But as a sports fan, I’ve always wanted to be able to celebrate my birthday in conjunction with one of my favorite teams.  Baseball fans with summer birthdays have incredible good fortune in this regard; they have warm weather, the beautiful ballpark, lots of sunlight and all that goes with it.  I, on the other hand, have my abusive spouse-like football team, the Chicago Bears, to torture me.

I thought back upon it, and I couldn’t recall if the Bears had ever won a game on my birthday.  I remember a party on my golden birthday in 1990 where the Bears lost to the Washington Redskins.  So I did some research, and discovered that, lo and behold, my favorite team had never gifted me a victory on my birthday.  Not only that, in the four instances during my lifetime that they’ve played on December 9th, they’ve performed especially hideously on that date.  Let’s have a look:

1984: my third birthday

The beloved achieved their highest offensive output in any of the December 9th games, scoring 14 points against the hated Green Bay Packers.  Starting quarterback Rusty Lisch – nope, I’ve never heard of him either – threw no touchdowns and an interception in the 20-14 loss.  But noteworthy was Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton’s touchdown pass to Matt Suhey, which was – disturbingly – the first of only two passing touchdowns the Bears have mustered on my birthday to date.  That’s correct: four games, two passing touchdowns, one of which was by a running back.  Wow.

1990: my ninth birthday

Quarterback Jim Harbaugh led an explosive Chicago scoring attack to three Kevin Butler field goals.  Redskins quarterback Mark Rypien desperately attempted to gift myself and my Bears the victory by throwing a stunning five interceptions, but Harbaugh’s own pair of misfires ultimately sealed our fate in a 10-9 nail biter.  Boy, that sucked.

2001: my twentieth birthday

It took eleven years for the calendar to align with the schedule and allow the Bears another crack at breaking the hex of my birthday.  And let’s face it, if there was an appropriate decade in team history to skip, it was the 1990s.  After all, they’d compiled a 70-98 record following the ‘90 game through the 2000 season, the odds were well stacked against me during those lean years.

But if ever there was a year they could do it, 2001 was it.  They came into my 20th birthday with a record of 9-2, the surprise Cinderella team of the entire NFL (well, one of them… the other one had Tom Brady).  The Bears had this incredible streak of luck.  They won back to back games where safety Mike Brown returned interceptions for touchdowns in overtime.  Hell, their quarterback had the same name as my best friend!  How could this team let me down?

The game was a rematch against one of only two teams that had beaten the Bears that year, the loathsome Green Bay Packers.  Quarterback Jim Miller threw for… an interception.  The Bears lost to Brett Favre and the Packers, 17-7.  The lone score came on a run by rookie running back Anthony Thomas.  The Bears won their next four games that year and went into the playoffs at 13-3, where Donovan McNabb and the Philadelphia Eagles promptly disposed of them in the final game played in old Soldier Field.  The bottle of Jack Daniels I followed that game with had no chance.  Neither did the futon I reupholstered that night.

2002: my twenty-first birthday.

In retrospect, this would’ve been a good game to go to.  A jaunt down to Miam in December for my 21st?  Take in a Bears-Dolphins game?  What could be bad about that?  Nothing… except for the game itself.  The Bears achieved what I thought was impossible that Monday night: putting on their worst performance my birthday had ever seen.

Chicago had three quarterbacks on the roster that day, and all three of them played… and played badly.  Miller completed three passes for nine yards – and an interception – before being carted mercifully off the field with an injury.  Chris Chandler heated it up for 86 yards on 7 completions, but blemished his Unitasian effort by throwing two interceptions of his own.

But wait, there’s more!

After Chandler proved his worth(lessness), coach Dick Jauron put in perhaps the most infamously inept quarterback in Chicago Bears history: Canadian Football League legend Henry Burris.  ”Smilin’ Hank” completed one pass.  Of course, that pass was the lone touchdown thrown by a Chicago Bears quarterback on any of my birthdays.

As you might imagine, the Bears lost to the Dolphins that Monday night, 27-9.  (They were so bad they botched the extra point after Burris’ touchdown.)  Chicago quarterbacks – dig this – completed just 11 of their 32 passes for 101 yards, a touchdown, and three interceptions.

Cumulatively, the Bears are 0-4 on my birthday, and their running backs have thrown as many touchdowns as their quarterbacks, who boast a 1-to-7 touchdown-to-interception ratio.

I can’t even imagine how this is possible.

I mean, it’s not as if they owe it to me to win on my birthday.  But for God’s sake, it’s also the birthday of the greatest linebacker in history, Bears legend Dick Butkus!  Surely if they don’t care for me, they must care for Number 51!

Ehh, maybe not… the day the team retired Butkus’ number 51, they lost 33-6 to Favre and the Packers.

Happy birthday, Mr. Butkus.  Happy birthday to both of us.

