Monthly Archives: December 2006

Dec 31

5 Levels of Love – It’s a Happy New Year!

This is how you can tell where you stand with your woman guys.

  1. She freely gives you a great hand jobs.
  2. She will throw some licking and sucking but still finish you off with her hand.
  3. She now gives blow jobs freely and takes it in her mouth.. but she spits.
  4. She has now developed a fetish for your semen and sends you nasty text messages about how badly she needs it.
  5. She has graduated to full porn star status and prefers facials… she also occasionally takes it in her mouth and holds it on her tongue with a sultry look and smile on her face. She now relishes the protein and skin care benefits of cum.

I’m extremely happy to announce on the eve of 2007 that Christine has graduated to level 5… I’ve experienced the full 5 levels of love with her and I can now say she has a serious oral fixation in which I’m happy to oblige. Happy New Years Everybody!

Dec 27

New Year Resolutions / Goals 2007

What a remarkably witty title eh?

  1. Visit the Jet Strip twice a month.. to promote blood circulation of course & spend less than 10k doing it.
  2. Get some more cleavage shots of Christine for the blog & get Christine to make out with a Chic.
  3. Do some heavy recoding and optimization of CvC, set some dedicated time apart for this.
  4. Launch a profitable web 2.0 internet application.
  5. Write more and write slightly better for CvC. Time to start glancing at a grammar book.
  6. Take Christine out to a nice dinner once per month… ( a different place each time – 12 new places this year ).
  7. Hit Vegas with my boys for a guys weekend… only insignificant others allowed.
  8. Get my passport – maybe use it.
  9. Replace 65″ TV With Gym Set & Treadmill, Run 5k without bitching.
  10. Purchase and investment property with or without Christine ( preferably with )
Dec 23

Time Warner Cable has Sunk to a New Low

Let me invite you all to share my pain.

For the last two weeks, my digital phone service with Time Warner has sucked. In the middle of conversations, my calls drop. People try to call me and although it rings forever on their end, it doesn’t ring at all on my end. Christopher has even gotten a recorded message when he’s tried to call that my phone is not accepting calls.

So… it was evident, that since I’m paying for this fabulously reliable phone service, I would eventually have to call Time Warner’s customer service and let them know. I knew it would be painful, but until today… I had no idea what kind of agony a VOIP provider was capable of.

Here’s how my 49 minute trip through hell (yes, 49 minutes) went.

I dial Time Warner’s customer service number, go through the menu until I reach a customer service agent. Tell him the problem. He tells me that he can’t do anything except transfer me to “Third Level” Tech Support. Oooh… lucky me. I get to skip the incompetent retards at level 2 and go straight to 3. For a moment, I think I’m lucky…

EXCEPT. The brilliant folks at level three don’t pick up the call. I’m on hold for 44 minutes before picking up my cell phone and calling Time Warner customer service again. I go through the menu. Reach a customer service rep… and then it gets worse.

Me: Hi. I’ve been on hold for 44, ooh, no, now it’s 45 minutes waiting for third level tech support. And I don’t understand why it’s taking so long.

Rep: Ma’am, I’m sorry for your wait time.

Me: Is that a normal, acceptable wait time to keep customers on hold at Time Warner?

Rep: Let me check. Can I put you on hold?

Me: Sure. By all means.

I wait about 1 minute.

Rep: Ma’am the customary wait time is anywhere between 10 minutes and 45 minutes for tech support. At this time of year, there’s a high volume of calls.

Me: What? Everyone’s phone breaks around Christmas? That doesn’t really make sense.

(Have I ever mentioned that I have no patience for idiots?)

Rep: Hehe. You’re right… it doesn’t seem to be connected to the time of year.

Me: Okay…

Rep: I understand that you’ve been waiting a long time.

Me: Other customers are okay with waiting that long?

Rep: I’m sure they probably are not. I do apologize.

Me: It’s not your fault.

Rep: I know, but on behalf of Time Warner, I’m required to apologize.

Me: So what should I do? Continue to wait? It’s going on minute 47 now.

Rep: Well, maybe I can help you. What problems are you experiencing?

Me: My phone is having problems that started about two weeks ago. Calls are being dropped after about 25 minutes. People try to call me and it just rings forever for them, but my phone doesn’t ring at all… and some people are even getting messages that I’m not accepting calls, but my phone isn’t ringing.

Rep: Okay… I’ll get my troubleshooting guide. Can I put you on hold?

Me; Absolutely.

I wait for about 1 minute.

Rep: Okay… so you said you’re not getting a dial tone, right?

Me: Uh… no, I never said that.

Rep: Oh yeah… it’s the quality of the voice when you’re talking, right?

Me: Um, no. Are you the same person I just described the problem to?

Rep: Yeah… um… what was the problem again?

I repeat it AGAIN.

Rep: Hrmm… yeah, I can’t help you that. Only third level tech support can help you with that.

Me: Yeah… I’m on hold with them. 49 minutes now. Maybe there’s a supervisor I could talk to.

Rep: Well no… anyone you talk to will do what I’m doing.

Me: Which is… basically saying there’s nothing you can do?

Rep: I can only transfer you to third level tech support.

Me: And I’m already on hold with them.

Rep: Yeah. I could send a complaint for you.

Me: Okay. Let’s send two. The first one can be about the problems I’m having with my phone. And the second one can be that I think being on hold for 49 minutes is too long.

