No Cash for the Devil!


I’ve completely lost interest (interest here being my forced servitude in the past) in paying AT&T for any service whatsoever.

That means no Cingular-cum-AT&T for cell service, no BellSouth-cum-AT&T for local phone service or [sadly] DSL, and no evil-AT&T-cum-eviler-AT&T for long distance!

About a week ago I got a $25 bill out of the blue from AT&T. What for? For long distance service I never authorized, and of which I was never notified prior to the $25 pocketbook-grab I got in the mail.

So I switched to Vonage.

Or I’m in the process of.

It’s been 12 days, and apparently my number change request fell through the cracks somewhere.

I got another notice from AT&T today that said in ALL CAPS (really) that if I didn’t call my local service provider and tell them I wished to have no long distance service at all, then they would resume billing me (again, against my wishes). Of course, doing that would likely screw up my Vonage transfer, as long distance is one of the 4 components of phone service they’re transferring.

I’m so glad for government regulations. They’ve really made the world a wonderful, happy, butterfly-and-lollipop-infested place.

 Snick.

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Man, nobody has said anything …


Man, nobody has said anything all day except Alex King and Wil Wheaton. Well, one fool did say he was going to the dentist (cha cha cha)…

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Lynn and I had an interesting conversion last night about housewives back in the…


Jott From Eugene

Lynn and I had an interesting conversion last night about housewives back in the day, she made this casserole wives don’t know how to make any more, and am gonna have to get her help when we start working on this podcast again coz that’s gonna be a really important element I think.
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To Podcast or Not to Podcast?


Wayne and I have had some great ideas for a couple of semi-regular podcasts. Okay, they were mostly Wayne’s ideas, but I’d like to think I helped.

Anyway, it’s something I’ve been putting off looking into for months because I’ve been trying my best to get back into Project One full swing, and my immediate thoughts were always that I didn’t need yet another distraction to keep me off task.

And I still think that’s true, mostly.

But I get bored and frustrated when I don’t get to switch gears now and then–just ask all the bosses I’ve ever had or my wife (is that redundant?)–so having other things to work on when I would otherwise just be sitting around playing Civ IV instead of pumping out crappy Sci-Fi might not be a bad idea at all. How’s that for a messed up sentence?

I’ve got some great ideas I really want to work on as far as recurring guests and themes and whatnot. We’re talking about a spoof of an old-timey radio program (probably a variety hour thing) with lots of singing and music and interviews and what have you, but we haven’t nailed down a specific historical time period for the sucker. I’m actually of the mind that we should leave it like that, and sort of float the actual decade around as it suits us. Or just leave it vague, and allow the inevitable inaccuracies (assuming we even talk about “current” events) to accumulate as they will.

It would surely all be before Dubya Dubya Two, so there would be plenty of room to make fun of the wannabe world powers that were all shuffling into better positions to pee down each other’s neck holes (and of the wieners who weren’t concerned by said shuffling). A German choir might be an interesting choice, singing in English, of course, with plenty of ominous references that foreshadow their “adventures” to come. And lots of stuff about the puny little agrarian society known as Japan, etc. Plus, since nothing really should be sacred in such a venue, there were plenty of ridiculous domestic issues before the war that could be exploited.

Less obvious but at least as important as the state of the world (at least from a writer’s standpoint) was the writing style from back in the day. There was an odd mixture of formality and innocence in correspondence back then, and marketing certainly wasn’t the beast it is now. It would take a whole lot of research and effort to duplicate the style, but–man!–there are about a zillion and 9 different directions we could go with it.

So, anyway, I’m cyclical about stuff like this, but I think I’ve cycled back around to the “excited” setting for the time being. I just hope Wayne hasn’t given up on me like he usually does, cause he needs to write the stinkin’ music.

Oh, and, yeah… to podcast. For sure.

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Waiting for: "In The Shad…


Waiting for: "In The Shade Of The Trees" (http://tinyurl.com/347zqs)

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I'm heading home now, its been a long day, its been a long week, and its only We…


Jott From Eugene

I’m heading home now, its been a long day, its been a long week, and its only Wednesday. I’m going to put down two pages tonight. No blogging, no civilization 4, no PHP scripting, well maybe a little bit of civilization 4, but I’m a man with a plan and I’m ready to start executing said plan.
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I broke the law loggin' into M…


I broke the law loggin’ into Meebo lookin’ for Wayne, and he’s NOWHERE! Cheeser!

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Live from the Punjab


Well (or walmer 🙂 ), Jott does seem to be able to correctly transcribe some messages, but I’ll be very conscious of diction and slang (both of which are addressed by the hints Jott.com gives on maximizing accuracy) in the future. I’ve not been able to find any definitive answer on how the service works, but I’ve read a few things that lead me to believe that the decisioning process might be two-tiered with software taking point and human cognition handling backup when that fails (or at least when confidence is low). The details of when a living person actually interferes with the process may not be as easy to pin down as all that, but the logic remains: something happens after something else happens. Prove me wrong if you can.

If this thinking is correct, the next logical assumption would be that the human contingent would cost as little as possible. And, of course, that leads to other assumptions… and explains why phrases like “Freaked out cats” might be eliminated and others might get turned into words like “walmer.” Of course, some of the results have been absolutely brilliant, with certain expletives spelled out as if by native English speakers. The resulting text of one test message I left myself ended with “who-ha, who-hoo,” which was actually a pretty good representation of the jovial nonsense sounds I recorded. The whole text of that particular message was absolutely perfect, and that lends reinforcement to my thinking. Some people are just more intuitive than others, and some definitely speak and understand spoken English better than others.

Like my friends Perry and Wayne. One of them is way better at most things than the other one.

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Walmer(?) water heater install and water should be hot by now so I am going home…


Jott From Eugene

Walmer(?) water heater install and water should be hot by now so I am going home to enjoy a nice shower probably the most expense one of though we had in terms of dollars spent […] plan on enjoying it. Bye, bye.
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Most of the cats have calmed d…


Most of the cats have calmed down from this morning’s trauma. Lynn peeped at the sissiest one, and he trusted the all-clear.

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