I may return to my original title suggestion from my dear old dad, but, for now the effort hardly seems worth it. However, he was kind enough to send in another title in the meantime. Thanks, Pop. Courtesy of Randy Bear: 17 Minutes of Hell.

Still pluggin' away...

posted by Jeremy Bear 2:22 AM

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Friday, October 18, 2002

It's official. It came in yesterday's mail.

And I guess that's it. I'm a resident and driver in the great state of California. And, aside from my surprise at what a fat head I apparently have, I guess the picture could have turned out far worse. The night before, I'd been Henny-Pennying until the wee hours about the disappearance of my friend Stacie, and I was nearly too tired to go to the DMV to take the test. But, that's neither here nor there.

Did you know that in California, they never take your license picture ever again, unless you specifically request it? That's the rumor, anyhow. It's a bit scary. Will I someday be an 80-year-old West Coast codger with this old thing still in my wallet?

"Do you know how fast you were going back there, sir? License and registration, please."

"Here you go, officer. Sorry, I guess I was in a rush to get to shuffleboard practice."

"Hhh. 'Mr. Bear.' When was this picture taken, sir? Are you sure this is you?"

"Oh, yes. That was... ah me... that was taken back in aught-two, I believe. When the Angels were a good team..."
...

Some very satisfactory news, by the way. As you may remember, I've had ongoing battles with my hosting company, Seanic, which has been a burning frustration for me. Finally, during a recent 2-day downtime of my site, I became outraged enough to send them a series of frustrated notes, demanding answers... after all, I do 90% of my client work through my website. I rely on it to email, to transfer work files, to advertise myself... it's the primary tool of my business. So, I wrote them to ask how they planned on compensate me for the downtime (since they do advertise, as I've mentioned in the past "guaranteed" 99.9% uptime). No response. Soon after, my website was down once again for another entire day. Enough was enough, so I wrote them a little note:

My website and email have been down all day. I reiterated to you several times how detrimental it is to my business when this is the case. I've also asked you how you can guarantee 99.9% uptime and consistently fail to deliver.

My patience is at an end. Fix these issues and answer my questions. If not, I fully intend on taking legal action.

Jeremy Bear

I hate being the lawyer-threatening prick, but when my bread n butter are on the line, what else could I do. Their reply:

Hi Jeremy Bear,

Our sincere appologies for the downtime, service has been resumed about 2 hours ago. The downtime was totally unscheduled and only affected the server web3.seanic.net (the server your account is on). All other servers were not affected by this downtime. We understand the importance of having a good uptime as we are also a online based business. We are in the process of upgrading our systems to prevent such problems in the future.

Do be assured that we are doing our best to maintain the best possible uptime.

Best Regards,
Raymond T,
Support@Seanic.net

Needless to say, this was not the response I'd hoped for. My reply:

None of this changes the fact that you've failed to live up to your advertised guarantee. I've asked before and I'll ask again: how do you plan on compensating me for the time I've lost because of your failure to meet the standards of your guarantee?

Jeremy Bear

And their reply:

Hi Jeremy Bear,

We apology for the inconvenience caused. We could extend 5 days of your hosting account to
compensate. Kindly confirm if you are fine with the compensation.

5 days of hosting? I was confused. I replied:

I'm not sure what you're saying. Does this mean that my year-long hosting account is good for 370 days instead of 365?

Jeremy Bear

Their response:

Yes, this is what me meant. Kindly confirm if you are fine with the compensation. Thank you.

Now, I'll admit that I pay next to nothing for hosting. While the service may be subpar, the price is terrific. But, this offer? Essentially, they were offering me 64 cents worth of free service. 64 cents! My blood began to boil. I remembered, however, that an ongoing problem I've faced recently is server space. The files I'm giving to clients are just too darn big and I don't have the room on my site. However, at $1.50 a MB, that space adds up quickly. I decided to shoot the moon:

5 extra days of hosting? A value of approximately 64 cents? No, I am not fine with this compensation. It's difficult to pinpoint, financially, how much my business has suffered in the days that my hosting was down, but I think it's safe to say that the damage was considerably more than 64 cents.

