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RANDOM REVIEW: 2013 A.D.

2013 As the final hours of the year tick away, I have to say that 2013 was a really good one for me.

After years of dealing with apartments and all that malarkey, I broke down and bought a house. Home ownership has been pretty awesome so far: I went from one-bedroom apartments to a two-bedroom house with a garage and a huge backyard and rabbits and I can barbeque and have friends over and I love it. Given the age of the house, home repairs and replacing things will eventually come but for now its been smooth sailing.

On the e-book front, I decided to try to sell printed copies of my work at a few conventions and events and failed spectacularly, at least from a business standpoint. I can count my total sales on my hands. People just don’t read much anymore, or at least not the types of folks that go to anime or furry conventions. On the plus side, I did get to talk to lots of folks, present some panels and if nothing else, hopefully inspire some folks to ‘go it alone’ themselves. I only published one new e-book (should have been two, but life and all that) and definitely need to up my output next year.

2013 was a fun year of conventions, camping, writing, video games, furries, cookies, home maintenance and most importantly, friends and family. I am optimistic that 2014 will be even better; my goal is to compete at least two story collections as well as the follow-up to “The Rules of Tech Support,” which is my best-seller so far. I am also hoping to attend some new conventions, make new friends, and well, get some work done on the house. So without any further ado:

MISSION START!

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“De-empathized”

Tech support folks are often accused of not caring about customer problems. Most of you won’t want to hear this (and the rest of you will nod your heads in agreement), but the unfortunate truth is that yeah, many of us in tech support really don’t care about your problem.

A tech support person hears so much wailing and gnashing of customer teeth over the course of their job that it eventually fails to have any meaningful effect. We eventually become ‘de-empathized’ and thus lose our ability to feel empathy or sympathy towards our customers. Most of us don’t start out with much to begin with so it doesn’t take very long to reach that point.

Why? A few reasons:

First, a tech can interact with a lot of customers, particularly if they do phone support. Let’s assume a tech talks to 20 customers over the course of a day: That adds up to 100 people over the course of a week, or 5,200 people in a year. Considering that the majority of them of them are calling because something is not working, a fairly high percentage of them are going to be angry, upset, and frustrated. While most people are civil, many are not, and of course, there are a few jerks, to put it politely. I submit to you that it is very difficult to hear all that negativity (to say nothing of the stupidity) and not have it affect you.

Secondly, techs get the same paycheck regardless of how many problems they fix or don’t fix. If a tech puts in extra effort its probably because you’re being nice, or at least civil, but there are usually no consequences for not being able to fix a problem. As much as I hate to admit, there are some problems that we can’t fix.

Finally, there is the repetition of hearing the same cries/pleads/screams for help day after day after day. When you hear every customer tell you their problem is a matter of life and death the phrase becomes meaningless. There is a saying that sums this attitude up best: “A failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” The constant exaggerating by customers only aggravates us further; are we supposed to believe that a customer just sat behind a computer for three hours on a stuck install?

Don’t confuse indifference for laziness, though: Those jaded-don’t-give-a-crap support people are still going to do their jobs, but they are going to do it without a single shred of touchy-feely-ness. I can’t pinpoint exactly when I stopped caring, but I haven’t cared about my customer’s problems for quite some time, now. Unfortunately the lack of empathy and concern can be heard loud in clear in my ‘phone voice’ at work, and I’ve been called out on it on occasion.

But just like I do when I hear the cry of ‘it has to be done now’ or ‘it was working yesterday’ or ‘its your company’s fault.’ I sigh, fix their problem or tell them it can’t be fixed, and move on to the next person. Its just water off an apathetic duck’s back.

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Faith In Humanity -1

It would appear that I may have been ripped off again by an artist at Oklacon this year. 😦 Last year I paid for a commission that I never received, and this year I ordered a print that has not yet arrived in the mail even though the seller said they would be sent out ‘as soon as we get home.’ I am holding out hope that it will appear in my mailbox any day now, but my optimism is fading now that its 2-1/2 weeks after the fact.

