Local Man Accedentally Becomes Auditor
8/13/2
When Ace was shipped up to The Hill, I took over all the duties that I�d managed to fob off on him, and all the fobbed off duties that Farkus and Labman had given him also. We had all be coping with one person less, but then when Ace came, he filled that void, mostly.
I took over all that he was doing on June 10. One of the things which he had as a duty, note I didn�t say �one of the things he did�, was checking these horrible looking old style computer printouts. You know, the double size with the green and white shaded lines so you can tell where you are. Tractor fed. Old school stuff.
I remember drawing on these type things which my father would bring home from his job designing circuit boards in the 1970s. In fact, the ones I went through yesterday I gave to Princess Fluffy to take home to her boys so they could draw on the backs of them. Why waste 11x17 paper?
Well, I had to kind of figure out what I was doing, but it soon became apparent since I found three people who were getting services without paying for them. Freakish. I asked what to do. I asked my boss, who didn�t know but we both assumed that I should just �change their class� in the database.
Yes, there is a top secret caste system in place in the USA. You have no hope of progressing from your current class �uberprole3� without my changing your class. Send non-sequential bills.
But, when I got a hold of Farkus, back from his month long disillusioned jaunt back into higher learning, I found out the dreaded procedure: back billing.
Sure, it�s fair. But it doesn�t seem that nice. He emailed me a form letter to send and a really bad calculation sheet that I�ll redo and bring it up to at least 1990s standards. It was only when I got the form letter and looked at it did I get a name for what I�m doing. The letter read similar to this:
�Dear Victim,
During a recent AUDIT, we found that you are getting stuff for free and we not intend to beat your bank accounts until they bleed. If you have a problem with this, tough. You have 20 days to comply. If you have additional questions call 1-800-LOSER.�
Well, it�s actually quite polite but a little scarier than that. Since there wasn�t an original form letter, I actually got the word document of one sent to someone. That person owed $1200ish. And yeah, I now do audits.
Amazing what happens, eh?
On a lighter note, I guess, you know that I�m a big Sony loyalist. I�d like Sony to buy up some state in the US and have all us Sony people move there. Maybe, if I was lucky, Mazda could own a county in Sony. I�m sure the east side of town would have lots of Miatas running about. Ah, a perfect world.
But I digress, in fact, it�s almost my modus operendi. Sony recently made a wonderful sounding piece of technology. It�s stereo equipment, but that�s not the wonderful soundingness, though I�m sure, since it�s part of the Xplod line, that it rocks. On paper, it�s killer though. 10 disk CD/MP3 changer. That would allow one to have 120 hours of music on hand. By contrast I�ll be taking two 24 CD holding cases down with me to Tampa and that�s only a max of 56 hours, and they aren�t all loaded at the same time. It�s like having a 100 disk CD changer in your car. But, it sounds better if you don�t know this one little fact.
It doesn�t support M3U or PLS playlists.
What? Or you may say �What are you talking about?�
Ok, it does support directories to make sets of music that it will play. So, lets say you have Rust In Peace that you want to hear in Album like form. You put those tracks in a directory on the disk and have them numbered in a way that they�ll play in track order. I always like having mine in �Artist � Album � Track# - Song title� format, that would work. But also, lets say you want a rockin� mix and you need a few of those songs for that. Well, in the rockin� mix directory you�d have to put a duplicate of that song. Los Estupido!
Support for M3U lists would let you keep all the songs in the same root directory and just load the lists, just instructions as to what to play in what order, and play what you want. A song could be on one list, no lists, or all lists, and would only have to be there once. You could also shuffle all on the disk or whatever.
The extremely cool Sony unit, but lacking a key feature, seems to retail for $250 but I�ve seen it online for $199. My 650 unit would be able to control it. If I bought the XA-300 junction, I�d be able to control seven of the freaks. That would be 840 hours of music, 35 days, over a month.
But�Sony, Sony, Sony�where did your mother and I go wrong?
A little research leads me to think that the Sonicblue SP250 wired into my Xplod 650 would be the best MP3 solution. It�s a portable single CD/MP3 player that supports M3Us and has a wired remote that can be upgraded to an indiglo LCD wired remote. There are plenty of places to mount it in the Black n� Tan.
However, this is all conjecture at this point, the next stereo �upgrade� is getting that blown out speaker outta there. Heck, I still have that stinkin� Kenwood system in the car. The Xplod is in a box on Aisai�s old bill paying desk.
Also, and last word here since this got long, Eagle One brand of quick detailer SUCKS. That is the last time I take advice from people who don�t have a black car. I might give it to my mother-in-law since the berry eating birds are starting to fly through. They bombed my car in three different places yesterday.