Random Soapbox for Saturday 5/7/11

[This would normally start with an "I don't mean to go off on a rant here, but" ... except today, I turned up the anger and extremism a notch, so I thought it best to dust off something I haven't done in awhile ... here is my fourth entry of a "super-short sTROYie" ...]

TELEMARKETER TIRADE

I don't mean to go off on a tirade here, but ... telemarketers be warned.

No amount of sales training on how to overcome obstacles has prepared you for me.

I will annihilate you. I will shake you to your core. I will make you doubt your calling (pun fully intended).

I know that in this economy, everyone needs a job. So I will politely decline – ONCE – but then all bets are off if you do not pick up on the fact that you should hang up and move on to someone else. I will tell you that I make no deals over the phone and inform you that your best bet is to mail me your pitch. That will be my last warning before I strike.

I will inspire you to workplace violence. I will imply that you are the true terrorist.

I will mock you mercilessly. I will resort to foul language. I will become a monster. I will view our conversation as bloodsport, from which only one of us will survive with our faculties intact. You could be a grandmother of twelve and a deacon in your church, but I will make your experience something akin to dancing with the devil.

If I am with others, I will put you on speaker phone and turn your destruction into a parlor game.

I will insult the memory of your mother, whom I will tell you must certainly have died young based on your lack of manners, glossing over the irony of that statement.

I will resort to tactics like flushing the commode into the phone … or suddenly blaring the television as I hold it up to the speaker … or pretending to talk to another about how ridiculous you are being to make you think that this is a public shaming.

If you show one small sign of crazy during our interaction, I will match it and raise the scenario to demented within seconds. You will find yourself in a role play, and you will be Star Jones while I am the oh-so-real tell-it-like-it-is Nene Leakes (bloop, bloop, bloop)!

I will flash analyze your sales pitch and laser in on its weaknesses, holding you accountable for its flaws.

I will make it my goal to provide you with an experience that you will not be able to share with your co-workers or your closest family -- and that you will only tell your therapist in an emotional breakthrough years later. I will want to scar your psyche. I will not give up until you abandon capitalism and move to India to become the next Mother Theresa.

And guess what – telemarketers aren’t in the Bible so no one can throw up a Leviticus reference to ban my behavior.

The Jerky Boys will come out of retirement to fete my at an awards show. The tales of my machinations will create a whole new oeuvre of film to replace the torture porn craze that brought us nearly a dozen Saw movies. My hatred and singular focus mentality will be channeled to create a political party that rivals the Tea Party and I will make it my mission to get a TV show and to run for president on an anti-telemarketer platform in 2012.

Bottom line – I am happy with my current cable provider. I am not looking to experiment by switching my electricity delivery channel to your company. I already know that I didn't really win that free cruise.

Your only defense is to accept my offer when I initially decline. Or to quickly recognize the hopelessness of the situation before it gets ugly. Or to contact me with an automated message, as then my vitriol will be directed to a machine whose feelings can’t be hurt (although I will still try, as it is my default defense position and as I am clearly OK with looking like an idiot).

You have been warned ...

P.S. If I am ever the victim of a random killing or a drive-by shooting, please let the police know to check my phone records, as they might just find someone whom I maddened to murder.

I'VE SAID IT BEFORE, BUT FACEBOOK HAS A PAGE FOR EVERYTHING:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Hate-Telemarketers/166179260100340

TOP 10 REASONS TO SAY "BLOOP, BLOOP, BLOOP":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOjraa2sQ6U

I KNOW YOUR TACTICS. I HAVE SEEN YOUR TACTICS. THEY WILL NOT WORK:

http://business.solveyourproblem.com/start-a-home-business/telemarketing-tactics.shtml

Random Flashback for Friday 5/6/11

The time ... 1991. The place ... the LVC Spring Arts Festival. The event ... selling fruit cups for the theatre club and honorary greek organization Alpha Psi Omega (the Rho Eta cast).

What makes it unique? ... The Spring Arts Festival no longer exists by that name. As I understand it, over the last 20 years, the college town community got frustrated with the drunken kids, and the event had to be rebranded in an attempt to start the "spin" anew.

Who knew the Arts community was so dangerous! Maybe it was fruit soaked in alcohol?

Random Thought for Thursday 5/5/11

I live in an old Chicago apartment, so it is not uncommon to see, smell and hear things happening above or below me (ah ... the joy of being in the middle). So having heard what I heard from the newer neighbor up above, I've run into her in the laundry room and I just don't know what to say. If the comment continuum has a WASPy* regressive "let's not talk about the sex" on one end and "you're so loose that if you had twins, they'd likely have different fathers**" on the other, I'm leaning toward giving her the universal thumbs-up with a "good luck on the baby making" the next time I see her (or is that too creepy?) ...

[*That's WASPy as in White Anglo Saxon Protestant, not as in the Kinsey wasps.]

[**I must give credit where credit is due, as this is a minor modification of one of those rare laugh out loud lines from Days of our Lives this week (fake Rafe to Sami, for those wondering) -- one of the benefits of working from home is that I can arrange my lunch around my "story", like in my college days ...]

WASP, WAY ONE:

http://racehist.blogspot.com/2009/01/white-anglo-saxon-protestant.html

WASP, WAY TWO:

http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/picks-from-the-past/151957/the-other-kinsey-report

SOME FANS ARE MUCH MORE VOCAL THAN I:

http://boards.soapcentral.com/showthread.php?701475-Sami-telling-Rafe-she-didn-t-have-to-fake-it-with-EJ-was-priceless-today

Random Wordplay for Wednesday 5/4/11

Skijoring.

