Go. Watch. Have fun. Spread the word. And cook something nice every now and then.

The best news is that a few days ago I officially started work on the graphics for the new Lands of Dream game. This one is going to be close in size to Desert Bridge and will have oodles of locations and gadgets. While doing the children’s book and the Oneiropolis Compendium I’ve improved my technique used for the Lands of Dream images dramatically, which makes me all the more excited about this project. We’re aiming to release the game in March, so you won’t have to wait too long.

I’ve also finished the last images for the Oneiropolis Compendium. This project has been a lot of fun, with silly pop culture references and deeply serious philosophical questions – often in the same entry. And it’s not over yet. The Compendium really saved us when things got tight financially in November and December, and while we needed the money, I was also genuinely pleased to draw these pictures. So if you still feel like donating to get an original, framed Lands of Dream image, please feel free to do so.

If you read Jonas’s blog or come to my page every now and then, then I’m sure you’ve heard of our IndieGoGo campaign to finance a webpage for our cooking show. It’s another project that I’m very happy about, since I love cooking and cookbook recipes can sometimes drive one barmy. Instructions like “add italian spices” or “use a lug of olive oil” just make me want to tear the cookbook into tiny little pieces of confetti and set fire to them. The other day I had a recipe that told me to prepare an ingredient ten minutes before the  sauce was done, without ever mentioning how long the bloody sauce was supposed to cook in total (and it’s confetti time!). So yes, the Starving Artists Kitchen Show is something I’m happy about and that should help lower my blood pressure. And you can help. Our IndieGoGo campaign still hasn’t reached its goal. Also you can expect a new episode and the website to be up soon. We’re just experiencing some minor difficulty connected to dark German winters and our kitchen light being broken.

That’s it on the creative front, I think. There’s more to tell, as always, but that will have to wait until later. Expect a post on The Who’s Tommy and creative responsibility in the next 24 hours and something about bad postmodern writing by the end of the week. Now to draw a room with crazy wallpaper.

Our cooking show now has an IndieGoGo campaign. We’d be very grateful if you could spread the word, or even contribute. The first episode we produced went over really well, but we need a tiny bit of funding to be able to afford a website and repair some things in our kitchen; if that works out, you can look forward to regular episodes of the Starving Artists Kitchen Show. Yes indeed! So let the world know about this campaign.

The Brooklyn Follies – Paul Auster
Excession – Iain M. Banks
The Mirror of Her Dreams – Stephen Donaldson
A Man Rides Through – Stephen Donaldson
Past Imperative – Dave Duncan
Present Tense – Dave Duncan
Future Indefinite – Dave Duncan
The Last Dragonslayer – Jasper Fforde
The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
Sailing to Sarantium – Guy Gavriel Kay
Lord of Emperors – Guy Gavriel Kay
The Lions of Al-Rassan – Guy Gavriel Kay
Gerald’s Game – Stephen King
Misery – Stephen King
The Stand – Stephen King
A Wizard of Earthsea – Ursula K. Le Guin
The Tombs of Atuan – Ursula K. Le Guin
The Farthest Shore – Ursula K. Le Guin
Tehanu – Ursula K. Le Guin
The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner – Stephenie Meyer
Snuff – Terry Pratchett
The Alphabet – David Sacks
Nine Princes in Amber – Roger Zelazny
The Guns of Avalon – Roger Zelazny
Sign of the Unicorn – Roger Zelazny
The Hand of Oberon – Roger Zelazny
The Courts of Chaos – Roger Zelazny

I forgot to mention that I have a few new images up on flickr.

And here is a very nice interview with Jonas over at the Gnome’s Lair.

Now scoot.

Most of you will know from reading Jonas’s blog, which we’ve managed to update from the internet cafe once or twice, that we had a spot of internet trouble for the last four months or so. And when I say internet trouble please read no internet at all. And, to tell the truth, it’s been quite invigorating. I’ve gotten a lot of work done. I managed to finish the drawings for our upcoming children’s book (which will probably be released in February 2012) and also did a lot of pictures for the Oneiropolis Compendium.  And I’ve learned that losing the internet isn’t the terrifying, life-threatening experience I thought it would be.

The Oneiropolis Compendium has proven to be one of the most fun and amazing things Jonas and I have ever done. In case you don’t know what the Compendium is about, let’s just say that it is an opportunity to get hand-drawn, framed images from me and a beautiful (or silly) story from Jonas while at the same time keeping both of us from starving. And it’s been great, so far. If you want to participate in the Compendium, here’s a link to everything you need to know.

I’ve still got tons of drawings to do, not only for the Compendium but also for an upcoming, as of yet untitled and very much a work-in-progress Lands of Dream game, so I’ll mostly be busy away from the computer, but I’ll try to keep this blog updated regularly from now on.

