Ranting Asshole

No, you can't have an update on your goddamned ticket. It's Sunday. Specifically, 11:30PM on Sunday night. You can have an update on your goddamn ticket when there's somebody in the goddamn office to work on it. I'm here overnight on the weekends to monitor the network and make sure our site doesn't go down, not to be your password reset bitch.

And to you, you piece of shit bastard. When you submit a ticket saying that the network storage for the stage environment is "down" because the permissions aren't what you expect, then mail the IT-All distribution list, the NOC, the team who performed the storage move last week, a number of manager- and director-level staff, the Senior Vice President of Technology, and the Vice President of Technology Operations with a link to your ticket... the proper response to my followup email is to respond to my email, not to ignore it completely while submitting two recall attempts to your own mail. We don't even support the goddamn stage environment, only production. Fine, your ticket's not getting worked, asshole.

Sony.

Oh, Sony. Sony, Sony, Sony.

Motherfuckers. What the fucking hell, over?

In days past, the Sony name alone was enough to sell me on products if I otherwise had no particular reason to patronize a particular brand. I'd buy a VCR, I'd get a Sony. Sony products had a reputation for quality. They just plain worked.

Then last year there was this DRM rootkit nonsense. I'm sure you don't need that explained to you, but I'll recap quickly: installing software, without your knowledge, consent, or approval, onto your computer. It was supposed to keep you from copying CDs, because as we know, nobody ever buys CDs except to pirate them. Only it didn't keep you from copying CDs. What it did do is open up a bunch of security holes on your PC. Yay Sony.

Last month Sony launched their PlayStation 3. $600 for a Blu-Ray high definition DVD video game console that does everything but suck your dick and swallow... only for that much money, it'd goddamn well better suck your dick and swallow. Nonetheless, it doesn't. Know what else it doesn't do? Scale those HD-DVD signals going to your television. Again without explaining the intricacies of the technical details, I'll recap: apparently, if you have a HD TV which does not have its own hardware to scale those incoming signals, then your much-lauded 1080p/1080i signals are going to be displayed at 720p or, even worse, potentially at 480p. After spending anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000 on a HDTV, and then another $600 on a PS3, I goddamn well better be getting a high definition signal. (If you want more of the technical details, here.) It's pretty offensive that Microsoft, another company who pisses me off daily, a software company, has better HDTV support on their HaloBox 360 than the hardware research firm has on their offering. We'd been promised for a year, at least, that PS3 was going to own the hell out of the HaloBox 360, and that Blu-Ray support was going to be the cornerstone of this owning.

In the last day or two, now we discover that Sony has hired a marketing firm to engage in guerilla marketing - that is, engaging paid corporate shills to present their sales pitches to people as though they were objective third parties dispensing word-of-mouth opinions.

This in itself is nothing new - companies have been doing it for years. But Sony's pissed me off especially this time.

They hired Zapatoni to create fake blogs and other pieces of purported fan-supported media which are in fact blatant pieces of commercialistic marketing, their alleged creators entirely nonexistent. There's a fake blog here, a "hip-hop" video here (since removed), and apparently a few other bits of similar chicanery around the web here and there. If you clicked on those links, my condolences - I may be an asshole but I don't try to intentionally cripple people emotionally (very often). This is some of the most painful advertising I've ever seen in my life. Their idea of "funky-fresh" advertising designed to fit into the video gaming and Internet culture is so far off the mark as to defy belief.

In fact, it reminds me of this whole McDonald's "I'm lovin' it" bunch of bullshit in the scope and the magnitude of their failure in capturing and identifying with popular culture. At least McDonald's has no qualms about people knowing they're ads, rather than pretending that it's the work of McDonald's fanboys doing it for love of the Big Mac.

At the risk of sounding now like a Nintendo shill, I have to say that I don't give a fuck if my video game console can download content from online stores, maintain buddy lists, check my email, surf the Web, or fucking order more condoms when I've run out after assraping my latest point of irritation. I want it to play some goddamn video games. Period. I don't have a HDTV, so Blu-Ray and HDDVD hold little appeal for me on their own merit. So now I've got Camp Sony on one side with a $600 machine, a lack of enticing games, and a pissed-off fanbase who can't play HD videogames on their combination of HD game machine and HD TV, and I've got Camp Nintendo with their Wiimotes, price tags less than half the PS3's, and people having so much fun that they're forgetting they're not REALLY bowling, and accidentally chucking their controllers through the TV.

