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Of Felonies & First Impressions
Gah, and I thought last week was bad....
Oh Yeah, Totally
Me: “Good evening, <company>, how may I help you?”
SC: “Do ya’ll do driver’s licenses?”
Me: “I’m sorry?”
Know how I know you didn’t listen to a word I said? That aside, I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “do driver’s licenses”. Do you think I’m the DMV? ….does the DMV have a 24 hour hotline?
SC: “So you don’t do like fake driver’s licenses?”
…..wait wait wait, back up a moment. You’re calling around for a fake driver’s license? Is there seriously some place that will not only readily commit a felony for you, but actually has a website and a toll free number? What the heck website were you on? I’m really curious now. You obviously were searching for this service online and came to a website where you believed this service could be purchased. Then without a second thought dialed up a toll free number despite the fact it’s quite doubtful that criminal forgery ring would have a website, call centre and toll free number. Though I guess uncovering any of those facts would require actually stopping and thinking any part of this plan through.
Hey, you know who knows all the local forgers and counterfeiters? The FBI! Maybe you should give them a shout. I’m sure they could hook you up. They probably have a toll free number too!
Processing Speed
Me: “and your phone number please?”
SC: “Uhhhhhh…..uhhhhh….”
Ahhh….a sound I am intimately familiar with. Through no want nor fault of my own. The dying cry of someone’s mental bull moose toppling over in the desolate clearing of their mind. Mortally wounded by a pinpoint strike of inquiry.
Me: “Alright, anything else?”
SC: “Yeah…..uh….wait….uh..............”
Very well.
( a minute later )
SC: "xxxx"
Me: "Alright, would you like anything else?”
SC: “Uh, yeah……uh wait............uhhhh.....”
…….Very well.
( .....two minutes of feverish page flipping later )
SC: "uh, xxxx"
Me: “Alright, anything else?”
SC: “Uh, hang on.”
…ok, look. I don’t mind that much when someone calls to place an order for 5+ items. However, if you’re going to be ordering so many items would you not have the foresight to oh, I don’t know, maybe make a list of the item numbers? Or at the very least mark what pages they’re on to save you from this desperate catalog safari? I’m not asking for much here. Just the slightest indication that you perhaps have at least a vague feeling that something is tragically wrong with the way you’re going about this. That while you may not fully comprehend the situation, you do at least sense, on some primal level, that you're missing something important.
I realize that your intellect is basically a stubbornly inert bull moose corpse at this point. But if you could at least push it to the edge of a ravine and let gravity take over, maybe we could get through this faster.
Why Of Course We Do
Me: “Good morning, <domain registrant>, how may I help you?”
SC: “Do you guys send out catalogs?”
……no, but I would honestly pay good money to see them try. Nice glossy full colour spreads of web pages with casual wear models posing in front of them in a variety of “family” activities possibly involving a dog or a smart alec kid showing his astounded father how to operate a mouse.
Everyone would be wearing polo shirts of course.
Awww
MC Shake & Bake was dejectedly packing up his gear and getting ready to leave when I arrived downtown this evening. So I totally missed what was surely a glorious performance. Although I do question exactly why he was out there tonight. As it meant he seriously had the thought: “Oh man, it’s cold, dark, windy, absolutely pouring rain and a week day. This is the perfect time to go outside and lay down phat beatz”. Now I fully admit this is not a man who can read an audience to begin with. But at the very least he should be able to grasp when a potential audience might actually be outside and willing to stop and listen.
Conversely, there was an unshaven hobo a ways up from him who was finger painting pure lunacy on what appeared to be half a surfboard. Yet he still had one person watching him. So the guy that hasn’t showered in 6 months and is finger painting a mural to human psychosis has more active fans than MC Shake & Bake.
One of these nights I’m going to have to actually stop and see if MC Shake & Bake seriously has some sort of stage name. I would dearly love to drudge up this man’s website and/or Facebook page. Purely for the entertainment value. You know he has one. Someone that thinks he’s that awesome despite the glaring reality before him undoubtedly has a virtual pen where he preens himself.
Hot Tips
Me: “Good evening, <client>.”
