Category Archives: WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT

Computers, E3, JUST SAYING, RANDOM STOPS, RANDOMIZER9.COM, TECH, Videogames, WHATS GOING ON, WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT

Kicking Tires

Buying cars seems to have changed a little bit since I bought my trusty Dodge Neon back in 2006.  I have been going to dealerships and looking at vehicles for a few weeks now and thus far the salespeople aren’t quite as pushy as I remembered back then.  I’d like to think that the Internet and social media have made it harder for bad dealers and salespeople to get unnoticed.

In any event, I haven’t had to raise my hackles at any pushy salespeople, even though they’re on a hair trigger almost from the moment I leave home to go looking around.  One guy made me wonder, though.

As I was shopping for a new vehicle last Saturday, I happened upon a Ford dealership and pulled in to check out what they had.  A younger gentleman introduced himself and showed me around the vehicle I was considering.  We went out for a test drive and started just talking about stuff.  I made mention of my job as editor of Original-Gamer.com and he made the comment that yeah, he had played World of Warcraft and League of Legends.

I figured, okay, I can talk shop with this guy.  As it turns out he, was either a poser or had been out of the game for way too long.  He asked me what “MUMORPUHGERS” were, barely batted an eye when I mentioned my beta invite to Mists of Pandaeria and didn’t know what E3 was.  Really?

I guess shopping for a car hasn’t changed that much.

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Books, CREATIVE, FlipSide Stories, JUST SAYING, One Sheet Stories, RANDOMIZER9.COM, WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT, WORDS, Writing

What the ****

Most of my stories are written for a general audience, and so I try to avoid the use of swear words in my short stories.  I also believe that cursing is for the uncreative and unoriginal.  Think about it: haven’t we all cussed at one time or another because we “couldn’t think of anything better?”  The problem is that there are instances where cursing just works really well and is even expected at times.

Case in point: I am currently writing a story that involves pirates…IN SPAAAACE!   Just like any other self-respecting pirates, these scurvy dogs (really, they’re pirate DOGS) spit, belch, don’t bathe, threaten harmless people (or cats as the case may be) and should probably swear like sailors.  Thus, I have a few options:

1)  Say ‘f*** it’ and use real swear words in my story, which I don’t really want to do.

2)  Borrow not-quite-swear-words from other works of fiction, like ‘frak’ from BattleStar Galactica, but I don’t want to do this either because its well, unoriginal, and I know I’m setting myself to get stuck in some “THERE’S NO FURRIES IN BATTLESTAR GALACTICA” debate down the road.

3)  Use common words.  This method was used often by one of my favorite writers, Isaac Asimov.  When a swear was needed, his characters would say things like “Space!” or “Stars and galaxies!”

4)  Just make stuff up.  This is obviously the hardest one, because I’m essentially inventing new words, and I’d like for them to make sense and not look like a random jumble of letters.

I am going with #3 with a varying degree of success, and who knows, I may invent some new pseudo-cuss words, especially at work, but for now I’ll just have to punt and pepper my story with <SWEAR WORD> placeholders until I think of something better.

Crap.

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BUSINESS, JUST SAYING, TECH SUPPORT, WHATS GOING ON, WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT, WORK, Writing

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Found Good Mechanic

New (or new to you) cars are great.  The smell, the shiny exterior, the pristine interior and smooth ride make driving a joyous experience.  Of course, all good things come to an end, and years later, the honeymoon is over.  You find that your once noble steed has become a pack mule that smells funny and doesn’t always obey your commands.

Such was the case with my 2005 Dodge Neon.  I purchased it new in 2006 and christened it the “Reliant” during those halcyon days when it was nice and shiny.  Fast-forward almost six years later, and it now has some ‘personality quirks’ such a the stains on the driver’s seat, dent on the back where I punched it one particularly bad day, and yeah, I haven’t been washing it nearly as frequently as I should have been.  It also started running fairly loudly a few months ago, sounding more like a Cessna than a car.  After almost being driven insane by the noise during a drive up to Dallas a few weeks ago, I decided to get the thing fixed and started asking friends and acquaintances if they knew of a good garage in town.  Nobody knew of one, which was more than a little aggravating.

