Verizon Sucks. No, They Are Evil.

Last week I received a bill from Verizon which I assumed to be a final bill after discontinuing what was, especially the last year, truly horrible DSL service. I finally opened it at the end of last week and found that it was a bill for internet service. For this month. And to add insult to injury, the bill was $5.00 more than I had ever paid for internet service, which had been slowly increased without notice for over two years.

Still thinking it was a clerical error, I called Verizon earlier this week. After going through their maddening set of phone prompts, I finally connected with someone who I thought worked in billing. After explaining the situation, I was told that I wasn't even speaking to someone in the DSL/ Internet "department" but she would connect me. Click. Again, I explain the situation, at which point this person looks up my account.

According to her, I did not, in fact, call Verizon in early September and discontinue my service. Verizon discontinued my service in late September because I was delinquent in payments. According to their records.

The truth is I spoke with a total of four different people the day I canceled my service. And every single time I used the words "cancel my service" or "disconnect my service" with each one of them. The first three claimed that in order to do that I would have to be shunted to a different department. Again. And Again. But I hung in there and finally spoke to someone who could flip that switch for me. As I mentioned before, she inexplicably tried to sell me on Fios, even though my building isn't wired for it. But we very clearly had a conversation where there was no possible way anyone would misconstrue that I was discontinuing my status as a Verizon DSL customer.

So this notation and allegation that I was disconnected by them is an outright lie. Aside from the fact that I have not been delinquent in payments to Verizon in years, even if I had missed it, it would have been one payment. And it would have been less than a month overdue. Everyone knows damn well that wouldn't be enough to have your service even interrupted, let alone disconnected.

I suspect that what actually happened is that Verizon, or a department at Verizon, is trying to cover up the fact that there are (more than likely) other people like me who are dissatisfied with the quality of the DSL service, as well as the infuriating customer service, and are leaving Verizon in rather large numbers. I'm quite sure that every termination in service initiated by the customer, is sent somewhere along the bloated chain of bureaucracy to a department that reviews them and makes a report. Too many terminations will eventually cause some data-checking monkey to throw down his banana and sound an alarm. And nobody wants to answer to an angry monkey, so best not let the customer terminate the account. Let's just say we terminated him and send out a bill. I'm further assuming they hoped I would pay it and move on. Some people surely do.

Instead I called them on it. At which point I was shunted from department to department. I was disconnected and booted from the system twice after speaking to live operators. I just kept calling. It took almost two hours. And I was decidedly not nice. But I've been really working hard the last couple of years to stay on top of my bills, get caught up on all my out of control credit spending, pay down my debts. And I've been really proud of how well I've done. So it was doubly insulting to have them accuse me of not paying my bill. And I'm wondering if that kind of thing gets reported to the credit bureaus, since I've also been trying to repair my poor beaten down FICO score.

Aside from the fact that the reason I terminated the service is because, for the most part, my DSL service was largely a nightmare, the only thing worse than Verizon internet service is Verizon customer service.

As I've said many times. Verizon sucks.

Brought To You By Time-Warner Cable

I'm nothing if not loyal. I've been getting my Internets access through Verizon DSL ever since 2003. For the most part it's been a glorious marriage, but sometime last year we hit a very rocky patch. My download speed would slow down to the point that I couldn't even get a page to load. But it would happen gradually, until I would suddenly notice that I was sitting in front of the PC screen staring for longer and longer periods of time. Video's would take forever to load, or you would get that maddening stutter-stop, load, start-stutter-stop over and over again.

Eventually I would start to crack up and finally call Verizon. At which point they would usually take me through a series of "fixes" all designed to get me back up and running at full speed. Sometimes it worked. Often it didn't. But in either case, I would be on the phone with someone from tech support for up to 2 hrs at a time.

This past year, the same scenario played out every few months, and then every few weeks. It would frequently result in a service call from a Verizon technician, that would eat up 1/2 a day from another afternoon. Many times the service technician would leave before the problem was fixed, but after determining that there was nothing wrong with my PC or routers, he would assure me that the problem would be addressed in a day or so. It always was, and then my internet service and speed would be back to normal. For a while.

