-2 Plus 2 is Zero

Posted on September 13, 2017 by admin

Netflix did two great Marvel series ― Daredevil and Jessica Jones…well, the first season of Daredevil, anyway. The second? Meh. There’s been no second season of Jessica Jones (yet) so it remains great. Netflix then did two not-so-great series: Luke Cage and Iron Fist. Luke Cage couldn’t figure out what it was, another noir-ish Daredevilish series or a Blaxploitation film. Iron Fist? Flat out disaster. Obviously, the four were heading to a Defenders team-up series and yep, here it is, a chance for Netflix to right some wrongs and bring the characters up to the Jessica Jones/1st-season-of-Daredevil level…

Fail.

I suspect some corporate people walked in right after the first seasons of Daredevil/Jessica Jones and said we need to add more cowbell. That’s why we got the Hand in Daredevil #2, instead of the expected and logical follow-on, the Rose.

That’s why the uber-urbanization of Luke Cage, who gets the theme song from Shaft every single time he strolls on screen (I expect everyone to break into a pimp roll), and the silly hippie-dippy Danny Rand. And that’s why the Defenders simply don’t work. Too comic-booky, too ridiculous. Too much cowbell.

Let’s start with the Hand which, at the end of Daredevil and Iron Fist, was some shadowy ninja crime organization led by the creepy and formidable Madame Gao and we’re not quite sure what’s their deal but they’re messing around with resurrection or something. We did get the best Punisher ever out of it, so it’s a wash. But now the Hand is this solar-system wide hyper-super-crime-running-everything Asian Hydra led by immortals and Ripley from Alien, with Madame Gao reduced to some simpering poodle. Thanos-level bad guys, they are, so the Avengers should be handling this. But no, to save us we get four bickering angst-ridden C-list street fighters working out their Personal Issues, which means we’re so doomed. Fortunately, the Hand is every bit as incompetent as they are ridiculous. Must have something to do with all that dragon blood they’re drinking.

The Hand is intent on dropping Hell’s Kitchen down a deep tunnel, and they need Iron Fist in order to do this. Why? Beats me, but it has something to do with the dragon blood, which apparently addles the mind because, Madame Gao, you HAD Iron Fist back during the Iron Fist series. Had ‘im! In your clutches! And you let him go. Bit short-sighted, wouldn’t you say? You’d think you Hand guys would work this stuff out ahead of time. Would have saved us a lot of third-rate badly choreographed martial arts fights all shot in the murkiest filtering possible so you can’t see how really bad Finn Jones and Jessica Henwick are.

More evidence of the Hand’s incompetence: Elektra. The Hand throws Elektra into one of their stone coffins and pumps it full of their last bit of precious dragon blood and create…Elektra! They’re calling her the Black Sky, but don’t be fooled, it’s Elektra. Looks like Elektra, fights like Elektra, just minus the attitude, so dousing her in dragon blood made her incrementally more pleasant. Certainly wasn’t to give her enhanced fighting powers, at least, not until the last two or three episodes when someone over there woke up and went oh crap, if we’re going to make Elektra into something called the Black Sky we should give her some kind of abilities that go with such an ominous and obscure name change. In other words, her kicks got better. No wonder the other immortals are PO’d at Ripley.

No wonder the Avengers didn’t bother showing up because the Hand couldn’t fight its way out of wet paper bag. Here you’ve got Madame Gao, who can point her finger and break down walls, and Ripley and some sword slingers and about ten thousand immortal ninja fighters and the Black Sky and they can’t even beat Daredevil by himself, much less the rest of the Defenders. Heck, a couple of traffic cops could have cleared this all up.

Not Iron Fist, though. He couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag, either, because that fabled Iron Fist? We get to see it for oh, say, a minute and a half during the entire series. And then, only when Danny goes through about twelve hours of meditation, and then only for about three or four seconds. When it does show up, it’s a mofo, but all the Hand has to do is wait for Danny to angst himself out of the glowy hand and then beat the crap out of him and then trick him into getting glowy hand back for the two or three seconds they need to smack down some wall (which Madame Gao could have knocked down over lunch) to get the dragon blood. So, Danny Rand spent his whole life working out twelve hours a day in some snowbound hellhole and then plunged his hand into the molten heart of Shou-Lao the Undying, just so he could chant up glowy fist every ten days or so?

