A typical Thursday night – for me, anyway – goes like this: (1) Get off work at 11PM. (2) If plans weren’t made, head home. (3) Get out of monkey suit/work uniform. (4) Feed cat. (5) Binge on the Internet ‘til some ungodly hour in the morning. It’s not an ideal or healthy routine, but it’s something…for now.
I decided to throw a wrench in that cycle by adding an old friend to the mix – Netflix. In the Before Time – when movies and streaming were still one option – I was an avid devourer. Nowadays, I leeched off of other people’s Netflix whims. What I missed was a steady supply of anime and Bollywood musicals a mere keystroke away. So, I rejoined via a 30-day free trial.
And that’s where the trouble began.
The day after a night of streaming anime, my cell phone buzzed me awake. At 10AM. I didn’t get to sleep until 7AM. The interruption of slumber was unappreciated. It was from Bank of America, or rather…their fraud department. My account had been locked out due to some recent suspicious activity.
After a two-hour power nap, I logged onto the BofA website to see what they were talking about. Lo and behold, it was locked out. Every time I tried to access my account info, it asked me to click on some fraud website for details. It was all mighty cloak-and-dagger, kinda suspicious, and extra cheesy.
Sidenote: Some of you may be wondering why I even have a Bank of America account. The reason is this – it wasn’t my choice. It’s a credit card I’ve had since college. Before being a BofA card, it was MBNA. Of course, after the ’08 ecomonic crash, that company was gobbled up by the precariously-footed financial giant. Hence the reason why I have no choice but to bank with them. Unlike some of the horror stories, though, I really haven’t had too many problems with them. Well, until recently.
I finally broke down and called the shadowy BofA “fraud protection” number. A perky woman (and, for once, not outsourced Indian) answered. She explained that the suspicious activity on my card was listed as a Netflix charge. Wait…that didn’t sound right. How could my card be charged if I was doing a free trial? Some quizzing on mine and her part ensued to verify the account, then said card was reactivated. However, the website access remained locked.
The next night, I called the regular customer service number to find out why the online option was unavailable to me. They confirmed that my account was indeed active but had no explanation for the website lock. Any attempt to address it couldn’t be made until regular business hours. On Monday. Lastly, the customer service rep informed me that Netflix had tried to charge my card, not once, but three times. Three simultaneous attempts at authorization led to the transaction being labeled as “suspicious”. I could understand that. Why would a “free” trial require three attempted authorizations?!
Groaning, I called Netflix. The barely-pubescent teller confirmed that there were, indeed, three attempted authorizations on my card. Two of them were for – get this – ZERO dollars. The last was for two dollars MORE than what a standard monthly fee was for streaming content. Pube-teller reassured me that the auth-attempt would fall off after two business days. So…by Tuesday.
And all while this was happening, I received an emergency notification from Google saying my e-mail had been compromised. Someone tried to access it. In Thailand.
What have I learned?
Absolutely nothing. After finishing this post, I’m going back to watching anime on Netflix streaming – all the while munching on BofA-bought Taco Bell while keeping my Gmail open. I have a routine to uphold, after all.
Tags: anime, B.S., Bank of America, BofA, Bollywood, credit card, MBNA, Netflix, routine, teller
Several years ago, when I first jointed the ranks of the otaku (read: anime geeks), I noticed a common staple among the older - but not necessarily elite - members of this nerdy subclass. Aside from unkempt beards, thick-rimmed glasses, Twinkie-fueled corpulence, and a smug expression, they wore wolf shirts. There were the occasional gaming humor shirts, dragon shirts, silk dragon shirts, but the most common were a lovely lupus…
On not so lovely large frames
This also had me worried. Was that my fate as an aged anime fan? Would that curse befall me to? I shrugged it off, kept clear of most borderline geriatric anime fans. Not that they weren’t cool - okay, sure, some were creepy - but more out of fear for the wolf plight. Hopefully this phenomenon only existed in the subgeek circles.
How wrong I was.
This group might not seem outwardly familiar, but everyone has seen ‘em. They can’t be considered rednecks, due to their political and spiritual affiliations. Chances are they lean to the left, vote Libertarian, and listen to Coast to Coast with George Noory (formerly Art Bell). For lack of a better term - since I’m not sure they have a given title - I shall refer to them as Backwoods Wiccans.
I first noticed them when visiting the music page for my
CELTIC HARPIST FRIEND. The computer I use at work for leisurely netsurfing is ungodly slow. Pages with oodles of graphics either load at the speed of turtle, or not at all. Eight times out of ten, a glitter-fuckfest of a page would crash the browser altogether. I happened to have been chatting with said friend, when all of a sudden she uttered a string of epithets that were downright unladylike.
Some members of her fanbase fell into this Backwoods Wiccan school of dumbfuckery. I had a little more success in loading the page, but lo and behold found it splayed to the gills with glittery wolves. And moons. Awe-struck, humored, and slightly terrified, I gathered my thoughts. Dear God, there was an upgrade to the wolf shirt curse. Wolves and moons.
And further still, the terrifying trifecta occasionally revealed itself, some people brandished their collective Myspace pages with wolves, moons, and Indians. Odd considering the people proudly displaying these images looked nowhere near American Indian. Some didn’t even look American. Or human.
Maybe that’s unfair. I can understand the love of wolves, the acknowledged majesty of the moon, and the illusory idolatry of the Indian. What I couldn’t fathom was how one would want such an effigy on a cheap cotton shirt, stretched tightly on a beer gut. I didn’t get it.
Some light was shed on the subject last Thursday while out with friends at Harvey’s Comedy Club. The opening act, a normal-looking guy with a receding hairline, conveyed his observations about redneck culture. While he was pontificating, I turned to one of my friends and muttered about Backwoods Wiccan attire, particularly the “wolf and moon” t-shirt phenomenon.
The comedian segued into an observation about retirees and a mandatory article of clothing they received in the mail at the age of 65. It was…
You guessed it.
If there was ever a moment of sheer “ROTFLMAO”, that was it, ladies and gentlemen.
A couple of days later, I got a text from one of the gals present for the comedy set. It read: “Guys, I saw the wolf shirt without the moon.”
“Oh lord,” I thought. I couldn’t even respond.
A few days after that, I was reading my usual spread of webcomics at work. One of my favorite strips -
GIRLS WITH SLINGSHOTS - ran a comic about lesbians.
(For the record, I’ve personally never seen a lesbian don a wolf and moon t-shirt.)
I had to pass it on to everyone indirectly involved. The sheer amount of “loupe”-iness was unreal. What could the Great Wolf Moon Spirit be saying to me? Then I thought back to my earlier fear. Maybe it was telling me it was time. After all, most of the anime geeks who donned the wolfwear were in their early thirties. I was 18 at the time, so they seemed much older. But now I’m there.
No, I couldn’t believe that. I…can’t believe that. Wait, there’s still hope! I haven’t seen a wolf on a tea pot yet. No temptation!
Fuck.
Tags: anime, Geeks, indian, lesbians, moon, otaku, wolf