The December 31 email read: "Ethan: What happened? I didn't receive your "2003 in retrospect" email! Politically, it was an eventful year, so that doesn't explain it. Are you fed-up? Ornery? Is it all too sardonic? What gives? Here's a dime, make me smile." Frank
Sure, it looks easy, but writing editorials is often like doing term papers. So I'm a little late this year. I suppose I should explain why, though I don't know why. (Why I should or why should I?)
There are 12 months in a year. I've spent 11 of those on hold. That's why I'm late. Even my first annual family Christmas letter will have to wait until 2006.
Whadya mean you were on hold? I mean I was on hold. I was on hold with three phone companies and two of them within one of them because one of them was cellular and was whatever not-cellular is. (Since I don't want to mention names, I will say that two of the three though have the same initials.) Used to be that when you had a problem with the phone company you'd dial "0" and talk to a live person. Since there were only two phone companies in the country, you never got your way, but you got to talk to a real human.
I'm not kidding. In Southern California, there was a little pocket in the San Fernando Valley that was serviced by California Water and Telephone, otherwise known as Tinkle and Drip. The other company was the three-initialed Mother of All Phone Companies.
There are now 40 phone companies -- though with mergers, they'll be back to three in no time -- and if you ever get through to a human, you don't get your way. Okay, so I had trouble with cellular. All of a sudden, someone stole the cell or it blew down or a building was put in front of it. Whatever, I couldn't make a call out of my home. So I called. #611 used to get you to the two selections and then a human. Now on top of everything else, you have to select a language and even the selection isn't in English so you're never sure... Eleven, yes 11 selections later you get a human. They used to be called "operators;" I have no idea what they're called now, but "Help" doesn't come to mind.
I'm now with a different cellular company. I'll keep you posted.
Okay, then I called our local long distance intermediate neighborhood phone carrier. All I wanted to know is why I'm being charged a service fee for the hearing impaired in Duluth when I'm in San Francisco, and I'm told that it's a federally mandated contribution to Hearing Bunnies for the Incontinent (HBI). Okay, what about the one that actually says, "federally mandated service charge." "Oh, well that's something we tacked on for ourselves for distributing the buck-and-a-half for HBI" and because we can. Okay, the company's got 12 million "subscribers." The service charge is $3.02 a month. That's an extra $32,240,000, and we don't even get to complain. So much for the FCC watching out for us.
Be right back. It's time for my high blood pressure pill.
Much better. So we decide that we've had enough of spam, viri, and PC platforms in general. Let's get the CFO an Apple. Well, getting an Apple and converting to an Apple are two very different things. Now you just could have predicted there was trouble ahead. We went to one of the major retailers of all things electronic, saw an eMac, and asked the eMac Manager how to get the CD drawer open. Not quite knowing how (it's a key on the keyboard which one manual says never to touch), he gets out his Swiss navy knife (rusty, so we knew) and tries to pry it open with the built-in CD ROM opener.
We bought factory-direct online.
Other than trying to find the "On" switch even with diagrams (go find out for yourselves), what you do find is that every manufacturer has stopped making software for the Apple, and a fine machine it is, too. WordPerfect and QuattroPro were stopped by Corel last April. Why? Don't know. The "Help" at Corel couldn't tell us. And such a fine company it is, too.
But never fear. MicroSoft's Word and Excel can convert anything but cottage cheese back into milk... and WordPerfect into Word. That was October 10. Today is December 31. My wife says she should be done by January 5.
We called Apple, which unlike Dell which moved its Help to India, has all of it's help just north of Toronto. They were not terribly helpful, but we ran into one very honest rep who said, "Everything you're asking about is in OSX, and everything you got is in OS9, so I dunno, but once you get used to it, you'll find it's a very fine machine." And with that bit of brightening, we decided to call a few more software companies.
We called MS, and they said, "That will be $29.95 a minute, please." I told them they wouldn't understand, and hung up. No sense diddling with folk who can't define "end-user."
Qualcomm, which makes the world's best email program and baseball stadiums, said that unless we bought the program for the Apple, they couldn't help us even though we'd just purchased and upgrade of the damn thing for our third PC. So we bought a copy for the Apple. It's not the same as what we've got for the PC, and won't go on line automatically to pick up email even though that's one of the options. So we emailed Qualcomm, but the Help never answered. So we called and the Help assured us that they'd get back to us. But the Help must be helping someone else, 'cause we haven't heard since December 1.
For my birthday, the kids got me a Philips DVD player and recorder. I could stop this explanation of the last 12 months right now, but some may be interested in how the last 10 days to two years have gone. Yes, I have to go back two plus years to when I got my digital cable box and then, after two days of trying to figured what to plug in where, I got TiVo. Now TiVo is the greatest invention since color television, but when you've got a digital cable box, a VCR, and the TV in line, count on two days to get it set up, three if you've got to put all components in an enclosed cabinet ... like me.
Now I've got a DVDR which has to go between the cable box and the VCR, but that doesn't sound right so I call Philips. Philips Help is in Jamaica among other places. Victoria was as sweet as could be. Wanted to know if I wanted to write down the instructions or stay on the line while I hooked it all up. Now, it's tough enough to get all 24 cables around shelving, but to do it with a phone to my ear, uh, uh. So I told Victoria I'd call her back if I had any trouble, meaning "I'll call you back soon."
But then TiVo stopped recording, so I called the number in the back of the manual, and that number was no longer in service. So I called TiVo, but that number was no longer in service, either. Now everybody wants you to go to their web site to "communicate" with their Help. Which I tried, but there was no Help. Even the online "real-time forum" Help was literally out to lunch. Then when I went back to Philips, I couldn't find the page that wasn't in Dutch. So I called Jamaica, but I didn't get Victoria. I got James. James was no Help.
Hung up. Called back. Couldn't understand who I got, but whoever I got got me back to where I was the day before which, for the time being, was satisfactory. I had only missed the three days with the Lords a Leapin', the Maids a Milkin', and the TV in the pear tree. Ooops, spoke too soon. The DVDR played but it didn't R. Hmmmmmmm. Ah, here's the problem: the kids bought DVD-RW discs and Philips, HP, and Sony take only DVD+RW discs. Ah, so this means that even the Apple discs won't play on this DVD, and vice-versa. Fortunately, within the next 10 years I'm moving from Windows 98 to whatever exists in 2014, and I'll get a computer that can record on a DVD+RW format if it still exists.
Then there arose from the office such a clatter that I sprang from the floor to see what was the matter. Quicken. Apples. Watch out for the shelf! Called Intuit. They didn't even have help.
Now you know, that's where I've been. And I skipped over the whole summer. I also skipped over the the part where I called my long distance local area phone provider to ask why I was being charged for phone calls across the street. Being told that since I had switched my long distance local to my local long distance (you remember, the one with the bunnies), if I made a call on the 937 line rather than on the 944 and 933 lines, I would be charged if I yelled out my window at the local leaf blower (talk about Help).
I said unto her, "I want to speak to your supervisor," to which she replied, "I have no supervisor." So you see, Frank, it all ended well. Evidently, I finally got to speak to God.
All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2004. E. A. Winning Associates, Inc.