Saint Monkey

We are like children playing with sticks and yet we have weapons so powerful we can destroy the world. We can look back through our history and see that most of what we know of it is little more than the mistakes of children, yet still we persist in repeating these things under different guises. We look at the cruelty that others do in both the past and in our own time and can recognize that if only someone could do something these injustices would not happen again, yet we do nothing ourselves.

I make me sick.

This is the image I did for this blog. I know a chimp isn’t a monkey but at the time I basically didn’t think about it and thought that a chimp looked better and I could give it a more human aspect.

Think Planet of the Apes.

This took me about 12 hours which I think is far too long but this was the first time I have used a tablet and the first time I have used Corel Painter, so a lot of time was dedicated to figuring out how to use them. I bought a small 4’x6’ Wacom Intuos3 which I am getting a feel for and started to really enjoy using about half way through. I also used Corel Painter X which blew my mind with how close it is, coupled with the tablet, to real world illustration. There are some limitations, but the ones I found were circumvented with the use of Adobe Photoshop which preserves the layers from Painter. I think that if I did the chimp again, I would probably be able half my time, and possibly in the not too different future, half it again.

Last night I went to McDonald’s to soak up the alcohol after a bout of drinking. I ordered my food from a large friendly girl and when she turned around to get my food, my friend standing next to me says, “Imagine if Rebecca Curry got old and fat…”
I say, “What?”
“Rebecca Curry”
Remembering a girl I worked with half a lifetime ago I say, “Yeah, what about her?”
“Imagine if Rebecca Curry got old and fat and still worked at McDonald’s”
I stare at the girl in front of me, trying to see the once hot, thin girl underneath 200 pounds of too many Big Macs.
“No way ,“ I say.
“Look at the name badge, it’s her.”
Seeing the badge, then trying to find some points of reference from any remaining facial structure, realization dawns. “Oh fuck,” an incredulous smile trying to form at the edges of my mouth.
“Damn she got fat,” my friend continues, “That’s what happens when you work at McDonald’s for 15 years.”
Losing the battle I grin like a motherfucker and say, “Dude, you need to shut up or I’m going to piss myself laughing. It’s not good.”
My friend, grinning, nods his head.
She comes back with the food and starts when she sees both of us staring at her. She looks at us, one to the other and I could see the recognition sweep her entire face. She ends up taking a break and sitting with us while we eat.

When I was 14 I got my first job at McDonald’s. I only lasted 6 months before I told the manager where to put the cheeseburger, and moved on to bigger and better things.
At the time I worked there, the “it” girl was one Rebecca Curry who was hot, lithe and sexy. Although I had a small crush on her, I was more interested in other girls, so when I lost interest in her, it wasn’t a cataclysmic event.
There was some sort of staff party on a harbour cruise. I remember there was a lot of underage drinking and I had been quite publicly pashing a girl I was more interested in. At one point, Rebecca comes and starts talking to me. We are sitting down and she is talking away when she gets a sour look on her face. The next moment she has her head between her legs and opens a torrent of vomit on her shoes. It sounds vain but I think it was about that moment that the interest that I had for her evaporated…

Fast forward 15 years and there she is, sitting in front of me, far larger than life.
She seemed like a very nice girl and still had some of the innocent charm that I remember. To be fair, it wasn’t the same McDonald’s, nor had she been working there all this time, in fact, she had only started again a few months ago. And although both my friend and I didn’t say anything, we both couldn’t help thinking “HOW..?”
Note: Names have been changed.

Cancelling membership by phone while in a different time zone leaves only a few hour window to do so. Remembering to do so in that narrow window can be a problem if you are me. So it takes me a couple days.

I give a call to the second, international number and am given a few options. I press 8 as that’s the only option that is supposed to send me to an operator. Every time I press it, it rings and then cuts out. I try about five times then call the other number, with which I’m connected to a person straight away.

After I give my user details the conversation went something like this:
Note also that the guy I spoke to was very polite and even the entire conversation.

