Ferk You Too

Yes, I’m still trying.

I needed the UPS to come by my front door, so I ordered two GB of RAM from Newegg. I’m sure I’ll find a use for it later. It was due to come in yesterday, but I know the UPS, and they know me. They want to be unpredictable, so they delivered it today. But I was expecting this, you see.

So I waited for the UPS man to come to my door. He rang the doorbell, and was instantly put out by 10,000 volts of electricity. I snatched my 2GB of RAM from him, and ran inside. Then I hear the
doorbell again. I grab my UPS tranquilizer and approach slowly…

Meanwhile, in real life, the UPS man rings the doorbell, and I manage to open the door before he scurries away to his cozy little truck.

• “Hey, UPS man!”

He stopped in his tracks, turned around, and said…

• “How may I help you sir?”
• “Where can I get UPS socks?”
• “Uh… Uh… Here!”

With a sweaty hand he shoved a brown and yellow piece of paper at me with the company’s 1-800 number on it.

• “The 800 number’s on there. Take it! TAKE IT AND DON’T TELL ANYONE!!!”
• “Okay, thanks!”

He bolted to his truck and floored it. He wasn’t expecting anything good to come of this.

I picked up my 2GB of RAM off the ground and retreated inside where the UPS spy satellites can’t see me and called the 1-800 number. The woman who answered was not a woman at all but a robot. I had the feeling that she was about to send her toaster boyfriend to fry me if I didn’t give her a tracking number or just hang up.

• ” Tracking number?”
• “That is not a valid tracking number. Please try again or be fried by my laser satellite girlfriends, who are practicing their aim at your dog.”

As my dog was being fried Chicago-style outside, I frantically looked around. Poor little Abby was about well done when I said…

• “42!”
• “That order was placed back before I was just a KitchenAid food processor, you dumb-ass carbon life-form. If you want to speak to another pathetic human, then please say so now in your stupid ambiguous human language.”
• “Yes, please!”

I was forwarded to an actual woman this time. She sounded like a drill sargeant in boot camp.

• “SIR! THANK YOU FOR CALLING UPS SIR! HOW MAY I HELP YOU SIR!”
• “Yeah, hi, I was wondering if I could get UPS merchandise anywhere?”
• “WHAT KIND OF MERCHANDISE SIR!”
• “Well I saw a man driving a UPS truck the other day, and I noticed he was wearing these nice UPS socks. Where can I get socks like that?”
• “SIR! I DON’T KNOW IF THEY ARE OR ARE NOT SELLING SUCH MERCHANDISE, SIR!, OR IF THEY ARE WHETHER OR NOT THEY ARE SELLING IT TO CUSTOMERS, SIR! SORRY SIR!”
• “Okay, thanks, goodbye.”
• “SIR! HAVE A NICE DAY SIR!”

She was scary. But this does confirm three suspicions that I’ve had about UPS.

1. They are indeed in cahoots with the military, making this a national conspiracy
2. Not all of the employees are aware of who they truly work for, but some of them know something…
3. These socks must contain some kind of superweapon. I must have them!

I don’t want eBay socks or CraigsList socks. I want UPS socks. Get them anywhere else, and they’ve probably already been decommissioned. I need to get them from the source, before it’s too late.

Tags: UPS socks, Military, Politics, Abstract, Religion, My Life by Tuna
1 Comment »

Figured I should post an actual update, so here it is.

OSCON was friggin awesome!

Oh, and I went to OSCON.

“But Mr. Tuna, your McAwesomeness, what the cactaur is an OSCON?”

Well, OSCON is a very special event where nerds and geeks and hackers like me from around the world get together in Portland and talk about Open Source Software. I just happened to be a speaker there. My topic was about how FOSS can appeal to teenagers. Here is the O’Reilly page for the talk and here is my talk on Google Video. Yes, I wear that hat everywhere.

Tags: Open Source/Free Software, Religion, Programming, Computers, Linux, My Life, News by Tuna
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I finally got my book today! YAY!

I can now speak to people in a strange tongue and no one will understand me! I will be IMPERCEIVABLE MAN!!!

