Me: OK, I think I’ll download DB2 and see whats what.

Me: Here I am at the Download page.  *click* *server error* *repeat a few times*

Me: Poot.  Oh, look, a live customer service rep I can chat with?  How nice.

Customer Service: Waazzup?

Me: Wanna download your toys and play with them.  I clicked here and got a nasty messege.

Customer Service: Oh, ok, looks like that server is down.  Here’s another link which I am able to tell you is also broken at this time.  Try in an hour.

Me: This is thoroughly unimpressive since, at this point, you are still trying to get me to use your product.

Customer Service: Bye!

“I Eat Your Horny Flesh” by Joel Handloff

So, months and months ago (I probably mentioned this), we were told that the company was looking for a new health insurance provider.  Later, they gave us form to fill out for a provider that starts with A and ends with A.  They said it was to help the A-A come up with an estimate.  These forms required a detailed medical history for anyone who might be covered, as well as basic but personal information like social security numbers.

I was pissed.  I was fine with providing the medical history, but felt it should be done anonymously.  Anything else was basically providing all the information needed to get far too far into my history than I was comfortable with from a company with whom I had absolutely no agreement.  But I’d only been at this job for a few months, I’d just completed a world class fuckup, and decided that causing waves was not a good idea.

So, middle of May, we get an email saying that there’s an informational meeting from one of the companies bidding on our business.  As it turns out, that is misleading.  It was a meeting announcing that we’d gone with A-A and that the forms we’d filled out were basically, our applications.  Further, we were told in the meeting that we were required to make a decision before leaving the meeting (there was a bit of flexibility if you raised a stink).

Finally, we were told that the change-over was happening in 2 weeks!

Needless to say, people were pissed and HR saw the error of their ways and switch she change-over to July 1.

I’m not thrilled, but its still a reasonable plan and we were able to get my Ms. Moleboy’s operation done before the change (which saved us TONS of cash).

June 30 comes and we are told that the broker we went through has yet to get A-A to give us ID cards or group numbers.  We are told that we are still covered retroactively, but any costs will have to be paid out of pocket and a reimbursement claim submitted to A-A.

1. A-A has a history of denying claims as much as possible (Ms. Moleboy has done some work with them)

2. If they couldn’t get us our memberships in 6 weeks, what would have happened if they’d tried to do it in 2 weeks?

At this point, we have to consider ourselves completely uninsured.

This entire thing, from the initial deception, to the sudden changeover, to the poor results has been one gigantic clusterfuck.

And someone on our payroll made money while screwing up everyone in the company.

glee.

Sorry, been gone for a while.  Spent a lot of time swinging back and forth between blinding rage and abject apathy.

That said, I love my new iPhone 3GS.  The internet speed is insane.  A few days ago, we were having WiFi issues and switching to the 3G network was much better.  With Edge, it was a real pain to check email sometimes, and, of coure, it created some static with other electronic devices in the immediate vacinity.  Not so with 3G.

I’m pretty pissed that I can’t tether to the phone from my macbook and use the 3G network.  I had assumed that this was an issue with AT&Ts network setup, but that is not the case.  Following the instructions here:

http://www.gadgetreview.com/2009/06/gadget-how-to-iphone-tethering-without-jailbreaking.html

got me tethered and using 3G via bluetooth, which was tres cool indeed.

However, I lost visual voicemail.  Undoing the change by removing the profile returned visual voicemail, but, alas, I’d forgotten my password.

I got it reset by dialing 800-331-0500 and going to the voicemail section and reset password.  So no big deal.

Also, tethering stayed a setting from the network screen, which I didn’t have before.  I’ll have to play around with this more now that I know how to undo it.

I probably won’t use this feature, as a rule, but I may bookmark the page in case I do need it.  Most importantly, this shows that the real issue is that AT&T hasn’t figured out how to charge us for this.  I believe there’s a hack you can get to that also shows you how to set up.

Anyhow, I really can’t recommend this device enough (like you haven’t heard that a million times this month).

edit: oops.  I went to turn tethering on again (without installing the profile) and the option vanished.  Oh well, still, well worth knowing.

So, something has been going on in twitter called microfiction or nanofiction or whatever. Stories in 140 characters. Surprisingly, there’s actually paying publications for it. Anyhow, last week, 5 of my stories ran (and one before) on PicFic.
PicFic Galley

T: See, thats why I don’t eat pig.  Someone ate pig and now we have swine flu.

Me: No.  You don’t get it from eating pig.  You cook the pig.  That kills any swine flu.

T: Oh, right.  I guess thats why they cook pig.

Me: No, they cook pig because of trichanosis.  You know…the dying and all.

T: Oh, right.

I think this is a fantastic list
Dead Simple Guide to Beating Procrastination | Zen Habits

1. First make sure you really, really, really want to do it. Seriously – don’t skip this step.
2. Keep things simple – don’t mess with tools, formatting, anything, just start.
3. Make it the first thing you do today, before checking email or anything else.
4. Clear away everything that stands in the way of doing. Including turning off the Internet.
5. Just get started. Overcome the initial barrier by diving in.
6. Tell yourself you’re just going to do 10 minutes.
7. Put something you dread more at the top of your to-do list — you’ll put off doing that by doing the other things on your list. (Structured procrastination.)
8. Find something about it that excites you.
9. Forget about perfection. Just start doing it, and fix it later.
10. If you keep procrastinating, re-evaluate whether you really want to do it. Consider not doing it, or putting it on the backburner.

It always starts with monkey’s spreading a virus…
Monkeys escape from Ore. primate center, 1st Ld-Writethru, OR – NewsFlash – OregonLive.com

Newman said the monkeys pose little danger because they retreat from humans. Threatened monkeys, however, will bite and their saliva could contain a virus that harms people.

Some gooses can park!

But some gooses are assholes.