The right wing of the blogosphere was all a-twitter today with news that USA Today had retracted, mostly, an earlier piece about BellSouth and Verizon providing records to the NSA without a warrant. If you’ll remember, the story caused much turmoil as the left used the opportunity to push how far the President had gone in the war against terrorism, and the right used it as just another example of the mainstream media turning a legal program into a public outrage.

Rhetoric flew at warp speed and continues to until this very day.

Today, USA Today wrote the following:

On May 11, USA TODAY reported that the National Security Agency, with the cooperation of several of America’s leading telecommunications companies, had compiled a database of domestic phone call records in an effort to monitor terrorist activity.

Several days later, BellSouth and Verizon specifically denied that they were among the companies that had contracted with the NSA to provide bulk calling records.

The denial was unexpected. USA TODAY had spoken with BellSouth and Verizon for several weeks about the substance of the report. The day before the article was published, the reporter read the sections of the article concerning BellSouth and Verizon to representatives of the companies and asked for a denial before publication.

Of course, they never got that denial so absent one, the impression given was that BellSouth and Verizon did indeed participate in the program. After the storm over the exchange of that data erupted, BellSouth and Verizon both categorically denied having handed over the data unlawfully. Remember those words, because they will indeed come back later on. After further examination, the only company who denied it straight away was Qwest, and they did so convincingly and repeatedly.

Back to Verizon and BellSouth. The important part of the article is not what’s in USA Today’s “retraction.” It’s actually in the article that accompanied it:

While Verizon has denied providing call records to the NSA, it has declined to comment on whether MCI participated in the calls database program.

“The President has referred to an NSA program, which he authorized, directed against al-Qaeda,” Verizon said in a written statement May 12. “Because that program is highly classified, Verizon cannot comment on that program, nor can we confirm or deny whether we have had any relationship to it.” The statement also said the company was now “ensuring that Verizon’s policies are implemented at that entity (MCI) and that all its activities fully comply with law.”

In the weeks since the database was revealed, congressional and intelligence sources have offered other new details about its scope and effectiveness.

Okay, so despite the fact that USA Today has already seen fit to retract the story, they chose to run two very interesting quotes in the article next to it.

The first is that Verizon cannot confirm or deny their involvement. That’s pretty damned interesting because the presumption by the blogosphere seems to be that the retraction says Verizon is not in fact involved. The article says no such thing. In fact, one could reasonably assume that they are in fact giving said records up, otherwise they would flatly deny it and end the speculation altogether.

Secondly, Verizon claims that it wants to ensure MCI’s activities fully comply with the law. Again, USA Today and the right wing seem to have taken that to mean that anything they do is automatically lawful. In fact, it just means that if they’re presented with a request they perceive to be legal, they’ll honor it. It doesn’t mean they’re following the law, just following legal procedures. For example, an executive order from the President to seize (willingly or unwillingly) the records of a phone company for purposes of generating statistical patterns of users could seem legal on the surface, but it doesn’t mean it would stand up in court or be constitutional.

In other words, Verizon’s denial is a non-denial, and while I applaud USA Today for backing off something they weren’t 100% comfortable with or able to prove (albeit a month and a half later), you have to wonder why the righties are so excited about this? It hardly is the “gotcha” they’re making it out to be. If I were them, I’d stop drawing attention to it, lest more people actually bother reading the article.

Technorati Tags: verizon, bellsouth, nsa, usa today, spying, bush

Okay, so Slobokan tagged me. Now it’s my turn to play the game…

5 Things in My Refrigerator:

Laughing Cow
Milk
Water
Beer
Bread

5 Things in My Closet:

Skeletons
Gay people
Boxes for various things I threw out years ago
Board games
clothing

5 Things in My Purse / Pockets:

Thumbdrive
Change
Wallet
Leatherman
Compactflash Card (1 Gig)

5 Things in My Car / Truck:

XM Satellite Radio
Empty Starbucks Cup
A sweater we were supposed to return to Kohl’s
An Air conditioner I’ve been too lazy to bring upstairs
Various headsets and chargers for phones I no longer own

There ya go. Really exciting stuff, huh?

