redllama.net

redllama Just Turned 10 Years Old

In honor of the llama hitting the ‘ol One-Oh I held a “Name the Llama” content in my own head… and won. Ten years and he’s never had a name. But now, I finally can print out his long awaited birth certificate.

Fun Facts: That’s…

• 3 years younger than Google.
• 5 years younger than AOL.
• 6 years younger than Yahoo! & eBay
• 7 years younger than Amazon.
• 2 years older than MySpace.
• 3 years older than GMail & facebook.
• 4 years older than YouTube.
• 5 years older than Twitter.

Oh, and as for the winning name, drum roll… Llarry Spitzer.

Verizon Live Chat… Convenient or Stupid?

I had some trouble/quetion with my FiOS bill the other day. While I was logged on to MyVerizon I looked for some Live/Online help. After about 5-6 links that randomly took me to other links, I found it.

Chat Subject: FiOS Billing Question
Your Question: I was double charged for my FiOS Internet this month. $74 instead of $37.
A Verizon eCenter Representative will be with you shortly. Thank you. (17:19:20)
17:28:46 We apologize for the delay.You are next in the line. A representative will be with you shortly.

OK. Cool. I’ll just wait here and do other things, rather than pressing a phone to the side of my head, that usually cause sweaty ear syndrome. Plus there’s this nifty little countdown of what place I was in queue. Looks like Verizon has got it’s shit together. Can you hear me now? Ha, ha! Oh hum, lets continue, shall we?

Agent Patricia has joined. (17:28:56)
Patricia : Chat ID for this session is <some randomly generated number>. (17:28:56)

Sweet, an agent. Took almost ten minutes but it’s 5PM. I assume they might be a tad bit busy around this time of day. Annnnd, a minute rolls by. Not a peep. So, I give this pick-up line a whirl.

Boofer(17:30:13): hello?

Smooth aren’t I? Meh, I got nothing. Not until 20 more seconds later at least. Then I get this…

Patricia (17:30:33): Hello. Thank you for visiting our chat service. I will be happy to help you today. Do you have your account number please and I will be happy to check for you.

Well, that didn’t looked scripted. It must be Patricia’s first day on the job. Still getting use to that fancy keyboard. Damn you, QWERTY!

Boofer(17:30:50): <some stupid assigned number given to me a long time ago>
Patricia(17:32:41): One moment while I check for you.

Hey! She was paying attention this time. I mean, Hey! Tow minutes later she was paying attention this time.

Now, she’s going to “check for me”. Translation: she’s going to close out all those pesky windows that hide the desktop, since that’s the true way to navigate an operating system, and then double click that “billing program” icon like twelve times. If at first it doesn’t succeed, try, try again. And again. And again. That’s how computers work. If it looks like it’s doing nothing, you’re correct, it isn’t. Click, asset, repeat. I should write “Help Desk Support for Dummies”.

Looking back, I guess it all makes sense now. When people use to ask, “Wow, got enough windows open?” Umm, yea, I’m using them. It’s called multitasking. I listed it on my resume and everything. Well, I mean, it makes perfect sense to close out your browser window to get to the desktop to re-open your browser to view a different website. OK, Patricia’s back.

Patricia(17:35:56): I have checked your bills and last month you were billed for February 13th thru march 12. This month you were billed March 13th thru April 12th and April 13th thru May 12th. I can align you bill cycles so you will receive 30 billing at a time for future billing.
Patricia(17:36:33): In February you had no internet charges on your bill.

Honestly. I didn’t even bother to read or make sense of her first I.M. there. I hate doing mid month math. It even throws me when I’m watching Judge Judy and they talk about time frames. Just tell me the starting date and duration. I’ll do the math at a later date if necessary. Then I read her second I.M. I kinda remember getting away with something like that but I never bragged about it. So, I had to go double check her accusation.

Boofer(17:39:42): and I was charged twice in Jan?
Boofer(17:39:59): hence I wasnt charged in Feb

Oh snap! In your face… Pat! Wanna tell me one thing but TOTALLY not look at the month before… like I did… review all them facts, bitch!

