The future perfect tense (WIKIPEDIA - Future perfect tense) is used when, at a certain time in the future, you will be able to look back in the past and say that the event happened. It's a somewhat esoteric construction, but it does come up occasionally: by this time next year, i will have made a million dollars.

The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics (WIKIPEDIA - Schrodinger's cat) states that all of the possible outcomes of an experiment - even if contradictory - are true until the outcome is observed. This is a purely theoretical thought experiment, since it can only be validated by observation and it's not possible to observe an experiment before it has been observed. Thank you, Bohr and Heisenberg, for being such jackoffs.

Which brings me to the point I was trying to make: health insurance. We signed up for Healthy NY and our coverage took effect 1 August. We were shuffling around finances at the time, and missed our first bill. We received a notice postmarked 10 September saying that they'd cancelled our coverage effective 1 Sept, and if we wanted to continue coverage we'd have to pay for coverage received and prepay one month's worth. I sent the payment off, but upon further inspection I thought, damn this is a lot of money. Instead of the two months' payment I had expected [August, the payment we missed, and October, the prepayment], it was for three months. So I called.

Me: Am I covered?
Univera: ...no.
Z: OK, I sent my payment 27 Sept. How long will that take to process?
U: Couple days, don't worry about it. Any other questions?
Z: Yeah, so I [explain the situation]. August and October I understand, but where does this third month come in?
U: That's for September.
Z: OK, but I got a letter saying that I wasn't covered in September.
U: Because you didn't pay.
Z: Right. So what am I paying for?
U: August, September and October.
Z: What about this letter I got?
U: When your payment goes through, you will have been covered for September.
Z: Woah, hold on. When I was told I didn't have insurance I canceled my doctors appointments. [Not true but it could be.]
U: We would have covered them.
Z: But you dropped my coverage.
U: We would have covered them once the payment went through.
Z: OK. So let's say I broke my leg today.
U: You are not covered, but once your payment goes through you will have been covered.
Z: So am I covered today or not?
U: You are not covered for today. But once your payment goes through you will have been covered for today.
Z: I don't understand. Was I covered in September or not?
U: You are not yet covered for September, but once we receive your payment you will have been covered.
Z: So this letter I got ... was I actually dropped or not?

And I basically just talked in circles for fifteen minutes with two separate customer service representatives until we reached an agreement: that I am completely incapable of understanding my own health insurance coverage.



- Z

Thank you, Wikiquote, for providing this afternoon's waste of time!

- Z

"Cat and Girl" is a different kind of awesome.

- Z

Two very confused bloggers arrived promptly at 6pm. 'Are we in the right place?' Two tables sat reserved and unused in the corner of someone else's event. Middle-aged Cheektowagans, many of whom had never heard the word 'blog' before, eyed the empty chairs. 'Can we take these?' 'You'll have to find the person in charge.' 'Who's that?' Who indeed?

Roll call: Mr. and Mrs. Punaro were there, and also seemed to be the only people who knew what was going on. We were told Michael Rebmann was 'here somewhere, I think ...'

Meanwhile (e:strip) managed to send a full delegation on short notice [(e:dragonlady7) (e:james) (e:jim) (e:libertad) (e:metalpeter) (e:mike) (e:paul) (e:terry) (e:zobar)] and then hauled our asses out to Youngstown for another (e:strip) event [+ (e:theecarey) (e:vincent)]. I filed a motion with (e:paul) to change motto to '(e:strip) - the blogging community that organizes events ... and then goes to them.'

- Z

_______________
xpost:

Work just bought me an iPhone. No really, WTF?

- Z

This is what you get when you start a company, name it something completely idiotic like AMP'D Mobile, and convince them that you're so awesome they need to buy you a Ferrari: Guess what! You've wasted all your fucking money and now you've got to peddle your ass for nickels! This is a complete inventory of everything they chose to spend their company's money on, and they have to sell it all now that they've [predictably] gone out of business. Looking through this stuff is almost anthropological. Christ, it's like the .com bust never happened.

