I got an EVDO card for a long weekend from Verizon, then returned it. “You’ll be prorated,” I was assured. I wasn’t, and instead got charged a full month’s fees for 4 days’ worth of use.

I thought I’d paid it anyway, but maybe not. Either way, I eventually got a message from “Miracle Financial”. I returned their call and left a message asking for them to call me back and let me know what they were calling about. I had also gotten a call from another financial company on the same night, but that one was looking for someone else. I figured that some predatory lending agency had gotten my number on an industry-wide spam list, so after doing my part for our new game of phone tag I didn’t think much else about it.

The next call I got was today, and came from an abusive gentleman who refused to let me leave the conversation in order to call Verizon. Instead he started yelling about my credit report (as if a $70 outstanding balance was going to put that dreamhouse of mine out of reach). “We’ll be calling you for seven years!” he bellowed, which didn’t make an awful lot of sense — I think the number comes from the years until an offense goes off your credit report, but who knows. I assume he does this all the time, so it must work despite the complete lack of sense.

I’m disinclined to feed money directly to people who call me up to yell at me, so I hung up on him and called Verizon. A maze of prompts later I get a human being, who told me that I couldn’t talk to them about the issue — I’d have to talk to the collection guys. Of course, the collection guy had already told me that I can’t talk to them about the incorrect charge, either. I just need to pay up, preferably by directly giving my credit card number to some lout who had called me out of the blue.

So I cut them a check. What else could I do? If a company decides you owe them money, they can simply refuse to listen to you or correct their mistake. Instead they’ll pay some professional dickhead in Massachusetts to harass you by telephone until you give up. If that fails they’ll tell every other corporation how terrible you are. Unless you’re a lawyer with a lot of free time, there’s not much you can do about it.

I remember many still, sunny Sunday mornings at UVA when the perfect awfulness of my hangover was wrenched into consciousness by an angry collections call. Not for me, of course — I’m actually surprisingly good at paying my bills, despite only opening my mail once a month or so. Instead it was for the people who had the phone number before me. They would tell me not to deny that I was [name other than my own], and strongly encourage me to settle my outstanding debt immediately. And they’d do with the same prerecorded call every time. I eventually had to track down the company responsible, call during business hours and politely ask them to shut the fuck up. To their credit, they did. Still, you have to wonder about what would drive someone into a career of professional unpleasantness.

Anyway, it’s a lousy thing to have happen in the middle of your day, and all the more infuriating because these jerks don’t even have a web presence for me to sheepishly submit my payment to — instead I had to speak to an actual person. I still refused to do anything other than mail them a check, but that didn’t make me feel much better. Will polluting their nonexistent Google ranking help? Nah, probably not. But dammit, I have to try.

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#2 courtesy of al3x.

They’ve probably got all of this stuff locked down, but providing an interface that’s clearly just a bowdlerized version of SQL still strikes me as a bad idea.

…is a pretty irritating time to have to do your timesheet.

End communication!

Okay, wait, one more thing: go listen to the new National song over at Stereogum.

ALSO: Speaking of Stereogum, this Voxtrot single is making me regret skipping the party they played during SXSWi.

Have some pop music to go with it.

UPDATE: Comments closed, as spammers seem to particularly like this post for some reason.

Thoughts on the future of the recording industry from Matt Yglesias, Michael Arrington and Atrios. I particularly like Arrington’s take — it’s nice to see people abandoning the traditional shiny-happy rhetoric about how record labels just need to adapt to changing technology, then they’ll all be be rich and happy again. The truth is that technology has drastically reduced the need for musical middlemen. I’m sure the industry will always exist in some form, but a lot of the people with financial stakes in it are doomed. Now we just have to get them to wrap up their unpleasantly-loud legal death rattle.

God dammit, I don’t want to join Facebook. I mean, yes, I have a profile. But as you may be able to tell from the listed interests, it’s not much of a serious effort. I’ve been mildly horrified to see friend requests begin to roll in from people I know.

I just don’t see the point. What’s it supposed to do? Keep me up to date on my friends’ activities? Let me post photos? Or share links? Get mobile updates? Plan events? Bah! I’ve already got technologies that I use for all this stuff. There’s no reason to reroute all that activity through the blue & white blandness of a cocky thief.