One side, bad hardware and software support with a $600 price tag. Other side, developers clamoring to get into line to develop for the Wiimote, a revolution in human entertainment value, with a $250 price tag.

Let me think about this really goddamn hard for a minute.

Beggars, and people with entitlement issues, but especially the intersection between the two.

Consider this conversation from World of Warcraft. Names are changed to make the guilty more pointedly so:

[Guild] [Asshat #1]: Anyone have any Spare Dreamfoil?

Note that dreamfoil is one of the rarest and certainly the most valuable herb in the game, used for making a lot of the uber high level potions. I was about to post "AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Spare dreamfoil. *wipes tear* What a concept." when:

[Guild] [Guildie #2]: i do asshat
[Guild] [Asshat #1]: How many?
[Guild] [Guildie #2]: let me count
[Guild] [Guildie #2]: 20
[Guild] [Asshat #1]: Could I have the Stack SO I cam make me some Pots for tonight?
[Guild] [Guildie #2]: sure
[Guild] [Asshat #1]: Could you bring them to me in SW

(a few minutes later)

[Guild] [Asshat #1]: Guildie, Got any other spare HErbs?
[Guild] [Asshat #1]: Maybe some [Golden Sansam] or [Mountain Silversage]

Two more rare and desireable herbs.

[Guild] [Guildie #2]: thats crazy...i just farms those items
[Guild] [Guildie #2]: i do....need some of those too
[Guild] [Asshat #1]: Yup, Maybe two Stacks of [Golden Sansam] and one of [Mountain Silversage]
[Guild] [Guildie #2]: i got 10 goldwn and 11 mountain
[Guild] [Asshat #1]: works
[Guild] [Guildie #2]: u can have it all
[Guild] [Asshat #1]: Also, Got any Fadeleaf or Grave Moss

Yet more rare and expensive herbs.

[Guild] [Asshat #1]: The Less I have to Spend on Herbs the better
[Guild] [Asshat #1]: So does anyone have any Fade LEaf or Grave mos?
[Guild] [Guildie #3]: i have some mos on my druid
[Guild] [Guildie #3]: not all that much mind you maybe 6
[Guild] [Asshat #1]: Dumb Question, anyone have any Elemental Fire?

Not an herb this time, but indeed another rare and pricey alchemy ingredient.

[Guild] [Guildie #2]: asshat im sorry i was AFK but no about the fadleaf and grave moss
[Guild] [Guildie #4]: who needs moss?
[Guild] [Guildie #4]: sorry I just got outta bg
[Guild] [Asshat #1]: I need Fadeleaf, Grave moss, and Elemental Fire
[Guild] [Guildie #5]: you awfully damn needy arn't you

QFMFT. Quoted For Mother Fucking Truth.

Jesus fucking CHRIST. Asshat is a fucking GUILD OFFICER. He's begging for rare, expensive, and highly desireable shit on the guildline, and when somebody AGAINST ALL PROBABILITY agrees to give him a large quantity, he demands delivery. And then asks for more, eventually consuming the entire farming output of this poor generous bastard. And then asks for more. And then yet more.

His justification? "The less I spend on potions, the better." Well here's a fucking clue-by-four for you, motherfucker. NOBODY likes to spend all their gold, but you don't see any other asshole trying to get their guild to support their fucking instance runs.

It's a fucking wonder that anybody will speak to this man, let alone give him rare shit. I won't, personally, for other reasons which do not fall under the scope of this rant.

Oh, and his primary-language English sucks ass, too, but I'm nearly certain I've already ranted about that shit.

Psychotically overprotective parents.

I was playing Guild Wars tonight, and in Alliance chat somebody noted that one of the smaller guilds in the alliance had left.

The reason?

Apparently somebody swore on the Alliance chat line, and some kid's mother was watching him play over his shoulder, and she went completely batshit fucking insane.

She called the leader of the kid's guild, who she apparently knew IRL, and demanded that he leave the alliance RIGHT NOW... or the kid was going to be grounded from not only Guild Wars but EVERY VIDEO GAME HE HAS.

I cannot begin to adequately express what a fucked up world view gives rise to this kind of situation.