LOT 352: 1997 FERRARI 550M RED/TAN 19,000 MILES, MANUALS, TOOLKIT, VIN#ZFFZR491A1V0109057, CA PLATE 5K0G100 - CALIFORNIA CAR

LOT 353: 2006 FORD F350 DUALLY KING RANCH EDITION 14,500 MILES, V8 6.0L TURBO DIESEL, 4WD VIN# 1FTWW33P06EC47159, NEVADA REGISTRATION

LOT 547A: HUMAN TOUCH BLACK MASSAGE CHAIR WITH OTTOMAN

LOTS 629-632: CPU [?]

LOT 1002: APPLE 30in HD CINEMA DISPLAY 81083

LOT 1196: BGW 1100 POWERED SUBWOOFER

LOTS 1238-1241: [Exceedingly cool classic arcade games]

LOTS 1242-1244: ROCKET

LOT 1245: FOOSEBALL TABLE

LOT 1246: BASKET BALL HOOP

LOT 1385: 20in RIMS


Part 2: I guess the Internet finally killed somebody.


- Z

1: My ISP sold my DSL account to EarthLink when they got out of the business. Tech Support said they were sending me a new modem, but it is nowhere in sight. Today was our sixth day without tubes, and things were getting a little tense. I finally h4x0r3d my b0x3n and now it tells me "Line Status: SHOWTIME." That is a good thing.

2: One of my coworkers lived across the street from these girls [NSFW]. She says they're total bitches.
2a: Anyone you know on here? It's tough to tell, they've got some stuff on their faces.
2b: No offense to all yall, but Buffalo is not exactly the place I would start looking for hot porno chicks.

That is all!

- Z

Emergency Bulletin! Jon Spencer at Mohawk Place next Tuesday

Now on with our regularly-scheduled post:

OK, I was discussing cootie catchers/fortune tellers with (e:dragonlady7). She said she didn't know how to make one, so I Googled it. It is not surprising to me that I found instructions for making a cootie catcher on the Internet. You may follow the link but the URL itself is more interesting than the page.

girlpower.gov/girlarea/gamespuz/cootiecatcher.htm

How wrong is this URL? Let me count the ways:

1: There are instructions on a US Government [.gov] website for making a cootie catcher.

2: There is a website called girlpower.gov at all.

3: I just visited a website's girl area.

Now I feel dirty.

- Z

1: Facebook is quite addictive

2: Usually I stay away from politics, but here's something to chew on.

Both major political parties have diverse, complex, and often contradictory platforms that go far beyond the simplistic conservative/liberal split. What is interesting is how they take sides when an issue is not addressed by the traditional party platform.

To whit: the electoral college. Republicans typically support it, and Democrats typically oppose it. Both sides can come up with long lists of lofty ideals that support/oppose it, but what it comes down to for both sides is that the electoral college elected a Republican twice in a row.

In the electoral college, most states use the Winner Takes All method but two states [Maine (D x4) and Nebraska (R x5)] use an alternate approach that arguably gives better direct representation. The Democratic Party proposed switching Colorado (R x9) to the new system in 2004, and failed.

Now it seems Republicans are all about more direct representation in the electoral college, but only in California (D x55). And who is defending the status quo? Yeah, the Democrats.

Conclusion: Only losers want election reform, but only the winners have the power to do it.

- Z

Item! It feels nice to be wanted. More details later, or not.

Item! My buddy and his wife ended up in Cancun this weekend. I can only hope they got a hurricane-season discount. They ended up 'finding' plane tickets out at $600 a pop, which was still better than sticking around at the hotel that made no evacuation plans and had been wiped out by another hurricane a couple years ago.

Item! (e:dragonlady7) was out of town this weekend so I got some quality fucking-off done. I did some housework but more importantly I totally found the best article on Wikipedia: (WIKIPEDIA - Voynich manuscript). This is the coolest fucking thing, and it creeps the shit out of me.

Item! What do you do with a bored Norwegian in Buffalo? Take him to the Pirate Festival for "Adult Night!" I can't really explain why.

- Z