Dear Technology, You Suck. Love, Tim

Hey, remember the time I wrote about something other than sports? Neither do I. Obviously there are other things happening in the world and with Syracuse football beating Rhode Island 21-14 in the world's most boring game, I started thinking about what else to occupy my time with. Then, Cuse lost 38-17 to USC which sucked, but knowing the NCAA and USC, in 10 years or so USC's victory will be vacated and the win will belong to Syracuse. Awesome.

So I've been taking a comprehensive survey about all of the problems in my life, and I'd say that about 98% of them are due to the slow and painful death of all of the technology I involve myself with. I'll start from the beginning. A couple of weeks ago, my computer shut off for seemingly no reason. As it turned out, about an hour previous my power cord had started making a high pitched "I don't work anymore" buzzing noise. I was left without a computer and hoofed it to the engineering school at 10 PM to order a new cord. Unrelated sidebar- the kid sitting next to me was engaged in a very heated, loud, and profanity-laced argument with his computer. In an academic building so late at night, I began to fear for my life because of the overall lack of sane human beings in the vicinity. Oh, and a quick addendum, all of this happened about the time that the TV in my apartment burned out. Who knew TVs could actually do that?

The second problem I experienced and continue to deal with is the internet in my apartment consistently shutting itself off to see how upset it can make me. Every couple of days, I will sit down to do some research or watch a show of some sort and my internet gives me one of those "Catastrophic Fail, the internet decided to leave and steal your computer's lunch money" error messages. I must then hit the reset button on the router to make it come back, only to repeat the cycle the next day.

Thirdly, I am currently a depositor in the renowned Bank of America. Yes, I am continuing with the whole "Technology sucks" thread, so deal with it. I actually just got off the phone with them about an hour ago. My problem goes back about two weeks to when I went on the site, went to transfer some money into my checking account to pay my rent, you know, so I don't get evicted, no big deal. Much to my surprise, I click the Transfers button and am instantly rerouted to internet hell. The top half of the site is in Spanish, the bottom is an unrecognizable mush of drop-down menus and links that go nowhere, and the walls of my apartment started to ooze green slime (wait, they already did that). So, diligent banker that I am, I tried to start up an online chat with an "online banking professional." Her name was Marie and seemed an extremely pleasant lady, intent on fixing my problem. I described the situation to her, and she immediately launches into an explanation of how to solve a completely different problem. So I tell her more about my problem saying that was not helping. So she gives me the exact same explanation that she did just a moment before. I started to suspect she was a program from the machine world. And, of course, the chat crashed, the site crashed, my computer crashed, the International Space Station crashed, etc. etc. etc. I checked back today, and yes, the site still sucked, and no, there was no hope of me ever being able to pay for anything ever again. So I called the online banking tech support whatever hotline. I was led through a maze of menus, one after another, never quite getting an option that sounded right. After a while, some of the menus started to sound familiar, and yes, the cycle had repeated itself and I had started over. Apparently there was no option that could possibly lead me to a real person. I hung up, proceeded to bash my head with the refrigerator door for twenty minutes. I somehow came to the realization that Bank of America's game of deception and mystery had a purpose. Here are the facts:

1. My account recently was updated so I get charged a fee every time I talk to a live teller. I now do all of my banking at an ATM.
2. In my online chat, the "person" on the other end had absolutely nothing to say to me that a computer program wouldn't have said, aside from "Hi, my name's Marie." Then again, who's to say a computer program couldn't be named Marie.
3. I spend a large amount of time on a customer service phone call and was led to believe no possible solution existed that would get me a real person on the phone.

What do all of these facts point to? Nobody works for Bank of America. It is a corporation that is a front for the robotic takeover of human civilization. But hey, at least my savings are FDIC-insured. So in the event of the apocalypse, I'm covered up to $100,000 of losses. Hooray.

That's all I have for technology right now. Not for a lack of effort on my part. I feel like the 3.5 loyal readers of mine have heard enough. So I won't tell you about how I got electronically locked into Kimmel Computer Lab or how I have spent an entire semester locked in a death-struggle with Microsoft Office before I finally chopped off its head and was able to make an Excel spreadsheet with its lifeless shell of a body. So, moving on, I think that's it for now. Syracuse moving to the ACC from the Big East blahblahblah. Here's that move in a nutshell. ACC teams are much less fun to hate (besides Duke) than nearly every Big East team. No rivalries = no hooliganism. Syracuse is taking proactive steps to keep SU students from becoming drunk, stupid, violent, and angry. Wait. Whoops.