This was me, two years ago. [wik] I am pleased to note that this link came from my boss. I am becoming happy with my new work environment.
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Via an email from a friend in Florida this afternoon, I found that there's been a brouhaha about road signs in Austria. Witness the map below, specifically the city a couple clicks northeast of the center of the map:
Allegedly, folks keep stealing the signs at the entry points to the city. Knowing Ken as I do, I decided it might be a good idea to attempt validation of the story, and found an initial reference to it, from back in August, 2005, at marijuana.com.
It doesn't particularly surprise me to find a site called "marijuana.com" so much as that I've never had occasion to notice it or that it was basically a pretty lame place. I guess that the site's proprietors are restricted in their ability to really do much with such a unique domain name, given the illegality of marijuana pretty much everywhere in the US. But, that aside, further research showed this, at answers.com {ellipses mine}:
Fucking (IPA: /ˈfʊkɪŋ/—the "u" is pronounced like the "u" in English "put") is a small settlement (population c. 150), part of the municipality of Tarsdorf [2], in the Innviertel region of western Upper Austria, located at 48°02′59″N, 12°50′59″E, bordering Bavaria. [3] It is near the city of Salzburg. The village is known to have existed as “Fucking” since at least 1070 and is named after a man from the 6th century called Focko. “Ing” is an old Germanic suffix meaning “people”; thus Fucking, in this case, means “place of Focko’s people”. [4] {...}
The settlement’s most famous feature is a traffic sign with its name on it beside which English-speaking tourists often stop to have their photograph taken. The sign is the most commonly stolen street sign in Austria.[5] Significant amounts of public funds are spent on replacing the stolen signs. In August 2005 the road signs were replaced with theft-proof signs welded to steel and secured in concrete to make the signs harder to take. [6]
Stories like those below are pure click-bait:
There's a huge difference, I'm reminded, between "Welcome to Fucking Austria" and "Welcome to Fucking,Austria". In the extended entry, for the morbidly curious (such as me) who enjoy seeing newspaper stories full of f-bombs, a picture of an article describing one of the periodic outbreaks of this menace to municipal stability, along with a picture of the most frequently stolen road sign in Austria, if not all of Europe.
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Let me invite you into a magical world of incompetence, omnigorence, and thumb-fingered cluelessness. One of the joys of moving is the task of navigating the treacherous waters of utility company bureaucracy. Before leaving the old house, the Casa de Buckethead, we had to cancel the water, electric, gas, phone and broadband services to the house. This we accomplished with a minimum of fuss, and as we approached closing day on Festung Buckethead, we began the process of scheduling services for the new place.
The first of two services that we needed was electricity, and in a matter of minutes on the phone Mrs. Buckethead successfully set that up, and they – as an added bonus – didn’t even ask for a security deposit. The missus, perhaps foolishly, began to feel a sense of optimism. Water at the new place is from a well, so we don’t need the water utility. There’s no gas, so no more Washington Gas, or any other. We’d decided to forego the landline phone since we both had cell phones, and it seemed an unnecessary expense, especially considering the fact that our Vonage service had gone pear-shaped, and begun connecting our incoming calls to someone in Germany with frightening regularity.
So, with a light heart and brimming with confidence, Mrs. Buckethead began calling local broadband providers to see who amongst them would like to have us as a paying customer. After some time spent waiting on hold, she determined that the local phone companies did not provide DSL service to the area. So be it, we thought! There’s always cable! Then began a parade of staggering ignorance, muddle-headedness and obtusity on a scale I have seldom witnessed.
Week before last, the missus began calling Adelphia. The first yahoo she talked to seemed constitutionally unable to realize that we were not calling for technical assistance.
Idiot: “I’ll have a technician return your call.”
Mrs. B: “We don’t have a technical issue. We want to set up service.”
Idiot: “Oh. Let me see. Okay. I’ll have a technician return your call.”
Mrs. B: “We are not customers. We wish to become customers. Do you provide service to our address?”
Idiot: “Let me transfer your call.”
So she waited on hold for a while. Then called again, and got another idiot.
Idiot #2: “I’ll have a service representative return your call, thank you.”
Mrs. B: “Don’t you need my phone number?”
Idiot #2: “Oh, yeah, that would help.”
That person told us that Adelphia didn’t provide service to our location. Given the paucity of intelligence evident in the Adelphia customer service department, I recommended to my wife that she call again, and see if she couldn’t talk to someone with somewhere north of a small ganglion. Which she did, and no joy. She even called the county planning office, and those people said that yes, sadly, there was no cable service in our area.
