Frontier Communications ― The Worst

This fall, AT&T got out of Dodge and Frontier Communications took over as our landline and Internet provider.

Frontier screwed up our billing and their Internet service is the worst.

Getting e-mail is like playing Russian roulette. Frontier's system frequently fails to recognize my password when my e-mail app tries to retrieve new messages. I have found no fix for this problem and just have to keep trying to get my e-mail until Frontier's system finally recognizes my password.

Browsing websites is even worse. Occasionally, accessing a website reminds me of the good old days with AT&T, but most of the time, trying to access a website is like trying to pull teeth. Websites load so slowly that my browser often gives up and sends me an error message saying that Frontier's system can't access the website I am trying to hit.

Sometimes, rebooting the computer speeds things up, but that only works about half the time. But why do I have to resort to that fix? I never had to do that with AT&T.

I would drop Frontier Communications like a hot potato, but I dread having to deal with changing my e-mail addresses!

Anyway, Merry Christmas!

a pet peeve

One of my pet peeves has to do with magazine subscriptions. This particular peeve raised its ugly head again recently when my daughter gave me a subscription to Sky & Telescope as a Father's Day gift.

My subscription began with the arrival of the June, July, and August issues of the magazine during the past four days. The mailing address notes that my subscription runs out with the May 2010 issue.

My peeve is sending me two back issues (June and July) to fulfill my 12-issue subscription. If I thought enough of the magazine to get a subscription, would I not be interested enough to buy those issues of the magazine before getting a subscription?

This has happened so often in the past with other magazine subscriptions that I finally started complaining to the magazines and so far, each time I have complained, the magazine extended my subscription by the number of back issues they sent me.

I intend to complain to Sky & Telescope, too, but why should I have to do that?

Instead of sticking their new subscribers with back issues they might already have, the magazines should start new subscriptions with the next new issue. If a subscriber missed an issue, she/he can always purchase the back issue(s) instead of having back issues foisted on them unwillingly.

$4.16 per gallon

I paid $4.16 per gallon for gasoline this morning. There was no attendant to pump the gas, clean the windows, check the oil, check the tire air pressure, or take my money to the register.

Isn't it wonderful living in the the 8th Year of the Bush Trickle-Down Prosperity!

gas pump blues

I paid $3.99 per gallon for regular gasoline today!

buying the farm

I almost bought the farm yesterday.

I am driving to work on the interstate in the right hand lane at the posted speed limit (65 MPH), which is how I usually drive during the rush hour when there are a lot of frantic drivers on the road driving like maniacs. Another car in front of me is doing the same, meanwhile most of the other vehicles on the interstate are passing us in the two lanes to our left.

I notice the car in front of me momentarily swerve into the breakdown lane, then it swerved back into the driving lane after encountering the bumper strip. With that I decided to slow down and put more space between us. I am in no hurry, my exit is about a mile away, so I am not going to worry about adding an extra 30 seconds to my commute.

A tractor trailer passes me in the center lane. As it passes the car in front of me, the car begins to swerve into the center lane and the rear wheels on the right side of the tractor trailer catch the left front side of the car in front of me.

I can't believe my eyes, but I know that all hell is about to break loose 500 feet ahead of me and I hit the brakes.

The tractor trailer never stops. When the car hit its rear wheels, it probably felt like a flea bumping into an elephant.

On the other hand, the car careens out of control across the three lanes of the interstate, onto the center median, and comes to a stop on top of the man-made hill in the center of the median facing traffic at a right angle.

I lucked out and the car did not end up in my lap. There were no cars in the other as the car crossed the interstate, so everyone lucked out except the driver of the car that swerved into the tractor trailer's wheels.

My car came to a stop in the breakdown lane exactly across the highway from the car where it landed on top of the hill in the center median.

I had no cell phone to call in the accident. I was not going to try and walk across three lanes of traffic to see if the driver of the car needed help especially since other cars were now stopping along side the center median to offer assistance. So, I eased back into traffic and went to work.