Patricia(17:45:42): You need to contact the internet billing group at <some 800 number> so they can go over each bill with you and which bill cycle they billed you for on each bill.

Wait, what? I don’t wanna go over each bill with a fucking fine tooth comb. Nor, do I wanna call anyone. This is why I’m “Live Chat”ting with a Verizon representative. Cheese ‘n rice! So I politely say…

Boofer(17:47:43): perfect, i’m sorry this to difficult for you to handle, thanks for taking five minutes for each question to NOT help me.

I got no idea how she’d respond to this, I assumed with some pre-scripted bullshit. It’d be funny if she started some flame war with me.

Patricia(17:55:45): I am sorry I couldnt assist you any further. I had to review bills for several months to give the answers to you as I am not in the Internet billing group and had to manually go page and line by line thru each bill. The internet group are better able to assist you.
Patricia(17:55:56): Thank you for chatting with us. I hope I have resolved your reason for contacting us today. If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact us again. Please complete the survey at the conclusion of this chat. We appreciate your feedback.

Well, that was worth the 45 minutes. Granted I wasn’t on the phone at all but, I was under the impression I was going to be provided a service. You know, since I provide them with money once a month. Apparently more some months than others. And that line about “I am not in the Internet billing group“, then how the fuck did I get stuck chatting with you? The website asked me specifically, what department, what topic. Alos. funny thing about checking my own bill, I too had it in an itemized fashion. Making me read and shit. Besides, the Internet group would be better to assist me? Oh right, PDF format. Stupid me.

Don’t get me started on that “I hope I have resolved your reason for contacting us today” comment, ha! Yes, again, scripted but, you think you would have different closer if you were to of no use to anyone.

Obviously there’s a lesson to be learned today. Females aren’t good with numbers, and who let Patricia out of the kitchen this morning? No, no, I kid. I guess I meant, before starting an internet dialog with any help desk rep, you should A) confirm that they are familiar with said topic, and B) ask the question, “Are you slow or something?” You don’t wanna waste any precious company time waiting for nothing. Especially when it could be better spent perusing zany YouTube clips.

R.I.P. Whomever

Why do people all across the interwebings flock to any newly created threads to voice there option about someone whom has just past, and then end their post with “RIP “. It’s pretty fucking stupid.

As far as I know, this “afterlife” thing that all these church-goers have been raving about for years, doesn’t have access to the Internet. And if it did, you’d think they would slip that into “the good book”. You know, as a perk to do more gooder in life. Do they have dial-up access? You’d think someone on Earth would had noticed the 62 mile long telephone corder headed straight up to a cloud? Wait a second. A cloud? Is the Internet and “heaven” one in the same? Where all my DBA’s at!! No… I’m sure they’re two separate entities. They’d have to using Wi-Fi. 5G. I mean, it’s “heaven”. It’d have to be better then what we have. You’d assume they have dial-up in “hell”. 300 baud. Half-duplex.

Even if they did have the Internet in this “heaven” you speak off. Is it so boring that dead celebrities have nothing to do by Google themselves? I doubt it.

Basically it just shows that whoever types out “RIP” within their posts felt obligated to let YOU know that THEY’RE NOT put themselves first BY putting themselves first to SHOW that THEY DO put others first, just to show YOU that they “care” or were “raised properly”. Yep, I just typed that. And it’s really pisses me off that it’s that fucking backwards to have to explain it. But I see through your bullshit, your sticky web of “me, me, me”.

Let me put it this way, so we’re all clear. will never read what you posted to the Internet. They will never send you a thank-you note. It’s a little late to try and so respect and sympathy. They might had appreciated hearing that when they were alive. Stop trying to prove to us that you’re not selfish. You are, it’s OK, and we don’t care that you are.

Fajax

I was searching the Googles for a fix that randomly started happening to a web site I was working on. Well, it might not had been random but I don’t feel like reverting back to versions just to find the culprit. IT might be the table. Might be something else.

