I just hung up on an automated call. It is bad enough when I initiate a call and after running through a plethora of inappropriate, mechanized menu items, I am placed on hold waiting for “the next available representative.” That’s frustrating as hell, even if they give me the “approximate waiting time” until the next Indian or Filipino is ready to deliver his or her obfuscated, scripted diatribe. I sit there seething, waiting for Bangalore to pick up, knowing that there’s about a 33% chance that I’ll achieve a satisfactory resolution of the problem I called about without being pitched to buy crap I don’t need or want. That’s the pits, but now we’ve reached a new low.

My business line rang. I picked up and delivered my usual greeting. (No, smartass, not the one that goes, “Whattya want!”) I heard nothing. I said, “Hello?” Then, a mechanical voice cranked up and said, “We have an important call for you. All our agents are currently busy. Please hold.”

Oh, yeah? How important is this call if someone cannot get his or her ass on the phone and call me personally? I’m getting an “important” call that is so important that it is being broadcast to thousands of people—so many that the call center’s resources are overloaded? Hell, this message must be of absolutely paramount importance to all the idiots who remain on the line for five or ten minutes to hear the pitch. Yeah, like I’m going to put up with that.

>>CLICK!<<

Get offa my phone, damnit! What were they going to tell me? I won the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes? Hell, I didn’t even enter. Was it the results of my HIV test? I didn’t take one. Were they going to tell me that my father died? (He did, 10 years ago.) What the hell “important” message could it be?

No doubt it was about something they want to sell me, so I should be inconvenienced in the process just to soften me up. Ain’t gonna happen.

*     *     *     *     *

Oh, by the way, I’m back from vacation #2. I note that in my absence there’s been a consolidation of PSU blogging talent over at BSD, where you’ll find the best and the brightest. I wish Mike and company at BSD (which now includes my favorite, RUTS) great, continued success. BSD has always been the cream of the PSU blog crop, and it continues to get bigger and better.

Meanwhile, for the same old insouciant, irascible, bombastic, and occasionally relevant crapola, tune in here, just for laughs. I can’t promise you anything but one old geezer’s generally off the wall opinions, a great diversity of subject matter, and an overriding promise to never take myself too seriously. The Nittany Turkey is not a competitor of BSD’s or FOS’s—not by any means—so let me tickle your funny bone or piss you off every once in a while!

Next, whenever the hell I can get around to it, we’ll take a look at the forthcoming football season, as the Nittany Lions begin their intensive preparation for, um, Coastal Carolina!