Wow!

I don't know what caused the car to swerve as it did. The car had a red, white, and blue out-of-state license plate that I did not recognize. Had the driver been on the road too long and was falling asleep at the wheel? Or was the driver distracted using a cell phone or an iPod, consulting a map, putting on makeup?

I don't know and probably never will, but that close call provided me with an education and I promised myself that I will never be distracted using a cell phone, iPod, ham radio, etc., while driving in the future, and I will be even more alert of the other drivers around me.

time to fire FCC Chairman Kevin Martin

Yesterday, "Bush-appointed Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin rammed through a 3-2 partisan vote to remove the longstanding "newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership" ban that prohibits a local newspaper from owning TV and radio stations in the same market. Witness yet another shining moment: the Bush administration serving up a wholesale giveaway to the largest media corporations in the most corrupt process imaginable."

Read the rest of the story here and complain to your representatives here and here.

stop Kevin Martin

"If FCC chairman Kevin Martin gets his way, News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch will be able to go into the largest American city and buy the daily newspapers, the "alternative" weeklies, the neighborhood and suburban weeklies, the eight biggest radio stations, the most watched TV stations and the most popular websites. Then he can start making real money by producing the news and commentary for those different forums from one downsized, dumbed-down but dominant "local" newsroom.

"That's a local problem, with profound ramifications for already undercovered urban and low-income areas. But there's a national threat as well. Representatives, senators, even Presidents are elected on a region-by-region, state-by-state basis, so when the dominant media in a battleground state speak with one voice, the owner will shape not just the local agenda but the national debate."

Read the rest of the story here.

why I hate Chri$tma$

I am eating breaksfast and reading the newspaper. My wife turns on the television and is watching the Today Show from NBC.

I am startled to hear a Christmas tune during a segue into a commercial. After the commercials, the show starts up with the same Christmas tune playing and one of the female Today Show talking heads informs me that Halloween is over and the Christmas season is here (or some such).

What the...?

What happened to Thanksgiving?

It wasn't long ago, that the Chri$tma$ $ea$son didn't begin until the day after Thanksgiving! And I can remember when the countdown didn't begin until December 1.

If you listen to the media, Thanksgiving is now just a warm-up for the next day, the so-called "Black Friday," when everybody is supposed to show up in a frenzy at the mall at 6 AM to begin their Chri$tma$ $hopping.

They can all go to Hades, as far as I am concerned. This year, I will celebrate Christmas, but not Chri$tma$.

why I hate the frat boy

Bush vetoes child health insurance bill

why I hate Senator Lieberman

Yesterday, "the US Senate fell four votes short of restoring Habeas Corpus, the fundamental constitutional right of individuals to challenge government detention, which the Republican Congress revoked in last year's Military Commissions Act. Fifty-six senators supported a procedural move to tie the Habeas provision to legislation authorizing defense spending--a step that requires sixty votes." - from Yahoo news

"Say it ain't so" Joe Lieberman, one of the senators who "represents" my state in the Senate, voted against the bill.

(Our other Senator, Chris Dodd, voted for the bill.)

another reason why I hate my ISP (AT&T)

Read Being realistic about municipal wi-fi and find out more about why I hate my ISP.

why I hate my ISP (AT&T)

Read AT&T: Your World Censored and find out why I hate my ISP.

10 reasons to throw away your cell phone

10 reasons to throw away your cell phone is a good read, but I have added the following:


Reason number 11: I use my ham radio equipment, not a cell phone when I want to talk on the radio.

why I hate Harry Potter

Ron Charles pretty well sums up my feelings about Harry Potter.

Instead of regurgitating what he wrote, you can read it here.

closure overrated

I see that a lot of people are upset about the final episode of The Sopranos. The fans are upset because there was no closure. Boo, hoo!

Closure, schmosure! I thought the final episode was perfect.

