I'd be worried that my clients would read this, but odds are they're not tech-savvy enough for a Google search

Today was one of those days where I would have blown my brains out if I wasn't so certain that everyone around me would break out the Ouija Boards to bug the shit out of me in the afterlife.

Most of my rage I attribute to quitting smoking again. Thirty-fifth time's a charm! It's not that I'm nic-fitting left and right, it's just that I find myself without my usual three-minute on-the-hour-every-hour break from the madness. Sure, I take my deep breaths and count to ten when things get a little too intense, but the fact remains that I'm still sitting at my desk, which means that I can't stop them from coming into my office.

Why, you may ask, don't I just step away from my desk and go outside like I used to and simply not smoke? Because they now follow me out there if I do. It's no longer personal time, it's I just happen to be outside time.

In the words of the immortal Lloyd Bridges, "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking."

Most of the problem stems from the office being short-staffed this week. One of my bosses is on vacation this week, and as much as I love proving to him when he comes back that we were able to handle everything while he was away, it's gonna be tough. Sure, we're getting shit done, but it's not gonna be up to the standards I know we're being held to in his absence. It also doesn't help that the clients we've been dealing with this week have been a wee bit prickly. It's almost as if they've become self-aware that the invisible sweater they've been knitting doesn't exist, and they're looking for something else to fixate their insanity on.

Here they are, listed anonymously:

Client A: Brought in his entire hard drive to transport his files. What's worse, is that he forgot the power cable to said hard drive, and we needed to unplug one of our computers to use the power cord, which could possibly not have been the same voltage. Even worse, he didn't have all the files we needed on that hard drive, and he was leaving for a cruise, so he couldn't get the other files for us, telling us, "You guys'll figure out something." This is like a cop asking for your ID, and you hand him your pants. Then, you piss all over the cop, claiming that they could test the DNA in the urine.

Client B: Bugged us five times a day for proofs on a project, only to tell us when it was approved to print that she wouldn't have quantities for us for another six weeks. Then, she gave us a week to design and print two jobs that were due in a week. I wanted to beat her to death with a Franklin Planner.

Client C: Wanted this woman's name listed in the project as Maddie, then changed it to Madeline, then changed it back to Maddie and approved it. After it was printed, she requested that it needs to be Madeline in all future projects.

Client D: Five rounds of revisions to a simple business card layout. Same information every time, just obsessing over the spacing of the lines of text. To test a theory of mine, the last proof was exactly the same as the previous one. It was approved, and this client went right back to repeatedly washing her hands and muttering to herself.

Client E: Disputed the capitalization of a word set in a font that doesn't contain lower-case letters. That's not a giant, Mr. Quixote, its a windmill.

Client F: Shocked and appalled that I was out to lunch at 12:05, even though they didn't call ahead to let us know that they were stopping by. I'm shakin' the bushes, boss!

Ugh... and this was only Tuesday.

Good luck getting a dime out of ME

I had a nice little sphincter pucker on Wednesday. A call came through on my cell, from a number I did not recognize. A recorded voice spoke when I answered. "Please hold for an important call for (deeper, computerized voice) Daniel... Joseph... Free-chee... (back to recording) If you are... (deeper, computerized voice) Daniel... Joseph... Free-chee... (back to recording) please, press 1."

I pressed one. A man came on the line, introducing himself as a representative of the Law Firm of Lots of Important Sounding Last Names. He wanted first to confirm that I was the Daniel Fritschie he was looking for. Odds were good seeing as there are only two other Daniel Fritschies on the planet. He wanted to confirm my social security number, but I waited to see if he would start reciting the numbers first. He didn't, instead choosing to confirm my birthdate. I was the Daniel Fritschie he was looking for.

He started spouting out some legal crap about the Saturn SL2 I turned in five years ago, and he was trying to collect on the balloon payment that GMAC said that I owed them.

A little backstory: In 2003, I was leasing this Saturn, and the balloon payment was fast approaching. I had three options:

Pay the balloon payment and keep the car.
Trade the car in on a new lease.
Turn the car in and not owe the balloon payment.

I tried with all my might to get the money for the balloon payment, or at the very least, refinance it. I took extra hours at work, worked part time at other jobs, but I was still coming up short. So, I decided at the last minute to exercise option #3. The deadline for turning in the car was on a Sunday, so I dealt with GMAC on Friday, who told me I could fax in the proper paperwork, which I did.

