The Slamlander

I just got two, not one, emails (won’t say who).
I had posted my new pix on my Yahoo acount, as well as here on LJ. It’s actually a cartoon of me/myself/I. That is indeed the way I dress most of my off-duty time. In Winter, I wear a black leather jacket. Anywho … the emails are a complaint about an accessory shown on the pix. Yes, I have a cigarette dangling out of my mouth. Yes, I smoke (someday I’ll quit … I tell myself that constantly).

It seems that one is concerned that I am trying to encourage smoking in children. That one was rather rude. They insist that I remove the pix or they will complain to Yahoo.

The other was politely asking if I had a full-size copy that they could have and since they do not have a paint program, could I remove the cigarette.

Before thinking [too much ... I wanted to stay polite] I wrote them both, explaining that it was original art and that I am, in fact, the artist. Further, that is was a pictographic depiction of me and was protected by both copyright law and the US First Amendment. It is also not violating any known anti-porn legislation. Further, that no one has permission to use it but me. It was very brief and very polite. I sent it off before I let the emotional reaction set in.

Now I’m pissed!

It gets better. I then try to log onto the IQ website, where I created an account a few days ago. I’ve been having a bit of fun taking their free tests. I was even going to actually spend some money for their reports. I had uploaded the same exact pic to that site. A got an email, from the site admin, that the cartoon representation is not a photo and that what I had sent was unacceptable. It turns out that they have cancelled my account there. … eh?!?! I’m glad they did that before I ordered any reports.

Is it ‘seethingly furious’ or ‘furiously seething’, either way I’m almost angry enough to be depressed. Some people have ‘nerve’ and others have no brains. Said differently “Some folks ain’t got the sense of a pump handle and there are others that are not even that lucky.” America is getting way too intolerant and that is just plain un-American.

Update [2Feb04 14:30]:
I actually got an apology from the person that wanted a copy of the pix. Quite nice, actually. They said they weren’t aware that it was my original work … duh!?!? Do cartoon images grow on trees? I thanked them for the apology.

I got an email from the other one as well. They “graciously” gave me until Tuesday to change or remove the image or they were going to complain to Yahoo. I attached both emails and my last response and sent it off to Yahoo myself, as a harassment complaint. I suspect that this one will try a legal-form complaint and Yahoo might want the heads-up. I also advise Yahoo that, although it is quite simple for me to remove that layer, I don’t intend to. BTW, the complainer is using a non-yahoo account so I don’t think that Yahoo can do much about it. I did CC their ISP however. The ISP is in Georgia. They porbably won’t do much either. The next email from this 1D10T gets the flamethrower treatment, there is a reason I’m called The Slamlander.

just so I could see what’s up there.
Slamlander
So far I’ve hit them quite a few times and their tests are interesting tools for self-examination.

Update [16:04]: and this one

ENTJ – “Field Marshall”. The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 1.8% of total population.

Extroverted (E) 66.13% Introverted (I) 33.87% Intuitive (N) 51.56% Sensing (S) 48.44% Thinking (T) 62.12% Feeling (F) 37.88% Perceiving (P) 50% Judging (J) 50%

Take Free Myers-Briggs Personality Test

Conscious self	Overall self

Enneagram Test Results Type 1 Perfectionism |||||||||||||| 58% Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||||||||| 66% Type 3 Ambition |||||||||||||||||| 74% Type 4 Sensitivity |||||| 26% Type 5 Detachment |||||||||||||| 58% Type 6 Anxiety |||||||||||| 42% Type 7 Adventurousness |||||||||||||||| 66% Type 8 Aggressiveness |||||||||||||||||| 78% Type 9 Calmness |||||||||||||||||| 74% Your Conscious-Surface type is 8w9 Your Unconscious-Overall type is 9w1

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test

This is the latest one.

You are Legolas!

Which Lord of the Rings Elf Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

You are the 1954 Mercedes Benz 300SL.
Take the Which Classic Car Are You? quiz! By JC and Bren.