Alright, that’s a little disingenuous. I can think of one reason: now that folks use the internet professionally, they probably now want to retreat into a lower-stakes setting. I guess I can understand that. But it still seems like a pain in the ass, and the idea of “poking” and giving $1 virtual gifts sends me into a blind rage.

UPDATE: I guess I should finish the point I intended to make. One of the things that Matt “WordPress” Mullenweg said during his presentation at SXSW was that he foresaw the future of personalized online presences being grounded in individual online sites, not gigantic networks like Facebook and Myspace. Obviously he’s got a vested interest in pushing this vision, but I agree with him: the big networks won’t last forever. Right now they can offer ease-of-use and a critical mass of users that makes finding your friends easy. But they don’t have a monopoly on the former (WordPress and blogger are great counterexamples) and userbase size isn’t an advantage that lasts forever — ask Friendster. The fad value of these sites will force the market to perpetually refactor itself, fragmenting a little more each time.

The logical end point is for everyone to be running their own relatively-open site, free from the shadow of corporate hosts. Open formats will let your site talk to everybody else’s, keeping you apprised of what your friends are up to. It’ll be great.

In fact, it already IS great, since our little bloggy universe already uses these technologies across our constellation of personal sites. That’s why I think Facebook adoption is silly: it’s a step backward.

With all of that said, I don’t want to let pig-headedness cut me out of connectivity — I’m sure I’ll put in a mild Facebook effort. But does it really not have RSS feeds?

This really is a pretty good This American Life parody.

Speaking of which, when are episodes of the new Showtime series going to leak? I’ve read that preview DVDs are in the hands of reviewers — seems like it can’t be long now.

I’ve got a bit of a reputation around the office for being completely useless and insufferable before I’ve had my first two or three cups of coffee. Although I’m not that bothered by this, I’m also not particularly pleased about it — I think that participation in the geek cult of caffeine is a fairly lame affectation, and I’d like to think that I can function without a chemical crutch. I haven’t intentionally cultivated this reputation; I guess I’ve just accidentally been kind of mean to people.

But it’s definitely true that I’m a better Tom when I have a few cups of coffee in me. I’m happier, smarter, and a much better writer — especially when I’m perched in that perfect spot between very- and too-caffeinated.

I don’t think I’m much of a coffee snob, or at least I hope I’m not. I drink enough of the stuff (and take it unadorned) that I don’t taste very much as I down it unless it’s a particularly strong brew or has been burnt into sourness. And even if it has, I’ll drink pretty much anything. I may talk excitedly about burr grinders and occasionally bring in bottles of vinegar to clean the office Mr. Coffee, but I’ll happily suck down Flavia, too (so long as it isn’t the flavored kind).

But the last couple of days have gotten me wondering about my brand. My all-time favorite is Trader Joe’s house beans, which make me ecstatically wired and have most often done so when I’m working from home (this definitely helps build up positive associations). But at the office I’ll drink whatever shows up in the kitchen. We’ve recently switched to this Storyville stuff, and the last few days I’ve found myself walking around in a foul-tempered funk. Each time a cup from Caribou cleared things right up, though, bringing me back to a relatively ebullient version of myself.

I know this is probably all psychosomatic. Still, it’s a little weird. I’ve had extreme reactions to particular coffee before (although in that case I sort of suspect that the stuff was tainted with a distinctly non-coffee ingredient). Other folks have theorized that Starbucks’ popularity is due to its much higher caffeine levels relative to other brands. And it’s not as if caffeine is the only psychoactive chemical in coffee — there’s theophylline, theobromine, and who knows how many others (partially burning food creates lots of chemical variation ). Like chocolate, there are probably a whole host of subtle physiological and psychological effects induced by coffee that aren’t easy to consciously notice, but which contribute to how we use and perceive it. Is it unreasonable to think that different brands, blends and roasts may represent different ratios of these chemicals, and that they may induce varying affects? We’ve all heard people claim that tequila makes them crazy, or that gin gives them headaches, or that Jaegermeister makes them fight people. Right? Is it so crazy to think that this could happen, albeit on a smaller scale, with coffee?

