Random Acts of Mind by Dones

It all began when I over-scheduled my day off. Those kinds of days never turn out well. I had a delivery from the furniture store (new range and grill=awesome) and later I had an appointment at the gym. There were full hours away from each other, which would be fine for most people. Not me. I prefer to have one big ‘thing’ I have to do each day. That’s the only way to avoid what happened.

(Warning to those with an aversion to reading about bodily functions: you’re way too sensitive. Regardless, this post may shock your delicate sensibilities. For those who have a sense of humor, keep reading.)

What I didn’t realize until this morning is that I had to do some work to install the stove due to the fact that the old one was hard-wired in. On my trip to take Baby Josh to the hardware store to get the necessary parts, on the way back I decided to get some Taco Bell for the two of us. (I ordered a chicken soft taco for the little one and they gave me a beef hard taco, but we made do.) After lunch, Josh was messy enough from the taco that I stripped him to his diaper, did a once-over with some wipes and stood him in his playpen within sight of my pending electrician’s duties in the kitchen.

In retrospect, I can see that this is the point where all was lost.

At previous opportunities Josh has demonstrated the ability to undo a velcro strap on his diaper when that’s all he’s wearing. But his mommy or I have always been there to catch him before he gets the second strap undone. On this particular afternoon, Josh had a good ten minutes of listening to his father mess with the wiring (and get it fully completed and tested, mind you) in order to complete a project of his own. I had no reason to suspect anything since Josh was making the usual play noises in the playpen. Every parent knows that it’s only when they’re quiet that you have to worry, right?

Wrong.

I was all done with my project and walked up to the playpen to grab Josh so that I could get him dressed and ready for the kids area at the gym, as I had an appointment with a trainer for my complimentary new member session–and there was to be no more appointments today. For the next hour and a half I would be tasked with unwreaking what my infant son had wrought.

My son was looking up and smiling at me, because he was offering me a present. It was his diaper, completely off and dangling from his little hand. I took it for the least terrible thing that could have happened: Josh obviously had to much time to himself and had undone his diaper, and I was very fortunate that he hadn’t whizzed all over everything. All was right with the world. I took the diaper from him and felt it was heavy, so I checked it as a force of habit, and notice there was a slight brown streak visible.

Just a streak. There’s never just a streak. A diaper is either poop-free or it isn’t.

I look up from the soaked and streaked diaper into my son’s delighted, smiling face. Then I glance behind him to another, more substantial brown streak that is suspended in the webbing at the side of the playpen. Then down to the two-foot-long brown streak across the padded floor of the playpen, and back up to my son’s beaming, angelic smile with a grin two miles wide.

Now I can look back and tell you: Man, I love this kid! Although, truth be told, at the moment I wasn’t so sure how I felt about anything.

Uncertain as to the next course of action, I studied Josh for a moment and noticed a fleck of poop on his hand. In a flash, I knew what had to be done. I ran to the bathroom and started a bubble bath, and went and grabbed Josh. His backside was completely covered. After his impromptu bath (with a little shower-head work to get the more stubborn bits) I dressed him (fully, this time!) and put him in his crib to fuss (couldn’t be helped at this point) whilst I returned to the scene of the crime to formulate the next step of my plan. I called the gym to reschedule my appointment and turned to the best, purest source of de-pooping I could think of: baby wipes. I grabbed the end of the old package and a full new one and started going to town. After using about ten of these to get the bigger chunks up, I remembered that we had antimicrobial wipes under the kitchen sink. I set about sanitizing the webbing and padding and making sure that the whole playpen was good enough to eat off of.

So the moral of the story is: don’t overschedule your day off.

If you haven’t already heard, Stephen Wolfram (the creator of the uber-graphing calculator software Mathematica) has recently launched a knowledge engine (as opposed to a search engine like the Google) called Wolfram|Alpha. Instead of being sent out to the internet wasteland as we’re used to, once you type in a query in WolframAlpha the site brings the data to you. In this respect I would categorize it closer to Wikipedia than Ask.com. But Wikipedia it isn’t. The folks at Twit.tv described W|A as “the CIA Factbook on steroids plus a kickass graphing calculator”. Given that the basis of the algorithm is Mathematica’s symbolic language, I think this is probably the best description we’ll get, until we figure out what to do with the darn thing.

