Dumasaphobia

Some people, or in this case a teenager, get too attached to supercilious things like a hat.  Tragically this ended in the teenager becoming decapitated by a Batman Roller coaster.

The teen jumped over two sets of fences that were very clearly marked “Restricted area-Authorized Personnel Only,” and “Danger Zone-Do Not Enter.”.  All because his hat blew off while riding the very same ride.  Once he got to the area of his hat, the coaster came by at full speed and struck the teen, removing his head from his body.

While the teen had good intentions with his life by being active in church and had plans to join the National Guard.  Clearly wasn’t the brightest of the bunch when he took it upon himself to retrieve his own hat from under the coaster that was active with guests of the park in Six Flags Over Georgia.

Apparently he couldn’t wait to get his hat from the lost and found.

All over a stupid hat….

Full Story @ Associated Press

Holy shit.  Fifteen years of working in tech support, this is a very first for me.  This was the customer’s complaint.

About a month ago, we moved all of our DSL customers to a new, more robust network.  (ours was getting full) During the move, we had a few mess-ups on a few customers.  Perhaps 2% of them at most.  Everyone else was moved rather smoothly and all went well.  This lady that called today has to be the last of them.  Apparently when we moved her, we accidently downgraded her service from 3mb to 768k.  An oversight on our part, and we apologized as well as offered to credit her for the time in which her service was lower than what she was paying.  We also put in an upgrade order to get her back to her 3mb service.  When I told her what day it was supposed to take effect, she got upset.  Here are the key parts of the conversation from her (in quotes).

“My kids play online games, since this has happened, they’ve been having problems.”  I’m sorry ma’am, we will credit you for that.  “This is bullshit, why can’t we get it done today?”  Ma’am, the people that run our network are doing what they can and have scheduled it as early as possible, but they do have other work they need to do as well.  “I can’t believe this.  It’s not hurting me having slower internet, but it’s hurting my kids.”  (I had no response for this that I could say out loud and still keep my job, but I wanted to call her a fucking stupid bitch who, as my boss says, needs to take her trailer trash ass back to the trailer park).

There’s nothing stupid about George Carlin.  He was on of my favorite hero’s.  I was truly saddened to hear of his death on June 22, 2008.  I thought so highly of him.  Sure he was a comedian.  He made us laugh out loud.

He also made me think.  A lot.  He was a big part of the reason I suffer from dumasaphobia.  In his own special way he made me realize about a lot of the stupid things we believe in and do as human beings.  It was a big part of his life as well was pointing out the shortcomings of others and turning it into humor.

Things like:

• Religion
• Government
• Lifestyles
• and so much more

I will miss him on the stage, in movies and in my thoughts.  George Carlin was a very wise man and I consider him a friend, even though we’ve never met.  I wish I could have.

Here’s George in one of my favorite bits:

From the time you are in pre-school or kindergarten, you are taught the most basic of things.  Motor skills, focus and to do basic functions.  One of the most basic of things you learn is how to tell what is left and what is right.  At the time, it may not yet be clear if you are right or left handed.  Though it is usually around this time you learn what hand you will primarily use for the rest of your life.  While there are more right handed people than left, the basic concept will never change.

The other day I took a call from a customer, I asked them to find certain things on their computer screen.  When we got to where I wanted the customer to read to me what he saw, he just could not focus on the right side of the screen.  Every time I asked him to read something, he always started on the left.  This took many tries to get him to understand he was looking left, when I wanted him to look right.  After much frustration, he finally got what I wanted him to see.  He apologized for not understanding me, and told me “I’m sorry I’m left handed”.

This is when I thought to myself, what does that have to do with anything?  You should still know where your right hand is.  I’m right handed and when I need to look left, I can do it without question.  I mean, just how dumb do you have to be to not have such a basic skill mastered?

Kind of scares me to think how dangerous he might be on the streets behind the wheel.