5/7/08

AT&T is working my last nerve on this air card fiasco. I went in to the store to cancel the service and give them back their card and was told that since the contract was over thirty days old, they couldn’t cancel it in the store. I'd have to call 611 from my cell phone to cancel it. Oh, and since there are 16 months left on the contract there would be a $175.00 cancellation fee. He did recommend that if I'm not happy with the service and won’t be using it any more, then my most financially prudent move would be to pay the $175.00 fee since that would be much less than the $960.00 to finish out the contract. I asked if he wanted the air card back but he said I should keep it. I snapped it in half and dropped it on the sidewalk in front of the store. Mom and I then went to dinner at Rockfish. Not that where mom and I had dinner is important to the narrative now that I think about it. Hmm. Anyhoo, I called AT&T when I got home and spoke to a dude about cancelling the service. He asked why so I told him A) it was expensive, B) it was slow, and C) it was unreliable. He asked what I meant by “A” so I told him that my bill dropped from over $300.00 last month to two hundred something this month and the only difference was I stopped using the air card. I mentioned an over $500.00 bill the month before the $300.00 one which caused me to try the experiment. He wanted to check it out because, “That should have a data plan whit unlimited access.” Well, I don’t know what to say to that. He couldn’t defend “B” because, well I guess they know that the thing is just a wireless dialup connection and therefore is slower than dog shit after said dog has eaten bubblegum, and it is cold out, and someone keeps jumping out and yelling “Yaa!” at the dog when it starts to go therefore startling the poor thing into clenching its butt closed. Yeah, it is that slow. In fact, he didn’t even touch on that aspect of the complaint now that I think about it. As for “C” he asked what I meant by “unreliable.” I told him it dropped the connection often, it locked up and required a reboot often, and sometimes it wouldn’t connect at all. He asked if I'd had their tech support look at it. I told him I'd had it in the store several times for them to look at it and they’d download another “fix” and send me on my way. He said that the actual tech support dorks, my word not his, would have either solved the problem or would have been able to waive the cancellation fee since it was un-fixable. Notice I didn’t say, “…if it was un-fixable,” because I just know. He asked if I'd want to schedule an appointment to have them look at it. I said no but didn’t tell him it was because the card was destroyed. I said to just charge the cancellation fee and get it the hell off my account. I just wish I'd snapped the card in half and left it on the desk instead of dropping it on the sidewalk. I hope someone picked it up and brought it inside to them because I didn’t see it when mom and I drove past after dinner. I have got to stop trying new gadgets when I don’t know what the hell they are supposed to do. Well, I thought I knew what this was supposed to do. Now I know it was supposed to drain my checking account and raise my blood pressure. I need to tell Pat and John to go shove their computer crapstickery whenever they try to get me to “upgrade” my equipment. If I could just wean myself off the damned internot altogether everything would be just hunky dory. I'm already working towards it. I haven’t had internot at work for a couple weeks now. I'd need to get all of my bills sent by paper again. Hey, I just thought of an added bonus to that plan! I'd be contributing to the production and waste of more paper! Yeah, fuck the environment! Oh, on that note, here’s my take on our effect on the environment: “Life on Earth will be fine.” Oh sure, it might not be a place where people can live, but the Earth will be fine. Life, though perhaps not human life, will be fine. People are so egotistical to think that they are the center of the whole friggin’ universe. Guess what, we ain’t. So again I say, “Life on Earth will be fine.” And besides, as long as the place is habitable for the next forty or fifty years, that’ll be long enough. Once I'm dead I really won’t give a flying crap about the place. Fuck the planet, fuck the environment, fuck the human race, and fuck the future. I don’t care. In fact, now that I think about it, I don’t think I am going to change the carburetor on Mr. Wiggly. I'm going to continue to allow it to waste gasoline and pollute the atmosphere as long as I can afford to drive it. Mr. Wiggly is the Anti-Gore! Mu-wah ha ha ha ha ha! Pollute! Pollute my minion of waste! Besides, I'm far too lazy to actually change that carburetor and we all know it. Well, I think perhaps I have alienated all but the most hardcore anti-ecology wackos out there with this one so I guess I'll call it a rant. I know I left off in the middle of the discussion of me getting off the internot completely. Perhaps I'll touch on it again in the future, if we have one!