“ie page flicker” took me to “Stop IE Flickering Between Pages”. OK, nice, I’m clicking, I’m reading. Turns out that IE sucks. No, really.

I really didn’t care to read into exactly what this snippet of code does. It just fixed my problem. My problem being, when submitting a page in IE the browser goes blank (all white) for a split second while it tries to load the new page. This is not an issue in Firefox.

Calling it Fajax for the mere fact it looks like an Ajax load? I guess. Anyways, here’s the HTML for your cutting and pasting pleasures.

<meta http-equiv=”Page-Enter” content=”blendTrans(Duration=0)”>
<meta http-equiv=”Page-Exit” content=”blendTrans(Duration=0)”>

Gmail Implements Themes

I’ve been using Globex Design’s Gmail theme for awhile now. It’s becoming more and more of a hassle for them to keep up with Gmail’s ever changing website. Even when theor server went down because of some giant electrical storm.

I checked out all the themes. I partically like the “Terminal” theme but I think I’m going to still with “Shiny”.

One difference I see so far is that the Globex Design theme greyed out read emails. Which I personally feel is better.

I’ll though I do like the Globex Design theme. Until it can become more stable. Which should be easier to do now that Gmail has made the effort to create it’s own themes. Unless Gmail will just work their theme artists to the ground because of all the changes they make.

Happy Birthday SweetBeard.com!

Put a single candle on that cake. sweetbeard.com turns 1 on Saturday. To kick-off said milestone, Saturday will be the jump off of the next re-bearding. Those whom have been looking for a reason to grow a beard, other than awesomeness, this is your chance. Those who have grown before, this is your chance to document the glorious evolvement of your beard.

What is sweetbeard.com? Well, thanks for asking. For those who don’t know and for those who think it’s just a place to sign up and upload a pic of your beard because other people have, you’re in for a treat. With the help of modern technology, and statue of the art imaging capabilities. You are now able to maintain a record of, or track if you will, one progression on a daily basis.

Still need help deciding? Of course you don’t. You’re not even reading this part. You’re on sweetbeard.com right now signing up. But if you’re still reading this, that means you’ve already signed up and you can enjoy some of sweetbeard.com’s BigAss™ montages.

Hase’s BigAss™ montage
WhiteOwl’s BigAss™ montage
Schmoove’s BigAss™ montage

A year ago this month a movement was born. Not a movement of base political agenda, but a restructuring of the mind. A few chose to loose the chains of oppression, breaking free that which was restrained. I write of course of the Sweet Beard. In the beginning there was excitement. New faces ready for change, new websites ready for faces, a new take on an old idea. Fresh faced in the best sense of the word, many sprang forth to test their skills in pogonotrophy, some tested many times. Now that our one year anniversary approaches, I ask the faithful to return and report in a sacred JPEG-based pilgrimage. My plan is to shave off my sweet beard and start again, to revive my faith. So: on November 15th, let the growing begin… again.
Spread the Word.

Mail Goggles

Hehe, mail goggles. You mean like beer goggles? Yes, dummy. Just like beer goggles but for mail.

Ever get drunk and send out an email that you probably shouldn’t had sent out in the first place? Yeah, Mav! Mail Goggles is a setting in Gmail that makes you do some random mail question before submitting an email.

[quote=Gmail.com]Google strives to make the world’s information useful. Mail you send late night on the weekends may be useful but you may regret it the next morning. Solve some simple math problems and you’re good to go. Otherwise, get a good night’s sleep and try again in the morning. After enabling this feature, you can adjust the schedule in the “General” settings page.[/quote]

I know wither I’m drunk or sober, calc does better math than I do. So I don’t think this would help me too much. Unless I’m way to drunk to type in the correct numbers in the correct allocated spaces.

Zappos.com

I bought some running shows from them after calling around to all the shoe stores in all the local malls.

I placed my order on Tue, 7/22/08 at 7:49 PM. At 10:28 PM, I got this email…

[quote]Good news!

Although you originally ordered Standard (4 to 5 business days) shipping and handling, we have given your order special priority processing in our warehouse and are upgrading the shipping and delivery time frame for your order. Your order will ship out today and be given a special priority shipping status so that you can receive your order even faster than we originally promised!