Dude, you got gyped.

As did we.

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Everything is Permitted

Posted on September 7, 2017 by admin

At some past con, the lovely and hilarious Jennifer Jayne introduced me to the Museum of Science Fiction, so when MSF put on Escape Velocity 2017 in downtown DC, I decided to take myself down there and see what fusses were being made. This is not your standard con because it’s STEM oriented and had a lot of science stuff for kids. Science stuff, people. For kids.

                        

But there were still enough con elements to attract we geeks:

What universe is this?

 I have no idea what this is.

Iron Man and Captain A pitched me for Avengers membership, but my only superpower is bad jeans, so wouldn’t work.

In case you’re planning a visit to the desert:

Security:

While I was floating around, I noticed Cas Anvar manning a booth. I knew who he was from The Expanse (what? You don’t know The Expanse??? Stop reading, go watch Season 1, then resume reading) but there were Assassin’s Creed posters all over his booth and I queried. Some helpful bystander said, “Don’t you know he’s Altair?”

I did not.

So I genuflected before Cas Anvar and pledged my firstborn (Sky, you report on Wednesday) and told him what a fanatic Assassin’s Creed guy I was. Indeed, I had just finished Revelations a few months ago, which got me quite the askance glance and I had to explain that I’m really, really slow. “So, mortal!” Cas’ godlike voice boomed, “Thinkest thou an expert? Answer these questions three!” And he gave me a quiz, promising me treasure and a princess if I won and I blew it. Just. Blew. It. Couldn’t remember anything about the golden discs or the Apple and barely able to answer what Etzio found in the library. And, yes, YES! I DID see Etzio’s movie at the end! He took pity on me and signed an AC poster and then tried to kill me.

A little later on, Anvar had a panel

where he strived mightily to show clips from The Expanse but he was relying on Earth tech and not Martian so it didn’t work quite right. Didn’t matter, entertaining and informative panel, it was. Anvar (who was going to be a chemical engineer before getting the acting bug so no slouch, this guy) spent most of it talking about the science of the series, which he called a character in its own right. The producers are constantly consulting with physicists, astro and otherwise, to ensure effects are correct. Space is trying to kill them in every show, is an obstacle they have to overcome, so it’s gotta be right.

Anvar said he didn’t want to fake his way through the piloting sequences, so he learned the consoles for each kind of ship. When he got the console for the Rocinante, the badass Martian corvette the crew stole, there was no joystick like you see on every other kind of space ship in scifi-dom because the Rocie is too damn fast. In high g’s, your arms weigh forty pounds apiece so how can you whip a joystick about? His controls are actually fingertip pods.

Space battles aren’t punch outs between phasers and lasers, but involve rail guns hurling grapefruit-sized pieces of metal at each other. A grapefruit-sized piece of metal moving at hypersonic speeds turns a ship’s hull into plasma and goes right through, hot knife and butter, and out the other side for eternity. In a couple thousand light years or so, ET could get winged by a stray shot. Shredding the hull causes it to pop like a balloon so all the air has to be pumped out of the ship before a battle begins, which is why everyone suits up.

Cool.

Also cool, Joe Haldeman.

Yes, Joe Haldeman was there, author of The Forever War and maybe a lot of other things but that’s what everybody knows. He was introduced as the guy who invented military science fiction and no, he isn’t; Heinlein is. But this is a quibble because Haldeman introduced the mind bending concept of time differentials; you know, wormholes and distances age a soldier twenty years while the Earth ages 2000, so how do you keep fighting for a society that disappeared centuries ago? It’s like those Japanese soldiers on remote Pacific Islands still fighting WW2.

Haldeman’s wife was sitting in the front row and, several times, had to correct or remind him of events. Got pretty hilarious. Proof that wives remember everything. Every. Thing.

