Garrret laid a small satchel at his feet and replaced a blade to his belt along with the small silver tin that held the coiled cord, it’s hook gleaming sickly with a putrescent yellow liquid. He took a small, embroidered handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the hook clean, then secured it into place on his belt with a small leather snap. He glanced at his watch and turned his eyes toward the younger man to his right who was frantically searching the room, muttering to himself. Garret stiffened and walked toward the man, “how ya doin, Joe?”
“Just trying to get myself together, friend,” the thick Scottish brogue nearly breaking as he winced in pain.
“Alright. Chris, how about you?”
“I’m sorry, I…,” the boy muttered. He was keeping his voice low although it wouldn’t have mattered much in the present situation.
Garrett, held up a hand to silence him as he looked through the knapsack, laying clips and bullets into piles before him. Other instruments were placed neatly to the side, most of which appeared antiquated and many homemade. Shaking his head, he lifted the torn flap of fabric below his knee and grabbed a bottle of water from within the knapsack. The water splashed against the wound and rivulets of blood raced down his calf. Splinters still jutted from his leg and he pulled as many out as quickly as he could before padding the larger cuts with antiseptic also culled from the knapsack. He folded his legs and slowed his breathing. It was a routine the others had seen before, yet each held their breath. Garret’s eyelids fluttered and his left hand jerked spasmodically against his leg. “Chris,” he whispered while simultaneously opening his eyes and flexing his hand, “ eight to ten, in a makeshift basement…closet…green, maybe blue door. They have a Watcher with them. They’re cloaked…unarmed, but there’s something else… Joe, help Chris if he needs it and ask them for some rags and whiskey, if they have it. We’ll need to reset your arm.”
Joe shuddered and made a commitment to press about the whiskey. “C’mon, Chris. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Joe,” Garret called after them, “ We have twenty minutes. No time for an impromptu recruitment.”
Joe nodded as Chris made his way down the hallway turned right at the end. Ten paces down was a blue door with a sign that read “utility closet”. It was unexceptional and had probably been chosen exactly for that reason. He tried the knob only to find it was locked from the inside. The boy lifted a gloved hand and reached inside an inner coat pocket. He brought out two long pins, both worn with various bends and gouges dotting their length. Blowing on the key hole and jerking back when a plume of dust rushed toward him, he brought the pins up and slipped one inside the lock. This was a skill he acquired along his trek with the men. It proved to be as valuable now as the first time and he felt proud of his contribution. That pride turned the corners of his mouth upward into a sly smile as the first tumbler clicked. Another two turns and the knob gave up.
Another click sounded, almost inaudibly, and it was Joe’s face that flashed with recognition, but he did not smile. He shot out with his good arm and grabbed a handful of jacket spinning himself and the boy around, shielding him and forcing them both against the opposite wall. A gust of air raced down the back of his neck and a hard metal clang echoed through the hall. Instinctively, he twisted his other arm around and let out a cry as it popped from the movement. Falling to his knees, pain racked his body and he vomited as the boy looked on in disbelief.
A bed frame with box springs had been turned into an instrument of torture worthy of the Inquisition. Blades, crudely welded to the frame, juxtaposed in a million angles, now dug into the floor inches from where they had once stood. A clump of hair clung to a long jagged spike letting the pair know of its prior successes. Joe wiped his mouth with his sleeve and pulled the boy behind him pushing a panel on the rear of the closet. It opened, and as it did, the smell of stale sweat and rotten food rose to meet them.
Garrett kneeled before the pulpit. It had been spray painted and it looked as though someone had tried to take an ax to it. He ran his fingers along the deep gashes in the wood. Each grain that wound its way through the texture of the stained oak sent a memory up through the tips of his fingers, flinging his mind back to the house on Hoover Avenue with the purple door; the purple door, the gun, and all the blood. Blood. He was bleeding. The splintered wood had lodged itself in his hand and the blood was pooling at the base of the pulpit making it look more like a pagan alter than a testament to the Christian God. Garrett wheeled around to the sound of footsteps as a drop of blood spilled from is index finger and splashed on the toe of his boot.
Three figures stumbled into the cathedral hall and Garrett’s eyes fell on the new addition. A young boy stood in the middle tapping his foot anxiously and scanning the room with such nervous energy that he looked as if he might explode where he stood. His eyes bulged from his sockets and the other men wandered how long it had been since the gaunt face had seen a decent meal. His fingers twitched and he wiped his nose and coughed into his hand. Garrret motioned towards Joe, who was standing behind the Youngman, and he tapped Chris on the arm and pointed to an overturned pew a few feet way. The boy, if the walking skeleton actually resembled that anymore, felt the upturned pew touch the back of his legs and Garret took a step towards him slowly, considerate of the boy’s distrustful looks. “I’m asking you to sit, but it won’t be for long.” At this, Garrett withdrew one of the Glock’s from his belt and handed it to the youth. “This evens up the odds a little, don’t you think?”
Joe, poised to draw his own gun if necessary, waited for the boy’s reaction, and fell at ease as he picked up the piece, but held it in both hands, never bringing his fingers close to the trigger. The boy looked up, his demeanor had changed slightly, but the look of distrust was still there, and neither the men, nor Chris could blame him. “We don’t have anything to take.” There was no inflection, just a tired resignation.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Nine Tenths: A Horror Novel
So my intention for the better part of two years now has been to finish the horror novel I have been writing. I am not a writer by education or talent, but I love the horror genre and I do feel as though I have a story that I want to tell. Those elements have proven to be enough to get me to occasionally sit down and push out a few paragraphs when the mood takes me. Aside then from our regular blogs on the paranormal, movies, or whatever strikes our fancy I will be uploading a few pages here and there from my unfinished novel I have titled Nine Tenths. Hopefully this will incite me to finish what I started and maybe I can get enough feedback to help me in the process. Thanks for reading and I hope you all enjoy my freshman effort.
Ash
Nine Tenths
Chapter 1
The farm had yielded a comfortable return less than just 3 years ago, but now the brittle husks rasped in the night like ghosts. It was ravaged, dead, and the sickly brown corpses that inhabited the field barely swayed mourning the golden kernels of corn that had once shone over the 5 acre plot. Four silhouettes were making their way through the field, more quietly than could be expected for their speed; only their labored breathing marked their haste, and even that was trained and executed within reason.
“Fuck.” The curse, an intrusion in the silence, was spat out as a stick, pointed enough at one end just to be dangerous dug itself into the lead silhouettes’ calf. The man, more of a robot in his calculated movements, shifted his weight and brought his left arm down to his side in one movement, grabbing the lance and yanking it out. A crimson arc, lit by the crescent of the moon sprayed into the air as the splinter was flung from the wound. Another man fell as the first regained his momentum. The point man, tossing the blood glazed broken stick turned to witness a pair of leathery wings shoot into the sky, the downed man in tow, half held, half impaled by the creature, now aloft against the stars, racing towards his death.
The hole in his calf almost now a memory, new threats had caste their shadows against the glow of the horizon and the man known as Garrett swung his arms backward like sickles slicing through the air. The sheen of steal danced along the barrels as bullets popped from the twin chrome Glock 9’s. The bullets tore through the wings like paper and man and devil flipped through the air, an absurd parody of aerial ballet. A third man, positioned between the ragtag troop’s leader and the spot where his best friend had been seconds before, wheeled around and focused his eyes on the black night over his head. A shadow displaced the stars and the man reached out to catch the body, only to be thrust backward by a loud pop and a searing pain racing up from his elbow. The body of his friend lay at his feet, one foot nestled against his left cheek in a gruesome knot.
