Telemarketers - Society's Scapegoats?

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Now I usually don't blog about something so trivial as this, but I feel something needs to be said. Now first off, I will start by saying that a few days ago, my laptop stopped charging and I believe it had absolutely nothing to do with the charge cord in the slightest.

My mother, thinking she was doing me a favor, decided to call HP customer support in order to get her problem fixed. The entire time, she was either bitching at the person on the other line (who happened to be from India, but I will get to that at another time) or she was bitching at me because the other person was a supposed idiot who had no idea what he was doing and he was wasting her time by being placed on hold.

After a while, she told me to deal with him and, not to my surprise, the guy wasn't the idiot that my mother claimed to be. He was just doing his job, making sure absolutely every single angle was covered to make sure that we weren't the idiots in this conversation. I calmly and collectedly continued answering questions he asked me, I asked a few questions of my own, and the call ended and everything was fine.

However, my mother hovered and loomed over me and, to be honest and the fact that she has a real hatred for these kinds of people, I pretty much pretended that the roles were reversed and said, and I quote, "I'm on the phone, go to your room!"

To be honest, I didn't think she would go to her room and, to my dismay, I was right. She continued hovering over me to figure out when I would supposedly crack and start yelling myself, just loitering, talking to me about casual things, and laughing a little. Now I was starting to see why she doesn't like people in these kinds of professions.

So naturally, I was getting really irritated. Not at the more than gracious customer service representative on the phone, but at my mother for distracting me to the point that I was very VERY close to yelling at her to go in her room and to keep quiet. However, that would be bad if the guy overheard it.

In any case, she finally went into her room and I finished the phone call with everything I needed to know and a few things I didn't think I needed to know before. So they're going to be sending over a box for me to ship my laptop in sometime in the next couple days and I should get it back within the next two weeks or so. Also, they advised me that I should go to a shop to get my laptop's memory backed up prior to shipping.

All in all, the guy was very helpful and my mother, quite frankly, was not. It turns out she was thinking that, by listing off everything that was going on with the computer, that the guy was actually going to remember all of that and that everything would get done that much faster. While my mother claims to have sufficient common sense, she didn't realize that this wasn't the case.

It's like traffic lights. If you go the exact speed limit, you may encounter a single red light while driving, but other than that, they'll usually be all green. However, if you go faster than the speed limit, you will easily encounter many more red lights that are put in place to help regulate speed limit.

It's just impatient people that happen to be the idiots, not the telemarketers or the traffic lights they encounter and it really annoys me that these people seem to think that their way is the right way and that doing things the correct way is just lame and stupid when there are so-called shortcuts that just end up bringing you back to square one or worse.

You see, common sense dictates that the speed limits are there for a reason, a reason NOT being to go any faster than them. Telemarketers, customer service representatives, etc... they all follow a strict list of things they need to say, ask, check over, and the like that are designed to make the process easier for both the person calling and the employee.

First, they read a friendly greeting that is written and worded to be friendly and polite to anyone who would be calling. Next, after you, the caller, tell them, the employee, about your problem, they look up your problem on their computer so as to give you the correct instructions. Sometimes they ask you for your name, phone number, address, etc. That information is most likely to be to log who made the call in a formal manner because such things as Caller ID is a breach of privacy.

Next, after they find the problem on their computer, they ask you questions, most of which may sound like the stupidest things in the world. Now, for it to be smooth sailing, you wait until the employee finishes asking his question and THEN you answer the question. You do NOT list off the things that's wrong and expect the employee just to skip the questions you answered. That is not how it works.

Now, if you did not follow the step above properly, you are most likely going to get really really irate and aggravated. This is going to interpret to the employee that you're obviously getting flustered, but they cannot stray from what their job entails, so they are forced to continue on. They will keep asking questions to you until they have solved the problem and then they will tell you what to do from there. If you don't want to speak about this problem to this hotline again, I suggest writing things down because that way, you will know what to do next time.