Part of it is my fault, I suppose: I’m often told that I have too much faith in people, and I don’t deny that’s probably true. I like to think that most people are honest, particularly if they are conducting business, so I didn’t bother getting the names of the folks involved. After all, they have my contact information and they can let me know if something comes up. Unfortunately, that also leaves me no recourse should the seller fail to deliver. (ba-doom tish) I hold out hope that the sellers weren’t being dishonest: maybe life got in the way, or they lost my address or USPS lost the package or their computer crashed or house burned down or something else happened to explain why I didn’t receive that which I paid for.

Like I said, too much faith in humanity.

It sucks that some less-than-honest (or perhaps incompetent) characters that were in the Dealer’s Den have to cast a cloud on what was otherwise an fun time. I plan to going back to Oklacon next year, but I’ll be holding onto my cash a little more tightly.

Naturally, the optimist in me still expects to find that print in the mailbox tomorrow, but he’ll eventually give up after another week…maybe.

Books, BUSINESS, CAMPING, CONS, COOKING, CREATIVE, FOOD, FURRY, JUST SAYING, Oklacon, RANDOM STOPS, RANDOMIZER9.COM, TECH, WHATS GOING ON, WORDS, Writing

51 Things I Noticed at Oklacon 11

oklaconlogo This year marked my second Oklacon, and I did a much better job of keeping up my usual list despite, or maybe because I kept it on old-fashioned paper!

Fursuit parts are apparently very good for keeping yourself warm.
This is a great con for attention whores: Just yell or talk very loudly and EVERYONE on the campsite can hear you.
Anyone playing the guitar at 7AM should be shot or at least kicked in the nards.
I’m thinking that its about time to retire my old Sears Hillary tent. 😦
I was happy I could get a signal on my Verizon iPad in nearby Watonga, OK, but then I got to the campsite annnd its gone!
Even instant cappuccino tastes great when you’ve been sleeping in 30-degree weather.
I’m not sure which is bothering me more: not wearing my university ring or not having a comb in my pocket.
Someday Dr. Nuka will tire of my ‘What’s up Doc?’ greeting and get all sciencey on my tail.
Somehow ‘All My Exes Live In Texas’ got stuck in my head.
They should probably make sure the participants are able to play volleyball out of suit first.
Plastic hammer + heavy metal stakes = FAIL
I was a bit overdue for a shave on Thursday but the cold is keeping me from doing so.
Good idea: Putting QR codes on my dealer’s table sign. Almost Good Idea: Putting QR codes on my dealer’s table sign at a con where cell reception sucks.
Maybe its just me, other folks seem to be doing just fine. Just what I need: another reason to dump Sprint.
I learned today that Canada apparently has its own version of Texas called Alberta. The thought that each country in the world may have its own ‘Texas’ might explain a lot…and fills me with fear.
One of the researchers was having problems with her camera and was getting frustrated, I had to quip: “This is the part where they usually call me at work.”
Even though I’m not at work, my tail was still dragging at about 4PM…should have had that second cup of coffee!
The collective rolling of eyes could almost be heard whenever someone insisted they were the only one in the furry fandom whose fursona was an X.