Haldeman got his draft number in the 60’s (young’uns, you’re going to have to Google that) and, like everybody else, panicked and asked the Army what could he do to improve his situation, which is like asking Hannibal Lector for dinner recipes. Why, you can go ahead and join, said the spider. Of course, said the fly, and I would absolutely like to stay away from war if I could, hearing that it’s not very healthy and the Army said sure! We’ll give you two years as a laboratory assistant…[whisper: after we send you to Vietnam for a year].

Things never change.

Haldeman was wounded 27 times in Vietnam, no doubt including those annoying little secondary cuts and scrapes that usually accompany the bigger things like bullet holes and eviscerations. Wound’s a wound, though, and raised glass in your direction, brother. This, of course, gave him a lot to write about, which was good because he’d always wanted to be a writer and the Army gave him the opportunity to visit exotic locales, meet interesting people, and kill them…only you vets will get that. Before going to Vietnam, Haldeman had studied astronomy and physics and the war gave him, as he put it, a “great existential advantage” to put all that into scifi form.

Scifi was his refuge. When he got back from Vietnam in 1969, he missed most of the social changes because he was immersed in the genre, isolating him from all the craziness. His “scifi buddies,” Heinlein in particular, helped him recover from combat.

His first published story was for Galaxy and, by the time he wrote the novel, he was an established scifi short story writer.

The Forever War was the right book at the right time. Most military scifi up to the point was right-wing, pro-government, and very male. His was different. It was based on Vietnam, for one thing, and had women combatants and homosexuality and these things don’t mix so get those women (and gays) out of there! He contacted seventeen publishers, not a one of them giving him the time of day, and was in a fairly foul mood when he attended the Nebula Awards dinner. He “pissed and moaned” to a bunch of his friends that no one wanted his story. Ben Bova had been running chapters of it as a serial called “The Hero” and mused that St. Martin’s Press, not known as a scifi imprint, was interested in Vietnam and might be approachable. They were, by chance, at the dinner, and Haldeman approached them and the rest is history.

The novel’s title came from riffs with his brother as they were driving somewhere. They went through several possible titles, his brother coming up with “The War that Lasts Forever,” and Haldeman responding, “The Forever War.” At that moment, a golden light enveloped the car and angels sang, so he kept it. Judy Lynn at Del Rey didn’t like the title. At all. Or the book. So that’s how he ended up at St. Martin’s.

Haldeman wrote the second Star Trek novel, called Planet of Judgment. It came after Spock Must Die. He also wrote The Forever Peace, which is not a sequel to The Forever War and he took a lot of crap because it wasn’t a sequel so he wrote an actual sequel, Forever Free, to shut everyone up. He writes his drafts in longhand. Haldeman got involved with Damon Knight and the Clarion Writer’s workshop from the beginning. No one back then intended to start a scifi industry; it just worked out that way. While he was at Milford, Disney approached him to write a ride for Epcot. Turned out to be A Journey Through the Solar System.

Despite the military theme of the book, Haldeman considered himself a failed soldier. He never was “into” the Army or the military lifestyle. His generation changed the world and left it a mess. He does not think much of academia’s attempts to turn any kind of genre writing into academic writing (I think he’s referring to scholastic papers about scifi and such). If you paint stripes on a giraffe, it’s not a tiger. Academic writing is just that, academic. And I freely admit to not being fully versed on what he meant here.

Afterwards, I got my copy of The Forever War signed and told him I’d spent twenty years in and that he’d written war from the viewpoint of the typical grunt: as long we’re getting paid, getting laid, and getting promoted, doesn’t really matter what the Army makes us do.

Ain’t it the truth?

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Can Die Now

Posted on August 10, 2017 by admin

A couple of May’s ago, I had double bypass surgery. Came completely out of the blue, like, I guess it does for anyone. I mean, it’s not like you get up one morning and say, “Hey, I think I’ll have double bypass surgery this afternoon.” It’s not normally how one plans to spend a summer.

