*F-BOMB ALERT* – CONTAINS (more) COARSE LANGUAGE (than usual)

Usually I begin a post with a topic in mind and end up digressing all over the place, but today I thought I’d try something different:  I’m going to begin with the digression and (hopefully) end up on topic.

…So the other day I stumbled across a movie recommendation for Cloudburst, starring Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker. I rarely watch TV or movies, but the trailer looked good and I was in the mood for a movie. Better yet, it was available on Netflix.

And I loved it! The plot was a little thin and parts of it were preposterously unrealistic, but I didn’t care. The characters were irresistible, the acting was brilliant, and the dialogue left me rolling on the floor.

(Warning: Cloudburst contains geriatric lesbian kisses, lots of coarse language, and full-frontal male nudity.)

(P.S. to the warning: Naked men look funny when they run: flap-flap-flap-flap-flap-flap-flap…)

Sorry, where was I?

Oh, right; Netflix. I’ll get to the point now.

A few days later I got an ad for the upcoming Broadway shows here in Calgary. I enjoy the live shows, but they’re really expensive and it’s always a pain in the ass to get there, get parked, and then escape the madness of the parking lot after the show.

So, emboldened by my Netflix success, I decided to check for movie versions of the shows that were being offered. The first show was Kinky Boots (I admit I searched the title with trepidation – there are so many ways that could go wrong). But Netflix returned this:

Disappointed, I searched for Newsies:

The search results were so far off-base I couldn’t even figure out what tenuous connection Netflix thought they’d found. The only commonality I could spot was one vowel and one consonant.

The whole experience reminded me of how most automated systems totally miss the mark. The worst culprits are phone menu systems. For a while, our local phone provider’s system was so utterly useless that I was usually swearing a blue streak before I even made it to the third menu level. I dream of the day when computer systems develop the ability to identify what I’m saying even if it’s not one of the preset menu items:

“You said, ‘Fuck you, you pissant inanimate piece of ratshit’. I think you’re trying to select the ‘Fuck you’ menu item. Please choose from the following options: ‘In the kitchen with a candlestick’, ‘In the ballroom with a lead pipe’, ‘In the lounge with a pipe wrench’…”

Automated support systems aren’t much better. A while ago I was having email problems so I went to my web host’s page and started a service ticket with the subject line ‘Cannot send or receive email’. I jumped through all the usual flaming hoops and filled in every irrelevant blank they required including my shoe size and the date of my last mammogram, then optimistically clicked ‘Submit’.

Moments later, the following message appeared on the screen: “Thank you for submitting your support ticket. You will receive a response from our team via email.”

In the immortal words of Maxwell Smart: “Missed it by that much!”