Credit Card Conspiracy Theory

Writer guy

I tried logging onto my credit card web site to check the balance so I could pay the bill but it refused my password and user name 3 times. So I had to call a number and give a Customer Service Rep ( CSR ) the security error code on the page.

sam: Hi! I can’t log into the account information website. The page says error WESCREWU1.
CSR: No problem sir, let me just verify your information. Oh, it says here your account is locked because of multiple attempts to access the account with incorrect login information. Your password has been reset and sent to you in an email. It’s good for the next X minutes for one time use only.
sam: Great! Fantastic! Thank you very much!
CSR: Since you’re waiting for your password in the mail, let me tell you about a special new offer for our special customers. This service protects you in the event of identity theft. Imagine if someone gained access to your accounts through a compromised password. Well, you don’t need to worry any longer about that, because you are covered. Our competitors are charging X, but since you’ve been such a valuable customer your rate is Y.
sam: Great! Fantastic! Thank you no very much!
CSR: Are you sure sir? Imagine if an email with information about your accounts was misplaced, or was never delivered? Identity theft has even happened to Tiger Woods. What would you do?
sam: I’d do like Tiger and get engaged to a pretty Norweigan girl, do a few Buick commercials, then call you and complain.
CSR: Sure you don’t want to consider the 30 day free trial period?
sam: I’ll be on my way now.

After I hung up, I realized I’d been telemarketed in reverse. Maybe these weasels can’t call us anymore, but sooner or later, if something we use that they provide breaks, we’ll have to call them and our guard will be down because we need help. Now that’s just evil.

Talk About the Passion

Writer guy

On Sunday night, I saw the Passion of the Christ. I thought about writing a movie review about the film, but words eluded me when trying to describe it. Basically, I’m speechless. For the first time ever, I don’t have a cohesive opinion about something. Paramedics please attend to my mother who is now in a state of shock from the above revelation.

Lots of people are familiar the basic storyline, and the ending is pretty well known so I’ll leave that to everyone else to discuss.

Below is a short laundry list of details about the film that struck me, in no particular order:

1) Blood. There’s a lot of it. How much? Lots. More than any film ever? Not sure, but it’s lots.
2) Violence. I’ve seen more violent films, but this one wins hand down for the length of the torture sequences.
3) Product placement. There were no corporate sponsors for this film, thus there were no products.
4) Trailers. No one wanted their film to appear before this one, so there are no trailers.
5) Latin and Aramaic. Boy those languages are clunky. They sound clunky 2000 years out of context too. Listening to them while trying to follow along with the subtitles was beyond clunky.
6) Romans. They had good haircuts.

In the end, all I know about this moive that lots more people will see it.

A few words about Editor person

Writer guy

I’ve blogged a lot about Editor person in the last few weeks, and I want to take a moment to thank them for all their efforts. I lack the eye and stomach for surgical grammar attacks. But without some focus on grammar, I’ll be blogging to myself for the rest of my life. And the wife won’t like that very much since she wants mini-sam’s running around the house.

Editor person: You know every time I read one of your crappy sentences, an alarm bell goes off in my head?
sam: That’s why you’re a good editor.
Editor person: I have a headache now, from all the ringing.
sam: Do you want an aspirin?
Editor person: I want you to stop writing while you are asleep.
sam: Right. I’ll up the coffee intake in the morning.
Editor person: What are you going to do 30 books from now when I’m dead?

I panicked. Could there be an end to Editor person?

sam: No problem. I’ll have you cloned.

Blog schmog

Writer guy

The wife is off work this weekend, so we’re going to do the marriage thing for a few days. I haven’t seen much of the wife lately. I haven’t’ seen much of anyone lately come to think of it.

I had a panic attack early in the week about the second book, Velocity. Regardless of what’s going on with the search for representation, I had some trouble gaining traction with the writing schedule. The tone of the book was pretty rough to take even for me, which is saying something. One of the things I’ve long been guilty of is projecting scenarios out to the 19th degree. Sure, it’s neat to visualize something to an extreme, but dealing with the volume turned up that high makes for difficult reading. That’s when my writing and editor person butt heads.

We had a few discussions about it, one of them that gave us both a nasty headache. But, with editor person’s last round of suggestions, the novel is now framed right. Now I can build outwards based on a more solid foundation. For anyone keeping score, I’ve got nearly 70 pages.