Rep: Alright. I’ll send those.

Me: Then what happens? Someone responds?

Rep: Well… uh… I guess it takes 45 minutes after I send it for someone to receive the complaint.

Me: That’s less time than I’ve been on hold.

Rep: I believe someone will call you then.

Me: Yeah, that’d be good because I’m not convinced anyone will ever answer my call. Thanks.

Rep: No problem. Is there anything else I can do?

Me: I think we’ve both come to the conclusion that there isn’t, right?

Rep: Yes… well, you have a happy holiday and thank you for being a customer at Time Warner.

Me: Thanks. Bye.

A few minutes later, Third Level Tech Support did answer. After explaining my problem again, he told me that there seems to be a problem in “my area” and other customers are experiencing the same thing. Despite that, he can’t do anything unless I call him the next time it happens and let Time Warner know right away that someone has tried to call me, but my phone’s not ringing.

Me: So… if my phone doesn’t ring… how…

Tech: Tell everyone that if it happens when they call the land line, they should call your cell phone, and then you can call us and tell us exactly what time it happened so that we have a call sample to look at and then we can figure out what the problem is.

At this point I’m thinking, if you know it’s happening to other people “in my area,” why haven’t you already obtained a call sample and fixed it? But I don’t say that.

Me: Okay.

Then he gives me a secret phone number to call with a secret pin number and once I get through, a secret ticket number so that they can update their tech support order. I write all the numbers down feeling like maybe it would just be a lot less hassle and a lot fewer secret numbers to just switch from Time warner to some other provider.

But I believe in second chances, and apparently when it comes to Verizon (my piece of shit cell provider) I believe in seventh and eighth chances. So surely I can give Time Warner a chance to fix this. Right???

Dec 22

The Christmas Trip Home

Let me preface this with… I love my Christopher to death. He’s truly one of the most interesting people I know. He’s extremely smart, ambitious, reliable, funny. He reminds me of the type of guy I remember knowing in high school that I would have had a secret crush on… the kind that is good at everything (academics, athletics, etc.), is always invited to the fun parties, always makes the parties fun, and is always just a little hard to figure out completely. I didn’t know him in high school, but I’m guessing that’s what he was like.

Having had the opportunity to get close to Christopher, and really get to know him, some of those mysteries have been explained, and some haven’t. I know I’ve made fun of Christopher in the past for his irrational fear of sharks and ocean swimming, but I’d completely forgot about his fear of flying until this past week while he was getting ready to go back to Pennsylvania for Christmas.

My life with Christopher is about as odd as anyone’s could possibly be (I know he feels the same about his life with me), but I wanted to share this little conversation we had last night at dinner, about 4 hours before he was going to get on the plane.

Me: “So babe… you nervous about flying?”

Christopher: “You know I hate flying. It stresses me out.”

Me: “I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal to you.”

Christopher: “I like to be in control.”

Me: “Really???? I never knew that about you.”

Christopher: “I don’t want to trust some drunk pilot with my life.”

Me: “I doubt the pilots are drunk. Why don’t you take flying lessons so that way, if a pilot ever does pass out at the controls, you could step up and land the plane?” Please note, I was totally kidding about this.

Christopher: “Well… air traffic would be able to tell me which controls and buttons to push… and I have practiced on the flight simulator.”

There’s a note of seriousness in his voice.

Me: “The flight simulator?”

Christopher: “Yeah… on my XBox. I practiced flying the 747. It gives you a flight lesson.”

At that point, I wasn’t sure what to say. His blue eyes told me he was serious on some level and I knew he was being honest when he said he’d practiced flying a 747 on his video game… but at the same time, this is a very, very intelligent man. He reads constantly, he absorbs information like a sponge, he can do very complicated math problems in his head… and yet, where was reality that should have suggested he couldn’t possibly fly a commercial plane after practicing on a video game?

I just looked at him.

Then I wonder how many 30 year old American males really believe they could do something like this based on video game experience… probably lots. The American man is a breed of his own… confident beyond all reasonable abilities. There’s something a little scary about that… but also kinda sexy…

I picture myself being on a plane that is spiraling toward the earth and a flight attendant coming out of the cockpit and saying “Does anyone know how to fly a plane???” (ala Leslie Nielsen style in “Airplane). Then, 50 young, 30-something American men all raising their hands saying “I can, I can!” Fifteen of them rush to the cockpit, piling on top of each other. One manages to wedge his way into the pilot’s seat. They all clamor to give advice on what to do, which buttons to push, arguing that they know better because they’ve played the game more than the other… ;-)

And Christopher is right there with them in the thick of it all. Thanks to his XBox.

A part of me doesn’t want to burst his little dream– the one that he must need to will himself to get on that plane. But part of me sort of appreciates the Christopher that’s grounded in reality too.

He’s still staring at me with those blue eyes.

“Well…” I say, “most plane crashes aren’t caused by the pilots getting drunk. They’re caused by mechanical failures. But I think you’re going to be okay on this one…”

He gives me a half-hearted, unconvinced nod and drags another french fry through the pile of ketchup on his plate… his mind still reliving all he’d learned on his flight simulator just in case…

That’s my Christopher. He’s still a mystery to me. But it’s only been 12 hours since he left and I miss him already. ;-)