ich bin ein auslander

It’s Monday. Still no return phone call.

I have enjoyed the irony of the 20,000 commercials they’ve been running talking about how great their service is and the “100% guarentee” of customer satisfaction.

Think I can sue them for false advertising? And what’s the guarentee, anyway? What do I get for not being satisfied other than some idiot being paid minimum wage to man their phones telling me how sorry he personally is for the bad service I’m receiving?

Yes, I am listening to the entire new Radiohead album, “Hail to the Thief”. Right now. March 30th. It’s very good. And yes, I will buy it when it does finally come out. The single won’t be out until May 26th. The album won’t be out until June 9th. Practically three months earlier and it’s out on the net. Record labels are doomed. Expect this to become a fairly large story over the new few weeks.

And I thought AT&T was bad. Comcast just took over here… raised rates without providing any enhanced or better service… and I had an appointment last Wednesday, March 26th. No one showed up, no one called. Called that night to go “wtf?” and was hung up on by the first person I actually got through to (after 10 minutes of voice menu hell). Second person (”Jody”) goes “boy that sucks” and reschedules for Thursday. Cannot do better than the 4 hour “window of opportunity” even though I already suffered through one of them only to have them not show.

Thursday, March 27th. No one shows up. No one calls. I call that evening (”Chris”) and attempt to be nice but forceful. Am not given a reschedule appointment but am told that they will have a special “unit” look into what’s going on and get back to me within 2 hours. No one calls.

Friday, March 28th. I call again to follow up. “Courtney” tells me that “Chris” was wrong to inform me that I would have been called back within 2 hours, as it can take up to 24 hours before being called back. A special form is filed for my account to expediate the process. I should definately be called back today.
No one calls.

Saturday, March 29th. I call again. “John” is “flabberghasted” as to why there has been no activity on my account. He files a “must-do” form, which is a “form that is definately looked at”… as opposed to all the previous forms which apparently are just fucking ignored all the time. I will be called within 24 hours. An appointment is tentatively scheduled for WEDNESDAY. They cannot do better than that. They cannot provide anything better than a four hour “window of opportunity”. Again. I complain and am told he apologizes for the “vicious circle”. Whatever the fuck that means.

Found myself with a little downtime before heading off to Finn’s… did a little cruising around the net, seeing what some of my favorite authors were up to and was pleasantly suprised to see a few have new books coming - relatively soon - and most of them had weighed in with their opinions re: current events through various means.

Kurt Vonnegut answered a few questions…

Tom Robbins has a new book coming in April (!!!!) and gave a few great quotes to the Seattle Times…

Neal Stephenson has diddly squat on his horribly shitty (yet well-based, so somewhat retro geek cool) 1992-era website…

Orson Scott Card may write wonderful books and have a great mind, but he’s mormon and i tend to disagree with him quite often, yet I still go and read his updates…

Christopher Moore is a new addition to my “must read” author list, and has a new book coming out next month, but no interviews or articles (yet) out there about current events…

Used to be a huge Anne Rice fan but more often than not, been embarassed by that lately. Last few books have sucked the proverbial egg… her website just got a horrid flash overhaul, but no new letters or opinions up there…

most of my other favorite authors are dead now, so therefore, little going on in the way of new releases or opinions about the war. Still hoping for some word from Douglas Adams though

And now, I need a drink.

enrique

Whoops. Someone forgot to turn on the autotune. God bless the autotune. I suppose it’s a plus he didn’t just lipsync. Although, maybe not.

Sigh.

Someday we’ll have a serious distinction between “music” and “entertainment”.