Tinker, Tailor

Aug 1st

Posted by English Mike in Blogroll

Just been tinkering with the look of the blog. Hope you like the new theme.

There’s a ton of wild and wonderful Wordpress themes out there, but there are only so many hours in the day when I should be writing…

Comments and suggestions on the design of the blog are, of course, welcome.

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Heel, Heal Thyself

Aug 1st

Posted by English Mike in Blogroll

3 comments

I hurt my achilles playing volleyball at Aussies last Friday. I’m not sure how if happened since I was only a little sore during the game, but when I stood up after the obligatory margarita afterwards, I could barely walk to the car.

Monday night was indoor volleyball night, but I was still gimpy so was unable to play. I went down to the ARC anyway, just to say “Hi” and watch my team play against by far the worst team in the league (all GOP workers… go figure!). It was a good thing I did, since another team member was late and we would have forfeited the first game if I had not been there to stand in the corner of the court.

But I digress. During warm-ups, a member of another team (our arch-rivals) staying to referee our match, saw me limping around and asked me what was wrong. When I explained he asked me, quite politely, if he could pray over my heel. To be honest, that was the last thing I was expecting to hear, so I automatically said “Okay” and he bent down, took hold of my heel, and uttered a quick prayer (I couldn’t hear what he said). And that was it. I continued to limp around, played a couple of points and sat down when our latecomer arrived.

Now he had no idea that I don’t believe in the power of prayer (save as a placebo) and he didn’t ask me about my opinion on the subject afterwards. If he had done, I’d have probably explained my position to him, but I’m not going to go out of my way to get into an argument about something like that. It was a nice gesture, even if a bit misguided. And given the way he blushed bright red the couple of times we spoke afterwards, I suspect he felt a little embarrassed about having done it.

Needless to say, the heel is still sore, though getting a little better through the hours of RICE treatment (rest, ice, compression, elevation). It would be nice to believe that an injury could be healed with a touch and a prayer (why the touching anyway, what difference is that supposed to make?) but the fact that our bodies can heal themselves from such injuries is miracle enough for me, and there’s always the human touch, in the form of doctors, when all else fails.

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Automated Customer Service from Hell

Jul 31st

Posted by English Mike in Blogroll

I’m off to the UK next week to exchange the flooding rains of Texas for the flooding rains of middle England. (Sigh). After I booked my flights a couple of weeks ago, I never received an itinerary via email, so I decided to call today to get one. I first called Delta Airlines, believing it to be the airline I had booked on, and was immediately flung into their voice response system.

After the usual “press 2 to…” dive through the menu system, I was asked to read my confirmation number: “SPWCLA”. No problem, the system understood me at the first attempt. Cool. I was quickly connected to a live operator and, guess what? I was immediately asked for the confirmation number again.

“But I just gave it to you!” (snarl)

Why does this always happen? Do they do it just to annoy their customers that little bit more, so they will never have the temerity to call customer service again?

Anyway, after they could not find the reservation, I told them I remembered I was going through Chicago on the way to London.

“Chicago?? This is Delta Airlines.” (as in, are you kidding me?)

Oops.

So, moving swiftly on, I then called the correct airline, United Airlines. I get “press 2 to …” about five times before we’re back to: “tell me your confirmation number, use common names if you want…”.

(Good idea, I thought, foolishly.) “Sam, Peter, Walt, Chris, (uh-oh, er) Larry, Andrew”

“Was that D-P-W-R-P-A”

“No.”

“I’m sorry, my mistake.” (coo) “Please try again”

(Forget the names) “S-P-W-C-L-A”

“was that S-P-Z-C-L-A”

“No!”

“I’m sorry, my mistake.” (coo, purr) “Please try again”

“S-P-W-C-L-A”

“was that F-D-C—”

“NO!!”

“I’m sorry, I assure you that it is my fault.” (coo, purr, soothe) “Please try again”

“S!! P!! W!! C!! L!! A!!”

“was that F—”

“NO!!!!!!!!!”

“I’m sorry, my mistake, please wait while I connect you to a live operator…” (cue the music)

The live operator I was eventually connected to was very lucky that over 10 minutes had passed since I had yelled down the phone at their machine. Word to the wise, shouting letters at a voice response unit doesn’t make it any more accurate.

I am a pretty calm person most of the time, but I could feel the blood pressure rising to dangerous levels. And to think that my last five working years at IBM were dedicated to creating software to help make these vile automated voice response units possible. I don’t believe in karma… really, I don’t…

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Welcome

Jul 30th

Posted by English Mike in Blogroll

Hi y’all! Welcome to my personal web log.

It will be a work in progress, so expect things to change around a lot, but I will try to post on a regular basis. What sort of things will I post? Well, come back later and find out!

But here’s a clip from Catherine Tate to get things started. It is a beautifully crafted little sketch, and always makes me laugh, no matter how many times I’ve seen it.

(Note: for Britishly-challenged viewers, John Nettles is a well-known English TV actor (now in his 60s) with a long history on the Beeb as a leading man, and “Nukie Brown” is Newcastle Brown Ale.)

Enjoy.

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