“Frankie’s dead. Get on your feet.” The voice was not callous or uncaring, but the urgency could be mistaken for indifference. Garret grabbed the man under his left arm and started to drag him forward, trying desperately to break into a run, even with the dead weight pushing gravity mercilessly against him. The younger man, his face pale with shock, was also struggling to get to his feet. His right arm dangled lifelessly at his side. Garret, the older of the two by over twenty years, brought the man to his feet and almost simultaneously brandished a serrated blade from his belt. Without looking he delivered a short chop to the air above his head. A foot to his right a taloned finger over six inches long fell against the browned grass of the knoll overlooking the edge of the field. A screech fell against the men so shrill their hearing stuttered in their own heads like a radio station struggling to retain reception. In front of them the small slender figure that had been pacing the group raced ahead.
“My arm…I can’t feel it” the younger man mused, the shock draining the inflection from his voice.
“That’s because you almost broke it off.” Garret could only half concentrate on the query of the man behind him. A small structure, a square with an arch pointed to the heavens, lay in the distance beyond the knoll. There were no lights accompanying it, but he could tell there were bodies there, huddled somewhere within its interior. That was secondary, however.
Primary was the form crisscrossing the sky, causing the moonlight to strobe at their feet as it circled the stray member of their party that had pulled ahead of them. Garret swung the Glocks into their holsters with the ease and grace of a seasoned magician and reached toward the small of his back bringing a small lariat with a hooked head to arms length. He swung the hook and let the slack of the cord lengthen. Flicking his wrist, Garret let loose the hook, aiming above the creature’s prey.
The shadow swooped towards the smaller silhouette, slowing slightly as it dipped with a confident zeal, arrogantly displaying its triumph. As it neared the ten year old boy, the corded hook penetrated its back, square between its wings, burying itself in the sinewy flesh. Garret, feeling a tug as the cord threatened to pull loose, jerked backwards quickly. A wet snap sounded above the boy’s head and an object whirred behind and away from him. Still cradling his arm, Joe Barnes took Garret’s lead and ducked as the glistening spine, tugged free of its host, sailed over their heads.
The boy turned and half jogged backwards waiting for the others to catch up. He knew better than to distance himself from the group, and he was much older than his ten years, old enough to know which words of advice were meant to keep him alive. The church had looked closer and with Joe falling behind, he had put more space between he and the group than he had intended. He scanned the sky, waiting for another assault, but none came. He quickly closed the gap to the edge of the church’s property and started to fumble with the gate when a strong hand gripped his shoulder, making him cover his own mouth for fear of screaming.
“We need to hurry. Here.” As he said this, Garret grabbed the boy under his arms, scooping him up and breaking into a dead sprint towards the church that lay ahead. At ten, the boy was too thin for his age and Garrett could barely feel the weight of the child in his arm. He had carried bulkier weapons with ease and the broadsword sheathed to his back was at least 8 pounds heavier than the boy. The blade had another burden all its own, however.
“No need to knock,” he grunted as he placed a kick below the brass handle of the door splintering the frame. The door swung open a few feet before hitting a tower of chairs that had no doubt served as a makeshift barrier. An ineffective one, however. The interior of the church showed a space that betrayed its humble exterior. Pews lined a long central room and its breadth was wide, almost commanding awe, were it not for the humility within its modest design. It had seen trauma though and several pews lay overturned ripped free from the floor, some still with pieces of hardwood clinging to the bolts that once held them fast in their place. The pulpit had been defaced and the stench of urine made the very air seem heavy and hot.
Ash
Nine Tenths
Chapter 1
The farm had yielded a comfortable return less than just 3 years ago, but now the brittle husks rasped in the night like ghosts. It was ravaged, dead, and the sickly brown corpses that inhabited the field barely swayed mourning the golden kernels of corn that had once shone over the 5 acre plot. Four silhouettes were making their way through the field, more quietly than could be expected for their speed; only their labored breathing marked their haste, and even that was trained and executed within reason.
“Fuck.” The curse, an intrusion in the silence, was spat out as a stick, pointed enough at one end just to be dangerous dug itself into the lead silhouettes’ calf. The man, more of a robot in his calculated movements, shifted his weight and brought his left arm down to his side in one movement, grabbing the lance and yanking it out. A crimson arc, lit by the crescent of the moon sprayed into the air as the splinter was flung from the wound. Another man fell as the first regained his momentum. The point man, tossing the blood glazed broken stick turned to witness a pair of leathery wings shoot into the sky, the downed man in tow, half held, half impaled by the creature, now aloft against the stars, racing towards his death.
The hole in his calf almost now a memory, new threats had caste their shadows against the glow of the horizon and the man known as Garrett swung his arms backward like sickles slicing through the air. The sheen of steal danced along the barrels as bullets popped from the twin chrome Glock 9’s. The bullets tore through the wings like paper and man and devil flipped through the air, an absurd parody of aerial ballet. A third man, positioned between the ragtag troop’s leader and the spot where his best friend had been seconds before, wheeled around and focused his eyes on the black night over his head. A shadow displaced the stars and the man reached out to catch the body, only to be thrust backward by a loud pop and a searing pain racing up from his elbow. The body of his friend lay at his feet, one foot nestled against his left cheek in a gruesome knot.
“Frankie’s dead. Get on your feet.” The voice was not callous or uncaring, but the urgency could be mistaken for indifference. Garret grabbed the man under his left arm and started to drag him forward, trying desperately to break into a run, even with the dead weight pushing gravity mercilessly against him. The younger man, his face pale with shock, was also struggling to get to his feet. His right arm dangled lifelessly at his side. Garret, the older of the two by over twenty years, brought the man to his feet and almost simultaneously brandished a serrated blade from his belt. Without looking he delivered a short chop to the air above his head. A foot to his right a taloned finger over six inches long fell against the browned grass of the knoll overlooking the edge of the field. A screech fell against the men so shrill their hearing stuttered in their own heads like a radio station struggling to retain reception. In front of them the small slender figure that had been pacing the group raced ahead.
“My arm…I can’t feel it” the younger man mused, the shock draining the inflection from his voice.
“That’s because you almost broke it off.” Garret could only half concentrate on the query of the man behind him. A small structure, a square with an arch pointed to the heavens, lay in the distance beyond the knoll. There were no lights accompanying it, but he could tell there were bodies there, huddled somewhere within its interior. That was secondary, however.
Primary was the form crisscrossing the sky, causing the moonlight to strobe at their feet as it circled the stray member of their party that had pulled ahead of them. Garret swung the Glocks into their holsters with the ease and grace of a seasoned magician and reached toward the small of his back bringing a small lariat with a hooked head to arms length. He swung the hook and let the slack of the cord lengthen. Flicking his wrist, Garret let loose the hook, aiming above the creature’s prey.
The shadow swooped towards the smaller silhouette, slowing slightly as it dipped with a confident zeal, arrogantly displaying its triumph. As it neared the ten year old boy, the corded hook penetrated its back, square between its wings, burying itself in the sinewy flesh. Garret, feeling a tug as the cord threatened to pull loose, jerked backwards quickly. A wet snap sounded above the boy’s head and an object whirred behind and away from him. Still cradling his arm, Joe Barnes took Garret’s lead and ducked as the glistening spine, tugged free of its host, sailed over their heads.
The boy turned and half jogged backwards waiting for the others to catch up. He knew better than to distance himself from the group, and he was much older than his ten years, old enough to know which words of advice were meant to keep him alive. The church had looked closer and with Joe falling behind, he had put more space between he and the group than he had intended. He scanned the sky, waiting for another assault, but none came. He quickly closed the gap to the edge of the church’s property and started to fumble with the gate when a strong hand gripped his shoulder, making him cover his own mouth for fear of screaming.