Used in a sentence: "With the weather finally turning away from winter (the apartment windows will be open all week this week in Chicago!), I better hurry and mention this sport (and potential Scrabble word dispute in the making) that I didn't even know existed until recently -- skijoring."

If the Wiki is to be believed, this sport where skiers are pulled by horses or dogs or motor vehicles was an exhibition in the 1928 Olympics (don't think it will be in Sochi next year ... and by the way, can I vote now for Munich in 2016 so that it becomes the only city to have hosted both a summer and a winter Olympics?). I read about skijoring in the paper as they described a Winter Carnival event in New Hampshire -- and did a double take to make sure it wasn't a picture from the latest Jackass movie. All I can say is ... if a blizzard next year closes down LakeShoreDrive, have we got plans for you.

[After researching what it was, I kind of wanted it to be the Roadblock or the Detour on this season's penultimate Race episode (yep, squeezing in an Amazing Race Aside here), but I still enjoyed the save-someone-(buried-in-an-avalanche)-a-half-a-body-at-a-time task. If only Bonnie Hunt were still on the air to take the punk duo to task (not to sound too judg-y, but what exactly is that relationship again?) for their negative energy and bickering that led to their dismissal. Go Gary and Mallory or Zev and Justin!]

IT MADE #4 ON THE LIST OF THE 10 WACKIEST OLYMPIC SPORTS EVER:

http://dishmag.com/issue104/celebrity/11535/-wackiest-olympic-events-ever/

JACKASS ON JOOST (don't try this at home ...):

http://www.joost.com/3ck1x7yu/#/?noScroll=true&video_info=3ck1x7yu

A MOUNTAINEER's TAKE ON THE AMAZING RACE CHALLENGE:

http://suburbanmountaineer.com/2011/05/03/mountain-rescues-and-the-amazing-race/

Random Tune for Tuesday 5/3/11

So maybe the choices from which I could pick for tonight's post really define this occasional series concept the best. To find a tune from the eccentric collection of cassettes I have filed under the letter 'I', I reviewed ... I Claim the Cross (an Easter musical service from Hebron church that I narrated), the soundtracks to Indiana Jones and the Lost Crusade and the Bernadette Peters edition of Into the Woods, and 90's selections from Enrique Iglesias, the Indigo Girls and the one that I actually chose from (now, upon reflection, I just hope that's it's not an ode to auto-erotic asphyxiation)*...

I IS FOR INXS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGUt3u4n9Hk

Purposeful Memorial for Monday 5/2/11

Gone but not forgotten: the other 10,000 deaths.

I have to admit to feeling the slightest bit uncomfortable with all the hootin' and hollerin' in the last 24 hours (I said slight, which means minimal to all of you modern day McCartheyists waiting in the wings). Don't get me wrong -- I'm glad that it is over, and, to be honest, this is my first major despot elimination, so I have no real frame of reference. I can start to understand the idea of closure, although this event isn't bringing anyone back that's already been lost. And religious extremism has been interconnected with war and violence for ages (can't we ever peacefully proselytize to each other about our faiths?) -- and will be for ages to come.

And don't get it twisted anyone -- I am certainly all for the military personnel serving overseas, the ones in training to go wherever we end up for the next conflagration, the families left behind waiting for loved ones to return or dealing with those that don't ... but I also carry the weariness of Mother Courage (gratuitous Brecht reference) and view war like any other overgrown giant business industrial complex.

So Osama or UBL or Usama or whatever your watery gravestone should say (I don't want another Elvis Aaron Presley on our hands in 20 years), now you don't get the spotlight anymore -- and instead, can we say for the 3000 or so that died on 9/11 and the nearly 6000 of our own troops that paid the ultimate sacrifice in the Long War so far and another 1000 or so from the other terrorist attacks inspired by you or the countless civilian deaths connected to our actions and your insurgencies ... for all of those -- can we focus instead on all of their lives cut short and say that they will be the ones who are missed.

NUMBERS SOMETIMES DON'T MEAN AS MUCH AS THE FACES DO:

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/fallen/

I HAVE A LOT OF DEBT FOR THIS GERMAN DEGREE, SO I HAVE TO USE IT HERE:

http://www.hotreview.org/articles/lessonsofwar.htm

THE GRACELAND VERSION EXPLAINING AWAY THE MISSPELLED TOMBSTONE:

http://members.cox.net/mompac/ELVOL.HTM

Random Scandal Sheet for Sunday 5/1/11

What Chicago is talking about this week:

It's May Day! (And that's not some panic response to the political climate of our time, but instead a shout-out to the literal May 1 holiday.) And unless you have pole-activities planned (you can take that wherever your mind wanders), may I offer up that you should give an organized worker a hug.

[Note: This suggestion not recommended for Wisconsin, Indiana or Ohio at this time.]

OH MY, IT's ALL ABOUT FERTILITY AND PHALLI (is that the plural of PHALLUS?):

http://holidays.xanga.com/702953495/item/

MAY DAY AS EMERGENCY -- A BUSINESS ALL ABOUT PREPAREDNESS:

http://www.fuelforadventure.com/quakekareinc.html

MAYBE I HAVE IT ALL WRONG, MAYBE THEY NEED A HUG MOST OF ALL!:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/03/union-battles-rage-across-midwest/35580/