The Inner-workings of the Merc Mind

The personal blog of RickMacMerc

Kevin Smith will not go gentle from that good flight. [NC-17]

Feb 13

Posted by RickMacMerc in Geek Courage, Geek Faith, Geek Justice, Geek Pride, Geek Wrath, Public Service Announcement, Social Networking, Twitter | No Comments

The following is a series of tweets issued by writer/director Kevin Smith earlier today after being removed from a Southwest Airlines jet due to his weight shortly after having been seated. Keep in mind, these messages went out to Mr. Smith’s 1,637,505 Twitter followers as the events unfolded. Be warned, the language is strong1 . Lesson to be learned: the age of treating customers (any customers) unfairly has come to an end—the injustices you have whispered to someone behind closed doors will be tweeted (and retweeted) from the rooftops—everybody has a platform.2

Dear @SouthwestAir – I know I’m fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?

Dear @SouthwestAir, I flew out in one seat, but right after issuing me a standby ticket, Oakland Southwest attendant Suzanne (wouldn’t give

last name) told me Captain Leysath deemed me a “safety risk”. Again: I’m way fat… But I’m not THERE just yet. But if I am, why wait til my

bag is up, and I’m seated WITH ARM RESTS DOWN. In front of a packed plane with a bunch of folks who’d already I.d.ed me as “Silent Bob.”

So, @SouthwestAir, go fuck yourself. I broke no regulation, offered no “safety risk” (what, was I gonna roll on a fellow passenger?). I was

wrongly ejected from the flight (even Suzanne eventually agreed). And fuck your apologetic $100 voucher, @SouthwestAir. Thank God I don’t

embarrass easily (bless you, JERSEY GIRL training). But I don’t sulk off either: so everyday, some new fuck-you Tweets for @SouthwestAir.

Wanna tell me I’m too wide for the sky? Totally cool. But fair warning, folks: IF YOU LOOK LIKE ME, YOU MAY BE EJECTED FROM @SOUTHWESTAIR.

Via @byrneification “save the anger for SModcast” Believe it, Son. @SouthwestAir? You fucked with the wrong sedentary processed-foods eater!

(1/2) @pigz “I know several people bigger then u who have flown on other airlines” I saw someone bigger than me on THAT flight! But I wasn’t

(2/2) about to throw a fellow Fatty under the plane as I’m being profiled. But he & I made eye contact, & he was like “Please don’t tell…”

Dear @SouthwestAir, I’m on another one of your planes, safely seated & buckled-in again, waiting to be dragged off in front of the normies.

And, hey? @SouthwestAir? I didn’t even need a seat belt extender to buckle up. Somehow, that shit fit over my “safety concern”-creating gut.

Via @bogo_lode “Maybe you should organize a boycott” A boycott of one. This is my last Southwest flight. Hopefully by choice.

Hey @SouthwestAir! Look how fat I am on your plane! Quick! Throw me off! http://twitpic.com/1340gw

Hey @SouthwestAir! Sometimes, the arm rests are up because THE PEOPLE SITTING THERE ALREADY PUT THEM UP; NOT BECAUSE THEY “CAN’T GO DOWN.”

The @SouthwestAir Diet. How it works: you’re publicly shamed into a slimmer figure. Crying the weight right off has never been easier!

Via @mmm_cereal “my dad’s bigger than you & flies southwest all the time. some1 just wanted to say they were a dick to a celeb” Celeb? Me?!

Hey @SouthwestAir! I’ve landed in Burbank. Don’t worry: wall of the plane was opened & I was airlifted out while Richard Simmons supervised.

(1/2) Hey @SouthwestAir? Fuck making it right for me just ’cause I have a platform. I sat next to a big girl who was chastised for not buy-

(2/2) ing an extra ticket because “all passengers deserve their space.” Fucking flight wasn’t even full! Fuck your size-ist policy. Rude…

Southwest Airlines’ tweeter has kept up with Kevin, and here are a few of the posts found at @SouthwestAir:

@ThatKevinSmith hey Kevin! I’m so sorry for your experience tonight! Hopefully we can make things right, please follow so we may DM!

Hey folks – trust me, I saw the tweets from @ThatKevinSmith I’ll get all the details and handle accordingly! Thanks for your concerns!

@jdickey no, unfortunately…this is the real deal. Silent Bob is striking back.

I read every single tweet that comes into this account, and take every tweet seriously. We’ll handle @thatkevinsmith issue asap.

I’ve read the tweets all night from @thatkevinsmith – He’ll be getting a call at home from our Customer Relations VP tonight.

I have every confidence that this situation will work out amicably but it does go to show you how fast a bad customer service move can do serious damage with the connectivity of social networking…wildfire.

  1. but tame by Kevin Smith standards [↩]
  2. and if they don’t, they probably know somebody who does [↩]

Why I’m excited about the Apple iPad …and why I bought a Kindle DX

Jan 31

Posted by RickMacMerc in Geek Courage, Geek Faith, Geek Hope, Geek Lust, Geek Pride, Stuff I Dig | 1 Comment

Lately, I have become a bit of a voracious reader; keeping a stack of almost thirty books on the go at a time. I’m not bragging. I actually think I may have a bit of a problem. But that’s fodder for another post.

Anyway.

