Saturday, June 6, 2009
Caturday 2009-0606
Mooch, the cat really likes his "Temptations" treats. His un-named buddy -- not so much...
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Caturday 20090530
This kitten thinks (s)he's a whole lot bigger and badder than (s)he really is; the puppy is more like "Yeah, fine, whatever..."
Thursday, May 28, 2009
May you live in "interesting" times...
With GM on the verge of going tits-up, and the UAW taking part ownership of the company (and thus directly and immediately involved in operations), it's going to be "interesting" to see how the unions deal with a more immediate and direct connection of the consequences of their attitudes, demands, and actions.
Personally, I think the UAW has been more like a 10-pound tick on a 20-pound dog; now that all the perks, benefits, and salaries they've demanded over the years affect the company they've now got part ownership of, I think they're going to have to re-evaluate their positions on a whole raft of issues.
Personally, I think the UAW has been more like a 10-pound tick on a 20-pound dog; now that all the perks, benefits, and salaries they've demanded over the years affect the company they've now got part ownership of, I think they're going to have to re-evaluate their positions on a whole raft of issues.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Heh... got THAT right...
While I'm a big fan of Linux, and am willing to help others learn the benefits it offers, I'm not a hard-core FanBoi that Bill Gates is the AntiChrist.
That's not to say that I don't find these examples of what would happen if Microsoft made everything highly entertaining. Like THIS one:
Go ahead, see for yourself.
That's not to say that I don't find these examples of what would happen if Microsoft made everything highly entertaining. Like THIS one:
Go ahead, see for yourself.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Intertoobz -- I gotz 'em
The local cable company (Bresnan) turned up yesterday (at the beginning of the two-hour window they gave me) to get me connected to their systems.
It didn't take long for the installation guy to get me hooked up with cable TV (more on that in a moment), Internet, and digital telephone (technically, 'Voice over IP', or VOIP). I've got more bandwidth than I had with DSL (though it IS somewhat clogged with a bunch of Windows systems spewing crap), and the couple of calls that I've made with my phone indicate that everything phone-wise is working well, too.
When I signed up with Bresnan, I agreed to their $100/month TV-Internet-Phone package; compared to their regular prices listed in all the paperwork they issued me, it is something of a deal. The thing is, I'm really not all that interested in the TV side of it -- I simply don't watch it that much. There are a couple of movie channels that I'll likely use a little, and a couple more specialty channels (I watched programs on the M1A1 Abrams tank and the F-117 stealth fighter on the Military Channel last night, for example), but that's about it. I simply have no interest in the myriad of food/living channels, the sports channels, the reruns of OLD programs (I Love Lucy? yeesh!), and so on. So when the trial period expires, so will the cable service, methinks. The remote they issued me for my cable box has enough buttons on it that it looks like something NASA came up with, too.
Anyway, I have a shiny new phone number (I could have kept the old Qwest number, if I hadn't told them to buzz off before the installation guy turned up), a bigger pipe for my Intertoobz, and a shitload of TV channels not to watch.
It didn't take long for the installation guy to get me hooked up with cable TV (more on that in a moment), Internet, and digital telephone (technically, 'Voice over IP', or VOIP). I've got more bandwidth than I had with DSL (though it IS somewhat clogged with a bunch of Windows systems spewing crap), and the couple of calls that I've made with my phone indicate that everything phone-wise is working well, too.
When I signed up with Bresnan, I agreed to their $100/month TV-Internet-Phone package; compared to their regular prices listed in all the paperwork they issued me, it is something of a deal. The thing is, I'm really not all that interested in the TV side of it -- I simply don't watch it that much. There are a couple of movie channels that I'll likely use a little, and a couple more specialty channels (I watched programs on the M1A1 Abrams tank and the F-117 stealth fighter on the Military Channel last night, for example), but that's about it. I simply have no interest in the myriad of food/living channels, the sports channels, the reruns of OLD programs (I Love Lucy? yeesh!), and so on. So when the trial period expires, so will the cable service, methinks. The remote they issued me for my cable box has enough buttons on it that it looks like something NASA came up with, too.
Anyway, I have a shiny new phone number (I could have kept the old Qwest number, if I hadn't told them to buzz off before the installation guy turned up), a bigger pipe for my Intertoobz, and a shitload of TV channels not to watch.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Stepping in it
Apparently, Qwest and I didn't reach any kind of agreement: at no point in time yesterday did any kind of delivery service turn up to hand me my replacement DSL modem.
I have to admit that I'm more than a little surprised by that -- the last person I spoke with at Qwest assured me that it would go out Monday because my name was second on the list at just after 9:00 in the morning.
