Why they call me, "The Pitbull"

Start at the bottom and work your way up - it is the opposite procedure of drinking a beer... 

Dear Mikey,

We apologize for the confusion in responding to your concerns outlined 
below. Unfortunately, we have experienced some very high call volume the
past few weeks and are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you.

I see that you were able to contact another service representative on 
11/30 for this order. Were the changes to the order/concerns handled 
fully on that phone call?

Please let us know if there is anything further we can do to assist you.

If you have any additional questions or comments, please email us at 
service@barnesandnoble.com  Or, if you prefer, you may call our Customer
Service Center at 1-800-THE-BOOK (1-800-843-2665), 8:00 AM-11:00 PM 
(EST) Monday thorough Friday and 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM on Saturdays and 
Sundays. If you are contacting us from outside the United States, please
call 201-559-3882.



Sincerely,

Justin

Customer Service Representative
Barnes & Noble
http://www.bn.com/

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Original Message Follows:
------------------------
Julie,
 
 Greetings.  My last e-mail correspondence with Barnes & Noble did not 
involve any mention of the "new website design".  So in regards to:

"Your feedback is very important to us at Barnes & Noble.com and we 
appreciate your taking the time to send us your opinion."

I'm sure my previous e-mail was thoroughly read and understood, 
especially considering, as stated earlier, I never mentioned the new 
website demand.  I look forward to more of this entertaining banter in 
the future.

Sincerely,
Mikey

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 On 04/12/2010 3:28 AM, service wrote:
Dear Customer,


Thank you for writing to us about our new website design.

We reviewed your concerns regarding calling Barnes and Noble.  Your 
feedback is very important to us at Barnes & Noble.com and we appreciate
your taking the time to send us your opinion.  We assure you that we 
have reviewed the issues you have raised with the appropriate people on 
our design team and they are under consideration for implementation. We 
truly value your patronage; your online shopping experience is extremely
important to us.




Sincerely,

Julie
Customer Service Representative
Barnes & Noble
http://www.bn.com/

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Original Message Follows:
------------------------
Luis,
 
 Good day.  In response to your e-mail, I would like to point out the 
fact that it would help if a guy could actually get through when trying 
1-800-THE-BOOK.  I tried three times, every hour, for seven hours.  
That's 21 phone calls and not once did I get through.  Your "automated 
system" automatically hung up on me.  Also, once, every hour, for seven 
hours I tried the International number.  How I loved to hear the "busy" 
tone every time I called.  Had I ever got through on anyone line, I 
would have promptly purchased a lottery ticket because the odds of 
winning are the same as talking to somebody at Barnes & Noble.
 
 However, being ever-so persistent, I located on of your stores through 
your website.  I then proceeded to "411" their phone number and was then
able to contact some chicky-poo in-store.  I explained the situation to 
her, informed her of some pointless pieces of information, confused her 
California mind, and weaseled a secret phone number from her.  This 
magical phone number, albeit strictly not for online orders, worked the 
first time and most of the issues surrounding my order have been 
resolved.  I also find it interesting that during all this finger work 
to get a hold of just one customer services representative, I discovered
that Barnes and Noble is looking for a "Director of Service Automation".
The successful applicants second job responsibility as quoted from the 
posting is:

Manage the efficiencies to reduce cost exposure of providing customer 
service. 

For some reason, unbeknown to me, I find this not only tragically ironic
considering yesterdays fiasco in trying to contact anybody at Barnes and
Noble, I also find it exponentially entertaining.
 

So with that all said, I wish the successful applicant much success in 
trying to reduce customer service at Barnes & Noble anymore than it 
already has.
 
 Sincerely,
 Mikey

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 01/12/2010 1:53 PM, service wrote:
Dear Customer,


Thank you for contacting us.

Based on the situation you described, we feel that the difficulties you 
are experiencing would be resolved best by contacting us by phone. 

We ask that you call us at 1-800-THE-BOOK (1-800-843-2665).  We are 
available Monday through Friday from 8AM to 11PM EST, Saturdays and 
Sundays 9AM to 11PM EST.

Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience this may have 
caused and we look forward to hearing from you.



Sincerely,

Luis
Customer Service Representative
Barnes & Noble
http://www.bn.com/
Ref#16182003

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Original Message Follows:
------------------------

Order Number: 159865369
IP: 96.17.69.171
Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.12) 
Gecko/20101026 Firefox/3.6.12

Greetings,

First of all, I have tried several times to contact your company over 
the phone and have had no success, to which I am severely frustrated and
angered.

