Category Archives: Human relations

Book reviews, Entertainment and music, Human relations

Lords of Chaos, a tabletop RPG by Randy Hayes

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This time-tested fantasy RPG has come to market in e-form and hardcover. I was developmental editor.

Randy is a friend of nearly forty years going back to our college days. He’s an interesting guy. Many people talk about doing things; Randy goes out and does things. He wanted to be a successful financial advisor, and he became one. He wanted to play in a rock band, and he does. He wanted to learn SCA-style medieval combat, and he has done so. He wanted to be an officer in the Army, and he was.

He also wanted to play a fantasy role-playing game that was as realistic as one can be and still have profound supernatural mechanics. One always needs that qualifier for the obvious reason that “realistic” doesn’t normally imply magical fireballs and summoning ogres. For our purposes, realistic means that the physical movement and combat are plausible. Randy had done enough SCA fighting to see the fundamental problems with physical combat as presented in most RPGs and movies. And yes, there is a school of thought that says: “Hell with realism, it’s fantasy, I want to do epic things.” And to that I think Randy might say: ‘To each their own. But over the years my players have done quite a few epic things. Not every system is for everyone, and I get that.’

When we got back in touch in life after a long stretch of doing our own things, Randy showed an interest in building his writing skills. He wasn’t bad, but he could improve, and we worked on his fiction writing techniques. Some of the fiction involved stories from his RPG gaming world, tales played out by his merry band of tabletop players. That was fine, and Randy made rapid strides. While all of his group had made contributions and suggested refinements, two seemed most involved: Mike Cook, one of our old cronies from UW, and Keith Slawson. Keith was not well, but wanted with all his heart to assist with the layout and graphics. Here’s the kind of friend Randy is: He could have just punted and gone seeking those services elsewhere, but so long as a chance existed that Keith might be able to offer them when the rulebook was ready, Randy kept that hope alive for him. I had the pleasure of brief correspondence with Keith  before his passing in late 2020. Randy, of course, visited him to the very end.

As for Mike, he aspired to publish fiction based on the LoC world, and the same drive that once put colonel’s eagles on his shoulders was in refined evidence with his work. This resulted in Out of their Depth, an excellent hard fantasy novel I had the pleasure of midwifing. I am not sure I’ve ever seen a client improve as fast as Mike did, and his medieval vocabulary taught me some new words along the way.

It was a process. This might sound odd, but rulebook editing is technical editing. I do some tech editing here and there, and even though Randy’s project was a game guide, the mentality is similar. While humor and style matter, the heart of the project is how it organizes and presents information. I have done a lot of RPGing in my life, but have never played a moment of LoC, so in some ways I was the perfect guinea pig. Randy was very receptive to rules modifications and procedural clarifications. He laughed over my developmental editing style, which is to explain a problem, make a couple of sample corrections, then let the client hunt up and fix the rest. It would be sort of drill sergeanty on my part, except that I’m not raising my voice or pointing someone’s genetic shortcomings in an attempt to motivate them to do a proper about-face.

For Randy, the hardest part was something many authors experience on long-term projects: One cannot forget what one knows, nor easily put oneself in the place of not knowing. Let us imagine a fight scene in a novel. The author has worked on the novel off and on for twenty years. She has complete mental video memory of how the fight “happened.” She knows how she pictures her characters, how they maneuvered, what their voices sounded like. Her reader has none of the above, and knows only what he learns from her portrayal. Does it matter that the room has a table in the middle? Maybe; probably; depends. It’s probably an obstacle in the fight, in which case at least enough description is wanted to help the reader picture the scene. Does it matter that it’s oak or walnut? Probably not right then. Her challenge is to keep the readercam steady, furnish enough description that her reader can follow the action, and avoid overdescription. It’s difficult to strike the balance between too much description and not enough.

This also applies to such areas as RPG rules. Randy has developed the rules for so long he can hardly remember what it is like not knowing them, so my ignorance was a help. If an experienced RPGer with reasonable comprehension skills couldn’t figure out how something worked, this raised valid questions whether something had been left out, described ambiguously, and so on. We changed quite a bit of the basic terminology because I thought some of it created confusion, and added a Game Concepts section in the front so that players had a quick reference for the terms one must understand in order to play the system. Randy came up with a genius way to present descriptions of the character skills: He created a ne’er-do-well elf named Potlatch, assigned him one point in each skill, and had him walk through a (somewhat contrived but not entirely implausible) story in short installments that involved one skill at a time. It’s hilarious, especially with Randy’s wry style of infantryman humor. As with anything Randy cares about–which means most of what he spends his time on–he took the time to do a really good job.

Another example is how the game handles the common low-value loot that characters tend to accumulate in the course of adventuring (vanquished foes’ weapons, load-bearing equipment, doodads that don’t do anything special). Randy doesn’t think the game should be Lords of Bookkeeping. Therefore, the rule is that players are assumed to gather up and sell whatever useful when possible. In turn, players do not have to keep track of and replenish consumable supplies of arrows, bolts, rations, and so forth. The selling process is presumed to sustain the common consumables; anything special or valuable is not considered common, of course, and gets valued separately. What a fantastic idea, right? One abstraction kills off two annoyances that few players would miss.

One notable aspect of the game is the lack of character classes. A player may define their character as whatever, but the game doesn’t bless or curse that choice. If you’ve always felt shackled by class restrictions, this is the open road.

This rulebook process took maybe three years. It came into final form, with areas of confusion ironed out and graphics added. Things happened. A pandemic came and sort of went. We pimped it at two Orycons and got some minor interest. Keith passed. Mike published his book while giving important input. Artists flaked. Artists delivered. Now here we are.