So the moral of the story? Don't hate customer service representatives who are doing their jobs to the letter, don't hate the traffic lights that seem to turn red every single time you stop at them, hate the impatient people who make them out as the bad guys. They're the real antagonists of this story.

One final note: I am not a telemarketer, a customer service rep of any kind, nor do I have anything to do with traffic lights of any sort. I am just a keen observer with the common sense to know what the hell is going on.

New Microphone means More Work!

Good evening, everyone. First off, I would like to apologize to anyone who actually reads this blog for being inactive. I have just been busy with various other things to really post much of anything. In any case, now that that is over with, let's get to the reason we're all here.

I got a new microphone! That's right. It's a very nice headset microphone that looks relatively professional. It's really comfortable and it records nicely. The only problem is that the microphone records things a little too loudly, meaning that I have to fix that somehow. The reason it's not a good thing is because that, while it records loud and relatively clear, it records so loud that my voice comes in a little choppy, not being able to register the higher decibels in a recording. I attempted to reduce the volume in a variety of methods, but none have seemed to work so far. In any case, I hope this is not too much of a problem.

Other things have also happened. Firstly, I got a copy of Animal Crossing: City Folk. It's actually quite fun despite not getting too much of a chance to actually play it. If anyone who reads this wants my friend code for the game, I'd have to say to contact me over MSN Messenger beforehand.

Another thing is that my charge cord broke! Well, it's still relatively operational, but it only charges if held in a certain spot. Therefore, I ordered a new one and just got it yesterday, so crisis averted. Along with that came a One Piece 2009 calendar that I imported via YesAsia. When I ordered it, I thought it was going to be one of those 8 1/2" x 11" calendars that are once a month. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was much larger than I thought it was and that every page in the calendar, while covering two whole months on each page, consists of a fantastic piece of artwork from the series as well as the fact that they can be easily and almost seamlessly torn off when needed. That way, I can use my old discarded pages of my calendar as posters on my wall, as they are about the size to be so.

So the cover page of the calendar is a generic group pose picture in which every character poses in their own unique manner. Luffy is smiling and appears to be pointing ahead, Zoro has his new katana, Shuusui, in his left hand, which he appears to be showing it off with his usual overconfident sneer, Sanji has a similar sneer, but holding his usual cigarette near his mouth as if he had just taken a drag of it, Nami has her Perfect Clima-Tact held over her shoulder and looking like she just stole a bunch of cash, Robin is standing and appearing with only a very slight grin as she grips her left arm with her right hand in her usual manner, Usopp appears in the costume of his alter-ego, Sogeking as he holds his Great Slingshot Kabuto and stares into the sky dramatically, Franky is standing in the back with his arms crossed and his head tilted at a 90 degree angle, smiling cockily. Brook is in a generic Brook Pose, holding his top hat near his head while appearing to laugh jovially.

The first page of the calendar so far is eight of the nine straw hats (excluding Brook) as they appeared when they were children. Behind each one is that straw hat's mentor/hero/friend/etc that the straw hat looked up to and/or cared for, including Nico Olivia (Behind Robin), Chef Zeff (Behind Sanji), Lady Kaya (Behind Usopp), Shanks (behind Luffy), Kuina (Behind Zoro), Dr. Hiriluk (Behind Chopper), Bellemere (Behind Nami), and Master Shipwright Tom (Behind Franky). Each one takes on a pose that they were usually famous for. Olivia has a look of slight worry on her face, Kaya has her general look of overall kindness, Zeff has his generic unamused face, Shanks is sticking his tongue out in a goofy manner, Kuina has a look of cockiness on her face, Dr. Hiriluk is smiling with a cup of sake in his hand, Bellemere is smiling with a frying pan in her hand, and Tom also appears rather happy with his smile, almost as if he was saying his famous catchphrase, "Whatever you do, do it with a DON!", meaning that whatever you do in life, you should always do it well.