Now I’ll tag…

Hmmm…

Spencer, Balbulican, and Scott.

Via Toby, we find this culinary delight:

What is that, you ask?

Grill-fried burger served with a slice of cheddar and two strips of bacon.

Oh, and the thing it’s on? A Krispy Kreme glazed donut that’s also fried on the griddle.

My heart stopped just looking at it, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about it. Hell, I thought McGriddles would be gross, and they’re probably one of the best things McDonald’s serves.

Technorati Tags: food, death

This is why the web is great. flickr is going to offer API Keys to competitors, but with a few conditions that make total sense.

Re API keys for direct competitors: this is something that we’ve never had any set policy on and this thread has sparked a lot of internal debate on the team: some people felt that it was unreasonable, some people felt like it didn’t matter since Flickr should win on the basis of being the best thing out there.

I actually had a change of heart and was convinced by Eric’s position that we definitely should approve requests from direct competitors as long as they do the same. That means (a) that they need to have a full and complete API and (b) be willing to give us access.

The reasoning here is partly just that “fair’s fair’ and more subtly, like a GPL license, it enforces user freedom down the chain. I think we’ll take this approach (still discussing it internally).

Basically we’ll show you ours if you show us yours.

Makes perfect sense to me. Why should flickr share their API with a competitor otherwise? Stay tuned as companies like Zooomr and Tabblo will probably take full advantage of this.

Technorati Tags: flickr, web 2.0, zooomr, tabblo

Sodapop has the greatest list on teh internets evar.

It’s a list of why gay marriage will destroy society. My personal favorite?

07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

The rest are just as good.

Go.

Read.

Now.

Technorati Tags: gay marriage, sodapop

Technorati Tags: zefrank, delta, funny, video

Lifehack.org has a great checklist you can use to develop an anti-procrastination plan. It’s really interesting.

I think I’ll try it tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: lifehack.org, lifehacking, procrastination

Just a note for all you fans and haters, Sunday’s New York Times will have a 1/3 page article in it about my AOL cancellation story. It’s going to be in the Digital Domain column, and will be written by Randall Stross who is an awesome guy, super nice, and who understands what it’s like to be inundated with the same questions over and over again. Witness, for example, this snippet from his e-mail to me requesting an interview:

As you may have seen, your call was mentioned by another reporter in a very brief reference in the Times a week ago last Saturday. This does not do what you captured so well full justice, and I have continued to follow the aftermath of the call with great interest—–it will be the central subject of my Digital Domain column in next Sunday’s Times.

I am not writing to ask you to submit to still another interview, and tell the story another time—–from my own, very limited experience being on the other side of an interview, when I’ve done book tours promoting books and sitting through the same hurried, brief round of questions, telling the same account again and again, I quickly came to the same conclusion that you describe in today’s blog entry: you can only tell the same story so many times.

And he kept true to his word. He didn’t ask me the same three questions (Why did you record the call? Do you feel guilty about Jon being fired? What was the worst part of the call?) everyone else was asking and dug a bit on some stuff. It’s a good interview, overall. Check it out in Sunday’s Times!

Technorati Tags: ny times, aol, randall stross, randy stross

I meant to blog this when it happened, but I was a bit busy at the time. One of the many media outlets that picked up my AOL cancellation story was the New York Times. It wasn’t just a historic day for Insignificant Thoughts, though. It was a historic day for Jason Calacanis and his team at Netscape.com:

I didn’t even see this on Saturday’s New York Times… but looks like the Netscape News team got their first mention two days after launch. The meta-journalism thing is gonna be big.

From Jump Shots to Journalism By DAN MITCHELL
17 June 2006 New York Times

What Part of ‘Cancel’?

Vincent Ferrari of New York had heard horror stories from people who tried to cancel their AOL accounts. So when he decided to do so, he taped his conversation with a customer service representative. ”Jon” made things very difficult for Mr. Ferrari.

”Just cancel the account; please, just cancel the account,” Mr. Ferrari repeated over Jon’s persistent questions. At the end, Jon insisted on making Mr. Ferrari sit through a sales pitch before he would pull the plug. According to Netscape News, Jon is no longer working at AOL. The audio is available on Mr. Ferrari’s blog at insignificantthoughts.com.

