Tag: options | A Banana Peeled

Tag Archives: options

No choice no smile

Posted on January 19, 2024 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I have railed (recently, even) about how monopolies suck. No, that is not a massive revelation or anything new. We all know this, but it bears repeating. I’m irritated because I got an appointment with CenturyLink (phone company) for a technician to come today. The appointment window? 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. This is, of course, because I was not able to talk to an actual person.

This is on purpose, by the way. Not only is cheaper (obviosuly. You don’t have to pay humans to do this), but it discourages people from trying to contact the company unless they absolutely have to. This happened when I tried to contact ComCost/Xfinity and it’s the same with CenturyLink.

Bottom line: they do this because they can. Given the soft monopolies they have in their respective areas, they don’t have to care about customer satisfaction. We have no options. I can use Comcast/Xfinity or CenturyLink in my area for internet. There are a few other stray options, but they are very restrictive.

I’m tired, grumpy, and irritated. It doesn’t have to be this way. And it really wouldn’t take much to make it a much better experience. Give me the chance to talk to a human, and I’m infinitely more likely to view the interaction in a positive manner.

There is one exception to that. That’swhenI had a problem with my trash person simply not picking up my garbage. This was the week of Thanksgiving, and when I called the day before Thanksgiving to inquire about it, I got a recalcitrant customer service person in return. It was an actual person, which was a plus, but they were not helpful at all–which was a massive negative.

I want to stress that I am very pleasant and kind to the customer service people I talk to. I know it’s a shit job and that they get paid very little money. I just want someone who will answer my questions honestly. I even understand that it’s not always possible because they are given scripts that they have to follow.

In this case, I calmly told the person what happened (no pick-up). She immediately said that it was a holiday week so there was no way I could get my garbage picked up that week. Um, ok? I mean, not ok, really. It wasn’t my fault it wasn’t picked up. I put my container out the night before as usual, so it wasn’t as if I rolled it down late. The person simply did not pick up my trash.

I asked what I was supposed to do. i needde my trash picked up. She said it would have to wait until the regular day–the next week. She repeated again that it was a holiday week, which I already knew. It wasn’t as if I were ignorant of the holidays.

The power of possibility

Posted on July 13, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

Life is strange. That’s not just the name of a video game, that’s a fact of life. It’s been nearly 11 months since I died, so it’s almost my re-birthday. I’ll be 1 years old on September 3rd. At least that’s how I choose to look at it. And since I came back to life, the country has exploded into bullshit. I am still mad about the SCOTUS ruling on Roe (and will die mad), and I hate all the “don’t say gay” bills that are cropping up as well. We know that the religious nuts aren’t done yet and will be going after all the protected classes next.

But here’s the thing. For me, personally, it has really opened my eyes. This is not why I came back to life. It’s not what I want for the next generation and beyond. I gave up the abortion beat because I got tired, and it infuriates me that we are tumbling backwards on this issue as well as others (such as trans rights).

So. This first year back to life has been about adjusting to the fact that I didn’t permanently die. It’s weird. It’s the most momentous thing that’s happened to me, but…and I mean this non-facetiously, it’s not a factor in my daily life. I do everything I did before landing in the hospital and more. My reflexes are even worse than before–I realized this because I’m struggling with a boss in Scholar of the First Sin. It’s widely considered the hardest boss of the game–Fume Knight. I’ve done him solo before, but I’ve mostly fought him with human summons. I can’t do that right now, so I’m limited to the two NPC summons. They’re good, but I’m falling a few hits short every time. I was literally one hit away the second time I fought him and just got steadily worse.

There is no cheese for this guy. He has 10,100 HP and is resistant to almost everything. Slightly less so to magic, but not by much. And I cannot gauge his attacks any longer, especially in the second phase. This is my biggest weakness–I have to be able to tank the damage because I can’t judge space very well. And, yes, I’ve done the plat for this game recently, but you don’t have to do most of the DLCs for the plat. So I have not fought this guy for some time.

I’ve never had an easy time with him without a human summon. He’s just everything I hate about the games. He’s fast and hits hard. He has a half-dozen moves, and there’s a delay on some of them. Not all of them, though. And he does three-hit combos. And there’s a sweep in the second phase that is painfully slow and wide-ranging. You really have to study his moves in order to get them down, and that’s not my strong point.