kreisle.com

Dear Sir or Madam,

To begin, let me point out that I address you as ‘Sir or Madam’ merely because from the vantage point of my rear-view mirror, I can only see one of your vehicle’s headlights and a portion of its grill. I do not use both salutations because I consider your appearance to be androgynous, and I certainly am not being imprecise because I openly question your sexuality. Neither of those perceptions on your part would be helpful in focusing your attention on the two actual points of this missive, which — in the interest of time — I now elucidate.

You may not be aware of it, but you are driving far too close to my car’s rear bumper relative to the rate of speed at which we are traveling. This action — known to those of us who have taken a driver’s examination as tailgating — is endangering not only my life, but the lives of all of those around me. I find your action to be reckless; unwarranted; and (quite candidly) perplexing; as I do not know what you hope to obtain from it. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of five thousand cars ahead of us on this highway, and an equal number in the lane to our left that are all moving at the same speed as you and I. From my vantage point (which I re-iterate is uncomfortably close to your own at the moment), you have absolutely nothing to gain from your wanton endangerment.

Perhaps you feel that you have a greater entitlement to the road than the rest of us and you want us to know of your contempt by creating a sense of menace to those who stand in your way. Or maybe you lack the personal discipline to drive as you know you should. Possibly, you do not care how you treat others as long as you get what you want, which, at this moment, appears to be a coordinated effort on the part of ten thousand drivers to merge all vehicles except yours into a single lane of traffic so you may pass without hindrance.

Of course, at this point, I no longer care why. While others might have chosen to respond to your maddening lack of respect for your fellow beings with a rude gesture or a harsh slamming of brakes, I have picked a different course of action. I have submitted a petition on your behalf for admittance to a special circle of Hell reserved exclusively for chronic, stupid, tailgaters. If my petition is accepted, you will, upon shuffling off your mortal coil, spend one hour of each day being force fed asphalt and ground up tires; one hour of each day drinking gasoline; one hour shitting flaming tar on the hood of your vehicle, and the remaining twenty-one hours washing it off with your tongue.

I realize that wishing such an awful thing upon someone — even under the stressful circumstances you are so thoughtlessly creating with your hazardous conduct — is harsh. Therefore, in the event that you are simply having a bad day I have offer the following ‘get out of Hell free’ card:

If you can spend one calendar month’s time consciously attempting to observe a proper following distance while driving at speeds over 55 kph (it doesn’t matter if you have the distance in meters just right; I’m only suggesting honest and thoughtful effort in the matter), my curse is lifted.

Personally, I would prefer that you succeed in removing the curse as, after a month of actually trying to be courteous and respectful while driving, you will no doubt find it satisfying to make the roads we share safer and less stress-filled for yourself and others. You might even notice that your responsible driving is actually increasing the speed at which we all arrive at our destinations and influencing others to drive more safely, as well.

But, in the event you are unwilling to try such a trivial thing for such an insignificant period of time to contribute to the betterment of us all, well… to Hell with you.

Warmest regards,

NOTE: This post originally ran on kreisle.com on November 27, 2007. When kreisle.com “fell over” it was believed to have been lost forever, but a recent expedition into the darkest recesses of the area just behind the basement toilet uncovered another copy, which I now share with you.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune recently made their paper available on the Amazon Kindle. Reading today’s edition, I came across a headline that makes me think there is either too much (or not enough) coffee in the world:

A Monday following a long weekend is always a little bit more Monday-like in its texture and quality than its peers, and as today’s Monday seemed especially filled with Monday-flavor-crystals, when I finally had the chance to pack my computer into my backpack and head toward the train, I did so without hesitation.

Of course, downtown at 5:00 PM was waiting for me when I left… sidewalks filled with commuters queued for their buses; intersections filled with traffic police waving anxious motorists through to the cadence of their whistles; a light-rail that would be packed to standing room only capacity; and, of course, thousands upon thousands of flowers.

Sure, it’s thousands of the same kind of flower over and over again, and yeah, okay, the flowers are probably going to call a press conference tomorrow to announce in a long rambling diatribe that they’re sorry for their indiscretions and that they’re not dead fish, but for now… well, maybe it’s not such a bad Monday after all.