Randy has a bunch of online playing aids that supplement the book. If you’ve been looking for an RPG system that is designed for plausible melee and missile combat, one well refined through decades of play and experimentation, this could be just what you’ve long been looking for.

Later addendum: I have received my copy and it’s a beauty. Great layout, professional artwork, solid production. If you’re like me, and want to pick up the physical book and read relevant sections, you will appreciate this.

 

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Human relations, Privacy, Social comment, Technology

Ways to make telemarketers have bad days

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Been getting a lot of these recently on the cell phone (which is also the business phone). Not sure why, but they always present us with the same choice: just hang up, or waste a scammer’s time. Because I’m the sort of person who will hit at an adversary with whatever he’s got, even if it’s a blade of grass, I waste their time.

When we do this, we should be careful.

I will never be as good at this as Haven Riney, who literally wrote the book on messing with telemarketers (that’s the title), but I have picked up/developed a few good methods for those of us who aren’t as quick-thinking in the moment. Here are my own guidelines for doing this:

Always remember that you are bound by no strictures of courtesy, honesty, or other values you might uphold in real life. If they were honest, they would not telemarket; ergo, they’re thieves. It is not moral to reward thievery with kind politeness, much less with success in any form. In any form. Seriously. They are among the few people in your world who deserve not one bit of understanding. When they aren’t talking to you, most of them are scamming bewildered elders (this is stealing and fraud).

Those rare few who are in fact offering an actual real service are like people coming onto your property with a weapon, then claiming that the fact that it was not loaded means you should have treated them as friends. You can’t see whether it’s loaded, so to speak, so you owe no distinction between honest and criminal, nor any energy expended to try. They’re all adversaries if you don’t know them.

Yes, I know it’s the day before US Thanksgiving. They’re still the adversary, and they will still be the adversary when many of us are sitting down to dinner tomorrow. I am thankful for just enough native creative wickedness to give them what they deserve, and for the fundamental crassness to advocate it even at festive times.

While it could be fun and would certainly be moral to press the get-a-human number on the robocalls–objective being to seek out a human’s time to waste–I myself won’t go that far because it’s like giving them permission. They should never get any permission. If you think it’s a robocall and want to test, just go hoccccccch real loudly, as if you are about to expel a mucous. A robot won’t know how to interpret that (robots do not experience mucous). A person will ask whether you’re okay, or will hang up.

  • First rule: Never, never, never say “yes” to any question. There are scam artists who will take that one recorded word and use it to show some sort of proof of your agreement. When you answer that phone, that word isn’t in your vocabulary.
  • Second rule: First job is to suss out whether they have your real name (quite often if you are a homeowner), someone else’s, or have just called at random. If they have your real name and/or address, find out what it’s about just in case it’s actually a legitimate call. While it might annoy you for your auto repair shop to call and market to you, that’s not as evil as someone trying to sell you Inhumana Medicare Silver Senior Elder Suckup Advantage “that you deserve.” (You know, the sort of thing you get between watching segments of Crochet Wars on The Living Antiquity Channel, which promises to put money back in your Social Security and give you free continence products. That You Deserve. Whatever it is, You always Deserve It.)
  • Third rule: Try to avoid saying anything illegal. This article discourages any activity that violates US law. It’s not as if someone in Shaitanabad or Santa Sinvergüenza can exactly call the FBI and have you arrested–but be careful nonetheless. Bear in mind that buying or selling under false pretenses is against the law depending on how it’s done, while just talking to a caller under false pretenses is not. Do a little self-editing.

Clearly, if it’s someone you do business with, you have better choices and should consider that. For example, you can tell them to stop, and they would be wise to heed you. But before you do that, make sure it’s not them trying to help you. It might be the nurse from your medical provider with a message from your doctor. I never advocate being an idiot.

Assuming it’s not a legit call: If they have your real name, deny it of course, remembering that how you answer anything could tend to confirm it by mistake. If they ask whether you still live at 101 Maple Street, the logical question is not “no”; it’s “which city is that even in?” Make up any name you want. Count von Crappenburg. Imelda Reina de los Zapatos. Alexei Alexeyevich Romanov. Joe Schwantz. Barron Maples. You have no idea where that address is, or even what state it’s in, but you live at x address. If you know it, pick the address of city hall, or the sheriff’s office, or your local mall. Tell them you’re homeless and living in a tent along I-5 atop Mount Rubbish. Claim to live in an army barracks, or an army tank for that matter. Claim to be flying an F-13 and about to shoot down some North Korean Dong missiles. To any question they ask, you tell anything but the truth. They have no right to ask such nosy questions anyway, so this is the proper way to reply.

Once you have worked out that it’s not real, and have assessed and blunted potential dangers, you are free to have some fun. The only rule is to drag the conversation out as long as possible (wasting their time) and making it as fruitless and annoying as possible. Everyone doing this should be made not to like it. This isn’t the grocery checker, who is earning an honest living and deserves your kind patience and courtesy when she is overwhelmed. This is not the guy at the McDonald’s window, underpaid and probably mistreated by his manager, who deserves your civility and decency. This is not the saintly nurse who stayed on the job through two years of pandemic and will not stop caring for people, even for donkeys who refused vaccination and then had the gall to expect care for their coronavirus. This is not the waitress at Denny’s, who should never be punished because the kitchen is stupid, and whose livelihood depends on you tipping her fairly based upon her service. This is not those good people. This is a bad person in a bad business. This is your chance to punish them. For example:

  • Affect an accent. Any accent. If it mimics their accent, that’s fine. That would be considered at least borderline bigoted if it were a decent person, but remember: it’s not a decent person. They choose to telemarket or join scam operations, mostly offshore, spoofing phone numbers so that you won’t know who it is. If they have an accent, there is nothing wrong with mocking it, whether it’s a Deep South drawl or a Pakistani lilt.
  • Come up with a name, since you are not going to admit to your real one. The more credible it is, the longer the call might go. Batman Supergirl might not get much traction. Cecilia Yobukovskaya might do better.
  • If you speak foreign languages, use them when you see fit. One sentence in English, one in Spanish. Be careful with Spanish, lest they say “Purdonnamay, senior, no hobblo esspaniel, uno momentito pourfuvor.” If they do that, and you speak a third language, when the Spanish speaker arrives you can switch to that. Imagine the conversation later: “You ignorant asshat. The name he gave you means “smoke pole” in Spanish and the language he was speaking was probably Italian. What, you think every foreign language is Spanish? Who even diapers you in the morning?”
  • Think of a backstory and flesh it out. Look back to an earlier phase of your life and answer as that person. Think of the craziest person you know and answer as them. The nephew who became a meth addict? This is the only good that will ever come of that human tragedy.
  • Consider speaking very slowly and not understanding half of what they say. Use enormous amounts of regional slang that no one in Hyderabad is likely to know. Talk about interests you don’t have. Tell them that you are an ethical vegan and that meat is murder and ask if their company abides by vegan principles. (If you in fact are an ethical vegan, ask them something else, so as not to tell them the truth in any way.) Ask them if their company is organic according to USC 14.285.828a. Since I just made that one up, they probably won’t understand it even if they’re American.
  • Tell them that you live by the Shania Laws of Appalachian Islam and that it’s time for your daily prayers. (Get a confederate (upper case possibly) to sing the Call to Prayer: “Y’all come pray now.”)
  • Go wild. Ask if they have Jesus. If so, ask whether they can help you find him and let him out. Ask if they have Satan (they do, whether they know it or not), and encourage them to let him into their hearts. Tell them you have ten million dollars in the credit union, and that the credit union is actually complaining because it takes up too much vault space. Ask if they like vaping.
  • Repeatedly interrupt the conversation by admonishing an imaginary child or dog. (“Timmy! Don’t do that or you’re going in the stew!”) Apologize in advance for your Tourette’s, and have periodic outbursts. Claim a very interesting occupation, such as cat herdswoman or fertilizer processor or bison yoga instructor or dromedary veterinary assistant. Say “kushkushkushkush” as if telling a camel to kneel. Be Jed Clampett. Be Elly May Clampett. Best of all, if you can pull it off, be Granny. Irene Ryan was one of the funniest comics I ever saw.
  • Ask the nuttiest possible questions about their product or service. Does their insurance cover Peyronie’s Syndrome? Scrotal lesions? Does it cover therapy for obsessive-apathetic disorder? Organ failure? Piles? Tiles? What about pudding therapy? Will their home refinance loan have an interest rate below 1%? They say that your “Windows Computer” is spreading a virus and they want you to go to a website; go to your microwave, pretend to have mistaken it for a computer, and attempt to follow their directions. Will their home warranty cover cases of Orson? “No, not arson. That’s illegal. Orson is different, obviously. It mostly affects houses with Welles, and can be quite costly to repair.”
  • Got a confederate in the house? Have her start screaming in the other room. Tell your child that right now it’s encouraged to go totally cattiewhompus. Got multiple people? Have them fake an argument in the Pentagon. “Fuck you, General! We are invading Guam only with Navy ships!” “They don’t do very well on land, Admiral.” “Dipshit, it’s an island! The Army can’t even get there unless they swim! This is our turf, so go dig a foxhole!” Got a cough? You do now! Sneezing fit? Let ’em rip in the middle of everything the caller says, then ask them to repeat it. Got a kid whose hobby is making flatulence noises with his armpit? Get him to do it as loudly as possible near the phone.

If you had fun, wasted their time, and gave them no truthful or useful information, you did well. If you felt a twinge, that’s normal; behaving with a complete lack of consideration is not natural for most of us. In such a case, remember:

  • No one forced these people to call you.
  • Nothing they are offering is legitimate.
  • Nearly all of them are giving false phone numbers.
  • Most aren’t even using their real names.
  • All of it is a fundamental insult to your intelligence.
  • While you’re wasting their time, they aren’t preying on someone’s grandma.
  • You are performing a community service, a random act of caring for others. It’s one of the few community services you can perform by being as cruel as possible.

Leave scars.

Editing/writing life, Human relations

What’s really tough in my field

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Now and then I sense that many observers think I have a pretty good gig: “You fix their grammar, duh, and get paid.” I grant that I’ve had worse jobs, and ones to which I was worse suited, but it has agonizing moments. (And I don’t just “fix their grammar.”) Take for instance:

A referral contact comes in: a rambling phone call leaving a several-minute message about her manuscript. It is evident that the caller is elderly and perhaps dealing with memory issues. Her name is Ada Miller. She conveys:

  • The ms is an autobiography about Ada’s life, which has been about as interesting as most people’s (that is, not very much so).
  • Ada was referred to me by my old friend Edna, who lives in the same senior complex. Edna is a wonderful lady who is always trying to do nice things for people, and I respect her very much.
  • She has not quite finished it, but she would like a firm quotation. You know, just to get an idea of how much it will cost to clean up a few minor errors.
  • Ada is on a fixed income, and in case I don’t get the hint, more or less indicates that this better not cost much and that I should offer a senior discount. After all, how hard can it be to fix a few typos? she asks with a chuckle.