DARK LORD WAL ‘D’ MART

A fan of the Harry Potter films (I am unwilling to invest the time in the books) from their premiere, it occurred to me that the name “Valdemort” sounded a lot like “Wal-Mart”.  I thought it would be amusing to write a character called the Dark Lord Wal ‘D’ Mart, combining the Potter character with some of the criticisms of the retail giant.

Lo and behold, a Wal-Mart watchdog group did it.  And, naturally, they did it a lot better and funnier than I would have.  There wasn’t any money to be made from this concept anyway, so I don’t feel that badly about missing the boat.

LASER TURNTABLE

As a kid who was always into technology, and always into audio, I was fascinated with how recording and playback devices worked.  I learned how the needle of a turntable worked, and how the sound was created by the physical friction of the needle against the impressions in the vinyl.  I found it ironic that the very method of playing back a record was exactly the activity that would eventually scar the disk and gradually degrade its quality.

When I learned about how a CD player worked – the laser reads millions of strands of tiny binary-like code, and from there, a computer chip decodes the data and distributes it as audio – I thought, why couldn’t a laser do the same thing with a vinyl record?  Why couldn’t it read those impressions in the grooves on the vinyl surface – without the damaging effect that contact with a needle has?  A computer could decode the physical properties of the disk, and records could last forever while still being used.

Contrary to what I originally thought, I’m obviously not the smartest man in the world… because somebody else had the same brilliant idea.

On one hand, I’m pleased that my idea worked.  On the other… DAMN IT!

PODCAST

This is the worst one, and the one that stings the most.  I mean, I had it… then I lost it!

Growing up, I loved radio.  I played radio host as a kid, doing a little show with whatever equipment I could muster in a makeshift studio in my bedroom.  I mimicked my favorite broadcasters, and I was in love with the format.  It was a love that never really went away, and eventually, it became an adult hobby.

In January 2001, I started doing a radio show in my dorm with some of my buddies.  I determined that I could spread the word about this show over the web – which, at that point, was still very much dominated by the dial-up connection.  But I needed a method of distribution of the show, and I did not have the resources to establish a stream or a full-blown website, and limited bandwidth made it unlikely that large audio files would be distributed very easily no matter what method I tried.  So what I did was make the shows available on Napster.  No, not the Napster you see now – corporate owned, iTunes-wannabe garbage.  This was the original, grass-roots, honest-to-God file-swapping Napster.  The Napster that made the record industry take a collective dump in their pants.  THAT Napster.

And as far as I knew – and as far as I still know – my show was the first show to do such a thing: produce for and distribute via peer-to-peer file-sharing.  In other words, I had one of the first podcasts.

Yes, I’ll say it:  I’m the father of the podcast.  Sue me.

I ended up doing it as a hobby for seven years.  By the time I stopped, everyone and their mother had a podcast, and a couple of them had figured out how to make money on them.  That, of course, is not something I was capable of figuring out.

The similarities were staggering: I had an “Ahh, shit!” moment in each instance whereby I forgot to make the payment until the morning after the due date. Both payments were made roughly 12 hours late. Both companies listed an automatic late fee for said transactions of $39.00. And both received “Gee, shucks,” calls from me this evening in an attempt to get the respective late fees refunded.

- Call #1

The first call was to “Big Ass Bank”, with whom I’ve only recently had an account – it was opened in February. I got this card because it has a points program, and I figured if I’m going to use credit cards anyway, why not get a microscopic bit back? Representative gets on the phone. American man. I explain the situation – that I’m a doofus, and the payment slipped my mind until the morning after it was due. I was told flatly – and rather rudely – that “Big Ass Bank” does not refund any fees that are not of the bank’s error.

Well, that’s sweet of them.

Anyway, because I was getting nowhere with this attitude-laden customer service asshole, I hung up and tried my luck again. The second time around, I got an Indian man who was much gentler, but in his broken English explained their policy just as Ass #1 had. I said “Fine, give me to a supervisor, I’m closing my account.”

If haggling with credit card companies is a game of poker, “I’m closing my account” is the ultimate bluff. They have to act as though you actually are closing your account, and if there is any possible thing they can do to keep you, this is when they’ll pull such a miracle out when you were denied at every earlier point. (Hint: works well with cable companies too.)

It is at this point that I get an account specialist on the line – a woman – and explain that I’m closing my account because I’m being treated less than ideally. She begins the standard apology line, but, to my dismay, does not conclude it with an offer to remove the fee! “I’m sorry sir, but that is our policy.”

I’ve now had the policy explained to me by three different people – it’s not as though I don’t understand the concept of a policy, rather it is that I am highly skeptical of their supposed inability to break such a policy.

“Okay,” I said. “Offer me something. What can you offer me to get me to stay? I am obviously dissatisfied, and I am going to close this account unless you can do something for me.”

“Well, sir, I see that you have accumulated X number of rewards points on your account. I can help you redeem those and try and get a little bit of that money back.”