I have a few questions about my order that I refuse to have answered 
over an e-mail conversation when I my work takes me away from home 
frequently.  In that regard, I feel it is in both your and my best 
interest if you personally call me at home to rectify the issues with 
our current order.

We can be reached at (306) 843-2314 at home or on my cell at (306) 
843-7989.  I have had enough of trying to call 1-800-THE-BOOK only to 
have your automated system hang up on me because "we are experiencing 
high call volumes".  I am also right fed up with calling 201-559-3882 
only to hear a busy tone every single time I call.  I have more 
important things to do in my life than sit and wait on some Mickey Mouse
form of customer service.

So please call us immediately or else I will be promptly spreading the 
word that our friends and family should not shop with your company and 
we will be moving our business elsewhere as well.  If you feel that is 
not a substantial enough reason to pursue our business, look at our 
account and see the orders we have put in in the past year alone.  Now 
with a baby on the way, you would think that those sales would only 
increase because of a new family member.

I would truly appreciate your utmost promptness in a resolution to all 
the foregoing issues.

Sincerely,
Michael Plag
Wilkie, Saskatchewan
Canada

Weekly 5:00am Vent

I'm going to start off by rocking the boat a little bit here.  Most woman beguilingly exclaim, "You think so do you?  Well last time I saw you didn't look like a girl!  Have you ever been a girl?  Do you have any semblance of what it's like to be a girl?  Have you ever experienced the horrible traumas of...  liang, liang, liang." 

Of course then they always have to bring up the fact that men can and will urinate anywhere; therefore, we have nothing to gripe about.  The reality is that woomun seem to forget that it was God's design and good luck taking it up with Him.  What so few women realize is this pain in my right ass cheek right now as I type... My wallet.

You see, I strongly conjunct that this may have been an overlooked design flaw.  However, reality persuades me to "persunctify" that perhaps it was a trade off for us having a universal toilet.  I am ever grateful that I can drop my fly and shake the dew off my lily anytime, anywhere, on anything - irregardless of the laws surrounding "public urination".  The thrills are unending when it comes to peeing on things and I feel a strong sense of accomplishment when I write Amy's name in the snow.  How many of you can take a leak off the side of a train at 30 miles per hour?  That's a tremendous feat especially considering you have to adjust for the wind and rocking motion.  Nothing is worse than washing your face with what your body no longer needs - I have proof.

My point is, girls babble on and on about this unique feature men have been given and I wish to reveal the trade off...  Wallets in the back pocket.  Have any of you lassies ever taken your hubbies wallet, shoved in your butt pocket and walked around with it?  Have you ever tried driving with one tucked between your derriere and the car seat for more than two hours?  Imagine sitting on one during a full-out Catholic wedding with the whole mass, ceremony and whatever else the man throws in for free.

Sitting on a wallet is to men as menstrual cramps and quite possibly contractions are to women.  Oh but the wise woomun say, "Well why don't you just set it down beside you or tuck it in your coat or something witty along those lines in a futile attempt to belittle you and make you feel inferior to the pain and suffering women endure for the sake of your unending pleasure?"

Why I don't stash it in my coat:
1.)  It's unnatural feeling.  My buttocks is highly tuned and accustomed to the feel of "genuine leather",
2.)  Coats without zippered pockets are not anybodies friend - nor are mittens without string, and
3.)  Matches, Zippo, knife, mints, pen, paper and compass.  All are accessories to my boy scout preparedness and there is no room for compromise, nor carry-on in my pockets.  No exceptions. 
 
Why I don't stash my wallet in the front pocket of my jeans:
1.)  Fashion wise - because it looks horrendously faggy, 
2.)  There has been incidental pinching of the nether region in times past, and
3.)  As sure as I don't want to see the boxers that some dumbass ghetto wannabe kid is wearing - I'm sure you don't want to be distracted by the ginormenos wallet bulge on the front of my Levi's.

I remember the three most liberating days of my life:
1.)  The day I gave my life to Jesus Christ,
2.)  The day I switched over to boxers, and
3.)  Our trip to Quebec City where I was so worried I didn't know how to yell, "STOP!  THIEF!" in French, that I only carried my debit card, VISA, and cash in my front pocket.  No wallet.

It was awkward not having that familiar jiggle in my ass...  Sooooo, either way, it was very enjoyable being able to sit everywhere not having to do the, "spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch" routine when I stood up.  Strangely, and I mean peculiarly strangely to the Star Trek Deep Space Nine degree, I never once did take a leak in public the entire time we were in Quebec City.  This therefore proves that our ability to piss on anything, anytime, anywhere is directly correlated to the hardships we as men must endure for sitting on a wallet.