I call Ada back, addressing her as Ms. Miller (old school Kansas boy, here), and attempt to discuss the ms. That is not feasible, unless I’m willing to talk over her and be branded rude. Ada rambles about her life, her story, her two cancer diagnoses, her children, her life, her story, how to find a publisher, her poverty, some other health problems, what a great buildup Edna gave me, and on. And on.

Ada is a lonely elderly lady hoping to make a little bit of extra money and get her story out there. She is a fundamentally nice, good person who thinks of others. However, she understands little about editing, the modern world of publishing, marketing to publishers, self-publishing, or any of that stuff. She expects me to educate her about all this, in between her soliloquies, and certainly does not expect to pay me for that time. (Not that I’ve ever charged for it, but I also reserve the right to limit it.)

When Ada does not like what she’s hearing from me, she argues with me in her genteel way. Each disagreement is grounds for her to deliver several minutes of reasons why she is correct.

Okay. You want to be an editor? Here’s your job. Decide:

  1. Plan on a massive amount of unpaid effort, wading through a ms loaded with problems, knowing Ada will reject probably half the edits, all in service of a project that will never make her one dime, for what will turn out to be an effective billing rate of about $5/hour. And that’s just for the editing time, which will be the most painful editing of your entire career. That’s not taking into account all of Ada’s loneliness emails and conversations.
  2. Find a way to reject this poor, nice, elderly potential client, who has no idea what she’s doing and isn’t willing to follow any guidance that she might not agree with. Challenge: do so without crushing her soul and sending her to Edna with many humphs about how unhelpful and rude you were to her.

Yeah, I have such an easy job.

Human relations, Married life

Pandemic vehicle registration in the eco-paradise that is Oregon

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So here we are in Oregon, where littering carries a maximum fine of $6250 (assuming there are no associated costs like hazmat disposal or kombucha abatement), driving 100 mph carries a minimum fine of $1000, your cans recycle for $0.10 deposit per can, everything else carries a fee or a fine of some sort, there is no sales tax, it’s only safe for Specially Trained Fueling Technicians to pump your gas (except in rural counties after hours, where suddenly their years of training and expertise are not so needed), and all rules are strictly enforced with no loopholes. And if you think you found a loophole, you will soon learn that there is a rule that loopholes cannot exist in Oregon, and that the fine for thinking you found one is $20 (you can pay online).

In the Portland area, most vehicles are subject to an emissions test. Even hybrids. I normally do this every two years by going to the Department of Environmental Quality station in Hillsboro, waiting 10-20 minutes, having them mess with my ride for about two minutes, paying about $212 plus $25 for the privilege of them certifying that our eco-loving hybrid miraculously passes the emissions test, and being handed my new registration with stickers. I do in the expected ways with these items, and my vehicle is registered in good standing.

Unfortunately, thanks to the Covfefe-19 pandemic, the DEQ stations were locked down for three months. Wouldn’t you know it? A renewal notice arrived during the lockdown. The registration for my wife’s car, the hybrid, expired in the first week of July. DEQ stations only reopened on July 1. We were advised by the DMV that during that time, the police probably would not issue citations for expired tabs until some point when they might start. That sounded to me like a trap, so I made plans not to take this as a promise of extending the “maybe we won’t cite you” period into July.

Of course, once the stations opened again (some still have not, which made the situation oh, so much better), they were about as swamped as you might expect. The DEQ maintains a camera that posts shots of the lines on its website, but only out to the little booth where one checks in. A long street leads up to that booth. In the past, when I picked bad times to renew, I had about a twenty-minute wait just to reach the booth. Here in the ecological paradise of the Beaver State, the normal post-booth wait is about half an hour.

I checked the cameras several times over a few days. It seemed there were no good times of day, with fully jammed lanes after the booth. It never occurred to our precious DEQ to put a camera on the street up to that booth, of course. Oh, and we were warned that there was construction in the area, with flagpeople and closed lanes. Fantastic timing and coordination for maximum pain!

After giving the eco-constipation (econstipation?) about a week to clear, it became evident that the station might remain backed up for weeks or months. Whatever suck I would have to endure in order to assure that our hybrid vehicle complied with Oregon’s strict environmental controls so that I could pay Oregon’s exorbitant registration fees, I was slated to endure. Every day of delay meant a strong likelihood of being stopped by very aggressive local deputies and police. In an area where authorities set up stings just to nail people for not stopping at unmarked crosswalks to let Aunt Adna cross, the thinking person does not one single thing that could give the police probable cause for a stop. Here, and especially in Beaverton, motorists are The Hunted. My wife was once stopped and cited for having her license plate frame slightly obscure her license tabs. Gods only know how much jail time she might have gotten had she committed a truly meaningful violation.

I girded up my loins, which was its own problem. One thing that the DMV’s Founding Fathers & Mothers do not seem to have considered is that older people risk serious urinary distress by being stuck in an inescapable line for two hours. It’s bad enough for men, who have easier options than women. I set out for the DEQ even so, fully prepared to bail on them at the first sign of an eterna-line. On the first trip, I saw cows before I realized I’d taken the wrong road northward. Just as well; bladder full. Normally that would not be so stressful, but bear in mind also that there are few public restrooms now, and that I wouldn’t call most of them safe. All the way back home, check map, visit restroom, back on the road. This time, just in case, I brought an empty plastic beverage bottle with a screw-top. (I had it figured that if I had to use this for emergency relief efforts, I could shield the area from view and no one would be the wiser.) One hour consumed.

After another half hour’s northward driving–passing in sight of daunting lane closures certain to cause delays along the main arterial–I managed to drive to the correct location. Past the flagpeople. Follow the DEQ detour signs. In case anyone was too stupid to observe those, there were two masked persons waving DEQ signs and pointing where to turn.