For now, here are a few linkies to help pass the time:

• There’s a charming new blog from the creator of Letters of Note, called Lists of Note. And even if lists aren’t your thing I urge you to check out this amazing to-do list by Johnny Cash.
• Here’s an xkcd that really made me smile. (Disclaimer: I love Shyamalan’s work, but The Last Airbender could have been better.)
• And here is a nice comic about airplanes by the Oatmeal. (Make sure to read everything to get the really good bits at the end. Oatmeal comics don’t always work for me, but this one is beautiful.)
• Finally, if you have eight seconds of your life to spare for the ultimate knock knock joke, you should have a look at this.

That’s it for tonight.

I will draw pretty things for you. Yes I will. Head on over to this post for more information, and spread the word.

The children’s book is turning out really fantastic, though. The images are much bigger than those we used in Desert Bridge and Book of Living Magic, which means they can be much more detailed, and I’m going for a much smoother look, as is appropriate for this book. Jonas is happy with the results and so am I (and so is our publisher, apparently, which is a relief). It’ll be a unique story of a kind that too few children’s books have. I think we’ve got something really special here.

And I really, really hate Deutsche Telekom.

We’ll be entering a short communications blackout in a little while, since our old internet connection will expire on Sunday and the new connection is taking its own sweet time. This isn’t a bad thing, at least not entirely. Although the children’s book has been making excellent progress,  it sadly isn’t finished yet. I’m sure some time away from the net will help with that. And there are a few other things that I need to get done that can only benefit from some internet-free time, like that short story about elephants and zombies that I started writing when we were in Greece. So I will have lots to do and, hopefully, lots to show when we get back online.

For now I shall wish you a nice week. Or maybe two. If you get lonely, here are a few things for you to look at:

• Jonas has written a short story. And you can read it. It is about vampires and politics and it is awesome. If you would spread the word you would make both of us very happy.
• And in other creative news: New pictures! On Flickr! This is the last batch of images from Greece, mostly Athens and a bit of Chalkidiki. Enjoy!
• And here is a truly astonishing letter. Read it and be filled with joy. This odd little gem from 1929 really made my day. In general I would like to take the opportunity to recommend Letters of Note as a source of weekday reading pleasure.
• If you get hungry while waiting for the internet to come back to Casa Kyratzes so that we can upload another episode of our cooking show, you could always try making Jamie Oliver’s Pasta with Meatballs recipe. It is really yummy, easy to make and the rosemary levels aren’t lethal (honest).
• And here’s a pretty song. Listen to it and think of all the people who were out on the streets today, fighting the good fight. Or better even, join them. I’m sure the fight will still need fighting tomorrow.

Okay. That is it for now. It is time to lean back, enjoy the show and wait for the inevitable.

]]> http://verena-kyratzes.net/2011/10/16/the-dead-zone/feed/ 0 verenakyratzes Stone Lion http://verena-kyratzes.net/2011/10/10/adventures-in-customer-support/ http://verena-kyratzes.net/2011/10/10/adventures-in-customer-support/#comments Mon, 10 Oct 2011 11:34:23 +0000 verenakyratzes http://verena-kyratzes.net/?p=1250 ]]> Note: I originally wrote this several  months ago, but neglected to edit and post it. Since our phone and internet contracts are now finally running out, I thought it would be appropriate.

This is an age-old tale. Age-old in that it all started more than two years ago and age-old in that it surely has happened before to other people from other countries – in other centuries, even. As a matter of fact, I am sure that in ancient days cavemen were waylaid in their caves by travelling wheel salesmen who, unimpressed by the fact that the axle had yet to be invented, wanted to sell them Authentic Neanderthal Copperworks Wheels with Matching Sabertooth-Hide Hub Caps. And before that some guileless amoeba was wondering why that strange bacterium in the pinstripe suit kept insisting that it needed to buy ten pairs of gloves (special offer, only valid as long as the Hadean eon lasts!), when it didn’t have any hands and the primordial  soup it was swimming in was quite warm enough on its own.

Some of you may already have guessed what, or rather who, has made me so exceptionally aggravated. Right. Salespeople. To be more precise: telephone salespeople. Not as in telemarketing, those ones are bad enough, but as in people who are trying to sell you telephones and telephone contracts.

(Telemarketing is fun too. There’s one company that keeps calling to invite us to a totally free exhibition of totally high-quality totally authentic French kitchenware. Or something like that anyway, the people who call have at best a tenuous understanding of the German language and ridiculously thick French accents. It’s rather amusing, really.)

But back to my tale. Jonas and I got married in the summer of 2009. While the actual wedding was great and something that we both wanted, the event also brought us a whole lot of paperwork, mostly connected to changing my name with insurances and internet providers and the like. The one that I sort of left until the bitter end was our telephone provider. (Bitter end meaning until about a year later.) I won’t name any names, but let’s just say that their logo is sort of sickly pink and they used to sponsor a cycling team that didn’t do much except use lots of illegal substances and lose a lot. Got it? Yeah, that’s them. I should have guessed after that cycling debacle, really.