That’s really the problem. Mashable does have a list of WolframAlpha easter eggs (also try entering ’hello world’) which are truly awesome from a pop-culture standpoint, but not really the computation knowledge that W|A is promising. It won’t answer ‘How many boroughs in new york city?’ or ‘teenage mothers in 2000′. A query of ‘population of West Germany in 1957′ returns nothing but a suggestion to retry ‘Germany in 1957′, to which it then ignores the year and provides current data for the nation. So maybe I went back in time to far: ‘population of Germany 1990′ provides a data point (79.4 million people) and plots it on a graph with data since 1970. What if I give it two data points, then, and ask the big calculator in the cloud to find the net change? Alas, querying ‘(population of Germany 2000) minus (population of Germany 1990)’ returns ‘(82.31 million people) Subtract[79.43 million people]‘, which is all too small of a step away from being what I would call ‘powerful computational knowledge’. Perhaps I didn’t use the correct syntax, but honestly, for this to work, I shouldn’t really need to bend my query to the esoteric whims of the Mathematica code. The correct syntax, by the way, is apparently ‘population germany 2000 – population germany 1990′, returning a useful answer of ’2.876 million people’.

So then I ask myself the question, “What would I want WolframAlpha to know?” The simple answer is ‘everything’, but that’s not fair. So below are a few questions I’d like to be able to ask a giant computer programmed by a genius. I welcome commenters to add the questions they’d really like to ask WolframAlpha, if it were everything we want it to be.

1 – Aggregates, like ‘How many cities are named Springfield?’ or ‘How many Main Streets in the USA?’
2 – Blue-sky sorts of questions, like ‘How much money would I need to start a new auto insurance company?’ or ‘How much fuel would a traditional rocket need to take a Voyager-sized satellite to the nearest neighboring star system?’
3 – Future events, like ‘What will be the next 10 years when Christmas Day falls on a Sunday?’ or ‘What is the current payoff date for the US National Debt?’

Okay, maybe that last one isn’t fair, either. but now I put it to you: What other questions would you like to ask WolframAlpha? Please add your comment.

Disaster Area
Originally uploaded by metamorphilia.

…and this isn’t even the worst it’s been! Cleanup starts manana.

When Joshua woke up at 5:45am on the morning of his first birthday, Mommy & Daddy decided to give him a special ‘good-morning’ song! Baby Josh seemed unimpressed…

Bottom Line: Well done, though not for everyone.

**Note: If you want to remain totally spoiler-free before you watch the film (or read the book), please note this review does contain what I would call significant spoilers. It’s also safe to assume any comments may contain spoilers**

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed the graphic novel of Watchmen, I was very excited to see the film. I was lucky enough to see it, finally, on Saturday night with my brother (who appreciated the book but didn’t like it) and my father (who knew nothing about the book going into the film). As such, I think I can provide a 360-degree review (at least from a male perspective).

It was a really good film. Well-filmed, well-cast, well-directed. Naturally I liked the story, which was handled as well as possible, considering how convoluted it is. (Many have required to read the book a few times to get it all straight; a tribute to the density of the story, in my opinion). My father said he was able to follow along well enough, though the next day he admitted that it was indeed convoluted. My brother and I had no trouble following along, and I found myself “watching the Watchmen” with the same fervor that I had when seeing the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time. The director kept out anything from the book that would obviously drag down the story, beefed up the action (sometimes to a fault–more on that later), and even managed to get the ending changed in a way that stayed true to the original while actually making more sense, in my opinion.

I’ve heard some talk of mis-casting. I think that may have been preliminary concerns, because I thought all of the principal roles were cast perfectly. Most of these were even good actors. The only poor acting job I noticed was Malin Akerman, who played Silk Spectre II with moments of wooden line delivery and zero emotion. She actually did better, I think, emoting to Dr. Manhattan than to Nite Owl II. Ironic, but maybe they stuck too close to the book for those scenes, as I don’t think the character was particularly stellar in the Nite Owl II scenes, either. Another nit to pick: Rorschach had a bit too gravelly of a voice for my taste (must have taken a cue from The Dark Knight), and I wish for once they had dubbed his lines over when he was behind the mask, because they came through too muffled at times. Nite Owl II & The Comedian both stepped straight off of the page and onto the screen, which was cool because they’re my most & least favorite characters, respectively.