As I became more and more exasperated with not having reliable internet service, I started trying different tactics in order to get quick attention from the phone support people (who may or may not have even been in this country when I called them). I tried being nice, I tried being extremely nasty, I tried being sarcastic, i tried being pathetic and helpless. None of my personalities could seem to get the problem identified and resolved. And as I called tech support at least 6 times in the last six months, I began to meltdown a little faster every time they told me "not to worry" and they "would help me out". This always meant I was going to be led on a merry chase of turning off and on routers, re-booting my PC, running command prompts, and various other time wasters. The last few weeks I could only last an hour before flipping out on the tech support person, telling them they didn't know what they were doing, that they couldn't help me, and that I didn't have time to waste several hours on the phone and then another 1/2 day with the live repair tech.Then I would hang up.

And while they were insisting that the problem was definitely not outside the house on their network, within a few hours of those tirades my service would be restored and back up to speed. I finally reached my breaking point and signed a new deal for Time-Warner to provide internet service. At a cheaper price and a faster download speed to boot.

The new cable wiring is already installed and this morning I had the distinct pleasure of calling up Verizon and telling them to take a hike. They tried to talk me in to letting them try to resolve the problem, but I had no intention of turning on and off routers all afternoon. In one last bit of weirdness, they seemed to try to sell me on a Verizon Fios upgrade, right after letting me know that my building isn't wired for it.

"So how would that work exactly?"

"Well it wouldn't."

"Just cancel the service right now, please."

Verizon sucks.

I Swear I Still Love You

My Verizon DSL line is down and whatever is wrong is beyond my ability to figure out. It's also beyond the dubious skills of the Verizon tech support by phone. So I await a repairman for tomorrow morning. I hold out no expectations that they will be able to fix the problem I've been having for over two years.

Coming Soon To Photoshop - Amazing!

Here's a video that the people at Photoshop Labs have posted, showing some unbelievable photo editing software that will be rolled out in a future version of the program.

Gym Etiquette

The NY Times runs a complaint box column, basically an Op-Ed area for the masses, which typically just ends up to be a place were one New Yorker complains about the behavior of other New Yorkers, and then hundreds of other New Yorkers write in to second that complaint, take the opposing viewpoint, or point out other things that other New Yorkers do to drive them crazy.

Last week the subject was the clusterfuck that gym noobs, typically found in large quantities every January and February, cause for those of us who work out on a more regular basis, and have been for years. I've written before about the phenomenon, complete with brand new gym "outfits" instead of clothes, along with matching sneakers. You can spot a gym neophyte that won't be around past March if he or she is working out with makeup and/or jewelry on.

The article is pretty typical, along with an accompanying piece about the proliferation of people that insist on updating their twitter feed, or worse (IMO) making phone calls in the locker room.

What I found most amusing, as always, were the comments from the rest of New York, most of whom had an entire other litany of complaints, as well as those who basically begged for tolerance and patience, as gym novices be given the time and instruction to, you know, get off the phone and get the hell out of the way.

But there was one gem amongst all the other "Me too's":

Guys who put their shod feet on benches in the locker room to tie their laces. How witless can you get?

"Shod?" "laces?" "witless?" - where does this guy work out? A 19th century YMCA? And what is the objection/obsession I've discovered peeving New Yorkers about sneakers touching seating areas? There was a similar outburst when a subway rider was recently ticketed for putting his feet up in a car at 2:30am. People passed right over the outrage the article meant to invoke and went on and on about how filthy and nasty it is to put your sneaker on a seat. I wouldn't think twice about putting my foot on a bench in the locker room to tie my sneaker. Would you? Am I missing something?

Or is this another case where, in a city of 9 million people, someone will always be pissed off about something?

Meanwhile ... I'm having some serious connectivity issues, and I got Verizon on the phone to test my line. While at first he was claiming that everything was A-OK, my insistence that it most assuredly was not led him to run another diagnostic, which revealed that it's a miracle I can even post this blog piece. A repairman is coming on Wednesday so hopefully I'll be zipping along The Internets in a day or so.

