First Rant
I had to talk to someone at Alliant Energy. As I was leaving the office, I looked up their number and called, figuring that I could get something done on the drive home. Over half an hour later, I was still on hold and I gave up.

I got home and figured I'd give it another shot. I called, turned on the speakerphone, and waited. And waited. And waited. For nearly an hour. No one ever answered.

Throughout both of these calls, they kept mentioning this call-back program where, if you didn't want to wait on hold, you could give them your number and they'd call you back whenever your turn came up. But they never told me how to give them my number so they could call me back. Until about an hour into the second call. So I gave them my number and name and whatever else, hung up, and went about my life.

Right as I'm in the middle of cooking dinner, they call. I answer. They put me on hold, and tell me that, due to a heavier-than-expected call volume, I'd have to wait. I thought the whole point of them calling you was that you didn't have to wait on hold, but I guess not. Whatever.

Eventually, I did speak to someone, and I calmly explained to her that making someone wait an hour and half to speak to someone is completely ridiculous. She apologized and said she'd take care of what I needed. She asked for my address, and I gave it to her.

"You're in Wisconsin?," she said.
"Yes?"
"This is the Iowa call center. You called the wrong people. I have to transfer you to someone who can help you in Wisconsin." Click. Hold music. She didn't even give me an opportunity to get back on the "call me when you have a minute" list.

At this point, I'm freaking out at myself for somehow accidentally calling the Iowa number. I was mentally berating myself while sitting on hold yet again when I decided to see where I had gone wrong in navigating their website. I went to alliantenergy.com and clicked on "Contact Us." I scrolled down to the general-inquiry number and checked it against my call log. I had dialed the correct number; it was Alliant Energy that had called me back from a call center that could not help me with my issue.

So, after another half hour on the phone--making this a total of nearly two hours on hold with these people--I spoke to a very nice lady who did exactly what I needed in about three minutes.

So whoever's in charge of Alliant Energy is a fucktard, but they can still hire some decent people.

Rant two

I went to the Terrace tonight with chelsadilla, her friend from out of town, and the rest of SuperKarateMonkeyDeathCar. We sat at one of the really big tables. There were a lot of empty seats, and there were even some empty chairs at our table.

As we were sitting there listening to one of the bands, some undergrad came up to the table and took one of the empty chairs. She didn't ask if we needed it or if anyone was sitting there. No, she just walked right up and helped herself, even though there were literally dozens of other chairs at completely empty tables in the immediate vicinity. Granted, we didn't need that chair at all and would have been more than happy to let her have it had she asked. But she didn't ask. She just assumed that it was cool to walk up to a table with several people and several empty chairs and just take an empty chair for herself.

I was inwardly outraged.

A little while later, a few people were at the bathroom or something, so there were a few more empty chairs at our table. And another fucking undergrad came up and just grabbed one and took it back to his seat. This time, the undergrad took a chair that someone was sitting in; we had plenty of chairs with which to replace it, but that's not the point. This assjacket walked up and, again without asking or even acknowledging that others were at the table, took a fucking chair.

I stood up and grabbed the chair back and explained that he could go fuck himself. When I realized that there were plenty of other chairs at our table, I apologized and took on a "no harm, no foul" sort of attitude. But fuck that.

The fact is that the degree of culpability is the same regardless of whether someone actually needed the chair--the offense is in failing to ask, not in actually inconveniencing someone. You simply don't walk up to an occupied table and assume that you can take any unoccupied chair. You don't do that. Not unless you're a completely self-absorbed individual. And completely worthless.

Fuck, I hate undergrads.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)| Filed under Philosophical Rants , Rants , Rants About Things That Make Me Irrationally Angry

Sometimes, the shifts in seasons can be so gradual that you don't even realize it's happening. You look up one day and you're covered in snow when it seems like it was just yesterday that you were drinking a Spotted Cow at the Terrace. That's what it's like for me, anyway.

