Is Verizon Scamming People Into FiOS?

When I got home from work yesterday, Stephanie told me there was a message on the answering machine from Verizon, calling to confirm our “recent order”. She left it, because it mentioned a phone number, and she didn’t know if I had changed our phone or DSL service and just not mentioned it. I listened to the message, and while the computer’s voice sounded kinda like the Verizon voice mail tree, something seemed odd. A quick look up of the 1-800 number did show it was really them (1-800-VERIZON, or 1-800-837-4966, is their new all-in-one support phone number) so I called them back. Took a little while to get through voice mail since the system had no idea where to send me, but eventually I got someone who sent me to a CSR to answer my questions. After a little digging they figured out what the mysterious call was about. Somehow an order to upgrade us to FiOS was placed, and the call was to confirm it. Interesting since we can’t really do that; my job pays fo my DSL access so I can work from home if needed (to fix things on off-hours without having to get to the office) but I don’t think they’d want to pay for my landline and TV service too. Plus I’m quite happy with DirecTV, not to mention we’re constantly debating getting rid of the landline and either using our cells or getting VoIP. So this person sent me over to “the elite team” to cancel the order. I explained to her what happened, she offered to see if a TV and phone bundle was available, and when I said we were happy with our TV service she put in the cancellation right away, no questions asked. Everyone was very friendly and helpful.

So why does the title of this article ask if Verizon is scamming people? Because about two weeks ago, in the rain, some guy was coming door to door trying to sell FiOS service. Of course he knocked on our door too, and doing so woke up Emily – therefore Stephanie already wasn’t happy when she opened the door. When he started the pitch, she said no and started to close the door. He then tried to keep selling to her, and argued when she said we couldn’t bundle our Internet service with phone and TV (her and I had just talked about the problem a couple days before when a mailed postcard from Verizon gave her the idea). She just about had to slam the door in his face to get him to leave. Then a week or so later we’re magically signed up for FiOS? Sounds quite a bit fishy to me; wonder if anyone else in the area had similar experiences – if they even know that they are signed up for it, or will find out before a tech shows up with the equipment to start the changeover. Now I’m debating if I want to spend the probably close to an hour on the phone to find out where that order originated, and bring to the attention of someone with firing power that it didn’t come from us.

Let’s Get Analytical

I don’t know what prompted me to check it out, but I had a look at Google Analytics not that long ago and thought it might be neat.  One thing I like to do now and then is browse the stats of my website; see how people got here, what they looked at, where they came from.  Maybe it’s voyeuristic, but it’s kinda nice to know that if you search for “peco sucks” you get an article I wrote some time ago when I was rather incensed at them (hey, I’m even the top search result!) and nicer to know that it’s one of the top search results that get people here.  I setup an account for the radio club too, so I can watch the traffic coming to that site.  But so far I think the most interesting bit I’ve found is that the most popular article I have written (and didn’t write with that in mind, more of a journalling and getting the ideas down so I remembered) is the one on installing Linux on my PS3.  Shame that it might be lost on folks picking up the PS3 slim, since that new model won’t include the ability to install Linux – which I think is completely rediculous to remove such functionality, especially since I don’t know that there’s any hardware change involved that breaks compatibility.  Oh well, Sony’s shot themselves in the foot enough other times too (hello, PS2 compatibility!)

Concerts A-Z

Here’s a neat one. Copy down the letters A through Z, and name all the bands you’ve seen in concert that start with that letter. The garage band down the street doesn’t count, but that concert you hope nobody finds out you went to most certainly does!

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Can You See The Real Me, Doctor?

If you’ve been tagged or you are reading this, you have the honor of copying all these goofy questions, writing your own response, and tagging 25 other victims. You have to tag me so really you just need 24 more people. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you – but not in a creepy stalker kind of way.  (Since I rarely tag people, I’ll decide as time goes on if I bother with that step or not, and if I tag 25 people or just work this via the honor system)
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Whadda Day

David and I were wrestling earlier today.. much earlier.  He went down for his nap, and a half hour later wasn’t sleeping yet.  I went up, and he just seemed so out of it and tired; I read him a story and left the room again.  About two and a half hours later when he woke up, he was still lethargic and not moving much, and after a quick bit of poking and prodding we realized his left shoulder hurt to the point he didn’t want to move it.  Call the pediatrician, he said it could be one of a couple things.  Either something called “nursemaid’s elbow” which kids can even do to themselves, and requires a quick re-set of the elbow and he’d be fine.  Or it could be a soft-tissue thing, either a muscle pulled or a tendon stretched.  Or,  a broken clavicle.  Oh great.

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Did You Get The Plate Number Of That Truck That Hit Me?