“We need to hurry. Here.” As he said this, Garret grabbed the boy under his arms, scooping him up and breaking into a dead sprint towards the church that lay ahead. At ten, the boy was too thin for his age and Garrett could barely feel the weight of the child in his arm. He had carried bulkier weapons with ease and the broadsword sheathed to his back was at least 8 pounds heavier than the boy. The blade had another burden all its own, however.
“No need to knock,” he grunted as he placed a kick below the brass handle of the door splintering the frame. The door swung open a few feet before hitting a tower of chairs that had no doubt served as a makeshift barrier. An ineffective one, however. The interior of the church showed a space that betrayed its humble exterior. Pews lined a long central room and its breadth was wide, almost commanding awe, were it not for the humility within its modest design. It had seen trauma though and several pews lay overturned ripped free from the floor, some still with pieces of hardwood clinging to the bolts that once held them fast in their place. The pulpit had been defaced and the stench of urine made the very air seem heavy and hot.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Is the paranormal a victim of our own “quantum belief”?
The paranormal is a topic that has long persisted not only because of the overwhelming amount of first hand accounts of the bizarre, but because of a leap of faith on the part of those willing to believe. The paranormal, in that regard, is a two way street. So where are we in regards to putting our belief aside and focusing on the science. Likewise where are we in regards to letting ourselves use our subjectivity and passion to fuel our research? More and more I see a great divide in the paranormal community between those willing to believe and those looking for a reason to believe. One question however lingers with me: Does our search for answers and our reliance on specific research techniques actually affect the phenomena in such a way that the evidence is only there because of our belief in the methods we use to acquire it? In other words, do EMF detectors register spikes because we believe they should? If that is the case, we might be looking at a greater problem in environment vs. activity.
The EMF meter or “detector” has become a staple in the ghost hunter’s arsenal. Fluctuations in the electromagnetic field can be both artificial and natural, and can be attributed to such common items as simple household appliances and power sources. Now the average ghost hunter will measure the field around them and, if no artificial source or other source is apparent, assume that a spike on their meter indicates the presence of a spirit. I believe the bulk of the ghost hunting or paranormal investigation community is comprised of intelligent, thoughtful individuals, but I also believe that the origin of the EMF meters role in investigation has been slightly skewed, however.
Let’s take a look at the research of Dr. Michael Persinger. On the surface, Persinger’s findings help to validate the use of EMF meters to detect paranormal activity. Notice however, that I used the phrase “paranormal activity” and not “ghost research.” Persinger’s conclusions state that fluctuations in the electromagnetic field affect the human brain in such a way that it produces sensations that duplicate what is commonly attributed to hauntings or spirit activity. If we are using the work of Persinger and others to reinforce the importance of EMF equipment in the field, then we need to look at the implications as well.
The subatomic universe is constantly changing not only the way that science looks at matter, but also the way that science looks at faith. The ability for perception to actually influence matter, as well as belief, is not a new concept, but the methods that are being observed in the lab are. We can only speculate that the world around us then, is more pliable than we once thought. What about the unseen world around us? I might have to disagree with Persinger on this: his thoughts on EMF are to produce the “appearance” of paranormal, but what if they allow it to happen? What if an EMF spike doesn’t indicate the presence of a spirit, but actually indicates an area where a spirit CAN appear? If this is the case then where does the quantum belief system come in?
Just turn on your tv to any of the myriad of paranormal programs dotting the cable tv landscape and you’ll see any number of ghost hunters talk about “energy”. They’ll even say that spirits “use” energy to manifest. This might be partially true. Spirits, entities or even creatures of a cryptozoological category might indeed need us, but it might not be our “energy”. It might be our faith. If belief influences our reality in ways that we are only beginning to understand, how might it affect what some have deemed the multiverse? Is the increasing use of equipment like the EMF meters actually strengthening our belief that the instrument detects activity and in turn actually augments the phenomena by increasing its very potency? It certainly hasn’t been the first time.
Just recently a National Geographic team used infrasound and suggestion to produce similar results in a control group to simulate the effects reported in a “haunted” abandoned prison. What Nat Geo failed to investigate was the effect of environment, suggestion and infrasound on faith and its impact on matter on the quantum level. We might always be left with a “which came first, the chicken or the egg” scenario, but we are dealing with science and science that is constantly learning about the effect of belief on the physical world. Let’s examine the chicken and the egg on how it pertains to our world and we might better understand how both belief and the pre-existence of the phenomena are both necessary in this hypothesis.
Does our belief in the world then create the world? I think that would not only be a naive assumption but one that would have to rewrite the very definition of reality and matter: a discussion that might rely more on philosophy and theosophy than the paranormal and a somewhat revised scientific method. I think we need to rephrase our initial attempts to explain the quantum belief system and more accurately say that the perception and preformed opinion of the observer augments, intensifies, and even changes the experiment. This allows the existence of the phenomena independent of the human observer (sorry, Shrodinger), but also clearly defines the observer’s role in the activity.
Do EMF detectors work then? The answer might actually lie in the rephrasing of the question: Do you believe they work?
Ash
The EMF meter or “detector” has become a staple in the ghost hunter’s arsenal. Fluctuations in the electromagnetic field can be both artificial and natural, and can be attributed to such common items as simple household appliances and power sources. Now the average ghost hunter will measure the field around them and, if no artificial source or other source is apparent, assume that a spike on their meter indicates the presence of a spirit. I believe the bulk of the ghost hunting or paranormal investigation community is comprised of intelligent, thoughtful individuals, but I also believe that the origin of the EMF meters role in investigation has been slightly skewed, however. 
Let’s take a look at the research of Dr. Michael Persinger. On the surface, Persinger’s findings help to validate the use of EMF meters to detect paranormal activity. Notice however, that I used the phrase “paranormal activity” and not “ghost research.” Persinger’s conclusions state that fluctuations in the electromagnetic field affect the human brain in such a way that it produces sensations that duplicate what is commonly attributed to hauntings or spirit activity. If we are using the work of Persinger and others to reinforce the importance of EMF equipment in the field, then we need to look at the implications as well.The subatomic universe is constantly changing not only the way that science looks at matter, but also the way that science looks at faith. The ability for perception to actually influence matter, as well as belief, is not a new concept, but the methods that are being observed in the lab are. We can only speculate that the world around us then, is more pliable than we once thought. What about the unseen world around us? I might have to disagree with Persinger on this: his thoughts on EMF are to produce the “appearance” of paranormal, but what if they allow it to happen? What if an EMF spike doesn’t indicate the presence of a spirit, but actually indicates an area where a spirit CAN appear? If this is the case then where does the quantum belief system come in?
Just turn on your tv to any of the myriad of paranormal programs dotting the cable tv landscape and you’ll see any number of ghost hunters talk about “energy”. They’ll even say that spirits “use” energy to manifest. This might be partially true. Spirits, entities or even creatures of a cryptozoological category might indeed need us, but it might not be our “energy”. It might be our faith. If belief influences our reality in ways that we are only beginning to understand, how might it affect what some have deemed the multiverse? Is the increasing use of equipment like the EMF meters actually strengthening our belief that the instrument detects activity and in turn actually augments the phenomena by increasing its very potency? It certainly hasn’t been the first time.
