My 3.5 year commitment to Sprint PCS shows nothing other than my need to have some type of contactable consistency in my life, yet they make it really hard for me to want to stay. For the umpteenth time this month, i called their automated system with my business account (thanks to my “husband” at Trilogy years ago). Of course, this means that i get Claire. I despise Claire. Adamently. With a passion. So, i try to bypass her screaming “Agent” louder and louder and she keeps calmly telling me that i don’t need the agent, that she can help. Grrr. Finally, i start into the queue.
The problem with the queue is that i know, after way too many conversations with media lab sponsors that my position in said queue is dependent on my reputation in their system. So, i spend my n minutes contemplating how they are calculating my position. I’ve been a customer for a long time… but i choose a cheap plan… and i have problems every month… and i always complain when something’s wrong… but i always pay my bill on time…. Finally, a real person answers.
“Umm.. i got my bill today and i received a $50 charge for cancellation. I did not cancel my service and i’m not sure what’s going on…”
Of course, this is met with confusion and the agent goes scampering off to try to figure out what is happening. As she does this, i start considering all of the reasons why this might have occurred and i remember that i spent over half of last month on the phone with SprintPCS because they stopped giving me access to the website services. Apparently, my archaic account didn’t transition well so when they updated the site, my account was broken and i couldn’t log in. Sure enough, this was the root of all problems. To fix it, they cancelled my account and gave me a new account. Since my old account was to expire in September, they charged me for 5 months of recinding on my contract. Ok, the agent fixed that. To top it off, they created a new service for me, to expire next April. This means that my contract is not up in September, but continues. And if i cancel in September, i’m out a bunch of money. No no no no. No thank you, i’m not interested. Well, she can’t fix that.. she can only make a note and hope that in September, the agent takes note of this. Grrrr… Very silly phone service.

Why is my lab so disfunctional? Every time that i get the bright idea to pay attention to the politics at my lab, i come out angry and frustrated. And while i really really really want to rant, i know that this is far too public of a forum to allow me to do so. So, just imagine me, ready to explode and rant and rave and otherwise want to strangle everyone and everything.

one of the major problems with holing myself up to do work is that i get socializing envy. this is particularly true because everyone emails everyone about socializing events. thus, even in my inability to participate, i see the participation happening and i see the fun that people had in the post-party message post. plus, right now is the season of pre-party planning. how absurd is that? we are already planning for a party that doesn’t happen until the end of August. given, it’s burning man and it requires an obsessive amount of planning. and since we are thousands of miles away and have no money, it just requires coordination. but it’s sooo sad to hear bostonburn folks plan and know that i can’t participate in the planning for another month or so. ::sigh::
more and more i realize that socializing is just fundamentally who i am. i like being out with people, engaging and being silly, seeing how minds work, not just reading about them, learning about what it means to live life just to live. i hate being too far removed from reality – it just feels gross.
on the other hand, these days i feel like the ultimate genuine geek; i could bite the head off of anything in matters of seconds – i’m just too schitzed out. on that note, back to my non-reality work tornado of chaos. i feel like a brick being thrown continuously against a wall. it’s probably a good thing that i’m not seeing people these days – better to avoid when you know that you can’t bring any positive energy to an interaction.

Last summer, i purchased a radio with two alarms on it. It was the perfect solution because i figured that alarm one could go off with NPR and alarm two would start beeping fifteen minutes later. This would allow me to slowly wake up to voices and news and then force myself outta bed with the beeping. Somehow, this morning, alarm one went off without alarm two… or maybe i was too tired to notice alarm two or turned it off or something. But regardless, alarm one, the radio, went off.. for apparently 3 hours of me ignoring it.
The problem was that the discussion on the radio was about the conflict in the Middle East over the Gaza strip. Now, this is a very touchy subject in my world and since i haven’t had the time to adequately process it and create an educated opinion, i have a hard time taking full-on sides or otherwise opinionating on what is best. But i do know that i am not happy with what is going on and certainly not a fan of the violence or raping that is going on, by anyone, for any reason. For defense or any other excuse, rape as a systematic tactic of war is just not OK. Ever. (Hell, that’s the fight i’ve been fighting for a while.)
But anyhow, that was the conversation on NPR, always is these days… And somehow, i managed to incorporate it into my dreams. I got to work out all of these dreams about being in the midst of the situation, seeing the raping, feeling the fear and the hiding. And of course, it was impossible to tell which side was which, which side i was on. There was just chaos. And all of the soldiers that i would talk to thought it was just another party and they were going along for the ride, doing it cause they were told to (thank you Stanley Milgram). On the other hand, that’s my problem with protests and other mass-assembly activities – people come just to rebel and spit, regardless of the cause. And that’s what i was in the midst of in my dreams – extended violence in the Middle East just because that was what was expected. And sure, it was obvious that above all, there was a reason, but the people who were fighting it had lost track of that and were just using the built up venom to enjoy the raping and pillaging. Not a fun way to wake up. I think i need to get more informed about this situation. Fast.

