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October 12 2005
LIBERALS -- THREAT OR MENACE?
I’m ashamed of my country. Well, more specifically, I’m ashamed of my fellow countrymen. But as America is a country for, of, and by the people, well, that pretty much translates to being ashamed of America. And I don’t like to be ashamed of America.
Why am I ashamed of my fellow Americans? It’s not because of so called prisoner abuse at Guatanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. We’re fighting a war, and there is no such thing as an honorable or a moral war. We are fighting in self defense against a fanatical and psychotic enemy, and when a rabid dog is at your throat, you don’t grab for a soup spoon when a Bowie knife is just as close at hand. Anyone who would hamstring our national defense with so called ‘rules of engagement’ and archaic codes from obsolete international conventions that our enemies have never even made a pretense of adhering to is a fool at best, and a traitor at worst. Our troops in the field are doing what they have to to protect the American way of life. I would no more offer criticism of such patriotic efforts than I would try backseat drive with a surgeon treating me for a bleeding gunshot wound.
Nor am I ashamed of these so called ‘scandals’ that the mainstream liberal media is having such a field day reporting on now. Our President is an honorable man, and the men and women of his administration are honorable as well. These so called crimes that various members of the President’s administration are being accused of are nebulous, trivial, pointless matters that no one but the mainstream liberal media could possibly care about. Has Tom DeLay stolen anything or assaulted anyone? Of course not. Has Karl Rove actually committed any sort of crime anyone can even vaguely define? Don’t be ridiculous. With all this talk about ‘corruption’ and ‘malfeasance’, has anyone even remotely committed anything like a crime, or a sexual impropriety? After the Oval Office shenanigans of the last Democratic President, I honestly think anyone who tries to point a finger of blame at the current administration is a hypocrite and a fool.
And this, at last, is what I am ashamed of: the culture of blame and hypocrisy that is currently assailing fine, dedicated Americans like a circling horde of vultures. When the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress is forced to step down from his high office because of this kind of petty, unsubstantiated carping and sniping, there is something deeply rotten at the very heart of our way of life. And that rot has a name, and that name is liberalism.
Liberals hate America, because America is one nation under God, and liberals are, for the vast most part, all atheists. Liberals want nothing more than to pull down and crush under their pinko heels every decent and fundamental value that America is built on. When a liberal sees a church, they sneer; when they see an American family consisting of a married man and woman raising their legitimate children in a decent, God fearing lifestyle, they spit. And when decent, Godfearing Americans go fearlessly to the voting booth and elect one of their own to represent them in our fine and democratic government, liberals immediately begin to ceaselessly conspire to bring that decent, Godfearing elected representative down.
Liberal smear tactics are infamous, as well as a national disgrace. If a good man or a good woman aspires to any high office anywhere in the land, you can bet that liberals will be combing through their garbage cans within minutes looking for something to smear that fine person with. And if they are unsuccessful in their hunt, no problem; liberals will just make something up. Repeat it on the left wing blogs loud and often enough and the mainstream liberal media will unfailingly pick it up and report it as ‘fact’, and there you have it… another decent American with their reputation in shreds, all because godless liberals hate and fear decent American values. If godless liberals had their way, the Pledge of Allegiance would contain a promise to commit adultery, and American coinage would say “In Hillary We Trust” on it.
Liberals are the rot that is destroying the very fabric of America from within. They are a cancer eating our proud country up from the inside out. They are heartless, soulless, faithless… and ruthless in their attacks on everything decent and kind and good about the American way of life. The time has come to ask ourselves the hard question: can we afford to continue to tolerate the corrosive taint of liberalism in our national dialogue? Or should something be done to preserve both the American dream and the American reality from hateful liberal attack?
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I've seeded that around on a few of the left wing blogs I regularly read, in the comment threads. I admit, it's a shameless bid for attention. Last time I dropped something like this onto a MOON OF ALABAMA ct, I wound up with 72 comments and an invitation from the sitemaster there to send him more of my work which he would publish up front. Of course, that invitation promptly dissolved when I actually accepted it and began culling various political pieces off this blog and sending them to him; he put up all of one, about ten days after I submitted it, and then promptly welshed on his promise. Still, when you can't get people to pay attention to you through sweet reason, agitate the fuckers. I guess.
