WFDD puts me over the edge

For the past month I'd come home to find 2 or three "missed calls" on my home phone every day. The Caller ID told me that these calls were coming from Medford, Oregon. Since I don't know anyone in Oregon I figured that these were solicitor calls. I thought we had put these bastards out of businesswi th the "Do Not Call" laws. I Googled the number and found out it belonged to Comnet Marketing. Comnet is a telemarketing firm specializing in raising funds for non-profits. They are sensitive to the fact that most people believe that telemarketers are something on the evolutionary scale that eventually leads to slime and bed-bugs and so tout on their Website:

RespectCall™ is what separates ComNet Marketing Group from other telemarketing companies.

This may or may not be true but since they were always calling when I wasn't home I never got to find out...until today. Let me just preface what I'm about to say by telling you that my phone had rung 4 times in the past hour and nobody hates talking on the phone more than I do, so when the phone rang for the 5th time and I saw the dreaded "Medford, Oregon" on my Called ID I was ready. I answered the phone and an avuncular-sounding gentleman asked for me. I went off: "What do you people want" "You've been calling me day after day for the past month". The avuncular-sounding gentleman said "we're calling on behalf of WFDD".

WFDD!! My hitherto beloved WFDD was using skells to beg for money. You bastards. OK, so I didn't make my usual annual pledge this year but times were tough and I'm really conflicted these days because I listen to WUNC as much or more than WFDD and I didn't give them any money either.

But this wasn't about listener-supported Public Radio this was about freaking telemarketers. I continued to go off on the avuncular-sounding gentleman until he interrupted me to tell me all I had to do was ask to be placed on the do-not-call list. "OK, put me on the list, whatever, just stop calling me." With this I hung up.

After I raved around the house for a while and briefly considered removing WFDD from my radio pre-sets I envisioned a fund-raising meeting at the radio station where pony-tailed, balding ex-hippies and aging women in Birkenstocks sat politely listening to a pitch from ComNet Marketing (probably including a sample of avuncular-sounding dialog). The general concensus of the meeting is "heck, if they can sell a bunch of old hippies like us they can sell anybody."

Sorry boys and girls. While the pitch might be all mellow and soothing, the relentless phone calls set me off just enough that even if Bob Edwards, Susan Stanberg or even Carl Kassel himself had been on the line when I picked up the phone tonight I would have told them to get fucked. Which I am currently telling you, WFDD.

So I missed a month

I've said it before and I'll say it again: anybody who can summon the resolve to contribute to their Blog more than twice a week is either a) underemployed b) desperate for attention or, c) repressing other issues. Since I have not even visited my Blog in over a month I guess I can say I am totally in control of my life, reasonably satisfied and issue-free (for the moment).

Here are a couple of things I need to get off my chest:

A UCLA/Florida NCAA Final is almost as boring as a White Sox/whoever World Series

Who would have guessed that we ACC fans would get so desperate that we'd resort to touting the "ALL ACC Women's Basketball Final" as the equivalent of the Second Coming?

Chuck Amato could learn a few things from Herb Sendak (and Herb, my hat's off to you buddy)

Soft-shell crab in any guise (as an ingredient in a Thai dish for example) is an invitation to disaster

Deferred maintenance will eventually catch up to you at the most inopportune time

Immigration laws are this year's "Gay marriage"

Tom Delay and Bill Frist are both slimeballs

HBO's "Big Love" has convinced me once and for all that plural marriage sounds better than it is.

And in that same vein, I'm grateful my father-in-law was not Harry Dean Stanton

I have not gone to the movies or rented a video since before Lent started and it's got nothing to do with Lent.

Do doctors get kickbacks when they order useless tests?

If I knew in advance how debilitating growing older was I would have misspent my youth a lot more aggressively.

It sure is hard adopting a new sport from scratch - NASCAR for example - but I have learned to dislike Tony Stewart in a very short time.

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OK, now I'm back on the board. The Blogging community can breathe a sigh of relief.