I bought a bike a couple of weeks ago, and went straight from the bike store to the pet store to buy a backpack in which to put Comet for our rides. Unfortunately, she’s way too big for any of the models, and it was with a (slightly) heavy heart that I went on my first big ride last weekend, without her.

The next idea was a bike trailer for children, but they’re very bulky and expensive, not to mention the relative ridiculousness of putting a dog in them. But after much searching, I found this lovely item, made in the Netherlands by Basil. I had a hard time finding it in North America, but have just secured my own.

The ridiculousness isn’t completely out of the picture though, especially considering that I’ve been looking at dog helmets and goggles…

When I left my job this spring, I bought a new phone. Twelve days later, the backplate that covers the battery fell off the phone. The Fido store staff proposed that I buy another phone, for 300$. I’d gotten this one for 50$ with a contract. So this was unacceptable: what if I bought another one for 300$ and the plate fell off again, then what? Buy another one?

I called Fido customer service, and got the same solution: buy another phone for 300$. I argued to get a replacement part or phone, as it wasn’t normal that through normal use, the plate had fallen off the phone after 12 days. They argued that I had put the plate on wrong. I said it was the Fido store representative that had assembled the phone for me. Getting no joy from one call-center employee, I called back a few times until I got someone more amenable. He said that because it had been less than two weeks since I’d bought the phone, he would send me a new one. It would take 10 working days, and I’d have to send my current phone back in the box provided.

Three months went by, no phone. I procrastinated because the phone worked fine without the plate.

A few weeks ago, the phone started having trouble charging. Thinking it might be due to the missing plate, I called Fido and asked them where the phone they were sending me was. They had no record of such a transaction, of course. I told the story and argued for a while, using my tactic of calling back to get another representative, and realized after speaking to a few that the most they were authorized to do for me was offer me a 50$ rebate on a new 300$ phone. So now, what I needed to do was get passed to a supervisor, who could do more.

Getting to speak to a supervisor can be difficult. The answer you typically get is, they won’t be able to do more. But you have two great assets on your side: the call-center employee has to keep call length to a minimum, and they’re not allowed to hang up on you.

Of course you have to invest some time, but call centers expect you to give up (and spend 300$ in this case). But this war of attrition is one you can easily win. And once in a while, you have to do it, if only for the principle.

This is what you do:

Before the call, prepare a nice, warm, cup of tea, take a comfortable seat and accept that you’ll have to invest time. You have it, they don’t. When they say “is there anything else I can do for you today?”, which means, “I need to hang up now”, you just take a deep breath and start telling your story again. Use the same arguments. As many times as it takes. Eventually, when the call length starts getting too long, the employee will want to pass you on to the supervisor in order to terminate the call. In some centers, calls beyond a certain length actually pop an alarm up on the supervisor’s console.

When I spoke to the supervisor, he was wonderfully helpful. He obviously had the clearances needed to give me the moon. He said it was possible to just purchase the plate (something I’d asked for at the Fido store in the first place), that it cost 8$ (not 300$), he checked and found that the downtown Fido store had plenty (hm, is it possible this happened not just to me?), and that he would credit my account 8$ so I wouldn’t have to pay for the plate.

Mission accomplished.

Post Scriptum: In the face of such helpfulness, my reflex was to be thankful. But this only happened after at least 6 Fido employees tried to get me to buy a new phone. Is this any way to treat your clients, Fido? Bad dog!

I just dreamt that my computer had an attitude. After a crash, the error message said, “Your work? Pfft! Gone!”

Spammers really need to try harder. I just learned that I’ve won 4 million dollars… and an iPod phone (whatever that is). By Nokia.

Amateurs.

Overheard at Couche Tard tonight:

- What a beautiful doggie you have! Hi doggie! (Puts hand up to Doggie. Doggie sniffs suspiciously.)
- Be careful, I think she’s gonna bark.
- Jennifer? Her name’s Jennifer?
- No, Comet.
- Ah, Thomas. Hi Thomas! You’re really cute!
- She’s gonna bark.
- She cannot bark? How sad!
- … Yes, really sad.

