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So Sick of T-Mobile

The T-Mobile call centers seem to have been fobbed a new policy requiring everyone to be more chatty, informal and energetic. Much, MUCH more chatty, informal, and energetic.

This is even more irritating than it sounds. We’re not at a party. I’m not trying to hook up with you. I don’t even know how cool the handset is, because I don’t have it yet. That’s why I’m calling.

Rewind. I ordered a new phone for $18 at the end of September and signed up for two more years of service. Note that the phone was “free,” except for an $18 fee, which wouldn’t have been incurred by simply using my current phone for two more years. We, as a society, are drowning in bullshit.

I checked UPS.com last week to find out why the phone hadn’t arrived yet. They had no information about the order, so I called T-Mobile again. The ridiculously chatty, informal and energetic representative informed me that it hadn’t shipped yet, but would the next day. I verified that it was coming to my new address in LA, not my old address in Boston, thanked the representative and hung up.

Fast-forward to last night. On a whim, I checked UPS.com again for the shipping status. The phone was in Chelmsford, MA, and scheduled to be delivered today. I called T-Mobile back.

Chatty, informal and energetic Esther told me that the phone was back-ordered. No, it’s aready been shipped, I told her, and gave her the tracking number. She verified that as true, and finally gave me a number to call — which I realize now she must have gotten by Googling the UPS Store in Cambridge, MA. I was told to call and cancel the delivery. Once the phone got back to T-Mobile (whenever the hell THAT might be), they would reprocess the order and send it out to me in LA. I called the number, got a machine, and left a message.

I checked UPS.com this morning. The phone has been delivered. To my old address, on the beautiful North Atlantic.

I’m about to call T-Mobile for round three.

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The Man With the Pointy Hat

"In the current storyline, there's a lot that I don't agree with, and I made this very clear to everybody within shouting distance . . . As an executive producer as well as a writer, I've sometimes had to insist that my writers make changes that they did not want to make, often loudly so. They were sure I was wrong. Mostly I was right. Sometimes I was wrong. But whoever sits in the editor's chair, or the executive producer's chair, wears the pointy hat of authority, and as Dave Sim once noted, you can't argue with a pointy hat.

"So at the end of the day, all one can do is try to do the best one can with the notes one is given, and try to execute them in a professional way -- because who knows, the other guy may be right . . . ."

— J. Michael Straczynski

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We Heart Superman: Episode 105: The Krankorbatch Switcheroo!

A strange physics experiment leads to stranger chemistry!

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“We Heart Superman: The Krankorbatch Switcheroo!” (MP3 format, 24MB)

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“We Heart Superman: The Krankorbatch Switcheroo!” Written and produced by Matt Rasmussen. Directed by Troy Minkowsky. Featuring Mike Devine, Christian Sterling, Gina Robbins, Lindsay LeClair, Dan Miller, Melissa McCue, Debbie Chiang, and Arturo Meneses. Sound and technical support by James Force and Adam Stugatch. Original Music by Subpar Costar. Superman created by Joel Schuster and Jerry Seigel and property of DC Comics.

Thank you for listening!

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2:35

“And sometimes there’s no one there. And there isn’t going to be.” — Michael Ventura, Shadow-Dancing in the U.S.A.

Wall-E is the perfect expression of what it’s like to meet a modern woman. She’s sophisticated, sleek, brilliant, beautiful, focused — and something of a pyro. You’re a bit clever perhaps, but otherwise the only thing to recommend you is that you’ve somehow managed to survive this long.

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Scooter Unapologized

Scooter is a big, dumb arena rock act — but since they’re German they do techno. They’re as brainlessly self-aggrandizing, self-referential and self-conscious as Kidd Rock, Monster Magnet or club hiphop.