Further Proof That I'm Retarded

Several months ago I purchased a 2 gig Sansa Clip MP3 player. I bought it for only 20 bucks from Woot! and even though it was listed as refurbished, I wondered at the time what you could possibly refurbish about a little MP3 player no bigger than a cigarette lighter. So I went ahead and ordered it. It arrived in a couple of days and I set about adding songs I had built up in my MP3 collection. At some point that week I took the player to the gym and plugged in my headphones. It seemed that the connection was kind of loose, and the headphones popped out quite easily. Moreover, even when the headphones didn't pop out, the connection frequently broke up and songs would drop out part way through. I found I had to constantly hold on to the player as I walked around the gym, sort of manually holding the headphones in place. Whenever I did certain exercises that were particularly strenuous, I had to put up with the music cutting on and off all the time. This has been going on for months.

I assumed that there was a defect in the player that I bought, a loose connection, but for $20 it did hold hundreds of songs, adding music to the player was ridiculously simple, and quite frankly, I'm not a hard-core music-type person anyway. I rarely wear headphones when I'm traveling in the subway, and even rarer still when I walk down the street. I have always held the position that, especially here in NYC, there is always so much going on, so many hidden surprises, so often the opportunity to experience the unexpected (both good and horrifically bad), wearing headphones and listening to music all the time increases the chances you might miss something. I'm not the first person to notice that many New Yorkers opt to be outside but completely retreated in to their own personal space. Portable video games, DVD players and various Apple gadgets make the people that choose to be very insular. I prefer to mix it all up with the great unwashed.

So my MP3 player use is pretty much limited to the gym and when I am feeling particularly bored on the PATH back and forth to New Jersey. For the most part I found the loose headphone connection to be a minor annoyance, and one I would just put up with.

Flash forward to today, finding me at the gym, where I have been almost every day this week. I have decided that I've become woefully out of shape, I am still about 10 lbs heavier than I want to be, and since my bike is currently down awaiting parts that I can't afford, I have rededicated myself to getting back in to shape before next summer. I had just come near the end of a tough abdominal workout, and I had been frustrated the whole time as the music kept cutting out and the headphones seemed to be popping loose every couple of minutes. I seriously considered taking out the MP3 player and smashing it against the wall. Note to self: Explore out-sized aggression issues.

As I was pacing about between lower ab leg-lifts I had finally become so frustrated, constantly jiggling the headphone jack to find the sweet spot where the music played, that I finally violently jammed the headphone jack in to the MP3 player.

...... Which is when I realized that the headphone jack was never fully inserted in to the connector. As it needed to be. Which made the music, that I had always complained to myself was a tad "tinny", noticeably louder. And fuller. And the headphones weren't loose at all. And no matter which way I twisted and turned they weren't coming undone. And if this story sounds at all familiar it's because I went through a similar situation with a Verizon Chocolate phone a couple of years ago. Apparently, these new-fangled electronics that the kids are using these days plug in differently than I am used to.

So the end of this story is that after almost 6 months of owning the Sansa Clip, I am just now getting around to actually using it the way it was intended. I also need to remind myself on occasion that it has a perfectly good FM radio built in as well. I'm sure it does other things but let's face it, I'll probably never know what they are.

Now In HD

So I bought a new 32" HDTV.

And I managed to bring it home under the $500 limit that my dad's gambling largess would allow. I did let the salesperson move me off of the model I had picked out to another brand that was $50 more, with the promise of a higher contrast ratio. I have no actual idea if this is really that important, nor if it was verifiably true. But I repeatedly refused his multiple offers to sign me up for "insurance", and while I found it amusing, had he asked me again or tried a harder sell I would have crossed over in to annoyed.

What was annoying was when he repeatedly tried to sell me an HDMI cable. Now to tell the truth, I had no idea what kind of cable connections it would take to hook up my system, although I was aware I might have to buy something to make the system work. But I've done enough research and bought enough new tech to know not to buy the extra "junk" the salesman is trying to push on you because you may not need it, and you can probably get it cheaper elsewhere. HDMI cable runs in price at the store I was at from $40 to $200. Do you want to bet he wouldn't have shown me the $40 package?

When I got home and hooked the TV up, it became clear that my digital cable box would need to be switched for an HD DVR, as the picture was just a standard square display and nothing special. The next morning I had an hour to run out to Time-Warner and get the new box. Whereupon they handed me the FREE HDMI cable that the salesperson at the TV store tried to get me to buy. And considering he knew that I was a Time-Warner customer I would have to say he was trying to sell me crap I didn't need.