However, my quest for UPS-branded socks has yet to be fruitful. Here’s the email I sent to UPS corporate:

 Dear Service of Posting that is United,

I was on the way home from a dentist appointment and I was abruptly
stopped by a red light. I looked to my right, and saw a big brown UPS
truck. Oh, what a majestic brown it was with gold lettering and logo. I
looked at the man driving it (you have good drivers, by the way) and he
was nicely dressed in his UPS uniform. The thing that stood out the
most, however, were the socks.

What great socks they were, brown with a gold trim and a nice
embroidered UPS logo above the ankle. They really represent your
business well.

I am wondering where I can get these socks? Do you have them for sale
some place? You should open up an online Merchandise store. You’d be
rich(er)!

I think that you should also know just how quick and reliable your
service is. I ordered a book from Barnes and Noble on Sunday, and your
tracking service says that it went from Kentucky to Phoenix in 20
minutes!!! How do you do it? It is now (apparently) loaded in a truck
and I’ll have it tomorrow. How great you are! I give you my thumbs UPS!

thanks!
-tuna

Well that’s a nice email. I complemented their business and the men and women in brown who serve them daily. But here is the ungrateful, half-hearted response I got…

Dear Tuna,

Thank you for your inquiry.Your comments are very important to us.
Customer feedback allows us to continually improve our services. Please
note that comments such as these help when planning the design and
function of all UPS merchandise and are highly appreciated.
Unfortunately, UPS does not have merchandise for sale.

Please contact us if you need any additional assistance.

Shakira Hanson
UPS Customer Service

What is that??? He didn’t even parse his punctuation correctly in that first line there, which I find extremely insulting. He went on to completely ignore my nice comments about them, and condescendingly reject my inquiry with a simple “We do not have UPS merchandise for sale.”  I must say, those guys are really good at making us bloggers look like geeky little teenage weirdos, learning obscure languages that nobody speaks and trying to get free swag from… what?

I’m not going to give up. I’m going to GET some UPS socks. I’m making a whole category about it.

Tags: UPS socks, Abstract, My Life, News, Other by Tuna
3 Comments »

So I was thinking, “Hey, now that I’m out of school and now on payroll, how can I waste my summer? I know! I’ll learn an auxiliary language!”

Hmm… but which one? Elvish is only spoken in the land of ComiCon. Then there’s Esperanto, but only like 3 people speak that, and then they’ll tell you that thousands of people speak it. So I went with the only one that has a Freenode.net IRC channel: Lojban!

So I went down to my local Barnes and Noble and said, “Gimme some Lojban!” The woman working there turned her lady-fro-veiled face to me and said, “We have one item, and it’s preorder-only.” I slapped a $10 bill on the counter and said, “GIMMEH!”.

Meanwhile, back in Nashville, a jumpsuit-clad man was putting What is Lojban by Nick Nicholas in a box.

The book wound up in Kentucky somehow and took the supersonic highway to Phoenix, arriving in just under 25 minutes.

So while it’s in the tubes of my local UPS just out of reach, I decided to attempt to get me a pair of them kick-ass UPS socks (that’s not my leg)!

I called the UPS store in Buckeye.

UPS: Hello, thank you for calling the UPS blah blah blah blah help you?

Me: Yes, I saw a UPS driver the other day and he was wearing these socks–

UPS: You can’t purchase those.

Me: Oh, I–

UPS: Those are for our drivers only.

Me: Okay, by–

UPS: Have a nice day sir. And remember, sir… stay vigilant…

Okay, so I made that last part up. But she wasn’t going to even attempt to do anything for me. So I decided that I would just have to email corporate…

You see, I’m leaving a cliffhanger here. Check back next… interval of time… for the sequel!

Update: Part two haft cometh! Click here.

Tags: UPS socks, My Life, News, Other by Tuna
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I was talking to the kind people in ##RonPaul on FreeNode just now and I have decided that I shall no longer discuss any more sensitive issues with anyone at my school. Here’s what happens when I do.

• Me: You know, I really don’t see why we should outlaw gay marriage.
• Right-winger: [nearly chokes on food] Beg your pardon?
• Me: Yeah, I mean, should we really lead a secular nation like a theocracy?
• Right-winger: Uh… YEAH! What are you, liberal?
• Me: Well… yeah…
• Right-winger: [shouting] Hey! Everyone! Come look at the freak liberal!

