It is 2AM /
Flipping thru my resumé
for once achieved pride.

What could I have known?
A neck with a hole in it,
the umbrella drinks.

Taken together,
the one another down scribes
learning curvature.

Typing test minute
turns up the two who studied
workplace harassment.

We are all temps here
at the speed of screenwriters
stealing ideas.

One two three four five
six se'en eight nine ten 'l'en twelve
teenteenteeteeteeenn

50 balls required /
Walking straight down 3^rd, swinging
my severance check.

1. I could not turn OFF automatic credit card billing via the web. I had to call and sit through a support operator trying to convince me that I shouldn't turn it off (because I'd risk my security! Oh no!) before he finally switched it for me. That is, in my opinion, a really underhanded, shitty business practice.
2. When my subscription expired I received CONSTANT reminders telling me to renew, and there is NO WAY to turn them off and still use the software. I am not stupid. You only need to tell me once. After that it is MY CHOICE whether or not to renew. Continuing to be badgered with paranoid messages like "YOUR SYSTEM IS NOT FULLY PROTECTED" is insulting. Especially considering that McAfee doesn't "fully protect" my system in the first place.
3. On Windows 2000, when Security Center finally loads, it is the single slowest program I've ever used. I contacted your support to find out if this was a known issue, and I was treated like someone who had no idea how to use a computer. My experience with McAfee support is that your representatives badger as much as your incessant warnings and don't bother to assess the amount of knowledge the end user has before telling them what's wrong. (e.g. I was told to look at System Properties RIGHT AFTER I gave the representative the processor speed, amount of memory, version of Windows 2000 and other details of my system. Why? Because he didn't believe that I really had 2G of RAM. Can you not see why that's inefficient at best and insulting at worst?)
4. McAfee uses a CRIPPLING amount of resources to run, and there's simply no reason for this. I can run Kaspersky on the same box with a resource footprint less than 1/4 the size and all the same protections.
5. I have no need for email protection, yet the McAfee interface continues to tell me that my machine is "not fully protected" because I haven't activated email protection. If I don't need email protection, then why would my protection be compromised without it? ... That's right. It would not be. So again, McAfee has provided me with more useless paranoid feedback. There's so much of this type of feedback that it's hard for me not to start to view it as a tactic for McAfee to sell more products rather than actual helpful information to keep protection at the best levels for the end user. As a result, I've lost whatever respect I had for McAfee as a company.

Just to be clear, in the two years I put up with McAfee Bloatware, I never once ended up with a virus or worm. I dislike your product for reasons that have nothing to do with its ability to find and remove malicious software. It has everything to do with the feature set that cannot be customized or turned off without constant nags telling me to turn it on and the atrocious customer service.

I hope this response is helpful and not simply written off as a rant from an irate customer. I write software and design user interfaces for a living. That doesn't make me an expert, but it does make me a "power user," and McAfee is designed for someone who wants half their resources sucked up by features they don't even need. And that person is not me.

For the record, I think the last paragraph isn't exactly true. Now that I think about it, I don't really care if my response is helpful.

A whole awful lot
of giving up and vying.
I meant as opposed.

Dreamed I had a globe
made of a sturdy maché
and pushpins about.

They have software now
that leaves markers, more pushpins
than breadcrumbs of old.

The guy who pilots
this tub is rumored to have
once met the devil.

Pin in the ocean;
This is a scene. Two or three;
This is now a wake.

It is reported
he sports a cloven footprint,
but no more is said.

I am, as always,
contractually bound not
to reveal details.