First of all - you cannot fucking protect a kid from profanity. Period. It cannot be done. Somebody'll tell him to fuck off at school, or call him an asshole, or call YOU an asshole... deservedly so, mind you... and then your plot to brainwash the poor boy into a life of christian hell is over.

Second, what the fuck would the point of protecting your kid from profanity be? Oh fuck, Little Jimmy heard somebody say "Shit." Now what? Is he going to grow up a mass-murdering fuckhead? Is he going to steal your women and rape your livestock? Is he going to grow up a worthless bum with no place in society, forced to resort to a life of crime to live? Somehow I rather doubt it.

Somebody I knew years ago (and dislike immensely for being a psychotic fucking hosebeast, but that's another story) had a much saner outlook on things: "There's no such thing as a bad word, only a word which upsets some people." She brought up her kid with that point of view, and trusted him to act accordingly; a well-adjusted kid doesn't run around upsetting people for the sheer fuck of it.

God, excessively overprotective/conservative people piss me off.

Learned disability.

You know - where somebody refuses to expend any effort whatsoever to learn something, because they're "slow." Or they just woke up and their head is fuzzy. Or any one of another dozen shitty excuses. You see, one time when they were a kid their mother yelled at them and didn't hug them afterwards or something, so now they believe every name they were called, and those names are their excuse for failing at life.

Well now, I got some bad news for you, Sunshine. Learning is not fucking easy after around age... I dunno, six or eight. Let me repeat that. LEARNING IS NOT FUCKING EASY. And again. LEARNING IS FUCKING HARD. Learning takes work. It is not instantaneous.

Yes, I consider you a friend. Yes, I'm willing to help you out when you have trouble with understanding basic programming concepts, because yes, I am a professional coder. No, I am not fucking willing to do your goddamn homework for you, no matter how slow or dumb you claim to be. You're not slow OR dumb; you're a fucking lazy-ass cocksucker.

This is, incidentally, why I've started sending you links to exhaustively complete technical writeups of functions rather than explain it to you ANOTHER FUCKING TIME.

By the way - if you're unwilling or unable to get the point of a goddamn function, you may want to choose another line of work, because your ass is not going to survive as a programmer and even if you piss me off, I'd hate to see you starve to death.

Time to get some REAL hate flowing today. Start a flamewar or two, maybe. Get the epithets flinging.

Today (actually for the past couple weeks straight) I'm really pissed off by this whole immigration bullshit.

"We're all immigrants!"
"If you deport all the immigrants, where will all the migrant labour come from?"
"Economies will collapse without the immigrants!"
"My grandparents immigrated; why can't they?"

I don't recall a fucking word being said about deporting all the immigrants. I do recall people mentioning that illegal... let me re-emphasize that... illegal immigration is not acceptable.

Immigrants gain citizenship, they have legal jobs, they pay taxes, they contribute to communities. Fine. No problems there... they're just like anyone else.

Illegal immigrants... well, it's like this interview I read on CNN the other day. Guy comes from south Mexico, travels a couple thousand kilometres to the northern Mexico border, and is willing to even tell reporters that he's going to try to swim the river. Why? Because he doesn't have any money. Because across the river is where all the money is.

Last I checked, if you sneak onto somebody else's property without permission, knowingly and intentionally evading security, just because they have money and you don't? That's sorta frowned upon, in every country I've ever visited.

Here's the fucking deal. You want to be an American? Apply for some fucking citizenship. Do the fucking paperwork. Learn the fucking language. Don't expect my tears when you break the law and get sent back home. You're getting off damned lucky. I break the law, I go to prison. You just go back to the place you decided was too much of a shithole for you to stay there.

This last paragraph should not be necessary, but I know it is.

Somebody is going to read this and decide that I hate Mexicans. The only reference to Mexico I made was the one interview that was posted on CNN. I apply this to ANYONE wanting to immigrate illegally, and ONLY those who do it illegally. I grew up in the Southwest; I adore Mexicans and their culture. Anyone who takes this rant as being directed against Mexicans is just plain fucking wrong, and that's as clearly as I can say it. It applies not only to illegal Mexican immigrants, but also to illegal Central and illegal South American immigrants, illegal Canadian immigrants, illegal European immigrants, illegal African immigrants.... I trust you get the point.

Fucking helpdesk techs.