In any case, after I hooked up the Hi-Def cable the screen displayed at the full 31.5" and HUZZAH!, angels began to sing as glorious big-screen (for me) TV began to air throughout the land. Or my living room. I wept a little as I had leave for work when all I wanted to do was fiddle with the color settings and watch a movie.

But here's the thing about this whole TV upgrade. I am excited about the new TV and very thankful that mom and dad were generous with their windfall to make it happen. But I also took the opportunity, as long as I was running cables and moving furniture, to re-arrange the living room and run all the cables from my desktop in the bedroom, along the baseboards and behind all the furniture in the living room. Then I clipped them up with cord clasps, and wired them all together with Velcro twist ties. And as much as I am enjoying my new TV and my HD DVR, the highlight of the whole operation was the fact that all my cords are now running out of sight, all together along the baseboards, and I managed to reclaim about 2 feet of living room space in the process. I also swept up about a pound of dog hair.

And that's probably all you need to know about the real me.

Graphically Enhanced

My desktop upgrade is officially complete. It took me over a week, but I finally installed and enabled the graphics card, which was the last component in the upgrade. This should hold me from needing a new desktop for well over a year, and I've made my computer compatible with the new Microsoft operating system, which I've been running anyway for over a month. Now I'll be spending the next few weeks figuring out what the OS can do, as well as tweaking the settings on my graphics card. It does things. Things that I don't understand yet.

I initially ordered the wrong card for my system, my confusion as always has to do with the fact that I'm using an "off brand" computer, so you can't simply look up your manufacturer and motherboard and know what you need to order. It can be a little more trial and error. Once I doped out the card I thought I needed I had to re-order and return the old card. Once the card came I installed it, and my computer told me it found and installed new hardware. Maybe, but my system didn't improve, my graphics didn't get appreciably better, and if anything my Slingbox was acting worse than before. So no TV in the bedroom and even worse, no porn. This was intolerable.

Today I started investigating and finally got the bright idea to install the drivers that came with the hardware, rather than the drivers the web-site told me would work. As a matter of fact I downloaded and installed every driver I could find that even seemed remotely like I needed it. I'm not even sure which one finally took but suddenly an installation prompt showed up and I hit "yes, please" and in about 30 seconds my graphics card was enabled. I spent the rest of the day testing out games and checking my Slingbox settings, before popping out for a meeting with my HIV+ support group and then to Gay-A.

Among the many topics me and the POZZIES covered was the news out of Thailand that a "HIV vaccine" (if you want to call it that) has shown limited promise in preventing people from getting the virus. I couldn't help wondering if this wouldn't make the Us VS. Them (positive VS. negative) chasm even wider. Will a vaccine for HIV make the stigma that positive people experience even worse?

Upgrade In Progress

Almost done with upgrading my entire desktop system. The most expensive item was the new wide-screen monitor. It doubles as a TV and DVD screen, which I can now see very clearly while laying in bed, so when the mood strikes me I can pop in a movie before nodding off to sleep.

I also finally figured out which RAM I needed to purchase that would fit my motherboard, and last week after it arrived I installed it in under five minutes. My desktop has 2GB of RAM now, which is more than enough to run the new OS ...

Windows 7. A copy of which I obtained all free and legal like from Microsoft. It's the almost ready pre-release, but damned if I know what's missing from the final product, or what the bugs are because I haven't found any. I downloaded all my photos (over 2000 images - not all of them mine) to a thumb drive and re-installed them on my clean install. The process wiped away all my folders and categories from the old drive, so I've begun re-sorting every image I have, deleting pictures I've never been happy with and creating files that are more logical, with a separate file of images I absolutely will work on and publish.

Also, the new OS has made my current graphics and video card show it's age, with lots of buffering and dropped frames appearing when I download video or watch TV. So my final upgrade is the purchase of a new graphics card to replace the factory installed version I've been using. It should be here by Thursday, at which point I will have upgraded all the systems on my desktop (including the hard drive and DVD drive) except the processor and motherboard.

Wow. That was geek-a-riffic. I will make it up to you with a little sexy-time tomorrow.

New OS, Same Headache

I finally got around to installing the much anticipated Windows 7. It's the almost ready for release candidate and most importantly, I got it free and legal-like from Why-so-Soft. Of course, I immediately was unable to connect to the internet. The drivers for that section of the highway hadn't reported to work. Or something. I managed to hire new drivers and I am back on line. But I will be installing software and tweaking settings for the next few hours. Why do I do this to myself?

