Today's plot from the Secret Masters

This is one of our special people, by which I mean someone who calls up every 6-8 months and immediately rants about how shitty our service is and why don't we do anything about it and he has constant problems for TWO WEEKS (but never has answer as to why he did not call sooner, when they first manifested). And every single time, it's something on his end, like mistyping his password. But of course every time, part of the rant is how everything is our fault.

But this time was different. This was magical.

Problem: he had one connection today...at least if we can believe his report, which is not usually the case, but let us be generous...where I could see he'd successfully authenticated to RADIUS, but for whatever reason the PPP connection did not negotiate. Somewhat unusual these days, but it happens.

His hypothesis?

Someone is crouching in his building intercepting traffic for him across his phone line.

And that they listen in when he calls us to complain, and stop messing with it, because his connection always starts working after he calls tech support.

He's a doctor, mind you. So he must be right.

I pointed out repeatedly that it was much more likely to be an instability in his connection--bad phone wiring (especially with his history of disconnects etc.), modem problem, something of that ilk. But that if he had some reason to suspect that someone was tampering with his phone line...which I managed to say sans Dripping With Sarcasm; ph34r my mad customer service sk1llz...he really needed to discuss that with Verizon.

This generated a furious rant about how we don't take our customer security seriously and he was going to cancel Right Now!!1! To which our answer involves doors and asses, except that he had just paid for a year, so enter another series of rants, lies, and threats dumped on the skull of accounting, yap yap yap yap, which I was forced to listen in on due to the nature of our calling system. I confess, hearing the outright falsehoods he was telling them was surprisingly entertaining, in that "You are so full of crap and won't you feel like a tard when you realize the people you were talking to before can still hear you?" kind of way.

More importantly: Judas Priest concert report

Let me get something out of the way first...

OMFG THEY PLAYED "DIAMONDS AND RUST" OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

OK. So this was at the PNCBank Arts Center, nee' the Garden State Arts Center according to zombywoof, in some random damn Jersey town but you can call it Exit 116 off the Parkway. It's one of those open-air amphitheaters with assigned seating under a pavilion, and then cheap lawn seats where you sit wherever there's room to plant your ass. I do like those, and have many a happy memory of shows at Blossom Music Center. But I digress.

Due to being slow on the uptake, we only had lawn seats, but that's okay. The weather was lovely, or at least it was by evening (hot shitty day! Not great for sitting in traffic). The opening act was Queensryche, so we also didn't have to worry or care about being late, which was nice. Don't ask me a thing about their show, 'cos I got nothin', other than the fact that they didn't seem to have much gift for working the crowd. That is, their front man was trying really hard to Pump You Up and whatall, lots of generic Metal Fans Unite blather, but it was much effort to little effect. Compare this to Priest, where all Rob Halford has to do is raise a hand and cock his head, and the crowd goes apeshit... Anyways, we had a pleasant lying out on on a grassy plot talking & sharing quality time while metal played in the background, and that was fine.

Priest went on at about 9:30, opening with Hellion/Electric Eye (YES YES YES YES!). Let's see if I can remember the rest: Metal Gods, Riding On The Wind?, Touch of Evil, two songs off the new album (one of which is getting airplay; both of which I liked), Breaking the Law, some rock anthem I didn't recognize, Diamonds and Rust (OMG OMG OMG), another new one, Turbo Lover, Hellrider, Beyond the Realms of Death (we did not expect that!), Victim of Changes (or that), Exciter, Painkiller, Hell Bent for Leather, Living After Midnight, and You've Got Another Thing Coming.

It was over way way too soon. I was a little sad that we didn't get Green Manalishi, but not as who should say disappointed, not with all the other treats. Ended with a completely raw throat that is still not quite in order, a horribly sore neck from headbanging, and drove much too fast the rest of the way down shore to Beth's parents' place for the sewing weekend.

Wanna go again!