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Other than that, I am currently awaiting some curtains also from YesAsia, which display the Jolly Roger of the Straw Hat Pirates because one, the curtains look amazing and secondly, every morning around 9:30-10:30 AM, an almost blinding light from the sun shines straight into my eyes from my bed and I am getting somewhat sick of having to deal with that every morning.

I'll post some more later, so as Tom would say, "Whatever you do, do it with a DON!"

Hakuro de Killer: Ace Manga-ka!

Hello and good evening once again! Today I tell you a little about a manga I am working on. It doesn't have a formal name yet, but until then, I have codenamed this manga "Shounen Holiday". It's a compilation of famous christmas stories and folklore from around the world into a Shounen-style manga like Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, Gintama, and others. In any case, the story will combine these elements in a similar form to how Soul Eater compiled famous Halloween-related stories together.

In any case, I won't say much more about it right now, but I will show you two versions of a pic I have close to completion. There is the color version to show how the character is colored, then there is the black-and-white manga version, which you will see more often. Now, I will say that if you have any constrictive critiques at all, please oh please comment!

Two things about the below pictures: First, the character has no face. I am aware of this. I am rather bad with faces, so I will wait until I can give him a name before giving him a face. The second is the Kanji on his black shirt. This kanji is 雪 (read 'Yuki'), which translated into English means 'Snow'.

Youtube Mondays #1

This is a segment in my blog that I will post. The video will come from my personal favorite videos on Youtube, be it a viral video, an Anime Music Video (AMV), or what have you.

The first one I will share will be one of the first videos I, myself, posted on youtube. However, from now on, I will do my best not to post my own videos. In any case, this is the first video I ever submitted to Youtube entitled "Unohana Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice for Seireitei". I got the idea from another person who made a similar video.

Anyway, here it is! Enjoy!

Hakuro de Killer: Fruity Mechanic?

Well, interesting thing happened this morning (meaning the morning of December 13, not December 14.). I went to sleep somewhere around 4 AM and, after waking up at 9 AM in order to head into town to my local game shop, Games Unlimited, which I head to once a week to get out of the house.

In any case, I was rushed to get out the door fast by my mother, who wanted to get to the post office before it closed. I complied in trying to get ready as fast as possible. As we were about to leave, my mother found a flat tire on her car. Needless to say, she was very irate. As she was under a lot of stress from this, I decided it would be best not to say a word. She called my uncle, who is a retired industrial mechanic, to come down to fix his car. My uncle then suggested something that most people would have thought of already: replace the tire with a spare.

As my mother was still in the final stages of recovering from back surgery, she couldn't bend over to change the flat tire. As this was the case, she asked me to change it for her. Being the kindhearted person I am, I complied and started to get ready to change it. As it was, there were only three pairs of mittens available for use. A pair of fingerless mittens that I couldn't use, a pair of mittens whose coloring closely resembled that of a grape. The third pair colored almost exactly in the manner of a watermelon slice with the exception of the black sleeves.

I took the grape-colored gloves and went out to try and change the tire. After looking everywhere for a hydraulic-based jack that my grandfather had given my mother, I found another jack that seemed to have come standard with the car. Now here's the kicker: The jack looks like it was state-of-the-art back in the 1930's. While it didn't look very complicated, I couldn't really figure out how to use it as there were no instructions as well as the fact that I had never changed a tire before in my life.

My mother was standing behind me telling me what to do, occasionally sobbing by saying things like 'This is why men should be doing this crap...' and that was rather insulting. This being the case, I tried my hardest to tell her to shut up in as nice of a tone as I could possibly manage. I rarely ever get angry or irritated with people, but that one time was one of the few exceptions that just got under my skin.

I finally figured out how to operate the jack and I replaced the tire with little hassle. As it turned out, the tire was punctured by a stray nail, most likely one that had been discarded during the rebuilding of our porch. In any case, after I had removed the tire, I was forced to take a brake due to the sheer cold weather outside while I was doing this. To replace the tire, as to not harm my back, I sat down on a patch of ice that was near the car.