I spent all day Saturday with a friend driving down to Little Rock to pick up the truck I was gonna borrow from my parents. On Sunday, we turned in the car to the Tulsa Saturn dealership. It was after hours at this point, so I left the vehicle there with a note explaining the situation and the confirmation number from GMAC.

A couple weeks later, I got a letter from GMAC informing me that they marked the car off as a repossession, that I still owed the balloon payment, plus repair fees, minus what it will go for at auction. A few panicked phone calls later, GMAC effectively stonewalled me. They said I had no legal recourse, and I owed them the money.

After about a year and a half, the phone calls and the letters stopped. It still sat there as a big melanoma on my credit report, but I stood firm in my refusal to pay for a car I was not driving. This past fall, the debt got written off of my credit report, and I finally qualified for a new car loan.

About this time, I started getting some last chance letters trying to collect on that balloon payment. I ignored the letters altogether. In fact, any mail that isn't a utility bill or handwritten addressed direct to me, goes right in the recycle bin.

Back to the phone call. The guy on the phone kept informing me that they are filing legal action and anything I said was being recorded and could be used as evidence against me in court. I answered his questions without admitting to any wrong doing. GMAC didn't hold up their end of the bargain, unless they could get me my old car back, then they weren't gonna see a dime from me.

The man asked if i was gainfully employed. I told him that I was employed, but not gainfully. He threatened to garnish my wages, I told him he could try. You can't get blood from a turnip, I told him.

The more he pressed, the more I had to restate that I'm not answering any more questions until I consulted an attorney. We ended our phone conversation. I started to panic a bit. Outside, on my third cigarette, I bitched about the phone call to a co-worker, and she said it sounded like a scam. I went back inside, Googled the phone number and company name, and the first thirty links were from fraud alert web sites. They were trying to scam me.

Turns out, when a bad debt gets written off, the information gets "lost", and these scammers "find" this information and attempt to collect on the debt on behalf of their "client". I also found out that no one in the legal profession can depose you over the phone, and no one announces over the phone that they are filing a lawsuit. If these guys had a leg to stand on, then I would be served with official papers.

I got another letter from them today, and I'm gonna use it to file a complaint with every agency that covers this kind of thing. And if they call me again, I'm gonna refer them to my attorney, Drew Edmondson, Oklahoma Attorney General.

I watch the Watchmen

In my mind, there are four kinds of movies:

1. The kind that I'll never, ever voluntarily watch as long as I live. These kinds of movies either aren't my cup of tea from the moment they're announced or marketed, or have one or more qualities that make me want to break out in hives. If Michael Bay ever cast Larry the Cable Guy and Keanu Reeves in a buddy movie, then I'd have the perfect example of what I'm talking about.

2. The kind of film that is the baseline of mediocrity. The kind of movie that afterwards only conjures up memories of how well the theater was air conditioned... Movies that will probably only re-enter my consciousness if I get asked a trivia question about it. Good examples: Anything you'd find in the Romance section at Blockbuster.

3. The kind of film that blows me away, makes sweet love to my eyeballs and disables my ability to speak for a couple of hours afterward. Recent example: The Dark Knight.

4. The kind of movie whose quality falls about two-thirds of the way between #2 and #3. It was a good movie, but I can't shake the nagging sensation that the Director's Cut DVD is gonna absolutely rock! Good examples: Blade Runner and Lord of the Rings

Watchmen is the epitome of category #4.

I'm a late arrival to the world of Watchmen, but sooner than most people caught up in the hoopla. I finally bought and read the graphic novel last summer, after the movie was in production, but before every copy of the book was value priced at every store. I've reread it twice since then. So, yeah, my expectations were a bit high going into the theater.

And, I understand what has to happen when you translate a story from one medium to another. A lot can get lost in the transfer, but if the essence of the overall story is maintained, then I consider it a success. In that respect, Watchmen, as a film is a success. It would've fallen squarely within Category 3 (maybe) if I hadn't read the source material first.

Watchmen is different from any other superhero story in that it shows the cultural impact these characters had on the fabric of history. Superman didn't end any of our real wars. Spider-Man didn't shake hands with JFK. Batman didn't become a government spook performing shadow operations that allowed Nixon to remain in power for four terms.

