i'm not sure who originally thought it would be a really good idea to put human beings inside giant metal objects weighing thousands of pounds and giving them the controls. but really, it was not a good idea, mostly.

happy belated zombie jesus day

we celebrated in style at dominique's mom's house with an authentic easter dinner of enchiladas and corona. jesus (hey-zeus) would be proud.

i joined a golf league

the main advantage will be my choice of tee times 2-3 days per week. it's impossible to get weekend tee times around here.

regular golf = beautiful

unfortunate

today i laid a 9-high flush with an inside straight flush draw down because i knew one of the other guys had a higher flush than i did. he did in fact have a queen high flush. the river was the 8 of spades. i would have tripled up, except that i played the hand correctly. damnit.

sweet justice

the other day, a customer refused to speak with me. she initially agreed, but quickly backed out. she insisted her position was the correct one, but she refused to explain it to me. she advised me to deal with someone else. unfortunately, that person was not qualified to give the answers i needed.

she put me in a tough spot and in the end, it really fucked her over. i was polite, kind, and helpful, and gave her no reason to be a total bitch to me. but she was, and now she's fucked. i'm quite happy.

woohoo!

uconn pulled a pretty good spot in the ncaa tourney, AND i have thursday off! too bad uconn plays friday.

it is what it is

lately, i keep seeing commercials for lifewater and propel "fitness water." i don't understand them. they uselessly banter back and forth about calories and vitamins. my question is, if they have all this other shit in them, why do they still call it water?

when you flavor water, it becomes juice. if you carbonate it, soda...or beer. water is the base for lots of shit. so i don't know why it's called flavored water. it's all flavored water really.

the one that really gets me is the commercial where they say, "if i drink brand X (i think vitamin water), i'll have to do how many more situps?!?!" lame. if you want to drink healthy water and get vitamins, drink water and take vitamins. or buy the fake water for $8/bottle.

win-win...win, or alternatively, the golden rule

it is somewhat well documented that i have, on occasion, been a participant in verbal altercations with the likes of dell, cvs, and linksys. my mother has always cautioned me that i might not like it if the situation were reversed and someone was yelling at me. i love my mother very much, but she was wrong.

today at work i spoke with a customer who BITCHED.ME.OUT. and i loved every second of it.

there is nothing wrong with a verbal altercation when someone is upset with someone about something. in fact, it's ok to stand up for yourself. do not get me wrong, i am not advocating random arguments. i think many people, including perhaps my mother, hear the word "argument" and think of an uncontrolled all-out profanity-fest. but there's a huge difference.

there are 2 very important factors to keep in mind when arguing about something:
1) before you start an argument, make sure you are correct
2) do not initiate undeserved personal attacks

the first is obvious. the second should be, but seems to be less understood. i enjoyed the customer yelling at me today. first of all, he was blatantly in the wrong. he was arguing something that was incorrect. there was a witness. the witness was a self-proclaimed "long time friend" of this guy. but the witness' statement blatantly contradicted that of the customer. when i told this to the customer, he told me i was wrong. mind you, the customer was not present when i spoke with the witness. the witness wasn't even impartial, but i listened anyway. the witness' overall opinion was in fact that the customer was right. but the facts and the premises did not logically lead to the conclusion.

so when the customer didn't like what i was telling him, he initiated the personal attacks. he became louder and started swearing at me. now, i'm not one to object to some angry swearing, but in my professional life i claim to dislike it. i advised the customer that if he did not cease cursing, the conversation would have to end. he didn't stop, so i ended it.

of course, he called right back. which is fine. but the swearing continued. i logically explained how i arrived at the conclusion that he was wrong, but he wasn't having it. he didn't respond with logic, but rather personal attacks. it culminated with him calling me a "fucking piece of shit" at which point i simply hung up again and moved on to the next task at hand. the whole ordeal really put a smile on my face.

and during the entire time, i remained perfectly calm and collected. mom would be proud.


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UPDATE: mom was very proud

the orange and pink

today i heard a story where a guy was driving his car and had a seizure which caused him to lose control. he nudged a second car, spinning it around and causing it to strike a parked vehicle. then the original car went thru some bushes and finally stopped when it hit a dunkin donuts sign. i guess america really does run on dunkin.