By the time I took a break, even with mittens on, my fingers as well as my rear end were both frozen numb, even to the extent that my legs were shaking uncontrollably. After taking a few minutes to warm myself up, I changed my mittens to the watermelon-colored ones and finished changing the tire to the spare. When I was done, I needed to change my pants as the ice patch I was sitting on melted a little, making the seat of my pants rather wet.

Anyway, that's just another thing I guess I had a knack for doing. But then again, once I figured it out, it wasn't really all that difficult.

So in the end, just another addition to my many talents, yes?

New Background Image - First

Hello. I decided that, since this is going to be my space to post my opinions on things as well as general rants, I figured I should give the place my own personal touch by creating and putting in a background image! The background image depicts my favorite characters from six of my favorite series:

(From Left to Right)

Shunsui Kyouraku from Bleach
Shelly de Killer from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Jin the Wind Tamer from Yu Yu Hakusho (Upper)
Kaku from One Piece (Lower)
Free from Soul Eater (Upper)
Android 17 from Dragon Ball/Z (Lower)

Now I will admit that several images came from different artists on DeviantArt and, as I am an honorable man, I will cite my sources below complete with links to the pictures used:

Shelly de Killer by n0wM3: http://n0wm3.deviantart.com/art/Shelly-de-Killer-57160626
Kaku by KokoroNoYami1412: http://kokoronoyami1412.deviantart.com/art/Kaku-94448623
Shunsui Kyouraku by Unknown: http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z315/mozart_lvr/bleach/shunsui/kyourakushunsui.jpg
Free by DrawingKuma: http://drawingkuma.deviantart.com/art/Free-97996931
Jin the Wind Tamer by Katangriel: http://katangriel.deviantart.com/art/Jin-the-windman-21627505
Android 17 by Unknown: http://i28.tinypic.com/ok0le0.jpg

The background and arrangement was done by me. In any case, I hope you like it.

Formal Greeting

Hello, everyone. I am Logan McLaughlin, though most people know me by the name Hakuro de Killer. I am a man of various random talents. Personally speaking, I am not very good with writing in blogs, but I thought that, if I were to write one, I might have another outlet to talk about things other than with my friends. Note that I don't like complaining about other people I know nor do I enjoy being dramatic and emotional. Such things are rather unbecoming and I won't have any of it here.

Now, I will state a few things here that you may ask me in the future, so I will do my best to get those questions out of the way now:

Q. Why the name Hakuro de Killer?

A. I just thought I needed a cooler sounding nickname that, while was still pretty cool, was a lot easier for people to spell than my old one, Iwato Tatsumaki. Anyway, when I was younger, the name Hakuro came from combining the Japanese Romaji of White (Haku) and Kuro (Black) together. As time went on, I found out that the proper translation of this name was "Morning Dew". While it was a minor surprise to me that it didn't mean what I thought it did, I held onto the name. The 'De Killer' portion of the name comes from a character from the video game called 'Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All' named Shelly de Killer. In the game, he is a very calm and collected assassin, almost to the point of being gentlemanly. Something about him just makes me like him as a character, I don't know. In any case, that's where my name came from.

Q. What is a Yorozuya?

A. It is Japanese for "Jack of all Trades". The reason I didn't type that out is for an homage to one of my favorite anime series, Gintama in which the main character, Sakata Gintoki, is a Yorozuya.

Q. You're a dude and you listed Yaoi in your interests... are you gay?

A. Normally, this is the point where I would make a 'Here's Your Sign' joke or something, but as I know at least one straight guy who likes Yaoi, I really can't. So in any case, yes. I am. However, I would like to proudly state that I am neither flambuoyantly gay nor am I a drag queen, so please don't bother commenting about that.

Now, that's all the questions I can think of that people would be otherwise confused about. However, if you have any other questions for me, please feel free to comment to this post with any questions you may have for me!