Porn! (And Dog Porn)

Lookee what came in the mail just before the weekend! PORN! I exhibited enormous self-control and waited two full days before I took it in the bathroom with me.















Speaking of porn, I was getting my camera out to take some other pictures when this handsome young man sprawled out on my bed just begging me to record this "come to bed, Daddy" look. How could I resist?



We have had a bit of a tech upgrade here at From The Ashes HQ, as I recently took advantage of a ridiculously cheap sale price on a 23" wide-screen monitor ($169). It's making television and movie viewing (and porn) in the bedroom, a very relaxing, non-eye straining pleasure. I'm having a little trouble tweaking the settings on the monitor so's I can switch back to a non-stretched out image for photo editing. Hopefully I can figure out some sort of a shortcut so I can jump back and forth between the two settings. I'm sure the answer is already posted somewhere.

I also took possession of an upgraded cell phone by waiting until I was eligible for a free (as in no cost) replacement, and finally broke down and got me my first Crackberry. I pontedly resisted the allure of the CrackB, largely because everyone wanted one, and they were hugely expensive. But now that the IPhone has become the new Holy Grail and the CrackB is just an average work-a-day phone, I figured I was due a fancier phone upgrade. And did I mention it was free?


I also increased my text minutes by double, which should still be cheaper than the extra charges I was racking up in over-text fees. It also has a little bit better camera than my old cell, and it shows me all my G-Mail messages as I get them.

ACK! I had a great idea to turn a bunch of leftovers in my fridge and freezer in to two very delicious shrimp and vegetable pizzas, but turning on the oven to roast the shrimp, tomato and vegetables, and then baking the aforementioned pizzas, has turned my apartment into an oven! It's easily one million degrees inside, and me and my porno-dog are holed up in the air conditioned bedroom. And no, I didn't leave the oven on I already checked.

More this week, including pictures from a bike ride that almost killed me.

And We're Back

We've also caught a cold. Probably one of the little bastards at the Indian wedding I bar tended at over the weekend. I guess it's a cultural thing, but the Indians seem to have no problem bringing really young kids, stroller age on up, to what traditionally (to me) would be an adults-only night time affair. I guess some people don't believe in baby sitters. Do people still hire baby sitters at all anymore?

So I woke up this morning with a pretty sore throat and a mild sniffle. It's turned into a full on sneeze-fest with a totally stuffed up head. I'm currently running a fever and I have a pounding headache. Fortunately it's one of the hottest days of the year, so the fact that I'm really warm doesn't seem too upsetting.

I also woke up extra early today, as Verizon still makes their service appointments anywhere from 8AM to 5PM. Had they sent the repairman at 8:00 we would have been fuck out of luck cause there was no way I was getting up for that. But I decided to chance it and got up at 9:30. He arrived around 10:30 so my luck. As it turns out, my internet problem was a frayed and about to break wire running along the baseboard. It was fucking up my service, not enough to disable it completely, but enough to drop the connection repeatedly and run horribly s-l-o-w the rest of the time. All is well and the system is patched until I work up the energy to move furniture and replace the $10 phone cord. Our high-speed DSL line is high-speedy again, and I'm happy to report that on-line porn is enjoyable once again.

I think that's enough for today. Riley needs another walk and then I think I'll put in a movie and get to bed. Hopefully will be on the mend tomorrow. Regular (for me) posting will resume for sure.

Due To Technical Difficulties ...

I've been suffering connectivity problems all weekend. I have a guy coming to service me. But I expect that means he's just coming to fix my internets. (More later).

High Tech Restaurant

Back in October I wrote about the new Asian-fusion London restaurant Inamo and their touch screen table ordering system. CBS news ran a piece about the place and included lots of great video so you can see it in action. Chow also engaged in a bit of speculation about whether this heralds the end of waiter service. MMMMM Don't think so. Quite frankly there are millions of people far too lazy and/or dumb in the world that practically need to be led by the hand to the bathroom, let alone be able to read, order and independently use a touch screen computer. "Just bring me my Mac n' Cheese!"


