Welcome to today’s edition of: People I like, People I hate, a fascinating insight into the trends that shape neuroses in this corner of the interweb.
People I like:
1) These guys, who received, printed and delivered my two new meishi designs for a grand total of ¥1750 (that’s only a test batch of 100 for each, but still damn cheap given the low quantity).
They look fine, the inking is very good and the paper nice enough even if not quite as heavy as I’d like. I had design #1 printed on mat paper, and the more funky looking design #2 with a glossy finish. In the end, I kept the fonts and didn’t change the design further (other than inserting my real info, of course: no matter how tempting, I don’t really need a set of card that reads “Dave de Vil” on them).
2) Eriko, who made the designs, and who, even though she can be quite a pain in the arse as a roommate sometime, did an awesome job.
And if you like this very minor sample of her work: she’s about to graduate from her graphic designer school and desperately looking for work. So if you need kick ass digital illustrations or a skilled DTP technician, or have any kind of gainful employment opportunities you’d like to discuss with her, contact me and I’ll forward.
People I hate:
1) Msrs. Augustin-Louis Cauchy and Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann who should have stayed in bed the day they decided they were gonna add anything to the general theory of infinite series.
And by the way, Riemann shares two of Hegel’s first names: this is no coincidence and can only be added to mounting evidences linking him to some evil design involving the ultimate demise of the human race.
2) NTT and the pea-brained phone-droids it employs. Not just because my DSL connection has been relentlessly dropped every other hour for the past 2 weeks. Nor because the visit, 5 days ago, of their technician – whom I had to train in the most basic principles of internet telephony before he could even start trying to do something – hardly solved anything and prompted me to call them again today.
But because, instead of apologizing profusely for repeatedly failing to address an issue that is preventing me from using a service I am paying for all along, they instead treated us to one hour of phone ping-pong followed by 20 minutes of useless scripted speech which went into serious stalling mode when the employee required yet another obscure reference number in order to continue any further an already very fruitless discussion.
Discussion with my flatmate went something like that:
NTT phone-droid: Can you give me your CAD contract number, please?
Eriko: What is my “CAD contract number”, I don’t think I have that, can’t you just retrieve it through the “customer number” I just gave you, instead?
NTT phone-droid: Can you give me your CAD contract number, please?
Eriko: I really don’t think we have this number anywhere. But I just spent 20 minutes giving you our name, address and favorite pet’s name, you should be able to pull that from the database, no?
NTT phone-droid: Can you give me your CAD contract number, please?
[etc. etc.]
Until the point where I grabbed the mouthpiece from Eriko and managed to convey my advanced state of mouth-foaming over the phone, the best I could. A state that usually sends strong vibes of “don’t start pulling the meaningless unintelligible keigo crap on me right now: I’m really not in the mood”….
“The lady says we do not have that number. Now will you send us somebody or do I have to go on an obaachan murdering spree to be heard?”
Which somehow worked, since after much etoh, etoh, fifty minutes and another phone call later, we were assured they would send another hapless chap to check on the rusty phone cables of the whole neighbourhood by Monday.
I may have a working DSL by the end of next month.