ROCKING THE BOAT
I had a brief (cruel) hope spurt last night, when SuperGirlfriend brought me home from my second night shift (after a bear of a day on the phones) and I saw a slim manila envelope from TOR Books in my mailbox, addressed to "JB Glass", the pseud I had submitted the first three chapters and an outline for REVENANTS under. As the envelope was rather more slender than the usual rejection package I get, and as I'd been fantasizing about receiving just such an envelope for the last several weeks, in hopes that it would prove to be me and the Super Significant Others’ economic salvation, well, my heart leapt up. But, noooo... it proved to be merely the initial submission back again, with yet another form rejection letter on top that someone had scrawled "in ref REVENANTS" on with a Flair pen. Fuckers.
In addition to that, a guy I used to hang out with back in Tampa, who already had my dream job (he writes for one of the local newspapers) has sold his first novel. He sent me an email advising me of this and telling me he would mention me in the acknowledgements. I immediately wrote back and begged him to hook me up with any inside publishing contacts he may have, but that was over a week ago, and I’m guessing my immediate self centered response to his announcement must have utterly repulsed him, as I’ve heard nothing from him since. (I’ll admit, if I ever manage to break in past the slush pile barricade, I myself will probably very quickly get very tired of all my other acquaintances asking me to put them on the inside track, because everyone nowadays thinks they can write. However, I really can write, and my former acquaintance should know this, and I have been submitting my stuff, with SuperGirlfriend’s help, consistently for the last two years or so, and have run into a brick wall. I need an inside contact, and I have no remorse whatsoever about asking everyone I know if they can provide one. If I can just get someone somewhere to take a serious look at some of my work, I know I can make some publisher a lot of money, and, well, it would certainly make me and the SuperSignificantOthers lives an order of magnitude better for me to be a professional author, too. So I will keep pushing every button that I can get access to, and if it annoys the people those buttons are mounted on, well, I’m sorry, but I’d like to get paid to write, too. I know there is not enough of that pie to go around to everyone, but I actually have talent and am capable of producing high volumes of very commercial work in relatively short order; someone out there should be making money off me.)
The new job isn't as bad as it could be. I'm working for a company I will refer to as the Big Old Amalgamated TeleCenter Source, or BOATS. They are a third party benefits administrator; their particular niche is that when a large corporate employer wants to get the various benefits out of offering their employees various health care plans, especially flexible spending accounts, but they don't want to be bothered actually administering them (which can be very complex and demanding), they can hire BOATS, and we do it for them. We have something like 200+ clients (although it seems like another couple of clients drop BOATS as their administrator every day, so we may be down well below this now) and what we do is, we process their employees claims, offer advice, and try to straighten out inevitable snafus that inevitably occur in anything as complex as a flex spending account.
It is, in my humble opinion, a doomed business model. It's an interesting niche, but according to the brief overview of company history I was given in training, BOATS has only been in this service area for around five years. It was clear to me in training (and it has become clearer since I started actually taking calls) that they are essentially making up their procedures as they go along. Administering 200+ different benefit plans is, well, a Herculean task, as every client is slightly different in their particulars, and they change those particulars on a very nearly daily basis, too. To keep up with everything we have a computer program called BOATSWAIN that supposedly contains every piece of information we will need to answer any questions an employee could have, but it isn't well organized and frequently isn't up to date. We were told in training that if we came across anything in BOATSWAIN that was incorrect or obsolete, we could just click a link and send the programming team an email pointing it out, and they'd fix it with alacrity. I suspected that this was, shall we say, an overly idealized conceptualization, and from what I have heard from others who have tried to do it (I am not so foolish), what generally happens is that someone from the programming team comes over to your desk, demands to know who the fuck you think you are, curses you resoundingly, demands to know if you consulted with your supervisor before you sent your correction to him, curses you again, then stalks away muttering threateningly under his or her breath.