• @hodgman Not that I’d have any knowledge of your safe or its contents. Imagine using such poor grammar with a former book agent! #
• @hodgman Like adding injury to insult. #
• @drhli Is it even *legal* to use BBQ and asparagus in the same sentence? What next? Smoked sprouts? in reply to drhli #
• http://TweetPsych.com : This is going to get interesting. #
• Monday walks with heavy shoes, leaving dark streaks of work on Sunday’s carpet. #
• @labol_25 Why not laugh *and* punch? in reply to labol_25 #
• http://tweetingtoohard.com http://tweetpsych.com http://textsfromlastnight.com … who’s got more like these? #
• He’s a politician AND a celebrity. Given what’s been happening to *both* this past week this could be bad… http://tinyurl.com/n9mlel #
• @timspencer USMC. I’m sure you can convince him it’s the University of Socially Misguided Cool-kids. in reply to timspencer #
• @raychampagne You don’t have to wonder. I’ve seen a guy with a grocery cart “merge” into a line at the checkout counter. in reply to raychampagne #
• @henpow2nd I, too, have three favorite musical influences… Gin, Bourbon, and Tequila. Just give me enough and hand me a harmonica! in reply to henpow2nd #
• Al Franken singing “Beat it!” to Coleman (and Sanford) at the press conference would bring an odd closure to the week, don’t you think? #
• @henpow2nd We have most definitely joined the conversation. (Providing that the conversation is about us.) in reply to henpow2nd #
• @kazoofus If I were a cordless phone with a dead battery you’d probably find my body in mid-crawl toward the Roomba. But I have issues. in reply to kazoofus #
• @drhli Man whatever you took earlier sure wore off fast. I’m guessing it was sugary optimism and not 5 hour energy optimism. in reply to drhli #
• When someone wishes you “Sweet dreams,” are they being cruel? What if your dream was so sweet all you can do when you awaken is cry? #
• I woke up crying once when I fell asleep during “Reds” and came to 3 days later only to discover that the movie still wasn’t over yet. #
• @henpow2nd If you love someone, let them tweet. If they follow you, they’re yours. If they don’t, they were never yours to begin with. #
• @henpow2nd As to your hope that Scotch is a close fourth… it has always been, and always will be, a fifth to me. (GET IT!?) #
• And remember kids: He who goes forth on the fourth with a fifth may not come forth on the fifth. #
• @paulapoundstone Better to have Wednesday there than your laptop, if previous tweets about laptop accidents are any indication. in reply to paulapoundstone #
• @henpow2nd Having a child has changed you Henry! in reply to henpow2nd #
• @drhli so clearly you follow @diablocody? in reply to drhli #
• Caught a hacker trying to proxy my server and offered to help him go legit. No college genius, but you can tell he’s got tweet-smarts. #
• If you didn’t cringe after that, there’s something wrong with you. #
• Whetting one’s wit with whiskey works rye within wry wrinkles. Wiping one’s wit with water washes away whiskey’s work. Write whetted. #
• Would a headline like, “Limbaugh finds Palin and Bachmann in lesbian love nest, dies from erection lasting more than 4 hours,” shock anyone? #
• It’s staggering how quickly icons are dropping and a party is imploding. #
• I think I figured it out. This is some kind of contest where Republicans compete to see who can have the most bizarre press conference! #
• @henpow2nd Pfftt… New York, Illinois, Alaska and coming soon, South Carolina. It’s not an official trend until California does it. in reply to henpow2nd #
• @eddieizzard You should have asked for the meaning of life… or perhaps you have already and the answer was Scouser? in reply to eddieizzard #
• @henpow2nd Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adverbs, Adjectives, Punctuation, Grammar, Thesaurus, Dictionary, Idea? in reply to henpow2nd #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

A series of celebrity deaths and Republican Party implosions being broadcast in high definition bursts of televised bias along with the textual fragments filtered through the “new media” has begun to merge into a sexual-political-satirical mental residue that is now clinging to even the most basic thoughts.

As I’m watching the video of Palin announcing she’s leaving the office of Governor (with the sound turned off) and contemplating the state of the party, the headline “Palin found in lesbian love nest by Rush Limbaugh, who dies from Viagra abuse when his erection refuses to subside in less than four hours,” springs into consciousness, congealing in an instant the rush (no pun intended) of pharmaceutical commercials, celebrity downfalls, party veneer stripping, satirical ascendency, sexual ubiquity, and compressed information bursting that seems to be accelerating at an exponential pace toward a world punctuated like an ee cummings poem filled with the depth of an Enzite commercial. (Depth suddenly became an interesting word as that sentence finished. Again, no pun intended).

Hands to keyboard, I push, unthinking and unbidden, the thought into digital waters and wait for the wave to wash back onto the social shores. When it does return, it is filled with even more innuendo than when it left, and the residue thickens.