I don't know what happened, who's responsible, or why. The Qwest support person that I dealt with last expressed their understanding of the consequences if I didn't get my modem, yet it didn't arrive as promised.
So, at 3:05 (I waited until 3PM, Just In Case) yesterday, I called Bresnan (the local Cable company) and signed up for one of their specials: Internet, digital telephone (aka Voice over IP, or VOIP), and basic cable. I expect that when the intro deal period passes, I'll drop the cable TV. Installation is supposed to happen between 10AM and Noon this coming Monday, the 18th.
Qwest, you've got to learn to quit stepping on your own weenies...
I have to admit that I'm more than a little surprised by that -- the last person I spoke with at Qwest assured me that it would go out Monday because my name was second on the list at just after 9:00 in the morning.
I don't know what happened, who's responsible, or why. The Qwest support person that I dealt with last expressed their understanding of the consequences if I didn't get my modem, yet it didn't arrive as promised.
So, at 3:05 (I waited until 3PM, Just In Case) yesterday, I called Bresnan (the local Cable company) and signed up for one of their specials: Internet, digital telephone (aka Voice over IP, or VOIP), and basic cable. I expect that when the intro deal period passes, I'll drop the cable TV. Installation is supposed to happen between 10AM and Noon this coming Monday, the 18th.
Qwest, you've got to learn to quit stepping on your own weenies...
Monday, May 11, 2009
Blitzkrieg
As promised/threatened, this morning I made my call to Qwest to address the "issues" that came up over the weekend.
It took nearly 45 minutes and 3 phone calls, but Qwest and I have reached an understanding: Qwest will give me proper technical support; in return, I won't leave any more of their employees walking around with only 1 ass cheek and feeling like they could pass a watermelon without noticing.
I remained calm, polite, and courteous. I also remained obstinate, insistent, and adamant. Along the way, I gave a couple of Authority Figures the trouble ticket numbers that I'd been issued, so that they could see what all had transpired. I also offered a couple of genuinely helpful suggestions -- one of them being that if a caller says they're running Linux or MacOS, immediately bump them to level 2 tech support so that they aren't jerked around by the front-line script-reading dolts.
I just mentioned that I had to make three phone calls. The first got me some tech support weasel that was as willfully ignorant and unhelpful as the bundle of boobs I had to deal with this past weekend. The second phone finally got me someone with the willingness to actually address the underlying problem of Qwest's lack of support for Linux (and Macs, I expect) -- and resulted in me being forwarded to someone with the horsepower to actually issue me a replacement modem. Sadly, that person didn't quite grasp the concept that because I initially called the problem in on Saturday, I considered that to be the start of the promised 3rd day arrival of the modem. Since that person's supervisor hadn't arrived at work yet, I ended the conversation and made my third, and final, call. I was able to get the person on the other end to understand that I was not merely unhappy, but thoroughly disgusted with Qwest. I suspect that my comment that I was blogging about the process and perfectly willing to terminate any services through Qwest in favor of digital telephone and Internet with the local cable company (Bresnan) may have influenced them.
The bottom line is that I will (theoretically, anyway) have a replacement modem in hand tomorrow (it's supposed to be shipped Overnight), at no cost to me.
Why, yes, I can be an asshole -- but only for the forces of Good, I assure you.
It took nearly 45 minutes and 3 phone calls, but Qwest and I have reached an understanding: Qwest will give me proper technical support; in return, I won't leave any more of their employees walking around with only 1 ass cheek and feeling like they could pass a watermelon without noticing.
I remained calm, polite, and courteous. I also remained obstinate, insistent, and adamant. Along the way, I gave a couple of Authority Figures the trouble ticket numbers that I'd been issued, so that they could see what all had transpired. I also offered a couple of genuinely helpful suggestions -- one of them being that if a caller says they're running Linux or MacOS, immediately bump them to level 2 tech support so that they aren't jerked around by the front-line script-reading dolts.
I just mentioned that I had to make three phone calls. The first got me some tech support weasel that was as willfully ignorant and unhelpful as the bundle of boobs I had to deal with this past weekend. The second phone finally got me someone with the willingness to actually address the underlying problem of Qwest's lack of support for Linux (and Macs, I expect) -- and resulted in me being forwarded to someone with the horsepower to actually issue me a replacement modem. Sadly, that person didn't quite grasp the concept that because I initially called the problem in on Saturday, I considered that to be the start of the promised 3rd day arrival of the modem. Since that person's supervisor hadn't arrived at work yet, I ended the conversation and made my third, and final, call. I was able to get the person on the other end to understand that I was not merely unhappy, but thoroughly disgusted with Qwest. I suspect that my comment that I was blogging about the process and perfectly willing to terminate any services through Qwest in favor of digital telephone and Internet with the local cable company (Bresnan) may have influenced them.