SC: “W05”
Me: “……..”
SC: “I’ll call back later.”
Ok, Zombie Nixon. You’re going to insist on becoming a regular, aren’t you? I assume that was some sort of code signal letting me know the dead drop of pizza crusts, Bruce Springsteen mix tapes and approximately 50 black & white print outs of screenshots of your victories at Minesweeper is ready for pick up. I also assume they’ve been left at the usual place? In the dumper in the parking lot, underneath a 1/6th scale posterboard cut out of Robert Pattinson?
You know, you really need to be more careful. I see, er, "enemy agents" dig through that dumpster all the time at night.
Yes
Me: “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.”
SC: “Um, no.”
Oh, good. We’ve moved from ignorance, to confusion, to questioning if have the right number, to outright denial to outright denial in a tone of voice that makes it sound like I’m supposed to be the idiot here. Well since you obviously missed the memo ( Hint: It was “Good evening, <domain registrant>, how may I help you?” ) we do not service, repair, replace or sell compressors in any way shape or form nor are we any sort of business remotely related to compressors.
I assume you need one to finish building the machine that will free you from the terrible limbo between raging stupidity and smug superiority that you seem to be stuck in.
Hot Tips
SC: “How come every time I call this number I receive death threats?”
I’m surprised you really need to ask.
Again?
MC Shake & Bake is still out there. He’s really giving it his all this week, I hope he didn’t quit his day job. Tonight he was engaged in some sort of…rap battle(?) with another “artist”. I’m not sure what the rules of engagement are for this particular type of conflict. It was already underway when I arrived, so I don’t if a challenger can just pull out a microphone as they’re walking by, wander up and throw down the gauntlet at you. Sort of like Pokemon trainers.
Perhaps they are doing battle over prime busker spots. It would explain why MC Shake & Bake shows up at varying locations and why if he’s not at the corner, there’s always a vastly superior performer at the corner. Regulating him to right outside the entrance of Granville where it smells like pee.
I fully admit not knowing exactly what the rules are here, but I was under the impression that any sort of rap battle required an audience to carefully gauge the amount of “serving” occurring between the competitors. However, there was not a single person watching these two go at it. Seriously. Absolutely no one was watching. There wasn’t even that many people just walking by. There was just me and one other guy waiting for the light to change. And the other guy had the same look of “Oh god, seriously?” that I’m sure I had on my face too.
I almost felt kind of bad for them. Or at least for the guy challenging MC Shake & Bake. I don’t think he was aware of the career ending vortex he had walked into. Although if he didn’t know before, he certainly knows now after MC Shake & Bake uttered the following: “Like the Canucks, shootin’ ice bowls-“. Ice bowls. Ice bowls. No, not "goals". I'm sure he was trying to head that way, but he tripped up and said bowls instead. That aside though. Dude. Seriously. You’re working with the one hockey team in the entire NHL that you can actually rhyme with “Pucks” and you go with bowls?! What is wrong with you and how did you ever get it into your head that you could rap?
The War Of The Roses
( Jesus this is what, the 4th week of this? )
SC: “This is Mr Brown, I’d like to leave a message.”
Again? But that trick never works.
SC: “I haven’t been leaving very much because the manager actually bullied me into not leaving so much.”
….”Bullied”? Seriously? I’d bet money he “Politely asked” or “Told you to stop before he filed charges”.
SC: “He said I was leaving too many messages and not to do it. Which is ridiculous!”
You’ve left over 60 messages. 60! You don’t think that’s too many? What exactly is the threshold for “too many” in your world? 100? 200? 500? If you’d been calling the manager directly rather than us all this time, you’d have already been arrested.
SC: “You can’t bully someone into not leaving messages when your own info says to call them afterhours to leave a message.”
Actually you can. As most sane people would interpret “leave a message” as “leave a message” not as “Call and leave over 60 meticulously detailed messages raving insanely about a neighbour than demand that their children be taken away”.
SC: “Broken window, glass all over.”
Me: “Your window was broken?”
