I have a bone to pick with my cellphone provider. I should say bones as I don’t think I have ever had one good experience dealing with them in any level, starting from salesperson at their store to customer service rep on the phone. I do not know anyone who’s happy with their cellphone service providers, I mean everyone HATES their service providers.

In general, I am not much of a hater. I am pretty easy going except when I face with shitty customer service. I will not go back to a restaurant if the service sucks. There are so many restaurants in this city that I don’t need to go to the shitty ones. But I don’t have much choice with cellphone service providers in this city. There are Rogers, Telus and Bell. Most people are shackled to Rogers or Telus. I don’t know much about Bell. I know one friend who used to be with them, and he hated them. I am waiting for new providers swoop in and save me and everyone. I hope Rogers and Telus know that it is inevitable that they will eventually fail if they keep up with shitty customer service.

I don’t care about the cute animals and swirly graphics in their ads. I want them to get some clue. I want to be valued as their long term customer. Don’t put me on hold for half an hour. Give some ownership to low to mid level employees, so they can make decisions on their own; I don’t want to be transferred from one call center to another just because no one can make any kind of decision or come up with a solution. It’s obvious the employees don’t get treated well, so I get treated badly by them. If there is  a customer website for my convenience, make it convenient for me. I can’t find shit on the website. If I find my shit, it doesn’t work as I want it to. It’s not because I’m too stupid to use the system. I make websites for a living, so I know how a good website should function.

I am a customer, and should be treated like one.

I heard it once again this morning while watching the news; one of the reporters proudly mentioned how she was not part of any social networking site, and she didn’t understand the lure of it all. Same old story right? When people don’t understand things, those things often become irrelevant to them. When traditional news media struggles to keep up with new ways of delivering and sharing news, they often lose sight on reality. When news get delivered to you in real time, why do we need to wait till the evening news or next morning to get it from newspaper?

Right now, we have total control of how we get the news; it is an individual choice. We can read or watch it whenever and wherever. This reality is hard to take for traditional journalists who are used to writing or reporting news in their own terms. Now they are taken completely out of their comfort zone; content alone is no longer the king but context is. Content of news is pretty much the same all across any news media, be it online, TV and even newspaper.

News is about fact, and you don’t read much into than that unless it is an editorial piece. News is the most effective in context of time, and online news feeds readers the most current news as it happens. In this context, newspaper medium fails miserably, and this is why so many newspaper are failing. It is not just about saving money or trees that affects newspaper sales.

When I read, hear or read about violence by one to another, especially in case of rape, pedophilia or brutal violence in general, I am deeply affected. I get angry, disturbed and literally heart broken. I often wonder “Shouldn’t majority of human race feel this way?” If you don’t feel the outrage, aren’t you as bad as the violence doers? Shouldn’t empathy be human nature with exception of sociopaths and psychopaths?

There is this general consensus, especially amongst some parents and media watchers that desensitization of human race is the direct result of over-stimulated and casual depiction of sex and violence in media. Is this suggestion even true? If you are desensitized by media depiction of violence, isn’t something innately wrong with you? If you don’t blink an eye, when you read about a woman getting raped or a child being molested by his father, aren’t you just a fucked up person?

I watched my share of make believe violence on TV and movies while I was growing up, and it didn’t change my perception on “real” violence. Well, I still can’t watch torture horror films; they just look too real, don’t they?

My company, Devlin west, has been acquired by new ownership, Sync2 Entertainment. So far so alright. Only thing I can do right now is just concentrating on the work that’s in front of me. We have 3 websites to launch next few weeks, and I am also busy doing all the digital and print collateral for our new company. New identity is good, and everyone seems to like it.

My friends and I were having dinner last night, and this question came up, “What is Twitter?” None of my friends at dinner are involved in Web industry: one’s a lawyer, and the other, operation manager at a homeless shelter.

They just assumed it was a child’s play of sort; people writing random shit that didn’t matter too much. I tried to explain that I write stuff that’s relevant to my life, be it work or pleasure, and I follow people to whom I can relate in those terms. I couldn’t find a simple answer to explain what it is.

There is a lot of media coverage regarding Twitter these days; some complain it is death to writing, and others complain it’s juvenile. Well, those concerns are true to some extent, but personally I benefit from Twitter by following thought leaders, getting notification on seminars and talks and keeping track of how my friends are doing. The value of Twitter just depends on how you use it.

Check out Cameron Moll’s take on Twitter.

I’ve always known that Ghostface is someone who’s never given a fuck about fitting into any kind of establishment, social clique or mass apeal. He proved this once again by speaking out against domestic violence: the decision definitely influenced by recent assault on Rihanna by Chris Brown. I have been frustrated  by innate comments made by quite a few celebrities, from “they are young” to “I’m not taking either side”.

Do they really think Rihanna has something to do with her face getting punched, her ear getting bitten and getting choked? Are they that stupid? Are they afraid that they will lose some kind of credibility in their community if they stand up for her? I can honestly say I hate that motherfucker for beating his woman. It’s simple as this. He beat the shit out of her, and was charged with two felony assault charge.

Abuse of any kind is all about control, and I do not know that an abuser can be rehabilitated. I just want more people to stand up for abused women like Rihanna. I thank Ghostface for releasing Message from Ghostface. One more reason why I love this man.

by Josh Levine via Adoptive Path

Holy shit, it feels like I haven’t updated my blog since Nam. I know it’s silly but the main reason that I haven’t updated is that my work Internet connection to my site is oddly wanky, and I used to write during my break.  I will be more dilgent in the future.

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