FW: It works!

Johnnyvirus

FW:

We're just getting started.

Johnnyvirus

This was a test post sent by my phone. Suzi would be glad to know that I've figured out how to post from the RAZR phone! Thanks, Motorola! I've been at school now for about a half hour and it seems that there will be nothing for me to do but file a small stack of papers for Carol. That's it. It's nice to know that I am getting paid for doing next-to-nothing.

Countdown to Warped Tour is fifteen days away! I've talked to Fearless this week and Bridget is working out my flight out of Lambert and Joyce is working on my laminate. I've been informed that I will not be receiving catering due to the fact that it costs more to feed me with catering on Warped than to give me $100 a week for my own food and shopping (and beer, beer, beer!)

I'll be writing more today, as time is fleeting.

John

Lately, I feel like I don't give a shit.

Motivation, such an aggrivation.

I have been going through the ups and downs of every-day life now for a few years and sometimes life seems that I am not getting anywhere. Stuck in a rut, so to speak. Just in the nick of time, an opportunity arises and makes me feel like I am back on track in life. I got invited from Fearless Records to be a merch dude for them on the whole Vans Warped Tour 2008 this summer. I can't say how much I not only appreciate this opportunity, but readily deserve it. It's about 40 dates in and around the continental United States and Canada and will feature such bands as Paramore, Angels and Airwaves, Anberlin, and more. Fearless bands playing the Warped Tour are The Maine, Mayday Parade, Alesana, among others (if omitted). I'll be riding on Alesana's bus; complete with a bunk that has an electrical outlet. How awesome it is to experience a Warped Tour that isn't costing me money; but rather earning me money.

I've also decided that it's time for me to buckle down and decide what I really want in life. I've realized that I enjoy working on the newspaper here at school. It's, at times, stressful and demanding but rewarding and justifyable in the long run. I am going to be switching my major to journalism here at Forest Park. It feels right and I look forward to starting a new path in my life that doesn't involve Adobe Illustrator 95% of my time at school. I feel that the lack of variety in the assignments here at Forest Park's Graphic Communications curriculum really made me see that I wouldn't like to be sitting in front of a computer screen all day and making logos and brochures. It's a much delayed decision on my part but worth it in the end, as well. Taking the good with the bad is what life is all about. I don't have long on this planet (life is short) and will make my future promising by any means neccisary. Stress-free is the way to be.

I wish all my fellow Forest Park graduates well in their journey towards their dreams; especially Liliya, Amy, Stormy and Tiffany. They have stuck it out long enough and were finally fortunate enough to get out of this school with an Associates under their belt. They are what makes this school amazing. The teachers are only 25% of the formula. They don't teach students how to give praise to eachother. They don't teach students how to come up with a unique concept for a design. They just show you how to execute ideas rather than develop the idea itself. Their art that they make is amazing and if I were to be a C.E.O. one day of a company, they would be the first people I call to guide my company into the right direction graphically.

I'll be updating this Blogger periodically through my journey around the country this summer. I know Suzi will be pleased to know that; hence why I have this Blogger in the first place. :-)
Also I met the famous turtle Charlie. He's a local celebrity. Picture is attached. Do you know who Charlie is? Here's a link for the video on MyFoxSTL.

Hope all is well, guys. I won't be a stranger. :-)

John

You think you're nickel slick (but I got your penny change)

LOL RAM.

It's another race from outer space.

Lately, this blog has been neglected and I have nothing more than the excuse of the winter wonderland weather and my crippling upper respiratory infection to offer as an excuse to its neglect. An apology is extended to you, reader.

Today's technology races ahead with developments of fiber optics and digital conversion. Is it any wonder to think of why we are at the hands of corporate pocketbook foraging and structured pyramids of commission for our compliance and adaptation to its never-ending evolution?

