Friday, July 21, 2000

I’m being haunted by that damnably cheery Paper Clip

QUOTE O' THE DAY: "We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once." — Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

REACH OUT AND TOUCH ME: I received a dunning notice in yesterday's mail from AT&T. Apparently, I've a past due balance with them of some $21.20. Which is odd, since my long distance carrier is Sprint, has been for five years now, and I carefully avoid doing anything that would route my calls via another company. Anyway, the letter says that if I don't remit soon, they'll start a collection action against me. And I quote: "It is not necessary to contact us if your payment was already mailed or if you plan to mail it within the next two days."

Well, I don't plan to pay it, at least not until I can ascertain that I actually owe it and for what services exactly. The trouble is, nowhere in this correspondence does AT&T provide me with a phone number to reach them. AT and friggin' T! You'd think they might have a phone line or two for people to give 'em a ring, but apparently not. Hell, they used to be American Telephone & Telegraph, right? But there's not even an indication of where one might direct some Morse code, should it be necessary. (Thank goodness for the web, although I'll still have to take time from my busy schedule to deal with this tomorrow.) Geez! Like I don't already have enough problems with the phone company.

EEE-THER, EYE-THER, KNEE-THER, NYE-THER: After nearly 15 years of an almost exclusive Macintosh-based existence (with smatterings of Unix and Windows), my primary office workstation at the new gig is a Windows peecee. I'd comfortably allowed myself to forget how fargin' counter-intuitive the Windows interface can be, right down to pushing a button labeled "Start" to shut down the computer. I was reminded of one of my favorite gripe-sites, the canonical Interface Hall of Shame, which recounts UI sins on many platforms. In addition to relearning two-button mouse skills, wrapping my fingers around bizarre Ctrl- and Alt-key sequences and importing my contacts/calendar into (gasp! danger!) the company standard Microsoft Outlook, I'm being haunted by that damnably cheery Paper Clip (which User Friendly is riffing on this week).