Please note that this is being done at no additional cost to you. It is simply our way of saying thank you for being our customer.

The order above has already been packed and we will be emailing you your tracking number later today, when our computer systems are finished processing all of today’s transactions.[/quote]

As sugar plums danced in my head, I got an email with my tracking number at 2:46 AM.

I just tracked my package and it was delivered on Wed, 7/23/2008 at 12:38 P.M

17 hour delivery when I expected 3 to 4 days. Shepherdsville, KY to Washington, DC is a 9 1/2 hour drive by car.

I might just buy from there again.

Google Reader & CraigsList

Here’s a quick and painless way to search CraigsList. Some of you guys already use RSS readers. I kinda like Google’s. It’s web based and I can check from anywhere, duh. It’s right there so, I also check it after I check my email.

Here’s a quick and dirty example of how I set up a search.

1) Go to [url=http://www.crazedlist.org]crazedlist.org[/url]. If you don’t know what crazedlist is, shame on you. For you morons, it lets you search multiple CraigsList regions at once.

2) Learn how to use keywords. For example, if you wanna find images of cute dogs just like yours on Google Images, don’t search for “doggie”. If you then think that because you dog is black, and that narrowing your search down to “black doggie” will help, it won’t.

I’m going to search for mopeds. So, my keywords will be “moped”. But I don’t want scooters. So now it’s “moped -scooter”. I also don’t want a moped that needs work or engine or paint. Now I’m at “moped -scooter -needs”. Nothing should be stuck, “moped -scooter -needs -stuck”. And I want it to be 49cc or 50cc not 100cc or 110cc. “moped -scooter -needs -stuck -100cc -110cc”. A listing might not mention the cc’s but if it does, I don’t want 100cc or 110cc, that’s why I excluded those.

Now we have our keywords…

3) Select you category and sub category if you so wish. Mine is “sale/wanted” and “motercycle/scooter”. Add your min and max also if you want. I didn’t. I also left “pics” and “titles only” unchecked.

4) Select the regions you wish to search. I figured a search of the surrounding states would be OK. To quick select those, in the “select…” dropdown I selected “north east”. Then unchecked CT, MA, ME, NH, NY, RI and VT. I find it easier to spot and remove the highlighted and selected items that it is to hunt and check all the unselected states. Clicking the states link itself checks/unchecks the whole state. I then added NC for the hell of it, since it’s close by, sorta.

5) Click the orange “Get RSS Feed” button.

6) You then should see a “To get the OPML file right-click on [u]this link[/u][color=blue][/color] to [b]Save Link As…[/b]“. Do that. I’m saving mine as “moped.opml”. Like the directions say, it might default to something like “index.cgi”. Change it to “whatever.opml”.

7) Now go over to [url=http://www.google.com/reader/]Google Reader[/url]. Log in if needed. Create an account if needed.

In the upper right hand corner click “Settings”. Then click the “Import/Export” tab.

9) Select your “.opml” file and upload.

10) Now that your subscriptions are all imported. Go to the “Subscriptions” tab.

11) In the top right hand corner there is a text box that helps you filter the subscriptions listed. Filter your list by entering the a keyword you just looked up. Mine being “moped”. I now have 52 subscriptions listed.

12) Along the right hand side on ever listing there’s a dropdown labled “Add to a folder…”. Click on that and choose “New Folder…”. Call it whatever. Mine is “Mopeds”.

13) Under the tabs there are a couple links. Click “All ?? subscriptions” to select all the listed subscriptions.

14) After all your subscriptions are checked, in the “More actions…” dropdown, select the folder name you just created under “Add tag…”. To the right, under each “Add to a folder…”, you should see the folder/tag name in grey.

Now if you go back to the reader home page, you’ll see your folder with all the different subscriptions listed. And your done.

No Kicks on Route 66?

Anyone else notice how Google Maps never uses I-66 as road to travel on? It can’t be because of the HOV restrictions. That would be super mega happy retarded.