(Updated. See end.)
Yesterday, Mike decided to try Hurricane Wings, the Baskin-Robbins of seasoned chicken amputee by-products. For me, there were French fries. Many, many garlic and Parmesan French fries. With celery ranch dip. Tell the coroner now: it was the French fries. (And it was worth it, at the time.)
Mike forgot to take his phone when he walked over, and one thing led to another, and - this not having anything to do with anything I just said - I found myself on the Virgin Mobile site so I could lsiten again to the double-cowbell ringtone I made when I upgraded the phone. Having spent most of the weekend in a fever, the only prescription was... well, we all know. (I'm better now, just in time for Monday. Grumble.)
(Update: The only thing worse than being better in time for Monday is not being better in time for Monday. Two sick days at the start of the year. Great. I'm going in tomorrow no matter what. Maybe I should take vitamins. And not eat nothing but French fries when sick. Anyway.)
When I got to the VM site, I realized I'd forgotten that I made some custom "wallpapers" of the hammies to share with whichever of the company's cell phone customers are rich/whimsical enough to pay $2 per hamshot. ("I realized I'd forgotten" - phrases like this always remind me of the Auld Lang Syne speech Meg Ryan makes in When Harry Met Sally.)
So I smile, because that's what I do when I see my little companions, but then I look a little closer:
The first two pictures are of Cricket and June. The third photo is of Mike. I kept that one private because, yeah, I don't want a bunch of hussies looking at my Aussie waving his stick. That's wrong. Especially if the phone is set on "vibrate."
But you see, sort of, how the "Share It" button is available for that picture? Unlike with the photos of Cricket and June? Why? Well, if you click in the right spot, you see...
What? The photo is so good that they think I stole it? Shucks, that's kind of flattering.
Or did some rival hamster owner flag it in an attempt to keep the competition down? I smell Roborovski all over this.
Unfortunately, there's no process for contesting these accusations. I ended up filling out the standard "HELP" form, offering Flickr links and the original images, and feeling a bit sheepish that I'm not asking about something more pressing, like how to block those terrible "Your car warranty is going to expire!" robo-calls that I have to pay for.
I'm not miffed, just boggled, and more than a little curious as to how this decision came about.
I mean, most of the uploads to the site (and most of the uploads that generate a lot of money for the uploader) are suspiciously slick shots of bikini-clad boobs and behinds. This flies by all day, to the delight of the "Studio V Community," but pet hamster photos get the banhammer?
(And why not Susan, whose picture was approved without incident some weeks before? What are they saying, huh? That Susan's not professional model material because she has such big cheek pouches? Hrmph!)
Like I said, I wasn't perturbed. Just amused and baffled. But Cricket? Ohhh. She was cross. Not so much about the silly accusations of copyright violation, but grrrr - did you see those comma errors?
Ten out of ten, Zaphod Beeblebrox would say, for knowing that a comma often comes before or in a sentence... but minus two thousand for forgetting the lyrics to Conjunction Junction.
Cricket doesn't even want to talk about how photos are images.
Then there's the last sentence. It's like they're saying, "Because you stole something, and just for that one lovely reason, you can enjoy your stolen goods privately." I like Cricket's suggested correction (shown above), but she would like to remind everyone to always proofread aloud. (You can always look at my writing to see what happens when you don't take her advice.)
If VM thinks that's harsh, they should know that I told her not to bother mentioning that "because" in the first sentence should be replaced with "for the following reason." Cricket normally doesn't stand for colons in the middle of a sentence, popular though they may be, but she's willing to work with Virgin Mobile on the more obvious errors for now. I think her standard rate is something like... two free wallpaper downloads? (Something better than two free downloads. See Update #2 below.)
I know that when she looks at me like this, I do what she wants:
Update #2: While sleeping the "get well now because you're going back tomorrow no matter what" sleep of the cootie-ridden, I received a form email from Virgin Mobile detailing all of the reasons my wallpaper might have been rejected for sharing. For the record, those reasons are Inappropriateness, Privacy/Misrepresentation, Copyright, Trademark, Advertising, Public Figure.
That last one is interesting and might inspire further comment, but Cricket is warning me to stick to the subject. Virgin Mobile, I know why my wallpaper was rejected. It's in bold and everything. Why don't you know? Is it because you didn't read my wallpaper page or my email?
Are you going to read the one I'm sending now? Because it annoys me to end a post on a short quip with a cute hamster photo then have to ruin it with more words.
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