And then I had my little accident…

So I was stuck when the tow truck guy was asked where to send my car to.  I asked the insurance guys for a suggestion and they gave me an address, which I then gave to the tow truck guy.  I then saw my car hauled off to who-knows-where to have who-knows-what done to it.  A week and a half later, I had my car back without a working air conditioner and it was still shaking, so not only was I back to square one, I now needed to have my car looked at before the triple-digit Texas heat kicked in and turned my car into an EZ-Bake oven on wheels.

Luckily my friend Kate finally came around with a recommendation: Alamo Heights Garage.  She spoke highly of them so I figured I’d give them a shot.  I went to their website, and filled out their online form asking for an appointment on Saturday.  I got a response back in a few hours saying that they weren’t open on Saturday.

What is it with mechanics being closed on Saturdays?  Sundays I can understand, but come on, it sucks to have to take time off of work to get my car looked at, and it’s never a short visit.  Anyway, I set up an appointment for the following Tuesday morning, guessing that I would be waiting a half-day while the A/C fixed.  I figured I’d ask them to see just what was making the shaking noise as well.

I arrived at Alamo Heights Garage early Tuesday morning.  I had bought my laptop along so I could work on some writing while I waited.  The first thing I noticed was that the waiting area was very clean, there was a table and chairs where I could sit and work, a television tuned to the local news with some more comfortable seating in front of it and most importantly to me: coffee. 

After describing what was happening to the woman behind the counter, I grabbed a cup of coffee, opened up my lappy and did some work.  I was glad to discover that they had WiFi available.  About a half an hour later, I got the diagnosis: the air conditioner’s discharge hose was bad, and the shaking was caused by three worn engine mounts that would have to be replaced.  The total cost to get  both things fixed was going to be $800: $300 for the A/C and $500 for the mounts.  I figured that since the Reliant had not given me any major problems in the past, I would get the work done and hopefully have a better-running car that I could hold onto longer as well as be easier to sell once that time came.

The work was going to take most of the day, so I was offered a ride to work and was told that I would be contacted once everything was done.  I gratefully accepted the ride and spent the day at work as usual, that is, except for having to hitch a ride to lunch.  As four o’clock arrived, I waited to get a call from the garage letting me know my car was ready.  I started getting nervous, because my job is answering technical support calls, and a bad call could easily last an hour.  Our lines were open beyond the garage’s closing time, so if I got stuck on a long call, I might not be able to leave work in time to get to the garage to pick up my car before they closed.

If that isn’t a setup, I don’t know what is…you can just guess what happened next.

My next call was a customer with a Big Nasty Problem, and of course, five minutes into the call, my cell phone started ringing.  To make matters worse, the customer was dumber than a box of rocks, and I kept looking back and forth at the time while repeatedly trying to tell the customer how to open up a web page. My anxiety only increased as the phone kept ringing about every ten minutes, and I started looking for an opening where I could close out the call.  Luckily, I didn’t have to, either the customer hung up out of frustration or their phone battery died.  Either way, I didn’t care, I immediately called the garage and let them know I was on my way.

I could have been picked up by someone from the garage, but a friend had offered to give me a ride as it was on his way home, so I took him up on it.  I was dropped off, paid the bill, got my keys and hopped into my should-now-be-running-like-new car.  And you know what?  It really feels like a whole new car now, because the guys at Alamo Heights Garage did a great job on it.  The Reliant’s ride was nice and smooth, and the air conditioner worked like a champ.

Did I pay too much for the repairs?  I don’t know enough about cars to know if I did or not.  All I know is that I am happy with the excellent service I received, and the follow up call to see if everything was still work the week after and the 12-month/12,000 mile warranty on the repairs tell me that these guys are going to stand behind their work.

I’d like to thank the folks at Alamo Heights Garage, not only for doing a great job on the repairs to my car, but for making the process as pleasant as it could be.  I didn’t have to take much time off from work, either.  This was easily the best experience I have ever had with a mechanic that I didn’t personally know and I feel more comfortable knowing if my noble steed should ever be in need of repair in the future I know where to take it.

