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403-310-2255
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
- Hits: 12792
Interrupted from my nap today, cherished nap, by a call from this number: 403-310-2255.
Unknown number. I know who it is, I've looked it up, they call every day, 2 or three times even, on those few days when I'm home and I answer there's only dead air. You wait a couple of minutes, still dead air, then hang up.
I've called it back, but it's an endless menu of automated queues. It's Telus, and somehow they feel that because you've been foolish enough to buy one or two services from them it gives them the right to harass you, by phone, every day to purchase more. Maybe you'll be stupid enough to buy more. I've tried to think that maybe, just maybe, they were calling to see how I was, to tell me I had won a car in one of their promotions, that they'd like to give me a free upgrade on my internet, but the search results don't seem to substantiate that.
Over 10, 000 results from Alberta alone, many of the results are message boards with multiple postings. So, conservatively, 50, 000 irate customers?
Hell of a campaign. Most of the comments seem to express a similar viewpoint to mine, dead air, why are they calling, why can't they just leave me alone...Probably the marketing execs at Telus think it's a great way to advertise, call people, wake them, interrupt their eating, exercise, sleeping, fornicating, with dead air, sort of a telephone viral... calling two or three times a day lending an urgency to the calls, then dead air as you wait for their machines to transfer you to an agent.
What a bunch of fuckwits.
Package #1
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1907
Day off (call and confirmed), been busy the last couple days and so it was a little in doubt...
A large list of errands that included thrift shops, picking up a Wii and some accessories for my daughter's 9th birthday (the grotesque spoiling of children by the absent parent, most single parents can relate...), then a quick peruse of the transit map of Calgary and a bus up to collect my package from eBay.
Now it's perfect, I don't want to open it, perfectly wrapped, small, lightweight, and after I pick it up and get it home I put it on the desk without opening it. All the way from Tibet, although the postmarks all read China.
I have to open it, I've had messages from the vendor on eBay, he wants to know if I've received it, he wants his feedback...
But I nap, briefly, first, a pleasant medley of dreams interrupted finally by a call from 403-310-2255. Unknown number. More on that later.
Unpack the thrift shop finds, a Beanie for the daughter as well, she already has it, but bought it full price for $10, mine was a dollar and so I bought it to illustrate the financial benefits of recycling, a copy of the 1970's version of the "Lord of the Rings" on DVD for a colleague at work, other small trifles.
Then I open it. I'd leave it in the package for a week or two yet, were it up to me, but I have to inspect it for damage, leave feedback.
It's perfect, exactly as described, better even, for the price a bargain and I want to message the seller now and order a dozen more (if he can round them up at the price I won it at...). I've found a small spot on a wall and hung it up - it's perfect.
I'd take a picture so you could see, but it's better you take my word. It's perfect.
The Pioneer Anomaly
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 1292
Small observations can often mean large scale changes in the way we look at the universe. Little semantic things, like whether the Earth goes round the sun or the Sun goes round the Earth.
Small changes in the way we think can have profound impacts on the way we interact, manipulate and predict the world around us.
The Pioneer Anomaly is one such small observation. Since exiting the solar system (inner) and reaching the outer solar system, both the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft (launched in the 70's) have slowed down more than any single factor can account for. Like the diminishing of the mass of the Kilogram, it's a small effect that might have big implications about the way we look at the universe.
Further Reading: Planetary.org, Cosmos Magazine
The Neighbors
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1417
The neighbors downstairs have moved out.
They only lived here a couple of months, a Somali couple, I met them once when the power repeatedly went out and back on, I could hear the clicking of the fuse back and forth, went downstairs to see what was up, he was in a rage, apparently the fuse would switch off whenever he tried to cook food and work on the computer.
He was going to move out, couldn't stand living in the basement, couldn't live like that, unable to cook and work on the computer at the same time, he'd be gone at the end of the month...
I find that Middle Eastern people are frequently like that, taking offense at trifles and yet somehow ignoring really big things; it was the details that annoy them, imagined slights or insults in the wiring of the house.
I wasn't home enough to notice them, not much, sometimes you'd hear their music, curious and haunting, had they stayed I might have inquired what they were listening to. And everyday when I'd return from work there would be the smell of their cooking, delicious, and while I'd been fed at work it would make me hungry and want to eat again...the sound of children (heard but never seen), parties of taxi drivers gathering in the basement.
Now the flat is empty again, and I wonder who the next tenant will be. Were there any chance of the landlords listening I'd have some suggestions.
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