Watch CBS Videos Online

Still Kickin'

Sorry I have been maintaining radio silence this week, I got crazy-busy. Still am, but I found a hot second to say hey. I've been spending an inordinate amount of time breathing new life into my old desktop. As I mentioned last week, I thought the power supply was fragged, and it was. But somehow in the process of adding a new hard drive, replacing the power supply, re-installing the old hard drive to try and collect some saved pictures and programs, I ended up super fragging the old hard drive and not having a working OS to boot, to boot. Without getting even more techno-gobbledy-sprocket on you, I finally downloaded and installed a clean new OS (XP), installed a new hard drive and a new power supply and my desktop now has the innards of a young buck again. And after all that, it has still taken me the last few days to re-install old programs and try and gather together a ton of pictures I had spread out on various CD's.

Yes, I do back-up. I think I only lost a few picture files in the process, nothing that feels too critical, and I think I may have even discovered a few picture files I forgot I had. Lemons to lemonade.

I had to sit through a horrific "training class" for my new catering side job. I will describe what a colossal joke that was in an upcoming post. Worth it, I guess as I'm working a wedding or some event tomorrow (again in New Jersey, have I mentioned it smells really bad there?). I also had a couple of promising job interviews this morning that may or may not turn in to something. They both have advanced me beyond the second interview, but I'm not getting my hopes too high as I have been left at the altar a few too many times as of late. Developing, though.

It was a bloodbath on reality television this week as my little Allison Iraheta got kicked to the curb on American Idol, despite the fact that Danny Dead-wife screeched the most heinous high note ever heard on AI past an audition week. I swear, if that Christian Dough-boy and his Sally Jesse Raphael eye wear ends up winning this season I will personally hunt down Paula Abdul's Oxycontin dealer and slap him across the face.

And Lil' Kim also got the "heave, you Ho" on Dancing With The Stars. Not that I am a fan of the foul-mouthed prison skank, but there was no doubt she was a far better dancer than Cowboy Stick-Up-The-Butt that has made it in to the semi-finals. I call Shenanigans!

Amen To That

Sunday's almost too hot weather didn't deter me from my plan to finally make it to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. (I know! I left Manhattan!) This after living here for over 20 years. I actually lived near Grand Army Plaza, just a couple of blocks from both the gardens and the Brooklyn Museum for a year or so after I first moved here, but I never found the time to not drink and go.

I took some a-maz-ing photos. So many it will take a day or so to edit and start posting them.

After returning to Manhattan I found enough energy to drop in for a light workout, then home to eat a burrito and walk Riley.

I also installed a new hard drive in my desktop, and it's working fine. Unfortunately, most of my software is bootlegged and the only operating system I can get to install so far is a dusty old copy of Windows 2000. I'll be spending the next couple of days trying to decide if I should break down and pay for an OS or just install the latest RC of Windows 7 and be done with it.

A Slow And Painful Death

My beloved warhorse of a desktop PC is gasping it's last. The hard drive had begun to fail a few months ago. The machine would shut itself off overnight, and in the morning, it would boot up again s-l-o-w-l-y. I think I extended the life by cleaning out old files, deleting unused programs and trying to keep it lean and mean for as long as possible, but it appears that death has (or will) overtaken it anyway. Fortunately, I sensed the end was coming and managed to copy all of my photography files about a week ago. I will loose some music, but nothing I really care about. Same goes for my beloved porn. I offloaded (load, heh) some of it a while back, and the rest is ... well, porn. Replaceable by more porn.

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no way I can afford to replace my desktop for now. I technically could charge something on my Best Buy card, but I finally just got the damn thing below $1000 and the payments are a manageable $30 a month and I am loathe to charge it back up. Fortunately, my laptop is running A-OK. If I was off the internets completely and without E-Mail I would be sprinting across 23rd St. to get a new machine.

Cool Tech Restaurant & Alpha Dog

Intriguing news of a new Asian-fusion restaurant/lounge freshly opened in London. Inamo features projectors built in to the ceiling above 2,4 and 6 top tables. Customers have interactive touch panels to order food and drinks, and can change their E-cloths (gag) to one of seven available choices, as well as scroll through the menu. Each interactive table is capable of running games and ordering up taxi service. The waiters apparently answer questions and coddle technoboobs.