Instead of writing them a letter you only had to show up at one of their stores and say “hey, I got married the other day, could you change my name please?” That, incidentally, is the other thing that should have made me a little suspicious. I used to work for one of the bigger German cellphone providers and there you couldn’t as much as ask how long your contract was still going to last without a passport, a birth certificate and a signed and stamped horoscope. At the pink place I only needed my phone number.

Name changed. Done. Wonderful. “Can I interest you in one of our internet flat-rate offers?” asks the woman behind the counter. “No,” I tell her. I also add, quite truthfully, that I had only recently renewed our contract with our current internet provider and wouldn’t be able to get out of said contract for at least another year. “Oh”, she says, “but you’ll think about it, yes?” I answer, quite politely, that when the time comes I will weigh all my options and maybe change providers or maybe not or whatever… a year is a long time, lady. The woman behind the counter only smiles, gives me her card and wishes me a good day. And at the precise moment, in the far-off distance, the God of Fuckwits can be seen to cry tears of joy.

Three days later we have an envelope from the Tele… our telephone provider in the mail. I ignore it, they send enough adverts to deforest the South American rainforest to our house alone.

Six days later I get a phone call from them. Customer satisfaction survey, they say. “How did you like your recent interaction with our company?” I am a little flummoxed, but I answer quite pleasantly “fine.” The man seems eager for more. “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate our handling of your request?” Flummoxation increases, seeing that changing my name in my account information doesn’t leave much room for grey zones. Surely this is more of a binary-type answer? Still, they changed my name, so I say “ten.” The man continues. “Were you satisfied with the information provided by our employee?” I frown, wonder if they maybe think that the employee chose my new name for me or something, but I still say “yep.” “On a scale of one to ten?” I sigh. “Ten, very satisfied.” I reason that this is probably some sort of standard questionnaire. So I relax and let the whole thing wash over me. And then I forget about it. They’re funny, these telecommunication people.

Two weeks after that there’s another letter in the mail. Might have been three weeks, not quite sure, because (guess what) this one goes straight to the trash as well.

Five weeks after the original visit to the shop another letter arrives. Number three. This one I open, because it looks like it might have some actual content. And boy am I right.

“Dear Mrs. Kyratzes,” the letter says. “We’re very sorry to say that we haven’t received confirmation of the cancellation of your internet provider contract yet,” it goes on. “Here’s another cancellation letter that you just need to sign and send to them, in case the first one got lost,” it continues. If it is feeling ashamed of itself, it doesn’t show it. My right eyelid starts to twitch. “As soon as we get the confirmation,” the unblushing paper proclaims, “we will send you your new digital TV receiver (199,- €) and you will have access to 34 channels as well as unlimited telephone and internet usage with our new BloodyExpensiveDeluxe Package (54,99 €/Month).”

Jonas looks slightly concerned now. I am standing next to the mailbox, open letter in hand, frothing at the mouth and screaming incoherently. I concede that he might have a point, wipe the froth from my mouth, and we leave on some errand or other.

Later that same day: “[Redacted] customer service, how may I help you?” I take a deep breath. Shouting at that man won’t solve anything. Yet the temptation is there. I manage to contain my temper, but what comes out might still be the most heated telephonic monologue that I have given in my life so far. I explain. I explain about my visit to the shop and about the letters and about the frequent phone calls at increasingly ungodly hours. I especially explain about how I am not ever going to buy anything off them again even if they should turn out to be the last telephone provider on the planet. That last bit gives the guy some pause. “So you don’t like our BloodyExpensiveDeluxe Package (54,99 €/Month)?” he asks. No… I don’t. In the end I get transferred to another desk, because the first guy is bleeding from the ears and maybe also because my problem is outside his area of expertise. First day on the job, poor guy, hasn’t even learned how to butcher babies. Right.

Next dude. “Hello. [Redacted] customer service, how can I help you?” I have to repeat everything again. I can only assume that Dude #1 is sitting next to Dude #2 and that he is smirking. Maybe I’m being paranoid. When I’m done this creature doesn’t ask if I would like to switch to a different service package, thus proving that he must have some semblance of a self-preservation instinct tucked away somewhere, but instead begins to take down my complaint. Very. Slowly. When he is done enough time has passed to copy down the Bible… in Maori. He reads the thing back to me, a task which isn’t made easier by his thick Bavarian accent, and would you believe it, a tiny mistake has slipped in there. Wonder how that happened. “The customer will sign a new contract with [redacted] once her old contract has run out in eleven months,” he reads. Aha, I think, is that so? This isn’t good for my heart. I point his mistake out to him and he’s all sorry-and-forgive-me. Dude #1 is still sniggering, I presume. Never call me again, I say. Or write or anything. Close your shop in our part of town. Whatever. I make him take that down too. Then I hang up.

The moral of the story is that you should never, ever, not under any circumstances, talk to salespeople. Honest. It will be bad for the rainforest and it will be bad for your blood pressure. And doping is bad. Yep.

At least I haven’t gotten another call, letter, telegram, email or smoke signal from that bloody pink madhouse since then. That’s something.