The CG was surprisingly off in a place or two (given this film’s budget and the state of the art today): most of the effects were superb, don’t get me wrong–but Dr. Manhattan’s conglomeration of live-action performance and CG body just didn’t quite mesh as well as I’d expect from Hollywood nowadays…something around the face, and maybe it was just the showing I went to, but his lip-synching wasn’t quite right (everyone else’s was fine). Maybe this was an artistic choice by the movie-makers (possible given the character in question), but it felt like a mistake. Billy Crudup’s acting was as good as can be expected within this framework. Here’s a question, though: why did the director think that repeaded full-frontal super-dudity was a good idea?

…Which brings me to the number one problem I had with the Watchmen film: the film adaptaption of the graphic novel was too graphic. Granted, we had different standards in 1986 than in 2009, so they probably couldn’t have put so much nudity, sex, and graphic violence in the ink & paint version (I suppose there was some straight gore, but not in the action); but it was precisely these additions by director Zack Snyder that had me physically turning away from the screen at times. Sure, I’m more puritan than some moviegoers I know, but I’m also no prude when it comes to sex or violence when it serves a purpose in a work of art. The sex scene was apparently pulled straight out of the textbook titled “Gratuitous”, although some of the nudity surrounding it (male & female) was tolerable and appropriate…if unnecessary. But I’ll take Dr. Manhattan to task for hardly ever covering up. It was clear from the book that he was nude, and I think we may have seen direct anterior evidence of this in a frame or two, but Snyder’s choice to storyboard (I can’t say ‘film’ because he wasn’t an on-film character, strictly speaking) the blue man-god below the waist time and again was … well, I guess it gave me practice at looking him in the eyes instead, but I wonder what they’ll do when it’s time to bring the film to basic cable. I could go on, but sufficed to say that if the character had been female, I think they would have chosen to cover her up more. And lastly, I expected a little gore and quite a bit of action, but why are bone-crunchingly close-up shots of bad guys’ knees and arms being snapped required to show just how powerful the superheroes are? I don’t say this very often, but this film truly would have been better if they’d taken Greek theatre’s meaning of ‘obscene’ (literally ‘off scene’). It would have given the film another half star in my overall rating.

So I will let this dead horse lie for a moment, and get on with the ratings:

Production value: 4/5 stars. I’m not going to subtract points for the CG issues noted above, because the splendor of the rest of the effects and overall production were just that good. Yes, I could also mention some noticeable makeup on some characters as they aged (and some famous characters that just didn’t quite look right), but won’t count off just for that. I could also point out that the CG Bubastis (purple tiger) was pretty weak, but that alone wouldn’t take away a full star. But all of these together combine to take away from what I would have considered a special effects masterpiece. They apparently spent so much time and money on Dr. Manhattan’s trip to Mars (and some other notably outstanding sequences) that they neglected to get Bubastis lit correctly and match Dr. Manhattan’s face & voice to the CG model. I will truly overlook the makeup because it was as good as I’ve ever seen it (Carla Gugino was totaly unrecognizable, in a good way, as Sally Jupiter). Perhaps intentionally, the real-life historical characters included in this film were comically unbelievable. That could be an artistic decision, which I would respect if Snyder meant for it to be that way. After all, it’s pretty funny sometimes to see real celebrities showing up in comics, despite the most serious intentions of the artists.

Story: 5/5 stars. Snyder nailed this part, and of all the things he needed to get right, this is the one. He left out the Black Freighter sequences, which added a ton to the value of the graphic novel (to me) but really is not germane to the overall arc. Good choice to not even touch on that. Also, he changed the ending, the center of the entire climax…but what he did in its place made even more sense than the original. The cahracter development was as good as could be managed within the larger story, and I think it was managed masterfully.

Enjoyability: 4/5 stars: I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone why only 4 stars on enjoyability. Let me just state that despite the graphic sex, violence, and nudity, this was a thoroughly well-made film that I still walked away from smiling. Therefore, I am happy to give this film the following over all rating…

Dones’ Rating: Watchmen is the film that fans of the graphic novel have been waiting for, if not the fulfillment of all their dreams. Non-readers’ experiences may vary. Zack Snyder needs to pull away from his Dawn of the Dead & 300 roots and bring the graphic sex, violence, and nudity under control.

14 out of 24 picks correct! Yes! A marked improvement!! I’d like to thank the academy…

Of course, cade got 16 right. But I suppose someone who has seen most of the films should be able to judge between them a little better. For the record (and despite my earnest intentions) I’ve still only seen Wall-E, The Dark Knight, Kung Fu Panda, Wanted, Iron Man, and Tropic Thunder. So basically the same as any non-film geek in my demographic, I suppose.

