Kill Them Already!

If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I'd be a millionaire by now!!!
Then again, what was that joke about the blender and the kitten??
Anyone?

Merry Christmas!

Dearest family and friends, a very Merry Christmas to everyone.

May all your wishes come true this year!

Automated Phone Services

How many of you have been victims of the automated phone services (henceforth on this blog known with the acronymn APS)? No, they're not computerised aliens taking over the world, but they very well will be soon! Neither are they Automated Power Supplies, far from it in fact.

These dastardly disembodied mechanical voices, usually female, try to make you feel at ease (as in fantasy-ease, nice, soothing, excellent radio DJ kind of voice, but probably with a face that could sink a thousand ships!) while you listen in and key in the correct digits on your phone to get you to the correct department.

Most banks, offices, ticketing agents, factories with thousands of departments, the list goes on and on. Soon, nobody human will be answering the phone except these voice boxes. Some leave the sneaky option at the end of all the 9 options, to speak to a human being, aka operator, press zero. In other words, after 10 options, this sneaky option is the loophole for those who can't seem to decide which of the other 9 options you called them for or the category you fall under.

One of the best APS I've ever encountered was in London. I was booking air tickets for my trip to Denmark. The APS did the normal and usual thing of telling you that your call is important to all, please continue holding, blah, blah, blah... but with the added bonus of telling you your queue number! You are number 12 in the queue, please continue holding and we will attend to you shortly. Every 10 seconds or so, it will refresh, soon you're number 5 in the queue and then number 2 and then someone actually answers your call after that - ingenious!

The potential of this added feature defied all laws of customer service and will definitely cut down our waiting time. I just wish that they will buy and implement the system in this country, it could save our lives! Instead of having being put on hold for god knows how long, and then having the operator answer your call, only to press the wrong button to disconnect you. Some of these imbecilic operators are hard-pressed for time, perhaps they have a quota to answer as many calls as possible or get fired. And I thought they should put their heart and soul into attending to their customers, after all, we're the most important. Say something wrongly or provide bad service and we boycott your company and publicise your pathetic state by word of mouth to friends and family, far and wide.

Today, I was put on hold for a call placed to a famous and popular banking service from America, well at least I think it's America with all those mergers and takeovers, I don't really know which country owns which bank anymore. Anyway, I held on and waited (there was some music played thank god) for almost more than 10 minutes (I never knew I was so patient, or was it desperation?) because that particular banks Internet banking services added a new security feature that needed you to get a PIN number from them. Unfortunately, today was the due date for credit card payment and the operator could only get the PIN for me in 3 working days. I waited again to get him to transfer me to their customer services, another 10 minutes mind you, and he answered saying that they are very busy. Fancy that, he could have told me that 10 minutes ago, so that I try to call back later. And my cellphone battery was dying.

Can you imagine, if you had lost your credit card overseas, all desperate and worried, and you want to report it lost to your bank. In the 10 minutes that they put you on hold, whoever stole your credit card can go on a shopping spree at all the expensive shopping outlets nearby and chalk up a ginormous amount of debt with your card, before the bank can even answer your phone call to disable your credit card. On top of that, you incur international phone charges for being put on hold for so long. Does the bank pay for these charges? I think not!

Looks like it's time these companies look into improving their APS and not just talk about improving it, but do abso-fucking-lutely nothing about it. In the end, you, as a company will lose all your customers to another company that can provide better services to their customers.

I just hope that imbecilic operator who disconnected me is reading this. I had a good mind to call your superiors to get you fired.

Be thankful that I didn't.

Rantings Of The Week

Maroon 5 needs a new album. I'm sick of listening to She Will Be Loved and This Love over and over and over again. It's not like they have any lack of talent at trying to produce a new album. It's not beyond them. They seem to have canabalised off their 2001 album Songs About Jane long enough, something new and refreshing and in the right direction would be nice. Or have they really run out of ideas and steam to do so? I sure as hell wish that radio stations across the world would ban This Love and She Will Be Loved just like they did Jame Blunt's You're Beautiful. Some of these songs are just overplayed with too much airtime. Either that, or the radio stations haven't done any updating or book-keeping of their song machines.

"If only the post office was as efficient as the weather service!" Quipped Doc Emmett Brown from Back To The Future 2. I can't say anything for the weather service here. I have been waiting for almost 2 weeks for a parcel from Down Under. I wait all week faithfully for 2 weeks and absolutely nothing. Then when I decide that today they won't come, and I step out for lunch, they drop by to deliver the package!! UGH WTF!!!

