Why.

A few days or weeks ago I mentioned that we were in the process of abandoning our AT&T/CallVantage service and switching back to Verizon, mainly due to difficulties we were having with the emerging VoIP technology. Well, I gave AT&T one more shot and they replaced our VoIP box and corrected the issue. The service is working *beautifully* and I couldn’t be happier.

During this slight drama, Verizon called back and told me that they couldn’t transfer my service as quickly as they had initially promised (2 days from the day I placed the order). It would take two to three weeks instead. In addition, they would need to send a technician out to the house to do some wiring. (Why, I don’t know). They told me that they could send a tech out on either August 11 or 12 between 8 and 5. I asked her which of those two dates it would be. The rather snotty woman with the strong New York accent told me that she couldn’t pinpoint the date due to scheduling so I would have to have someone home 18 years of age or older those two days to meet the tech. I informed her that as a telephone man myself, I’m sure that if they turned the dial tone on to the house, I could handle it from there. She told me that was unacceptable (and she used the term “unacceptable”) and that I would have to have someone home to meet the tech at anytime during that 16 hour window. I could not provide a cell phone number for them to contact me, I had to be home.

Martha Stewart gets an ankle bracelet, I get the threat of a Verizon tech.

I told her, very sweetly, that I would call back to reschedule after I checked my work calendar. (I hadn’t cleared the trouble I was having with AT&T at the time).

Then AT&T went ahead and fixed our service so I just spent 20 minutes trying to call Verizon to cancel our pending order.

After three attempts to call customer service and being thrown into Voice Jail twice, I finally banged on the phone buttons enough times to make the phone system have a heart attack and throw me to an agent. That’s after I had punched in my ten digit phone number three times, said “AGENT” at the voice prompt, typed in my phone number, said “FUCK YOU” to the voice prompt, announced my phone number, sexuality and had the cat meow into the phone at the third voice prompt and then typed “6” repeatedly until someone resembling a human being spoke on the other end.

Mr. David Sharpinski inquired as to why I was calling after asking me my ten-digit telephone number. (Never mind I had entered it into the keypad at three or four prompts beforehand). I told him that I wanted to cancel my pending order, and gave him the order number they had provided me when I originally called. He needed to verify my name, address and SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER. I refused to give my SSN to him, save for the last four digits. He said he needed it to look up the order. Apparently, your telephone number has nothing to do with your telephone service. Verizon would rather abuse the use of your social security number and use that. “It identifies you.” was his explanation. I responded, “Well so doesn’t my lack of hair, hot temper, height, weight, personality and loads of charm, but I don’t think that’s documented on my order, is it?” He wasn’t amused, but went ahead and cancelled the order and ended the call with “If you ever need Verizon’s services, please don’t hesitate to call.”

Moral of the story. If you can’t get your service to work properly through Verizon, don’t bother calling. Buy some string and pull some cans out of the recycle bin. It’ll be much easier.

* If you want to abandon your landline, I HIGHLY recommend AT&T/CallVantage or any other VoIP service to use over your internet broadband. You don’t get screwed with outrageous charges like the phone companies do and the customer service is much better.

It’s official. I’m have had it up to here (way above my head) with these stupid magnetic ribbons that are plastered all over the cars around here. I used to tolerate them. I used to think of our troops in Iraq and silently thank them for their contribution to the world when I saw a yellow ribbon.

Now I just want to run the fuckin’ car off the road.

The original intent of these ribbons was admirable. I thought it was a bit cheesy to buy a pre-fabbed magnet ribbon at Wal*Mart (Always White Trash, Always) and slap it on your car, but I dealt with it. Personally, if you feel that strongly about showing your yellow ribbon off, I feel you should take the time to get a piece of actual yellow ribbon and tie it around your car antenna, or your cell phones, or your neck for all I care, but you should at least make an effort. Nope, it’s grab, scan, plop, and “Look I’m Patriotic!”. At least when the original yellow ribbons were out and about, I believe during the Iran Hostage situation back in 1979 and 1980, people took actual yellow ribbons and tied them around actual oak trees in their front yards. Now that said something.