The bottom line is that I will (theoretically, anyway) have a replacement modem in hand tomorrow (it's supposed to be shipped Overnight), at no cost to me.
Why, yes, I can be an asshole -- but only for the forces of Good, I assure you.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Blech Support
Much to my dismay, my official Qwest DSL modem went off into the weeds this morning: it shows that I have a DSL connection, but nothing is getting through; nor can I get into it from my network to configure it. After troubleshooting the situation, and determining that it was the modem and not something else, I was obliged to call Qwest DSL tech support.
My call was answered by some git in Mumbai or Calcutta or some damn place like that, and the flaming idiot simply couldn't understand that I'd already tried everything that his book of troubleshooting scripts called for. Nor did he grasp the concept that I was running something other than MS Windows. When I finally got fed up with dealing with him (along about the fourth attempt to walk me through the Windows modem setup), I went off on him and demanded a supervisor.
Well, she wasn't any kind of improvement -- she was equally adamant that I simply had to go through the script(s), and kept telling me that I had to do this or that so that we could configure the modem. It didn't take me long to lose patience with her (the third time she asked me what version of Windows I was using, despite me already telling her that I run Linux, and declaring that we needed to get my ISP online so we could input the modem settings). Slowly, carefully, and using a calm voice and small words in the hope that she'd understand, I told her that I was through screwing around with them -- that if she didn't authorize a replacement modem right then, the call was over and that I'd be raising hell with Qwest customer support on Monday (useless bastards are closed nights and weekends, of course). She said that all we had to do was input the modem settings. I asked how we were going to do that when I'd already told them several times that I couldn't get INTO the modem to set it up, and that I wasn't using Windows, which was the only thing they knew how to use to configure it. After several seconds of deafening silence, she tried to tell me (again!) that they could see the modem, so all it needed was to be configured. That was all it took for me to tell her that she was an idiot and hang up.
Come Monday morning, some poor soul at Qwest is going to learn that aggravating me is not a Good Thing To Do. For starters, I'm going to ream that person about the blazing incompetence, idiocy, and ineptitude of their alleged "tech support". Then I'm going to let them know that if they can't/won't get me back online by end-of-business Tuesday (the next day), then my first call Wednesday morning will be to sign up with Bresnan for cable, digital phone, and Internet -- and closing my Qwest account.
Back before they became Qwest, the company was U.S. West -- or as people liked to call them, U.S. Worst. I think an appropriate nickname for them now is Qworst.
Anyway, it looks like I'm going to be offline for the next couple of days, except for the infrequent visit to a local coffee shop...
My call was answered by some git in Mumbai or Calcutta or some damn place like that, and the flaming idiot simply couldn't understand that I'd already tried everything that his book of troubleshooting scripts called for. Nor did he grasp the concept that I was running something other than MS Windows. When I finally got fed up with dealing with him (along about the fourth attempt to walk me through the Windows modem setup), I went off on him and demanded a supervisor.
Well, she wasn't any kind of improvement -- she was equally adamant that I simply had to go through the script(s), and kept telling me that I had to do this or that so that we could configure the modem. It didn't take me long to lose patience with her (the third time she asked me what version of Windows I was using, despite me already telling her that I run Linux, and declaring that we needed to get my ISP online so we could input the modem settings). Slowly, carefully, and using a calm voice and small words in the hope that she'd understand, I told her that I was through screwing around with them -- that if she didn't authorize a replacement modem right then, the call was over and that I'd be raising hell with Qwest customer support on Monday (useless bastards are closed nights and weekends, of course). She said that all we had to do was input the modem settings. I asked how we were going to do that when I'd already told them several times that I couldn't get INTO the modem to set it up, and that I wasn't using Windows, which was the only thing they knew how to use to configure it. After several seconds of deafening silence, she tried to tell me (again!) that they could see the modem, so all it needed was to be configured. That was all it took for me to tell her that she was an idiot and hang up.
Come Monday morning, some poor soul at Qwest is going to learn that aggravating me is not a Good Thing To Do. For starters, I'm going to ream that person about the blazing incompetence, idiocy, and ineptitude of their alleged "tech support". Then I'm going to let them know that if they can't/won't get me back online by end-of-business Tuesday (the next day), then my first call Wednesday morning will be to sign up with Bresnan for cable, digital phone, and Internet -- and closing my Qwest account.
Back before they became Qwest, the company was U.S. West -- or as people liked to call them, U.S. Worst. I think an appropriate nickname for them now is Qworst.
Anyway, it looks like I'm going to be offline for the next couple of days, except for the infrequent visit to a local coffee shop...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