Point is, there I was, all trussed up with duct tape and staples and getting hypodermic-ed every fifteen minutes or so when it occurred to me that I had some unfinished business. Not only was the last book of the Partholon trilogy, Col’m, hanging fire, but so were the second and third books of the Frank Vaughn trilogy, which I had started about seven years ago. Should the marvelous medical care I was receiving somehow not suffice, I’d leave this vale of tears with untold stories.

So, since then, I’ve been jobbing it. Haven’t been going to conventions or spending a lot of time promoting or doing blogs or Facebook; instead, I’ve been writing. And writing, And writing. And the result?:

a. Col’m is now with Genghis Jayne, the much beloved and quite murderous editor of Rebel E Publishers, the second set of edits and rewrites completed, the finishing touches being added while Eege does his formatting magic. The first drafts of the cover are under review and a tentative release date of September 11 (yes, that’s deliberate) set and…ta daa, the Partholon trilogy is finished. Well, the FIRST Partholon trilogy is finished which is, yes, a gigantic and obvious indication that a second Partholon trilogy is in the works;

b. Yesterday, I finished the last book of the Frank Vaughn trilogy. Called Looking for Don, it’s set in 1974-ish south Jersey and, while it is the third book, it is actually the interim story between the first book, called Frank Vaughn Killed by his Mom, and the second, called Southern Gothic. Wha? The first book is about a ten-year-old’s bizarre trip across the south in 1965 with his psychotic dad…and the spirit of a murdered classmate. The second book covers the same characters forty years later. The third book is how they got from there to here. Trust me, it works.

Col’m and the Frank Vaughn trilogy were the must-do’s, the books I absolutely had to write before kicking off. They’re bucket list. Anything I write from this point forward is gravy, by the grace of God. It is the grace of God that I finished the must-do’s.

Not that I don’t have anything else cooking. I’ve got a YA book called The Cryman, which is probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever written, sitting in a first draft. Thing is so blasted scary I’m not sure YA’s could handle it, even though the characters are 12 and 13 years old. The second Partholon trilogy, which may actually need to be a fourpology to do it justice, has already been mentioned, and I’m also planning a series of novellas to resolve the loose ends of The Ship to Look for God trilogy. That’ll be Tales of the 1st Ranger Battalion, or something like that. I’m also playing with an idea that would end up being the most racist novel ever written, just because of the fun it’ll cause, and another which would be one of the most brutal scifi stories ever written, far more brutal than Partholon.  And it’s not like the Frank Vaughn trilogy is reader-friendly right now. All three books are in serious need of re-write after re-write and then editing before they are presentable. So, I’ve got stuff to do.

But, at least the stories I needed to do are done. So I can go, should my name be called. Inshallah.

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Better Late than Never

Posted on July 23, 2017 by admin

I’ve never been a Led Zeppelin fan. Don, my best friend in high school,

was a Zeppelin fanatic, almost making a religion out of them, but I didn’t see the attraction. I was more of a Deep Purple guy.

Could be because my only exposure to them was the radio, and about the only Zep being played was the Immigrant Song and Whole Lotta Love and, ya know, fine. The first Zep album I listened to all the way through was Zofo, and then only for Stairway to Heaven which, when it first came out, blew us collectively away because it was such an out-of-character song, like Dream On for Aerosmith. The album seemed more of a novelty than standard and, after about a hundred playthroughs, meh, done with ’em.

Over the past five years or so, I have been re-creating my original album collection (of which only a few records survived the decades of travel and moving), picking up a few here and there from yard sales and thrift shops. I now have  about 1000 albums, give or take, and I am going through the very slow process of recording them over to CD or DVD or whatever. The other day I was selecting the next recording victims when I ran across a bunch of Zep albums. Huh, how ‘bout that, didn’t even know I had ‘em. Let’s see what the fuss was about, Don, and I put on Zep I.

Blew. Me. Away.

If nothing else, the little acoustic set called Black Mountain Side makes the whole album. The musicianship is outstanding, the songs are outstanding; it is one of the best rock albums ever. Don, you were right.