SC: “Yes, I don’t know how it got broken. I think it was all the banging and stomping from upstairs”
So your window just mysteriously broke itself all of a sudden and you’re blaming it on the upstairs neighbour? Seriously? You’re trying to tell me that your upstairs neighbour is so loud that the vibrations can shatter glass? Yet no one else in the building has ever overheard even a peep from this person except you?
Please seek professionally help.
Did I Miss Something?
I’m sure there’s a perfectly valid reason for half the females I walked passed tonight to be wearing cat ears. I don’t know what that reason is…..nor can I honestly imagine one that makes any sense, but I’m sure there is one. I hope there is one. I like to try to maintain the mental illusion I live in a reasonably normal city. Despite witnessing daily arguments to the contrary.
One of them even had a tail.
What?
Me: “Good evening, <company> emergency l-”
SC: “Harry Potter’s glasses are ROUND!”
Y….yes, yes they are. I was not aware there was any sort of vehement debate going on over this topic. But if it helps any, I’m totally with you. Those glasses are indeed round and we should draw and quarter the unbelievers who say otherwis-…er….I mean, uh, yes, agreeing with you. Definitely round.
Thats Not How This Works
Me: “Alright, I’ll page the tech and have him call you back there.”
SC: “No, you will call him right now.”
Oh ho ho, what’s this? You presume to order me to do something? Insolent mortal! You know not what powers you trifle with. The rules are absolute and they do not bend themselves to conform to your selfish whims. You endanger your very existence, or at the very least your access to expedient tech support, by making such foolish demands of me. Me. The lord and master of…..uh….the….pages…..and stuff.
An Epic Struggle
Tonight I emerged from Granville station into the midst of a Rap Apocalypse. MC Shake & Bake was battling for the corner spot with not one, not two, but three other buskers. Going toe to toe with two other rappers, and a dude that was beatboxing on a flute. Little did any of them realize the sheer career ending power of MC Shake & Bake. Seriously, this man is the antithesis of talent and his black tendrils of power extend well beyond his person. Enveloping and destroying any and all promising talent that wanders too close.
Case in point: This is a 4 way musical battle between 3 rappers and one dude that can beat box a flute, taking place on the busiest street in Vancouver, on the busiest night in Vancouver, and still, still it only managed to muster up an audience of one guy. Just one person actually cared enough to stop and watch. And I’m pretty sure he was just extremely intoxicated and making fun of them too. Seeing as he smelled like Tequila and Lysol, and was standing a little ways away striking ridiculous gangsta poses whenever one of the 3 struck a ridiculous gangsta pose. Then on top of that, Reefer Beat was a little ways up from them and he had totally giving up in the face of what he was hearing. He wasn’t even trying to play. Any and all inspiration or love for music he once had, had died.
So MC Shake & Bake managed to totally negated the performance of 4 other artists. 4! This man must be stopped, or at the very least his dark power somehow harnessed for the good of humanity rather than its misery. It is after all a truly impressive, if terrifying, ability. Perhaps we could get him front row seats to every Nickelback concert in Canada.
First Impressions
Me: "Good Ev-"
SC: “Uh, do you guys do CODs?!”
Me: “Yes.”
SC: “Oh…uh…..I want make ordar”
I believe it’s time to introduce you folks to the concept of “First Impressions”. You see, first impressions are, well, the first impression that another person has of you from the moment you waddle up and flop open the cranial steam valve that is your mouth. First impressions are quite important, and very difficult to change. So you really want to make sure you’re giving off the best first impression possible. Now, I know you probably aren’t aware of what a good first impression truly is. So let me run down a handy little list of examples with you:
Good First Impressions: “Polite”, “Intelligent”, “Well Prepared”, “Nice”, “Literate”, “Has opposable thumbs”.
Bad First Impressions: “Rude”, “Blathering”, “Sloped forehead”, “Needs to wipe chin after completing a thought”, “2nd Grade Reading Level”, “Unfortunate byproduct of an inverted family tree”, “Screaming for a lifeguard from the shallow end of the genepool”, “Humanoid incarnation of the black void where coherent thought goes to die”, “Smells funny.”.
annnnd rest.