Glad to lose my Times virginity with ya Jason!

Full text of the article here.

Wow…

Technorati Tags: ny times, jason calacanis, vincent ferrari, insignificantthoughts.com

Imagine installing Wordpress on your local Windows XP so you can change your design, tweak your code, etc., without affecting your actual live site.

Now you can do it in less than five minutes.

This is the most awesome tutorial ever, and the added benefit is that you get a fully functioning LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) installation that you can do whatever else you want with also. Totally geeky, totally cool, and totally powerful. Just be aware, of course, that doing this does place a web server on your machine, so it’s up to you to keep Apache and the other components updated regularly in case of security holes.

Check it out here.

via Dvorak.org

Technorati Tags: LAMP, XAMPP, Wordpress

It’s 2003. The Beagle Mars probe crashes and is destroyed on the surface of Mars.

The government lied. The last transmission of the probe was classified and kept hidden.

It’s the only warning we would get.

Now tell me that isn’t a great setup? Go watch the teaser trailer for Transformers the Movie, which is going to premiere on July 4, 2007. I absolutely positively cannot wait for this one. Live action Transformers!!!

And speaking of Transformers, the original animated movie (the one where Optimus Prime dies and is succeeded by Ultra Magnus and later Hot Rod who became Rodimus Prime) should be out on DVD shortly with a bunch of extras. I imagine that Stan Bush’s “The Touch” will be making a prominent appearance in the Extras section

Technorati Tags: transformers, transformers the movie, optimus prime, rodimus prime, ultra magnus

Lifehacker has an interesting tip on testing whether or not your antivirus software is running:

First, create a new text file and paste the following code into it:

X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*

Then save the text as a .COM file (any name will do, like eicar.com). To test that your antivirus is doing its job, you should try emailing the file to yourself as-is as well as zipped into an archive. If you just want to test your desktop scanner, right-click the file (again, you may as well try it as-is and zipped) and tell your antivirus program to scan away.

Now, as a disclaimer, this virus test is somewhat old, and most virus detectors will pick it up so this won't be a huge indicator of how effective your AV system is, however, it will tell you if it's running at all. While some of Lifehacker's commenters don't seem to grasp why this is a great idea, consider people running a corporate IT solution that gives no indication of whether or not it's running (such as Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition).

Thanks guys! This is a good one!

via Lifehacker

Technorati Tags: EICAR, virus, antivirus

Oh, come on. Sure you have. The Senate is the body of hypocrites run by a bunch of Republicans and Democrats who sell their vote to the highest bidder. Don’t believe me?

Well, consider this amazing example of hypocrisy from the elephants and the donkeys we have running the show in DC:

After the courts told the FCC that they couldn’t mandate a broadcast flag, the entertainment industry hasn’t missed an opportunity to try to sneak the broadcast flag amendment into just about any bill they can find. Today, as the Senate debated various amendments in the telecom bill, they decided to keep the broadcast flag in there (though, it’s possible that someone will introduce an amendment to get rid of it later). However, it’s hard to see how someone could credibly claim that net neutrality legislation is bad because it adds regulatory hurdles to a new technology, while at the same time saying the broadcast flag is good, because it adds an even bigger regulatory hurdle to technology. About the only reason to support both seems to be if you have to make good to friends you have in both the telco industry and the entertainment industry.

As usual, Techdirt is right on the money. You have to wonder what the world would be like if people paid better attention to what goes on in Washington.

Technorati Tags: net neutrality, broadcast flag

Interesting!

Member Retention Consultant: AOL LLC

Position Type Full-Time Employee
Company Name AOL LLC
Location Oklahoma City, OK
Salary Unspecified
Date Posted June 14, 2006
Experience 0-1 Years Experience
Desired Education Level High School
AOL LLC
View AOL LLC profile and job listings

NOW HIRING

MEMBER RETENTION SPECIALISTS

$14 per hour + Bonuses!!!!