There are good things about the fact that BOATS doesn't really have more than a vague idea what it's doing or how to get it done. There are fewer rules there than at any other call center I've ever worked at, although having said that, I will note that there are still more than enough restrictions on normal office behavior to make the work day maddening and onerous. Still, it's about the least intrusive call center I've ever worked at, although I suspect that is going to change soon (assuming they stay in business much longer). We were told on our last day of training that from this point forward, we are supposed to 'really try to sell' the flex spending account, and where we can, the flex benefit card, to people who call in with general questions, and I cynically predicted to Bane at that time that this meant we would be seeing mandatory sales attempts included in our quality review requirements within another year.
BOATS is, in its own quiet yet profoundly spectacular way, probably the most ineptly managed call center/business I've ever encountered. I never thought I'd find a call center more incompetently run than Accent, but, well, there they are.
There are many ways I could illustrate this claim – the insane mosaic of different software platforms we have to access to answer anything but the simplest questions would probably turn your hair grey if I described it in any detail, for example – but the BOATS regulation that I find best sums up my disgust at just how retarded upper management is there is an enormously simple one: they don’t have casual days. More than that, their business casual dress code specifically forbids all denim at all times – not just blue jeans, as is common throughout the business world, but denim trousers of any color or style, as well as any other denim garment.
There is one exception to this; at the company store you can order a denim shirt with the corporate logo on it (I think it runs around $30). But there are no corporate logo jeans of any color or style; someone in the hierarchy simply can’t stand the idea of any of their associates wearing jeans of any description, in any way, on any day.
This is, honestly, just an idiotic rule. By refusing to allow any sort of casual dress event at all, BOATS has foreclosed the quickest and easiest way to manipulate employee morale in a positive fashion. They can’t sell casual days to people to raise money for office activities, or reward good performers with casual days… something every other call center I’ve ever worked at… hell, pretty much every other office I’ve ever worked at, bar the Tampa City Clerk’s office… has routinely done.
I’m not just bitching about this because I’m spoiled. It genuinely seems to me to be a profoundly flawed policy, for several reasons in addition to the one I’ve already detailed. First, working in a call center is one of the most stressful jobs there is. (This is probably more a tribute to the essential wussiness of the American work force than it is to the actual relative stress level of taking calls, but nonetheless, every workplace stress study I know of has ended up placing call center jobs right below things like police, military, and firefighter.) The stress comes from many factors about the job – the hours (most call centers stay open later than other offices, and many require weekend work), the job conditions themselves (call center workers are intensely monitored, both directly and remotely, every minute of their work day)—but mostly, the stress simply comes from the lack of mobility the job requires (call center workers are chained to their phones when they are on shift; if they want to get up to go to the bathroom or get a Pepsi or for any reason at all outside scheduled break areas, they need to log off for a specific reason, and supervisors question them every time they do it, because it lowers overall performance levels for the whole center when someone is off the phones at a time they are scheduled to be on) and the simple dread all call takers experience in regard to whatever their next call will be. Because call center work is stressful, all call centers have a very high turnover rate. Given that, well, it’s just kind of moronic to add one more factor to the ‘I need to quit this job as soon as possible’ column… and while the management at BOATS probably thinks the lack of casual days is a minor thing, that simply shows how out of touch they are with their employees. I heard a collective, if muted, groan go up from everyone in my class when our trainer advised us there were no casual days at BOATS, and since I’ve gone out on the floor, I’ve heard echoes of that annoyance in regard to the lack of casual days from every more experienced employee I’ve talked to.
Certainly, it’s true that no one likes working in a call center and nearly anyone will quit as soon as they can. But by outlawing all casual dress, BOATS has not only made the job more undesirable than any other non call center position, they’ve put their call center at the absolute bottom of the list of call centers anyone would want to work in.
And you know that’s true, when I find myself actually missing my job at Accent.
