city on the basis that a cat, which attacked his dog, did so as a hate crime. He claims the $1.5 million lawsuit is not about the money but, “hopes it will educate the public about the legal rights of people with 'hidden disabilities.'”

Do you like getting grossed out? Why not read about what goes on in a real ER? I definitely give nurses a lot of respect for being able to handle this kind of stuff.

Sprint PCS sucks. I canceled my account, but was billed for another month because they lied. Here's what happened:

February 26th, 2002:
Since my billing cycle started on the 26th, I figured it would make things easy to cancel my account on this date and avoid any dumb billing cycle loopholes they might employ. The nice gentleman who processed my cancellation was courteous, and offered 1 month of free service so that I may continue to have my voicemail and give out my new number to anyone who happened to call. I asked if there was anything to be done after the 1 month period, and he assured me that if I didn't call and explicitly re-instate the service, my account would be closed without further billing.

March 4th, 2002:
I received a bill for $1.03, which consisted of taxes charged against my "free" bill. Not a big deal, but it just goes to show that nothing is for free.

April 4th, 2002:
My phone still works, and I receive another bill for the full monthly amount. I call up customer service, and a friendly woman picks up. I explain to her that my service was supposed to be shut off at the end of March, and this new bill must be an error.

She replies, "there is no error because we have no record of you wanting to cancel your account". She continues by saying that the "1 month free" offer is given only as an incentive to customers who are thinking about switching to a different carrier. Additionally, it is not their "policy" to offer that simply as a convenience to the user (for voicemail, etc.).

I say, "well I agreed to the one month free because I was told that the service would be terminated and the end of the month, and no further actions needed to be taken."

She replies, "I can only go by what I have in the system, and it shows no record of you canceling."

Great. I guess I have no recourse against the oracle, a.k.a. the "database". So I say, "Fine, then can you just cancel the account immediately, without any clauses or stipulations or other doodads?"

She replies, "Sure, but you'll still have to pay the full amount due because when we bill, we bill to the end of the cycle."

I say, "But you pro-rated the bill and my allotted minutes when I initially signed up halfway through your billing cycle..."

She cuts me off and says, "That's because we always bill to the next cycle. It's stated in the terms of service."

So now I'm out $75 because the Sprint reps are running a scam, and you can't prove any bit of it. Fuckers.