The Unreasonable Man

I am watching my favourite musical movie, “Jesus Chris Superstar”.

Bit odd for an atheist, yes?

But no - I was raised in Christian schools where Jesus was sold as a nice guy, a hippie - the same Jesus I see in the movie. And of course I am a hppie at heart. And the story is a good one. To add to which, the acting is good, the actors are great, and of course Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music is fabulous. Hippie morality, great music, hippie chicks, choreography, the complexity of Judas, Tim rice’s wonderful 1960s lyrics: how can it get better.

For the life of me, I never understood why Christians were upset by this movie. It makes Jesus look modern and understandable; it does not deny his divinity; it is surely  an ad for Christianity, cast in a modern light. Which is exactly what St Augustine said God does: tell people the story in their own context. Like different masters have different house rules and can still all be right.

And I can appreciate that, and I applaud Jesus’s morality as it was explained to me - even as an atheist.

Dumb:

• On my Mercedes, the cruise control is a stick. To turn it on (i.e. drive forward), you pull back. To turn it off, i.e. to hold back, you push forward. I will never learn this if I live another 100 years. Who is responsible for this nonsense? German engineers? Whoever it is is clueless with respect to good user interfaces.
• Why is there no GPS app for my iPhone that does not need me to be online and buy bits? I.e. Garmin for iPhone or TomTom for iPhone? Yeah, the rumour mill says it’s “coming”… well, that will be too late. Afraid of cannibalisation are they?

Ah. So let’s send some good words, too.

I tried once more with Rogers.

And lo and behold, this time (fourth? fifth? call) I spoke with a nice agent (as opposed to this morning’s moron)  who DID have a manager to put me through to. And even better, a manager (named Cathie, in case Rogers is reading) who was human, nice, understanding. And who checked with her manager.

And amazingly: who helped in a real way. Cathie told me to go buy the phone anywhere (i.e. the Apple store, which had them in stock) and she would refund the $500 price difference.

And now even better. This is good:

Cathie credited my account with $500 without seeing the invoice; in fact even before I had bought the new phone. She called to tell me she had done this the moment I was at the Apple store about to buy it. “We trust you”, she said.

How cool is that? That is great customer service - the service that keeps me as a customer. Because of this lady, I stay, and I write this. COmpliments, and Cathie deserves to do something better at Rogers. Nice!

If I had a choice I would of course cancel my Rogers cell service: they are the most despicable company in Canada.

I just called “customer solutions” or whatever they euphemistically call themselves.

An Indian lady who spoke heavily accented English refused to let me speak with a manager. Raising her voice, all she could say was “YOU ARE NOT ELIGIBLE SIR. LISTEN TO ME SIR, YOU ARE NOT ELIGIBLE. THE NOTE SAYS THEY TOLD YOU THIS. I DON’T CARE IF YOU SAY THEY DID NOT: THE NOTE HERE SAYS THEY DID. NO I CANNOT PUT YOU THROUGH TO MY MANAGER, I DON’T HAVE A MANAGER. LISTEN. SIR. I TOLD YOU THE NOTE SAYS YOU ARE NOT ELIGIBLE SIR. SIR, I TOLD YOU WHAT THE NOTE SAYS. THEY SPOKE TO YOU. NO, THEY DID SPEAK TO YOU: THE NOTE SAYS SO. NO I CAN’T PUT YOU THROUGH TO JEFF WHO WROTE THE NOTE BECAUSE I DON;T KNOW WHO JEFF IS. NO I DON’T HAVE A MANAGER, SIR. SIR. I TELL YOU ALREADY WHAT THE NOTE SAYS. THE NOTE SAYS THEY TOLD YOU YOU ARE NOT ELIGIBLE. NO, I DON’T HAVE A MANAGER. NO WE CANNOT MAKE EXCEPTION, NEVER SIR. NO. I TELL YOU AGAIN THE NOTE  SAYS NO.”

And so on. I could not get a word in edgeways. I think the note says this was a moron and Rogers is horrible to deal with. If this was a free market, whoosh, that would be the sound of me leaving.

Four dumbcisions for you today:

1. So when I rename my iPhone, when I reconnect it on my other Mac, it does a whole new backup. DUMB. Use the MAC address to determine it’s the same machine.
2. When I cancel a print job on my Canon 9500 printer using the manual feed path, it also ejects the paper I just spent three minutes loading. DUMB. Leave the paper. If you feel strongly, warn me.
3. To design Bluetooth so that you need a degree to operate it. DUMB. Send the miscreants who designed Bluetooth to a re-education camp.
4. To design USB connectors so there is a 50% chance that you will try to insert the connecor wrong. Dumbdumbdumbdumb.

So much dumbidity around us…

OK, so I moved my entire site - including the blog - to the 1and1 servers. This means I lost the last two posts I wrote. Shame, but it cannot be helped. I may recreate them. One post about Nazi propaganda, and one on more dumbcisions.

Or moronics.

• Why is the RIAA having a woman pay $1.9m for downloading 24 songs? Story here - RIAA is to be hated, despised. As are the courts. Contempt of court - why, is there any other feeling that fits?
• Why are all words on my built-in Mercedes GPS all CAPITALS? WHEN IS THE LAST TIME COMPUTERS WERE IN ALL CAPS? 1982? WELL, IN GERMANY/JAPAN, THEY STILL ARE.

Many more to come. Moronics all around me.

…I am looking at old pictures because of an exhibit I am doing next month.

I am looking at images of Haifa, where we visited a few days after the Hezbollah war in 2006. And as I am doing this I am struck by the enormity of that and other wars- an enormity that most of us do not appreciate.

Imagine you are in a city and you know that 100 times a week people are firing rockets at you, trying to kill you. And destroy your home. And kill your wife. Oh and your children. Every home in the picture is a home that was under threat. Every car is owned by someone whose children rely on him. Every couple about to start a family does so knowing the enemy wants to kill them. Every teen must wonder whether Saturday night will bring a date or bloody maiming.

This is the thing about war. A million deaths is a statistic, but when it’s you it’s more personal. I greatly appreciate the dilemma the Israelis face. Israel does not want to kill Palestinians - if they do so it is in reaction to the war.

Palestinians have a cause - but nothing justifies killing innocents.

Anyway -wait until you are attacked by one person and see how that feels. Then imagine a bunch of people trying to kill you. Then you might be able to get some understanding of the distortions that happen at that point.

Just watching CNN, where a woman whom I would describe as a fascist and a woman I would describe as a liberal are arguing about whether Guantanamo prisoners should be brought back”to the homeland”, as is now happening.

The CNN presenter took a break and said that “after the break, we will try to find common ground between you”.

This makes me think. The reasonable thing to do is to find common ground - or you get wars. Sure. But if I were the liberal there I would say “absolutely not”. The neocon lady seemed to me almost as fascist (and worse, as ignorant) as Hitler, and surely it would be unwise to find common ground with Herr Hitler? if I were across the table with a racist antisemite fascist, would I be well advised to find nice common ground, or should I be as forceful as I can in saying “no - you are utterly wrong”?

Nice, a complicated problem.

My answer: I think I would look for facts, and I would concentrate on those. Your mileage may vary.

It is odd how you can be so busy doing “B- and C-level stuff”, as my friend Peter West put it today.  Building my photography and training business I am busier than ever, but 90% of that busy is not paying work.

That will change, but until it does - 100-hour weeks with 10-hour pay. Investing in building the business.