A few weeks ago my internet connection became spotty. To their credit it was really the first time since Frontier bought my service from Verizon that I have had any trouble. When I finally got through to customer service I heard a message saying that if you lived in IL they knew there was a problem and they were working on it.
The problem reoccurred last week but this time they were unaware of any current wide ranging problems although I suspect it was from some kind of improvement they were trying to do on their system because the service would come and go every five minutes. Sometimes a couple of days would pass and I would have no interruption.
But I received an automated call from Frontier (Is there any other kind?) last week asking me to call them and set up an appointment which I did. After waiting nearly half an hour to talk to a real live person they finally set me up with a time slot so they could improve my service which was working perfectly fine by that point, thank you very much.
I know that when they tell you to be home between the hours of one and five that you have no business expecting them till four forty-five unless you run out on a quick errand in which case they will show up the minute your car has left the driveway. By four p.m. no one had arrived and just to be testy I gave them a call.
Because of my inability to switch from one phone call to another on my cell phone I lost the first representative I talked to today but the second person I made contact with informed me that Frontier had in fact forgotten to tell the service men that they needed to be here today.
I was incredulous. "What?" I asked. "I have never heard of such a thing!" I lied....I was in fact not surprised at all. I just hope the Tony Award nominating committee was listening in on that phone call. It is about time I got my due as an actor.
So now I get to sit at home again on Thursday afternoon waiting for the Frontier man. Let's just hope he looks a lot like Sully from Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman or Michael Landon from Little House on the Prairie when he arrives but with my luck I will probably get someone more along the lines of Jeff Bridges in True Grit.
It isn't that I have anything to do on Thursday afternoon or most afternoons but when you are told you have to stay home it takes all the fun out of watching General Hospital. Ever since they relegated Monica to a minor role the show hasn't been worth watching.
I don't know who the awful woman is that makes all those recordings for companies that you try to call for tech support but if I ever find her I am going to force her to take a good hard look at herself. She is soooo damn incompetent. I can't stand her patient tone. She never has the "number" I need. You know the drill. Press one for....press two for.....
Her voice sounds pleasant enough but I bet she has a head full of snakes, forcing her to stay hidden in a cave where she is forced to find work as a voice over artist. I picture this modern day Medusa living on an island just off the coast of India where she protects the citizens of that land from unnecessary calls so they can take breaks using their electronic devices and thinking up plots for even worse Bollywood films than they have subjected us to already.
Someone has to be protecting them otherwise they would just PICK UP THE DARN PHONE.
The worst of these is the Verizon lady. Verizon is no longer my Internet provider but when Frontier bought them out in whatever back door scheme they came up with they some how managed to find the same irritating woman to do their voice over work.
And some how they have made the process by which you FINALLY get to a real person even longer with even more insipid questions and press one choices.
And what happens when you finally get Sahib (who is calling himself Rodney, Randy or Ralph today in an effort to appear more Westernized) on the line? He asks you to verify the very same information that Medusa had you input on your touch tone phone.
Three things you can always be assured of when you do get Sahib on the phone; he won't be able to understand you, he won't be able to solve your problem and when he transfers your call the system will lose it and you have to listen to Medusa's siren song again. (I might have just mixed up my myths)
I could fix the nation's unemployment dilemma in one easy stroke; enact a law that demands businesses doing business in this country hire Americans, real live Americans to answer the phone. And no phone system should be allowed to ask you more than ONE press one question before you talk to a live representative. And please no one from Mississppi, Da Bronx, or any "valley girls" need apply for one of these positions. I won't be able to understand them either
Why do these things always ALWAYS happen when the church is full of guests? I can't really say there is anything like a typical Sunday at my church but if there were this would not have been one of them. We had a guest musician, the children's choir and a puppet show instead of the children's sermon. The choir was doing a simple old song called, "I've Got a Mansion Just Over the Hilltop" since we were having instrumental music for the prelude and offertory and half our sopranos were gone.
It all went well. For once we were able to fit a lot into the service and still manage to get out in about an hour. (In my Old Testament there are 11 commandments. The 11th one reads: mama has a roast in the oven so unless you are serving communion church better get in out an hour)
No two Sundays are ever exactly alike at our church, and for now let's assume that is a good thing. The congregation puts up with me, even allows me to serve the music director so I tend to give them a lot of leeway. It is a very accepting, loving congregation.
So it is easy to understand why I am probably the only one who was irritated when the minister went to the alter to deliver his closing prayer and a cell phone rang. But that is not my complaint. It could easily have happened to me. (I however have a very tasteful, nonobtrusive ring tone) But the cell phone didn't just ring The old (and I do mean old even by Biblical standards) man that it belonged to did not have enough sense to walk out of church or heaven forbid (literally) silence it.
Not only did he not silence it he proceeded to have an entire conversation while we were having closing prayer! in fact his last words to whatever nonchurch-going heathen he was talking to were, "I'm at church!"
"We know!" I wanted to shout.
After church everyone was very Christian about it I must say. They considered the source and laughed it off.
I had vowed to hunt down the offender and make sure someone, anyone had let him have it but he was simply too old to confront. Besides as slow as he is he still managed to get out of church before I left the choir loft and greeted some of the guests that I knew in the congregation.
There comes a time when you are simply too old to have a cell phone or for that matter any new invention. I sometimes wonder if that day isn't soon approaching for me. At least this guy assured me that I deserved to have all my electronic devices.
