Draught

In addition to the backyard swamp, my well of blog ideas has also dried up recently. Somehow it seems that going on a second YouTube binge so soon after the last would be a bit like cheating. I need some other form of filler material, and I need it quickly. It's either that, or I'll have to start thinking again, and I feel very strongly that I'm getting enough of that at work right now.

I am in that situation right now that all callcenter employees recognize, where all my customers are irritating and annoying for me. Every single one of them seems a bit stupid, has a funny-sounding voice and an irritating way of talking, and they aggravate me, and I know that it isn't them, it is me.

If you've ever worked in customer service you know what I'm talking about.

I need a break, and I am very much looking forward to the upcoming three-day weekend. Amaterasu Okami and I are going to smite evil together.

The Bane of the Black Swamp

The swamp has been defeated. The correct parts have been purchased and assembled and the sprinklers will work again. In all, it's been a busy weekend.

Cause of the Backyard Swamp

We seem to have a leaking sprinkler pipe. The main pipe, the one that is filled with water under high pressure whether the sprinklers are running or not. Next to it are two other pipes, and an electrical cable that probably should not be accidentally cut when one is up to one's elbows in muddy water that said cable is fully submerged in. You are looking at the result of nine hours of hard work, starting with determining where the leak was, how bad it is, and what exactly needs to be done to fix it. And that was after digging through quite a large amount of very heavy mud.

The '73 Belmont Stakes

I have always wanted to see this race, and I finally found it on YouTube. This is what is known as "a spanking".



And you thought Seabiscuit was impressive...

USA vs Venezuela

The FIBA qualifying tournament to decide which two teams of the Americas that will make an appearance in the 2008 Summer Olympics has begun. That can't have escaped any sports fan in the U.S. Most of them seem to assume, like me, that Team USA is a given Olympic contender, based on the fact that the starting line-up consists of five of the fifteen best basketball players in the world right now, and several of the top twenty are sitting on the bench.

The two high points of the game were a series of passes that ended with a beautiful toss behind the back from LeBron to Kobe, who promptly dunked it, and something I never thought I'd hear: A sports announcer using the words "copacetic" and "reticent" in consecutive sentences.

Only Bill Walton.

Welcome to the Helpdesk

Northern comfort

I was screamed at by a couple of customers today. I can't even begin to describe how rare that is. I'm very irritated at them.

Fortunately, I have a fragrant, rich, smooth, beautiful amber single malt to distract me from them.

PSN Problems

Although I have signed up, and even selected my very own cool avatar, I have serious issues with the PlayStation Network. More to the point, it refuses to let me sign in. No matter when or how I try, the connection insists on timing out. Suggestions and tips on how to change this are more than welcome.

The Obligatory Harry Potter Blog Post

Froli pointed out, as we were watching the movie Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban last night, that there is a scene in that movie that should have ended the entire debate about whether Severus Snape is good or evil. And he is right, it should have.

Just in case you haven't seen the movie recently, let me remind you: It's the one where Sirius Black escapes from Azkaban, comes to Hogwarts in search of Harry, and where we met the Dementors for the first time. It's the one where Hermoine meddles with time and where a certain Buckbeak plays an important role in the plot. The scene in question takes place right after Professor Lupin and Sirius Black have revealed that the rat Scabbers is in fact Peter Pettigrew, the one who betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort, and are dragging the traitor back to Hogwarts and the Dementors.

Sirius is enjoying the fresh night air and has just invited Harry to come live with him instead of with the Dursleys, when Hermoine notices that there is a full moon that night. That is bad, given Professor Lupin's... condition, and he immediately begins to transform into a very unpleasant creature. Sirius tries to slow the change, and just as it finally completes, Snape comes up from the tunnel, unaware that there is a werewolf nearby, and beings scolding Harry. The werewolf interrupts him by snarling something that sounds a lot like "oh, more food!"

Snape immediately realizes that he is face to face with a werewolf, a creature he is deathly afraid of, and that there is nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. (In case you haven't seen the movie or read the last book yet, I'm going to hide the next few sentences, so if you want to read, you will need to highlight them. Fair enough?)

Snape's instinctive reaction is to shield the children. He steps in between Harry, Hermoine and Ron, all of whom he detests, and a hungry werewolf, in an effort to protect them.

Go watch the movie again and it is blindingly obvious. Did Alfonso Cuaron know how it was going to turn out? Alan Rickman at least did, for obvious reasons.

Nobody's perfect. Not even you.

A note to my least favorite kind of customer: The next time you need to call any kind of technical support or customer support, pause and take a deep breath first. Then review the following list of bullet points and commit them to memory before making the call.

• Working in IT doesn't mean you know everything.
• Working in IT doesn't mean you can't make mistakes.
• Working in IT does not automatically make you an expert on how a memory module works, or for that matter what it is compatible with.
• If you really are good at trouble-shooting hard-ware, then please do. Really. I promise, I won't be the least upset if you do.
  
• Don't tell me you know more about this than I do. If you did, you wouldn't have called in the first place.
  

Depending on how long you have worked with computers, you may want to print the list and put it by your desk, where it is easy to see and read.

Thank you.

And then the other side of the coin...

On my second day back from my vacation one of my customers was so happy that I solved his problem that he wanted to be transferred to my supervisor so he could tell him nice things about me.

It all evens out in the end?