As a member retention consultant in our casual environment, you will be responsible for managing inbound calls from members who wish to cancel their AOL account. Your goal will be to resell the member their AOL account. Although you will experience a variety of calls every day, including billing related calls, most calls that you will handle in the Member Retention department involve retaining current AOL Members. AOL Retention Consultants identify member needs, educate our members about how AOL is an invaluable part of their lives and resell the member on AOL products and services. You must be able to respond with confidence and enthusiasm in order to effectively retain each member.

APPLY NOW www.CCJOBS.aol.com

Our Benefits

Base Pay + Performance-Based Incentives
Health, Dental, Vision and Life Insurance Starting Day 1
18 Paid Days Off per Year
9 Paid Holidays
401(k) with Generous Company Match
100% Tuition Reimbursement
Casual Dress Code
Fun Work Environment
Free On-Site Employee Fitness Center
On-site Full-Service Cafeteria
2 Free AOL Accounts
State-of-the-Art Facility
Full Paid Training + Many More Benefits

How to Apply

Apply Online @ www.ccjobs.aol.com

or

Call our toll-free Career Line at 1-877-AOL2DAY

Apply in Person by visiting our Service Center located at NW 23rd & Villa. AOL is located on the North side of Shepherd Mall. Our Recruiting hours are Monday through Thursday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, and Fridays from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm.

Send Resumes to JeremyBrown73@aol.com or call Jeremy at 405-782-8169.

AOL is an EOE.

And there you have it.

Thanks to BA for bringing this one to my attention. Anyone want to apply? I think Jeremy Brown might want to talk to you (possibly on tape?) about how great it is to work there (not that I would encourage that sort of thing).

Technorati Tags: aol, hiring, retention

A six-month pregnant Britney Spears has posed nude for the cover of the August issue of Harper’s Bazaar magazine and an accompanying photo spread inside, much in the style of the famous 1991 Vanity Fair cover of a naked and heavily pregnant Demi Moore.

On the Harper’s Bazaar cover, a dark-haired Spears covers her breasts with her arms and crosses her legs at the knee, as she sits smiling into the camera.

Harper’s said pop singer Spears “was never more beautiful” than when it photographed her a week ago and that it was the first time it had printed a nude photo on its cover.

The magazine added, “Since word leaked out about the shoot on Monday, people have been desperate to get their hands on the exclusive photos which were posted on various Web sites without permission from the magazine.”

Hey folks?

Leave Britney alone, okay? And to all the fat house fraus who are baggin’ on Britney, face it. It’s 90% jealousy.

Technorati Tags: britney spears

Hey everyone, Keith Olbermann is liberal.

Now, I know this comes as a surprise to you, but apparently that was such an obscure fact that Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center had to do a statistical analysis study to find it out. Days after the report hit the internet and news wires (probably via the internet), Newsbusters.org is all bent out of shape because Olbermann didn’t take the study seriously.

As Olbermann vaguely described the MRC’s “Worst Person” study, he omitted the central finding that Olbermann’s attacks on conservatives outnumbered attacks on liberals by a staggering 174 to 23 margin, or more than 8 to 1. Instead, he argued that “only” 174 out of 600 targets were conservative, refusing to reveal that a mere 23 were liberal, and, employing his own brand of loopy logic, argued that because 71 percent of the nominees were not conservative, that the study proves the segment is “apolitical.” Olbermann: “I’d like to thank the MRC for confirming my point that the segment is apolitical.”

Okay. Number 1: Olbermann’s “loopy logic” is correct. If I attack 20 white people, 50 black people and 500 chinese people, you can’t claim I’m biased against black people because I attacked more black people than white people. Olbermann is absolutely correct. Sorry boys.

Number 2: So f’ing what? If he attacks conservatives every single solitary night. So what? All you have to do is go up the dial two channels to find the polar opposite, Bill O’Reilly, who used to be an independent and has pretty much degenerated into nothing more than an angry talking head who parrots the Bush Administration’s position on any given issue.

