GreenEye Wire

I’ve started to learn German. Then I stop. Then I start up again. Then I get bored and stop again. But I’ve found a site that I think will inspire me to learn German once and for all. (Shameless SEO link right there…but these guys look to be cool, so they get one.)

Give boring German the middle finger: Pukka teaches popular German idioms, the best slang words, funny German sayings and useful German phrases.

No idea how good this site is, but the finger on the front page gave me a good laugh. Although don’t Germans use two fingers instead of their middle one? I’ll have to ask my friend Boris if it is two fingers or it is the middle one. I love Boris because he’s a German guy who looks American. And since I’m the American who looks German, it makes me smile when we walk together and strangers in Germany speak to me, not him.   And, Boris is a hell of a guy…genuinely a good person.

There’s also a very active ‘Speak German’ meetup group here in the Dallas area, so if I learn enough ‘clever sayings’, I might have to go test them out.

After 30 years of marriage Jacqueline and her husband Mark went for counseling. When asked to describe her problems, Jacqueline went into a passionate, painful tirade listing every problem they had ever had in the 30 years they had been together.

She went on and on and on: neglect, lack of intimacy, emptiness, loneliness, feeling unloved and unlovable, an entire laundry list of unfulfilled needs she had endured over the course of their marriage.

Finally, after allowing this to go on for a sufficient length of time, the therapist got up, walked around the desk and, after asking Jacqueline to stand, tore open blouse with buttons flying everywhere, ripped off her b ra, started tongue kissing while he embraced her, then put his hands on her breasts and fondled them and kissed them passionately.

A side glance at her husband, and then he then put his hand up her skirt, ripped her panties off, and fondled her wildly while her husband Mark watched with raised eyebrows and mouth wide open.

Jacqueline, flushed, tried to cover herself with the torn blouse and quietly sat down as though in a total daze.

The therapist turned to Mark and said, Now do you understand? This is what your wife needs at least three times a week! Can you do this?

Mark thought for a moment and replied, ‘Well, I can drop her off here on Mondays and Wednesdays but on Fridays, I play golf.’

Ba Da BAH.

When I got my father a Flip Ultra for Father’s Day, I didn’t realized that I had created a monster. He called me that day and told me to FedEX a tripod out to him the next day. He ran out to the field and began filming to put youtube clips about his wheat on his web site.

Now, a little background about Dad, he told me just last year that when I first told him about putting up an Internet site for Reisig Seeds, he did it because “You were my daughter and you were so excited about it.” He didn’t actually think he’d get sales from it. Last year, he had to buy seed from other farmers to supply the demand he got just from his site. He is now a believer in the web. And really, as farmers go, Dad’s pretty hip.

So for the past 3 weeks, I’ve been fighting video software to edit these clips into something presentable. I’ve learned a lot: how to work with audio, edit out wind noise, and when I couldn’t do that, add subtitles. I had to work with 3 pieces of software to do this, and each has its own little quirks. I had to figure out how to make the Reisig Seeds Logo into a “video logo” that moved. And, I had to search through hours of music to get a ‘theme song’ for Reisig Seeds. And then fight the software after it was all edited together to convert it into a YouTube friendly format that didn’t compress all my hard work into a blurry piece of crap.

But after all of that, I think the results turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Anyway, if you want to see the official Reisig Seeds Youtube channel, here it is. I’ve got quite a few other clips to edit, so there will be more videos up as soon as I can get them.

You remember Dave Carroll, the guy on Youtube who wrote the ‘United Breaks Guitars’ song? Well, he posted another video for all his fans who liked his first video. And he proves that he’s a good guy by asking United to give the money they want to compensate him for his guitar to a charity.

I think I may need to buy one of his albums. Even cooler, he’s still gonna write the last two songs he promised in his first video. (The entire United story is here.)

I love my mac. And usually, I only have nice things to say about Apple and their products as a whole. Not this time…

I bought Quicktime Pro. No problems getting through the cart process until I actually had to download the thing. I got a friendly email saying “After initial purchase, electronic software downloads and keys are available in the Account area of the Apple Store.” and gave me a link to go to the account area.

I get to the account area and all that is there is a registration key for the software I just downloaded. Fine. I copy the registration code and make ready to plug it into the register thing in the software. But it didn’t work. I tried again. No dice. Restarted the app. Nothing.

So I went back to the fore-mentioned ‘Account Area’ and find a nice little link at the top that said “Questions? Need Advice? Call 1-800-MY-APPLE | Chat Now”.

Now keep in mind, this ‘Need Advice Chat link’ is in the area of the site *after* you have purchased something. So basically, unless you purchase something, you can’t get to it. You MUST have already made a purchase to even get there. Keep that in mind while you read the conversation I had with the Apple rep below.

So I clicked the “Chat Now” link. This is the actual conversation.

* You are chatting with Judy, an Apple Expert
Hi, my name is Judy. Welcome to Apple!

Me: I’m in my download software purchase history. How do I download or update my software…I see the key for quicktime 7 pro but when I paste the key into my quicktime reader, nothing happens.

Judy: I am sorry to hear that. For assistance you can contact AppleCare and they will be able to further assist you.

Me: I am contacting Applecare…isn’t that you? All I need is help upgrading the software I just bought..I’m looking at the cart now.

Judy: This is sales.

Me: yes..and I just bought the quicktime pro..and I see the key..

Judy: I understand, however, if you are having problems with a product you have already purchased then you will need to contact AppleCare for assistance.

….some more back and forth …

Me: It seems counter productive to me that you guys have a “chat link in the “downloads history” if you cannot do anything to help. Why would you have a link in downloadable software area if you can’t help me? Does that make sense to you?

Judy: I am sorry you had difficulty. However, since this is sales we are not able to assist you with technical support issues from here…

Me: Am I the only one who sees the craziness of this situation?

Now, to be fair, Judy did actually dig up the link from the support area to get me help. But it was above and beyond what she, as a SALES support person, is supposed to do. Poor Judy shouldn’t have to deal with tech support issues and, really, she shouldn’t…if Apple just put the ‘tech support chat people link’ in the right place.

The thing is, I feel for Judy. She’ll probably report the issue to her superiors who will shrug it off. And then Judy will have to deal with some other irate customer like me.

Tech support people get no respect. Sad, too, considering they are the first person your company will probably work with closely.