Download the uncensored video for “Weekend,” and you’ll start to get it. The director’s concept seems to have been “Alexander the Great.” It’s become a mini-addiction for me. Lead singer H. P. Baxxter rides in cape and armor with three sometimes topless multiethnic dancing girls upon a boat carried by a sea of Buddhist monks. Warriors and dancers appear in fast cuts on a dry nighttime plane, the frames shooting psychotically from the beautiful (three girls making out in the snow) to the disturbing (passable CGI replacements of Baxxter’s head onto a line of boys). A striking Hindu dancer crawls toward Ganesha — the height of my guilty pleasures. Baxxter’s face morphs awkwardly out of a man’s back to kill the fun. There’s a maybe virgin Mary in heavier eye makeup than Filter’s “Take A Picture” mermaid. Nothing is held up long enough for rational thought. It’s a wonderfully terrifying thing.

You’re not supposed to feel good about listening to this music. The clever flourishes don’t make it okay. The dozen platinum albums don’t either. Forcing you to admit that there’s some flaw in you that enjoys the music is Scooter’s only redeeming characteristic.

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We Heart Superman: Episode 104: The Cannabis Conundrum!

What madness lies ahead when Jimmy Oleson smokes weed?

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Click here to listen to episode 104:

“We Heart Superman: The Cannabis Conundrum!” (MP3 format, 24MB)

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“We Heart Superman: The Cannabis Conundrum!” Written and directed by Troy Minkowsky. Featuring Mike Devine, Honzer Chen, Gina Robbins, Dan Miller, Lindsay LeClair, Melissa McCue, Christian Sterling, Michelle Webster, and Arturo Meneses. Sound and technical support by James Force. Original Music by Subpar Costar. Produced by Matt Rasmussen. Superman created by Joel Schuster and Jerry Seigel and property of DC Comics.

Thank you for listening!

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Greetings

I’d like to say a quick hey there to DIY fans from BoingBoing.net and ProQuo.com who are discovering the blog by way of my junk mail blinds article.

Here are a couple more junk mail tips for you:

  • Pick up a traverse rod at your local hardware store and make verticle blinds with the same strips of junk mail. I now have one set of either in my bedroom.
  • Lampshades. Try to use compact fluorescent bulbs — they run cooler, and are better for the environment. (And contain only 1/100th the mercury of a household thermometer, so we’d best get over that please… Remember to recycle them, also at your neighborhood hardware store, too.)

Finally, I’ll be moving to either LA or San Franciso at the end of September, based largely on whether either produces a good bite on a job. Please contact me by any of the means on the main page if you happen to have any leads for me. Shukriya!

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We Heart Superman: Episode 103: Days of the Superpimp: Part II!

WHO is the Superpimp? And WHAT happened to last week!?

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Click here to listen to episode 103:

“We Heart Superman: Days of the Superpimp: Part II!” (MP3 format, 17.9MB)

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— Credit, Swag, Love —

“We Heart Superman: Days of the Superpimp: Part II!” Written and directed by Troy Minkowsky. Featuring Mike Devine, Honzer Chen, Lindsay LeClair, Dan Miller, Melissa McCue, Tessa Parmenter, and Arturo Meneses. Sound and technical support by James Force. Original Music by Subpar Costar. Produced by Matt Rasmussen. Superman created by Joel Schuster and Jerry Seigel and property of DC Comics.

Thank you for listening!

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“Mr. Noonday”

(Fifty-five word flash fiction for EvilMustache’s Challenger 3.)

"Imagine that. Sixteen different kinds of cheeses. That is simply astonishing."

"You said I-"

"Shouldn't have come, I know. Oh, would you look at that."

"What?"

"Your ex girlfriend. She has her own demon on her back."

"Really?"

"No. I just thought that would make you feel better."

"When... can I get rid of you?!"

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Cult 2.0

Carey Burtt’s sharp and funny short film has me thinking about cults again, and specifically Cult 2.0s. The “2.0” is an irritating neologism for an irritating fact: That new cults have learned from the excesses of old cults. They’ve seen that certain behaviors raise red flags, and they’ve learned that by tinkering around the edges they can gain the same rewards — control and wealth — without bringing the same organized backlash. Jim Jones is dead, but Reverend Moon is one of the most powerful men in America.