Best money I’ve spent recently: $15 for a small stool for sitting in the tent; its a little snug in the forbidden zone, but otherwise worked well.
Its funny how the lack of data turned my smartphone into a glorified watch…and a phone.
I only posted once to social media all weekend and haven’t missed it. It feels good to be talking to people that are actually sane.
The rain snuck up on us Friday night but surprisingly nothing got into the tent…there but for the grace of God go I.
Unlike last year, the bathrooms were kept up and I even contributed by plunging a few times and even fixing a toilet, nice to put that homeowner skill to use.
I should have been annoyed by Reville being played at 9am, but instead I found it amusing…because I was already awake.
My writing panel went well, four people showed up!
Hot dogs? At a furry con? Say it ain’t so!
My laptop is a battery…a big, frakking, heavy battery.
The zipper on my tent was misbehaving and the first thing that came to mind was ‘MY KINGDOM FOR SOME DUCT TAPE!’
Things I forgot to bring: wet naps, duct tape, mayonnaise and once again, a roll of toilet paper.
I could only not shave for so long, Saturday night the face fuzz was gone.
I might need to switch to Mountain Dew from coffee, the Dew seemed to keep Nuka going.
He graciously gave me one of his, and I gave him some of my cough drops, balance of the universe and all that.
Yeah, it was great to hear my dealer-neighbors bicker back and forth like an old married couple…which they probably were.
Furries apparently really hate sports, which is yet another way I stick out in that club in addition to being straight and over 30.
From the ‘clever idea’ department: Previous year’s con shirts: $12 for 1 or $10 for 2
Hearing the rules for ‘Predator and Prey’ made me think of ‘Calvinball.’
When in Rome: I got mustard on my camera’s strap during lunch and my first instinct was to try to suck/gnaw it off.
Part of me want to either stay in a tent alone or get an A-frame bunk next year…hmm.
f I had known coffee cups/mugs were going to be sold at the auction I would have been there in a shot.
I wonder what the organizer thought when I gave him my tax form that said “Sales: $4”
A guy nearby needed help tearing down his ‘insta-tent.’ I knew there was a reason I didn’t like those things.
Well, that and they cost twice as frakking much.
Very thankful to have a second person in the car on the drive home, I probably would have had to stop for sleep otherwise.
Saw so many Braum’s burger/ice cream/grocery joints on the drive up/back that we had to stop at one on the way home. Quite good! Still haven’t been to Waffle House.
Put over 1,100 miles on the Excelsior the whole trip and used up just over two and a half tankfuls of gas.
Flying J has REALLY good coffee. That, or drinking instant coffee at work for so long has ruined my taste buds.
We encountered absolutely zero traffic problems on I-35 from Oklahoma City all the way down UNTIL we hit San Antonio and spent 25 frakking minutes going the last 5 miles home…REALLY, SAN ANTONIO?
Good Idea: Empty fridge beforehand so no food goes bad during the drip. Problem: No food in fridge to eat upon return.
While I only sold 2 storybooks during the weekend, it was still 2 more than I sold during Furry Fiesta. *shrug*
Thank you, Sharon.
I can’t wait to do it again!