Life goes on and most of the time, it goes on without closure. The only closure that you can count on is when you drop dead. So, forget about closure and like they said in one of my favorite movies, get busy living, or get busy dying.

save small, independent magazines

Cosign a letter protesting the U.S. Postal Service’s massive postage hike for independent magazines and demand that the decision be reversed! This decision unfairly hurts smaller, cutting edge publications at a time when we need independent media more than ever.

Here is the link to sign the protest letter.

apple reports $770 million profit... maybe now they can afford to fixmy mac

Apple reports $770 million profit! Maybe now they can afford to fix the defective Mac that they sold me!

By the way, the problem has gotten worse since I took this photo. There are now 9 ugly vertical lines on my Powerbook display.

idiot or fear monger?

For days, the local television weather gurus and their talking head counterparts in the news departments have been predicting that a huge storm, a classic "Nor'easter," was going to strike our neck of the woods today. As the big storm approached, the chatter on the local television stations got louder and louder striking fear into the hearts of the citizens and causing a run on bread, milk, and gasoline at the local convenience stores.

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service has been downgrading the storm for the past two days. If you compare the NWS forecasts with the stories coming out of the local television stations, you would think they were talking about different weather events.

So, why are the television stations sticking to their stories and still predicting a big storm?

Are they just fear mongers, who are trying to scare people to such a degree that they will stay tuned to the local television stations so not to miss any of pearls of wisdom dripping from the local newscasters' mouths and more importantly, the countless advertisements and commercials that surround those rare pearls?

Anyway, this morning, I am eating breakfast, reading the newspaper, and listening to the local news on WVIT - Channel 30. WVIT is still playing up the storm big time and they have a reporter named Amy down on the shoreline in New Haven reporting on the weather conditions on/in Long Island Sound.

Amy is really agitated about the deteriorating weather conditions and to make her point, she says that two hours ago (at 7 AM) the beach where she was standing was not covered with water, but that now (at 9 AM), that same spot is inundated with surging water!

I shout back at Amy, "It's called 'high tide,'" but she does not hear me and prattles on with her report. (High tide in New Haven was at 10:02 AM today.)

So, was Amy just doing her job and being a good little fear monger for WVIT or is she just an idiot and does not know about high tides?

bad apple

My first computer was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I. My second, a kit, was the Timex Sinclair 1000. My third was the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100. In 1984, I bought the first Apple Macintosh computer and I have been a Mac guy ever since having owned a slew of Macs that served me well.

My current Mac is a 17-inch Powerbook G4 1.67 GHz "Aluminum." It's hard disk gave up the ghost in November, but I won't hold that against. I've lost a number of hard disks over the years and I expect I will lose others in the future (I do a back-up daily, just in case).

However, another problem occurred in the fall that is making me reconsider my allegiance to Mac. It seems that a batch of 17-inch Powerbooks manufactured in Shanghai in April 2005 have defective screens that begin breaking down 12 to 18 months after their date of manufacture. The defect is the appearance of one-pixel-wide vertical lines on the screen. One line showed up on my screen in the fall and now there are four.

The lines are very distracting and I expect the problem will worsen because most 17-inch Powerbook owners have it a lot worse than I do (see what I am talking about here).

The straw that is breaking this camel's back is that Apple is refusing to recognize their manufacturing defect and recall the defective computers for a fix. Instead, they are recommending that owners fix themselves at $1000 a pop for a new LCD!

sign that we are on the verge of a new dark age

Park Service Can't Give Official Age Of Grand Canyon For Fear Of Offending Creationists...

Due to pressure from Bush Administration officials, the National Park Service is not permitted to give an official age for the Grand Canyon. Additionally, a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood is for sale at the National Park's bookstore.

The sale of Grand Canyon: A Different View was scheduled for review over three years ago, but no such review has been schedule or even requested. The creationist book was the only item approved for sale in 2003 (22 other items were rejected).