KGB Report

Quote of the day

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:01:00 +0000

He was the most trusted man in America and he was a reporter. Imagine. Who could we say that about today?
-Jeff Fager, executive producer of "60 Minutes", on the death of Walter Cronkite

Verizon Hell #21

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:20:00 +0000

Actual transcript:

Please wait for a Verizon Wireless sales representative to assist you with your order. Thank you for your patience!

A Verizon Wireless online pre-sales specialist has joined the chat. You are now chatting with Stephanie

Stephanie: Hello. Thank you for visiting our chat service. May I help you with your order today?

You: The web site says "We cannot verify the shipping address you entered. Please correct your shipping address and select the 'Continue' button below." The address I entered is correct.

Stephanie: I'd be happy to help you with that.

Stephanie: Is it a po box?

You: No. The problem is there is no street USPS delivery where I live. So when you check the street address against the USPS database, it comes back as an invalid address. UPS, Fedex, etc. does deliver here with no problem.

Stephanie: do you have a physical address?

You: Yes. XXX South XXX Street, Fayette City, PA 15438. My mailing address is PO Box XXX Fayette City, PA. I need the PO box because the post office does not have physical delivery here. There's a XXX NORTH XXX Street in the Post Office database. Those guys do get delivery. Those of us on the south end don't.

Stephanie: Change them both to the first address and then you can change the billing when you get the phone.

You: It does not accept XXX South XXX Street as the only address. I get the same error message.

Stephanie: Try the noth (sic)one.

You: It does accept that. But that's NOT my address. Like I said, since the post office doesn't deliver mail here, the address is not in their database.

Stephanie: It worked why did you go back?

You: I DO NOT LIVE AT XXX *NORTH* XXX STREET.

You: My address is XXX SOUTH XXX Street

Stephanie: ok

You: I had the same problem with Office Depot. They were able to bypass the faulty address confirmation.

You: Do you have some manual override option available to you? Is there someone I can call?

Stephanie: I do not sorry.

Stephanie: You can try to call.

You: What number should I call?

Stephanie: You can contact telesales at this time and they will be able to assist you with this today. The number is 1-800-256-4646.

You: Thank you

Stephanie: Thank you for visiting Verizon Wireless, I look forward to speaking with you again. Have a great day!

Your chat session has been ended by your Verizon Wireless online agent.

-----

A couple things here really bother me. First, the functionality of the web site depends upon the accuracy of a third-party database. The assumption here is the database is 100% accurate, which is never a valid assumption.

I had the same problem with a recent Office Depot order. In that case, however, the site immediately posted a telephone number to call if the address was not accepted. Within five minutes an Office Depot representative was able to update my account and my "invalid" address is no longer challenged when I make an order.

When I called Verizon, I had to explain my problem again. The agent had no way of accessing or updating the account records used by the website, so I had to give her my order verbally, which she manually entered into a different system which apparently doesn't check addresses. (When I asked her if she had some override mechanism, she said the screen she was using accepted anything she entered.)

I could threaten to take my business elsewhere, but everyone has horror stories about their carriers. I think the wireless carrier business is the only one in which a customer is forced to make a choice based on which provider sucks less.

Quote of the day

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:01:00 +0000

The term "holy war" isn't an oxymoron, it's a redundancy.
-The Covert Comic

Video of the day

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:01:00 +0000

The Slovenian a capella jazz choir Perpetuum Jazzile does a great version of Toto's "Africa," beginning with an African thunderstorm. Thanks to Joe Lawrence for the link.

For you House fans...

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:01:00 +0000

Lupus (from Demotivator.org)

T-shirt of the day

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:00:00 +0000

I'm Too Big To Fail

Error message of the day

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:01:00 +0000

Quotes of the day

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:18:00 +0000

A beauty is a woman you notice. A charmer is one who notices you.

A hungry man is not a free man.

A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience and many have been precipitated by reckless haste.

Accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a lady, except that a newspaper can always print a retraction.

America is a country that can choke on a gnat, or swallow tigers.

An independent is someone who wants to take the politics out of politics.

Bad administration, to be sure, can destroy good policy; but good administration can never save bad policy.

Do not... regard the critics as questionable patriots. What were Washington and Jefferson and Adams but profound critics of the colonial status quo?

Flattery is all right so long as you don't inhale.

I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.

I regret that I have but one law firm to give to my country.

In America, anyone can become President. That's one of the risks you take.

In quiet places, reason abounds.

It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.

Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that he sometimes has to eat them.

Man has wrested from nature the power to make the world a desert or to make deserts bloom. There is no evil in the atom; only in men's souls.