I’m not a huge fan of Keither Olbermann’s politics, but frankly the guy is a pisser. I was watching his show the other night from the green room at MSNBC’s studios in Secaucus, and it was funny as hell. He took on the serious issues (the recent “discovery” of WMD), took on some less serious ones, and even laughed his ass off at my story (I guess you could call that a disclaimer).

I’ve come out against Olbermann a million times. His ratings are pretty low and nobody watches his show. The fact is his commentary on Katrina was one of the best monologues ever given on television. The fact that his ratings suck and he’s a liberal seems to be a favorite talking point for the right.

As if there are no rightwingers on television, or they all have great ratings.

And the funniest part is that the MRC in its infinite wisdom seems to expect Keith Olbermann to run with this story and display its findings like they matter. Get back to me when Bill O’Reilly runs a series on FAIR reports and doesn’t pooh pooh them. Or when Sean Hannity responds to some of the stuff Al Franken says.

Stop it folks. You look stupid. For a show no one watches, you guys sure like watching every move he makes!

Technorati Tags: keith olbermann, olbermann, msnbc, mrc, media research center, bill o’reilly

How to run up and over a wall.

And just for the record, this is dangerous. If you try it and bust your ass, you’re stupid.

Technorati Tags: acrobatics, parkour, wall jumping

Okay, once and for all, let’s have this out in the open.

Some genius named Rob Zazueta (don’t worry, I’ve never heard of him either, I just found his post in Bloglines) has a problem with my AOL recording. So do a lot of folks. In fact, now that the story has pretty much calmed down, all kinds of people are all over the “time to drag down Vinny” shit.

Here’s the post from the genius.

This comes on the tail of last week’s AOL customer service debacle which also resulted in the firing of the employee involved. Loads of bloggers listened to Vincent Ferrari’s AOL recording and recalled their own frustrations trying to cancel their service with various providers. And, while the customer service person on the other end of the line was completely out of line, I feel Ferrari may have precipitated it with his already belligerent attitude. Keep in mind: it’s not like he records all of his phone calls on the off-chance he’ll have something bloggable. As he said in his original post, “Knowing the horror stories, I decided to do the deed at work where I could record the whole thing.” This doesn’t exactly set anyone up for a friendly conversation.

The echo chamber that is the blogosphere can rapidly generate a mob mentality unlike one we’ve ever really been able to create. In the old days, the townsfolks[sic] raid the castle (or whatever) carrying pitchforks and torches. In reality you’d probably be luck[sic] to get a dozen or so folks revolting in such a way, and only after tensions have had time to brew and simmer.

Yeah ass. Lots of people listened to my recording. Lots of people had it happen to them.

Maybe they provoked the guy also?

Here’s the way the conversation went.