Necessary to understanding the Cult 2.0 is the rejection of the 70’s-style language of victimization. Cult 2.0 members are no more “victims” than smokers. Both are addicted, both are progressively harmed, both could stop at any time (but rarely do), and both chose to begin.

Traditional cult members tend to be of above average intelligence — as is vividly illustrated in the Jonestown Tape. At the outset they perceive at least some of the methods of psychological control, but they choose to believe that the positive aspects of the organization outweigh the negatives. They “cult into” these groups; they’re not tricked.

The following are the common attributes of the traditional cult. (Credit to the late Perry DeAngelis.)

  • Surrender to Authority
    • Leaders defeat autonomy
  • Environmental Control
    • Carefully control daily schedule
    • Leave no time to reconsider/criticize
  • Totalism
    • Us vs. Them Mentality
    • Make members feel needed/wanted
  • Loading the Language
    • Jargon
    • Common words given unique meanings
  • Demand for Purity
    • Purity defined by leadership
    • Any sacrifice allowed for purity

Moving beyond DeAngelis, I point out that this is a hierarchical list. The Surrender to Authority requires Environmental Control which supports Totalism which begets Loading the Language which supports the Demand for Purity. The Cult 2.0 merely accomplishes the above with soft power. It’s the paper difference between slavery and sharecropping.

In a Cult 2.0 they don’t control your life, but they sure always need you to do something or other for them, at all hours. They don’t tell you to stop talking to your friends and family, they just don’t give you the time. When your loved ones ask what you do now, it’s hard to explain it all without using that new terminology. Most people wouldn’t understand anyway, right? The Cult 2.0 doesn’t tell you to give them all your money, but if you paid for this training retreat and the next you’d sure start to make progress, and be able to help your local outlet move forward. You want to do better, don’t you? Keep that enthusiasm up. We’re changing the world. And it’s easy.

Cult 2.0s are the antibiotic-resistant germs of the cult world, reshuffling their features to deliver the same payload. Scientology’s Narcanon and “Free Personality Test” tent are easy to spot front groups, but the for-profit Dahn Yoga corporation (Dahn Hak) is a front for nothing but itself. Cult 2.0s don’t kill people; they just leave them broke, broken, ashamed, lonely, and knowing that nothing has been done to them that they haven’t done to themselves.

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Feasibility of a CGI Comic Book

All I’ve seen are a few pages of Red Star with CGI used for hardcore mechanical illustration, but the Man says such things exist.

The first problem is character design.

In illustration, the basic unit is the line. Lines suggest shapes and masses, but they can be manipulated — always — to suit their own aesthetic purpose. Notice the difference between real hand-drawn animation and the stiffness of toon shaded CGI. Toon shading is cute, but it’s nostalgia. If you want to draw, learn to draw.

In illustration, lines are easy, shading is hard; in computer graphics, it’s exactly the opposite. Learn to light, and the software takes care of shading. Edges — lines — are a byproduct. Models are models. You don’t draw in 3D: you sculpt. You build.

The basic unit of CGI characters is the mass, and that’s where you need to go to get personality. Character design in CGI is more than trying to fudge an illustration to life in 3D. What’s on what, near what, across what? How does it fit together? Solve those questions or you’ll never get beyond flat, lifeless Poser-porn.

And that’s only the first problem.

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We Heart Superman: Episode 102: Panic at the Pelvis!

A new Wonder arrives in Metropolis — and Lois is livid!

— Listen —

Click here to listen to episode 102:

“We Heart Superman: Panic at the Pelvis!” (MP3 format, 16.8MB)

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— Friend —

Visit our MySpace page at MySpace.com/WeHeartSuperman.

Join our Facebook group, “We Heart Superman”.

— Credit, Swag, Love —

“We Heart Superman: Panic at the Pelvis!” Written and directed by Troy Minkowsky. Featuring Mike Devine, Lindsay LeClair, Dan Miller, Melissa McCue, Tessa Parmenter, and Arturo Meneses. Sound and technical support by James Force. Original Music by Subpar Costar. Produced by Matt Rasmussen. Superman created by Joel Schuster and Jerry Seigel and property of DC Comics.

Thank you for listening!