Just recently a National Geographic team used infrasound and suggestion to produce similar results in a control group to simulate the effects reported in a “haunted” abandoned prison. What Nat Geo failed to investigate was the effect of environment, suggestion and infrasound on faith and its impact on matter on the quantum level. We might always be left with a “which came first, the chicken or the egg” scenario, but we are dealing with science and science that is constantly learning about the effect of belief on the physical world. Let’s examine the chicken and the egg on how it pertains to our world and we might better understand how both belief and the pre-existence of the phenomena are both necessary in this hypothesis.
Does our belief in the world then create the world? I think that would not only be a naive assumption but one that would have to rewrite the very definition of reality and matter: a discussion that might rely more on philosophy and theosophy than the paranormal and a somewhat revised scientific method. I think we need to rephrase our initial attempts to explain the quantum belief system and more accurately say that the perception and preformed opinion of the observer augments, intensifies, and even changes the experiment. This allows the existence of the phenomena independent of the human observer (sorry, Shrodinger), but also clearly defines the observer’s role in the activity.
Do EMF detectors work then? The answer might actually lie in the rephrasing of the question: Do you believe they work?
Ash
Thursday, February 4, 2010
A Utopian Society: Living a Dream or Beginning a Nightmare?
Note: Everyone knows that I'm a huge nerd when it comes to video games, so this blog is inspired by the upcoming release of Bioshock 2 (which I have pre-ordered).
The great thing about video games is that you get to live out these different scenarios that you can be almost certain that you will never encounter in real life. Some games feel like just games, but the well done ones can really draw you in and make you feel like the location is a real living breathing location. The location I am referencing in this one is an underwater city called Rapture and the idea of really living in a similar place. Those of you familiar with the game Bioshock are probably thinking "Mark, plasmids aren't real and you can't really remove the life force from creepy little girls and use it as your own". I'm throwing those ideas out for this and focusing more on the idea of the city and if it would work.
The idea of the city sounds like a great one (not to mention that I'm a huge sucker for the late 50's art deco style), people from all walks of life move into a city that is removed from the general laws of mankind and given room and board and are able to work on their projects without interruption. Each person carries their own weight. Doctors and scientists do not have to worry about laws regarding such things as stem cell research, cloning, and the moral questions that accompany such studies. Artists are able to work on whatever art they choose without worry of censor.
When you first enter the town you are greeted by a large bust of the founder and a banner that reads, "No Gods or Kings, Only Man". In this town there are no religious standards, there are no censors, and there are no limits.
So, in reality, could this work? I believe that if you had everyone of the same mindset that this is a community and they can add to it and make things better and everyone is truly equal, it may. Maybe I'm being hopeful, or maybe I just want to move to an underwater city where the liquor flows freely (and yes, Rapture has a lot of booze there), but I do think that if we were able to all get along and nobody was acting like a jerk, we would be able to make it thrive... but people are people, that's the only problem. It's all fine and good until you throw emotions in. People get jealous, people get egos, people mistreat other people, and I would give it about 5 years tops before everything begins to fall apart.
When that happens, you start looking at it as a dystopian society where either everything has fallen apart and everyone is at war with everyone else, or the ruling figures have given into their emotions of greed and become addicted to the feeling of power and tyranny and it becomes a war of the people vs. the ruling power.
With all of that being said, I can't wait to go back to visit Rapture again. Would you kindly join me?
Mark
The great thing about video games is that you get to live out these different scenarios that you can be almost certain that you will never encounter in real life. Some games feel like just games, but the well done ones can really draw you in and make you feel like the location is a real living breathing location. The location I am referencing in this one is an underwater city called Rapture and the idea of really living in a similar place. Those of you familiar with the game Bioshock are probably thinking "Mark, plasmids aren't real and you can't really remove the life force from creepy little girls and use it as your own". I'm throwing those ideas out for this and focusing more on the idea of the city and if it would work.
The idea of the city sounds like a great one (not to mention that I'm a huge sucker for the late 50's art deco style), people from all walks of life move into a city that is removed from the general laws of mankind and given room and board and are able to work on their projects without interruption. Each person carries their own weight. Doctors and scientists do not have to worry about laws regarding such things as stem cell research, cloning, and the moral questions that accompany such studies. Artists are able to work on whatever art they choose without worry of censor.
When you first enter the town you are greeted by a large bust of the founder and a banner that reads, "No Gods or Kings, Only Man". In this town there are no religious standards, there are no censors, and there are no limits.
So, in reality, could this work? I believe that if you had everyone of the same mindset that this is a community and they can add to it and make things better and everyone is truly equal, it may. Maybe I'm being hopeful, or maybe I just want to move to an underwater city where the liquor flows freely (and yes, Rapture has a lot of booze there), but I do think that if we were able to all get along and nobody was acting like a jerk, we would be able to make it thrive... but people are people, that's the only problem. It's all fine and good until you throw emotions in. People get jealous, people get egos, people mistreat other people, and I would give it about 5 years tops before everything begins to fall apart.
When that happens, you start looking at it as a dystopian society where either everything has fallen apart and everyone is at war with everyone else, or the ruling figures have given into their emotions of greed and become addicted to the feeling of power and tyranny and it becomes a war of the people vs. the ruling power.
With all of that being said, I can't wait to go back to visit Rapture again. Would you kindly join me?
Mark
Monday, January 11, 2010
Headlines from the Future: Massive Recall on American W.I.F.E. Units
In a move that has not surprised the increasing number of dissatisfied customers of the American branch of the popular W.I.F.E. domestic partner line, the STN company, also responsible for the popular HO disposable models that have received public flak since their introduction in Thailand last year, has issued a massive recall on all American W.I.F.E. units with serial numbers 1960 and up.
A line that many thought was, like its Asian and European counterparts, self-maintaining has turned out to be so troubling that there is talk of the units being sold with a high maintenance clause worked into the warranty and prenuptial agreement upon purchase. Steve Walden of New Brunswick, New Jersey says that the units are not just high maintenance, but are essentially defective right after you slip on the activation ring:
“ How can the Vagina, a major selling point for the unit, stop working all together after activation? I feel like I’ve been sold a bill of goods. It worked before I brought the unit home, but its as if they forgot to install a Vagina at all as soon as you lug the thing over the threshold. At first it was just the daytime setting, then it wouldn’t work if the lights were turned on. Now the nocturnal setting is defective and everytime I attempt to use the feature I get the default “busy” message. How can the unit be busy? The American units aren’t even programmed to cook or clean?!?!? ”
Steve isn’t the only customer who wishes they would have paid the extra tariffs to import the international model, but there are those who specifically ordered the unit from abroad who feel they are also victims of STN’s sinister bait and switch policies. Ivan Vocjeck, a business developer living in the former Soviet Republic told one of our foreign correspondents, “I was told the unit would function no differently than the Russian models. Here it is a matter of social status to display the American units to your friends. It means something. However, I soon found that many of the stock options on the less expensive Czech units aren’t even available on my import. The manual for the Vagina feature is over 1200 pages and I hear that they always ship the wrong language manual making it almost impossible to get the damned thing to work.”
Lewis Sifer, CEO of STN feels as though it is a matter of customer misunderstanding, not dissatisfaction. “When we first started marketing this product we were very upfront that this model was meant to function differently from its sister units sold abroad. You want to blame someone? Take a look at the legal hoops the American court system makes you jump through just to activate them… and forget about deactivation. This was a risk, but if there is a lesson to be learned it is this: the public demanded a unit that was exciting and unpredictable. Everyone was complaining about the complacency settings on the Asian models, so we gave them what they asked for.”