I took Riley to Madison Square dog run Sunday morning. He had a fantastic time running and wrestling with the other pooches. I did have to repeatedly pull him off of a Schnauzer he had become enamored with and couldn't stop with the Humpty-Hump. He is still humping, particularly when he gets over stimulated, but he generally doesn't bother the little dogs anymore, which was what was freaking out other owners. We had been there well over 1/2 hour and I had taken up a space on a wrap-around tree bench while Riley walked around and mostly sniffed some butt.

At some point a pair of long-haired Labs had come in, and after taking the obligatory sniff, Riley opted to assume the position on one. At which point the other dog's owner, a seemingly grown man at least my age, suddenly started grabbing Riley to throw him off while he screeched like a woman: NOOOOOO! MY DOG IS AN ALPHA DOG!!! HE WILL ATTACK!!

Seriously. Those were his exact words and he practically wailed them.

He didn't hurt Riley and all I said was "wow". Everyone sort of stopped and stared at the man while he regained his composure. Riley had no idea anything had occurred so as calmly as could be, but with an appropriate hint of sarcasm I called him over:

"Come here, Riley. You don't want to upset the Alpha Dog." Some of the other owners snickered and one woman called Riley over to give him a pat and re-assure him:

"You didn't do anything wrong."

The crazy screechy dog man muttered something under his breath, and I hung out with Riley for an extra 10 minutes just to aggravate him further. Had I thought of it at the time I would have walked over without a word and peed on him.

I'm the Alpha Dog that will attack.

Grand Central

OK. I bit. I may regret this but I'm up for an experiment. I just signed up and for now until I think up something clever and I don't sound like a tampon commercial you'll have to suffer with a pre-recorded greeting. I will, in fact, post the best and nastiest (are you listening, Miss Mackenroth?) messages for all the world to enjoy. So go ahead .....cawl me.

Well, At Least She's Pretty

I'm not going to begin one of those posts where I say sorry I haven't posted in a while, I'm so uninspired, I have nothing to say blah blah blah. I have plenty to say I'm just ridiculously busy. But I will try and do better and make some time for my tens of readers.

I was going to write a product review for my Mint Chocolate phone, now that I've had it for a couple of months. And aside from the fact that I still love the cool metallic color, it was going to be mostly negative. But I've been finding that most of my problems with the phone are user mistakes. I suppose it would have helped if I had done more than scan the operating instructions but I'm a guy...we don't read instructions. Not when I can repeatedly stab at the buttons and pound the phone with my fist like an ape with a remote control he doesn't understand. I would even occasionally waved it in the air and make unintelligible screeching noises. But I bought the phone mainly because I wanted a music player and phone in one device. I didn't want to have to switch repeatedly between the two when I was going to the gym or about to take a particularly boring subway ride. So I was crushingly disappointed and told anyone who would listen about how distressed I was at the absolutely lousy sound quality of the music coming out of the player. And this from someone who isn't particularly picky about audio quality. If it's loud enough with a decent bass beat I'm a happy homo. This phone, after I finally got the Micro SD storage device and the earphone adapter that plugs into the other adapter that plays the MP3's that all need to be converted to WMA files before they play, was sorely lacking on either front. Or so I believed. So much so that I had begun shopping for a new music player, thinking that I would have to put up with carrying two devices.

Until I found the other, separate volume control wheel attached to the earphone adapter. Almost a month after buying and using it.

The sound is fine now.

Speaking of phones, I was in one of my favorite thrift stores on 3rd Ave. this afternoon. I was shopping for some vintage shirts but instead found some cute picture frames. While I was paying for my purchases I noticed this sign posted next to the cash register:

"We cannot provide you service while you are talking on your cell phone. Please let us know when you are ready."

Fucking brilliant. While I was employed briefly in my retail career, I can't tell you how much it frosted my butt to have somebody come to the register to pay for their purchases (sometimes an entire cart full) all the while yakking on their phone. They frequently wouldn't even deign to say hello, let alone thank you or goodnight. It's unbelievably rude. Of course, I've been fighting this battle ever since cell phones became prevalent during my days as a bartender, so I realize this is impossible to win. But hoping against hope I still may be able to convert even one person, when paying at a register, ordering drinks or having any other interaction with a human service provider, GET OFF THE FUCKING PHONE!