So, we resigned ourselves to getting satellite broadband. This was mildly disheartening – while the monthly charges for satellite are about on par with other services, it’s a smaller pipe, and you get horrific latencies, which makes using VoIP or VPNs over satellite connections problematic at best. And, as a special bonus, you get to pay $300 or more upfront to have the satellite installed.
There matters stood as we went into our closing. After we had signed away for an hour, the seller’s agent handed us a sheet of paper that listed some of the information for our property. Among the items listed was, “Adelphia cable installed.”
Homos say, “What?”
Well, if cable was already installed at that address, why hadn’t the tireless and dedicated staff at Adelphia been able to determine that they did, in fact, provide service to that address? We figured, based on the behavior of the seller, that perhaps she was exaggerating, or at best mistaken. It was an investment property for her, after all, and not a place she had ever lived.
So, the next day we moved in. And my mom found a cable outlet in the wall of the master bedroom suite. (I love that phrase.) Well, shit, says I. There is cable. So this morning, I head off to work, and the missus vowed to sort it out. She calls Adelphia, and they reluctantly admit that yes, maybe they provide service to our address. And if you want service, you have to show us a copy of your contract on the house to prove that you aren’t the deadbeats who lived in that house two years ago.
Well, okay. That actually never occurred to me. Run up the utilities, file a change of address, then sign up in a new name. Not a bad idea. Regardless, Mrs. B, the kids, and Grandma B. all pile in the car and head down to Front Royal in search of the Adelphia office. Why? Because no one in the office would admit to having a fax number to which we might fax the contract. Curse this modern era of lightning communications and enhanced productivity!
Of course, it was only fitting and proper that the office should prove to be one of those stealth offices that isn’t actually located on the street they said it was on. But after in excess of five hours on the phone, and one confusing drive into the big city, we are now scheduled to have our broadband hooked up Wednesday afternoon between the hours of noon and two. Given past performance, I am not exactly holding my breath.
You’d think that a cable company – any company, really - would actually like to have customers, rather than setting up near insuperable obstacles for potential clients. But then, I’m just a blogger and not some hot shot cable company owner, so what do I know?
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Sometime ago, a long time resident of the Ministry Cronies list apparently dropped off the map. Phil, he of the myriad blog names, was no longer responding to the happy clicky. Now, he had expressed, on his blog, some growing distaste for the whole blogging thing. Sure, and that is to be expected. I feel that about every afternoon around 3:00. But weeks, months, past, and still I was not finding www.phildennison.net. Had he canceled his domain altogether, I wondered? I had, and have, no way of knowing, seeing as how the only email address I had for him used that domain.
So, Phil, drop me a line. If you can - hopefully you've not been trapped under something large and immovable for the last several months, surviving on cat food and just out of reach of the keyboard.
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A map of the internet. Sweet.
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Casa de Buckethead, our place in the suburbs, has now been replaced by Festung Buckethead, our fastness in the wilderness of Warren County, Virginia. I would like to make special mention of those brave, nay, foolhardy souls who assisted us in loading, carting and unloading our myriad possessions. Jeff, who despite years of captaining a chair for NASA, showed commendable fortitude in the face of very large boxes. Mike, who maintained a cheerful good humor even when forbidden to play any instruments. Mike’s two sons Paul and Andrew, who, for teenagers, were able to focus on the task at hand and not ask for beer or electronics more than every ten minutes or so. Christian, who, having known me for less than a year, still pitched in with admirable vigor. Marcy, who despite being the littlest helper, hardly complained at all. And Gavin, who’s skills at driving a large U-Haul truck left me amazed, but only after being paralyzed with fear. And of course, Mrs. Buckethead, who did most of the packing, and will be doing most of the unpacking. Thanks also to mom, who kept the junior-grade Bucketheads occupied and largely out of the way.
I would also like to express my admiration for the wisdom of all those who did not help us move, even while begrudging their lack of generosity of spirit.
All things considered, the move went surprisingly well. The missus and I had actually packed damn near everything before moving day. I have found from painful personal experience that failure to pack is a serious impediment to efficient moving.