So I immediately put on 3 and Zofo and Houses of the Holy and In Through the Out Door and none of them, with the possible exception of Door, is as good. In fact, those albums tend to reinforce my lesser held opinion of the band. Goes to show, the first efforts are usually the best, back when you loved what you were doing and hadn’t gone all corporate.

Right, Stephen King?

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The Top Five TV Comedies In No Particular Order

Posted on July 2, 2017 by admin

I was channel-surfing and locked onto a binge of Scrubs and settled in to watch a few episodes and was reminded that there were, over the years, some outstanding comedies. Not many. The vast majority of sitcoms were populated with things like Laverne and Shirley and One Day at a Time; you know, laff track wretchedness. These, though, were gems:

1. Scrubs. Lightning fast repartee that requires you to rewind the DVR from time to time to catch everything said, this series was hee-larious. Doctor Dorian and his dream-world cutaways were comedy gold, simply gold. The series ended perfectly, too, that last show putting everything in its right place. And then some idiot tried to revive the show on another channel and another venue and, uh uh, uh uh.

2. Community. Even faster and funnier than Scrubs, with so many jokes coming at you from so many directions that a half-hour show became an hour from all the rewinding. For the first three or four seasons, that is, until the writers decided to turn it into the Abed show. Why’d they do that?

 

3. That 70’s Show.  This was my teenage life. My best friend, Don, was Forman; I was a combination of Hyde and Forman, and the Third Musketeer, Drew, was a combination of Hyde and Kelso. We all hung out in Don’s basement. Who were Donna and Jackie? Various girls who came and went. The stuff they do in the show? It was the stuff I did. You had to be there.

 

4. Frasier. The thinking man’s Cheers. Don’t get me wrong, Cheers was great, but Frasier was a step-up.

5. Newhart. The one where he’s running the inn, not being the psychiatrist which, itself, was pretty funny. But the oddballs in the later show put it in the win category. This is my brother Darrel.

Silicone Valley is a definite top five, it’s just I only  had five slots.

What, no Seinfeld? Nah. Too meta.

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10 Reasons Cats Are Better Than Dogs, Kids, and Wives

Posted on June 14, 2017 by admin

 

1. Dogs: “What are we doing? “What are we doing?” “What are we doing?” “What are we doing?” “What are we doing?” “What are we doing?”

Kids: “What are you doing for me?” “What are you doing for me?” “What are you doing for me?” “What are you doing for me?” “What are you doing for me?”

Wives: see “Kids”

Cats: “Hey, howya doin’? Thanks for breakfast. See you at dinner.”

 

2. Dogs: crap everywhere and anywhere at anytime.

Kids: crap everywhere and anywhere at anytime up until about two years old, with relapses.

Wives: won’t leave the damn toilet seat up

Cats: bury their crap

 

3.  Dogs: take over the bed and steal the blankets

Kids: take over the bed and prevent other activities

Wives: kick you out of bed

Cats: warm the bed up

 

4. Dogs: bark at the neighbors, the postman, and friends, never at burglars or Jehovah’s Witnesses

Kids: introduce potential burglars

Wives: swear every sound, especially at 2 in the morning, is a burglar

Cats: You kidding? Get a dog

 

5. Dogs: are disgusting.

Kids: are disgusting

Wives: say you’re disgusting

Cats: are disgusting but you don’t know it

 

6. Dogs: steal your food off your plate

Kids: steal your food out the refrigerator

Wives: buy food you do not want

Cats: bring you food

 

7. Dogs: eat revolting glop

Kids: want revolting glop

Wives: buy revolting glop for kids with your money

Cats: their glop could be tuna

 

8. Dogs: Slobber

Kids: Slobber

Wives: never slobber, dammit

Cats: Hairballs, but you can vacuum those up

 

9. Dogs: rolled up newspaper, lots of yelling, obedience school

Kids: rolled up newspaper, lots of yelling, boarding school

Wives: forget it

Cats: teach you, you don’t teach them

 

10. Dogs: constant licking

Kids: constant whining

Wives: see “Kids”

Cats: purring. That’s nice  

 

Posted in Life in the Shenandoah Valley | Comments Off on 10 Reasons Cats Are Better Than Dogs, Kids, and Wives

My Son Got Married on Saturday

Posted on May 30, 2017 by admin

Everything you need to know about marriage you learned in kindergarten:

The sand ceremony:

I had no idea what that was. I kept expecting these guys to show up:

The reception:

Everyone who claimed some kind of parental responsibility for either bride or groom:

The best man:

The better women:

My two other sons:

They’re not really my sons, but I bought them enough pizza in high school to count.

