The details are irrelevant. Suffice to say another billing cockup with Verizon. Another equipment cockup with Verizon. And no one wants to be responsbile or provide a solution UNTIL you result to dogshaming. Yes, dogshaming*.
Dogshaming in this context is posting on the Verizon community forums. Calling customer service directly yields zero results. But once you post something on the public forums that are indexed by Google you will get a response from a customer support person via email to start a private support resolution. And you will get someone calling you the next day. With a solution.
The question is why it has to work like this. Why are solutions not provided at 1-800-Verizon? It also begs the question as to why there are problems in the first place over really basic issues like getting the service you contracted for at the price you contracted for.
The other wacky component in all of this is that even the private support people don’t have administrative authority to correct a specific problem with a specific fix. They have to dig around in their archive of special offers and find some offer that hasn’t expired and apply it to your case. They don’t have the ability to customize solutions. They don’t even seem to have the ability to give you the deal you contracted for in the first place. They have to do these contorted workarounds.
I’m still not sure if our problem is solved. I have to wait for the next billing cycle and see if the latest layer of workarounds actually …. work.
*the one and only Dogshaming website is a marvel to behold. Go visit them. It will make your day.
Hair!
I have recently started brushing my hair with a boar bristle hair brush. My hair is very fine textured but it has a lot of wave. A lot of the wave gets lost because the length and weight pulls it out which is the only downside to having long hair.
Nightly brushing has made my hair shinier because the brush distributes the natural oil from my scalp. It also gets crazy fullness from the brushing. And it just feels good.
I was thinking today that part of the reason LJ, and to some extent, DW isn’t working for a lot of people is that we’ve lost the comment culture. On Twitter, unless you’re there in the moment, there’s little point in commenting/replying. On AO3 most people use kudos rather than making a comment. Tumblr isn’t made for a conversation, comments back and forth require reblogging the same thing again and again. I remember such great comment conversations with people in fandoms where story ideas were born, where ideas and thoughts and everything were exchanged. I don’t know if it was like that for a lot of people, but that is one of the things I love about the format of LJ/DW.
So saith a wise woman that I have known in fandom for more years than I’m willing to admit to. And it’s sad, actually. At least I find it sad. I LOVE the comment culture. Or at least what it was. Through LJ I found so many wonderful women and made so many friends. But things change, people move on, and a lot of them have gone to other platforms. I’ve investigated the other platforms like Tumblr and it really doesn’t make for relationships in ways that were fostered by the LJ culture in its prime. The fracturing of LJ was due to changes in ownership and bullshit changes in policy. It scattered people to the winds.
I miss those times and I miss those friends.
Totally beautiful day. Totally beautiful tulips. Longwood Gardens. WIN.
Just watched John Carter for the umpteenth time and I love it more with every watching. *FANGIRLS*
Disney, you suck wholesale for making sure this movie would fail even before it left the gatehouse. Even worse is the absolutely unforgivable sin of not making a plush Woola. Here’s hoping your mouse ears rot and fall off.
No love, Me.
From IMDB:
When a madman begins committing horrific murders inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s works, a young Baltimore detective joins forces with Poe to stop him from making his stories a reality.
The hackneyed joke for the review of this film would be “Nevermore”. When I saw the trailer last year I thought I would like this. A period piece, murder mystery, historically based. It didn’t deliver. I am well read and I had trouble following the plot. I can just imagine how this film tracked for folks who are not versed in literature. Even the basics like Edgar Allen Poe. I will warrant if you did a “Jaywalking” and asked the casual person on the street what was “The Cask of Amontillado” you would get all manner of guesses related to your local beer distributor. So epic fail on that point alone.
John Cusak was decent but not compelling as Poe. I actually found the Baltimore detective, Fields, played by Luke Evans the most interesting character of the lot.
The whole film was a wasted opportunity, to use that cliche. Great premise, great production values, but a story that just didn’t deliver.
The Verdict
3.0Bad
The Good: Production values. Historic context. Luke Evans.
The Bad: Muddled storytelling. Reliance on literary knowledge of the moviegoer.
Thankfully Irene has come and gone. OF COURSE we lost power. Power was out for 2 days. Saved by our generator. AGAIN. Hooray for PECO Energy and their spiffy service. Glad we pay such exorbitant rates for it. Not.
Finding your way to anywhere over the beginning of last week was like navigating through a maze. Between water and downed trees and electrical crews (the only ones we saw were from OUT OF STATE) it took 2x as long to get anywhere. At least we weren’t Connecticut. Or Vermont. Or New Jersey.
Lots of down time = Lots o’ knitting.
Verdaia
Verdaia by Jodie St. Clair. Great pattern. Fast knit. Beautiful result. The Madelinetosh Sock in Jade sure doesn’t hurt.
This Way Up
This Way Up is a free pattern on Ravelry. I got it from the “Knitting Pattern A Day” calendar. This should have been easy. I had beaucoup trouble reading the chart even with enlarging it. But a nice basic scarf that gender neutral.
I’m prepping for the Madelinetosh multicolor shawl KAL. Colors: Violin and Cloak. I think I’m gonna wing it and design my own pattern.
My latest brainstorm is to document the house remodeling starting with the family room. I wish I had a good “before” photo at hand, but I don’t. But I do have a photo of what it looks like now.
Instead of being able to have the carpet installers rip up the old carpet and padding we have to do all the remediation ourselves because the dearly departed canine pissed all over my carpet in her declining years and I was not going to risk any stray odor finding its way from the porous concrete slab into the new carpet. So the carpet and padding were removed. Next step is to mop the floor with a bleach solution. Then paint with Killz. THEN the carpet installers can come around.
And yes, that is mastic on the floor. Somewhere in this house’s distant past there was sheet linoleum on the slab. The owners previous to us ripped it up and laid carpet.
Speaking of carpet, we chose a Karastan SmartFiber carpet. Lentini in the color Nobility.
Other things to do in here:
remove the old baseboard heaters that haven’t been used in over 15 years and patch the drywall.
remove the old thermostat that controlled the heaters and patch drywall.
repaint the walls with Benjamin Moore “windswept” which is a neutral beige with a yellow tint.
install new floor moldings painted white.
repaint framing around the fireplace for the time being. The fireplace is going to get a ripout at some point. The old slate hearth is not in the best of shape. I plan on a stone front and mantel installation.
paint windowsills white.
replace current white mini blinds with wooden blinds.
And all the furniture goes merrily out the door!!
Okay, the actual mystery is why I started this. I’m generally not the type of person who will knit something they haven’t seen finished. It sounded like fun. It’s not. But at this stage, in for a penny, in for a pound.
The pattern repeats pretty much as you see it. Alternating parallelograms in the base color with alternating bands of 2 different colors. It looks clownish. I don’t mind some intarsia but this is mind boggling with a zillion ends to weave in. I generally like Stephen West’s patterns, but this is a swing and a miss. The pattern gives options for small, medium, large. This will absolutely be a small. The damnable thing is that the prep directions have you split each of your skeins into two balls because of all the intarsia, so now I have some really lovely Madelinetosh Merino Light chopped up into pieces. Hence the need to forge ahead and a least get something out of this other than a lot of unused small bits of expensive yarn.
14+ inches. Oy. Wet and heavy snow = tree damage. Unfortunately. The white birch? I should have known. The upper 1/3 was dying off. My landscaper warned me about it just a few months ago. The damage to the purple plums is actually a blessing. They have needed removal for some time but I kept putting it off and putting it off because I like the spring show they put on. But they are not strong trees nor ones that live long lives. So, adieu.
clearing snow from part 2 of the storm