I’m glad I pay money so that even morons can be told where to turn in order to pay their registration and emissions fees.

So I turned up that street, compliant with the moron-helpers, hoping for a distant glimpse of the Booth Beyond Which There Remains Half An Hour Of Dicking Around Waiting. I saw the end of the line, with a little ridge ahead and no idea how far past it the booth might be. Offhand, it looked like the back of the line was somewhere near Olympia, WA. Faced with the choice of having to commit to the line and hope, or get the hell out of there, I consulted my bladder. It said: “Do it and perish.” With calm aplomb, I turned in to a vacant parking lot where I could exit the other way. I would have to try using something called “DEQtoo.”

The eco-paradise has gone a little ways in the Idaho direction (in Boise, there are emissions vans at nearly every gas station) by farming testing out to local auto-related businesses. I had distrusted this possibility enough to first attempt all the previous bullshit, but having made said attempt and met with futility, I would now have to attempt this new form of bullshit. (Not bullshit, you say? Oh, really? Since when is a six-year-old hybrid car with less than 80,000 miles on it going to flop the emissions test? My thirty-year-old pickup truck passes the emissions test with flying colors, but at least testing it is justified for strict eco-protection and eco-harmony (and to produce eco-money). If the eco-paradise really were concerned about ecology rather than money, and wanted to serve the public, they’d just state that hybrids under a certain age and below a certain mileage were automatically considered to pass the emissions test this year, thanks to Covfefe-19-related headaches.

Oh, no, but then they wouldn’t get to enforce this almost universally pointless test on vehicles certain to pass it, and thus would forgo all those $25 fees? Okay; I realize Oregon never, ever, ever met a fee it could live without. Then charge me the damn fee already, make me swear to the mileage, and state that at least for this year in this situation due to eterna-lines at the DEQ, all qualifying hybrids are considered to have passed. Then take my $212 to register the car, send me my tabs to stick on my license plates, issue my renewed registration, and let me forget that you exist for two more years.

We couldn’t have that, could we? No. Entirely too easy.

Under DEQtoo, a for-profit auto-related enterprise (a Jiffy Lube, for example) does the test, charges you whatever they charge you, and sends the results to Salem. What, you were told Oregon is Deeply Socialist? Odd socialism, this, farming out the means of production to private companies. Off I went to Jiffy Lube, where no one was wearing any masks or bothering with any form of social distancing. I love how the enforcement mechanisms in Oregon are so strict for everything except a Governor’s order pursuant to a serious pandemic public safety hazard, in which case it’s optional and people can just do whatever. Oregon is more prepared to enforce a tiny obstruction of part of a license plate than it is to keep a dangerous disease from spreading.

The process at Jiffy, presuming one doesn’t get Covfefe-19, isn’t too complex. You pull your car in, they scan it and collect all your information, they run the test, you pay them $20 for doing the test and sending the information to the DMV so that the DMV can now charge you the $25. (You didn’t really think that the DEQtoo fee replaced the emissions test fee, did you? If you imagined this, clearly you have never lived in Oregon.)

This took about twenty minutes. The kid handed me a piece of paper telling me what to do next in order to check on my test and complete registration online. He scrawled “WWW.DEQTOO.COM” in magic marker, to let me know where I should navigate online.

Of course, he didn’t even know the correct URL. It was http://www.deqtoo.org. While this did not daunt me terribly, it was just one more simple disservice they offered with a smile. Once I navigated to the correct website, I enjoyed the miracle of online renewal. First, of course, I had to pay DEQ to issue me a certificate of having passed their emissions test. I had to give them a bunch of information they already had. Having purchased this certificate, I was eligible to renew. I had to give them a bunch more information they already had plus some they didn’t. After about half an hour of dildoing around with these websites, I finally paid all the necessary fees, printed the necessary forms, and was told they would mail my tabs the next business day.

And that’s just how we roll nowadays here in Oregon.

Human relations, Social comment

Project Hamilton

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This isn’t about editing or writing.

This is Project Hamilton.

This is about current US society and economics. It may apply to others in other societies, but I am speaking to the only one I know and in which I participate.

This is me summoning the haves. If you’re doing rather well, I’ve got a suggestion for you.

Because of the disease, which it seems highly likely will soon enter its second phase and do multiple times more harm, there are two economic categories: the haves and the have-nots. The haves either have plenty of money or are still earning enough to live and save a little. Most of them are currently spending less money than they usually do, so they have some extra. The have-nots are chronically underemployed, working at risk, or deprived of all income. Few of them asked for those situations.

The reason the haves can still buy groceries and live through this in relative comfort is in large part because some of the have-nots go to work. The have-even-lesses can’t even do that. My answer is Project Hamilton.

The concept is simple. You probably don’t shop locally as often as you did before. When you do, kick in an extra $10. If buying groceries, give the extra bill to the checker, and ask her please to hang onto it until someone comes along who is obviously in serious distress, then contribute it to that person’s payment. If you are going to get takeout or drive-through from a restaurant, add $10 in tip. The drive-through people never get anything normally; the takeout people are probably waitstaff who normally rely on tips. Wherever you go, give them an extra ten bucks. If you need to, do like at the grocery store and have them share it with a person in need.

At some point the nail salons and barbers will reopen, and you can take it for gospel they are all financially blasted (and sick of driving Uber or Grubhub). First couple times you go back, tack on an extra $10 above your normal gratuity, to help them catch up and rebuild.

If you cannot afford this, I’m not asking it of you.