Some favorite Oscar moments this year:

- The opening number with janky ‘Be Kind Rewind’ sets
- Hugh Jackman’s hosting
- Heath Ledger’s family accepting his well-deserved award
- The one winner who said “Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto”
- The new way of having previous winning actors personally telling nominees how great they are. This makes being nominated a true honor, and I really hope they continue this practice.
- Reaching a personal all-time high in predictions, and getting over 50% right. Great feeling, despite cade’s valid point that most of the front-runners won. I will take the new personal best with the only regret being my failure to see any of the main nominees before the ceremony.

As my online presence expands to include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Amazon wish list, and my shop on CafePress, (along with the occasional Stickam live video), I am finding that this current blog format is not quite cutting it for me. I need a portal that includes all of the above in a reasonably appropriate design. I also need to develop an online portfolio for my soon-to-be-burgeoning freelance web/graphic design career.

I’ll probably stick with WordPress (though I need to upgrade to the latest version), but the template is just not meeting my needs. This being my final semester in my web design program, my final project is probably going to include putting together a new WordPress template. So I’ll probably use that experience (along with the Flash programming experience I’ll have by the end of the semester) to start from scratch.

If you have tried visiting this blog regularly and wonder why I don’t update more often, it’s because I’ve been posting links and notes over there. If you know me personally, become my friend on Facebook, and you’ll see a lot more activity there. If you don’t know me well enough to befriend me on Facebook (I try to keep it to actual acquaintances), here’s another option: I’m also becoming more active on Twitter, so follow me there if you like. While I haven’t touched FriendFeed, my sources tell me that you may be able to aggregate all the stuff that I post everywhere. While that’s a fairly scary thought, I don’t suppose I can stop you.

I went ahead and posted a Twitter widget here and a YouTube widget on my Video page (click the Video tab above). I don’t think anything else will be changing here before, say, May. But who knows. You may want to keep your eyes open.

CUTE
Originally uploaded by metamorphilia.

Eligible presidential candidate in 2044. Vote early, vote often!

This is my first attempt at a propaganda poster. I hope you like it.

Here’s the list of Oscar nominees, underlining my predictions for each. As always, note that I haven’t seen many of these films (I moved last year so it may take longer for my screener DVDs to reach me, ha ha); I will indicate the ones I have seen by putting them in italics. Once again, you know that you can always find the first Oscar predictions in the blogosphere right here. As I always say, you don’t really need to see all the films to know who’ll probably win. I will update this post to indicate new films I’ve seen as needed, like when I actually go see “Slumdog Millionaire” and “The Reader”.

Impressions so far:
- No Clint Eastwood, no Cate Blanchett, no George Clooney. No doubt they will be presenters at the ceremony since otherwise they’ll be greatly missed.
- Robert Downey, Jr, is getting hosed for an Oscar he deserves, this time by the late great Heath Ledger (who deserves it more). Why so serious, Mr. Downey?
- Doubt is going to be skunked.

**Updated with full list of nominees, and italicized a couple titles I forgot to.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
81st Annual Academy Awards Nominations

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Frank Langella, “Frost/Nixon”
Sean Penn, “Milk”
Brad Pitt, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”
Richard Jenkins, “The Visitor”

One viewing of the trailer for The Wrestler cemented this pick in my mind.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Josh Brolin, “Milk”
Robert Downey Jr., “Tropic Thunder”
Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Doubt”
Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”
Michael Shannon, “Revolutionary Road”

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Anne Hathaway, “Rachel Getting Married”
Angelina Jolie, “Changeling”
Melissa Leo, “Frozen River”
Meryl Streep, “Doubt”
Kate Winslet, “The Reader”

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Amy Adams, “Doubt”
Penelope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Viola Davis, “Doubt”
Taraji P. Henson, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Marisa Tomei, “The Wrestler”

Too much buzz for this film, not enough nominees, so I think she’ll get something for Mr. Allen.

Best animated feature film of the year
“Bolt”
“WALL-E”
“Kung Fu Panda”

WALL-E could have been a contender for Best Picture overall, just like many of the past Pixar releases. Since Beauty and the Beast scared the academy into creating the animated feature category, Pixar has won many deserved animated feature Oscars, while also getting the shaft for not being eligible for Best Picture.