Uncle Ralph and Aunt Brenda and Chris and Sidney showed up: 

So did the Germans:

Uncle Ralph meets the Germans:

Uncle Ralph meets Diesel and Luna:

Moms getting sloshed:

Moms getting danced:

Congratulations, son. Welcome to the family, Ashley. Watch out for the cat. She plots.

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Acknowledge Mints

Posted on May 17, 2017 by admin

I’ve been noticing lately that acknowledgments are popping up in novels. Huh? Aren’t novels fiction? What’s the deal?

Acknowledgments in non-fiction, sure. All the time. Downright required because of all the research that goes into a non-fiction book. Simply can’t pull up a Wikipedia page, ya know; gotta visit dozens of Podunk libraries and repositories and museums and sift through relevant papers and letters with the assistance of Podunk archivists, which is a lot of work, a lot more than sitting in a dark attic in front of a laptop making crap up. An extensive Acknowledgments section is definitely in order, at the very least thanking the Podunkians and, more importantly, listing the many places where critical documents and information are located, should some future reader contend with the non-fiction book’s conclusions and wish to refute. Or do further research. Or avoid re-doing research already completed. Serves quite an important purpose, these acknowledgments. Lends an air of credibility, too.

But in fiction?

It’s puzzling. Fiction writing indulges a conceit, not adds to the body of knowledge like, oh say, providing a minute-by-minute account of the Normandy invasion or explaining the succession of English kings. Even if your novel concerns a sergeant minute-by-minute at Normandy or some lowly peasant musing about the succession of English kings, it’s still fiction, it’s still you, just you, writing a story. A story. Not a report. And, yes, many novels require Podunkian research to get the settings and slang and milieu (NOTE: one of my goals this week is to use ‘milieu’ in a sentence) correct, BUT…understand, it’s still self-referent. A note or two listing source materials or explaining how much you’ve deviated from true history might be in order. In “Notes.” Or an appendix. Not Acknowledgements. We readers know its fiction. You made it up, cupcake, no matter how accurately you’ve rendered the setting.

Yes, yes, all of us authors believe that every word that drips from the end of our pens heightens world peace and brings humanity that much closer to Utopia. It does take an abnormally inflated ego to believe one can sling words together in a pleasing enough manner that other people might enjoy it. Most of us know that (at least, I hope most of us do) and try to maintain at least a facade of humbleness…hold on while I admire myself for my humbleness…and try not to take ourselves more seriously than I ought. Try.

But these ever-lengthening fiction acknowledgement sections are evidence to the contrary. Much gushing, there is, about how great it was that I, Mr. Author, experienced this wondrous thing called Writing a Novel, and I wish to mention the Liddle Peepul who rendered me a service, like my agent and my editor and my publisher and the typesetter, all of whom performed acts of agenting and editing and typesetting unlike ever done in previous instances of novel publication and who are the most brilliant and effective and wonderful people in the entire world and let’s not forget my wife and children who provided So Much Support…TRANSLATION: these people are lucky I bestowed the wonder that is me upon them, allowing them an opportunity to bask in my brilliance. You peasants.

Dudes, knock it off. Write a short, mysterious dedication like you’re supposed to. And shut up.

 

NOTE: (Hey, see how that works?) While I was writing this screed, I idly wondered if anyone else was irritated by this trend and, wouldn’t you know?