Now we have these ribbons popping up for all sorts of causes. Yesterday, I saw a ribbon that said “Autism Awareness”. How about “Help Find A Cure for Autism.” I’m fully aware that autism exists. Why be so passive? “Autism Awareness”. Don’t make people aware of it, do something about it!

Then there’s those lovely pink ribbons that say “Support breast cancer.” Well, no I don’t really support breast cancer as I came thisclose to losing my godmother to the disease. Sure, I’ll support the cause to find a cure for breast cancer, but support breast cancer itself? Not on your life. If you’re going to write something on a ribbon, please have the decency to have it make sense.

I hate to generalize about people, actually I’m lying, I love the sport, but these ribbons are like a USDA seal of “really bad driver”. These cheap imitation ribbons on a car usually indicate that the driver is going to make erratic movements, neglect the turn signal stalk on the steering wheel, talk on the cell phone and make an illegal U turn over my foot as I jay walk.

I guess in that way they’re really helpful. It’s like a little note to others, “I’m an asshat!”

I find it really ironic that these men with small penises lots of money the means to own a Hummer have the “Support Our Troops” ribbons on the back of their tanks, especially as our troops lose their lives in their real Hummers so you can drive around suburbia in your fake one.

“You don’t care.” “You’re not patriotic.” “You don’t give a damn about your country.”

That’s bullshit. Like my spiritual beliefs, I don’t need to run around bashing people over the head with my patriotism, waving an American flag and having a “W” tattoo etched into my right bicep. I’d fight for my country if she wanted me and would let me. But no, I have to tolerate these mass produced imitation ribbons.

I heard on NPR today that the Global War On Terror has a new name.

GSAVE: Global Struggle Against Violent Extremists.

Talk about trying to make shit shine.

I’m developing a new pet peeve. This massacre of grammar is really starting to irk me.

This morning I called AT&T CallVantage technical support (again). Their Menu Hell System^TM prompted me to enter my 10-digit phone number number. I did so. It then read my number back to me and asked “Is that right?”

Shouldn’t that be, “Is that correct?”

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not the bees’ knees of grammar use by any stretch of imagination. I regularly mess up word use and sentence structure. Back in the day when I was writing radio commercials, however, I made it a point to use correct grammar and a conversational approach to my advertisements.

Maybe I’m just getting old. Perhaps I’m not with it anymore. With a new generation there’s the inevitable change in language, much like “keen” and “neat” in the 40s and 50s, “groovy” in the 70s and such and the excessive use of “dude” in the 90s.

Welcome to obsolescence.

So now our fine folks in the Federal Government are going to start playing God again. This time, they’re messing with time. Again. Apparently, they’ve taxed us, lied to us, taken our freedoms away and such so much that they’re noticing the American public is becoming depressed. To rectify the situation, they’ve decided to extended Daylight Saving Time by one month. After all, everyone is much cheerier when the sun is out!

I hate Daylight Saving Time. I think it’s dumb to swing the clock back and forth every year just so Seth and Sally Suburbia can sit outside on the lanai an hour longer during the summer. Ask anyone on the street why Daylight Saving Time exists and they’ll say it’s for the farmers.

The farmers hate Daylight Saving Time.

It throws Bessie off her milking schedule, it makes Rita cranky enough that she’ll mess up her egg laying time table and it makes Ma surly enough to flip her flapjacks an hour early.

The definition of noon is “the high point of the day”, when the sun is at it’s zenith. Noon is NOT defined as “When Bobby Banker takes a break to get a McLunch.”

Personally, I hate Daylight Saving Time just as much as the farm animals do. I actually like it when we switch back to Standard Time. You go home in the dark, which is the end of the day so it makes sense. You wake up early in the morning, when it’s light, so that makes sense to. Truth be known, I wouldn’t mind one bit if I lived in Nunavut above the Arctic Circle and enjoyed six months of darkness. But I’ve always been odd.