The details on the redelivery slip says that they came 5 minutes just after I left for lunch. Of course, when I get home and find the slip, I'm jumping up and down - insane with madness! (I can now appreciate the phrase!)

Furthermore they have this fantastic automated phone system that doesn't allow me to get my parcel redelivered tomorrow. It says that I need to give them at least 2 working days! Utter rubbish! I make a booking, just in case they're closed, and call their operator (a human being, not a mechanical Dalek voice) who was kind enough to reschedule everything to be delivered for me tomorrow from 9am to 1pm. A huge 4 hour window in which I have to sit at home and wait for my parcel to arrive all over again and can't go out to do anything.

Tough luck huh?

Torchwood

BBC Three has announced that it will make a Doctor Who spinoff, Torchwood, the centrepiece of its fall schedule, launching the sci-fi crime thriller series in October 2006.

Spinning off of one of Doctor Who's most memorable characters, Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), Torchwood will be set in present day Cardiff (that's Wales to you lot) and will surround a group of covert criminal investigators called the Torchwood Institute, an organization commissioned by Queen Victoria and tasked with investigating alien technology. The team will be headquartered at The Hub, located beneath Cardiff Bay, the site of the TARDIS' landing in Boom Town and the location of the rift discussed in The Unquiet Dead.

Created by current Doctor Who writer/producer Russell T. Davies, Torchwood stars John Barrowman as bisexual time traveller/con man Jack Harkness and Eve Myles as former police officer Gwen Cooper. Astute Doctor Who fans may remember Myles from the Who episode The Unquiet Dead, where she played the role of the similarly named Gwyneth. (Whether Gwen and Gwyneth are the same character has yet to be confirmed, but the fact that Myles' previous Who episode dealt with the rift adds credence to that theory.)

Joining Barrowman and Myles are Bleak House's Burn Gorman, who will play Torchwood Institute medic Dr Owen Harper, and Absolutely Fabulous' Naoko Mori, who will reprise the role of Dr Toshiko Sato from the Doctor Who episode Aliens of London.

Doctor Who writer/producer Russell T. Davies has written the first of thirteen episodes. He'll be joined on the series by writers Chris Chibnall, co-creator of Life on Mars, and P.J. Hammond, creator of 1980s cult classic Sapphire & Steel (which starred Mori's Absolutely Fabulous castmate Joanna Lumley), among others.

Torchwood is, of course, a clever anagram of Doctor Who and was originally used as a codename for the current incarnation of Doctor Who, before taking on a life of its own during the series. Also of note is that all the characters have already shared a same-sex kiss, in one way or another, indicating that the show moves into the bisexual realm, making it ground-breaking on TV, at least in the UK, I seriously doubt it will ever be shown here.

Already the seven episodes till now have shown some fascinating developments with the team. However, there are sources and forums that rate the series as a no-brainer, stating that the characters have no depth, this is complete hogwash. Each episode develops the characters brilliantly, their humanity, how they deal with the unknown and aliens being on Earth, the alien tech that they find. Although it looks like they're fumbling through it all, making it up as they go along, they do go on along nicely, making mistakes as humanly possible and learning and evolving in the process, that's the beauty of this series, the stories have twists and turns, unlike the typical American series that have a fixed way in which things must happen and the eventual outcome.

So, it's farewell to Mulder and Scully from The X-Files' brand of sci-fi crime thriller. Enter Torchwood, where anything and everything mysterious and alien doesn't have to be a government conspiracy that hinders your investigations over and over again till the end of nine bloody seasons. This series is at least a team effort, real-imaginative story-telling, light visual effects and closure at the end of each episode.

9 out of 10 stars

Doctor Who?

It seems as if television is running out of ideas. All the old, old series are popping back into mainstream television and coming back into our lives. First, it was Battlestar Galactica, now, Dr Who.

I've never watched a complete episode of Dr Who, bits and pieces of it maybe, but never a complete episode. I think mainly because the stories, at that time, were really overly fantastic and me being so young, at that time, didn't take too well with stories with too much imagination and the dry British humour, which I was never accustomed to. However, I do remember the blue police box TARDIS and Tom Baker walking around in with his scarf and coat, before switching channels.

I guess in those days, the 1980s, props and TV tech weren't as fantastic to sustain my interest, either that, or my interest and imagination wasn't so wild yet and has only recently matured with age. The latest season has good techs and visual effects.