So what frustrations can one expect “out of the box”? The packaging, as always with STN’s products, is slick and inviting, but there is that sneaking suspicion that this is just window dressing (we quickly learned). No sooner had we laid the unit on its back when we found that we were actually given the wrong serial number. The hands, where the serial is usually placed said 1965, but the unit itself was programmed with 1974. So we knew from the beginning that there was an imminent trade-up in the unit’s future as older serials have been problematic in too much memory baggage in the main hard drive often corrupting it’s primary directives, leaving the unit in sleep mode for much of the day as it’s ocular units also begin to leak. The older serial also indicates that the model might be refurbished. It took us several calls to the main office, but sure enough, our “brand new” model was actually pre-owned. Much to our frustrations our unit’s Vagina feature was also defective. Not only was it impossible to get it to “sync” with the Vagina of the Vietnamese model, but the attempt left the Vagina totally inoperable, basically “bricking” the unit. Just how much was it going to cost to fix, even after purchasing the pre-nup warranty? Approximately HALF of not just the original cost, but the appreciation value!!!
Looks like just another “be careful what you wish for” deal from STN!
A line that many thought was, like its Asian and European counterparts, self-maintaining has turned out to be so troubling that there is talk of the units being sold with a high maintenance clause worked into the warranty and prenuptial agreement upon purchase. Steve Walden of New Brunswick, New Jersey says that the units are not just high maintenance, but are essentially defective right after you slip on the activation ring:
“ How can the Vagina, a major selling point for the unit, stop working all together after activation? I feel like I’ve been sold a bill of goods. It worked before I brought the unit home, but its as if they forgot to install a Vagina at all as soon as you lug the thing over the threshold. At first it was just the daytime setting, then it wouldn’t work if the lights were turned on. Now the nocturnal setting is defective and everytime I attempt to use the feature I get the default “busy” message. How can the unit be busy? The American units aren’t even programmed to cook or clean?!?!? ”
Steve isn’t the only customer who wishes they would have paid the extra tariffs to import the international model, but there are those who specifically ordered the unit from abroad who feel they are also victims of STN’s sinister bait and switch policies. Ivan Vocjeck, a business developer living in the former Soviet Republic told one of our foreign correspondents, “I was told the unit would function no differently than the Russian models. Here it is a matter of social status to display the American units to your friends. It means something. However, I soon found that many of the stock options on the less expensive Czech units aren’t even available on my import. The manual for the Vagina feature is over 1200 pages and I hear that they always ship the wrong language manual making it almost impossible to get the damned thing to work.”
Lewis Sifer, CEO of STN feels as though it is a matter of customer misunderstanding, not dissatisfaction. “When we first started marketing this product we were very upfront that this model was meant to function differently from its sister units sold abroad. You want to blame someone? Take a look at the legal hoops the American court system makes you jump through just to activate them… and forget about deactivation. This was a risk, but if there is a lesson to be learned it is this: the public demanded a unit that was exciting and unpredictable. Everyone was complaining about the complacency settings on the Asian models, so we gave them what they asked for.”
So what frustrations can one expect “out of the box”? The packaging, as always with STN’s products, is slick and inviting, but there is that sneaking suspicion that this is just window dressing (we quickly learned). No sooner had we laid the unit on its back when we found that we were actually given the wrong serial number. The hands, where the serial is usually placed said 1965, but the unit itself was programmed with 1974. So we knew from the beginning that there was an imminent trade-up in the unit’s future as older serials have been problematic in too much memory baggage in the main hard drive often corrupting it’s primary directives, leaving the unit in sleep mode for much of the day as it’s ocular units also begin to leak. The older serial also indicates that the model might be refurbished. It took us several calls to the main office, but sure enough, our “brand new” model was actually pre-owned. Much to our frustrations our unit’s Vagina feature was also defective. Not only was it impossible to get it to “sync” with the Vagina of the Vietnamese model, but the attempt left the Vagina totally inoperable, basically “bricking” the unit. Just how much was it going to cost to fix, even after purchasing the pre-nup warranty? Approximately HALF of not just the original cost, but the appreciation value!!!
Looks like just another “be careful what you wish for” deal from STN!
Saturday, January 2, 2010
New Year Expectations
What is it about a new year that opens up a new hope of expectations and promises that we try to make for ourselves that we never end up keeping? Basically, it's earths odometer flipping another number (on a similar note, I was very excited the other day when my van flipped to 55,555.55, and made a wish that my van would loose weight over the next mile). So in the spirit of things, what do you want to happen in the world of things we cover in the next year? Here's my top ten lists of hopes for the new year.
10. A Bigfoot Or Bigfoot-Like Creature Is Discovered
How great will it be to throw it in the face of all the skeptics that thought everyone was crazy "oh, that thing doesn't really exist, you people are all loonies" Not only do I want them found but I want them to be given equal rights. I want bigfoot to hold a job, get his drivers license, and vote.
9. I Want To Be Abducted By Aliens
This way I will know that once the new world order hits, I have a chance to move somewhere else
8. A Decline In The Word "Paranormal" Being Viewed As Only Ghost Hunters
This annoys the shit out of me and would like people to realize that there is more to it than just that.
7. UFO Hunters To Get Renewed
Bill Birnes is an awesome guy and this is a show that we need more so than yet another ghost hunting program
6. A Good Non-Slanted Abduction Documentary On A Non Cable Network
Every time they have something along the lines of these, it's always digging at the people that have been abducted, and poking fun at them. Can we get one that is not agenda driven? I doubt it'll happen
5. A Bailout For The People, Not The Corporations.
How fast would our economy turn around if they gave every American $1,000,000? For one, it would cost less than what they have given to the banks and the awful companies (AIG ANYONE?) that use the money to take expensive vacations. People would pay off their debt, and start buying more things, keeping the stores in business, the manufacturers in business, and the banks.
4. The Global Warming Scam To Be Fully Exposed
We already know it's a scam, but the national news that has been bought by the government has been trying really hard to keep it hush hush. I want the entire world to know exactly how big of a scammer and con-artist Al Gore really is.
3. Full Disclosure
Why won't they just tell us what we already know? What are they hiding? I'm sure we won't get it, which is why we need the number 1 on this list even more.
2. Even More Great Guests On Our Show
We have been very lucky to get the great guests that we have on here just doing this thing by ourselves, no corporate help, no agents, no media contacts. All us, it's been a lot of work, but the joy we get doing the show, and the great friends we've made during the past couple of years more than makes up for it.
1. Full Revolutionary War
Barry Obama was right about one thing; We need a change. What we don't need is the change he's offering, which is pocket change. Our government has let us down in a huge way. We need to rise up to overthrow them and give America back to the Americans. It's not about voting out those that are in office anymore because we've been shown time and time again that it doesn't work. The new people just continue the last guys bad job. We need an entirely new system. WW2 is what got us out of the last depression, we're already in what will probably be dubbed WW3 down the road and it sure as hell isn't helping us. Our joke of a government had completely and totally let the American people down. Epic Fail
Mark
10. A Bigfoot Or Bigfoot-Like Creature Is Discovered
How great will it be to throw it in the face of all the skeptics that thought everyone was crazy "oh, that thing doesn't really exist, you people are all loonies" Not only do I want them found but I want them to be given equal rights. I want bigfoot to hold a job, get his drivers license, and vote.
9. I Want To Be Abducted By Aliens
This way I will know that once the new world order hits, I have a chance to move somewhere else
8. A Decline In The Word "Paranormal" Being Viewed As Only Ghost Hunters
This annoys the shit out of me and would like people to realize that there is more to it than just that.