That’s right, almost six years later, the Reliant is my noble steed once again.

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BUSINESS, RANDOMIZER9.COM, WHATS GOING ON, WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Mad as Hell at Insurance Company

My car after being repaird

Looks nice, but it'll be an oven come August

This is a follow up to my original post, click here to read it.

3/21/2012 UPDATE :  After taking it to a real mechanic, it turns out that the A/C wasn’t working because there was a bad hose that had to be replaced. While they don’t believe it was caused by the accident, it means that Progressive’s grease monkeys misdiagnosed a problem TWO TIMES.  I will definitely be shopping for a new insurance provider now.

For the most part, my experience with Progressive has been fairly positive, except for a few bumps in the road: they had me send my car to the wrong repair shop, the repair shop they did send it to incorrectly diagnosed the alternator as being bad when the battery was the issue, it wasn’t ready on the day I was told it was going to be ready, and despite not being found at fault, I am out $500 for my deductible, but that’s a philosophical issue I’ll discuss some other time.

Now, call me crazy (you wouldn’t be the first) but I thought part of the point of having insurance was so that your vehicle would be restored back to the state it was in before it was involved in an accident. Except for running a bit noisy due to an issue with the manifold, everything in my car had been working just fine before I had my little accident a few weeks ago. Indeed, upon getting my vehicle back, I was satisfied to find that it seemed to run as well as it did before. I also checked to see if a new battery had been installed, and yes, it had been.  I had grown suspicious after realizing that my radio presets hadn’t gone away as has been the case in the past when I have replaced batteries.

So everything was fine and dandy until I hop in my car to go somewhere on Sunday. It was warm out, about 80 degrees, so I figured I’d turn on the air conditioner to give it a test run. Air came out of the air conditioner but it was not much cooler than the air outside. I left the air conditioner on for the duration of the short trip and there wasn’t much happening. Now I’m worried, because if the battery went bad due to the accident, who’s to say that something else didn’t go wrong somewhere within all the coils, tubes and who-knows-what-else that make up the air conditioning system?

I don’t go running to Progressive just yet, though. Monday was also going to be a warm day, so I figured I’d give it another test run before calling them. I started up my car during my lunch break, at about 1 in the afternoon on another warm day and I ran it for about ten minutes with the air conditioner set to maximum. It seemed as if it was trying, but the air coming out was not cooler than the air outside. As it was a warm day, it was easy to tell that it was not working.

I now knew for sure that the air conditioner wasn’t working, so it was time to contact Progressive and get it looked at. I scheduled an appointment to drop off my car this morning and pick up a rental. The temperatures on Thursday morning were pretty cool, in the mid-60s; thus, I wasn’t entirely sure that the cool air coming into my car at the time wasn’t just the product of the outside air combined my not-quite-warmed-up car, but I was now certain that my air conditioner wasn’t working as well as it had been before.

I arrived at the claims center and let the person there know what was happening. The woman said that they were going to have someone check it out and then let me know how we were going to proceed. I said okay and waited for her to return. Not even fifteen minutes later, she came back and let me know that they were not going to look at it. Apparently I had given the impression that my air conditioner was completely out, and since the air coming out was just a little bit cool (which may have been due to the outside temperature) I was going to have to get it fixed myself. She cheerfully let me know that it probably just needed refrigerant and that any mechanic could probably fix it.

But it was WORKING JUST FINE before the accident, I said. She ignored that statement, gave me my key back, and bade me farewell.

I am not very happy with Progressive right now. I now have to take time and money to have a real mechanic check my car’s air conditioner. If he finds something wrong, I then have to convince Progressive that there was no problem with it before the accident, then drop it off, get another rental, and essentially go through the same thing I did this morning. As I type this, I am getting ready to talk to my claims rep and let them know how I feel about this development, but right now I am all but ready to dump them.

Half an hour later…

So I spoke with a second agent (the one that I’ve been working with is not in the office and I won’t hold that against her) who told me that I needed to have it looked at by a mechanic…

WELL, NO KIDDING, SHERLOCK, THAT’S WHY I TOOK IT TO YOU THIS MORNING!