The new place is out in the back of beyond, relative to our nation’s capitol and my workplace. It’s even on a dirt road. And the last turn to get down to our driveway is a little tight. I thought that, with some careful driving, I could get the 26’ U-Haul down the drive. But I decided to consult with Gavin, to see if he had any useful suggestions. He merely replied, “Mind if I drive?” In the face of that sort of certainty, I had no real objection. Gavin hopped in the truck, and without hesitation, barreled down the driveway. He turned left, into the little turnaround, and then proceeded to back the truck around the hairpin turn.
At that moment, Christian had asked for a cigarette. I was unable to comply, because just then Gavin touched the edge of the driveway with the left rear tire and tipped the top-heavy truck noticeably out of vertical. Still he didn’t hesitate, and in seconds had the truck down by the house. Chris asked again for a cigarette. I handed one over, and said, “Sorry, I was paralyzed by fear.”
Gavin said that he was trying to avoid the trees. But then, he also said later that evening that, “If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist,” so I can only conclude that he was just having fun at my expense.
Other memorable events: Jeff breaking my rake while, to all appearances, trying to use it like a snowboard. Me, twisting my ankle on perfectly level ground. Everyone asking repeatedly, “You say you purged your books before you packed?” after seeing the 60+ boxes. Hey, at least I had the foresight to pack them in little boxes…
Thanks again to everyone who helped, you have dibs on all the goodies when we have the housewarming party.
[wik] A special tiny thanks to GL for coming up with a new name for the Buckethead residence.
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"Yes, You Can Surf In Cleveland", I was informed in an article from today's New York Times, forwarded by my friend Bill.
In December, as temperatures dip into the 20s, Cleveland surfers have Lake Erie almost entirely to themselves.
No shit? ([wik] technically, not an appropriate exclamation on my part - see below)
I didn't initially know how to take this article - it could have come out of the Onion, for crying out loud. The only difference, of course, is that, emanating from the NY Times, it's all true.
“Surfing Lake Erie is basically disgusting,” said Bill Weeber, known as Mongo, 44.
Almost everything in Lake Erie is basically disgusting, but it's all made palatable by the fact that today's Lake Erie is like bottled water compared to what it used to be. Also, I wonder if Mr. Weeber got his nickname from Mongo the Retard, in Blazing Saddles, but that's really a side issue.
“I was so excited I could barely sleep last night,” said Mr. Ditzenberger, 35, who quit his job as a lawyer in August to spend more time surfing and to film a documentary about Cleveland’s surf community.
Being a lawyer must really suck, if one could quit doing it in favor of filming a documentary about Cleveland surfing. Or "Cleveland's surf community", whatever the hell that is.
To reach the lake, surfers drag their boards across snowdrifts and beaches littered with used condoms and syringes, Mr. Ditzenberger said. The most popular surf spot is Edgewater State Park. It is nicknamed Sewer Pipe because, after heavy rains, a nearby water treatment plant regularly discharges untreated waste into Lake Erie.
Used condoms and syringes? That's the Cleveland beachfront I remember. Intentionally surfing through untreated sewage? Even the couple of mildly moronic Clevelanders with whom I went to college weren't that goofy. And the many more normal Clevelanders of my acquaintance would think this story's focus as silly as I do.
“Everybody surfs in California, which waters down the experience,” said Mr. Rooney, who grew up surfing in Orange County, Calif., before moving to Cleveland three years ago to work in his family’s real estate business. “Being here takes me back to that feeling of discovery that the founding fathers of surfing experienced.”
Yeah, dude, surfing in Orange County, I'd bet it was really hard to find bowling-ball sized ice chunks, condoms, syringes, poo, and pee to surf through.
The founding fathers of surfing would be so proud.
Oh, and in case you can't make yourself click on the NYT link, because you don't want to register at the site, here's the picture that accompanied the article:
To their credit, they do look like surfing ninjas. And no syringes, condoms, or bodily waste appears to have gotten stuck to them, at least not at the time the picture was taken.
[wik] Someone needs to contact the guys who do those Bud Light "Real Men of Genius" radio spots, eh?
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Based on all I've heard about just how gosh-darned good the SEC is, I shouldn't have been shocked to see an article at The Brushback entitled "Buckeyes Forfeit Championship To Avoid Facing Mighty SEC"
“We’ve never seen a team like Florida before,” said Tressel. “We have not had a taste of SEC football at all. The best team we’ve played this year is Michigan, and those guys are from the Big 10, which is like the SEC Jr. Florida, on other hand, has played Alabama, Tennessee, LSU, and Georgia. Read that list again. You think we could have handled all those teams? Not likely. And I don’t even want to think what an SEC defense would do to our poor little Troy Smith. Bye bye Heisman, hello full body cast. No thanks. We’ll skip the game and live to suck another day.”