i’m sitting at home for the first night in well over a week (well, last nite when i passed out doesn’t count). given, i’m working, but i’m still sitting at home. and becky brought over her mammoth CD player so i can actually put in more than one CD at a time and listen to them on quality speakers (although i do adore my boombox). but anyways..
when my car was broken into, i lost all of my CDs… well, all of my goa CDs. i was back to listening to Bad Religion and the like. which was fine, except that i really wanted to be listening to goa. and i bemoaned this fact out in public and this angel of angels who i’ve never met wrote me and said that he probably had a lot of what i lost and if i’d send him a reel of CDs, he’d replace my stolen items… so i sent him a list.
and blessed be, he not only sent me most of the CDs i lost, but some extra ones that he’s determined are essential for my collection. so here i am, sitting in my bedroom, listening to the CDs that i thought were a goner and learning what else needs to be purchased from psyshop since i’m a geek for owning my own CDs… (i swear that receiving copies of what are ‘essentials’ is the best way to promote me to spend an obscene amount of money on CDs, even if the silly music industry thinks the contrary.)
oh, i’m so ecstatic. mmm… currently listening to shpongle – my absolute favorite for the late-night calm happiness…

it’s been a *long* times since i’ve gone dancing! particularly given that i was going once a week for a while. in fact, i woke up this morning and had a hard time walking since i’ve been sitting for so many weeks. but i have a new goal. enough of my shit needs to be done so that i can go to the upcoming synthetic sadhus party.
why? raja ram. very simple. woah amazing. i’m super psyched to hear that it’s going to be at a venue that has an outdoor space, although i don’t know about this all-ages thing… i’ve gotten very particular lately… i can’t stand to see all of the kids in such bad wrecked stages. i end up feeling like a mother!

Ok… one should not think in semi-colons or Iterators, case statements or if/else clauses. Those should be reserved for .java files only, not mental processes or verbal communication. I did a demo. At the end of each statement/sentences, i found myself with a mental picture of a semi-colon. When i couldn’t continue, i couldn’t find the semi-colon and i would have to race through my “non-compiling” brain to figure out where the damn thing had gone. There were parentheses and too many were unmatched reaking major havoc on my mental state. I have been coding way too much lately.

i miss blogging.. so i’m going to come back.. this time, under a convenient new format…

What a dumb policy. I tried to order an American Airline / Citigroup credit card today to start earning miles on American Airlines instead of USAirways (mostly because i’ve grown cranky with USAir’s service lately). Of course, i was already feeling guilty about getting a credit card with miles, because of Zittrain, but still.. i know the reality and i know that i travel and fuck, i hate it when i’m willing to give up my privacy for rewards. So, i was feeling guilty, but i called anyhow. And i went through the process and they sent me this letter in the mail stating that they are sorry that they’re unable to process my request because they couldn’t confirm my home telephone number. So, i politely call them up and explain that i am a frequent traveling and don’t have a home telephone number. And they tell me that they can’t offer me a credit card. And i got very confused, saying that i couldn’t imagine that i am the only one without a home telephone number, that i was a frequent traveler and maintained only a cell phone number. And they told me that they couldn’t confirm my identity and that it was their policy to deny credit to anyone that they couldn’t confirm by way of a home telephone number.

It was like talking to a machine – i couldn’t get anywhere with them because they had orders that they were told to follow and no matter who i talked to, they only relayed the script that they were given. Human computers. Fabulous. Let me tell you how much i love this new society. So, alas, i got frustrated and hung up, proceeded to immediately call American Airlines who was outraged and said they’d work on it.

When nothing had happened in quite a few days, i decided to call American back. This time, i got someone on the phone who told me that there was nothing that American could do because they were a separate company and that they couldn’t dictate the rules. Another human-computer reciting lines and not really being a customer service person. Great.

Once again, annoyed, i decided to call up my current Citibank credit card number, explained who i was, went through a few changes on my account and then said, oh, by the way, can i change this account to a Frequent Flyer account and !bam! sure enough, i received the change. ::sigh:: I hate dealing with stuff like this – jumping through hoops just to jump through hoops. It’s just downright irritating.

And besides, it just can’t be a good thing that society is turning away from human services to human computers. If there was any question about how aggressive powerful individuals would maintain power…

I wonder if i am a mutant. Computers react atrociously to me, as though i give off some energy that makes them crash and puke. No one can ever hear me on the phone, even though they can hear anyone else on my phone. I think i give off weird vibes.