Category: Uncategorized

It is freezing in this house… but that’s because it’s freezing everywhere.

I think Katie quit her job but is too scared to tell me. I will know more later.

Now I have to open church.

I think I have heard everything now.  Eddie just imitated Margot’s snorking noise, but very softly, as if he was trying it on for size.

Where’s Daddy?  Where’s Daddy?

He came for a scritch but Margot tried to horn in on the action so he ran away.

I get to park in the carport!  Hope Jeff decides to stay for a week, the weather here sucks a rock.

We’re about to head off to a Chinese buffet.  Alex and Darwin are here, and we will be joined by Rob and Mary.  It should be a pretty convivial crowd.

I am feeling purty  good, actually.

But I’m glad the BC NDP has decided you’re not the one.

That would be nice.  Watched the Elevator episode of Nova last night… the Burj Khalifa is one DIRTY GREAT tall building, I must say.

I am very slowly recovering from my recent trip to completely-depressed-and-unable-to-focusland, and of course details are unavailable at this time.  Possibly California sunshine helped.

Although I had scheduled it off, I have to work Friday, so there you go.

Jim Morrison is dead, but Florida may pardon him for his brief self-fondling.

On the other hand, if you manage a Morgan Stanley fund, you can get your free pass now.  Since this has been reported a number of ways in the press, here’s the DA on the subject.

Rare earth metals shortages are going to change how we do recycling, I guarantee it.  Anybody notice that gold got over $1420USD recently?

Atheists ain’t got no songs. Oh Steve Martin, how cute thou art.

Buffalo whisperer lives with his pet. After all, ya canna live with an elephant.  Watching the car suspension groan under the buffalo’s weight cracked me up.

Maybe we’ll have to reconsider You’re Full of Shit as a slur.

You bet your ass I went through the scanner. But I’m never flying through the US again unless it’s on business and somebody else is paying.

That’s the way to do it!

As for me I’m okay I guess.

Office of the President
100 Westmoreland St
Moncton NB
E1C 0G1

customer.service@rci.rogers.com

Dear People,

As an aside.  Office of the President, my lavishly upholstered sitzplatz.  Who on earth are you trying to fool?

I would like to advise you folks that you have something seriously, seriously broken with your customer support.

It’s not that the phone I paid for over many years dropped calls and generally did unspeakable things to long dead goats for the duration of its life; nor that Rogers made transferring ownership of the account to someone else, ie the person who was using the phone during that time, impossible; not that going to paperless billing after I was harassed into it nearly wrecked my credit and how I had to go back to asking you to kill trees to bill me, because your website is a universe-destroying abyss of suck; nor that your pricing was abominable, because all Canadian cell phone pricing, thanks to the CRTC, sucks a Greyhound bus station men’s room mop; nor that every person I spoke to in customer service sounded like they’d all been whipped and shown pictures of puppies being tortured prior to being allowed the privilege of answering the phone for you….

Nope, this is something quite simple.

Your accounts receivable department…. an important department to be sure …. DOESN’T LEAVE A MESSAGE when it calls.  No name, no TELEPHONE number.

Does anybody see the delicious irony in how A TELEPHONE COMPANY …. because in essence, that’s one of the arms of the Rogers cephalopod … doesn’t leave a TELEPHONE NUMBER when it’s harassing customers to pay up?

I owe Rogers money.  I feel quite comfortable saying this.  I owe you money, and I’m gonna KEEP on owing you money until I get a final, paper bill.  I have no intention of giving you any money until I get my last piece of mail from Rogers.

Yes, I owe you from the previous month.  Yes, I’m supposed to keep my account in good standing.  Yes, there were a few months in that three years when I didn’t pay promptly, but I always cleared my account.  Not the best customer, far from the worst.

I cancelled my account.  Let me repeat that.  I cancelled my account.  I will never, ever, so long as Rogers is a legal entity and the Dominion stands, buy a Rogers product or service again.

Here’s my earnest request.  Give me a paper bill after November 14 and in the meantime, leave me alone.  Not because I don’t owe you some money, oh yeah, I do.  But because your system is too stupid to advise the poor sods who work for you to LEAVE A NUMBER where they can be reached.

As a phone company – or a feeble simulacrum of one – Rogers does not deserve to survive.  If we had American style competition in this country (and no CRTC), not that I want it but in Rogers’ case I’ll make an exception, Rogers wouldn’t survive into its third year.

I promise I’ll pay up, but if your poor accounts receivable employees or collectors or whatever stupid weasel word you use, don’t start leaving a number where they can be reached, I’ll be advising my brother, with whom I live, and who has received EVERY ONE OF YOUR CALLS so far, just to hang up if you don’t reach me in person.

My regards to the workers of Rogers, all of whom probably need that crappy job or they would indeed be working elsewhere; as for the management, may the great winnowing fan of Capitalism wreak its havoc on you soon.

Allegra Sloman
Proud to be a recovering Rogers customer

Pleasanton is extremely pleasant.  The hotel is lovely, the meal we had last night at Terra Mia was of surpassing excellence, the company was intelligent and convivial, and we have an appallingly hard day of presentations and work ahead of us, followed by another appalling hard and long day.

Obviously the loaner laptop is working fine.  Nice big keyboard, ya gotta like that.

Okay, back to work.  Oh, just one more thing.  Who needs boys?  Not this snake!

Or at least I’m going to dress like one at work today.

Freaking out mildly about travelling still, but I am trying to be as stoic about it as possible.

Katie moved in – so the pile of boxes say – but she slept without last night.

I’m two rooms away from Margot and I can hear her cleaning herself. She makes a slurping noise while grooming that is disproportionately louder than her tiny size makes plausible.  Also, although she has not put on any weight, her fur has exploded into its winter state and I’m back to having to brush her very thoroughly once a day.  She puts up with it less gracefully than she used to, and by the time I’m done she’s yowling – a very low key yowl – and attempting to puncture me in a variety of squirmy ways.

I am so looking forward to seeing her wander around in the snow.  She was too little before, but this year she and snow will make friends.

Comes in eight delicious flavours.

Today, the following words came out of my mouth, “Ethical, my ass, I just don’t want to get blamed for it.”

As much as I like the gal running the service yesterday as a person, I find her music tedious, so I bailed on her church service and did other things instead. Hey, lots of people find my music tedious too, I could give you a list.

Katie has moved some more of her stuff in. The official moving date is the 28th.  Don’t know how long she’ll be here… don’t care.  It’s all family.

I wrote a thousand word thank you letter for Mike.  I want to print it out and give it to him in person, but I think I should just mail it.

I light a candle for Shay, who was on a ventilator two days ago after surgery and is now awake.  That woman is so loved by her community it is awesome to see.

Keith and Katie were here last night and we watched some shows.

I went walking in Deer Lake Park on Saturday.

wow HUGE Wikipedia article

was challenging and interesting.  Dawn was beautiful.  I’m doing okay.