« January 2004 | Main | March 2004 »

February 29, 2004

Uncle Philip.

Got a call from Mom today about uncle Philip. He has lung cancer. I do not have much information yet. He is very sick. It is hard to think of people close to me fighting for thier lives.

February 19, 2004

Quote of a Life Time.

I went to a service for a person I did not know well last night. The service was for the brother of someone I know well. I was going to be suportive. What I found was the world had lost an amazing person. A person whos words touched my life, even after he died.

"So much of what we love exists becouse we love." James Bowman (1971-2004)

People do not fully die until memory of them is lost. This was never more evident to me then last night. I meet someone who I had not gotten to know in his life. His words and life are now part of me, and I now hold his memory.

February 06, 2004

Ms Jackson I am sorry, please forgive us.

While an attractive set of breast, I would not call Miss Jackson’s flashing accident a reason for an FCC probe. So you watched the Superbowl. You saw part of Janet Jackson’s breast. More of it then you would see on bay watch and less then on Page3. I saw it, though I have to say I did not notice. After all I was only watching on a 27” TV and do not have TIVO or HD. So like 99.9% of the 90 million people watching I missed it. I am dumbfounded by the reaction though. You are watching a halftime show of a game where violence and sexed-up cheerleaders are used to sell million-dollar a minute ad time for pills to cure impotence. So during this skimpy costume dance show, the normally suggestive, Jackson accidentally show a breast for less then 1 second. Wow and now people are shocked. *slaps forehead* I say duh!

What people are shocked you say well lets see:

“A banker from Knoxville, Tennessee, filed a class action lawsuit against Jackson, dance partner Justin Timberlake, CBS, halftime show producers MTV and the networks' parent company, Viacom. Terri Carlin said the ‘sexually explicit conduct’ by the performers caused millions of people to ‘suffer outrage, anger, embarrassment and serious injury.’”

- Personally I have suffered more ‘outrage, anger, embarrassment and serious injury’ by watching the Budweiser commercials. If a second of flashed breast offends you but 3 hours violence does not then I think you need to examine your morals. We lock up people who act like football players in real life.

“Sunday's audience included millions of parents and childrens watching together -- parents who aren't used to MTV, and who might already have been uncomfortable by the skimpy costumes and suggestive dancing leading up to Jackson's finale”

- I remember my mother actually making decisions about what she was comfortable with. If a parent is not ‘used’ who is that the fault of MTV? It is not like the halftime shows have really change in the 20 + years I have been watching.

"Parents wouldn't know to turn their television off before that happened," first lady Laura Bush said in an interview with CNN on Thursday.

- This one is my favorite. Dear Laura… If the 20 minutes of cheerleaders and dancing girls in leather outfits did not clue them in, a big flashing warning that said BREAST BEING SHOWN IN 1 MINUTE would not have helped. Did you turn your TV off afterwards?

One father who watched the game with his 12-year-old son said the Jackson dance passed uncommented upon, but he was caught short when the boy asked, "Dad, what's erectile dysfunction?"

- From the mouths of babes comes wisdom.

Well that is about all I have to say… lets go back and talk about Bono saying the ‘f’ word for fuck sake.

February 02, 2004

“This is a service TXU provides.”

I have for a long time been in a war with TXU. Though a war would normally involve both sides with weapons this one does not. You see as a TXU customer I have no weapons. They have no customer service department and no sale department. The service they provide is on a do you want electric or not basis. If a bill is wrong well you can sue them for the money or just pay it. Now I am a just pay it kind of person. So you would think that TXU and I would get along just fine… well no.

You see it all started last March when I moved from an apartment into a house own by a friend who included electric as part of rent. I called and asked them to discontinue electric service, this confused them since why would anyone not want electric service. So they kept billing me… at fist I thought I had missed a small amount of my close out bill. The bill I got for April and May were less then $1. So I did the just pay them thing. Big mistake. Now I had proved to TXU that I was still living there and using electricity.

In June and July someone moved into the apartment I have moved out of and started using more electricity. These bills were in the $70-100 range. So I call and asked them to really take my name off the account now. No dice. By September the bill that by now I was not just paying was close to $400 and they were sending me the ‘we are going to cut you off’ letters. Great I said ‘do it.’ They didn’t … so by October the bill was $470.

So I resolved to stop talking to the service department and start talking to the ‘customer service’ department. It takes 2 hours to get though to a person in this department. I was told that because they had no record of me asking to discounted service and I had not transferred service thus I could not prove I did not use the electricity and would have to pay for it or they were going to cut me off. At this point I got very angry with them and asked to talk to a supervisor. I was told we do not have supervisors and if I hung up with out resolving this problem I would be cut off. So I paid it. This I hoped to be the end… it was not.

In October I got a new job back in Dallas and that meant moving again. The apartment I wanted to move in to only had one option for electric. You guessed it. Now because I am such a bad risk for TXU they wanted a $150 deposit after all I did not pay my electric for July – October. So I paid it in hopes that would be the end… it was not.

Today I got a call from TXU. My electric payment was paid 5 days late. They had received the payment and currently want no money from me. But they still saw fit to call me and tell me my electric was late. The even made me prove that the person on the phone they called was actually me by providing part of my social security number. Why I asked? “This is a service TXU provides.” Was the answer.