But because I'm a bit of a control freak, there's always a moment when I realize that there's a seasonal change a-comin'. See, it's rare that I'll have the windows in my car down: either it's warm enough for air conditioning or it's cool enough for the heater. One really nice days, I'll roll the windows down and let the wind blow around the car, but I use the car's climate-control system more often than not.

So there comes a day about twice a year what I have to turn the little knob that controls whether it's heating or cooling nearly a full turn. And that's when I realize that another season's come and gone.

Well, that happened tonight. When I drove the seXterra earlier, I didn't need air conditioning. But when I got in it tonight, it was really rather cool, and I was only wearing a t-shirt. So I decided to turn on the heat. That, together with the fact that the Piano Bar was full of idiotic undergrads tonight, is a sure indication that fall is near. Soon the leaves will start to turn color and the air will start feeling electrical right around dusk. It'll be warm again sometime soon, I'm sure, but after that, it's just a precipitous fall into winter.

But I like winter, so I say bring it on.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 1:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)| Filed under Existential Nonsense

You know what Monday was? My twenty-eighth birthday.

Yes, I've now been imposing my presence on the world for almost three decades. Damn, I'm old. So I didn't go out to a bar and get rip-roarin' drunk or anything. I'll do that later. Instead, my lovely girlfriend took me out to dinner and got me some very nice and very useful gifts.

What did she get me? Well, this might sound lame, but she got me a letter opener. I've been sort of wanting one for the office for a while, but haven't bought one because I hadn't seen one that was appropriately cool. Last time chelsadilla and I went to the Overture Center, though, we looked in their little gift shop area, and I saw a really nice one carved out of wood--ebony, to be specific. But I wasn't ready to pull the trigger on it then. So chelsadilla got that for me, and it's really awesome. It's appropriately sharp and sleek, but it's made out of wood, so it's vaguely anachronistic. I really like it. Also, apparently my quest to find a dagger I could use as a letter opener at the Renaissance Festival caused chelsadilla to have a minor heart attack.

The other thing she got me was much more practical: a car charger for my Blackberry. I sometimes drive to new places for my job, and I use Google maps on the phone, which drains the battery and sometimes leaves me unable to call or e-mail. No longer! This is another thing that I'm going to get a lot of use out of but which I was unlikely to buy myself, which I think is one hallmark of a great present.

Then we went to dinner at the downtown Tutto Pasta (read: the one that doesn't suck). Dinner was awesome, and it was nice to go on a date.

Then we came home and just sort of chilled.

Between dinner with chelsadilla, the gifts, all the happy birthdays I got (I seriously got more than I have in a long time), and the weekend at the Renaissance Festival, it was a great birthday. Even if it means I'm now in my mid-late twenties, which is scarily close to my late-late twenties.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Fun Shit I've Done , Hanging Out With My Friends , Restaurant and Bar Reviews

So, in keeping with a now-established tradition, my friends and I ventured to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival for the second year in a row. Last year was my first time at a RenFest, and I was pretty impressed. This year, I had a much better idea of what to expect, and, while the novelty began to wear off a little bit, it was still a lot of fun. In fact, knowing what to expect from each event meant that we knew what to avoid, so there was less waiting around for a lame fucking joust and more just enjoying being out on a beautiful day with knights, wenches, and fairies all over the place.

I had decided that I would allow myself to spend a little bit of money on cool but not entirely impractical things. I was specifically looking for a letter opener--I get an entirely ridiculous amount of mail, and I get sort of sick of opening it all with my fingers. Plus, who wouldn't want a little dagger on their desk? In the end, though, I ended up buying a completely impractical item: a lace-up fancy-pants vest. I didn't buy the super-badass Captain Morgan-style jacket, even though I thought it would be an awesome, completely over the top item to wear should SuperKarateMonkeyDeathCar ever play an actual show. I'm now in the market for a puffy shirt and some parachute pants in order to complete a pretty awesome Halloween costume.

