Thanks, Mark!  Looks just like me!

So, we get bombarded with uberous amounts of telemarketing calls every day at the office.  I’m usually not very nice to these poor people.  I know they are just doing their job, but for fuck sake…  Go back to school, get a degree and get a real job not bothering the people who already have a real job.  Jeeeez, it’s pretty simple.

Some days I’m pissy, so I find it an amusing way to take out some aggression and anger… “I’ve asked you damn people to put me and our other 3 numbers on you damn do not call list. Call me again, I dare ya.”

Some days I’m busy and I simply have no time for the bullshit they are trying to pimp off on me…  “I am way too busy to bother talking to you. Have a great day.”  Then I generally slam the phone in someone’s ear.

Some days I’m bored with work, and blogging, and Poppit, and porn *snicker*, so I may entertain a telemarketer for a few minutes if what they say off the bat is interesting enough to make me release the mouse and stop popping the balloons hanging on my monitor. 

Mind you, I never know if it’s my boss calling from Germany, so I always, ALWAYS answer the phone in an oh-so-pleasant voice… until I find out who it is.

“Good Morning, how may I help you?”  Note how pleasant that is.

“Hello, Ma’am.  This is Sherri.  I’m calling from Fairfield with a wonderful offer that we thought you may be interested in.”

I say, “Oh, really?  What kind of offer do you have there, Sherri?”

Sherri goes on her schpeeeeel now:
“Well, we are calling to offer to individuals who have been pre-qualified in your area, the opportunity to come stay for a week at one of our several resorts, your choice.  All you have to do is come and listen to a presentation about the property and take a tour.  We do have a small fee to cover taxes and meals, but the stay itself if complimentary.  What do you think?”

- First, let me tell ya, I’m sure I’m not prequalified for dick.  Up until a week ago, I didn’t own a home, I don’t have a husband, and I’m sure my credit report would make someone run screaming away…  But I decided what the fuck.  I’m bored.  I’ll play along.

So I say “Can I ask you to hold one sec.  I need to grab this other line.”
Totally a lie, but I need to get Olga to play along with me.  We are life partners from way back.   I run into Olga’s office and tell her the story and she’s all ready to play along.  So, I get back on the phone.

I start off….
“Thanks, Sherri.  I’m glad you held for me, I’d like to consider signing up.  I could use a cheap vacation.  You said there is no obligation?”

Sherri says, “No. No obligation at all.”

I ask, “How much is this fee you were talking about.”

Sherri says, “It’s not much.  Only $275.00 and you can even put it on your Visa or Mastercard.”

I say, “I can put it on a credit card?  But I don’t have a credit card.  My partner keeps them and won’t let me charge anything. Let me put her on the phone.”

I half expected to hear shock and/or awe in Sherri’s voice that my parter is a chick, and a dominating one that won’t give me a credit card at that.  But she was impressively non-judgemental since money talks.

Olga gets on the phone, “Hello?”

Sherri said, “Hi.  I’m Sherri from Fairfield.”

Olga asked, “What is this deal that you have Rhonda so excited about that she wants the credit card right now?”

Sherri goes through her whole schpeeeeel again.

Olga says, “Well, I don’t think we are interested.  I do not want to get tied up in a timeshare type deal and I know all about this kind of scam.  Since we aren’t married we aren’t qualified for any kind of couple deals or anything.”

Sherri didn’t want to lose the sale so she said, “Can you put Rhonda back on the phone?”

Olga goes on, “Well, it would be pointless to put her back on the phone since she has no money and no credit cards.  But you have a nice day now, ok?”

At least if Sherri was on an hourly wage, she made her money honestly that day.
And Mom, I’m getting married.  We aren’t really life partners.  Just partners in crime, heh.  =D

     Because it was exactly three months ago …

     And everyone who knew her will know exactly who this is …

     ( I close my eyes, remember her, and die laughing — that’s the way it should be *grin* )

     Cheers, babe.  Miss ya.

     Ever wonder what you’d look like if you were a character on Southpark?

     Yeah, me, either…

     But that is certainly me. ;-)  Click it make your own — you know you wanna!

Tip: Tish at The Kat House

     For a few weeks now, Fracas has been pointing out the fact that plenty of people are searching for Shyamali Malakar, and crotch shots, and ending up at her blog.
     Just a few minutes ago, she did a pretty decent post about the whole Shyamali hysteria… Seriously, the girl has attained a level of geek-obsession higher than anyone I can ever remember — even after livinh through the Sam Fox, Amy Weber, Teri Hatcher, Alicia Silverstone, Kate Moss, Gillian Anderson and Callista “Ally McBony” Flockheart years (those were prior obsessions, not my picks).