Yesterday was supposed to be our last doctor’s appointment before the baby is born on the 14th.  We went, heard the heartbeat, confirmed a few things, talked about plans, and we were done – a little earlier than expected even.  David was home with my mom, so we could chat with the midwife about anything that came up and not be trying to wrangle him at the same time.  All finished, we got into my truck and headed to Halo Farms to get milk, and then head home.  We went the way I normally would, coming down Route 1 to the Warren St. exit, then head across the Trenton Makes Bridge (I’ve yet to pay a toll on the Route 1 bridge).  We were first in line at the light at Bridge Street, with someone on my left and a woman on a bike half in the street on my right; I remember this for two reasons, one being that I hoped she wouldn’t ride out in front of me but would get up onto the sidewalk instead, and second because I got to find out just how nice of a woman she is a few minutes later.  Light turned green, I started to move forward.. and the douchebag to my left started trying to race me.  He wanted to cut me off, because he wanted to be in my lane (because he didn’t want to turn left and get on Route 1, he wanted the bridge, and figured if he gunned it fast enough he could cut me off and not have to wait in line like I did.)  Whatever asshole, wait your turn.. that’s what I was thinking, until he started moving into my lane anyway.

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When Did “Good Woman” Become “Bad Man”?

That’s the punchline to a George Carlin joke.  One particular word, a compound word really, which each part is fine on its own.  Why was I more tempted to put that in the title?  Because that’s what I thought when I found that this, and at least two other sites I run in one way or another, got compromised by a WordPress exploit some time ago.  Of course I didn’t even notice it at first, wasn’t until I wanted to change the theme on one of the sites.  Now I apparently have to change the theme on all of them, because those themes don’t exist anymore anyway.  Lovely.

I think I need a drink 😛

My Friends Are Disappearing

I’d intended to do another one of those Facebook notes, but I haven’t got to it yet.  I’m thinking of the soundtrack one mostly, that’ll be fun to put together.  No, tonight’s rambling is brought on by some photos I just looked at.  A friend posted photos she took from a wedding I attended, and I tagged a few other friends that I saw in the photos.  And one person I tried to tag, only he wasn’t in my friends list anymore.  I go looking around, and I can’t find him on Facebook anywhere.  There’s comments he’d left on another friends’ photos, so there’s proof that he was there before; but now he’s gone.  First a few months ago, I saw that Toni Kember disappeared off of Facebook, and other people that I know are friends of hers couldn’t find her there either.  Now Jon Lyon is gone too.  It’s a conspiracy!  They’re going to start charging us to remain friends with people!  Or we’ll have to pay a fee for every 10 friends after the initial 15!

Or Facebook should just send a notification to people to say “Hey, your friend deleted their account, so you know…”  Yeah, that’d be nice.  At least I’m assuming that’s what happened anyway – that, or I’ll need to cough up $10 if I ever want to see Jon alive again.

Delectable Delights

My wife used to run a home business selling jams and jellies, mostly at craft shows in and around where we lived.  It was a lot of fun.. well, she enjoyed the making of stuff, and I kinda enjoyed people watching at the shows themselves, we both hated setup & breakdown and the associated moving of crap from point A to B to C to B to A.  But anyway, with having a little boy running around the house, and a little girl on the way, there just isn’t time to keep up with it anymore.  So instead of throwing out all the canned stuff that’s sitting waiting to be sold, she’s offering it at these prices:

Available for $1 each
12 pints Green Tomato Pickles
5 pints Garlic Dill Pickle CHips
11 pints Cucumber Relish
4 pints Corn Relish
6 jars Peach Jam
4 jars Merlot Jelly
4 jars Carrot Cake Preserves
1 jar Blueberry-Raspberry Jam
2 jars Cabernet Jelly
1 jar Hot Pepper Jelly
2 jars Chardonnay Jelly
2 jars Ranier Rose Jelly
4 jars Seedless Raspberry Jam
4 jars Kiwi Jam
4 jars Blueberry Jam
6 jars Blackberry Jam
2 jars Pumpkin Pecan Butter
1 jar Moscato Jelly
6 jars Island Topping
2 jars Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
1 jar Very Berry Jam
21 jars Salsa (not sure how hot it is)

Available for 2 for $1 (4oz jars)
3 Chardonnay Jelly
2 Champagne Jelly
10 Mint Jelly
4 Merlot Jelly
1 Sauvignon Blanc Jelly
3 Hot Pepper Jelly
1 Cran Blueberry jam

If you’d like any of this, then contact me through whatever means you know (Facebook, email, comments on my website, etc) and I’ll get her your information.  Cash, check & credit card accepted :>

Pseudorandom Music

This is enough fun that I could do it for a few hours.. maybe I’ll make a post with a bunch of them later.

  1. Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random.  The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
  2. Go to Quotations Page and select “random quotations” or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3.  The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.
  3. Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days.  Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
  4. Use Photoshop or something similar to put it all together.
WINK - Eternal Summer in the Grateful Heart

WINK - Eternal Summer in the Grateful Heart

WINK was the Wikipedia article, the quote was “There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart” by Celia Thaxter, and the image is here.