I also bought food and drink, of course. I decided it was stupid of me not to get a turkey leg last year, so I bought one. And it was worth the $6 I paid for it. It was delicious, warm, and filling. I was less enthused by the Scotch eggs; frankly, they sucked, and I didn't even finish my portion. They were terrible. But the mead more than made up for it. Now if only the Mead Booth's webpage didn't seem as though it was actually coded by someone from the Renaissance and offered online ordering, I might actually be able to enjoy mead away from the Festival, not to mention trade my money for the owner's product. But whatever. Chelsadilla had some cheese curds, and pH had a cream puff. Both seemed very satisfied.

One of the highlights was one of the performers on one of the small stages sprinkled throughout the fair grounds. He was a balancer-juggler dude. One of his tricks involved climbing to the top of an unsupported ladder, balancing with one foot on top of each of the ladder's vertical beams, and spinning a ball on a stick on his forehead while while juggling five rings. It might not sound like much, but it was impressive. He followed it up by walking across a burning tight rope while juggling flaming torches and balancing a spinning, flaming framework on his head. The guy was awesome.

The whole day was a lot of fun, even if it was exhausting. I can't wait to go back next year wearing Renaissance garb. I bet Mr. Vice feels the same way--he picked up enough medieval clothing to fill a prince's chest. I have to admit that he looks pretty good in a cape.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Fun Shit I've Done , Reviews

The biggest topic of discussion on the national stage recently seems to be this whole health-care thing. I say it that way because it seems that very little of the discussion has anything to do with actually making sure that more people get health coverage. I mean, there's all this nonsense about "death panels," and then everyone trips all over themselves to point out that no one's proposing death panels. Then some other people get all worked up about how having the government run the entirety of health care is ridiculous overreaching--more needless government growth. Then, just as some people are trying to point out that Obama's public-option proposal wouldn't eliminate private insurance and that, really, the government runs a hell of a lot of health-care-related programs already, some idiot Congressman starts talking about how he'll only vote for a health-reform bill that moves us to a single-payer system. Nevermind that the competition spurred by the free market is what allows America to constantly be at the forefront of medical technology, even if we're not at the forefront of the widespread dissemination of new treatment.

And what in the fuck is going on with all of these protesters? What did someone hope to achieve by showing up at Barney Frank's town-hall meeting with a picture of Obama with a Hitler mustache? That isn't germane to the conversation. It doesn't make an intelligible point. It's just a cheap ploy. I can understand that people don't want to pay more taxes--that makes sense to me. But what I don't understand is where all the paranoia and distrust comes from. I don't understand why people are spreading those kinds of rumors, and I don't understand why people are believing them.

At the same time, I wish that these single-payer proponents would shut up and go away. They aren't going to win, and all they're doing by refusing to compromise is muddying up the debate and giving the other side ammunition.

When you boil it all down, the state of health-care in this country is sufficient, on its own, to convince me that something needs to be done. America is the most powerful nation that has ever existed. We are so rich that our poorest citizen is still orders of magnitude richer than citizens of third-world counties. We have been at the forefront of technological advancement for centuries. And yet children in this country die from simple, curable illnesses. Some of our elderly citizens have to choose between buying food and medication. Nearly 50 million people here are just a small medical emergency away from complete financial ruin.

We should be embarrassed at the state of our health-care system. But more than that, we should be embarrassed at the level of discourse on the health-care issue.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)| Filed under Philosophical Rants , Political Rants , Rants on the News

I've ranted about Charlie, the local "we play everything" random radio station before. In fact, things have gotten so ridiculous over there that I haven't really been listening too much at all anymore. I started getting turned off to the whole thing when they started doing more and more talking and less playing of occasionally awful, seldom amazing, but almost always entertaining songs.

Then they started broadcasting a morning show. My mind warped when they did that. I mean, wasn't the whole point of these no-DJ radio stations that it was just random music and, well, no DJ? The entire reason people should tune in is that they're guaranteed to not hear some asshole talking about some crap that absolutely no one cares about, right? You're guaranteed to hear music; it might not be good, and it has a better than average chance of being terrible, but, goddammit, you're going to hear music. That's the fucking point, right?