No wallet, no pissing on the fence.

Ni.

First off, welcome back to the blogging world, Michael.

Oh.  It's my pleasure.

So, what's new?

Not much.  I helped my buddy Caleb shoot his first deer on Sunday.  It was pretty awesome except for the two cynical Ford fans riding with me.

I see.  I see.  I can see how that would be and exception to the awesomeness of hunting, especially in a Chevy truck.  So were you able to take a deer?

Unfortunately, no I was not.  You see, my antlerless mule deer season doesn't open until...  Oh would you look at that.  It's officially open as of sunrise.  What a coincidence.  Long story short, the shooting spree begins today.

Are you excited?

Does a frog bump its ass when it hops?

Point well made.  What else is on your mind Mikey?

My lack of confidence in my grammar and English as well as making up witty titles for this blogging stuff.

I can so totally relate.  We should drink more beer and discuss that another day.

I can dig that jive.

Have you done anything relatively stupid to annoy your wife lately?

Not that I can think of.  She was yammering at me today something along the lines of, "THEY JUST SAID NOT TO TRY THAT AT HOME, MICHAEL!  AUGH!"

Can you recall what might have brought on that vicious attack consisting of adjectives, verbs and nouns.

Well apparently I was sharpening my knives because the dull knife is the one that cuts you - plus I plan on shooting deers in the next few days.  Either way, so this dude on the dvd was all like, "Why by golly gee, if you do this here sharpenin' of the knives like I say, I say boy, I say.  I say you be able to shave the hair off your arm.  But don't be tryin' that at home now, ya hear?"  I guess I didn't hear that last sentence and opted to shave my arm hair with my knife.

And did it work?

She was balling me out wasn't she!

So it worked then.

I bet you licked the windows on the school bus.

Just because you and your wife had a minor domestic disturbance doesn't give you the right to refer to my intellectual capacity in a diminutive manner, Michael.

I sorry.

Ees okay.  What are you drinking right now?

The best 355ml of Miller Genuine Draft I've had all day.

Didn't you just get home from work?  Shouldn't you be going to bed or something?

What are you, my mother?

Actually I are.

Listen here you, it's "I am", not "I are".  Get it right Pee Wee.

Ooooooh, look at you go Mr. Smart Pant.  "I'm Michael and I'm a concerned grammatarian.  I'm part of a mocking grammar-nazi regime with a mission to verbally embarrass the wordily declined."

Go solicit your hate at the French or a Liberal fund raiser you pretentious monicker!

I sorry.

Ees okay.  Wanna beer?

I'd love one please.  What are my options?

Um.  Cold aaaaaannnnnnnddddd....  Cold.

Two Bit Rant

With Keta at my side, passed out and dead to the world, I sit here in bed blogging in my boxers and a t-shirt.  Dooooooooula.

Amy and I had our prenatal classes today.  I honestly have to admit I think it was a tie between the ball and chain and I of who was the teachers pet.  I was the strong, silent type - especially when we entered the hemorrhoids and anal fissure topics, of which I am somewhat of an encyclopedia.  However, when The Quiz asked, "Name some benefits of breast feeding for mommy.", I pounced on it like a fat kid on a Skittle.  I told Amy the answer, "What is reduces the chances of boob cancer, over."

Now I love Amy; however, if there is one thing I can't stand - it is someone who steals Thunder.  Especially when it is my Thunder.  I owned that question.  My reputation was hanging in the balance - that baby was mine for the taking.  I understand I am a sinner and I by no means have attained perfection; however, that does not give my deceptively sinful wife of mine to steal my gah-lo-ree!  With much satisfaction and a smirk as wide as a Larry da Croc, she looked deep into my eyes and gleefully answered, "Breast feeding reduces the chance of getting breast cancer in mothers who breast feed."

Hey look, my pride is on the floor.  Excuse me while I pick it up and dust it off.

Now, I strongly desire to share with you some of the most fabulous words I intend on using in my everyday Mikenglish.  I believe that "toxoplasmosis" is by far my favorite.  Let me indulge your palate by utilizing this marvel of the English language in a sentence.

"ApGar, desiring much to be like his hero, the chi-who-ah-who-ah from the Taco Bell commercials, took a cold shower to reduce his Toxoplasmosis count."