7. UFO Hunters To Get Renewed
Bill Birnes is an awesome guy and this is a show that we need more so than yet another ghost hunting program
6. A Good Non-Slanted Abduction Documentary On A Non Cable Network
Every time they have something along the lines of these, it's always digging at the people that have been abducted, and poking fun at them. Can we get one that is not agenda driven? I doubt it'll happen
5. A Bailout For The People, Not The Corporations.
How fast would our economy turn around if they gave every American $1,000,000? For one, it would cost less than what they have given to the banks and the awful companies (AIG ANYONE?) that use the money to take expensive vacations. People would pay off their debt, and start buying more things, keeping the stores in business, the manufacturers in business, and the banks.
4. The Global Warming Scam To Be Fully Exposed
We already know it's a scam, but the national news that has been bought by the government has been trying really hard to keep it hush hush. I want the entire world to know exactly how big of a scammer and con-artist Al Gore really is.
3. Full Disclosure
Why won't they just tell us what we already know? What are they hiding? I'm sure we won't get it, which is why we need the number 1 on this list even more.
2. Even More Great Guests On Our Show
We have been very lucky to get the great guests that we have on here just doing this thing by ourselves, no corporate help, no agents, no media contacts. All us, it's been a lot of work, but the joy we get doing the show, and the great friends we've made during the past couple of years more than makes up for it.
1. Full Revolutionary War
Barry Obama was right about one thing; We need a change. What we don't need is the change he's offering, which is pocket change. Our government has let us down in a huge way. We need to rise up to overthrow them and give America back to the Americans. It's not about voting out those that are in office anymore because we've been shown time and time again that it doesn't work. The new people just continue the last guys bad job. We need an entirely new system. WW2 is what got us out of the last depression, we're already in what will probably be dubbed WW3 down the road and it sure as hell isn't helping us. Our joke of a government had completely and totally let the American people down. Epic Fail
Mark
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Apple Customer Service Failure at Every Level: Or How I Learned to stop Worrying and Quit Buying Macs
I host an internet-based radio show that reaches a fairly broad audience. Each week I deliver my tirades to my audience and when I’m treated fairly, I treat that person to some of the same, lifting them up above the cloud of my vengeance and staying my wrath. Prepare then, Apple, to lose thy place among the exalted. You have failed me.
I have been a Mac enthusiast for the last 8 years since my first Mac desktop purchase. Tired of the daily maintenance of anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-trojan, anti-malware, anti-familytime, anti-usability software that encases the average windows system in a very thin bubble of easily exploitable, and definitely not Pope-like protection, the transition had been painless, and I thought, well earned after my years of uncompensated Windows vulnerability patrol. When it was time, in the fall of 2007, to outfit my new home studio I purchased one of the brand new core 2 duo Imacs. I know, I know. Why would you buy an all-in-one integrated system? Two words: consumer confidence. By this time I had purchased 2 Mac minis, one macbook, one macbook pro, and now the 24” intel mac. The whole family had been outfitted. For the most part, the only unit that was receiving moderate to heavy use was the imac. All was happy in the land of mac, the evil virus rebellion had been squashed and we rejoiced with barrels of the finest meads, retiring to our drinking halls at night, happy members of the mac cult I had always heard so much about. My Jonestown, however, was about to be served the proverbial kool-aid. The beginning of 2009 marked the downturn for my imac’s overall health. Things seemed to slow down a bit. We no longer frolicked in the fields of our internet and Photoshop of our youths, we meandered lazily on intensive tasks and eventually the concussive blast of my first hard drive failure was felt throughout my little kingdom. No problem I thought, I’m under warranty. This is Apple. The uber –hip, utra saavy, we-know-what-our-customers want industry shakers right?
Turns out that the Apple representative informed me that my initial one year warranty was a week expired. Ok. So hook me up with Apple Care, brothah. I have a credit card and me and debt go way back. No? Well, I assumed that after paying another $100.00 annually for my .mac account and idisk that I would have received an email informing me that it was time to pay up. I should have? Oh, well I didn’t. My first verbal disagreement ensues with Apple’s less than cheery service. After two days and two fraud disputes over using my Apple credit card to pay for Apple Care (the representative finally submitted when it was admitted that my email they had on file was actually different than the one that I had set up… how this happened will later be explored in a future episode of Mystery Quest as we both agreed the mix up was near impossible, but nevertheless had indeed happened) You see, and this makes perfect sense, that when you try to use your Apple Card to make a purchase through Apple, a red flag goes through to the bank that this could be a possible fraudulant charge. Again, why not? Since I had agreed to take the trip to Crazyville why not stop at all the local sites and learn about the town’s thriving logging operations. Sigh. I pay for the Apple Care after numerous attempts by Apple to refuse my money and deny me service. I win. Not really, but I’m desperate after my exchanges and frankly the trip to planet Customer Service Insanity had left me a bit rattled.
I find an Apple Certified Service Center in my area and decide to take it there instead of an Apple Store thinking I might get more personal attention. They give me so much personal attention that they extend the repair time of 2-3 days to two weeks. For a hard drive. Yeah. I finally get my unit back, reinstall everything and I’m back up and running. I’m reunited with the wayward traveler who has found his way back home. We reminisce, but his journey has left him changed, different somehow. He has trouble sleeping, and when I say he has trouble sleeping I mean that he goes to sleep and DOES NOT WAKE UP. I reboot and change the energy saver settings. Wait you must for the Halls of Valhalla my friend as there will be no rest for you in this life!!! So my system must never sleep. My system is now the autistic insomniac girl from Real Genius, but I have my machine back and I’ll weather the small inconvenience because I can’t spend another two weeks working exclusively on my laptop.
I back up my system on a pretty neurotic basis. Mostly I use external drives and occasionally I use discs just to be sure. I started racking up coasters in a pretty short amount of time. Oh but the stress of war had really taken its toll on our traveler. My optical drive checked out. The awesome thing is that it checked out right in the middle of my Snow Leopard installation. Yay! If you’re going to step up to me, don’t half-step, optical drive. Don’t half-step. Hey, hey, this man be prepared though. I gots my Apple Care, and there shouldn’t be an issue. Apparently Apple Stores only carry flux capacitors, warp cores and other mythological and totally intangible replacement parts, because they have NOTHING ELSE IN STOCK. Hello Totally Indifferent and Disinterested 19 year old Mac Store employee. Mac go boom, no more worky. How long bring back from Black Sleep of Khali Ma? 2-3 days. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
Over the next week and a half of I and my Mac’s trial separation I find myself thinking a lot about our relationship. Was I asking for too much? I rarely every used a pc anymore and I knew a thing or two about discretion, so that couldn’t be it. Was I losing that loving feeling? I decide to give this thing another go and try to find what we once had. Afterall, I had a lot of time invested in this relationship by now. Lots and lots and lots of time. All those brooding long distance drives to the Mac stores and repair centers kept playing over and over again in my mind, but I had made a commitment.
My Mac and I regarded each other that day as I finally picked it up from repair and we made a silent promise: never again. Everything seemed fine after that. As a sign that we were willing to change I purchased more memory: promise memory, if you will. If there is one thing that today’s hits and tomorrow’s favorites of soft rock have taught me is that promises are sadly made to be broken.
I should put a Kerouacian title on the next few paragraphs. Maybe Dead, Pixels Dead Soldiers? Maybe that’s too Robert Frost… dead pixels are the syphilis of the designer’s world. Why won’t this spot go away? I keep using the microfiber cloth but this spot just won’t go away!!! Everything feels fine, but Oh my God… are those dead pixels?!?!?! A week ago I noticed two dead pixels. Two dead pixels. Side by Side. RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SCREEN. I lie to myself and choose a darker wallpaper. I’m back in school now and the intense curriculum for my Masters forces me to use my laptop more. It’s a big deal but it can wait. I sit on my sofa and pick up my apple remote. I’ll just listen to the soothing sounds of the RiverDance as I learn about the weighted cost of capital. Remote seems to have its line of sight blocked or something, hmmm. Too bad my studio has more free space than the frickin Tardis. I now also have bad IR sensor it seems. The combination, and those of you with heart murmurs might want to write this down, is a surefire tapdance to the sounds of a coronary. I call Customer Service, who now practically knows what kind of cereal I eat and why I get especially ticklish after jogging asks about the wife and kids and I proceed to tell him about the myriad of new problems. We make an appointment for me at a local store for the Genius Bar (giggle).