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.

Power corrupts, but lack of power corrupts absolutely.

Some people approach every problem with an open mouth.

The human race has improved everything except the human race.

The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.

The important thing is not to believe your own propaganda.

The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions.

The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end.

There is nothing more horrifying than stupidity in action.

There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.

They pick a President and then for four years they pick on him.

Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.

To strike freedom of the mind with the fist of patriotism is an old an ugly subtlety.

We have confused the free with the free and easy.

We inherited freedom. We seem unaware that freedom has to be remade and re-earned in each generation of man.

We must never delude ourselves into thinking that physical power is a substitute for moral power, which is the true sign of national greatness.

What a man knows at fifty which he didn't know at twenty is, for the most part, incommunicable.

When political ammunition runs low, inevitably the rusty artillery of abuse is wheeled into action.

When you sling mud, you lose ground.

You will find that truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fancy and disagreeable fact is unequal. For, in the vernacular, we Americans are suckers for good news.

Adlai E. Stevenson II

Signs of the Apocalypse, #819

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:01:00 +0000

Not only on a stick, but deep-fried.

Quotes of the day

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 04:01:00 +0000

Don't fight forces, use them.

God is a verb.

Thinking is a momentary dismissal of irrelevancies.

The Things to do are: the things that need doing, that you see need to be done, and that no one else seems to see need to be done.

Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment.

The most important thing to teach your children is that the sun does not rise and set. It is the Earth that revolves around the sun. Then teach them the concepts of North, South, East and West, and that they relate to where they happen to be on the planet's surface at that time. Everything else will follow.

The Universe consists of non-simultaneously apprehended events.

It is the integrity of each individual human that is in final examination. On personal integrity hangs humanity's fate.

Corporations are neither physical nor metaphysical phenomena. They are socioeconomic ploys- legally enacted game-playing- agreed upon only between overwhelmingly powerful socioeconomic individuals and by them imposed upon human society and its all unwitting members.

I think it's absolutely touch-and-go whether we're going to make it.

Dare to be naive.

Everything you've learned in school as obvious becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines.

Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.

People are born with legs, not roots.

The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.

-R. Buckminster Fuller

Quotes of the day

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 04:01:00 +0000

Be obscure clearly.

Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.

Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.

Home was quite a place when people stayed there.

Humor plays close to the big, hot fire which is Truth.

I don't know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens.

I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty.

Loneliness is a strange gift.

No man is born perpendicular, although many men are born upright.

No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.

Old age is a special problem for me because I've never been able to shed the mental image I have of myself- a lad of about 19.

People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust.

Television hangs on the questionable theory that whatever happens anywhere should be sensed everywhere. If everyone is going to be able to see everything, in the long run all sights may lose whatever rarity value they once possessed, and it may well turn out that people, being able to see and hear practically everything, will be specially interested in almost nothing.

The bonus is really one of the great give-aways in business enterprise. It is the annual salve applied to the conscience of the rich and the wounds of the poor.

The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for Nature to follow. Now we just set the clock an hour ahead and change the oil in the crankcase.

The trouble with the profit system has always been that it was highly unprofitable to most people.

We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.

Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor.

E.B. White

Quote of the day

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:01:00 +0000

They say character is what you have after you've lost everything else. I say: if you've lost everything else, how much character could you have had in the first place?
The Covert Comic

The argument clinic

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:57:00 +0000

Photo of the day

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:01:00 +0000

George and Earl maintained their facade of carefree nonchalance,
but they knew the day would soon come when they would have to reveal
the dreaded secret that haunted their "cousin" Emmy Lou.

Happy birthday, Doc

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Doc Severinsen, is- believe it or not- 82 today. While a superb musician, Severinsen was also a consummate showman and could hold his own with just about anyone. In this 1979 clip, he literally reduces Johnny Carson to tears:

Whatever you do,

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:40:00 +0000

please don't read this.

Why Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:01:00 +0000

News of the day

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:14:00 +0000

Scientists Create First Working Model of a Two-Qubit Electronic Quantum Processor.

Just trying to keep you all up to speed.

You're welcome.

Kathy

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:43:00 +0000

There have been an unusual number of celebrity deaths in the past week. They grab the headlines because their careers in the spotlight "touched the lives of millions."

But what does that phrase really mean?

In most cases, it means you saw the celebrity on television or at the movies; you bought an album or attended a concert; maybe you were fortunate enough to meet the celebrity, shake hands, get an autograph.

The paradox here is that the celebrity, known by millions, is really untouchable. The "life touching" business is all on your part. The celebrity is not even a participant; the term is purely figurative.