I’ve been dying for a book reading device that would make my books easier to bring with me and access on the go. I love to read at my local Starbucks but don’t like to stick to just one book and bringing a stack around with me makes the baristas compelled to tell me that I’m not permitted to stay quite that long. “We do close, you know!”

So a book reader was in order, but with all the buzz about the upcoming Apple tablet announcement, I thought it prudent to wait until January 27th to make my decision. That evening, after reading the announcement coverage, I ordered an Amazon Kindle DX, it arrived less than 2 days later and I couldn’t be happier with it.

Unlike the Apple iPad, it is not backlit or glossy which is a huge plus for book reading in my opinion. I look at a backlit LCD all day at work and my eyes get strained. I need a light to read by, but I don’t need it to be emanating from the device. The Kindle also offers wireless access via Amazon’s global Whispernet as part of the purchase of the device—not something else I have to add to my already bloated cellular bill. That alone is magic. And the Kindle, being an Amazon product, has access to a wide selection of titles to read.1

You might assume from this that I’m not a big fan of the Apple iPad. Well, you’re right. At the moment, I’m not.

But, in the case of the iPad, the “one more thing…” that was once a giddily anticipated staple of Steve Jobs’ keynote addresses is a powerful one. The one more thing here is the same thing that made the iPhone so compelling. It’s not the touch screen, the accelerometer, the wifi or 3G access…it’s all of those things plus one very powerful component whose impact cannot be underestimated…

…developers.

We have only seen the iPad with a handful of desktop-style apps…ones that we already have on our iPhones and iPod touches…expanded and made somewhat more glorious on the bigger screen. And, in spite of how Mr. Jobs said it as if we were about to have our eyes opened to a new world, we already know what it’s like to have the internet in our hands.2 But what we haven’t seen is what the iPad can do in the hands of the enormous and shockingly talented community of developers Apple has attracted.

I saw the announcement on January 27th hoping to see something that would solve the logistical problems of my reading addiction and was disappointed. That is not to say that I won’t be getting an Apple iPad. I fear that may by unavoidable. I might be compelled to, not by Steve Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field, but by the possibilities for this device as seen through the talented and innovative minds of what will no doubt be a formidable Apple iPad developer army.

You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

  1. the only problem here is that 40% of my reading is rather obscure—the very “long tail” that has made Amazon so successful—and many of those titles are not yet available for the Kindle…still, there’s lots to choose from [↩]
  2. Heck, with the iPhone, I know what it’s like to have the internet in my pants! [↩]

Starting out on Twitter

Dec 11

Posted by RickMacMerc in Social Networking, Twitter | 3 Comments

I hadn’t seen @loadedlola in about a month and, when I last saw her, I had persuaded her to look into Twitter. Obviously she did or I wouldn’t be able to link her page here, but she posted only 5 times and then drifted away. I think that’s probably pretty common. When I saw her today, I asked her about it.

She explained that no one she knows is on Twitter and she doesn’t really watch TV or follow celebrities, so she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. That got me to thinking. I see this as my fault; I pushed her to the gates of Twitter and expected that she’d be able to find its awesomeness on her own without a map or any guidance. How soon I forgot how I got started with Twitter.

So what should someone like @loadedlola do when no one (beside me) is following her and she really isn’t all that interested in what @TaylorSWift13 wore on her recent flight?

My first answer is,

“There are celebrities, and there are celebrities.”

There are people like @AlySSa_miLAno1 who are famous from TV and movies—those are the people the paparazzi stalk around Hollywood. But every field of endeavor has its own celebrities who are well known and loved by the others in their category, but are not household names anywhere else. I follow bloggers, artists, scientists, magicians, fictional characters, cartoonists, software developers, journalists, and all kinds of other types of celebrities. Try to think of the heroes of your favorite subject. There’s a good chance many of these people are probably on Twitter too—search for their names—find them—follow them.

Once you find a few interesting people to follow, be patient, watch to see who they @mention and have a look at each of their follow lists. You’ll want to read these with a mind to follow more people. You’re following your heroes; now follow your hero’s heroes. Soon you’ll have quite an impressive collection of people whose tweets will enrich your Twitter experience by tailoring its content to your interests. You don’t have to read every post like an email in your inbox that requires a response before your life can be complete. Relax and enjoy what you do read and let the rest slide by. This a place where you may have that “a ha” moment and have an inkling of why Twitter is so meaningful to people.

But how do you get more people to follow you? It’s all fun reading about what other people are doing and thinking, but when do you get a chance to let your voice be heard? How do you get to the place where you can tweet out something profound and 5 people will retweet it and another 7 or so will @mention you in reply?

For this I have another truism:

“Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”

In other words, spend some time retweeting and @mentioning the people you follow when they post something worthy of comment.

If you consider the word “remarkable,” it means exactly what it should mean; something or someone worthy of mention. When someone you follow says something remarkable, make a remark and make sure you format the tweet so that you include their @username or that you format your retweet properly. Also, if someone you follow is having a problem and needs an answer to a question they’ve tweeted out, try to answer it. @mentions and retweets are gold on Twitter and will mean a lot to the person you honor with them.

Once you’ve spend some time giving to your community in the form of conversational participation, @mentions and retweets, you will become well known within that circle and people will begin to follow you because you’ve proven to be remarkable yourself.

  1. @AlySSa_miLAno is an awesome Twitter citizen by the way [↩]

Bad Behavior has blocked 203 access attempts in the last 7 days.