A friend, in a display of patriotism, uses a line from the song “America the Beautiful,” as his Facebook status. I comment, picturing “fruited plain” momentarily as a vineyard. Then, after seeing the two comments in proximity, the song is changed forever in my neural network and it all becomes a sexual euphemism. “Amber waves of grain,” becomes flowing flaxen hair, “her purple mountain’s majesty,” becomes a portion of female anatomy sometimes equated with mountains or hills, and “above the fruited plains,” suddenly makes surprising geographic sense on the newly minted sexual-political map.

And, once again, I rush into the digital waters, only to find it suprisingly warm.

*If* you’re willing to make a log-in on at zazzle.com, and *if* you’re willing to go through the hassle of changing your profile to view PG-13 or R rated content, and *if* you’re willing to sign-in at zazzle before you paste in the link below, *then* this link will let you buy one:

http://www.zazzle.com/notebot_sucks_tshirt-235979976870753202

*Else*, just shake your head or go “heh.”

I’m about a week late in writing about my recent trip to Oklahoma City, but drift happens, I guess. Having part of the weekend to spend in the town gave me the opportunity to take some photos, and getting my sleep schedule all confused gave me the opportunity to take a few more, but as I spent the trip working and sleeping in the downtown area and I didn’t have a car, the pictures mostly center around the odd juxtaposition of buildings and images along with the Oklahoma City Memorial.

Add these to some of the shots I took about 6 months ago and I’ve almost got enough for a calendar…

All of the photos above can be found in the Travel -> Urban Scenes Gallery.

A couple of days ago kreisle.com was hacked with such a degree of thoroughness that I was left with no choice but to change all my passwords, strip the site bare, and start over. Because of the severity of the attack, I decided to call my hosting provider and let them know. Their response was to attempt to sell me their “watchdog” service (which would only *triple* my monthly hosting fee). I hung up, shaking my head at their apparent lack of concern, and set upon the task of rebuilding. I’ve wanted to switch from WordPress to WordPress MU on this account anyway, and this seemed like a chance to make lemonade out of lemons, even if I wasn’t 100% confident that my lemonade stand wouldn’t be kicked over the next day by the exact same bullies.

During that time of digital catharsis, however, I ran into a problem with one of the tools the provider offers (it seemed to be hung), so I called customer service again. At this point, I decided that if there is another revolution in America, it won’t be over bankers, gun control, or religious fundamentalism. It will be over dealing with customer service.

The conversation started innocently enough:

“Thank you for calling our company, my name is Paul, how may I help you today?”

“I’m having a problem I can’t fix myself, and I need your help.”

“Certainly, I just need to verify some information about you before we start.”

“Ok. [Gives information].”

“Now what’s the problem?”

“[Explains problem].”

“Ok. Here’s a suggestion about how to fix a completely unrelated problem.”

“[Explains problem again.]”

“I see, well, I’d like to help you, but I notice that on a completely unrelated note, you don’t have a required field in your profile filled out to my liking. I cannot help you further until this tangential issue is satisfied.”

“[Explains problem again and offers possible solution.]”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you until my desire for irrelevant changes to your account profile is satisfied.”

Imagine the time I would have saved if I had just gotten out my Customerserveless to English dictionary at the start of the call.

“Your call is yet another nail on the blackboard of my life, but it’s costing me fifty bucks a night to visit my girlfriend at the strip club, so I guess we’re stuck with each other for as long as I want to hang on to the fantasy that I’m going to get laid someday, my name is none of your damned business, what is it going to take to get you to shut up?”

“I’m having a problem I can’t fix myself, and I need your help.”

“I understand. I’m going to look for a loophole that either allows me to hang up on you, gives me a chance escalate your call to someone I hate worse than my current life at this desk, or emasculates your sense of self worth in an attempt to drive you to the point of giving up this pointless conversation.”

Now, I’m freshly tinged with the sting of having either an ill-mannered teenager or a calculating pharmaceutical link slave fire off an emotionless script designed to rape by web-site, so perhaps my translation from Customerserveless to English is tainted with emotional residue, and my idea of revolution is actually a bit of over-reaction. After all, there is no shortage of customers who are rude, deceiving, manipulative, and downright unpleasant to deal with, and they may be the reason that the Customerserveless language was invented in the first place.

But consider the problems being outlined in this article from the New York Times, and tell me that there aren’t thousands of others out there who have far more justification in calling for an overthrow than I.

The only downside I can see is that after the revolution, we’ll have to establish a customer service department to deal with the complaints.