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Eww-buntu

Dafuq?

Well, that didn’t take long. Within 24 hours of installing Ubuntu (see previous post) onto my laptop, I found myself reaching for my Windows 7 restore discs. While wasn’t bad, it possessed one major flaw that kept it from staying on my laptop: it was horribly inefficient and significantly cut down its battery life.

I found that to be odd because one of the things I distinctly remembered about Linux was that it was efficient, but the fan on my laptop just wouldn’t stop spinning as I installed programs on it and got re-accustomed to the Ubuntu UI. While doing so, I had forgotten how convenient it was to have multiple desktops.

Getting back to my main point, running Ubuntu reduced the laptop’s battery life from 4-5 hours on Windows to under 3…and that was with Wi-Fi turned off. While I was processing that unfortunate turn of events, my screen started to glitch. This was a fresh install with all updates installed and barely any additional software on it. As awful as Windows supposedly is, I’ve NEVER had something like that happen so quickly. I have to say, I was very disappointed with the experience.

Already annoyed with the battery performance, I (metaphorically) flipped the table, opened the laptop’s DVD drive and inserted the first restore disc.

Ahh. That new Windows smell!

RANDOMIZER9.COM, TECH, Ubuntu, Uncategorized, WHATS GOING ON

Hello, Ubuntu

technology2 After spending way too much time arguing with Windows 8 and kludgey USB microphone drivers last week, I finally got tired of arguing with it and decided to banish it from my laptop…again. As I mentioned in my write-up, I like the idea of Windows 8, but the fact that I can’t do everything with a snazzy full-screen app and continually have keep going back to the desktop and browser (to say nothing of all the old Windows stuff I still use) made it fairly pointless. Thus, I dug out my restore discs and prepared to breath that fresh new Windows smell on my computer again. You know, the way a new computer runs all fast and stuff until you bog it down with all the security drek that is a fact of life on Windows.

I popped in the first of four DVD-ROMs and got to thinking…maybe, just maybe, I should give Linux another try. I was originally exposed to it in college and never really used it much until Ubuntu came along. I would poke at Ubuntu every so often out of curiosity, but I never thought about running it as my main operating system, not even on my laptop. I was too wedded to Windows-based programs and the alternatives just weren’t very good at the time. In particular, it was a long time before good alternatives to Microsoft Word came around, in my opinion. Gaming on Linux also wasn’t much to brag about in those days, either.

Times have changed since then: I find myself using more and more open-source software and less Windows-exclusive stuff, viable Microsoft Word alternatives now exist and I don’t play games on my PC much any more. I also use a cloud-based service to store most of the files I work with on a daily basis, so it is easier for me to (figuratively) trash my laptop on a whim and start all over again with a new system.

I ejected that recovery disk, set up a flash drive and prepared to install Ubuntu on my laptop. What the hey, I can always go back to 7, right?

BUSINESS, Computers, JUST SAYING, Microsoft, RANDOMIZER9.COM, TECH, TECH SUPPORT, WHATS GOING ON

Closing Windows

technology2 I don’t drink alcohol, but it is going to be hard to resist the urge to raise a glass of something on April 8, 2014. That particular Tuesday is going to be a special day for many of my fellow techies around the world and I have no doubt that many of my I.T. brethren will be celebrating the momentous occasion that takes place on that day. What is it, you ask?

It is the day that Windows XP finally DIES.

Don’t get me wrong, Windows XP has had a hell of a run since August 2001. It was a good OS and was definitely a step up from the awful Windows Me that preceded it. Heck, it was so good Microsoft kept it around when Netbooks came into vogue a few years ago. Those netbooks and the terrible Windows Vista probably helped to keep it alive probably well past its originally intended expiration date, but all good things must come to an end, so here we are…or at least here we will be in just under seven months.

Windows 7 is goodness and I finally decided to eat my Windows 8 peas, so XP is but a fond memory for me except for when I have to deal with customers that still use it at work. I can’t give them too much grief, because I still use WinAmp 2.9 and Microsoft Money 2000! That said, I’ll be happy as a clam when I no longer have to worry about whether users should click on ‘Add/Remove Programs’ or ‘Programs and Features’ in the Control Panel!

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24 Things I Noticed While Helping at San Japan 6

My home for San Japan 6

I have attended every single San Japan. I went to the first out of curiosity and found myself helping out with tables for First Storm Manga and original-gamer.com for the next four. As FSM is no more and I have resigned my post from original-gamer.com, I found myself with nothing to do at San Japan Sinister Six. I suppose I could have gone as an attendee and enjoyed myself, but instead I decided to help out the fine folks of RegIT with processing the 11,000+ attendees.