Not us, of course. I'm talking about the other techs your clients consult. Let me explain.

I had a rep call today complaining that he couldn't access the VPN from his hotel. He was aware that you have to load a hotel website, fill out their form agreeing with their use policies, and then submit it before you could get on their network. His problem is that when he clicked on the 'submit' button, it'd loop him back to the first page of the agreement. He called the hotel helpdesk to see if he was doing something wrong and was told that the issue is because of either a hardware issue on his end, or that he has a firewall installed.

WTF?

If he had a firewall blocking shit, he wouldn't have been able to access the website at all. Never mind the fact that these laptops have standardized builds and the reps do not have the access permissions to install a firewall. Short of reinstalling the OS from scratch, he could not possibly have a firewall on his machine.

Hardware failure? If it was hardware failure he wouldn't be able to connect to shit at all.

So the guy calls me, and what can I tell him? "Sorry dude, the first guy you talked to was just a lazy little shit who didn't want to perform proper troubleshooting. Your end is perfectly fine."

I walked him through some basic troubleshooting anyway to make sure he had everything configured correctly... which he did. Pulling an IP from his in-room modem just fine. Connectivity seemed to work great, if the only site he wanted to visit was the hotel's signup page.

Fucking helpdesk techs.

(x-post: ranting_asshole, techsupport

People who redefine the world to reflect their own points of view.

"I apply the same sort of ruling to canniballism. If you eat the flesh of an intelligent being, which possibly includes dolphins and, in my opinion, octopus, then you are committing canniballism."

Atrocious spelling aside, the definitions of things are not subject to your goddamned opinions. Definitions are well-documented and generally universal explanations of the concept conveyed by a given word. Cannibalism is very specifically the phenomenon wherein an animal, typically human, eats the flesh of another animal of the same fucking kind. A human eating a dolphin or an octopus is NOT cannibalism. A human eating anything other than another human is not cannibalism.

Self-righteousness. Especially when hypocritical.

You see, you may not like me. That's fine; I have no desire to be liked. I specifically provoke people, knowingly and willingly and openly. It's not a secret.

But it really just hits a nerve when people decide to climb up on their soapbox, get all holy-roller, and say shit that boils down to "Don't call people names, motherfucker."

"You think you're so cool, but I know that you're an egotistical bastard, not a cool person like me."

"You're a waste of humanity because you always put people down to make yourself feel better, you worthless lump of dogshit."

Whatever. If you don't like the way I act, I have no problem with that. But if you want to call me a name, then you better make goddamned good and sure the name doesn't apply to yourself just as much.

I should phrase this in a way that will make sense to those who declare themselves righteous:

1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.

2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

- The Book of Matthew, Chapter 7, vs. 1-5, KJV

Part of my job is to create shipments for clients who have hardware troubles with their laptops. After they call us up, usually the replacement laptop will ship out the following day for overnight delivery, and the client then has three days to get the old laptop sent back to us, and then to call us with the tracking number. After the three days has elapsed, we send a reminder voicemail. After a further three days, we send a slightly less friendly reminder voicemail to both them and their district manager. Two days after that, we send it up to Field Technical Services who harasses the everliving shit out of them with threats to notify their regional manager and charge the regional budget for the replacement cost of the hardware.

Of course, the way this usually works is that they get the new laptop, get everything up and running, and then just conveniently forget that they have an old laptop to return. To alleviate this problem we've taken to shipping prepaid, preaddressed Fedex labels with the new laptop. All they have to do is get the new laptop out of the box, put the old one in and tape it back up, put on the label that we provided, and then drop it off in a FedEx drop box. Since it's already prepaid and preaddressed, they don't need to fill out an airbill or even talk to a clerk... just drop it in the drop box. This is usually either about six inches inside the front door, or in some cases even outside. In crowded metro areas like New York City, you can even find FedEx and UPS drop boxes on the sidewalk like mailboxes.

Despite this, we still have people who refuse to return their damned equipment in anything remotely resembling a timely fashion.

A personal favourite of mine is when we make all our followup calls, send the case up to Field Technical Services, and then a week later notice a note in the case indicating the client called back. "My bad! I got the replacement laptop and then was on vacation."

What. The. Fucking. Hell.

What is this bullshit? You needed a functional laptop so you could go on vacation with it?!

God this shit pisses me the hell off.

x-posted to techsupport