No, apparently not. Now the radio geniuses that run Charlie have decided that you're going to have the worst of both worlds: you're going to get crappy songs most of the time, no input on what songs are played, and 50 percent of drive-time hours are going to be taken up by some self-important windbag doing a terrible impression of Michael Phelps or some shit.

But the fucking last straw came the other day. I was driving somewhere in the late morning, and NPR had devolved into a bunch of idiot callers making stupid points followed by the host and the guest trying to pretend that the callers weren't all idiots. So I started flipping around my presets and arrived at Charlie. They were playing "Holiday" by Green Day. Not my favorite song, but it's pretty decent, and I really like the part with the talking ("The Representative from California has the floor . . . .). Well, as the song is building to that part, it suddenly starts to fade out. "What the fuck is fucking going on," I thought. Then Kidd Kraddick starts talking about something completely unrelated to how he just literally turned down the music--the primary reason people would listen to the goddamned radio station--so that we could hear him. As if there had been this influx of calls from irate callers saying "Oh my god, why did you stop the inane babble and replace it with this melodic form of entertainment? Please, Kidd, we want you back! Tell us you're coming back!"

As far as I'm concerned, fading out in the middle of a song so that we can hear some stupid DJ talk is like turning the movie off halfway through so that the theatre can play that intro thing they always play before movies.

Charlie can go fuck himself.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Rants , Rants About Things That Make Me Irrationally Angry , Reviews

Somewhere along the line, I became an extremely social person. I love being around people. I love doing things. I love hanging out. I love talking. Some people feel that it's a burden to be "on," to have to be funny or entertaining or whatever. I may not be funny or entertaining, but I rarely feel burdened by social interaction. In fact, most of the time, I feel undersocialized. I wonder sometimes why no one's doing anything on a Wednesday evening, for example. Then, when the weekend comes around, I'm always sad when people get tired and decide it's time to head home, even if I'm tired myself.

But the last few weeks have been hectic to say the least. Chelsadilla and I went on vacation starting on July 30th. First we went to L-Dawg and X-tina's wedding with everyone. Then she and I spent a week in a cabin in the Adirondacks with friends of mine from college. Then I came home and tried to get caught up at work, only to drive to Chicago on Thursday to see my mom and a few other relatives. Then my mom stayed with me for a day.

Every step of the way was fun, and I wouldn't trade any of it. And I can't even express how happy I was to see my mom or, more importantly, how happy I was to have her see me. She spent a day with me while I was at work. She hung out in my office while I worked. She came to court with me and saw me make an appearance. She even met a few of my colleagues. I really liked being able to show her what it is I do all the time, and I think she was just slightly impressed. I hope, so, anyway. And I got to introduce her to Chelsadilla, which was a big deal all around. That went particularly well, I think.

So I've spent the last three weeks hanging out, running around, living out of a suitcase, getting woefully insufficient amounts of sleep, meeting new people, and spending large quantities of time in close quarters with old friends. And at the end of this whirlwind "This Is Your Life"-style adventure, I was left feeling tired and spent. I felt happy, grateful, and relaxed, too, but also exhausted. I was, in a word, overpeopled.

When I got home from Chicago today--at noon after having left to drop my mom off at O'Hare at 7:00am--I was ready for an afternoon of anything but people. And that's what I got. I spent some quality time with the new guitar--which is amazing, by the way--and napped. Then I went to dinner with everyone, then watched Empire Strikes Back, which chelsadilla reports liking better than the first one due mostly to an increased amount of Wookiee sound effects.