I have to say that in this latest series, the storylines stretches your imagination beyond its limit. There were times when I expected the hopeless situation to be so utterly hopeless that nothing will do, when something new gets injected into the story, be it a character or some sci-fi gadget to get them out of that painful situation. Of course, the writers have it well thought out and don't make the escape too ridiculous.

Morales and ethics are explored throughout the series and also how to enjoy life and live it to the fullest. Not so much like Star Trek, but just as well. The aftermath and consequences of what the Doctor did in an episode are reflected upon in a later episode. You will see that the Doctor did what was right to correct the mistakes and helps humanity out of slavery (for example), but doesn't stop to consider that in doing so, he leaves them vulnerable to attack and outside suggestion and right back into the "slavery" he got them out of.

This new series is loaded with British wit and humour, at times, I didn't see it, but it's there and it's hilarious once you spot it and soon I learnt to appreciate it.

I enjoyed the concept of a time traveller travelling backwards and forward in time and is over 900 year old. At the same time, the concept that the Doctor can talk to any race and have a decent conversation with them is most refreshing. The Doctor is also exceptionally knowledgeable of all things in the universe, which is most helpful in his travels when he can recognise technology from different species.

The venerable science fiction program Doctor Who returned to British televisions in 2005 after a 15-year absence and delighted the majority of fans and critics with its adherence to the adventure and charm of the original series, while making admissions for a new generation of viewers (hipper editing and score, CGI effects). Thirteen episodes were generated, all starring Christopher Eccleston as the ninth Doctor and pop-singer-turned-actress Billie Piper as his companion Rose; acclaimed writer/producer Russell T. Davies (Touching Evil, Queer as Folk) oversaw the show as chief writer and executive producer. The new series proved so popular that the BBC agreed to revive the program for second and third seasons - though without Eccleston, who has since been replaced by David Tennant. This six-disc set comes with all 13 episodes plus the battery of supplemental features now customary to all Doctor Who DVD releases.

Eccleston is very engaging in the title role, bringing a manic curiosity tempered by occasional bouts of gravity (which befit a personality with a long and dramatic a lifespan as the Doctor's) that hew closely to the (arguably) most popular Doctor, Tom Baker. Piper is equally adept as department store clerk Rose--she's afforded more of a back story than most of the Doctor's sidekicks have received in the past, and she more than handles her own alongside Eccleston. Highlights among the 13 episodes include the season opener, Rose (which sees the return of an old foe, the Autons, and their controlling force, the Nestene Consciousness); the revamped Daleks in Dalek and the two-parter Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways; a trip to Victorian England to aid Charles Dickens in The Unquiet Dead and of course, the arrival of the tenth Doctor at the conclusion of the action-packed Parting of the Ways. The episodes strike the right blend of quirk, excitement, and imagination, thanks largely to the engaging performances and the guidance of Davies, whose admiration for the show and its history is evident throughout.

Christopher Eccleston's Doctor is wise and funny, cheeky and brave. An alien and a loner, his detached logic gives him a vital edge when the world's in danger. But when it comes to human relationships, he can be found wanting. That's why he needs Rose. From the moment they meet, the Doctor and Rose understand and complement each other. As they travel together through time, encountering new adversaries, the Doctor shows her things beyond imagination. The only quarrel I had was that the storyline where Rose ended up back with her mom and boyfriend Mickey was rather irritating. But I guess, in every show, family always play an important role in guiding the character.

I was impressed with the series, which sustained my interest throughout. At the same time, I was very impressed with the Daleks. I've been often told by friends that they were one of the Doctor's most deadly nemesis. I didn't believe that the Daleks were anything more than metal dustbins shooting light rays. Boy was I wrong! In this series, the creators have made them utterly deadly. Their disembodied mechanical voice will send shivers up your spine exclaming their favourite phrase "EX-TER-MINATE". The reintroduction of the Dalek Emperor and how it now thinks of itself as a God is extremely interesting.

At present, I'm awaiting the DVD release for season 2, although Amazon.com and some other websites are selling it at a hideously expensive price for the number of episodes in the complete season collection!

I highly, highly recommend this series to anyone (not just Dr Who fans) who are willing to just jump in, sit back and let imagination do the rest, for the fantastic storyline and script-writing and of course, for the fun and excitement of travelling to the when and where in the universe and losing yourself there.

9 out of 10 stars