AOL: Hi this is jon at aol, how may i help you today?
VF: I wanted to cancel my account.
AOL: Sorry to hear that. Go ahead and pull your account up real quick. Can I have your name please?
VF: Vincent Ferrari
AOL: OK Vincent, and for privacy and security, can I have the last 4 digits of your payment method?
VF:
AOL: Thank you very much. OK, you had this account for a long time.
VF: Yup.
AOL: This is quite a bit. What was causing you to want to turn this off today?
VF: I just don’t use it anymore.
AOL: So you have a high speed connection like DSL or cable?
VF: Yup.
AOL: How long have you had that? The highspeed?
VF: Years, years.
AOL: OK, well actually, I’m showing a lot of usage on this account.
VF: Yeah, a long time ago. Not recently.
AOL: No, the popsferrari account was on 71 hours since the 24th of last month.
VF: No he wasn’t. He doesn’t even have the AOL software installed on his computer. You’re looking at AIM usage probably.
AOL: No, AIM usage doesn’t come on to this.
VF: He doesn’t have the AOL software installed on his computer.
AOL: Now, this is your father then?
VF: Yup.
AOL: Well, I’m looking at this account…
VF: Uh, either way, whatever you’re seeing…
AOL: Well what’s causing you to want to turn this off today? I mean obviously…
VF: I don’t use it and he doesn’t use it, so we’re cancelling. I’m telling you he doesn’t use the account. The software is not even on his computer.
AOL: Well OK, I mean is there a problem with the software itself?
VF: No, I just, I don’t use it, I don’t need it, I don’t want it. I just don’t need it anymore.
AOL: OK, so when you use this, I mean, when you use the computer I’m saying, is that for business or for school?
VF: Dude, what difference does it make? I don’t want the AOL account anymore. Can we please cancel this?
AOL: Well, on June 2nd, someone signed on and has been on for 72 hours. On June 2nd…
VF: I don’t know how to make it any clearer.
AOL: Last year was 540… last month was 545 hours of usage.
VF: I don’t know how to make this any clearer, so I’m just going to say it one last time. Cancel. The. Account. Please.
AOL: Well explain to me what’s what why…
VF: I’m not explaining anything to you. Cancel. The. Account.
AOL: What what’s the matter man? I mean, we’re just, I’m just trying to help here.
VF: You’re not helping me. You’re… Helping me would be cancelling…
AOL: I’m am trying to…
VF: Helping me… Listen: I called to cancel the account. Helping me would be cancelling the account. Please help me and cancel the account.
AOL: No it wouldn’t actually. Turning off your account would be the worst thing that…
VF: Cancel the account. Cancel the account. Cancel the account.
AOL: Is your dad there?
VF: My dad? I’m the primary paying… I’m the primary person on the account, not my dad.
AOL: Yeah, cuz I’m just trying to figure…
VF: Cancel the account. I don’t know how to make this any clearer for you. Cancel the account. The card is mine, in my name.
AOL: OK
VF: The account is mine and in my name. When I say cancel the account, I don’t mean help me figure out how to keep it, I mean cancel the account.
AOL: Well, I don’t know what anybody’s done to you, Vincent. This is…
VF: You’re annoying the shit out of me, that’s what you’re doing to me. Cancel the account please.
AOL: And that goes both ways my friend.
VF: Good. Could you please cancel the account?
AOL: Because, alright, someday, when you’ve calmed down, you’re gonna realize that all I was trying to do was help you, and it was actually in your best interest to listen.
VF: Wonderful, ok great.
AOL: And when that epiphany happens, then, uh, just give us a call back.
VF: Wait.
AOL: As I process your cancellation request, I have to tell you about a free benefit available for valued members like yourself. We will continue to provide you some features of the AOL
VF: Don’t want it. I know the… I know the drill. I don’t even want it. Don’t even bother.
AOL: If you want me to cancel this account, you’re going to let me speak, and.. and give this paragraph. OK? Because if not, we can start you all back, I.. I really don’t care to be honest with you, but you’re going to listen to me if you want this turned off. So, can I speak now?
VF: Go right ahead.
AOL: Thank you. Appreciate that. As I process your cancellation request, I’d like to tell you about a free benefit available for valued members like yourself. We will continue to provide you some features of the AOL service even after the membership has been cancelled. At aol.com you can keep your existing email, buddy list, address book, and more at no cost for as long as you like. There’s no catch. This is AOL’s way of continuing our relationship with you. We know you want to keep your same email. Just go to aol.com and login with your screen name and password. An email confirming the cancellation will be delivered to your free aol.com email within 24 hours. To complete this cancellation with us, there’s a lot of important details. Please hold while I connect.

If Mr. Zazueta is correct, and I went into the call with a chip on my shoulder, then let’s assume it would’ve come out at the beginning of the call seeing as I was predisposed to being annoyed and having a bad experience.

So where did I get belligerent? When he called me a liar about my father using his AOL account with software he doesn’t even have? Or when I told him he was annoying the shit out of me after asking me numerous unrelated questions that had nothing to do with me cancelling? Maybe it was when he asked for my dad?

Let’s even ignore what I said in my own words in front of 4 million people watching the Today Show last Wednesday. Oh wait. What’s that Bobby? Didn’t see that one? Too busy looking for that next big Java programming job? Well, here. Let me make it really easy for you. You won’t even have to go very far to hear it. It’s 2:55 into the interview. Just slide that little button over a bit and BOOM. You’ll be right at the part your stupid ass missed.

What was that line? Listen to it really closely. Take your head out of your own 3rd grade grammar writing ass and listen to it.

