What's Up With Me (Slumdog DVD issues [still], New Moby, The Brokeness, Alicia up on the Weekend, Writing, The Great No-Net Experiment)

(17:21:18 CDT)

What's Up With Me (Slumdog DVD issues [still], New Moby, The Brokeness, Alicia up on the Weekend, Writing, The Great No-Net Experiment)

I just got off the phone with a Fox representative. I returned my copy, which was broken due to Fox's error, of Slumdog Millionaire for a new, non-broken copy. This was 2-3 weeks ago. They payed for return postage, sure, but part of me feels like their handling of this is not really customer friendly. As it currently stands, you go online and feel out a short form and they send you a label to print out and mail. You send it back to them. Then you wait about 2 months for them to send you a working copy. If you take the DVD back to the store, there is no good way to tell, right off, if it is one of the broken or unbroken versions. Presumably, this way will definitely get you a fully working copy. However, at the $20 bucks a pop cost, and the wait time of months, this ends up being a pretty shitty deal for a consumer. Once again, the early worm gets eaten and Fox ends up with a bunch of "renters copies" it can sell out to places like Netflix and Redbox or as a "budget" copy. My guess is that Fox 100% recoups and even betters costs with the current version of their exchange program. The original version just involved calling them and giving them the UPC code and personal information, but it apparently took about 30 seconds for jerks to copy down the information in the store (or share it in forums) and get free DVDs. Claiming, of course, that Fox had screwed customers and deserved. Which forced Fox, at that time overnighting replacement disks, to screw customers. If this turns out to be some sort of actuarial game to get customers' information, I'm going to be pissed. As it is, and I say this with no reservations, I am never, ever buying a Fox DVD again until it has gotten over the initial shipment and someone personally guarantees me that Fox's usual band of idiots got it right this time. If they do not include some sort of coupon or SOMETHING with the DVD, I will probably stop buying non-used FOX dvds as it is.

In better, and more free, media news; you can listen to Moby's new album, Wait for Me, for free though NPR's First Listen. Did not know it sooner, or I would have listened to it a couple of weeks ago. I like it. It's sort of like a more minimalistic version of 18, maybe, but a touch more personal. The lyrics and samples have been toned back to slightly more repetitive, shorter bursts. I think it helps to clarify the album, some, but the effect is a little bit to the "lay back and chill" than something you can definitely focus on. Play it in the background on first listen, I think, and then let the random bits surface. If you want to buy it, it's only $3.99 for the time being on AmazonMP3.

Not that that exactly matters to me. Sarah and I have entered into a realm of brokeness that you people wouldn't believe. In utter frustrations, I had to get up last night and spend $20 that I did not really have on medicine that I needed for my sinuses and allergies. When buying a $10 box of generic allergy medication makes you have to double check a couple of different bills and balance a few things out over the next week or two just to make sure it does not bounce your rent check: dang. Sarah and I are on what I call "starvation rations", which means, in American dialect, that we are only able to slightly overstuff our faces this next couple of weeks. We spent $10 on beans and rice, and 'shelp me if that's not just about enough for a fortnight of bland meals, alone. Tossing in tomatoes, curry, cumin, chilis, onions, soy sauce, olive oil, and other sundry vegetables into the mix guarantess that it's enough to last us. That and fried bologna. Mmmm, good. I'm frankly a lot more worried about gas and not having you know whats (rhymes with uninspected insurgencies) than food. Well, a week and a half to go. Here's crossing the fingers!

Despite our utter brokeness, we did have a chance to hang out with Alicia some this weekend. Mostly this meant that I showed her stuff like Great Horror Family, The Coffin, Dawn of the Dead 2004, and, for some strange reason, we rewatched Beerfest. Oh, and some Mighty Boosh and Kamen Rider Black. And we briefly walked around Midtowne on the Park or whatever that gestating housing project behind Target is called. It was all good.

Partially in celebration of the brokeness, I have been doing a little bit of writing and a lot of reading. Things that do not cost me anything but time. For those curious, I have a poem up (it was posted here already, but a longer and slightly revised version is up at): "For Some Time, or I know how this must end". In "bigger news", I also posted the first chapter in my soon to be weekly, ongoing story of True Library Confessions. They are about a nameless (obstensibly me) librarian who lives in a world where all the weird things I think about can and will come true. It is somewhere between horror, comedy, and action with a lot of weird easter eggs and injokes hidden in the text. Partially, it is an exercise in writing. Partially, it is me trying to write the sort of "librarian fiction" that I have been wanting to see. Most LF tends to barely reference anything like books (written more from a writer's perspective, as well) and when it does, only in a short and almost hateful way. TLC is going to involve a lot of book references, some vague and some pretty obvious, and puns and such based on the Library of Congress Subject Headings. I am trying to write it in such a way that no one would be lost if they did not know what book I was talking about, but if you do, you get a little chuckle out of it. Part of the concept, by the way, is to imagine me where instead of the Summer of Hell, and it's precursor, the Spring Semester of the Damned, which lead to a lot of soul searching and sort of rear-ended and knocked me off the rails a little to a lot; I am older when I go through some of the same angry depression issues. The nameless Librarian is about my age now, maybe even a little bit older, and loves his job and loves his life but also kind of hates both and so takes it out on the weird things that keep happening to him. You can read the first story here: True Library Confessions #1 - Librarian versus Zombie.

Ok, about time for me to get ready for class, but wanted to end with a preview. I think I am going to try a "No-Net" experiment for a bit. How I'm picturing this working is me limiting myself down to just blogs, e-mail, and sites needed for my work and school and "business" sites like the bank. No Twitter. No Facebook. I'm still debating on how far I want to take it. Anyhow, it will be for one month and will give me time to focus on writing, getting back to exercising at night, reading, pre-emptive studying, and the like.

If I do it, it will likely run from this friday (July 3rd) to August's first friday (whichever that is). More details will definitely follow.

Si Vales, Valeo

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