Sunday, November 18, 2012

My birthday with Steffie


Today's my birthday. No, I didn't get laid. But I did get a little bit screwed.

Fact is, my cable/Internet company is gouging me again, so I took this opportunity (i.e., Sunday) to LiveChat with one of their representatives about how expensive it was becoming. All I was trying to do was wheedle a discount from them. They've done this sort before.

Instead, I get run-around. This just brings out the wise-ass in me. Naturally, I screen-capped as much of it as I could. We pick it up after the boring stuff, including rudimentary BS from a nice chap named Alberto:




She ended things too fast for me to get the last screencap, but as best as I can recall, the denouement was this:

Steffie: (something about taxes etc)
Joe: In that case, we've reached an impasse. I'm afraid this is goodbye, Steffie. I'm... I'm sorry about us.
Steffie: Do you have any other questions?
Joe: Is there a God, or is He just a human construct we invented to cope with the forlornness of the human condition?
Steffie: I believe in God. Do you have any other questions?
Joe: No. I'm gonna go to God's LiveChat for additional help.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

The Circle Closes a Little More

(Feel free to ask why I haven't posted in a while, but I don't have a reason.)

***

I remember seeing footage a long time ago of a rat infestation on a farm in Australia. There was a shot of a cat that had grown so bored with chasing rodents that it was stepping over them as if avoiding puddles.

That's how I've felt about Clyde Langtry for a long time now. I've forgotten all the things he's said. Let's see....

A few weeks ago, he shouted to me as I was going to my car that there was an underground network of tunnels in this country, used by evil people, no doubt. And he was certain they went as far as Washington, D.C., to Colorado, since that state has some of the nucleus of our military defense. At the time, he was standing next to the dumpster, appropriately enough.

Today, he returned the chairs he borrowed for his party yesterday. I've never seen he and his wife host a party. Turned out to be for a bunch of the ex-Scientologists, of which he is now one. (He's still a practitioner of the "philosophy"; he just doesn't go to the "churches" anymore.)

So this morning, at my door, he returned the chairs and thanked me with a nutrition bar and a one-pound container of dried fruit. I figure they'll stay in my kitchen for a month or so until I throw them away. Dried fruit? "May contain pits"? With dried prunes?? Uh... you're welcome? What do I get if I loan him my car? A parcel in a beet farm?

Naturally, he took this opportunity to cackle away about all sorts of things. Like reptile people. "They're all around us," he said.

"Can we see them around town? Like at the mall or someplace?"

"Well, I tell you where there's a big concentration of 'em is in Washington, D.C."

"You used to be a cab driver there. Did you see any?"

"No, I wasn't aware of it at the time." (moments later) "But you know who really has it?"

"Who?"

"Nancy Pelosi."

***

He went on about ten more minutes, with confident insistence that aliens have spared us nuclear annihilation by disabling bombs via remote scrambling techniques.

Also, China apparently gave us all their gold in the 1930s, then sued us for it a few years ago. A world financial bank issued a judgment against the United States in the amount of $274 trillion. Since our entire GDP is only $14 trillion (the GDP of the entire planet is only $63 trillion), I guess we're setting up an installment plan. Or borrowing from the aliens.

Clyde said one more thing this morning. He mentioned that he had three shelves of books on trading stocks, a stack of very large books on the subject, and a pile of notebooks three feet high that he's filled with notes on trading. He lamented that he's a thinker and not a doer.

Then he said, "I'm a nut."

There may come a day when I tell him that I've been paying more attention to his twaddle than he realizes. But it might exacerbate his paranoia to the point that it triggers an aneurysm. So I just congratulated him on his admission.

I didn't give a shit to do anything more than that.