I arrive at the Genius Bar at a different Mac Store location with my Mac practically coughing and wheezing at this point (the Mac. Not me. But I did save two bullets. Ya know, in case we absolutely had to.) Hello Totally Indifferent and Disinterested 19 year old Mac Store Employee. Good to see you part of family business. Saw your brother at other store. Mac no respond to remote. Honeymoon Over. Do need Carousel? Renewal? Wait for it. Wait for it. … 2-3 Days.
Every man has a trigger, and I’m not talking about the well-oiled hair trigger of a BA-K-47 assault rifle as the sight reflects the sun from your thoroughly researched and well out-of-site vantage point. I’m talking about the trigger that signifies the end of tolerance, the end of patience…ok so these two triggers are very similar. I spit words through my clenched teeth. Very diplomatic and carefully chosen words: “Replace it”. I didn’t want a repair, I didn’t want this machine back. I wanted it replaced. I had already brought it in twice previously and now I just wanted a new system. I might have well just crapped out a live tiger right there on the counter, because the look that I received rested somewhere between confusion and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. “I could go get my manager?” It was a question and it almost seemed distant and rhetorical as if it shouldn’t have been said aloud. “Yes” was my answer.
This next paragraph was going to be spent issuing a love letter to the truly majestic and buoyant man breasts of the Mac store manager, but I thought it petty, so I’m not going to do it. Manager has obviously read Conrad as he steps over the brown tiger in the room and borrows the other employee’s confused child-like stare. I explain my multiple issues with “the lemon” and how now that it was going to need a new IR sensor, a new video card (I left the red-yellow pixel shift that accompanied my Safari use out of this blog because it sounded like a wedding dance and things are already getting confusing), a new display and a new logic board, I simply wanted a replacement unit. I even said that I would pay for an upgrade to a new unit as my faith in the older product line had been considerably shaken. Of course at that moment a shockingly stealthy giraffe must have crawled out of my pants to challenge the ass-tiger to a rousing game of yahtzee because the manager’s face turned the shade of hemorrage and crumpled in on itself more confused than before.
His response was that since the unit had not been in for repair before (huh?) that there was no grounds for a replacement (whaaaaaaaaa??????). Employee #1 then casually slid over and pressed a key on the store’s computer that either showed a new screen or actually turned it on and the manager was presented with information on the previous repairs. I was then informed that this still didn’t warrant a replacement. Wiping the blood off of my hands from where my fingernails were progressively digging deeper I explained that repairing this “lemon” (I thought the good folks at Apple would appreciate the fruit analogy) was just going to lead to more repairs and that a replacement would solve this. I do want to thank the good folks at Apple for laughing at me after I left and not directly to my face, as the answer was again a “no”. I further explained that I was simply tired of lugging the unit back and forth to be serviced and then being without the machine for weeks at a time. I was then told that I had always had the option of a technician actually coming out to my property to check the machine and then take it for repairs. Umm, really? Looks like that option had never been explained to me. EVER.
So the latest breaking news from this morning is that they were currently waiting on the last of the parts to arrive (today being day three of my 2-3 days). I was then informed that even if it did arrive today, that there were no repairs being done today and just to let me know, there is a LOT of work that has to be done on this machine … “Frustration is in the lead with Piping Hot Anger in a close second and the dark horse in running, Ritual Suicide is closing in. Wait, what’s this? Vein Splitting Fury has suddenly made this race interesting in a surprise move here in the last hour!!!”…
I have had horrible customer service. I’m not going to even say that HP’s customer service back in the day when I was still in the PC game was stellar. Here’s the difference: I paid 598.00 for my HP in 2005. I paid (including Apple Care, tax, etc.) 2500.00 for my Mac in 2007. There are certain expectations that come with a product that is touted for its reliability and a company that boasts of its customer relations. After meeting the same kind of service on three different occasions from three different locations, I can’t call this a fluke, nor can I chalk it up to “bad policy”. I place the blame firmly on a company that has forgotten that not everyone who buys their products falls squarely and neatly under one tax bracket. There are those of us who intend to make our purchases last and are not impressed with a 2500.00 lemon when they could have just as easily settled for a 600.00 one. Could be the reason I decided to go Mac in the first place, huh? Too bad this is a story that goes from first place to last place way too quickly.
I have been a Mac enthusiast for the last 8 years since my first Mac desktop purchase. Tired of the daily maintenance of anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-trojan, anti-malware, anti-familytime, anti-usability software that encases the average windows system in a very thin bubble of easily exploitable, and definitely not Pope-like protection, the transition had been painless, and I thought, well earned after my years of uncompensated Windows vulnerability patrol. When it was time, in the fall of 2007, to outfit my new home studio I purchased one of the brand new core 2 duo Imacs. I know, I know. Why would you buy an all-in-one integrated system? Two words: consumer confidence. By this time I had purchased 2 Mac minis, one macbook, one macbook pro, and now the 24” intel mac. The whole family had been outfitted. For the most part, the only unit that was receiving moderate to heavy use was the imac. All was happy in the land of mac, the evil virus rebellion had been squashed and we rejoiced with barrels of the finest meads, retiring to our drinking halls at night, happy members of the mac cult I had always heard so much about. My Jonestown, however, was about to be served the proverbial kool-aid. The beginning of 2009 marked the downturn for my imac’s overall health. Things seemed to slow down a bit. We no longer frolicked in the fields of our internet and Photoshop of our youths, we meandered lazily on intensive tasks and eventually the concussive blast of my first hard drive failure was felt throughout my little kingdom. No problem I thought, I’m under warranty. This is Apple. The uber –hip, utra saavy, we-know-what-our-customers want industry shakers right?
Turns out that the Apple representative informed me that my initial one year warranty was a week expired. Ok. So hook me up with Apple Care, brothah. I have a credit card and me and debt go way back. No? Well, I assumed that after paying another $100.00 annually for my .mac account and idisk that I would have received an email informing me that it was time to pay up. I should have? Oh, well I didn’t. My first verbal disagreement ensues with Apple’s less than cheery service. After two days and two fraud disputes over using my Apple credit card to pay for Apple Care (the representative finally submitted when it was admitted that my email they had on file was actually different than the one that I had set up… how this happened will later be explored in a future episode of Mystery Quest as we both agreed the mix up was near impossible, but nevertheless had indeed happened) You see, and this makes perfect sense, that when you try to use your Apple Card to make a purchase through Apple, a red flag goes through to the bank that this could be a possible fraudulant charge. Again, why not? Since I had agreed to take the trip to Crazyville why not stop at all the local sites and learn about the town’s thriving logging operations. Sigh. I pay for the Apple Care after numerous attempts by Apple to refuse my money and deny me service. I win. Not really, but I’m desperate after my exchanges and frankly the trip to planet Customer Service Insanity had left me a bit rattled.