It's this take on alternate history that sets Watchmen apart, above and beyond. Many have tried (cough, X-Men, Heroes...) but they've gotten so bogged down in being relative to our current political and societal landscape that they've never really had the balls to just run with it. Watchmen may take place in 1985, but it isn't the 1985 that we remember.

The movie does a pretty good job in setting up this alternate reality in the opening credits. Vignettes of events in the timeline spell out how history veered off it's familiar course. Some of them I had a problem with because they were dealt with so differently in the novel, like explaining why Dr. Manhattan didn't prevent the assassination of JFK.

Or Silhouette's being a lesbian. It's handled just a briefly in the movie as it was in the novel, and while the changes in make her out and proud in the forties and fifties is admirable by today's standards (and the flood of angry conservative responses start right about...now), in the novel she's outed by Hollis Mason's book and her and her lover's murder was so much more tragic as a result, and it's reflective of the prejudices of that time. They may have changed history, but they didn't change history that much.

Sorry, I would've put a spoiler alert on that last one, but it didn't have ANY bearing on the overall plot. Just a bone I had to pick.

Dr. Manhattan was a character that I had a clear vision of in my head, and while my own vision was vastly different than what was in the film, I wasn't disappointed. It was like having someone drive you to a place you've been to before and take a route different than what you always have. Same destination, but this way works, too.

Rorshach. Was. Spot. On. His view of justice, his twisted take on humanity, and his over-reactive nature was exactly as I hoped it would be. Every time he's on screen, the scenery is thoroughly chewed up and spat back in our faces. Definitely a contender for best movie badass of all time.

I wish I could say the same for the Comedian. His character didn't have the descent into madness that I was expecting. In the novel, he was always kind of this prick who quickly discarded any shred of idealism he may have had. In the film, he's just, well, a prick.

Many of the online Ebert wannabes I read prior to going into the movie criticized Ozymandias for being portrayed as too wooden of a character. I disagree, sorta. His character is equal parts smug egotist and misguided idealist. Throw in a butt load of cash and corporate clout... What, are you expecting that much depth here, people? He's a Bond villain with a sculpted latex suit.

I read the same criticisms about Silk Spectre II as well, but I think they missed the point there as well. This character was superhero home schooled. She resents the life that she was forced into by her mother, but doesn't know how to relate to anything else. Her character in the novel and in the film has slightly more depth than a Yahoo Personals ad.

Most of these things I bring up is merely nit-picking. This is the reason I refuse to read all of the Harry Potter books until I've seen all of the movies. I always prefer to go into the film with a blank slate instead of the equation mapped out before me. I did enjoy the film, but I know there's so much more to this that we'll only see in the wonderful world of after market DVD sales.

However, I do have one strong complaint about the film: the soundtrack. The score was awesome, but the song choices bugged the living shit out of me. It was nice that they used Dylan's "The Time They Are A' Changing" for the opening scene, but pretty much everything else was distracting on a level here-to-fore unseen in cinematic history.

The funeral scene set to Simon and Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence", for example. Why the hell would they use a song that was so memorably used in a completely different context in the Graduate? Or, were they counting on the chance that most of Watchmen's viewers hadn't seen a movie made before 1998?

And while I commend them for not using "All Along the Watchtower" during any of the Vietnam War scenes (so cliché at this point), it dumbfounds me that they heard this song in post-production and thought it conveyed the message of "We're approaching the bad guy's fortress". Was "Carry On My Wayward Son" too pricey?!?

And I'm forever thankful that the cover of Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row" by My Chemical Romance was playing over the end credits instead of playing earlier in the film. That way I could promptly exit the theater to escape that pile of musical excrement without missing out on crucial plot points. Seriously, filmmakers... you're already gonna be selling merchandise at Hot Topic, why go that extra mile to cater to that demographic by having the suckiest emo band imaginable cover one of my favorite songs of all time?!?

But I digress...

Overall, the film works for me, and I'm sure my nitpicking will subside with time. I plan on seeing it again tomorrow with some like-minded friends (I saw it this time alone), so maybe my opinions will change sooner rather than later, but I'm pretty sure my thoughts on the soundtrack will not.

My Chemical Romance... What the hell, man! Un-freaking-believable.