I graduated highschool for a reason, and it wasn't to go to college.
March 8, 2008
Selling out to the Americans again.
The biggest monopoly on Canadian telephone and DSL service is apparently set to become the biggest US owned Canadian monopoly. Thanks largely to a ruling courtesy a Quebec judge. There are no words for this. Except, that is, a thank you. You see, I didn't think the government could sell us out to the US all on its own. Thanks for the help, moron.
It redefines ridiculous, and actually makes me resent mother nature more than any of my top 3 favourite entities to hate on, but according to Bell technician dood who's name I never got, squirrels broke my phone service, the ratbastards. Which… I suppose explains why even a replaced phone line didn't last more than 24 hours. What I wouldn't mind knowing though, is why it took 2 technicians coming out here to figure that out. Apparently, according to the smarter one of the 2, they were nesting on one of the telephone poles outside the building. Which… kinda makes me contemplate agreeing with those of the persuasion that they should be shot. But, now, I have working phone service again. I'm no less irritated with Bell, mind you, but now it's for a whole different reason–that I had to take a day off work to actually have it looked at a second time, since the first one was apparently an idiot. Ah well, if the world didn't have it's fair share of stupid people, I'd have nothing to talk about. I just wish I didn't have to deal with them.
I was hoping I wouldn't have to take the day off to actually have this delt with, but apparently, someone over at Bell needs to be called back, blasted, and then properly instructed on how best to fix my freakin' phone line so it actually works for more than an afternoon. Apparently, it's not about to fix itself, however. And I'm not waiting until Monday to have it looked at a second time. The call gets made, tonight. And it'll be pretty one-sided. In the meantime… I've received possible alternatives to mother Bell. They will be investigated.
For the third time this month, and the second time in 2 days, I presently have no home telephone line. Which, for whatever reason, has no effect whatsoever on my DSL service. My overall pissedness with the ISP side of my phone company is already well documented, but I've yet to actually make mention to the problems I have with the phone company side of it. Which makes sense, really–until this month, I've had none. But, as it stands right now, I currently have no dial tone. I've had no dial tone since I'm not sure when this morning. I had no dial tone until the technician showed up yesterday at about noonish to replace the phone line. We know it's a problem with the actual building. Meaning, the line going from building to main box a couple streets over. Which means at least it didn't cost me anything to replace it. However, it *should* also mean that once the technician replaced it, it should be fixed. Not so much. Granted, it worked yesterday afternoon. And last night, until I'm not sure when. But she no worky now. And it's not sitting well with me. fortunately, after outage number 1 I got smart and had my home phone number forwarded to my cell, so at least now any incoming calls I should be expecting won't be missed. But I purchased home phone service through these fools for two reasons. It makes teh interwebs cheaper, and I still need to call folks long distance. Not doing that on my cell, thankyaverymuch. So now I'm paying for a phone line I'm only using for internets, and a long distance service I can't use until the internets people start doing their phone company job, too. And all of this comes wrapped in a neat little what the fuck package. Tempted am I to ditch Bell/Sympatico entirely. Except I'm not a big fan of VOIP, and the only real alternative to them for the internet is Rogers. Um, can we say no thank you please? Suggestions are welcome. If the 1.25 of you who actually read this thing have any. Until then, mother Bell can kiss my ass.