So I'm unoverpeopled now, but for a second there, wow, I needed some alone time.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Fun Shit I've Done , Hanging Out With My Friends , Star Wars

Ok, no, I didn't buy a 1970 Pontiac Firebird. In fact, I didn't buy any kind of car. But I did get something I've always wanted: a Gibson Les Paul Standard. This one, to be specific:

I've written about being fourteen and having my mom offer me an electric guitar if I cut my hair. Well, at some point, I started taking guitar somewhat seriously. I've never sat in my room and practiced scale runs over and over for hours on end, but I've spent a lot of time learning solos and songs, and I've also tried to learn a little bit about music theory. So the guitar, as an abstract thing, has been a huge part of my life for a long time.

But, on more concrete terms, I've wanted this kind of guitar for as long as I can remember. The Gibson Les Paul is one of the most iconic guitars of all time. The only other one that really comes close is the Fender Stratocaster. In fact, I'd bet that if you said "electric guitar" to someone who doesn't play, their mental image would be of either one or the other of those instruments.

My first guitar was a Strat clone. In other words, it was a guitar that emulated the Stratocaster in every way except quality: it had the three pickups, the five-way selector switch, and the body was shaped exactly like a Strat. As a first guitar, it was great. Then one day I was in a music store with Santi and saw a cheap Epiphone Les Paul Special. It was a piece of shit, but at the time I was blown away by it. Eventually, I bought it, and so my love affair with Gibson-related guitars was born (Epiphone is the cheap cousin of Gibson, sort of like how Honda is the cheap cousin of Acura).

As I do with most things that I like, I started to geek out about guitars. Not just technique and theory, but the actual guitars themselves. I knew what my favorite guitarists played: Billy Corgan preferred Strats with Lace Sensor pickups, while James Iha played a black Les Paul that he kept fairly stock. Kurt Cobain famously played Strats and cheap Mustangs or Jaguars which he would smash. The guys from Pearl Jam used all different sorts of guitars. But I always thought the Les Paul was the most beautiful. Unfortunately, they were completely out of my price range.

Until recently. I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I can pay my bills and then some. I should be saving, I know. But given that it wasn't very long ago that I was completely unemployed and that I'm constantly blown away by how well our little business is doing, I figured that I could splurge. And, as it turns out, I found an excellent deal on this guitar, so I didn't even have to spend that much for it. I mean, comparatively speaking.

What sucked was that I bought it just before my vacation. I dropped it off at the guitar shop to get some adjustments (new, thicker strings and corresponding truss-rod adjustment; slightly higher action) the day before I left, and I was finally able to pick it up and really play it tonight. It is an amazing guitar. It's so smooth and fast, the frets are perfect, and it sounds fucking great.

My main guitar before this was a '97 Gibson SG Special. I picked it up again tonight just to compare it to the Les Paul. The SG is a good guitar, but the Les Paul is clearly superior in both playability and sound. Oh, and sustain: notes on the Les Paul go on forever. It's beautiful.

The bottom line is that I'm fucking ecstatic to finally own this guitar. It's a great guitar in and of itself, and the fact that it represents some modest level of financial success makes it even better. I can't imagine what would ever make me give this guitar up, other than passing it on to my son or daughter some day.

Until then, I shall rock on.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , General Awesomeness , Reviews , The Smashing Pumpkins , Things I'm Irrationally Attached To

So, my vacation is nearly over. it was supposed to be over last night, but our flight out of Albany got canceled. That meant, obviously, that we didn't make our connecting flight in Minneapolis. I was prepared to go nuclear, except that our airline--Northwest--was actually fairly awesome about the whole thing. I mean, airplanes are going to have mechanical problems from time to time--even the best maintenance in the world can't stop that. And I'd rather fly today on an airplane with no problems than yesterday on an airplane with minor problems. And besides, Northwest put us up in a badass hotel with a giant bed and paid for our prime-rib buffet dinner. And neither one of us will miss an additional day of work. AND we're flying first class from Detroit to Madison, which might be worth the whole thing in and of itself.

The point is that if we were going to be delayed, this was the best possible way for it to have happened.

See how I look at the bright side? Yeah, I'm awesome.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)| Filed under Existential Nonsense