The answer is almost certainly Yes, Tom, it’s crazy to think that. The fact that you’ve been staying up late reading terrible Civil War comic books probably has a lot more to do with your foul moods over the last two days than anything you’ve had to drink. The difference is that fussing over coffee is more fun than not-reading-comics.

But now that I’ve convinced myself of this chemical curiousity — no matter how slightly — all hope of a rational explanation is gone. Until I settle on a similarly-magical countermeasure, I’ll probably keep thinking that Storyville beans make me a jerk.

…as I reminded myself the hard way this morning. Save one little template over another one, where the latter happens to have all of your configuration constants and utility functions? Bad things happen. And no, of *course* I didn’t have a backup. That’d be ridiculous!

I think I’ve resurrected everything except the Technorati functionality, but if anything seems broken I’d appreciate your letting me know.

Also, there’s a new header graphic to go along with the beautiful weather outside (that’s what started this mess).

As I’ve mentioned before, I really like the Technology Liberation Front. My own ability to maintain righteous indignation over the DMCA waxes and wanes, and it’s good to know that someone’s holding down the fort.

But I do occasionally find their posts frustrating, and none more so than when they talk about the cell phone market. Too often their objections to regulation in this industry seem to boil down to, “If there was enough consumer demand to justify a market for having a free market, the market would have selected for it! Market!” I appreciate their enthusiasm for capitalism, and it’s a good reminder for a legislation-happy liberal like myself. But you’d have to be completely insane to think that the American cell phone market is open in a way that offers meaningful choice to consumers.

And, courtesy of Michael, here comes a reminder of that fact. This one concerns a free conference call service that we use at work:

Dear FreeConference User:


AT&T/Cingular, Sprint, and Qwest Are Blocking Your Conference Calling
As of Friday, March 9, it’s come to our attention that Cingular Wireless has begun blocking all conference calls made from Cingular handsets to selected conference numbers. If you call our service, you receive a recording that says, “This call is not allowed from this number. Please dial 611 for customer service”.


Earlier this week, Sprint and Qwest joined in this action, blocking cellular and land line calls to these same numbers. This appears to be a coordinated effort to force you to use the paid services they provide, eliminating competition and blocking your right to use the conferencing services that work best for you.
Don’t Let AT&T/Cingular, Sprint, or Qwest Take Away Your Right to Use the Conference Service of Your Choice!


We Need Your Help! Please Take the Actions Below:


etc. etc.

Now, maybe it’s not foul play. Lately there’s been a rash of non-toll-free numbers attracting huge amounts of inbound traffic in order to exploit legislative loopholes. Maybe FreeConference.com was accidentally lumped in with them and the blocking will be temporary. Maybe they all resell POTS access from the same provider, who’s accidentally blacklisted freeconference.com. Or maybe not.

Either way, we’re kind of screwed until the carriers deign to fix the problem. Our clients can’t reliably call in to the service, and getting them to switch cell phone carriers is of course not a plausible solution. In fact, even for those of us who use the service daily, selecting against the crooked carriers wouldn’t make any sense — termination fees, locked handsets, an occasional lack of synching tools… Yes, I can imagine a world in which consumers rise up and demand an end to these lousy practices — it’s just that it’s clearly a fantasy world. And I don’t buy that cell customers’ unwillingness to grab pitchforks and torches and march down to Cingular HQ means that we somehow don’t deserve the better and more flexible service that we say we want.

But instead of punishing the companies that have screwed up, we’ll be forced to switch conferencing providers. Which, if the freeconference.com people are to be believed, is exactly what the networks are conspiring to accomplish.

Now compare the situation to my VoIP vendor. If I’m using an open protocol (and, since my home Asterisk server speaks SIP, I am), the decision to switch vendors is as simple as googling for a new provider, filling out a web form and altering a configuration file to match the credentials that will have been emailed to me. That’s how it ought to be: if Cingular starts screwing you over, forward your calls to the T-Mobile trial account you just set up — all it’d take is changing a few settings on your handset. If you like it, switch for good for whatever the current, reasonable number-portability fee is.

Is that kind of flexibility really so unimaginable? And would it be so terrible to legislate it into existence? I’m not saying we should dictate technical implementations to carriers, but surely discouraging their lockin-focused contract scheme would improve competition.