The job is by no means all bad. One of the factors I find most aggravating about it (although I’m also amused at it, in a kind of rueful way) is that I’m working the late shift, and, well, I don’t like it. Until my move to River City I had kind of an advantage over the vast majority of other job candidates at call centers, in that not only was I willing to work night shifts, I actually liked it. However, now that I have SuperGirlfriend and the SuperKids in my life, I have joined the vast, madding herd that desperately wants to work a day shift, so I can spend more time with my family. Naturally, at BOATS, day shifts are a coveted, avidly sought after item, and every new employee has to start out on nights and wait in line behind all the more experienced employees, generally for months or years, until a slot finally opens up.
But enough of the new job crap. Let’s write about something more fun, like…
ARMOR WARS: THE LEGEND CONTINUES
Mike Norton has posted several entries on his own blog in reference to this forthcoming set from WizKids, and his general attitude has gone from enthusiasm to disappointment over the course of the last few weeks, as WizKids has released more and more specific information on the contents of the set. I myself am still not as aggravated as he is with the set, but I can see where he’s getting the bad vibes from.
As with any set WizKids puts out, ARMOR WARS is a mixture of good and bad…which, I suppose, simply means you can’t please everyone all of the time. I’m happy that WizKids is finally giving us several long awaited figs like Crystal, the Asgardian Executioner (partner to the Enchantress in the Masters of Evil) and Thunderball. However, in other particulars, the set is rather exasperating, and probably the most essential item I’m personally disappointed is the fig at the very heart of ARMOR WARS – the new version of Iron Man.
The original Iron Man figure appeared in X-plosion, and the vet level, at least, is regarded as one of the bigger wastes of points in the game. When a fig weighs in at 189 points, it needs to be an extremely useful piece to see any kind of serious play. Alas, the X-plosion version of Iron Man doesn’t really cut the mustard. Only on his opening click, where he has a 12 movement with Running Shot, a 10 Attack with Energy Explosion, a 10 range, 2 ranged attack targets, a 17 Defense with Invulnerability, and a 3 Damage with Ranged Combat Expert, is he particularly potent. One click in, all his values except Defense drop by 1 – which is a fairly normal devolution, but you’d think someone in the best science fiction battle armor ever set out in a comic book would hold his stats a little better than this. On his third click he’s down to an 8 attack, and it’s all downhill from there – from that point down, he hits a 7 attack and stays there, or drops, for the remainder of his dial. Other than in the extreme endgame, a 7 attack or lower simply won’t cut it, which means that for 2/3s of his dial, Iron Man is nothing more than a 189 point hole in your roster.
As far as powers go, though, the Vet Iron Man has a wonderful mix… he keeps the ranged attack options for four clicks, and then switches over to Charge and Super Strength, with a brief return from Toughness to Invulnerability, and a quick spike back up to 3 damage (with no modifiers) on his fifth click. I’ve never heard anyone complain about the power distribution on his dial; Tony Stark in his fighting gear should be able to switch back and forth from being a serious ranged hitter to being a heavy duty melee combatant. The only real problems with the X-plosion Iron Man were how fast his stats dropped (and, honestly, a 10 AV is an acceptable attack, but for the Veteran Iron Man, it should be maybe on his third or fourth click – with all his targeting gear, he should start out around 12, at least) and, well, we would have liked to see maybe one or two clicks of Impervious at the top of his dial, since the IM armor, when fully charged, can stand up to a direct hit from Thor’s hammer, if it has to.
So most players will agree that a new Iron Man was long overdue. However, all we really wanted to see were better stats (specifically on attack) and at least one click of Impervious in the mix.
Instead, WizKids has given us… well, it’s just a mess. Yeah, we have better stats on the Experienced and Vet levels. However, the only Super Strength to be found on any of the new IM dials is in the last three clicks on the rookie level, where it honestly makes no sense at all… and none of the new REVs have any Energy Explosion at all. WizKids kept the 10 range and the 2 targets on the Veteran version, but multiple targets is mostly a waste if you have no offensive powers that work well with it (EE is one of those that works spectacularly in combination with multiple targets) and it’s entirely pointless if you load up a fig with Ranged Combat Expert, which can only be used on a single target. The new Vet Iron Man has 5 clicks of Ranged Combat Expert, and no other power that might work well with multiple targets, so the extra target is largely wasted.