Apparently, they don’t have mechanics at the claim centers. So some paper-pusher turned on my AC, felt cool air coming out (remember, it is a cool morning today) and used her 1337 paper-pusher skills to deduct that I had a Freon leak somewhere.  Aw, HELL NO.

Agent #2 is going to look into it and I now get to wait for his phone call.

Another thirty minutes later…

Agent #2 said that he was very sorry and let me know that yes, a mechanic did have a look at my car this morning  (as you can see above, I was not told that) and he was the one that said the AC was fine except for being low on Freon.  I told the guy that I was skeptical because the last shop couldn’t even properly diagnose a bad battery.  So now I need to take my car to a (hopefully competent) mechanic to look at my air conditioner.

So in the best case scenario, I get to pay to get my AC recharged with Freon, which I may have had to have done anyway.  Worst case scenario is that I get to deal with Progressive again and have their grease monkeys bang on it with giant wrenches.

I know that sounds backwards, but I think I’m going to be shopping for a new insurance company now.

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Apple, BUSINESS, JUST SAYING, RANDOMIZER9.COM, TECH, TECH SUPPORT, WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT, WORK

Upgrade or Die!

YOU GET NOTHING! YOU LOSE! GOOD DAY, SIR!

There are many common terms that have different meanings when put into the context of computers.  To most people, “monitor” means to keep an eye on something, but to us IT Guys, its a display device.  “Legacy” is another one of those terms; in the computer world, it is a nice way of saying “obsolete.”  I learned this at a previous support job where the company pushed and pushed for its customers to upgrade (and spend more money on) the Latest and Greatest version of their software, but there were plenty of hangers-on that were content to use older versions.  That’s the way it was, it worked, and they liked it.

Eventually, a new service pack or new version of Windows would come along that would completely break the software, and there wasn’t much else we could tell those guys besides “well, you need to upgrade.”  The customers would get mad and stomp their feet and demand that we fix it right away, but 95% of the time, that wasn’t going to happen.  If the customer didn’t upgrade, they were out of luck.  On a certain level, I can understand the desire to not change something that works (heck, I still use Microsoft Money 2000 and WinAmp 2.9), but at the same time, nearly all computer software will eventually go off into the night of obsolescence because eventually the developer will decide that it isn’t worth the expense of continuing development and support.

One common customer response I would hear (and still do) to this situation was that we were awful people that wanted them to spend more money.  To that, I say: I’m sorry, but this is a BUSINESS, it exists to create a product, provide a service, and make money.  If we don’t make money by releasing new products and lose money by devoting too many resources to old software, we go out of business and all lose our jobs.  Yeah, it royally sucks for users (I myself had a printer that was ‘orphaned’ when Windows Vista came around) but it is a necessary part of the software “circle of life.”

At least that’s how it should work, but instead, many companies insist on continuing to support outdated software, and continue to sell it in many cases.  The end result is that tech support gets driven bonkers trying to support the old stuff on top of all the new stuff that comes out and it can get overwhelming.  It also results in poorer customer service because techs have to take extra customer time to dig into knowledgebases and ask senior techs about programs that were written for Windows 95.

This is one of the few things I love about Apple.  Instead of letting software linger around and stink up the place like old cheese, they have the cojones to tell their customers that the bar is closing, its lights out, so go to the newer nicer bar down the street or go home.  They did it when they nuked support for ‘classic’ Mac applications in Leopard, and again by no longer supporting PowerPC applications in Lion.  In both cases they waited until four years until after the product was discontinued before pulling the plug and did not hesitate to do so.

In the short term, yes, some customers will be upset and some will go to competitors, but in the long-term, the company can continue to move forward as opposed to having the dead weight of zombie software hanging around their necks like an albatross.  I guess we can put this in the “painfully obvious observation that senior management never gets” file.  I can’t wait to see what happens when Windows XP support goes away in 2014…or maybe I can.

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CONS, STEAMPUNK, TSUKI-CON, WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT

RANDOM REACTION: Tsuki-con

Ready to roll!