The only one he should be left with is a pacemaker and whatever that device is they hang around old people's necks when they have fallen and can't get up.
God may forgive but I hold grudges.
Apparently Mike "The Situation" Sorrenson appeared at a Comedy Central roast last night for Donald Trump and bombed. And today like American media did what they love to do best; they are all climbing all over the guy.
Have they seen any Comedy Central roasts? They are never funny. The jokes are always crass and stale and the material is always tired. It's hard to fill an hour with Donald Trump jokes. After you have insulted the hair and the wives what else is there?
I applaud The Situation for trying to create a brand for himself and attempting to pad his resume with something more than his appearances on Jersey Shore.
I thought he was charming on Dancing With the Stars. He could easily have just blown off the entire appearance on that show, flashing his abs weekly. That's all they really wanted. The fact that he didn't have much aptitude for dancing was beside the point. He tried and he was gracious and respectful of the program.
Today the pundits are all advising The Situation not to quit his day job but I applaud the guy for trying to improve himself. (and his bank account)
Let's not judge Charlie Sheen too harshly. Maybe he is just getting ready for Lent. After all today is Fat Tuesday and maybe h,e like millions of Americans is just going out on one more binge before Lent.
Who am I kidding? Neither Charlie or most Americans has any intent on giving up anything for Lent. I don't. I am not now and never have been into symbolism.
The first time I remember anyone mentioning symbolism was in Sophomore English when some girl climbed up to the top of a tree in a short story we were reading and it was supposed to stand for something a great deal more prolific. I didn't care then and I don't care now. I am sure this was not the first time an English teacher had tried to explain the concept but it was the first time I paid a little attention at least.
The Streets of Soulard in St. Louis were filled with Mardis Gras revelers last weekend. At least I assume they were. I went once, on a Saturday after the parade was over. The crowd had abated somewhat by then but I didn't see what the attraction was. Beads you could buy for yourself at any novelty shop and beer?
Maybe I should have learned to appreciate the taste of beer but I never did. It isn't that I am opposed to drinking. I just don't see the point. Alcohol loosens you up I know. But quite frankly in any given day I am apt to conduct myself in ways I regret without being under the influence of alcohol or illicit drugs. I don't even like the fact that I have to take blood pressure medicine.
And I can guarantee you that the same group of people that were on the streets of Soulard last weekend will be Downtown St. Louis this weekend for The Saint Patrick's Day parade. Couldn't churches in the area just save a little electricity and cancel their Ash Wednesday services this week? What is the point?
Morning after morning I get up to get my daily dose of Matt Lauer but just can't find the nerve to turn on the television wondering which Middle Eastern country is falling into chaos sending gas prices skyrocketing or which governor has declared his state's teachers public enemy number one.
I guess he is going by Muammar now but I still remember him as Colonel Gaddafi. He was a nut job forty years ago. We've had ten years to roam around Afghanistan but we couldn't have done anything about this loony toon in the last forty years?
If it weren't Libya it would be Iran or Iraq or some other country in the Mideast. Can't we just take a decade off from this area? I assume the answer is no since we still need their oil. How nice it must have been to live in the pre-automobile age when you wouldn't have had to care which of these nations was going after one another or the despots that run them. The last time they had a model citizen roaming around that area of the world they crucified him. Before that they probably complained about what Moses' parting of the Red Sea did to their water pressure.
I realize it is partially my fault. Like most Americans I am addicted to oil. We have known since the mid-seventies that the Mideast couldn't be trusted to provide a stable supply of oil so why didn't someone, anyone develop another type of engine in that time period?
Again I blame myself for this. If I had just assigned a few more science projects one of my former students may have invented a new type of engine by now.
So I guess it is all teachers' faults as the governors of Wisconsin and New Jersey would attest. Who are these people? I mean really. Fat ass Chris Christie never attended public school and his kids attend private school. He attended Catholic school. Why should public school teachers suffer because he got his knuckles rapped? (deservedly so I am certain) I am sure not even the nuns liked him. Noone, not even a nun has that much love of Jesus coursing throught their veins.
He just looks like a bully and we all know bullies are unhappy people with deep seeded personal issues (unlike bloggers) I am certain something in his past caused this resentment of teachers, probably because they didn't allow him to eat in class or only let him have one chicken leg on fried chicken day in the cafeteria. Or maybe he is just an opportunist who was determined to find some group to be a scape goat for his political agenda.
That guy in Wisconsin, Scott Walker is even worse, wanting to take away collective bargaining rights for public workers with the exception the ones who supported his campaign. The hypocrisy and arrogance of these people is astounding. It's even been revealed that the guy was asked to leave college for cheating. I believe people can change but the fact he became a politician isn't a very good indication that he is trying to put his best foot forward is it?
At least I have Charlie Sheen to give me comfort. His is a sad, sad case. My mother told me that money couldn't buy you happiness. Apparently she did not know about mind altering drugs and wouldn't admit to me that there were people in the world that made their money in the sex industry. I would say Charlie bought him some happiness, for a while anyway.
I can't say I will miss Two and a Half Men. Like most sitcoms it became predictable several seasons ago. I always thought his costar, Jon Cryer was more talented anyway.
Thank goodness all is not lost. They finally announced the next cast of Dancing With the Stars although at this point they need to rename it Dancing With a Disney Prodigy, a Couple of Has Beens and a Couple of People so Obsure This Will be their One Shot at Fame. I mean really. Ralph Macchio? Did they really run out of ex boy banders this quickly?
