Don’t Mess With Someone Who’s Bored

So I get a collections call from one of those bottom-feeding, zombie-debt scum companies.

Only, it’s not for me — it’s for someone else. Someone with the same last name. Apparently, they’re fishing — looking for anyone who might know this person, who can give them contact info.

This pisses me off. I ask them for their business name, their state of incorporation, and their attorney of record.

The minimum-wage drone refuses to answer any of these. I ask to speak to his supervisor. He tells me that he’s a “manager” — I tell him that I don’t care, and I want to speak to whomever he answers to. He puts me on hold. I don’t go away. His supervisor comes on.

Rinse. Repeat. He gives me the company name, and the state — refuses to answer anything else (attorney of record, whether he’s aware that they’re violating FTC guidelines, etc.). He hangs up, giving me his name as he does so.

I grab the company info from the internet, call the front office, and ask to speak to him.

He comes on, I say “Hi — just wanted to let you know that you can be found.” We then go around for another 5 minutes, as I get him flustered about the fact that they have no pre-existing business relationship with the occupants of the household they called. He whines about how I’m wasting his time.

Wasting HIS time.

He yells at me to stop calling him. He tells me he’s offended.

If anybody wants to have some fun:

Call Client Services Inc., of St. Charles MO, at (636) 947-2321. Ask for Ken Rivers.

ABC Remaking “V”

ABC is remaking the mid-80s aliens-as-lizard-nazis miniseries V, which will appear mid-season, and, depending on the response, has 4 seasons of 13 to 22 episodes already pre-planned and ready to go.

The cast includes Firefly alumns Morena Baccarin and Alan Tudyk — although only Baccarin appears in these new preview videos::

Preview #1:

Preview #2:

Trek Ego-Boo

I picked up Star Trek: Vanguard – Open Secrets, the latest novel in the series (best described as “DS9 in the Original Series era”). I’m checking out the author’s acknowledgements, where I’m chuffed as hell to note my name listed, along with the other contributing authors on The Way of Kohlinar, the Vulcan sourcebook for Last Unicorns’ Trek RPG about 10 years back.

The author, Dayton Ward, used some of the cultural bits as fodder for his story, and felt the need to thank us by name. It’s quite a nice surprise, especially since some of my stuff from that book also appeared in the Enterprise fourth-season episodes “The Forge”, “Awakening” and “Kir’Shara”, set on Vulcan — with, of course, no credit given (The problem with contract work, sadly, but one you’re aware of going in).

So, doubly nice to see a tip of the hat and some recognition of one’s contributions.