Worse, WizKids is clearly now paranoid about putting Perplex and Outwit on the same dial too much, as they don’t want people throwing the Brilliant Tactician card around all that casually. So the new Experienced IM has a lot of Perplex, and the new Vet has a lot of Outwit, but the powers aren’t combined anywhere, which is, frankly, just plain goddam pissy.
It is, frankly, just plain goddam frustrating. To get the power array Iron Man should have, I’ll have to keep playing the X-plosion fig, which has crappy stats once it gets knocked off its opening click. To get better stats, I’ll have to play a version of Iron Man so limited in powers that the dial should by rights have been put out under a generic set of Guardsman armor.
War Machine got similarly dissed – a character whose whole thing is having a set of armor designed to take advantage of its wearer being physically stronger than Tony Stark, and no version gets any Super Strength at all! However, I don’t really much care about War Machine, so that’s not bothering me much. The new Iron Man, though, aggravates the crap out of me.
The new Ultron is nearly as annoying, but at least the Vet level is an interesting and useful variant over the original Infinity Challenge version. With a little Mind Control thrown in on his opening two clicks and some Psychic Blast past the midpoint of his dial, he more closely resembles the encaphalo-beam firing Ultron all us Silver Age fans know and love, and a lot of Super Strength on his dial, along with 3 clicks of Impervious and another 4 of Close Combat Expert, make him the mass melee nightmare the Avengers all dread encountering, as well. 3 clicks of Outwit past the midpoint also simulate Ultron’s craftiness fairly accurately. His attack doesn’t start anywhere near the godlike levels that the IC version has initially, and his range is shorter, and he’s not on a flight stand. However, the largely different dial offers enough other options to make the Vet version worth playing.
On the other hand, the new Rookie and Experienced versions are fodder, and if the Vet Ultron is as hard to come by as the Vet Dr. Strange (from FANTASTIC FORCES) or the Vet Superman (from ICONS) has proven to be, well, those of us who can’t afford to buy these things a case at a time could be in for a long frustrating hunt for the only usable version of the character in this set.
WizKids seems to be very cagey about releasing the details of the figs I’m REALLY interested in too early, so I haven’t seen Crystal, Thunderball, or the Executioner yet. It’s probably just as well; if the design team has screwed up those dials as badly as they screwed up the new Iron Man, they’ll hear me screaming about it on both polar icecaps.
Diverting briefly to ICONS, I had initially given the Batman fig out of the ICONS starter set to SuperAdorable Toddler, as she doesn’t play the game and I figured she’d enjoy having a Batman, and I couldn’t imagine a 49 point Dark Knight being worth all that much. However, recently SuperDependable Teen and I played a 500 point game and I found I didn’t have room in my small Justice League Squad for the new rookie Superman (I don’t have a vet yet), the new Vet Wonder Woman, and the new Experienced Batman (the Vet doesn’t have the Batman TA, so I sneer at him haughtily), along with the new Robin (from the starter set) and the new rookie Aquaman (the one closest to the classic Arthur Curry I remember fondly). So I went looking for SuperAdorable Toddler’s Batman (she was elsewhere) and played it and it’s really a very nice little package o’ Bat power. Very much like the Golden Age Batman should be, really. With Wonder Woman and Superman having fallen in the early rounds of the game, I found that Batman, Robin, and Aquaman really pulled it out in the end for me. So, since I can’t steal it back from SuperAdorable Toddler (she’s sharp as a tack about these things and has a photographic memory for gifts), I need to pick up a new ICONS starter set.
To my surprise, the Classic Robin fig plays pretty well, too. His Smoke Cloud comes in handy to provide cover for himself and Batman. It’s the compact Batman fig, though, with his Willpower, Batman TA, Outwit, and 10 attack that can really make a crucial difference when he needs to. Put a Swingline on him and Robin and you can get a lot of useful work out of them.
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4/13/05
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