I find an Apple Certified Service Center in my area and decide to take it there instead of an Apple Store thinking I might get more personal attention. They give me so much personal attention that they extend the repair time of 2-3 days to two weeks. For a hard drive. Yeah. I finally get my unit back, reinstall everything and I’m back up and running. I’m reunited with the wayward traveler who has found his way back home. We reminisce, but his journey has left him changed, different somehow. He has trouble sleeping, and when I say he has trouble sleeping I mean that he goes to sleep and DOES NOT WAKE UP. I reboot and change the energy saver settings. Wait you must for the Halls of Valhalla my friend as there will be no rest for you in this life!!! So my system must never sleep. My system is now the autistic insomniac girl from Real Genius, but I have my machine back and I’ll weather the small inconvenience because I can’t spend another two weeks working exclusively on my laptop.
I back up my system on a pretty neurotic basis. Mostly I use external drives and occasionally I use discs just to be sure. I started racking up coasters in a pretty short amount of time. Oh but the stress of war had really taken its toll on our traveler. My optical drive checked out. The awesome thing is that it checked out right in the middle of my Snow Leopard installation. Yay! If you’re going to step up to me, don’t half-step, optical drive. Don’t half-step. Hey, hey, this man be prepared though. I gots my Apple Care, and there shouldn’t be an issue. Apparently Apple Stores only carry flux capacitors, warp cores and other mythological and totally intangible replacement parts, because they have NOTHING ELSE IN STOCK. Hello Totally Indifferent and Disinterested 19 year old Mac Store employee. Mac go boom, no more worky. How long bring back from Black Sleep of Khali Ma? 2-3 days. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
Over the next week and a half of I and my Mac’s trial separation I find myself thinking a lot about our relationship. Was I asking for too much? I rarely every used a pc anymore and I knew a thing or two about discretion, so that couldn’t be it. Was I losing that loving feeling? I decide to give this thing another go and try to find what we once had. Afterall, I had a lot of time invested in this relationship by now. Lots and lots and lots of time. All those brooding long distance drives to the Mac stores and repair centers kept playing over and over again in my mind, but I had made a commitment.
My Mac and I regarded each other that day as I finally picked it up from repair and we made a silent promise: never again. Everything seemed fine after that. As a sign that we were willing to change I purchased more memory: promise memory, if you will. If there is one thing that today’s hits and tomorrow’s favorites of soft rock have taught me is that promises are sadly made to be broken.
I should put a Kerouacian title on the next few paragraphs. Maybe Dead, Pixels Dead Soldiers? Maybe that’s too Robert Frost… dead pixels are the syphilis of the designer’s world. Why won’t this spot go away? I keep using the microfiber cloth but this spot just won’t go away!!! Everything feels fine, but Oh my God… are those dead pixels?!?!?! A week ago I noticed two dead pixels. Two dead pixels. Side by Side. RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SCREEN. I lie to myself and choose a darker wallpaper. I’m back in school now and the intense curriculum for my Masters forces me to use my laptop more. It’s a big deal but it can wait. I sit on my sofa and pick up my apple remote. I’ll just listen to the soothing sounds of the RiverDance as I learn about the weighted cost of capital. Remote seems to have its line of sight blocked or something, hmmm. Too bad my studio has more free space than the frickin Tardis. I now also have bad IR sensor it seems. The combination, and those of you with heart murmurs might want to write this down, is a surefire tapdance to the sounds of a coronary. I call Customer Service, who now practically knows what kind of cereal I eat and why I get especially ticklish after jogging asks about the wife and kids and I proceed to tell him about the myriad of new problems. We make an appointment for me at a local store for the Genius Bar (giggle).
I arrive at the Genius Bar at a different Mac Store location with my Mac practically coughing and wheezing at this point (the Mac. Not me. But I did save two bullets. Ya know, in case we absolutely had to.) Hello Totally Indifferent and Disinterested 19 year old Mac Store Employee. Good to see you part of family business. Saw your brother at other store. Mac no respond to remote. Honeymoon Over. Do need Carousel? Renewal? Wait for it. Wait for it. … 2-3 Days.
Every man has a trigger, and I’m not talking about the well-oiled hair trigger of a BA-K-47 assault rifle as the sight reflects the sun from your thoroughly researched and well out-of-site vantage point. I’m talking about the trigger that signifies the end of tolerance, the end of patience…ok so these two triggers are very similar. I spit words through my clenched teeth. Very diplomatic and carefully chosen words: “Replace it”. I didn’t want a repair, I didn’t want this machine back. I wanted it replaced. I had already brought it in twice previously and now I just wanted a new system. I might have well just crapped out a live tiger right there on the counter, because the look that I received rested somewhere between confusion and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. “I could go get my manager?” It was a question and it almost seemed distant and rhetorical as if it shouldn’t have been said aloud. “Yes” was my answer.
This next paragraph was going to be spent issuing a love letter to the truly majestic and buoyant man breasts of the Mac store manager, but I thought it petty, so I’m not going to do it. Manager has obviously read Conrad as he steps over the brown tiger in the room and borrows the other employee’s confused child-like stare. I explain my multiple issues with “the lemon” and how now that it was going to need a new IR sensor, a new video card (I left the red-yellow pixel shift that accompanied my Safari use out of this blog because it sounded like a wedding dance and things are already getting confusing), a new display and a new logic board, I simply wanted a replacement unit. I even said that I would pay for an upgrade to a new unit as my faith in the older product line had been considerably shaken. Of course at that moment a shockingly stealthy giraffe must have crawled out of my pants to challenge the ass-tiger to a rousing game of yahtzee because the manager’s face turned the shade of hemorrage and crumpled in on itself more confused than before.
His response was that since the unit had not been in for repair before (huh?) that there was no grounds for a replacement (whaaaaaaaaa??????). Employee #1 then casually slid over and pressed a key on the store’s computer that either showed a new screen or actually turned it on and the manager was presented with information on the previous repairs. I was then informed that this still didn’t warrant a replacement. Wiping the blood off of my hands from where my fingernails were progressively digging deeper I explained that repairing this “lemon” (I thought the good folks at Apple would appreciate the fruit analogy) was just going to lead to more repairs and that a replacement would solve this. I do want to thank the good folks at Apple for laughing at me after I left and not directly to my face, as the answer was again a “no”. I further explained that I was simply tired of lugging the unit back and forth to be serviced and then being without the machine for weeks at a time. I was then told that I had always had the option of a technician actually coming out to my property to check the machine and then take it for repairs. Umm, really? Looks like that option had never been explained to me. EVER.
So the latest breaking news from this morning is that they were currently waiting on the last of the parts to arrive (today being day three of my 2-3 days). I was then informed that even if it did arrive today, that there were no repairs being done today and just to let me know, there is a LOT of work that has to be done on this machine … “Frustration is in the lead with Piping Hot Anger in a close second and the dark horse in running, Ritual Suicide is closing in. Wait, what’s this? Vein Splitting Fury has suddenly made this race interesting in a surprise move here in the last hour!!!”…
I have had horrible customer service. I’m not going to even say that HP’s customer service back in the day when I was still in the PC game was stellar. Here’s the difference: I paid 598.00 for my HP in 2005. I paid (including Apple Care, tax, etc.) 2500.00 for my Mac in 2007. There are certain expectations that come with a product that is touted for its reliability and a company that boasts of its customer relations. After meeting the same kind of service on three different occasions from three different locations, I can’t call this a fluke, nor can I chalk it up to “bad policy”. I place the blame firmly on a company that has forgotten that not everyone who buys their products falls squarely and neatly under one tax bracket. There are those of us who intend to make our purchases last and are not impressed with a 2500.00 lemon when they could have just as easily settled for a 600.00 one. Could be the reason I decided to go Mac in the first place, huh? Too bad this is a story that goes from first place to last place way too quickly.
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