Luckily, I think that all possible weird-ass angles on the BCS, the SEC, OSU, and other pertinent TLAs have now been covered. Therefore, it's time to (at least temporarily) abjure further jock-related posts. We now return you to "Giant Robot posts, dick jokes and [other] goofiness"
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Every once in a while I read a quote that's so monumentally stupid I recoil. You may have read about the recent woes the Coast Guard has had refitting ships; modernizing and extending its cutters was intended to upgrade their capabilities. Alas, somehow it went wrong, and the eight ships "refitted" so far have been removed from service, as dangerous cracks in the hull plating appeared under stress. Steel bands were wrapped around the ships to try and keep them together, but they were sidelined anyway.
It's another clusterfuck courtesy of Northrop-Grumman and Lockheed-Martin, who currently receive a very large slice of your tax dollars. A few congressoids got enthusiastically in favor of the program after being bribed (oops, sorry, lobbied). N-G and L-M take their 30-50% cut for doing nothing but handing it to a subcontractor. That sub was Bollinger Shipyards, whose colossal fuckup this predominantly is.
So back to stupid. There's no explanation for how Bollinger managed to get their engineering calculations so very, very wrong. The Coast Guard's own engineers predicted the problems (by doing, you known, math stuff). Bollinger's explanation?
Bollinger, it turned out, had overestimated how much stress the modified boats could handle, a miscalculation it cannot fully explain. “The computer broke for some reason,” said T. R. Hamlin, a senior Bollinger manager. “Whether it was a power surge or something, who knows?” The cursory oversight by the Coast Guard meant the mistake was not caught in time.
The computer broke? A fucking power surge? Who knows? Apparently the Coast Guard didn't even bother to fill up the oversight positions on the procurement panel. My cynical, Occam's-razor take on that? The fix was in, and there wasn't any point in overseeing a damn thing. The engineers who knew the difference between a lunchbox and a torpedo moved on to someplace they could make a difference.
So I search for "bollinger shipyards republican", on a hunch -- which these days we can also define as a "certainty". Yep, there it is. Hit #1:
Donald T. “Boysie” Bollinger is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Bollinger Shipyards, Inc., a family-owned business established in 1946 by Boysie’s father. Bollinger Shipyards, Inc. is a full service marine construction and repair operation headquartered in Lockport, Louisiana with 12 divisions in Louisiana, two divisions in Texas, and activities extending into the international market.Boysie Bollinger participates at both national and state levels in the political area. He served as a delegate to every Republican National Convention since 1976, and was the State of Louisiana’s Finance Chairman for the George W. Bush for President Campaign and Campaign Chair for his General Election. Boysie Bollinger was State Finance Chairman of the Louisiana Republican Party on three occasions and served on the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee.
Boysie Bollinger currently serves on the National Petroleum Council. He previously served on the President’s Export Council under the administration of President George H.W. Bush. He is past Chairman of the Governor’s Maritime Advisory Task Force, on the board of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Military Affairs, and former Chairman of the Board of Commissioners, Port of New Orleans.
Great. Your tax dollars at work. And for half of you (perhaps less these days) -- welcome to your ideology at work.
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As attentive readers will be aware, I am about to buy a house. I suppose it was to be expected that nothing would go smoothly, and more to the point it would not go smoothly at the last moment. I was informed earlier this morning that the down payment was not, as estimated, less than the amount in my bank account. Instead, as a personal consideration to me, it was more. Contemplating this turn of events, I felt the familiar stab of anxiety, that little gremlin grabbing my heart and twisting that I have come to associate with the entire home buying experience. To this feeling was added a small frisson of urgency to give it a little extra punch, since I am closing tomorrow morning.
If this was happening next week, it wouldn't be an issue as I get another paycheck Tuesday. Of course, if it was next week, I'd have to cancel all my moving plans and probably end up with no one to help me move instead of a dozen people helping me move. Happily, dear old mom was there to chip in at the last moment, and wired enough money to cover our sudden short fall. Now, I will spend the balance of the afternoon emulating a crack addicted lab monkey, clicking the refresh button and hoping for a little of what I need.
What particularly galls me is, why the hell didn't the loan people detect this mysterious nearly a grand difference in estimated payments until less than 24 hours before closing?
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