Next day…

• Other Right-winger: Hey [snickers] Are you a…
• Me: Am I a… what?
• Other Right-winger: A… [giggles] a liberal?
• Me: [leaves]

Absolutely everyone at my school is like this. Nobody likes that heretic liberal! He’s such a fag. We should get our Crusader outfits and pillage and rape him (The football team is actually called the Crusaders, and the Christmas ball was “Crusader Christmas”). So I am going to do something different:

This really works. I’ve done it before on these people. It’s power is infinite. Thank God for xkcd!

(By the way, if you actually read this whole post and you go to my school, I do appreciate it. At least you’re listening to me.)

Tags: Politics, School, Religion, My Life by Tuna
2 Comments »

Well well well… It seems as though my school doesn’t block https. So here I sit blogging from school!

 I think I know how I’m spending my lunches from now on…

 https://kproxy.com

Tags: * of the Week, School, Computers, My Life, Inter-tubes by Tuna
No Comments »

…goes to me!

That’s right. I won a contest. From Carma labs.

Basically, you fill out a form on www.carma-labs.com and get entered in a “weekly drawing” for some Carmex lip balm. I entered because I couldn’t find my little 1/4 ounce jar I had and had a severe case of chapped lips.

So I entered the contest and just a few days later…

Wow! I won a contest!

So I got just what I wanted. Free Carmex. That, and the satisfaction of having rid myself of chapped lips. Thank you, Carma Labs!

Tags: * of the Week, My Life by Tuna
1 Comment »

Let me borrow yours.

My English teacher gave me the most 5th grade writing assignment in the history of 5th grade writing assignments. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve had this assigned to me in the 4th/5th grade.

I have to write a poem about ‘my favorite hero.’

I have the same teacher for World History, and before this she told us to use the Christian Bible to ‘debunk’ Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, two of which are technically not religions, but rather a way of life.

My biggest problem with that is that you’re trying to debunk other people’s beliefs that they have held just as long as you have been thumping your grandfather’s leather-bound bible. And you’re using that very bible to do it. IN A HISTORY CLASS.

The worst part is that I can’t report her because it’s a Christian school. I should try…

UPDATE: I did the poem. I put it on Google Docs here.

Tags: School, My Life by Tuna
3 Comments »

What in this physical world do you value? Who do you love? Who or what can you not live without? What are you strongest beliefs?

Think about this for a while…

Now… What would detract from that value? What would take away your love? What would push you beyond your strongest beliefs?

Think about this for a minute…

Some day, this will be nothing. There will be a day when none of this will matter. There will be a day when it’s all worthless. Everything will be worthless. Nothing you before held close to you will even matter.

All there will be is fear. Fear of other humans whose only goal is to stomp all over you and leave you lifeless in the streets. And then you will want to do the same to them. Hell, if you’re going down, they’re coming down with you.

Where will such hatred begin?

Fear. Fear of other humans whose only goal is to stomp all over you and leave you lifeless in the streets. Oh, and what can we do about this?

Nothing. We’re human. Humans are hideous beasts that are too paranoid and proprietary for their own species’ sake. And there’s no man on earth who can fix that. We will be our own demise. The fall of humanity began shortly after humanity itself did.

Depressing? Yes, very. But I’m not wrong, am I?

So back to our question. What in this physical world do you value? Who do you love? Who or what can you not live without? What are you strongest beliefs?

Whatever these may be, keep them. Treasure them. They’ll be the last thing you have before your species collapses down upon you.

Tags: Abstract, My Life, Other by Tuna
3 Comments »

1. Working on ToL’s Planet.
2. Learning Ruby
3. Coming up with something creative to post here
4. Sleeping
5. Getting ready for school, which starts in one week, 7 hours and 50 minutes (approximately)
6. Painting
7. Trying to sell what I’ve already painted
8. Trying to find a painless way to merge ToL and TeenLUG that would end up being a win-win situation (DIFFICULT!)
9. Advertising ToL
10. Drinking tea

Hm… that sleeping one sounds pretty appealing… I’ll try that.

Good night.

Tags: My Life, Other by Tuna
No Comments »