Birds are Stupid

At the Laundromat today, I encountered a bird that had found the one open window to get inside, but was utterly baffled on how to get back out. Not wanting the bird to die of starvation inside a laudromat (an awful place for any creature to die), I opened the door and attempted to shoo it back outside.

Ah, but birds aren't built for reasoning things out. This one relentlessly darted for the same pane of glass several times, as it appeared to be the biggest portal to the outdoors. So I'm standing there yelling at the thing: "That's right, go for the door- no, not the- *thwack* dammit!" after it thuds to the ground, it just sits there for a few minutes, stunned, as I walk over to see if it sustained any fatal injuries.

Dramatized Bird Thoughts:

"The two-legger is approaching, flee, flee! Ah ha! An exit! Freedom! Faster! *WHAM* Uh... the two legger must have set up a trap or something... soooo woosy... Oh no, it's coming back! Am I going to die? What's it holding over my head?" (note: it was my phone in camera mode)

I recieved a phone call from a friend of mine, so I told him about the incarnation of stupid on wings, and he told me to toss a shirt over it, and scoop it up and carry it outside. Good idea, so I finally set the terrified bird outside, and joined its buddies across the street at the bird feeder. He's probably warning them of the cave with the invisible barriers, and the two legged giants that chase the birdies around for their own sick pleasure.

Stupid Bird.

Don't Be a Dick

So I've been playing more Acquire at GameTable Online, and it gave me yet another reminder of why I haven't bothered to pickup World of Warcraft, or any other MMORPGs. The guys behind Penny Arcade illustrate it better than I could describe it.

My sister keeps telling me that you can shut off the global chat, so you can only communicate with those on your friend list, or channel, or whatever, but something about the action of joining a game with the world, and then shutting out the world just seems counter-intuitive. If I'm going to play a game with only a handful of friends, I'd rather do that Face-to-Face. In fact, I'm taking three days off from work, and flying 1400 miles to do this with total strangers! (Yes, another Origins plug, but I'm excited. Sorry.)

The worst part is how they drag you down into their petty quest to inform you what and idiot you are to you and everyone who will listen. In most other situations, you'd be the better person, give in, or just walk away with a feeling of pity for the idiot. But again, webcomics describe it better:

image courtesy of (xkcd) (permalink)

True, these jackasses also pop up face to face at times, but far less. In addition, they are shunned by others who would rather play games face to face, and not have to deal with their bullshit, and often even their own friends disavow them out of embarrassment. Remember: It's easier to be an asshole to words than people.

Fantasy Help Desk Support

Here's the situation. We had a controlled outage today of our ISP service today that lasted longer than we thought it would. Most customers are understanding about this, if a little frustrated. Other customers, like Barbara Westin (name changed to protect the obnoxious), not so much.

We suspect that Barbara relishes these outages so she can talk down, curse, and belittle our ISP Support Staff. She suspects that our help desk team habitually sever a cable, dump coffee on a switch, or power down servers in order to justify their jobs.

Durring her second call of the outage, we offered to put her on the phone with our director, who voluneteered to speak with her if she got too abusive. This provoked the sardonic response "Will THAT get my internet back up faster?!?"

BEGIN FANTASY RESPONSE!!

"Yes, m'am! You see, on a wall in the Director's Office, there is a large throw switch. That switch is labled 'Barbara Westin's Internet Connection'. Right now, it's in the Off position. We do that from time to time becuase it gets lonely here and wE JuSt LoVe to talk to a woman of your charms, so we need to give you a reason to pick up the phone! My director would be ever so happy to turn it back on for you, but I'm the only one that has the power to transfer you right now. So my question is, what could you say, do, or offer to me that would make it worth my while?"

END FANTASY RESPONSE!!

Thankfully, we handled it better than that. But the odd thing was that about an hour after it wend back on, she called again to complain, not realizing she was back online. This strengthens my theory that she is one of those people who value the act of complaining more than having stuff that works, and thereby leaving her no reason to whine about it.

BONUS IRONY: She does tech support from home for a larger service provider, so one would think she might think better of abusing the staff that are powerless to do anything about it.

Opportunity DOES NOT come from Nigeria via Email!

It's for the best, really. People this stupid are less of a danger to the rest of society once their money is taken from them.