Audible guy: So, what can I do for you today sir?
Me: I want to cancel my membership.
A: Okay sir, am I able to ask why?
M: There are a number of reasons but the first is the DRM crap Audible has with the files.
A: I’m sorry sir, could you say that again?
M: I don’t like the DRM with the files.
A: DRM…? Sir, what this DRM thing?
M: DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. It stops me doing what I want to do with the Audible files.
A: DRM… DRM… I’m sorry sir, could you tell that to me again?
M: Digital Rights Management means I can’t do shit with the files I paid for unless I turn them into MP3 which takes too long and wastes my time.
A: Oh you mean the .aa files?
M: Yeah sort of. Although it’s the DRM that’s in the .aa files, not the files themselves…
A: I think a lot of customers have a problem that the files aren’t in MP3. Our tech guys say that you can’t turn them into MP3. I’m sorry that this is a problem for you sir.
M: Yes you can, it’s just a waste of time.
A: Oh…
M: Why cant I cancel my membership online?
A: You can sir.
M: I couldn’t, it just sent me to a page with these phone numbers.
A: If you click on account details and then click make changes to my membership. At the bottom of the screen you should see cancel membership plan.
M: And when I click that I just get a screen with phone numbers to call to cancel my membership. That’s all, no other options.
A: Oh, they must have changed it…
M: Can I cancel my membership?
A: Yes sir…. but… um… it seems that you have 2 credits on your account and if you cancel now, you’ll lose them.
M: Okay… when did they go on there?
A: Let me see sir… oh, today!
M: Right… just forget it, I’ll have to cancel another time.

The guy was either fucking with me or an idiot. I’m leaning towards the former.

I signed up to Audible 2 months ago because I received a one month free promotional offer with a new Creative MP3 player (I’m just not into ipod restrictions). I got a couple of audio books and when the next months billing came around and was 1. Too lazy to cancel my membership, 2. Thought that I wouldn’t mind a couple more audio books, and 3. Hadn’t yet actually tried to listen to the audio books that I already downloaded.

When I did try to listen to the audio books I found that they didn’t want to transfer to my MP3 player because their Audible Manager is a piece of junk software and the files are DRM protected (which I had already assumed). So, I had to waste my time figuring how to rip the audible files to MP3 and then waste more time actually doing it.

Got to love that DRM…

Although I’m generally happy to pay for things, I want to be able to use them, so I figured it’s a lot easier and far less time consuming to get audio books elsewhere, not to mention, um, cheaper… and I can listen to them however and whichever way I like.

Come this months billing and I try to cancel my membership. But no, can’t do that online. “You are free to put your credit card information online but we wont let you take it off”. What they gave me was this rubbish:

“Need to Cancel Your Audible Membership?

We want to provide you with the best possible customer experience, even if you decide to cancel your membership.

Please contact us toll-free via phone at: 888-396-6348
Outside of the USA and Canada please use 973-820-0400

Hours
• Monday – Friday: 9AM-10PM EST
• Saturday: 10AM-7PM EST

This will allow us to:
• Address technical or usability issues that might be hindering your use of Audible
• Make sure you know about all of the benefits of Audible membership
• Get your feedback, so that we can continuously improve the service

We appreciate your business and thank you for your patience.

Click here to return to My Account”

I’m sorry but that just isn’t good enough. That’s a ridiculous tactic to make it too much of an effort to cancel your membership.
For me, Audible is too much of an effort and wastes too much time to bother being a member.

I don’t think I will be putting much in the Real Life category but some of the interesting things will go up here. As it is too much interesting stuff happens to me but most of it’s going into a book.

Even the night before last I had to endure a psychopath running around the house, breaking quite literally through doors and trashing everything in sight. But that’s another story…

Last night I was electrocuted.
It was raining and because of blocked gutters, the water was flowing back through the eaves of a section of the house. Water then must have gone down the wall and into the light switch, sending the porch light discoing. Idiot me, standing on a wet towel, pressed said light switch. It should have been alright but it was an old style switch with an exposed screw. Even then it should have been alright with the circuit breaker, but no, the circuit breaker is only installed for the power points. So, I pressed my finger up to the switch, pressing firmly on the exposed screw. The power stared flowing through me. Something about it was so incredibly cold, like ice entering the bloodstream through my arm and down through me. It mustn’t have been too much because it wasn’t a big zap, but it lasted a few seconds till I could move enough to get my hand away.
I’m stumbling around, in pain, yelling, “ahhh fuck”, when my oversized cat decides to jump around on my legs repeatedly trying to crash tackle me. It was a bit out of sorts for him as he doesn’t normally do that. He sometimes hides and tries to crash tackle but he doesn’t normally do it repeatedly, nor does he normally use his claws. He must have been thinking that I was playing some interesting game by stumbling around, that something possessed me or he just wanted to snap me out of it. He helped either way because I wasn’t conscious of him actually doing it for about the first 30 seconds…
Last night most of my muscles hurt, even in my legs, but now it’s just my arm and shoulder that aches.

Fun fun.

The Question is, will this be contributing to the graveyard that is much of the internet? Or, will I actually do something with this? Will here lie the truth or just another collection of lies and rubbish?

I know this could be so much more and i know that the real question is: Can I be fucked?

Lets see…