Gee, really? Does that come with a free kick to the balls? is what I want to ask, but I don’t… because at this rate, I could be charged a Kick To The Balls fee. “So you can do nothing for me? A higher limit? A lower rate? Nothing???”

“Well, sir, a limit increase would have to be approved by the credit reporting agencies (WHAT?), and you already have the lowest possible rate (no I don’t).”

In the end, my “Big Ass Bank” card has lived to fight another day due to a technicality – I am a paltry four points shy of a slightly-less-insignificant rewards plateau, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let pride get in the way of a shopping spree!

- Call #2

Have you ever walked out of a restaurant? Have you ever had an experience so piss poor that you wouldn’t even stay and eat the trash meal they were trying to serve you? Isn’t it a relief to walk into the next restaurant, have an ordinary yet wonderful-by-comparison meal? That is what happened to me when I called the next company.

My other primary card is with the local bank that I have my checking account with, and have for a number of years. I’ve had this card account open for several years as well, and, shy of a rewards system, it has treated me better than any other card I’ve ever had (and I’ve had an extraordinary number of them).

I get on the line with a representative and explain my lapse. She is polite – even giggles when I refer to myself as a doofus for paying late – and with nary a hesitation she removes the charge.

Mission accomplished. I’m batting .500, it’s time to retire.

Mr. Wallace,” she says, just prior to the call’s conclusion, “I would also like to let you know that we would be happy to increase your credit line if you should so desire.”

Mr. Wallace likes large credit lines. Mr. Wallace is financially aroused. Mr. Wallace sees his debt-to-credit ratio shrink, his FICO score rise, and it’s as though Mr. Wallace is watching financial porn.

“Yes, that would be splendid!” I glow, as each passing second washes away bruises from the beating at the hands of “Big Ass Bank”. “I appreciate your help!”

I pressed my luck here, too. Asked for a reduced rate, but was rejected. Ah hell, you can’t have it all. But playing ball with me on the late fee and then offering a line increase out of nowhere goes a long way to me resuming my practice of using their card exclusively.

And in five more dollars, my relationship with “Big Ass Bank” will come to an abrupt end thanks to an unfortunate anti-consumer policy. I’ve had dozens of credit cards over the years, and have groveled to plenty of them to get late fees taken down. This is the first time I’ve been flat-out rejected. Should I take that kind of treatment for a pittance reward? I think not.

Loyalty pays. So does doing business with a non-ginormous national bank.

I will preface this by acknowledging how convenient speakerphones are, and that there are specific circumstances under which they’re particularly useful.

HOWEVER!

Unless we’re speaking of a person who lacks arms, no person has ANY REASON WHATSOEVER to use speakerphone to place a phone call to another human being. Period.

Oh, I’m sorry, you feel the need to argue? Fuck you! You’re wrong, ignorant, and full of odor! I’ll dispel your arguments right here!

“Oh but Ryan! I’m driving, and it’s illegal to put the phone to your face in my state!” Tough shit, get your ass off the road before you dial. You have no business making calls while driving – my safety is at risk! If you absolutely CANNOT wait until you arrive at your destination to gab about god-knows-what, get a Bluetooth headset.

“Oh but Ryan! I am trying to (insert other activity here) while on the call!” You self-important assbag! Stop surfing the web. Stop instant messaging. Put down the sandwich. Get your hand off your cock. You may think your time is more valuable than mine, but you’re just kidding yourself. If you’re on a call, ACT LIKE YOU’RE ON A CALL. Give the caller the attention and respect he or she deserves; don’t big shot it… cause you are not a big shot. Sorry.

“Oh but Ryan! I’m deaf, and the normal setting on my cell phone is not loud enough!” TOUGH SHIT, DEAFBAG! Guess what? Time for a hearing aid! And if you don’t like the way that idea sounds, it’s okay – you won’t be able to hear it anyway, dunce. You’re clearly too God damn, incompetent, or otherwise imbecilic to use a phone. So close your eyes and drift silently into the great beyond!

“Oh but Ryan! I’m in a room by myself, interrupting nobody else, and I’m dialing an automated line on which I will not speak to (and therefore disrespect) another human being.” Permission granted. “Oh but Ryan! I just had to stroll into the other room with all those people in it–” HANG UP, YOU PRICK!

In summation, using your speakerphone in a one-on-one conversation is among the more ignorant-ass things you can do to another person. It is a symbol of your lack of respect for the person on the other end, and any person within earshot of your conversation. Phone calls are treated far too casually in modern society. Part of me longs for the days when a phone call was an event; when one was on a call, he or she devoted all of his or her attention to that call. Impractical though that may be, it was a much more respectful practice that has gone the way of the nuclear family, leather football helmets, and non-publicized presidential fellatio (*cough* JFK). I suppose this dream of mine is a pipedream – I mean, if we can’t let a president get blown without terrorizing his family about it for a decade-plus, how the hell can we expect Joe Tool to tone down his obnoxious cellular habits?