Kathy Cecotti, who passed away today at a terribly young 42, touched the lives of thousands. Not figuratively, but literally.

She not only touched them- she taught them, guided them, supported them, cared for them. Touch is a totally inadequate term. She embraced the lives of her students.

No one who met or worked with Kathy could ever forget her. Fifteen years ago when my kids were in the high school drama club, we all had the great good fortune to have her as a director. My kids learned that hard work, diligence and responsibility provided great rewards. They also learned that for the success of a show, it was often necessary to put the needs of others ahead of their own. How unlike the cold philosophy of the solo, narcissistic "stars" of today... but Kathy knew those lessons not only made good shows- they made good lives.

There were practical lessons as well. I learned how to make Kool-Aid in 12 gallon barrels and developed the optimum pricing methods to use to make certain all the cookies were gone when it was time to close the refreshment stand. Also, how to stay awake when you're chaperoning an all-night cast bowing party, which is not as easy as it sounds. Kathy also taught me that "a few t-shirts" was actually a dozen- and I still wear those South Park High School 1994 "Babes In Arms" shirts with pride.

Watching Kathy direct or perform (she played a great drunk in "Promises, Promises" at the local community theater) was a pure joy. That's the word that sticks in my mind when I remember her. The thesaurus entries for "pure" provide an astute, accurate description of Kathy: "authentic, bright, classic, clear, complete, fair, flawless, lucid, natural, perfect, real, simple, straight, total, transparent, true, unadulterated, pure and simple, twenty-four carat, unalloyed, unclouded, undiluted."

Fans of celebrities may have an autograph or a recording or a poster on a wall. The students of Kathy- and, really, that's what we all were- have her indelibly etched in our memories.

She taught you where to stand, how to project, how to do a double take, how to tell your partner in the dance number he had bad breath, how to build up the nerve to ask the cute prop girl out on a date... and, of course, the wise, tender counsel that enabled you to deal with that horrible dilemma you couldn't discuss with anyone else. Today, that problem reveals itself as a laughable teenage trifle. But Kathy managed to keep a straight face, and she gave you sound, sincere advice that you use to this day.

There's an old saying that a good teacher is like a candle- it consumes itself to light the way for others.

Remember that, especially now, when grief tries to envelope us with its numbing blackness.

Thanks to Kathy, our existence- that stage we all share- is not dark. It's illuminated by the good works of her life. And it's a light that will always be with us.

Kathleen Cecotti
June 29, 2009

Age 42, after a heroic five-year battle with cancer, Kathy gracefully exited this life on Monday, June 29, 2009. Kathy is the beloved wife and high school sweetheart of Keith Cecotti and loving mother of Carter 13, Teddy 10, and Preston 5. Kathy is survived by her mother and step-father, Mary and Tom Burich, her sisters Amy Loris and Janet (Mike) Tracey, and her brother James (Corinna) Marshall. Kathy is also survived by step-brother Tom and step-sister Lynda, as well as 12 nieces and nephews. Kathy is the loved daughter-in-law of Mel and Diane Cecotti, and sister-in-law of Kevin Cecotti. Kathy was pre-deceased by her father, Harry B. Ford. Kathy has spent 15 years teaching Theatre and English at Thomas Jefferson High School. Kathy's greatest passion has been her involvement with the drama club at TJHS, where she has directed many plays and musicals which have involved thousands of students. Kathy enjoyed sharing her love of theatre with all of her students and always tried to be a positive influence on the students and faculty alike. Kathy was also a long time member of St. Paul's Espicopal Church in Mt. Lebanon, where she greatly enjoyed the love and faith that she shared with the clergy and her many friends there. Kathy has touched the lives of many people throughout the South Hills and will be sadly missed. Friends will be received on Wednesday and Thursday from 1- 4 and 6-9 at the Jefferson Memorial Funeral Home, 301 Curry Hollow Road, Pleasant Hills. Funeral services will be Friday, July 3, 2009 at St. Paul's Espicopal Church. Interment Jefferson Memorial Park.

Photo of the day

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:12:00 +0000

(via Michael King, posted on the ABC World News Now discussion group on Google)

What to do with your flying monkey

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:22:00 +0000

When my daughter was young and I traveled on business, I would invariably open my suitcase in the hotel room and discover my little sweetie had hidden a small teddy bear or other stuffed animal in with my clothes, usually with a crayon-inscribed note. It always made me smile; it was comforting to know someone was thinking about me during my travels.