If you can, I am. Share. Show people that you value them. Sustain this through the recovery. Right now the economic reality is that the dollars aren’t turning over. It is in your power to turn over some more dollars, which will help people have work and make money and stay somewhat afloat. It will also give people heart, which has its own value.

We have become a dystopian society, but this initiative has nothing to do with nationalism or politics. This has to do with whether we choose to share, or not to share. This has to do with how we each define ourselves. Are we really this dystopia, or are we better than that? Talk is cheap (including blog posts). What you do is who you are.

I have made my choice. Yours is up to you.

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Addendum: in the early response to this post, shared in a number of places, I have seen many method variations on its basic theme. All of those variations are great. Better still, many people were already doing them before I got around to this post.

I salute all of you who participate in any way, whether you were already doing so or have now just begun. Any generous way one chooses to do this is a correct way.

Human relations, Social comment

COVID’s metamorphosis

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If you see what I did there, I tip my cap.

Living in a region with some early cases and a few fatalities from the Wuhan COVID-19 virus, my perspective might be more immediate than some. My reactions, however, were unlike and yet like those of others. Based upon the data, I began with the following assumptions:

  • Since COVID could be contracted from an Amazon packer’s paws seven days before, while hand washing and other basic hygienic precautions might slow it down, it would erupt in surprise locations with a payload soon to hit.
  • My wife and I would ultimately contract this virus, with some chance of mortality. We would be fools to ignore it.
  • Whatever government might say would be targeted at manipulating behavior, not keeping people healthy. True of any government at times; truest of all of this one now.
  • People would expect the government to save them, and would discover that it cannot.
  • Most people would react irrationally to that realization.
  • People who did not believe in science were not about to start now.
  • People who believed in thoughts and prayers were going to find out just how well such things worked.
  • Financial media would immediately attribute any stock market faceplant to coronavirus. Any stock market recovery, somehow, would not. Few would question the fundamental association between high markets and sudden selling behavior.

Most of the above has come to pass so far, except for us catching the virus. In addition, people have been:

  • Cleaning out supplies of staples such as toilet paper. Costco is making bank.
  • Avoiding crowds: crowded stores, big public events, anything with many people.

Around here, we haven’t changed anything except for better hand washing and adding a couple of supplements aimed at immune boosting. Compared to many, I seemed to be under-reacting. Everyone else seemed more affected than me. And then I realized some things all at once.

I always keep on hand excellent stocks of basics. Maybe once a year I take my pickup to Costco, and I come back with the bed mostly full. I have no shame about buying five big bundles of paper towels, four tubs of dishwasher pods, twelve cans of coffee. I grew up in a household that constantly ran out of the basics and did everything cheap cheap cheap cheep cheep cheep cheep. I refuse to maintain a similar household.

I don’t like crowds; my normal life is based on avoiding them where possible. When I can’t avoid them, I exfiltrate from them as quickly as I can manage.

America, welcome to my regular life.

Human relations, Social comment, Technology

Why your Ebay vendor loathes you

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Our society goes on and on about the customer always being right, the customer being king/queen/quing/whatever. I have heard it all my life.

It was stupid to begin with and it has gotten stupider.

The customer is not always right, and never has been. The customer is right to the extent that we can arrange him or her to be without giving away the store or rewarding/encouraging horrible behavior. The customer is not king/queen/quing/padishah/nawab/sultan/etc., is not even nobility, and needs to get over him/her/it/theirself. After a couple years of selling stuff on Ebenezer, as well as some dumbass buying mistakes of my own, I think I’m ready to present a list of common errors that many buyers make.

Wait, who says it’s an error? Why should the buyer care, if the buyer is in fact royalty and always correct? Because the seller doesn’t have to sell to you and doesn’t have to give you special treatment. If you want special treatment, you need to eliminate the aspects of your behavior that cause the vendor to wish you plagues of flamethrowing cockroaches. Such as:

  • You can’t master the concept of the shopping cart and invoice request, so you just pay individually for five fixed-price items, but you still want shipping combined. And you think you should now get a discount. Why not? You’re the monarch! Dut-dudda-ding!
  • Closely connected: you win multiple auction items at once, pay immediately for each in sequence, then want your shipping combined. You don’t have the intellect or savvy to wait and request a combined invoice. Nice going, Exalted One.
  • You can’t understand (or don’t care) that Ebenezer charges your seller a fee, typically 10% of more, on both shipping and merchandise. You see on your parcel that stamps totaled $2.75 and you were charged $2.95 (of which the vendor actually got to keep $2.66)? Alert the BBB! Ripoff report! Lèse majesté!
  • You can’t understand that the materials your shipper uses were not free. What, you mean bubble mailers costs 20-30 cents? Not Your Majesty’s problem!
  • You bid up to the last minute, win, then dick around for two days before paying. Who cares about doing the businesslike thing and just paying up? You’ve got 48 damned hours, and you’re damn well going to use 47 of them! There’s important interest to be earned in two days on $3.95!
  • You not only don’t pay on time; before paying, you let elapse 90 of the 96 hours Ebenezer allows to redeem an unpaid item claim. Aren’t you cute? Ha-ha, you got four more days’ worth of interest on your $3.95! Baller! Your vendor truly hates you. Your vendor should block you. In fact, your vendor should have blocked you the instant after filing the unpaid item claim.
  • You don’t even pay after all six days have elapsed. You just decided screw it, you didn’t really want it. Unfortunately, Ebenezer won’t simply take the money out of your account and bill you for it, because Ebenezer does little to protect sellers. That’s why the sellers hate Ebenezer as much as they hate deadbeats.
  • You don’t pay at all for five days, then send a message explaining that you are doing this so you can buy more stuff and make a big combined payment to get some benefit from Praypal. Had you asked for such consideration beforehand, your vendor would probably have said “no problem.” But you didn’t. Why should Your Majesty care about the villains, knaves, oaves, and other help? Your Majesty’s time is accountable to no one, least of all the servant class. Hmph.
  • You make insulting offers. $100 or best offer? You throw out a $25 trial balloon. Why shouldn’t you? What’s the worst they can do, say “no”? That whole attitude–“It never hurts to ask, the worst they can say is ‘no'”–is part of what is wrong with business. It dignifies, even glorifies the insulting question, the lowball.
  • You fail to read the listing, then blame your vendor for what you should have learned and did not. If it says there are no returns, and you ask for a return, best be polite and unentitled. If the condition is clearly/accurately described, and you complain about it and want a refund, you are why your vendor hates doing this.
  • You think “free shipping” is a good thing, a benefit, obligatory for all vendors, and that those who don’t offer it are cheap, greedy bastards. You’re not only wrong, you are not doing too well in the numeracy department. Free shipping is a massive ripoff. If you buy just one item at a time, it’s a wash; the more business you do at once, the more screwed you are. Viewed another way, the better the customer, the worse a hosing is his/her/their/its reward. If that’s you, cut up your credit cards, because those scum beings saw you coming miles away.
  • You confuse feedback on the item’s suitability with feedback on the vendor’s service. Who cares if it’s not the vendor’s fault that the shaving razors didn’t last long enough? It’s not like you’re harming a real person’s business.
  • You don’t bother with the feedback racket, even when the vendor does everything right. Why should Your Holiness care? It’s a vendor: a peon, a peasant, a worm.