Today at Shop and Save, there was an AT&T kiosk set up for DSL upgrades for $14.99. Being at the mercy of a crippling 56K dial-up connection for five years now is enough to interest me in an upgrade. I spoke with the guy working the kiosk, whose name was Lou. Within the first sentences he spoke, I couldn't help but notice the striking resemblance of his sales pitches and dead-end stories he used in his sales pitch to that of a telemarketer. He used ample amounts of technology jargon, facts and figures and frivolous information about speed and connectivity that leads to confusion and blind decisions of clueless telecommunications consumers every day.

Below are a list of steps that any sales representative should follow to lead to a successful sale and happy consumer:

1. Be yourself. Today's media and world in general is filled with people every day pretending to be something that they are not. Putting on a 'mask' and playing the part of a consumer's friend is probably the most idiotic and self-indulging move you could make as a sales rep. Your job as a sales rep is to sell things to consumers. The consumer realizes that. They are not stupid.

2. Stay relevant to the subject matter. Telling stories about previous consumers and their absolute satisfaction with a product or service you are offering has nothing to do with the actual product or service. If a consumer needs this often useless and fictitious information, they will ask for it. If there were an opt-out button I could press to avoid these stories about 90-year old women getting computers for Christmas and installing their own DSL service, I would have pressed it before your lackluster story even began. You just wasted a minute of the consumer's life that they will never get back. The consumer realizes that. They are not stupid.

3. Price-gouging is not friendly. For the record, statistics show that the majority of telecommunications companies avoid high-priced equipment pitches until the sale is completed. A DSL modem is required for DSL service. At all costs, avoid distracting the consumer with a low-priced service to achieve the sale of a high-priced piece of equipment that is required for the originally low-priced service you are offering. Offering $14.99 DSL at face value and tip-toeing around the $49.99 DSL modem is a poor move on your part; partly because the consumer will receive the bill and wonder where this charge came from and why it was not discussed in the original sale, and partly because you lied to said consumer. Neglecting the consumer's money is neglecting your position with your applicable company. The money received for a product or service comes from the consumer's paycheck and is put towards your paycheck. I don't put your paycheck in question, so don't put my paycheck in question. The consumer realizes that. They are not stupid.

4. Become educated about the product or service you offer. Do yourself a favor and know what you are talking about when selling a product or service. There's nothing more self-degradating than not realizing that the consumer is laughing on the inside because a sales rep is talking about something they about a product of service that is inaccurate. The funny thing is that I previously sold BellSouth DSL upgrades at a telemarketing center and knew that x/mbps upgrades were only speed-efficient when downloading files from a direct source. Avoid running your mouth about page uploads and flash video animation loading times being double and triple the speed of basic DSL packages when there actually is no direct correlation to either/or. If you are unsure of a product or service's benefits to the consumer, avoid pitching them to said consumer until you become knowledgeable about each. You are lying to a consumer when you distribute inaccurate information about benefits that don't exist. The consumer realizes that. They are not stupid.

I have completed this blog using a standard 56K dial-up connection and have no plans in the near future of upgrading to a faster service that AT&T offers. They have dug themself into a figurative hole hiring sales reps that are clueless and hollow-minded.

John

There's a clamor in your whispering.

Lately?

I suck at life. School is quite hellish and my social life is crumbling under the utmost extreme pressures of today's definition of a utopian network.

I need pills, I tell myself. Xanax would be adequate and fufilling.

I'm dealing.

Fin.

John

An open letter to my box turtle.

A N + O P E N + L E T T E R
T O + M Y + T U R T L E

Dear Turtle,

First (and certainly foremost) let me extend my utmost sincere apologies for your name being Ding-Dong. When you were given to me by your horrid, white-trash previous owners when I was 12, my mind was blank. All I could think of was Bob or Larry. My mom said that both were undoubtedly stupid names for a turtle, and, because I didn't want to seem disagreeable, I acquiesced. But I wonder sometimes if you would have been better off if I hadn't been so annoyed by your anti-social tendencies and indecisiveness to eat bread and lettuce, therefore forming the acquisition of your current name of Ding-Dong. I was wrong for assigning you to this demise, as frustration became the best of me.