Posted in Writing itself | Comments Off on Acknowledge Mints

Jell-O Fist

Posted on April 23, 2017 by admin

My all-time top favorite Marvel heroes are:

         

  

with Cap being the top of the top. Why? Because they’re regular guys, not god-like, nigh-on invulnerable ubermensch such as Superman and Thor. Unless you had some kryptonite or Loki’s staff handy, fighting them was pretty much suicide. The Marvel guys, though, could be beaten, even by regular schmos like Gladiator

or Tarantula;

heck,  they could be killed. Cap has been killed, or so I’ve heard. By Crossbones,

or so I’ve heard. Daredevil actually has a handicap, a radioactive muffler (we had radioactive car parts in the 60s, doncha know) taking his sight while giving him bat radar while martial arts training gave him badassery. And Iron Fist…oh, c’mon, plunging his hand into the fiery heart of Shou-Lao the Undying?

Now what 1970’s era martial artist like moi didn’t want to do the same thing?

So when Netflix announced an Iron Fist series, I was all atwitter. After all, they’d done a bang-up job with Daredevil (maybe not so much in Season 2, except for the best Punisher ever

), Jessica Jones (with the most terrifying villain ever,

except for maybe Doctor Doom), and Luke Cage…

well, two out of three ain’t bad. I settled in, popcorn in hand, to watch and…

What? The? Hell?

I mean, seriously, Netflix, what the hell? I don’t know what this series is, but it’s definitely not Iron Fist. Jello Fist, more like it.

Foist of all, Danny Rand’s not some naïve waif-like barefoot hippie spouting Zen koans and bewildered by The Real World. Danny Rand is a badass, with badass attitudes. After all, he marched out of Kun’Lun in full Iron Fist regalia and yanked Rand Enterprises out from under the legless Harold Meachum (if you know the original comic books, that’s funny). With the approval and encouragement of Lei Kung the Thunderer.

What’s this “guardian of the pass” crap?

Second, Iron Fist is a master martial artist. This guy Finn or Swede or whoever is a green belt. Colleen Wing is a green belt. Both are getting their clocks cleaned by other green belts. About the only one who looks like he knows what he’s doing is Davos.

I’m beginning to back his claim to the Iron Fist.

And who wrote this thing? Because, seriously, the Big Reveal about Colleen Wing?

Amateur hour.

One more question: where the hell is the Iron Fist? I think we’ve seen it once or twice. Maybe.

I vote for an immediate reboot.