Oh Yeah, Totally
Me: “Good evening, <company>, how may I help you?”
SC: “Do ya’ll do driver’s licenses?”
Me: “I’m sorry?”
Know how I know you didn’t listen to a word I said? That aside, I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “do driver’s licenses”. Do you think I’m the DMV? ….does the DMV have a 24 hour hotline?
SC: “So you don’t do like fake driver’s licenses?”
…..wait wait wait, back up a moment. You’re calling around for a fake driver’s license? Is there seriously some place that will not only readily commit a felony for you, but actually has a website and a toll free number? What the heck website were you on? I’m really curious now. You obviously were searching for this service online and came to a website where you believed this service could be purchased. Then without a second thought dialed up a toll free number despite the fact it’s quite doubtful that criminal forgery ring would have a website, call centre and toll free number. Though I guess uncovering any of those facts would require actually stopping and thinking any part of this plan through.
Hey, you know who knows all the local forgers and counterfeiters? The FBI! Maybe you should give them a shout. I’m sure they could hook you up. They probably have a toll free number too!
Processing Speed
Me: “and your phone number please?”
SC: “Uhhhhhh…..uhhhhh….”
Ahhh….a sound I am intimately familiar with. Through no want nor fault of my own. The dying cry of someone’s mental bull moose toppling over in the desolate clearing of their mind. Mortally wounded by a pinpoint strike of inquiry.
Me: “Alright, anything else?”
SC: “Yeah…..uh….wait….uh..............”
Very well.
( a minute later )
SC: "xxxx"
Me: "Alright, would you like anything else?”
SC: “Uh, yeah……uh wait............uhhhh.....”
…….Very well.
( .....two minutes of feverish page flipping later )
SC: "uh, xxxx"
Me: “Alright, anything else?”
SC: “Uh, hang on.”
…ok, look. I don’t mind that much when someone calls to place an order for 5+ items. However, if you’re going to be ordering so many items would you not have the foresight to oh, I don’t know, maybe make a list of the item numbers? Or at the very least mark what pages they’re on to save you from this desperate catalog safari? I’m not asking for much here. Just the slightest indication that you perhaps have at least a vague feeling that something is tragically wrong with the way you’re going about this. That while you may not fully comprehend the situation, you do at least sense, on some primal level, that you're missing something important.
I realize that your intellect is basically a stubbornly inert bull moose corpse at this point. But if you could at least push it to the edge of a ravine and let gravity take over, maybe we could get through this faster.
Why Of Course We Do
Me: “Good morning, <domain registrant>, how may I help you?”
SC: “Do you guys send out catalogs?”
……no, but I would honestly pay good money to see them try. Nice glossy full colour spreads of web pages with casual wear models posing in front of them in a variety of “family” activities possibly involving a dog or a smart alec kid showing his astounded father how to operate a mouse.
Everyone would be wearing polo shirts of course.
Awww
MC Shake & Bake was dejectedly packing up his gear and getting ready to leave when I arrived downtown this evening. So I totally missed what was surely a glorious performance. Although I do question exactly why he was out there tonight. As it meant he seriously had the thought: “Oh man, it’s cold, dark, windy, absolutely pouring rain and a week day. This is the perfect time to go outside and lay down phat beatz”. Now I fully admit this is not a man who can read an audience to begin with. But at the very least he should be able to grasp when a potential audience might actually be outside and willing to stop and listen.
Conversely, there was an unshaven hobo a ways up from him who was finger painting pure lunacy on what appeared to be half a surfboard. Yet he still had one person watching him. So the guy that hasn’t showered in 6 months and is finger painting a mural to human psychosis has more active fans than MC Shake & Bake.
One of these nights I’m going to have to actually stop and see if MC Shake & Bake seriously has some sort of stage name. I would dearly love to drudge up this man’s website and/or Facebook page. Purely for the entertainment value. You know he has one. Someone that thinks he’s that awesome despite the glaring reality before him undoubtedly has a virtual pen where he preens himself.
Hot Tips
Me: “Good evening, <client>.”
SC: “W05”
Me: “……..”
SC: “I’ll call back later.”
