Under a Gibbous Moon

Of all of the worlds religions, the one that I find the most bizarre is Atheism. The reason for this is that the adherents of this religion claim that, in fact, they practice no religion. This is truly baffling, while I don’t claim to be the most religious person, from my own experience Atheism has all the hallmarks of religion.

1. They all share a common belief system, that there are no gods.
2. They try to convert those who don’t believe as they do.
3. Failing the above, they ridicule and or otherwise hostile to “nonbelievers”.
4. They have their own televangelists (i.e. Richard Dawkins).
5. They have their own “churches” and gatherings.

Now many Atheists will tell you that belief in religion is merely an atavistic compulsion that they have evolved beyond but it is apparent to all that observe them that they have formed their own religion around not having a religion.

Radio broadcast

Proof that we are all doomed.

Chrysler is oddly proud of their new redesign of the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Apparently they’ve spent something like 700 million on it. For their efforts, they have turned a vehicle like this:

Into this:

Apparently, they decided to let their Town & Country minivan have sex with the Grand Cherokee to produce this bastard offspring. Enough is enough. Chrysler apparently needs to get out of the car business. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this to a vehicle. The poor Dodge Durango wen from this:

To this:

Apparently, Chrysler has made it their mission to turn all of their SUVs into minivans. No wonder they’re sales have been tanking.

…we could also look at this one. A couple days ago, a young man robbed an elderly man at gunpoint. It turns out the gun was a fake, but no one will care about that. After the robbery, the young man, leaving the elderly man in his home, attempts to leave in the old man’s Suburban. Old man now comes out of house and starts shooting away at Suburban with very real handgun. Young man crashes Suburban and runs away. While running away, old man continues shooting at young man. One bullet goes through window and kills old lady in her kitchen. Young man is now charged with old lady’s murder and old man is charged with nothing.

This is where I don’t agree with how our law is working. It’s obvious that the young man did not set out that day to kill anyone, since he didn’t take any real weapons. The immediate danger to the old man was over, so it really isn’t self-defense either. It was simply defense of property. More likely he was just really pissed off, but defense of property will sound better. So he is trying to shoot the man dead. No one would probably argue with that. Problem is, he shoots through an old lady’s window and kills her. But our country and legal system is fucked up enough to think that it was the young robbers fault.

For reason’s I don’t understand, my DSL modem stopped working. I unplugged it, along with everything else, in order to organize the snarl of cables and when I plugged it back in, it didn’t work anymore.

I called Verizon’s customer service line and was immediately asked for my phone number. The problem with this is I only use a cell phone and so the DSL is what’s known as a dry loop, just for data only. Because of this, I have no idea what the number for the line is because I don’t use it.

Not knowing this number is a significant road block as not inputting a number or just random numbers will get you disconnected from the system (when asked for number press 0). Once past this barrier it asks what service you are calling about, phone, DSL, FIOS, etc.

I selected DSL and was connected to a local representative. I told her I didn’t have the phone number but, by using my name, was able to look up my account. At this point she informed me that she was in the FIOS division and would have to transfer me to DSL.

Uh, OK, whatever. I get an outsourced representative, this one was unable to, for some reason, to access my account in the same manner as the previous representative was able to. This one insisted that I needed the phone number to continue. She transfered me to the billing department to try to find the number. Upon connection, the system asks me for my phone number again and since I don’t have it, I’m disconnected (that’s an excellent default by the way, if the customer has a problem with the system, just hang up on them).

So, I call back, get another outsource and get the same run around, transfer to billing and another disconnect. After yet another iteration of this, I tried to call the billing department directly. Bizarrely , I get connected to tech support again for yet another run around.

I’ve been on the phone for over an hour at this point but I need another modem. I call again, for the billing department and am once again connected to tech support. This time though, I get a local representative. This person has no problem looking up my account by name, gives me said number (I have it written down now),  and gets a modem ordered for me.

So I’ve got to ask the question, what the hell? Why does it take and hour and a half to get something done with Verizon’s customer service? More importantly, why don’t their outsourced representatives seem to have the same access to customer accounts as those in the United States?

I don’t know if this is an attempt to drive customers away or is just a painful lack of attention to detail on their part. Whatever it is, Verizon has some of the worst customer service (believe it or not, their Cell support is worse) on the planet.