Is this what you meant by your term "guarantee"? As in "we guarantee you 99.9% uptime or we'll give you 64 cents worth of hosting absolutely free"...? If so, this is very disconcerting.

A need that I do have, which may work for me in terms of compensation, is added server space. If , for example, I were to receive an extra 70MB of storage, I can honestly say that I'd be content to let the matter rest. Your thoughts?

Jeremy Bear

Assuming that they'd shrug this off and it would be time for me to start looking for a new hosting company, I waited for a day or two. Finally, a response:

We would come to compensate 50MB for you. Kindly confirm if you wish to claim it.

Sounded reasonable. $75 beats 64 cents in my book. And it solves a few problems. So, yahoo, finally I've got a little closure on this whole deal. I told them this morning that that would be fine. So, that's all good.
...

Finally, congratulations to Kristie Bryant, a friend in Canton, OH. She is now officially engaged to her boyfriend of the past 3.5 years. Good luck Dan and Kristie. Your livin'-in-sin days will soon be over.
...

Oop, and a PS... I've been dreadful about the scripts. Believe it or not, my latest one is about 1/2way done (title suggestion by my Dad, actually) and it's already been through 3 drafts. No, this is not typical. For some reason, I just keep starting over with it. Sorry, Dad. Sorry, world.

And, breaking my personal rule, I'm using another suggestion from the same person. Haven't had the nerve to post it because I was afraid that folks whose titles I've thusfar neglected would be offended. But, sorry, I burned out this one in about 10 minutes as soon as I read the title. It was just that inspiring. So, congratulations, Ben Bays, on being the first repeat performer in the scripts section. Go read it: It's a Hoot if You Don't

And, that really really is all for now.

Phew.

posted by Jeremy Bear 10:27 AM

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Wednesday, October 16, 2002

Big fun!

Only time for a quick post, here... just in case you missed it on the homepage, I went to considerable pains to add a fun little ditty to the site recently... a "Behind the Scenes" feature. Q: How does that Jeremy Bear produce the artwork the world has come to know and love? A: Who cares?! But, hopefully you will after checking out my little How-To tutorial. Just clickety-click the link: Behind the Scenes - Case Study: The Drunken Monkey.

Enjoy and wish me luck! (It'll all make sense soon enough... )

posted by Jeremy Bear 11:28 AM

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Tuesday, October 15, 2002

Welcome to another edition of The JeremyBear.com Mailbox!

The latest batch of emails are in! Let's get to 'em...

Dave Reinke of Worthington, OH writes:

...How giddy I became today as I checked your site to find my best friend (and wife's) script idea "The Trouble with Sleeves". I can't wait 'til she gets online to view and experience the thrill of an idea become reality.

...I must add that this idea was strictly [my wife Renee's] and hers alone. Having been published in other areas, I couldn't even consider taking any of her glory from her and respectfully request that she be given full credit for her idea. It only seems fair. Thank you for considering this request. It could only help my chances of a little "I've been published" action that I know you can appreciate...(nudge and a wink).

Consider it done, tiger! Rrrreaow! Anything to get you those conjugal privileges you so richly deserve. As of now, Renee has been fully credited and the only thing you've been credited with is this letter.

See what wonderful things can happen when you submit a script? It's the guarantee we're famous for... JeremyBear.com: Doing Our Part to Get You Laid.

Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for this edition of the JeremyBear.com mailbox. Remember to stay safe and keep your head up!

posted by Jeremy Bear 10:21 PM

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Sunday, October 13, 2002

To congratulate me on my first day of work, Carey bought me the latest Beck CD: Sea Change. It's wonderful. The track 'Lost Cause' is worth the price of admission alone. I'm listening to it now, in fact.
...

Wonderful couple of days at Binary Pulse. I hope to be there for a very long time. It's great to connect with coworkers and begin projects so early in the game.
...

However, today was the return of an old frustration... we're all up and good to go now, but my site was down for the majority of the day. My patience with my host is at an end. I really don't want to have to be a hard-assed loser with them and threaten with lawyers and all that nonsense, but it seems that's what it's come to. Regular apologies aren't cutting it for me anymore, I need consistent uptime.

Hrrr...

posted by Jeremy Bear 1:13 AM

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