Ok, Zombie Nixon. You’re going to insist on becoming a regular, aren’t you? I assume that was some sort of code signal letting me know the dead drop of pizza crusts, Bruce Springsteen mix tapes and approximately 50 black & white print outs of screenshots of your victories at Minesweeper is ready for pick up. I also assume they’ve been left at the usual place? In the dumper in the parking lot, underneath a 1/6th scale posterboard cut out of Robert Pattinson?
You know, you really need to be more careful. I see, er, "enemy agents" dig through that dumpster all the time at night.
Yes
Me: “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.”
SC: “Um, no.”
Oh, good. We’ve moved from ignorance, to confusion, to questioning if have the right number, to outright denial to outright denial in a tone of voice that makes it sound like I’m supposed to be the idiot here. Well since you obviously missed the memo ( Hint: It was “Good evening, <domain registrant>, how may I help you?” ) we do not service, repair, replace or sell compressors in any way shape or form nor are we any sort of business remotely related to compressors.
I assume you need one to finish building the machine that will free you from the terrible limbo between raging stupidity and smug superiority that you seem to be stuck in.
Hot Tips
SC: “How come every time I call this number I receive death threats?”
I’m surprised you really need to ask.
Again?
MC Shake & Bake is still out there. He’s really giving it his all this week, I hope he didn’t quit his day job. Tonight he was engaged in some sort of…rap battle(?) with another “artist”. I’m not sure what the rules of engagement are for this particular type of conflict. It was already underway when I arrived, so I don’t if a challenger can just pull out a microphone as they’re walking by, wander up and throw down the gauntlet at you. Sort of like Pokemon trainers.
Perhaps they are doing battle over prime busker spots. It would explain why MC Shake & Bake shows up at varying locations and why if he’s not at the corner, there’s always a vastly superior performer at the corner. Regulating him to right outside the entrance of Granville where it smells like pee.
I fully admit not knowing exactly what the rules are here, but I was under the impression that any sort of rap battle required an audience to carefully gauge the amount of “serving” occurring between the competitors. However, there was not a single person watching these two go at it. Seriously. Absolutely no one was watching. There wasn’t even that many people just walking by. There was just me and one other guy waiting for the light to change. And the other guy had the same look of “Oh god, seriously?” that I’m sure I had on my face too.
I almost felt kind of bad for them. Or at least for the guy challenging MC Shake & Bake. I don’t think he was aware of the career ending vortex he had walked into. Although if he didn’t know before, he certainly knows now after MC Shake & Bake uttered the following: “Like the Canucks, shootin’ ice bowls-“. Ice bowls. Ice bowls. No, not "goals". I'm sure he was trying to head that way, but he tripped up and said bowls instead. That aside though. Dude. Seriously. You’re working with the one hockey team in the entire NHL that you can actually rhyme with “Pucks” and you go with bowls?! What is wrong with you and how did you ever get it into your head that you could rap?
The War Of The Roses
( Jesus this is what, the 4th week of this? )
SC: “This is Mr Brown, I’d like to leave a message.”
Again? But that trick never works.
SC: “I haven’t been leaving very much because the manager actually bullied me into not leaving so much.”
….”Bullied”? Seriously? I’d bet money he “Politely asked” or “Told you to stop before he filed charges”.
SC: “He said I was leaving too many messages and not to do it. Which is ridiculous!”
You’ve left over 60 messages. 60! You don’t think that’s too many? What exactly is the threshold for “too many” in your world? 100? 200? 500? If you’d been calling the manager directly rather than us all this time, you’d have already been arrested.
SC: “You can’t bully someone into not leaving messages when your own info says to call them afterhours to leave a message.”
Actually you can. As most sane people would interpret “leave a message” as “leave a message” not as “Call and leave over 60 meticulously detailed messages raving insanely about a neighbour than demand that their children be taken away”.
SC: “Broken window, glass all over.”
Me: “Your window was broken?”
SC: “Yes, I don’t know how it got broken. I think it was all the banging and stomping from upstairs”
So your window just mysteriously broke itself all of a sudden and you’re blaming it on the upstairs neighbour? Seriously? You’re trying to tell me that your upstairs neighbour is so loud that the vibrations can shatter glass? Yet no one else in the building has ever overheard even a peep from this person except you?
