Vox Lucens

Ranting & Raving, that is.

I hate it when someone goofs me over. I hate being taken advantage of. And what might be worse, I hate falling for scams or even psuedo-scams.

After a good deal of price-shopping today, I decided to make a rather significant purchase. I found a good deal, one that the seller (”Best Price Cameras“) indicated came with a number of accessories, and one that had highly reasonable two-day shipping. I gave them my order, my credit card info–amazed at the amount of weird technical requirements they put on it all (like validating my shipping address with my credit card–has anyone else heard of that?)–and gleefully went my way.

I got a call a few hours later from an upbeat-sounding gentleman who wanted to confirm my order. Confirm we did. I gave him my credit card security information, listened patiently as he told me I had to call my credit card company so that they could ship to my office address, told him that I had purchased batteries from another source. When I told him there was nothing more that I needed from him, he began the “goodbye” procedure, telling me that I would have my camera in two weeks.

“Two weeks?” I said. “No, no, I paid you $24 for two-day shipping. I should have it Wednesday, right?”

“Oh, no,” he told me. “This item is on backorder. You can get it in two weeks.”

After confirming he was serious, I began to wonder just why he hadn’t mentioned this before. He had all the other information about my order, and must have seen my expedited shipping request (which is important to me), but just *failed* to mention the backorder. It made me suspicious, so I asked, “What about all of the other stuff that was listed on the website as coming with the order? Is that still coming with?”

“No…..” he said. “You didn’t purchase a package. Just the camera and the lens.” At that point I had enough–this deal wasn’t that good, and I was feeling seriously scammed by false promises of free stuff and two-day shipping. So I said, “Alright, let’s just cancel the order.”

It is no exaggeration to say that it took him less than one second to say “yourorderhasbeencancelledgoodbye” and hang up the phone. I’m still not sure if I’m happy he gave up that fast or annoyed that must be really used to people cancelling when they hear the whole story.

And now I’m back to UCC. UCC, that is, accompanied by Hitchhiker–it helps to ease the pain. It helps a lot, actually–the only thing that would help more is a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.

(And it must be admitted, studying Article 9 and secured transactions is infinitely more interesting when watching the scene in which Humma Kavula removes Zaphod’s second head as collateral.)

Ah, I remember the days when I used the Altavista search engine. Back in those dark ages, there were a variety of search engines which were roughly equal in their ability to find what one was looking for.

But now, now is the time of modernity, and since my conversion to Googlehood I have not been reticent to sing the praises of the modern search giant. I have cast aside all apocryphal fears that its success is a sign of the times, or that it will someday arise as the beast out of the sea.

If any of you follow the workings of Web 2.0, you know that Google is far more than just a search engine. It is a blogging service, a shareable calendar program, the end-all of web-based map programs, even a document collaboration system, and I have only begun to scratch the surface. It is also, my friends, a terrific RSS reader. (If you don’t know what RSS is, watch this video.)

I must admit that I jumped into the world of RSS with a lot of trepidation. Eventually, though, it became a necessity. I am expected to know what is going on in the world of the persecuted church, for instance, and RSS is simply the best way to do just that–not to mention all of the other things I am interested in following. So, throwing trepidation to the wind, I jumped, and quickly became addicted. The fact that I can cover my highly eclectic interests in one place–Google Reader–is amazing. Nothing else has my personalized blend of ESPN, blog tips, international news, right-wing opinion, San Diego Padres, legal news, tech updates, and humor.

That is all well and good, or was, until Google blew my mind with another possibility. To give some background, one of the goals of Remember Ambassadors is to share news and updates with Christians who want to serve the persecuted church. But how do I, a technologically inept wannabe, give up to the minute updates? What about sharing the stuff I read?

*drumroll* Ladies and gentlemen, Google Reader…

Using Google reader and a beautiful little piece of javascript, I can now share with my readers up-to-the-minute news on the persecuted church. All I need do is mark it as I read it. (Check it out in the Ambassadors sidebar!)

So now I’m debating adding a “What I’m Reading” box to this blog. Would anyone read it?

If anyone over the past couple of days tried viewing this blog in that bane on mankind known as Internet Explorer 6,* you have probably noticed that the sidebar to the blog was inexplicably placed at the bottom of the blog, instead of where it belongs.

Thanks to people who know what they are doing, I have fixed that problem, but it led me to wax poetic. I offer the following wit:

There once was a fellow named Bill,
Who fed his computers some swill,
And then from the code,
Did a browser explode,
Wreaking havoc, back then and still.

All hail Firefox.

***UPDATE: See? I’m not the only one.***

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* Undoubtedly one of the stronger euphemisms of our day. I would instead categorize it at “Internet Marauder” or perhaps “Internet Destroyer.”

As once stood Horatius against the Etruscans, standing tall against the hordes facing the doomed bridge, stood Gabe against the Avatars. And like that ancient battle’s end, his arrow-riddled hulk now floats down the river, a shattered, silent witness of the power of numbers against courage, might against principle, and social networking against individualized communication.

How have the mighty fallen.

–From A Pointless Oral History of Mankind

I am not against technology, friends, nor am I unfamiliar with it. I first became a web developer before I was out of high school. I do everything but actually code my ministry’s website. I do everything for the website that you are currently exploiting. And I bet very few of you have ever been to a web developer conference surrounded by geeks, as I have. (It’s quite the experience, I can assure you. But I digress.)

So when I stated that I would not join social networking sites, I was not stating a desire to avoid technology or its advantages. At its very core, I wished to spite the screaming hordes of teeny-boppers worshipping daily at the altar of MySpace.

And now, now that the schemes in my brain require me to understand the machinations of modern culture, I have–again–fallen. Xanga was a foot in the water, this website an exciting open door of possibilities, but the Internet is like the Proverbial leeches, ever screaming, “More, More, More.”

It is on that basis that I say–under my breath, so no one will hear me–Facebook me.

My first real acquaintance with the word “geek” came many years ago, when I made the mistake of endowing it in an epithetical fashion upon my sister, in the hearing of my father. I was made to discover, as punishment, what a “geek” really is, and to my immense delight the technical definition is, “a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake.”

Wow.

In that vein, friends, I desire not to sheepishly poke my head around the technological corner. Nay, I desire to open the door fully, indeed, to blow it off of its hinges and stride boldly through. I desire to tame the beast, to enslave it to my will, and to profit by its chains. I have therefore bitten the head off of this technological chicken, and can quite possibly be accurately called a “geek” hereafter.

I registered this domain name with two purposes. First, I wanted to get it before my namesake(s) did–if I should run for office someday, I want to have a decent domain name ready for my campaigning. But second, and more important, I wanted to see if I could pull this off. You get to be the judge of my success, I’m afraid, but so far I’ve been amazed at how much can be done with so little investment.

Now that it is working, though, my goals have changed. In the final analysis, I hope to use my little scheming personal challenges to profit others, too. Transferring my personal blog to this forum is the first of many projects scheming in my overtasked, underfunded brain. Stay tuned…

So please, take a look around. There may not be much to see yet, but I am planning on changing that, and I would love your feedback as I try to do so. And as always, you are welcome to throw flowers, tomatoes, and/or knives at my various attempts at humor, inspiration, elucidation, and whatever else may jump into my head and out through my keyboard.

If you want a historical perspective on my previous technological experiments, you are still welcome to visit my Xanga.