I mention this because Cindy is away visiting family, and before she left I secreted a small item in her luggage: specifically, a Madame Alexander Wizard of Oz flying monkey. It was a McDonalds giveaway item. Nonetheless, its acquisition had forced her to visit multiple McDonalds and order multiple Happy Meals. That's what you call true personal sacrifice.

The monkey has a position of honor on the piano in my office. It caught my eye as Cindy was packing on Friday night. The scheme was quickly hatched.

The next day, as Cindy traveled with her daughters and grandkids to a softball game, I gave her a call. After exchanging the usual pleasantries, the payoff came:

"Why did you put a flying monkey in my suitcase?"

"So you could enjoy the expressions on the faces of the people hearing you ask me that question."

Some things are worth the extra effort.

The critics agree...

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Compared to this sequel, the first "Transformers," released two years ago, ranks right up there with Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason."
-The Wall Street Journal

...a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine... If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.
-Roger Ebert

...a perfectly dreadful sequel that's the filmic equivalent of a 150-minute waterboarding session.
-Creative Loafing

I'd rather listen to Mr. Roboto on a loop for 150 minutes than watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen again.
-richmond.com

Michael Bay has once again transformed garbage into something resembling a film, at least in the loosest sense: it can be run through a projector and used to sell millions of tickets.
-Combustible Celluloid

Revenge of the Fallen is more like listening to rocks in a clothes dryer for 2 1/2 hours.
-Chicago Tribune

The digital effects are mind-boggling, assuming, after extensive pulverisation, that you have a mind left to boggle.
-Financial Times

Transformers: The Revenge of The Fallen is beyond bad, it carves out its own category of godawfulness.
-Rolling Stone

...nearly unwatchable, a 140-minute video game that will insult your intelligence, hurt your eyes, and offend your sense of decency until you worry that your skull might explode while your brain trickles right out of your ears.
-Washington City Paper

The National Enquirer was right again

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:40:00 +0000

As much as it's despised, The National Enquirer has proven itself to be a generally reliable news source, especially since the whole O.J. Simpson business in the early 90s.

Take a look here. The paper reported in January that the King of Pop had just six months to live, a prediction that proved to be correct.

It will be interesting to learn the results of Jackson's autopsy, and if it confirms the Enquirer's allegations.

Flashback

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:39:00 +0000

Michael Jackson's death takes me back to my junior and senior years in high school. The Jackson Five's first single, "I Want You Back," was a huge hit. It was played incessantly by the record club, and our ad hoc five-piece stage band, which jammed at half time at home basketball games, spent hours trying to master the marvelously unique descending chord progression in the song's chorus.

In retrospect, the rise of the Jackson Five marked the beginning of the end of the Motown with which I grew up. It was at that point that Berry Gordy, well, started losing his mind. Within two years of the Jacksons' arrival, Diana Ross had departed the Supremes and Motown left Detroit for Los Angeles, in the process losing Martha Reeves, The Four Tops, Gladys Knight and the Pips and, perhaps most critically, the Funk Brothers. Motown's legendary studio band had played on more number one records than The Beatles, Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys combined. They were the ones responsible for the label's singular sound.

Motown was never the same.

If you're old enough to remember, another group rising at the same time was the Osmond Brothers. They hit it big recording songs that sounded a lot like the upbeat pop being produced by the Jacksons. The groups found themselves being identified as "a white Jacksons" or "a black Osmonds;" their sounds were almost interchangeable.

Indeed, the Osmonds' number one hit, "One Bad Apple," was a deliberate paraphrase of "I Want You Back," with its own funky descending bass line in the chorus. The similarity isn't surprising, since its non-Motown writer had composed it as a follow-up to the Jacksons' first single. (Supposedly, the group passed on "Apple" for their second hit, "ABC.")

Listen to the videos and compare the groups. You can skip over the Cosby shtick and start the Jackson video at 1:20 in.

The Osmonds' show in June 1971 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh was the first concert I ever attended. I had to hear "Apple" performed live.

When I think of Michael Jackson, I like to think of the little kid doing "I Want You Back." The post-"Thriller" weirdness just makes me sad. Jackson never knew a life even remotely related to normal. Kids who no longer want to be doctors or engineers or astronauts, whose goal in life is "to be famous," ought to take a long look at Jackson's life. Make your kid take piano lessons, sure, but also let him explore the neighborhood with his friends, play video games, and generally goof off. I wouldn't wish The King of Pop's life on my worst enemy.

Remembering The Great One

kgbarkes@gmail.com (Kevin) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:01:00 +0000

Jackie Gleason (February 26, 1916-June 24, 1987)