You either have fun or work at a convention, and I worked at this one…a LOT
That said, the people I worked with were very cool.
It was neat to experience how much work goes on behind the scenes in registration.
Think about it: about 20 people had to process over 11,000. That’s pretty nuts.
There were a few glitches, but the overwhelming majority of people were very understanding. Nerds is good people.
I was right about the customers being cooler at San Japan, there were only had a handful of genuine jerkasses to deal with.
Goof-up #1-Not having good sneakers. I put gel insoles inside my casual shoes, which hepled, but my dogs were barking by the evenings.
Holy cats, some of those cosplayers…Good Lord, I thought blood was going to shoot out of my nose!
I’m old enough to have fathered a teenager, so I guess that makes me a dirty old man now.
A friend guessed my age and was off by a decade, so I guess I’m not doing that bad.
If you are going to give something to someone at a con , be sure you have it on you AT ALL TIMES. Sorry, friend of mine…can I mail you that t-shirt?
Cardboard, if applied correctly, can be pretty awesome, as demonstrated by Tall Cardboard Robot Guy.
I found myself shifting into my ‘announcer voice’ on occasion, that hasn’t happened in awhile.
I don’t think I’ve ever done that at my regular job…which probably says something.
Goof-up #2-Not taking Monday off from work. It would have been nice to do more stuff after the show, but I had to be at work on Monday and do laundry. Stupid responsibilities!
I wore my Wreck-It Ralph cloth pin and got lots of compliments, which makes me feel bad that I don’t remember the name of the artist who MADE it. Sorry!
The artists I know seemed to be happier this year and the layout appeared to be MUCH improved this time
That is, the few times I was able to get away and see stuff…see #1
Goof-up #3-Not by me, but for those who would ask me where things were…I AM SORRY BUT I HAVE BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME. AND I DON’T KNOW WHERE ANYTHING IS 😦
I think the highlight of the whole thing was when my furiends showed up on Saturday to say hi. The fuzzies gave me the warm fuzzies.
Which is more than I can say for the jerkass who texted me ‘Are you even here?” despite knowing very well where I was the whole time. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
Goof-up #4-Not getting a picture of the gal dressed up as the Ancient Aliens guy…she even had a sign that said ‘ALIENS,’ too!
I seem to be doing a lot of apologizing in this list. Sorry about that!
Now that I can scratch ‘volunteered at a convention’ off my bucket list, I simply have no choice but to have fun at next year’s San Japan Samurai Seven…maybe!

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The Long and Winding Words

writingbear

My last e-book “Con Fluff 1: 2012 Furry Convention Short Story Collection” was released seven months ago, and as the 2013 edition won’t be ready for a few months at the minimum, I feel the need to get another e-book out into the wild. My (virtual) stack of unpublished short stories has been growing and I’m pretty sure that I have enough of them to assemble another e-book.

Since my stories are very short, I have to round up a few in order to assemble a collection of decent length. One early lesson I learned in my Adventures in Self-Publishing is that five stories was not enough content for 99 cents, as evidenced by the thud that ‘One Sheet Stories’ and ‘FlipSide Stories’ made in their respective marketplaces. Luckily, people are buying the longer collections I’ve produced since so I think I’ve figured out how much stuff is enough.

The stories themselves are another matter, though. The longest anything I’ve ever written was about 12 pages. It also took me a little while to get over my habit of keeping stories about a page long due to printing constraints back in the First Storm Manga days. Even when I have a hard limit to work with, I try not to think about length, but even then I’m pretty sure that the thought of ‘is it long enough’ rattles around somewhere in my subconscious.

I don’t know that I have a Great American Novel in me but I’d like to write one eventually. Time will tell!

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Everybody Dies…Or Not!

writingbear Whenever I write a short story with the intention of submitting it to a conbook, I have a tendency to want to write a happy or silly story. I’m not sure why, though it may have something to do with the overall fun atmosphere that I see at conventions. Nearly every large gathering of nerds that I have been to have been joyous experiences, regardless of the flavor of nerds that are present.

Unfortunately, “stories write themselves,” so that happy story might turn into one that is not-so-happy because I had some bad Mexican food or something. When this happens, I will end up either rewriting the story to make it ‘happy’ or shelve it completely in favor of a happy one. I have even had a few instances where I ended up with TWO stories that diverge at a certain point and at othertimes I’m satisfied with the happy story and abandon the other one.

I just feel odd sending a story that doesn’t end with a happy ending or a punchline into such a happy place. I should probably get over it. After all, I don’t think anybody actually reads conbook stories at the con because they’re too busy having fun!

Eduardo Soliz

IT Guy, short story author, podcaster, and furry!

Author Archives: Eduardo Soliz