I’m completely down-to-earth!

Find your soul type at kelly.moranweb.com.

Japan -
Viewed as the technological powerhouse of the 21st
Century, it has lived a reletively solemn and
singular history.

Positives:
Technologically Advanced.
Economic Superpower.
Healthy Populace.

Negatives:
Small.
Isolated and Sometimes Ignored.
Unlucky with Disasters.

Which Country of the World are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

find your element
at mutedfaith.com.

You are Gambit!

You are a fierce fighter and a good friend to have.
Your preference for solitude and your
attractiveness make you very intriguing to
those you meet. Unfortunately, close
relationships are few and far between for you
because you often have trouble opening up to
others.

Which X-Men character are you most like?
brought to you by Quizilla

Ugh: I guess that’s enough for this entry.

Update [19:43]: That’s the last quiz for this entry

I’ve been up for over an hour now. Used the last of the Heartburn special Alka Seltzers. No more and I can’t get refills here in EU.
It’s 05:45hrs CET. I need to stay verticle while it works.

Spent some time on UF political debates.

Update [06:01]:
Learning how to use this Loch client and just found the update entry feature. The best part is being able to edit the journal entries and even deleting them.

both here and the yahoo site. It’s much improved artwork, yes?
Right now, I’m supposed to be working on that networking whitepaper.

This document is intended for the Executive and Technical Management of an enterprise. It provides a cross-platform roadmap for implementation of a secure and autonomous computing environment for the average business including, minimum size networks and extended external systems for multi-office, branch office, retail stores, and teleworkers. This is not a HOW-TO; it provides an overview, general policies, guidelines for design, and a proposed general architecture. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with basic Internet technology and TCP/IP protocols.

Spent most of the day in PaintShopPro and have this new grafix pix.
Learnt some cool new stuff in PSP as well. Check out my mirrored shades.

Update [30Jan04]:
Okay, this one became a first draft. After FUBAR’ing the master I had to re-do the whole thing from scratch. This is probably a good thing as the update is way better.

I buy their DeskTopToGo product and it works great for years.
Then, one day, the end-of-life it. Okay, they no longer want to do that. But, do they have a replacement? … no.
They want me to spend more money on BeyondContacts, which eats 1.6MB of RAM on my Palm IIIc. Yes, it does work but, I have to unload ALL my other Palm apps, including my diabetes monitoring program, in order to load it. So, do they have a conduit-only option? No they don’t. Ergo, BeyondContacts is unusable on a Palm IIIc (not to mention that it runs slower than mollasses in a New England Winter, in a 16Mhz DragonBall). What’s more, the latest DTG updates break the DTG app and there is no more phone support for it and the website doesn’t have info on it either. This suxors.

I didn’t buy DTG for a 3-year term. I bought it to use as long as I have my Palm III. What these shitheads did is invalidate my original purchase and offered me an unsatisfactory substitute. I was quite fine with DTG as-was. I am royally pissed! Even Microsoft isn’t this bad. This is obviously a ploy to force me to upgrade to BeyondContacts, even if BC isn’t suitable, by destroying the platform I had already paid for (key phrase “paid for”).

I’m looking for a pure conduit between Outlook and my Palm III which uses the native Palm applications. XTNDPC is the current candidate because it also syncs my SonyEricson T68i (not a requirement but, it’s nice.).

Got the laptop HDD off to Hitachi for RMA.
Got the return request off to DataViz for money return on BeyondContact.

Well I just finished diagnostics on the laptop. The good news is that it is neither the MoBo or the RAM.
The bad news is that the HDD is trashed.
However, the good news is that it’s under warranty and I have an RMA to send it back on.
Bad news though, the prognosis for the RMA is 3-4 weeks. After which, I’ll have to reinstall everything (about 3-4 days of hard work).

This is putting a serious kink in the plans. At least, I managed to get most of the data off of it. I did lose my SQLserver stuff though.