Tsuki-con website

Tsuki-con was was held yesterday evening at the Blanco Ballroom in San Antonio, Texas.  The first-time event was a fundraiser intended to raise funds for The Advocates Youth Boxing Program, which “is designed to help youth, at-risk youth and young adults to build positive character traits and instill positive values.”

Upon hearing about it, I thought: “well, that’s a pretty cool idea, the geek community has been known to come out and contribute to charitable causes, particularly if kids are involved.”  I participate in an event called Extra Life that raises funds for children’s hospitals every year, and the thought of helping out another worthy cause sounded good to me.

I went straight to the Blanco Ballroom after work and arrived to find the parking lot nearly full, which was encouraging.  Sure enough, there were plenty of dealers, artists, and attendees there.  The Ballroom isn’t exactly grand-spanking new, but it was in decent shape and worked well for the event.  Unlike most events I have been to, there was plenty of seating, but one artist friend muttered that he’s rather see potential customers walking around.  Oh well.

Tsuki-con was a one-evening affair.  In addition to the artists and dealers, they had a cosplay contest, held some raffles, had panels, and some entertainers performed as the evening went on.  Unfortunately, they do have a few things they need to work on for next time:

Where’s the Charity? – I was a little disappointed in that there wasn’t a table for the charity that was supposed to be benefiting from the event.  It would have been nice to learn more about what they are doing.  Indeed, I wasn’t even sure where I was supposed to donate to the charity.  I did buy a special print from an artist, part of the proceeds was going to the charity, so I figured that was good enough.  This could have been a good opportunity for The Advocates Youth Boxing Program to drum up support, sign up volunteers and build awareness of their organization, but they didn’t take full advantage of it.

Who’s in charge, here? – It was not even made clear (or at least, I couldn’t tell) just who was in charge of the event.  Considering some of the issues that arose, it would have been nice to be able to find someone to get things sorted out.

I didn’t think this was THAT kind of show – Most of the entertainment was provided by Madame’s Muses, “a modern vaudville style dance troupe hoping to bring class back to the Art of the Tease.”  Yeah.  At first we were treated to a slightly risque song by one of the Muses, but it wasn’t anything too bad and the crowd enjoyed the performance.  There was a Steampunk Elvis (who I do not believe is associated with the Muses) who, along with some friends, treated us to a funny steam-themed rendition of “Viva Las Vegas” called “Viva The Steampunk.”  Everyone was having a fun time.

And then came the fishnets.

A trio of women wearing short shorts and fishnet stockings took the stage and started dancing…well, as one would expect women in short shorts and fishnet stockings to dance.  Now, I didn’t mind the show myself, but considering this was supposed to be a “FAMILY ORIENTATED” (their spelling, not mine) event it was way over the line.  I later heard that some parents immediately left with their children, and frankly, I don’t blame them.  So much for ‘bringing class back.’

Roller Girls Get Shafted – The Bexar County Roller Girls were in attendance and I was intrigued, having never seen or been to a roller derby.  Now, I don’t know if this was planned as part of the event, but they intended to put on an exhibition.  A part of the floor was set aside, lines were placed onto the floor with tape, and the gals did some practice laps.  People took seats in anticipation of watching the exhibition, but nothing was ever announced after the Muses did their thing, or shook certain things, as it were.  We kept waiting and waiting, and then…

Lights out! – A rave was scheduled for the final hour of the event.  Of course, you can’t have a rave with all that light, right?  So at about quarter to ten, nearly all of the lights in the ballroom were turned off, which pretty much ended the show for the artists (you know, the guys that were raising money for the charity) and so they packed up and left.  The Roller Girls were left to start their exhibition in near-darkness, which I can only presume is not a Good Idea given the dangerous nature of the sport.  So yeah, unless you were one of the kids gyrating around to the music, the event was pretty much done at that point.

Tsuki-con was a good idea with a lot of promise.  It started out well enough, but the execution of the event failed very badly at the end.  Poor planning and research on the part of the organizers made it an evening to remember for the wrong reasons.  Hopefully they accomplished their mission of raising money for the boxing program and do it again sometime in the future, with a few adjustments.

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