Please seek professionally help.
Did I Miss Something?
I’m sure there’s a perfectly valid reason for half the females I walked passed tonight to be wearing cat ears. I don’t know what that reason is…..nor can I honestly imagine one that makes any sense, but I’m sure there is one. I hope there is one. I like to try to maintain the mental illusion I live in a reasonably normal city. Despite witnessing daily arguments to the contrary.
One of them even had a tail.
What?
Me: “Good evening, <company> emergency l-”
SC: “Harry Potter’s glasses are ROUND!”
Y….yes, yes they are. I was not aware there was any sort of vehement debate going on over this topic. But if it helps any, I’m totally with you. Those glasses are indeed round and we should draw and quarter the unbelievers who say otherwis-…er….I mean, uh, yes, agreeing with you. Definitely round.
Thats Not How This Works
Me: “Alright, I’ll page the tech and have him call you back there.”
SC: “No, you will call him right now.”
Oh ho ho, what’s this? You presume to order me to do something? Insolent mortal! You know not what powers you trifle with. The rules are absolute and they do not bend themselves to conform to your selfish whims. You endanger your very existence, or at the very least your access to expedient tech support, by making such foolish demands of me. Me. The lord and master of…..uh….the….pages…..and stuff.
An Epic Struggle
Tonight I emerged from Granville station into the midst of a Rap Apocalypse. MC Shake & Bake was battling for the corner spot with not one, not two, but three other buskers. Going toe to toe with two other rappers, and a dude that was beatboxing on a flute. Little did any of them realize the sheer career ending power of MC Shake & Bake. Seriously, this man is the antithesis of talent and his black tendrils of power extend well beyond his person. Enveloping and destroying any and all promising talent that wanders too close.
Case in point: This is a 4 way musical battle between 3 rappers and one dude that can beat box a flute, taking place on the busiest street in Vancouver, on the busiest night in Vancouver, and still, still it only managed to muster up an audience of one guy. Just one person actually cared enough to stop and watch. And I’m pretty sure he was just extremely intoxicated and making fun of them too. Seeing as he smelled like Tequila and Lysol, and was standing a little ways away striking ridiculous gangsta poses whenever one of the 3 struck a ridiculous gangsta pose. Then on top of that, Reefer Beat was a little ways up from them and he had totally giving up in the face of what he was hearing. He wasn’t even trying to play. Any and all inspiration or love for music he once had, had died.
So MC Shake & Bake managed to totally negated the performance of 4 other artists. 4! This man must be stopped, or at the very least his dark power somehow harnessed for the good of humanity rather than its misery. It is after all a truly impressive, if terrifying, ability. Perhaps we could get him front row seats to every Nickelback concert in Canada.
First Impressions
Me: "Good Ev-"
SC: “Uh, do you guys do CODs?!”
Me: “Yes.”
SC: “Oh…uh…..I want make ordar”
I believe it’s time to introduce you folks to the concept of “First Impressions”. You see, first impressions are, well, the first impression that another person has of you from the moment you waddle up and flop open the cranial steam valve that is your mouth. First impressions are quite important, and very difficult to change. So you really want to make sure you’re giving off the best first impression possible. Now, I know you probably aren’t aware of what a good first impression truly is. So let me run down a handy little list of examples with you:
Good First Impressions: “Polite”, “Intelligent”, “Well Prepared”, “Nice”, “Literate”, “Has opposable thumbs”.
Bad First Impressions: “Rude”, “Blathering”, “Sloped forehead”, “Needs to wipe chin after completing a thought”, “2nd Grade Reading Level”, “Unfortunate byproduct of an inverted family tree”, “Screaming for a lifeguard from the shallow end of the genepool”, “Humanoid incarnation of the black void where coherent thought goes to die”, “Smells funny.”.
annnnd rest.
, and purchased a lot of crap.
I really wish I was brave enough to wear mine all the time. Maybe not the accompanying tail, though. 
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