Achievement in art direction
“Changeling”
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“The Duchess”
“Revolutionary Road”

Achievement in cinematography
“Changeling”
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“The Reader”
“Slumdog Millionaire”

Achievement in costume design
“Australia”
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Duchess”
“Milk”
“Revolutionary Road”

Oscar is a big fan of period costumes; apparently it’s very difficult to design something to look like something else that’s already been made. Anyway, nothing’s more ‘period’ this year than The Duchess, but Australia might be a sleeper. I think Doubt is missing in this category.

Achievement in directing
Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
Stephen Daldry, “The Reader”
David Fincher, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Ron Howard, “Frost/Nixon”
Gus Van Sant, “Milk”

I’m reversing my statement for Best Picture here. It’s 50-50, and Gus is due.

Best documentary feature
“The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)”
“Encounters at the End of the World”
“The Garden”
“Man on Wire”
“Trouble the Water”

Best documentary short subject
“The Conscience of Nhem En”
“The Final Inch”
“Smile Pinki”
“The Witness – From the Balcony of Room 306″

Achievement in film editing
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“Frost/Nixon”
“Milk”
“Slumdog Millionaire”

Best foreign language film of the year
“The Baader-Meinhof Complex” (Germany)
“The Class” (France)
“Departures” (Japan)
“Revanche” (Austria)
“Waltz with Bashir” (Israel)

Japan is due. Plus “Slumdog” may pull favoritism for Asia into the mix here. No really, I’m grasping at straws on this one.

Achievement in makeup
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“Hellboy II: The Golden Army”

This will be BB’s one Oscar, enabling a so-so film to still be able to call itself  ‘Academy Award-winning.’ It’s deserved in this one (curious?) case.

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“Defiance”
“Milk”
“Slumdog Millionaire”
“WALL-E”

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
“Down to Earth” from “WALL-E”
“Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionaire”
“O Saya” from “Slumdog Millionaire”

Slumdog will cancel itself out here, giving WALL-E the edge.

Best motion picture of the year
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“Frost/Nixon”
“Milk”
“The Reader”
“Slumdog Millionaire”

This could go one of two ways: Milk or Slumdog. I’m picking Slumdog due to Oscar’s propensity for sweeps (though not in recent years), but due to Prop 8 pressures in the Academy’s home state, Milk may reach the tipping point for politics over Slumdog’s sentimentality.

What about Benjamin Button, you ask? First, I’m prejudiced against it: I think it’s utterly predictable, it was made solely to try to get Brad his Oscar, and I loved the comparisons to Forrest Gump (YouTube video redacted). This may actually backfire against me, but I’ll stand by my predictions. Second, Brad Pitt hasn’t been good luck for films reaching for Oscar gold. Third, I think Slumdog is just too hot, and fourth, I really don’t hear any buzz about The CC of BB, even though it leads in overall nominations. Go read the short story instead.

Best animated short film
“La Maison en Petits Cubes”
“Lavatory – Lovestory”
“Oktapodi
“Presto”
“This Way Up”

So beloved is WALL-E that the short cartoon preceding it in theatres and included on its DVD is a shoo-in. Plus it’s really, really well done.

Best live action short film
“Auf der Strecke (On the Line)”
“Manon on the Asphalt”
“New Boy”
“The Pig”
“Spielzeugland (Toyland)”

Achievement in sound editing
“The Dark Knight”
“Iron Man”
“Slumdog Millionaire”
“WALL-E”
“Wanted”

Here in the sound categories is the major showdown between my top two contenders. I don’t think you can beat Pixar for mixing and editing all of those tracks on the floating space colony. How many individual voices did they have to mix in? A lot.

Achievement in sound mixing
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“Slumdog Millionaire”
“WALL-E”
“Wanted”

Achievement in visual effects
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“Iron Man”

At last, a true toss-up. I’m going with my gut and my personal favorite here (I think Christopher Nolan got ripped off for The Dark Night not getting nominated for more non-technical Oscars. Best Picture and Director could have been possible here.)

Adapted screenplay
Simon Beaufoy, “Slumdog Millionaire”
David Hare, “The Reader”
Peter Morgan, “Frost/Nixon”
John Patrick Shanley, “Doubt”
Eric Roth, Robin Swicord, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

Original screenplay
Dustin Lance Black, “Milk”
Courtney Hunt, “Frozen River”
Mike Leigh, “Happy-Go-Lucky”
Marttin McDonagh, “In Bruges”
Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, “WALL-E”

Usually, we hear about how a company sucks, especially telecom companies and their spotty customer service. It’s very easy to find at least a dozen commentaries online about how Verizon Wireless sucks.