I’m not saying that the typical Ebenezer vendor is some sainted, courteous being. In fact, many do a truly suck job and deserve to be treated in all the above ways. I’ve even got a blacklist of vendors to make sure I never use again (since stupid Ebenezer won’t let buyers block a vendor). But I suspect I understand why some of them go bad, and I think some of it’s misvented frustration.

As an Ebenezer seller, you spend much avoidable time fighting with Ebenezer’s remarkably bad interface. I am convinced that Ebenezer has a Sucky Interface Creation Commission (SICC) that stays up late and works weekends just to find new ways to make the listing experience worse. They’re evil. They’re awful. They’re capricious. They’re downright stupid. If you’re a buyer and not a seller, count some blessings. It’s not right, sensible, or fair for a seller to take loathing of Ebenezer out on buyers–but I believe some do. Especially since there are enough truly deserving buyers to fan the flames.

And if you’re a buyer and not a seller, now you know some of the most irritating things some buyers do. Maybe you have done some of them. About half your vendors are so jaded they won’t give two damns how you treat them. They have experienced so much of the above listing irritation and customer abuse that they no longer care; they just churn it through. The other half, however, will go out of its way for you if it gets a little consideration.

  • I have successfully returned non-returnable merchandise. (They are so unused to the words “please; I made a mistake” that the phrase takes them aback.)
  • I have been given merchandise free of charge without asking for it. (In fact, it was offered and I tried to decline.)
  • I have been given discounts I didn’t request. (And all it took was a little empathy.)
  • I have had faulty merchandise replaced immediately. (Without being asked to send back the other.)

Those things don’t happen when you behave as an entitled schlong toward your vendor.

It’s partly your business world. It will, in part, take the shape you impose upon it. Think of yourself as sculpting.

If you sculpt it like a turd, well, that’s up to you.

Editing/writing life, Human relations, Social comment

the hardest literary bias to overcome

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In fact, it’s so hard there is no way to overcome it. We can mitigate it, ease it, look past it, but this fact is inescapable:

Every evening, except in polar latitudes, the sun goes down. It gets dark, and most of us can’t see as well. Our instincts tell us to fear greater danger at that time. Every morning, the sun rises, and we can easily see. We feel safer.

From this fundamental fact of our existence has sprung the entire light vs. darkness motif, leading us to equate the light with good and the dark with evil. It’s not fair, because our skin color varies. There is zero reason that the color of a person’s flesh should carry any connotation of beneficence or malevolence, safety or danger.

I believe that this reality has poisoned racial relations and feelings for humanity in many ways we either do not see, or see but would rather pretend we do not. How many times have we heard the phrase “in darkest Africa?” To me, Africa seems pretty sunny. Its jungles are probably dark, but so are our Northwestern pine and fir forests. No. That’s a reference to skin color, no matter how hard anyone may try to deny it, and somehow it is still considered tolerable–even though it equates to the dangerous unknown full of wild things and hazards.

Since our orientation relative to the sun is not likely to shift any time soon, we are stuck with this situation. We aren’t going to have a sudden species shift toward perfect night vision, and our bodies of literature are not going to undergo a massive rewrite. We can only change what we do from here. What can we do?

Writers can help. Now, hear me well: I’m not buying into the notion that we must use immediate social nuclear retaliation against every tiny vestige of any historic social injustice. If your writing happens to mention some reference to the fact that it truly is easier for most of us to see during the daytime, it won’t mean that you belong in the linen closet. You don’t have to turn around and republish every word you ever wrote, scrubbed of every light/dark reference, lest you be kicked out of the nice tent. That would be idiotic. The fact that people do just that all the time without thinking any of it through, always seeking .999999 fine ideological purity and damning to hell anyone who falls short, doesn’t make it sane.

You can’t change our geo/astrophysics, but you can seek other ways to present good and evil in writing. That’s all. Just, when you run across a case where you’re thinking of describing evil as darkness and good as the light, be writer enough to think of a more considerate way to put it. It’s a good thing to do, and that should be enough motivation for a good person to try.

