For some reason, Mr. Blog Master won't let me put a title on my new post. Most of the time I don't mind if machines try to take over the world, but occasionally I like to pretend that people are in charge.

One of my favorite examples of "the machine made me do it" involves computers--that ubiquitous electronic device that the world has so fondly embraced and with which we all have a love/hate relationship. How often do we hear the excuse, usually from Customer Service (where there is no service and they don't care if we're the customer because there are a jillion more of us if one of us becomes disgruntled and quits) that the computers are a) slow today, b) on the Fritz (who the heck is this Fritz that always gets blamed for things going haywire or short-circuiting?), c) being revamped or d) re-installed or e) replaced (could we ask for some of the No-Customer-Service reps to be replaced?) or f) de-bugged (does anyone in the Anti-Defamation League care about the slanderous use of innocent little "bugs" whenever there is a problem--probably created by some back-of-the-classroom geeker thinking that every end user has a ginormous brain like his?). Well, I think it's time we all united behind our computers and defended them against the -10 IQ/Personality Disadvantaged Customer Reps who take their names in vain because that's what their little "What to Say To A Person Pretending to Be a Customer" book tells them to say. And you can forget about any thought that the pre-recorded statement that your phone call might be recorded for "quality" purposes is true--ha! or that, after you've been on hold long enough to read War and Peace three times, you are "important to us". "Us" is out to lunch, taking a long break or painting her toenails. I think Mac and Hew and Dell need to step up to the plate and declare their innocence and remind us all that computers didn't invent themselves. They don't program themselves and they certainly don't feed themselves corrupt data. Nope. We have hummin' beans who do this and then lie like a carpet about whose responsibility their technicals snafus are.

I guess Mr. Blog Master just got tired of all the blame-gaming and decided tonight that he would take back a little bit of the power. So my post shall go nameless, unless I can trick a title into appearing when I edit this piece. If not, then the title will be a big silent nothing...the kind of sound you hear when you ask the Customer Service rep for help.