Anyways, the Fine Folks In Washington^TM have extended Daylight Saving Time by tacking jumping on the bandwagon the second Sunday in March and ending the fun the first Sunday November, which is an additional month of being off our internal schedules. This is suppose to add in energy conservation, but we tried that in the mid 1970s when Nixon was around and it didn’t work then. Why will it work now?

Because the Fine Folks In Washington^TM said so.

They suck.

I wrote this blog entry back when I had first learned of the cancellation of Judging Amy. I’ve written numerous e-mails and a couple of snail mails to CBS since my first blog entry.

I haven’t heard one single peep back from anyone in the organization. Not even an intern.

Apparently there’s still quite the ruckus among viewers over the cancellation of Judging Amy as I receive one or two e-mails a week in response to my original blog entry on the subject.

There’s rumor that there will be a two hour series finale some time next season to wrap up loose ends. It’s also been suggested by a few critics that the show taking over the time slot, which I won’t name here, is going to be a classic failure and “Judging Amy” should be brought back as a mid-season replacement.

I’m leaving the entry in my TiVo in hopes that it’ll return to first run television. I still urge you to write to CBS if you want to see Judging Amy come back in any shape or form.

Earl and I decided to frequent the local casino for supper tonight. I guess we were in the mood for a little people watching and whole lot of food from the buffet. I could spend hours, maybe even days, watching people as I just find the whole world so amusing. So interesting. Even the most mundane person has something to contribute this world, even if it’s just a heap of boredom.

But I have to ask, who’s idea was it to bring back the mullet? For the hair history challenged, let me briefly explain what a mullet it is. You take a perfectly good head of hair, a little on the longish side, and head down to the mall. At the mall, you seek out one of those futuristic hair emporiums, usually named something like “Fashion 2005” or “Big Fashion, Little Cents” in big Atari type lettering. You are then consulted by the hair washer girl (who has failed beauty school a handful of times), the hair drying boy and then Gregor, the big sissy with parachute pants and snappy gum. He takes your perfectly good head of hair and sort of shag/Farrah’s it in the front but shorter. Think “feathered” with not a lot of “wing” but extra poof. Then he waves the scissors over the back and doesn’t take one millimeter off the length. Voila! A mullet.

It’s all business in the front but turn around! It’s all party in the back. Bring on the Milwaukee’s Best baby.

The extra adventurous pay extra to get that party in the back permed.

Sexy.

Back to the casino.

Whilst people watching, I noticed quite a few people (mostly men and a couple of mean looking dikes) wearing mullets! Holy ’87 Camaro! What to do? At first I suspected that it’s because the casino is only five miles from a dirt race track (hot action every Sunday night), but that would be stereotyping. No, no, no.

It’s just that bad fashion sense is prevalent in these parts.

Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is retiring is the big news, in case you’ve been in a box or under a rock all day. I really, really, really hope I’m wrong on this, but I don’t have a good feeling about this scenario at all.

Undoubtedly Bush Lite is going to nominate someone with his religious, “bang the public over the head with the Bible”, conservative beliefs.

I really don’t have a good feeling about this at all.

Hold on tight everyone, I think the ride is going to get a whole lot bumpier.

I hate it when I get a song stuck in my head. Especially when I have no idea what song it is, I don’t know what the lyrics really are and I think it’s been on an older Old Navy commercial. If the woman with the funky glasses was still around, I bet she would know the artist and title of this song.

I think the back up singers in this song sing “Raise A Little Glass” rather fast and over and over. There’s a lot of horns. It’s kind of R&B/soulish and it’s from the late 60s or early 70s.

That’s all I know about this song.

It’s making me crazy. I have no idea what this song is but I MUST HAVE IT. I think I’m going to spend the whole weekend listening to samples on iTunes.

Day 1.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

Well I’ve lost all interest in shaving again. That lasted two days. The new beard started today.