“If one could build a system of morality absolutely independent of religious doctrine, as valid for the atheist as for the pietist, then theologies might come and go without loosening the moral cement that makes of wilful individuals the peaceful citizens of a community.

If, for example, good meant intelligent, and virtue meant wisdom; if men could be taught to see clearly their real interests, to see afar the distant results of their deeds, to criticize and coordinate their desires out of a self-cancelling chaos into a purposive and creative harmony…

The intelligent man may have the same violent and unsocial impulses as the ignorant man, but surely he will control them better, and slip less often into imitation of the beast. And in an intelligently administrered society… the advantage of every man would lie in social and loyal conduct, and only clear sight would be needed to ensure peace and order and good will.”

- Will Durant on Socrates, The Story of Philosophy

… well almost.

Month 3 of freelancing went something like this:

Things were going relatively well, I was spending about half my time on an unlucrative project dear to my heart, and the other half on work that pays the bills. I was determined not to take on more.

Then, early in the month, the work from the one client started drying up, and I spent a white night worrying that the unlucrative project would remain unlucrative, and I’d have to work until I was 85. I spent the next day doing bizdev, and things went nuts from there. The phone rang and rang and rang, and I had to hurriedly print business cards, throw together a professional website, gather up a portfolio and run from one meeting to the next. I said yes to everything. My available hours were filled before I’d seen half the people I’d committed to.

Then I set about actually doing all that work, and first-impressing all those people at once. Nights were white again, evenings and weekends non-existent. I was proud to be able to work from my terrasse, but it soon felt like a cube.

Now it’s time to exhale again, to be courageous for the second time. I have to convince myself that this trove of work will hold, drop the work I like less, and continue with the unlucrative labor of love.

To be continued.

Because it doesn’t try to entertain first and inform second, it does the reverse. Yet the font geeks that are interviewed are fabulously entertaining. Teutons are hilarious.

Because at the end of it I had no fixed idea what my position on the topic was. That’s actually huge.

Because I have never before considered the societal impact of a font, and now I’m actually wrangling with the issue of whether Helvetica deserves its position as king of fonts. I had never considered this topic, and now it keeps me up all night, I see nothing but dancing letters in that middleground between sleep and waking.

And because, deservingly or no, Helvetica really is the king of fonts, it’s effectively changed the way I look at everything.

In the months leading up to the big switch to self-employment, I dreamily read all the so-you-wanna-be-a-freelancer posts I could find. There I received some great advice, promising myself I wouldn’t make any of the mistakes I’d heard about.

After two months of freelancing, here are the promises I’ve broken:

- I will set aside X amount of hours per week for my personal projects.
- I need to work X hours a week; I will not let financial worry or greed convince me to take on more.
- I will not watch daytime tv.
- I will have a daily to-do list every day, so that I know when I’m done and can watch daytime tv.

On the plus side, I’m working on things I thoroughly enjoy, I’ve been sticking religiously to a workout routine and proper diet, and I’m pinch-me happy. Finding a way to be paid for what you enjoy is actually simple; finding what it is you really enjoy is actually harder.

Iron Man the movie hit the theaters yesterday, and the game hit stores. The PS2, PSP, PC and Wii are the ones I got to produce. The next gen SKUs were done by Sega’s own studio.

Last night we went to the movie, then home with the newly purchased game and I watched Jonathan play. The evening was a very cool ride, a happy culmination to 18 months of hard work.

When I produced Happy Feet, access to assets was complicated by the fact that the movie was being produced in Australia. Nevertheless, the whole team got to see the movie at various stages of its production. I had therefore seen it three times by the time it was released.

With Iron Man, the film crew was extremely open with assets, and we visited the set, witnessed some scenes being shot, met director, cast and crew, saw flight animation tests and the Iron Monger suit in the “flesh”, visited Stark mansion and saw Iron Man suit concept art, but I never read the script or actually saw the movie. Consequently, having been allowed access to some information, without seeing the finished product, just made the whole thing extremely tantalizing.

And last night was the biggest payoff a superhero fan could wish for. The movie is awesome, definitely up there with the first Spider-Man for superhero movies.

Go. And make sure you stay until the end of the credits