But it is rare that anyone decides to go far enough out of their way to relay a positive customer experience. This is what I’m doing, because I think Andrew at the VZW store in Olathe deserves it:

As some folks here know, my wife and I recently gave each other iPhones; mine was my birthday/anniversary present, and hers was paid for by her lucky win of an equivalently priced Garmin (we already have a cheapo GPS that works fine) at the company holiday party, which we could return for the coveted new gadget.

Well, being new customers at AT&T, and not really needing two phones (each), my wife called up Verizon Wireless’ 800 number to cancel our service. Her contract was up in October, and mine in December (I had lost my phone right after we got it, and getting a new one cheaply necessitated a contract renewal; I guess you can’t sneeze in a Verizon Wireless store without renewing your contract). So we thought, anyway: according to VZW’s records, one of our phones had been given some ‘bonus minutes’ back in September, which–you guessed it–forced a contract renewal. Cancelling would now cost us more than $150. What the heck?? If we were disputing the renewal, we had to take our gripe into the store in Olathe, where the action apparently went down…

My wife relates this to me as I’m leaving work early, sick as a dog (I’m up at 3:30 blogging in the hopes of curing my insomnia…seems to be working). It must be said here that I’ve left work sick about 4 times in my life, that I can recall, and I’m being generous with that number. I hate leaving work sick, and today was a particularly tough day for me to leave. Well, work is just seconds away from the store in question, so I suck it up for a couple more minutes in order to hopefully sort this mess out and get myself into sweatshirt and -pants, warm socks and bed as soon as humanly possible.

I go in and politely explain what was happening to Andrew, the unlucky sales clerk who had a bit of a deer-in-headlights look to him, as I would have had if a customer comes in with a dispute. Apparently, in September one of us reduced our minutes plan, but ‘as a courtesy Verizon offers a bonus minutes plan if our customers are afraid of exceeding the lower monthly limit, a service feature that requires a 2-year contract renewal.’ “‘Feature’ my foot,” I politely didn’t say, though I was thinking it. “We don’t remember signing up for that,” I explained. “We did come in in October to try out the LG Explorers, but we returned them a week later when we found they didn’t meet our needs. The salesman at the time said that we were within our cancellation window, and he would revert our contracts back to their original timelines, which means mine would have expired in December.” Andrew remained very professional, and probably responded with a practiced script from way high up in the company about ‘yada-yada, we wouldn’t have just added on this service feature, you would have had to sign for it.’

I know I didn’t sign for anything…in fact I had never set foot in that store until we went in to try out those LG smart phones. I called my wife from the store, and she said she wouldn’t have signed anything that renewed our contracts, but I still thought that she had changed our plans to a lower minute rate sometime before the whole LG thing. Seeing a possible out to this whole unhppy business, and a way to expedite my crashing at home with some comfort food and dayquil, I told Andrew that I’d quit disputing if he could produce the printout of my wife’s signature on the contract renewal. After a quick check with the manager to see how exactly to do that, he started printing out two receipts (six printed pages) from 9/19/08…which curiously had both my wife’s and my signatures.

This was very strange…once again, I had set foot in that Verizon Wireless store only two times prior to this: once to pick up my LG Voyager, and once to return it. “When did we get those LGs again?” I curiously asked Andrew. “Can you please double-check?” I had already been there at least ten minutes, which possibly kept him from at least one sale. I could tell he was sympathetic, but he felt very much in the right about the whole thing. But instead of saying anything, he calmly obeyed. It took him another minute to bring up the records and look for the transactions, then said, marvelously, “You know, after all that…”

I had my dates mixed up. I thought it was in October when we came in to try out the smartphones. Nope, I can now tell you precisely that it was September 19th. Because as my wife was signing us up for smartphones, she lowered our overall minutes plan, but had the bonus minutes feature added just in case we went over. But when we returned the smartphones, they should have rolled back the contract renewal, too. Andrew was probably as relieved as I was that we discovered this, and promptly got his manager to approve the correction. Everyone was very nice and professional, even though they had an unhappy customer who wouldn’t leave or admit he was wrong. In the end, it confirmed that if the iPhone ever comes to Verizon, or if we decide to change away from AT&T, we will definitely be returning to that store. True, they should have caught the mistake back in September, but the fact that they corrected that error so long after the fact is testament to their integrity…and the fact that I need the calendar aspect ofthe iPhone to get my dates straight.