Whether or not the call went well, it was going on the site. Not exactly the actions of someone who had preconceived notions about what the call was going to be like or how it was going to play out. In fact, I held onto the call for a week deciding what I wanted to do with it. That’s right. I rushed head first into the fray to get my 15 minutes of fame! Look at me go!

All of my critics lately seem to have one thing in common. They don’t have a brain cell between them and don’t have any ability to perform the act of rational thought. I was short with John. I didn’t see a need to give long-winded explanations. I answered his questions succinctly and specifically up until he started calling me a liar and, despite me telling him the “usage” on my account didn’t matter and I wanted to cancel anyway.

Frankly, I could’ve baited him easily. I could’ve had him cursing a storm at me. It wouldn’t be hard. Apparently AOL beats the crap out of its retention department in many ways and judging by the AOL employees e-mailing me, it’s still the worst department in the company to work for. All I would’ve had to do is say, straight away, “Cancel the f’ing account ass. I’m not interested in keeping it.”

Instead, I stayed polite, and did so for entirely too long according to many of the over 2,000 comments I’ve seen here and elsewhere. No matter what, though, there’s always some ass like Rob who thinks he’s going to make a name for himself by shitting on the big guy. It’s all good Rob. You got my attention mainly because I was doing a vanity search in Bloglines to see who was writing what about me. Call it a weakness.

I guess it’s cool though, because I’ve never heard of Rob before. I imagine a lot of people haven’t. I’ve been blogging for 4 years myself, and reading them significantly longer than that, and Rob’s name never came up.

Not once.

So congratulations Rob Zarzueta, whoever the hell you are. You got my attention by trying to piggy back on my 15 minutes of fame. I’m sure you’ll get more people linking to you from here than you’ve had read that drivel you write in the past ((insert number of minutes you’ve been blogging here)). I’ll guarantee you one thing, though, L33t boy. One day, people are going to remember this story and what it meant for AOL and customers everywhere.

Do you really think anyone’s gonna remember you (or for that matter the other idiots) for shitting on me?

I reckon not, but good luck anyway.

Technorati Tags: aol, rob zarzueta, vincent ferrari, cancellation

Jill Greenberg, the woman who thinks it’s artistic to make kids cry by torturing them and photographing it, is none too pleased with Thomas Hawk calling her out publicly for abusing children in the pursuit of the almighty dollar.

So unpleased was Mrs. Greenberg that she contacted Thomas Hawk’s employer.

I wish I were kidding.

Despite the fact that Thomas made the post on his own time on his own blog, this insufferable bore decided to go after him at his place of business.

First she tries to discredit me as an insane person with personal problems who she doesn’t even think has kids (even though in my blog post about her I clearly state I’ve got four children, have photos of my four children up on flickr and elsewhere on my blog etc.) She tells this to a professional publication American Photo (whom I’ve asked for a retraction from and who never contacted me to verify her claims even though they pulled quotes from my same post that referenced that I had four kids).

Next, Jill tracks down my employer, an unrelated third party who has absolutely zero to do with my personal views and opinions and tries to apply pressure to get me to pull my post. She literally calls my boss this morning who has absolutely zero to do with any of my blogging. (By the way Jill, I blog from my own laptop on my own time). The last company who thought that they could intimidate me by involving my employer, an unrelated third party, went by the name PriceRitePhoto. I don’t think they are in business anymore but feel free to Google them to read the story.

And then her husband tells me that in his opinion I’m committing libel. I’m committing libel for having an opinion that what Jill is doing to these kids constitutes abuse. That to emotionally work these kids up is abusive. My opinion Robert Green. He goes on to tell me that if I want to discuss this further that I get a lawyer.

Read the whole thing here. Thomas makes some great points including that about the hypocrisy of someone saying torturing kids is free speech but criticizing someone who does it isn’t.

Well done, Thomas. Don’t back down buddy!

Technorati Tags: jill greenberg, photography, stupidity, hypocrites

If you’re not laughing, you didn’t own an original NES. It really is that simple.

via Joystiq

Technorati Tags: nintendo, kyle cease, comedy