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Verizon is the Devil

Posted on April 4, 2017 by admin
Yesterday, I got a bill in the mail from Verizon for $66.99. This is odd because all of my Verizon accounts are prepaid; in other words, I do not receive bills through the mail. Especially bills that are for more than my pre-paid accounts, and especially when, the day before, I got the monthly text from Verizon thanking me for my pre-paid account payments. Perhaps I should inquire.
Any of you who have Verizon know that making a telephone inquiry into billing matters is somewhat akin to the Bataan Death March: you have to grimly hold on and hope to God you reach the end of it without some screaming guard bayoneting you in the back. So, forget the 800 number; go for the Chat on the Verizon website. So I did.
I got a bright cheerful customer service rep named K (no names will be used in this) who was very excited and happy to help me. So I said I got this bill through the mail and I had no idea what it was for, and K was very excited and happy that I told her that, and was very excited and happy when I (a) got my secret code right and (b) guessed which of my secret questions was currently in force. I can’t really blame her for being excited and happy with every correct response. No doubt, up to 50% of persons querying through the website are not quite sure what their own names are, much less secret codes and questions.
So she checked my account and noted no such bill was there, and I told her yes, I know, because I checked my account, too, before initiating the Chat and saw no such bill and I am now Chatting to find out what exactly this bill is, which made her happy and excited. Is the bill for phone service or internet service? Don’t know, K, because it does not say what the bill is designed to pay, only that I am to pay $66.99. Is one of your cell phone numbers listed on the bill? No, K, they are not; there is an account number listed on it, though, which made K very happy and excited and I gave it to her. A few minutes later, a puzzled K advised the account number was not for any pre-paid account but appeared to be for a postpaid account, like a landline. I don’t have a postpaid account, K, nor a landline. Okay, K said, all happy and excited, so you will need to go to Chat for the postpaid accounts.
Uh, what?
Turns out there are different chats at different levels in Verizon world. See, you thought that Verizon, being this technically sophisticated organization, could simply get someone from postpaid onto the same Chat that I was currently enjoying with K. Oh, you peasant you. Turns out that getting onto the Postpaid chat is a little more complicated than getting on the mere prepaid Chat. You have to log off prepaid, click Device, then Contacts, then hit Chat and then you will be talking to postpaid. Intuitive, right? All of this K happily and with great excitement explained to me, although she did not call me a peasant. That was implied.
So, I clicked through the Verizon universe until I was on Chat with another K, who I suspect was the very same K I was talking to in the bourgeois prepaid Chat because this K was just as happy and excited to help me as the first K. Got through codes and security questions and I explained what the issue was and K2 was concerned as well as happy and excited because she did not show me having any postpaid accounts. Ah, the same sheet of music at last, so she asked me what the bill was for and I said I did not know and did it show what telephone number the bill applied to and I said no it only showed an account number and then she asked if it showed an invoice number and I puzzled over the bill and located five digits next to the amount I owed but that turned out not to be an invoice number so K2 checked the account number and, waddya know, it not only does not show up as a postpaid account, it’s in the wrong format for any Verizon account, post or pre. Aha! Progress! So, K2, am I getting scammed here? Is this a fraud? Can I scan the bill to your security department?
Well, no, let’s try something else first. Why don’t you, peasant, call one of the 800 numbers listed on the bill while I stand by here and then you can tell me over Chat what they said?
Uhm.
As previously mentioned, I am not one to willingly enter the Death March of Verizon Customer Service over the phone, so I typed more or less the following back to K2: “Next to being boiled alive in skunk oil, calling a Verizon Customer Service Representative is one of the worst experiences a human can endure. Do I really have to do this?”
At which point, an alert popped up on my screen saying that I had been on Chat far too long for Verizon’s liking, and they were now logging me off. Which they did.
Co-inkidink?
I looked around for someone to strangle but the only thing in reach was the cat and, well, not her fault, so I logged on to postpaid Chat again. After the usual protocols, I got another perky young thing named H, and I told H that I had been this close to getting this mystery solved when Verizon decided to log me off. He said he was really sorry and mournful about that and couldn’t send me back to K2 to resume where we left off, but he’d be real happy and excited to start the whole thing over again. I told him no, forget it, I was going to go waste another couple of hours at the Verizon Store downtown which would probably get me right up to the point the mystery was solved, then close for the evening. I then logged off.
So today I went over to the Verizon store, bill in hand, and was met with immediate hostility. The hostile guy tried to tell me it was a landline bill and got more hostile when I told him I didn’t have a landline. So he starts doing some stuff on his handheld and then on the PC and, ya know, it’s not a landline. So he called the Bataan Death March. However, him being an employee, he knows all the secret call signs and handshakes to keep the guards from bayoneting him, and got through to an actual, half-hostile person. Turns out it was a bill for my internet service which, funny enough, was no longer on autopay. See, back in December, I called the Death March and changed my card and made a payment with the new one, but, unbeknownst to me, in order to continue autopaying on the new card, I had to agree to the terms and services, which cannot be done over the phone when making a payment. Instead, they sent the terms and services agreement to…an Email I haven’t used in five years. An Email, incidentally, that, whenever I went to my Verizon Wireless Internet account, I noted as still being listed as my Email and, after saying a few choice words, I would change to my current Email. Every single time I went there. For about the last two years. Which is why I did not get the terms and services, which is why the new card was not listed on autopay.
Fine.
I got half-hostile person to change the Email…again…and verify, over the phone, terms and services so my autopay is, allegedly, now fixed. As for the bill, I said go ahead and pay it using the new card…at which point, her system shut down.
I am going to find a Gypsy and put a curse on the Verizon CEO and the entire board.
Posted in Life in the Shenandoah Valley | Comments Off on Verizon is the Devil