Another juicy little nugget was "Episciotomy" or something along those lines.  Maybe I'm just in denial of what it really entails, the fact is, it sounds gnarly rolling off my tongue.  "Hey you little punk!  Get off my lawn or I'll go all episciotomy on your ass!  Yi."  Miconium is just wrong.  Oxytocin sounds like an ointment old people put on their joints and ligaments.

I think the highlight of the day was my madness during Pregnancy Jeopardy.  Let's just say I went for the throat with, "I'll take Diaper Bags for $500."  Gleaming in victory, I strolled out of the boardroom doing my own little dance, all the while chanting, "Douala!  Douala!  Douala!"

Blogibation

I said I was going to take an honest stab at this jogging bit, so here is my fourth attempt in three years.  I seem to see a significant amount of failures in me - at least I tend to feel I fail at everything.  Fortunately to a mild degree, I have become fairly proficient at ignoring some of those nagging feelings only because I know deep inside it might be Satan and his minions...  Wow, that old lady has just as many flowers on her coat as she does in the bouquet of flowers she is carrying.

Anyhow.  Just as of lately, I have been doing a lot of hindsight checking - apparently I am getting older because my hind side requires more sight to inspect.  I need to lay off the candy.  Getting back on track here, I've been reflecting on the "what-if" aspects of several key decisions I've made in the past few years.  Living in Wilkie is great with the exception of a few quirks here and there, but it is better than living in some country like Nabob or Folgers or what have you.  I keep reminding myself that Amy and I made the decision to move to Wilkie; however, I distinctly remember worrying about not having many Christian friends to poke with a stick.  So fast forward to the present day, and here I am with two true Christian friends, one who cooks for and sleeps with me, the other, well, he's just an instigator and Amy cooks for him too. 

I am dryer than fart and lonelier than a fart in the woods.  "If a God-fearing man stumbles in Wilkie, does anybody hear it?".  I would not dare to say that I do not have friends - never in a gabajillion millenniums.  All I am saying I miss the fellowship and the accountability I had in Saskatoon.  When you have two grown men who are facing the same problems, which run deeper than ballistics, it is hard to say, "Listen here you, I'm weak and you're weak so pick me up before I stone you."  Or you can conjugate a Barenaked Ladies song into, "Lyin' in bed, just like sexy Moses did.  Well, I'm lyin' in bed just like sexy Moses did."

Amy has been an excellent source of concrete through our marriage.  Jesus is better - I just need to make that clear.  Either way, sometimes a guy just needs another guy to gripe at.  A man needs another man to ask his opinion on things because we think differently than girls.  I have contemplated on numerous occasions to call a brother and be like, "Listen here you..."; however, I feel unattached.  Working the road has led me to miss numerous amounts of Sunday gatherings and other weekly gatherings.  The consequence is simply that I no longer see the main men in my life that I have shared so much with and I feel like I'm drifting off.

I've always said that life is only as awkward as you want it to be and I have this uncanny desire to try and make things as awkward for people as I can.  I generally know full well that they are probably thinking, "Holy Rice-A-Roni, I'm nervous about (insert life predicament)."  So to summarize, if I was to pick up the phone and call up a brother, guaranteed I would face a lack of words because I would be nervous.  I would keep thinking that the other guy is thinking, "Why is this guy calling me?  I've seen colds come around more often than him."  Maybe I'm just over-reacting; however, this situation is real to me and the novelty has worn off.  I suppose the ball would be in my court to engage with my elders, tragically, when a guy has felt so low for so long, he just gets used to the pain.

Introduction

Some please say I have a way with words and that I have the gift of the gab.  Which leads me to question, is "gift of the gab" a verb?  It's a thing, is it a physical thing?  Not so much; however, it is a thing and if I do posses it - wouldn't that offer it up to have a mild sort of existence.

All that aside, I have been told by at least two people I should start a blog.  One other person has inquired as to why I haven't written a book.  I feel as if most things that happen in my life have already been covered in Seinfeld - less all my rants about gun control and genuinely stupid people and the asinine things they do.  Perhaps I haven't written solely on the fact that I use words that I have no clue what they mean - they just sound good coming out of my mouth.

Either way, I might take a stab at this flogging the blog thing and see what happens.  I don't expect anybody to understand one iota of Mikenglish.  It's like the breaking of the speed barrier, you have to see it to understand it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1w2DNp3Lp4&feature=related

I'M BACK BITZS!!!

I have every intent on blogging every third year in the month of October as the precedent has been set. I hope you took a leak before you read this because it's going to be a long time before we stop for a pee break on this interstellar galactic ride!

In other news, since the last news, there is no news, cause no news is good news. I hope that's not news to you.