Is it hard? Sometimes; but you wanted to be a writer, didn’t you? Always thought it would be so cool? Great! Welcome to doing the thing for real. If it were easy, even more people would do it. Don’t give yourself an excuse; write better.

If you need extra motivation, imagine what it would be like if the way you looked, and for all your life would look no matter what you did about it, matched a standard metaphor for evil. If you need further motivation, remember that people who spend money on literary property come in many hues, might notice things you might not, and often have a refined sense for when someone is (or is not) showing a little sensitivity to others. Between motivation for good deeds, and motivation to make money, that should cover a large percentage of those who auth.

Let’s make the world of writing a little more inclusive. Not because someone’s on our asses about it, but because we can see that it would be worthwhile.

Editing/writing life, Human relations

Getting past insufferable

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Writers and authors can be some of the coolest people you’d ever want to meet.

They can also be insufferable. And most of those who are, either don’t know it or don’t care.

I believe that it’s a phase some go through. I believe this because I remember going through it, and probably remained in that phase longer than most writers. If it’s a phase, it can be overcome.

What’s insufferable?

  • Nagging everyone in one’s orbit to read one’s work.
  • The above, while making clear that everyone without the will to refuse is expected to be Very Supportive (i.e. say nice things).
  • Beginning to view everyone in one’s world in terms of promotion of one’s work: there are those who embrace The True Faith, and those who hesitate (or refuse: basest heresy!) to read/buy/share/review/promote it. The latter are bypassed as of little consequence.
  • Posting protracted laments on writers’ groups about unsupportive friends/family, essentially asking to be given a bottle and caressed with encouragement.
  • Approaching prospective editors with a defensive and defiant stance, practically daring them to do their jobs.
  • Plunging into profound grief upon receipt of even constructive critical feedback.
  • Ignoring said feedback as unsupportive.

All right. Does any of that describe you?

If you are still reading, you might like to escape this spiral of insufferability and sorrow. That which stems from life traumas is beyond my power to amend. For those I recommend a qualified therapist with the training to deconstruct trauma and help you to cope. It has helped me.

The other part is in my department. I believe in the power of affirmation and repetition to change our outlooks. It doesn’t happen overnight, but neither does a book. Neither does much of anything on which we look back with pride in achievement. Tell yourself:

  1. No one is obligated to read my work.
  2. Refusal to read my work is not a judgment on me, much less a personal rejection.
  3. If I seek feedback, I will presume it constructive until proven otherwise.
  4. I will not seek feedback from anyone without committing to giving it careful consideration.
  5. If I seek feedback in a critique group, I will remember my own obligations and give at least as much good as I receive.
  6. No matter how invested I am in my book, no one else can be expected or required to feel the same. Anyone who does so anyway gives me a great gift.
  7. An editor’s solemn duty is to tell me the honest truth, even if painful. I have no right to demand that s/he violate that trust to spare my feelings.
  8. Some people will be cruel to me. I will distinguish gratuitous cruelty from that which contains useful guidance, even if given with the bark on. From the latter I will take the good and leave the bad. I will leave the former’s authors to own their pathologies.
  9. I will not reflect the painful sides of my writing experience onto anyone who doesn’t deserve it.
  10. If the problem stems in part from my sensitivity over horrible life experiences which I reflect in my writing, critique of their presentation is not meant to invalidate my experiences.

Ten commandments? No, because I’m not commanding anyone, nor have I the power to do so. Ten guidelines for becoming the kind of writer that editors love and friends don’t avoid?

I can live with that.

Editing/writing life, Homeownership, Human relations, Technology

Thrift vs. miserliness

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What’s your craziest cheapskateness?

Lots of us are cheap, or thrifty, or abhor waste, or in some other way do our best to avoid discarding anything we or someone else could use. Some of us were raised by Depression kids, with a portion of that translating to us. Some people live in very frugal circumstances and can’t afford to waste any single solitary thing of value.

Some do this out of need; some out of fear; some because it’s fun. Few apply this to everything. Take time, for example. Time is a resource, arguably our most precious one. It could be used to accomplish something, even if that might be rest or play. How many people, having options, waste time on a regular basis? Of course, that depends on the definition of waste. In some circles, any energy or time not spent to further ultimate corporate profit is automatically considered wasteful, just as any education that does not directly lead to employability is considered useless. Some people think a server tip is wasted money because it is not technically obligatory.

And sometimes we have a savings instinct and we know it’s stupid. Maybe we just give in to it; maybe we fight it because we realize that’s going too far, even for ourselves.

What I’m going to ask you is two questions:

  1. What is a form of useful thrift you practice that you think few would resort to?
  2. What is a form of foolish or pointless thrift you either practice, or realize you should not and resist the tendency?

I’ll go first.

In order to avoid purchasing my own for things I sell online, I save a good percentage of the packing I receive. Not all, but a fair variety to accommodate varied needs.

Every time I find myself backspacing over single characters to retype a missing letter, rather than arrowing to the spot and just inserting it, I have this little wastefulness warning that goes off. It’s idiotic. Not only has a typed character zero intrinsic value, I backspace and retype because it’s faster and doesn’t require me to shift to the mouse or arrow pad. Even then my brain nags me that I am just throwing things away like a wasteful dunce.

Yet it doesn’t when I am editing, or when I am throwing away a whole sentence or paragraph I deem pointless. I can, without conscience, delete a whole article from this blog if I consider it past its prime. For heaven’s sake, I deleted or hid my entire personal Faceplant timeline. I deleted ten years of life story. It took over a year. I felt no sense of waste.

Please feel free to share yours. No judgment from me.