     Fracas is also doing the “FuelMyBlog” thing. She’s entered the Design a Widget competition over there, and done a helluva job, too, but they haven’t updated the competition page with it just yet.

     Nice job, Fracas!

      Now let’s see if we can channel teh Internets your way a little…

     Ya know, though, Fracas, I still think doing one with Shyamali and ALT’ing it “Shyamali Malakar Nude” would get some serious traffic headed in your direction…

     (God, after writing this, I feel so dirty…)

     Okay, it’s almost midnight … But it looks like, with just a few more clicks, we’ll be the #1 most voted blog on FuelMyBlog!

     Ok, well, as of 11:32PM, we’re now tied for #1 on the Top 100!  One more click, and we set a speed record:  from a lowly 13 votes to the #1 Blog in only 10 days!

     Whoop!  There it is!  At 11:36PM, we’re the #1 most voted blog on FuelMyBlog.

     So here’s where it started:

• On 11-Apr-2007, I put the FuelMyBlog button in the sidebar.  Over the course of a week, a total of 13 people clicked it — and that’s it.
• On 18-Apr-2007, I posted a blog about it.
• On 19-Apr-2007, I was amazed to see we had more than 60 votes due in no small part to the post.
• By 20-Apr-2007, we had around 130 votes.
• By 22-Apr-2007, we made it to #13, so I posted about it again.
• On 23-Apr-2007, I amazed to see us ranked #3.
• On 27-Apr-2007, I made yet another post about us being at #2, and hoped to hit #1 by Saturday.
• On 28-Apr-2007 at 11:36PM EDT, we hit #1.

     So that’s it … I consider this experiment concluded.  You don’t have to hit the button anymore.  We made it in 10 days, and that’s all I really care about. 

     The FuelMyBlog logo went away from the sidebar last week, but thanks to the wonders of Feeds, it appears that we’re still getting a crapload of clicks.  I figured making it to the Top 10 (of the Top 100) was good enough… but…

     You guys kept clicking!  We’re now #2 on the Top 100 and closing fast on #1.  Click it some more!  I wanna set a record:  from a lowly 13 votes to the #1 Blog in only 10 days!

     I put the FuelMyBlog logo up in the sidebar a week, maybe a week and a half ago, and nobody really clicked it — 13 votes.  So on Wednesday, I wrote the article about it.
     It took off like a rocket!  All of a sudden, we’re ranked #4 on the Top 100.

     That far exceeded my expectations.  I gotta give credit where credit is due — I asked, you clicked.  I thank you all for your participation.

[ Update - Monday, April 23, 2007 @ 10:33AM EDT ]

     And the forward momentum continues, with us at #3…

     I was slow.  I just found this… but apparently it’s made its way around the ‘net before…

     The potential for something to go wrong here is astoundingly high, and yet… It kinda… *shakes head* Looks like… Fun… Why, the only thing missing here is the requisite case of Miller Lite…

     BUT …

     Can you say Darwin Award, boys and girls?

     I knew you could…

     I didn’t think anyone noticed the “Fuel My Blog” button on the right side.  I put it at the top with ”Vote Often, Vote Daily!” next to it, but it’s been relatively ineffective.

     Today, a couple of people have asked, “What is that?  I didn’t want to click it.”  Well, it’s a, uhh, well… I don’t know what it is.

     But I figured with the tens of thousands of sessions we get weekly, maybe it’d go over well… I did it as an experiment to see how much people will actually click something that might look new and exciting.

     Apparently, not much.

     This merely proves that we have some discerning readers who come here for text more than titillation. (*cough* *cough*  Sorry, I couldn’t say it with a straight face.)

     Anyway … I wanna get blogitude.com up there on the “popular” list.  So, uhhh … Click away!

[ UPDATE 19-Apr-2007, 9:31AM EDT ]

     “Ask and ye shall receive,” I guess — not only did you guys do it, but you got us up in the top third of the List.  And we’re blog of the day?  Sweet!
     I’m interested to see how long that can go on…

[ UPDATE 20-Apr-2007, 1:27AM EDT ]

     We’re actually in the 13th spot, approaching twelve pretty quickly!  If people keep clicking, I can see us actually making 10 before the day’s out.