It would bother me more if I thought you cared, but you don't. You probably don't even realize that Ding-Dong is your name. I can tell by the way you act, walking with all your might into the full-size mirror because you've convinced yourself that there really is a turtle on the other side, that you don't understand much. You live in a world of confusion and mental peril. You are locked in my apartment and banished to pace the floors of the same five rooms for the rest of your life. When I feed you live worms and bread, you ignore it and trample over it, thus shedding the worm's blood onto my kitchen floor and ending an innocent life for nothing! Do you even remember that you don't eat dead worms? Why must the worm be sacrificed for your arrogant protest of captivity? When I take you outside in the yard to play, you instantly dart away as fast as your tiny limbs can carry you, totally unaware that if you ever did actually escape from me, you would no doubt shortly die hungry, lost, and alone on the streets of Saint Louis.

I wonder sometimes how I can justify my treatment of you. How I can feel so certain that I am doing what is best for you, even though every indication you have given has demonstrated that you want nothing to do with me; nor the luxury of a life without an aquarium and having free reign in my apartment, which is assaulted by the sound of Metro Station at 3 a.m., sounds of dance hall lust and human debauchery that must seem terribly terrifying and supernatural to you; nor with your diet, which consists of nothing but usually damp white bread and refrigerated earth worms; nor with your total lack of companionship with your own kind? You were a baby, I tell myself. You probably would have starved to death due to lack of feeding and fresh water; banished to an eternity of neglect from unconcerned owners that you once had. Living in the wild is tough, but living in captivity with owners that don't care about your well-being is worse. I am providing you with a better life than the one you would have had, even in your captive state, and even if you don't realize it. I repeat this to myself every day.

But what does this attitude really boil down to? How is it different from the ideals of politicians I despise who feel some need to protect us from ourselves? If, given a choice, you would crawl toward Freedom rather than Comfort (which I know you would, not even realizing what you were giving up), what right do I have to stop you?

There are arguments, justifications. I've been through them. These are the times when I am thankful that I completed a sociology class in high school , because it is clear that none of the arguments in favor of a paternalistic government rest on solid premises. I also cannot argue that I am in any way "superior" to you; we are only different sorts of creatures with different fundamental morals and goals in our short mortality.

So, in the end, I really can't justify myself, but nor do I plan to release you. The guilt I feel at ignoring this ethical paradox is greater than you could possibly imagine (keeping in mind that your wildest imaginings probably consist of nothing more than unknown combinations of sun-bathing and burrowing in wet soil). But I have tried. I have extended the twin hands of friendship and understanding, which is more than I can say for you. Do you remember the cardboard box lined with an old shirt I constructed for you to contribute to your warmth in winter hibernation? You urinated in it. The recently acquired female turtle roommate? You attacked her, biting both her arms and shell. After this cowardly display of masculinity, you tried to have sex with her! You proceeded on top of her as if this act of masochistic violence never occurred. I don't know what sick and twisted hostility bereaves your small turtle brain resulting in your unthinking brutality but us human creatures call this rape. It's a crime and it's not socially acceptable. Did you try in any way to show appreciation for the fact that I leave the curtains ajar to welcome in the warm sunlight, only to come home after school and watch you scurry away from me in fright and horror - as if I am some menacing giant looking to harm you. Your lunacy binge has gone on too long, small friend. It's time to turn your life around.

But I forgive you. It is not your fault, I remind myself; it is your nature. And this, I have come to realize, is the purest form of love. A love that requires nothing, that appreciates a being simply for being what it is, without thought of reward or reciprocation. I thank you for helping me find this almost Christ-like compassion within myself, a love that gives all with the full knowledge that nothing, not even the simple cognition of my kind acts, is forthcoming. Because I realize, all too well, that should you one day become much larger, due to, say, some sort of "enlarge laser," you would not hesitate to devour me.

I love you, Ding-Dong. My turtle, my pet, my friend.

John