Later Twenty O eight! The black eyed peas are cooking
Another one bites the dust.
Another one bites the dust.
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I’m gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
It took the better part of 30 years for me to truly appreciate the rock band Queen. I must say though, I thought it a rather odd match up when former Free and Bad Company front man Paul Rodgers recently joined up to become Queen’s singer. The only reason I say that is that I never pictured Rodgers singing Freddie Mercury parts such as those in “Bohemian Rhapsody” or “Fat Bottomed Girls.” The fact that “We Will Rock You”/”We Are the Champions” has endured to the point of it being as prevalent during sporting events as “The Star-Spangled Banner” attests to Queen’s place in musical history.
But I didn’t intend to write a thesis on rock culture or Queen. I only used the band’s “Another One Bites the Dust” lyrics combined with the Father Time photo to introduce the subject of another year coming to an end. That year is 2008. Spoken it is “Two thousand eight” or “Two thousand and eight” or “Twenty O eight.” It seems like I heard Fox News do it the latter way and if indeed that is where I heard it, I hate to say it (because I don’t HEART Fox News), but the “Twenty O” is what I really prefer. The reason is continuity.
During the last century we spoke of “Nineteen ninety-nine” While our grandparents (mine at least) spoke of “Nineteen O nine” or even “Eighteen ninety-nine.” Nonetheless, we are we now burning through the years of the 21st century so I think we need to come to a consensus. All in favor say “Aye.”
Another year gone. An interesting year it was. The first black man was elected president. The economy is as screwed up as a football bat. Locally, here in Southeast Texas, we got bitch-slapped by Hurricane Ike right after a rainy tropical storm Edouard and the town practically emptied for Hurricane Gustav which missed us at least.
Personally, I had a relationship with a psycho that fortunately ended before any serious damage was done. I didn’t do nearly as much writing for dollars as I should have but vow to next year. And at this moment, the black eyed peas are cooking. This year the peas will be a Cajun style BEP with tasso used for seasoning as I was not going to pay $4 for ham hocks at the local Market Basket down the street.
Everyone judges for themselves how their year went and in which directions. Although I had some banking problems this morning caused by an unexpected hotel reservation using my credit card that I didn’t authorize, and this bank clerk really pissed me off and I made a scene to let her know that, I guess everything is okay for the moment at least.
I hope my friends and relatives who read this or even those I don’t know who read this will have a grand Twenty O nine or Two thousand nine, if they prefer. I think I am going to see if I can find some Queen + Paul Rodgers somewhere on this computer to listen to after I check the BEPs.
Say what?
Excuse me, Bangalore, if I don't cry for you
Hey! You! Grocery check-out guy! And You! Fast Food Counter Person! Yeah You! Pay attention! See these !!!!!! They’re called “exclamation points.” They are used to denote forceful expression or strong emotion. Now that I have your obviously short attention span, I will be brief.
You may or may not realize that we are in a recession. It will do me no good to explain to you what that means. Let’s just say the economy is in deep s**t. So, even if you manage to hang onto your crappy minimum wage job through no fault of your own, you still may find yourself in the unemployment line. Why, you ask? Karma. It is because you treated me like crap when I was checking out at the store. Or when you purposely messed up my order in the drive-through line. You do something bad to someone. You reap what you sow. Okay, I’m sure that’s way over your heads.
Seriously though, customer service is so poor throughout American and even worldwide commerce that if one was a mean ol’ SOB they might think it was just deserts if the global economic problems took some snippy customer service weenie down a notch. But you are not like that are you, customer service weenie? Ha! You want to bet?
But it is truly amazing that a lot of the problems companies have in business are brought about by deplorable customer relations. The term “churn” comes to mind. I don’t think I ever saw the word used in the context of business until this afternoon. Maybe I had seen it but didn’t know what it meant. The word is used in industries such as television and wireless technology and relates to the measurement of the percent of customers who leave a business each month for voluntary reasons, usually this is for purposes of bailing to get a competing service. I figured churn would be fairly high across the board — even though I didn’t know churn was what it was called — but it really is higher than I imagined.
One study said that more than seven out of 10 customers switched companies due to poor customer relations compared to more than 40 percent who changed due to lower prices. About half of those customers reported taking some $4,000 worth of business with them.
Bearing such research in mind then, it is rather remarkable that when you talk to Biff or Sunny in Bangalore after waiting 45 minutes before your cellular drops your call and you call back and wait another 30 minutes, the nice young Midwestern-sounding customer service people from way East want nothing more than to get your ass off the phone. Every cell phone company I have ever dealt with, every Internet provider and the bank I have had for five years, all provide customer service that is abhorrent. And no one seems to give a rat’s ass! Yet, 73 percent of their business will bolt and it could cost 35 percent of those businesses at least $4,000.
So pardon me if I don’t shed a tear if a certain company goes blewey and must layoff 30,000 workers to reorganize. I won’t be laughing either. But I certainly won’t be crying.
And what's the meaning of "Toe jam football?"
Driving back to the office down I-10 a bit ago I was wondering when I heard “Come Together” on the radio whether the Beatles ever reflected upon just what in the hell they meant when they wrote and recorded the song.
” … one and one and one is three/got to be good looking cause he’s so hard to see … “
Is he so hard to see in the sense that he is nearly invisible, like he has faded or something?
Is he so hard to see because he’s good-looking and people, women mostly, are taking up all of his time thus he is not available to the public?
Is he so hard to see because he is 3 years old and thus kind of short and therefore unobtrusive? The fact that he is good-looking is therefore irrelevant.
You see, there are just way too many dimensions to be examined. That’s why it’s best not to reflect upon your compositions too much. They just make you looney.