QWEST-Spirit of Service?

Dilbert.com

QWEST sucks the large one. My lovely bride has been very patient trying to get our (not theirs–ours) money back from QWEST since we terminated our service with them in August. Their billing department hasn’t improved much since they charged a woman $70,000 for supposedly calling herself. According to the story “the bill is just half the problem. The other issue is getting the problem solved.” Boy, howdy. They are sweet on the phone but nothing gets fixed.

For more examples of how the customer is always right wrong in Qwest’s eyes:

  • Communications From Elsewhere, QWEST STILL SUCKS
  • Disinfotainment: Unpopular Opinions from Charles Eicher, “QWest Sucks More Than Ever.”
  • Media Relations Blog, “Injustice & Helplessness.”
  • Consumeraffairs.com News, “Qwest Pays Big Refunds in Arizona. Charges included, “placing unauthorized charges on bills and creating customer-service departments that thwarted consumers’ attempts to resolve problems.” (2003)
  • Consumeraffairs.com News, “Utah Sues Qwest,” accusing it of “repeatedly lying to customers and intentionally engaging in deceptive sales practices. … and unconscionable acts and practices in connection with consumer transactions.” (2002)

How do they stay in business with such service?

Update: We have received the refund, though they mailed it to the address that we sold and had never used as the billing address.

Darn, I forgot to send out NPD cards again this year …

Yes, this Wednesday is National Punctuation Day (By the powers invested in this blog, I invite all my non-US visitors to participate). National Punctuation Day is

“A celebration of the lowly comma, correctly used quotes, and other proper uses of periods, semicolons, and the ever-mysterious ellipsis.”

The NPD site provides links to resources (books & online), punctuation products (shameless commerce), a punctuation playtime program, how to celebrate, the official recipe for NPD meatloaf (PDF), etc.

Contact Jeff Rubin for more information about punctuation
Phone: (877) 588-1212 (toll free–in the US, I suspect)
email: Jeff@NationalPunctuationDay.com

Click here to see if I used the ellipsis correctly in the subject line.

Extra!!! Slow breaking news: Punctuation Man breaks with Associated Press,endorses serial comma. ’bout time, “I’d like to thank my parents, Mother Theresa and the Pope.”

For more on the Serial (aka the Oxford) comma Martha Barnette’s blog titled, Is There a Violinist in the Gay Church’s Bathroom or Not?

The Latest Muppet Caper

Jenny Rappaport–over at Lit Soup–cites a NY Times article saying, that under Disney, the Muppets are set to return. She’s posted several of her favorite Muppet shticks on her blog.

Ms Rappaport didn’t post my favorite, the Lobster sketch (aka the Loobster sketch). It’s the Swedish Chef planning to cook a lobster. What could go wrong?

According to the NY Times article, a feature film is in the offing for 2010 and “[m]eanwhile the Muppets will work overtime elsewhere, appearing on a new float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, on ‘Nightline’…” And don’t forget the merchandise…

Life imitates art

This BBC story, Survey turns hill into a mountain, about Mynydd Graig Goch in Snowdonia in Wales sounds like the movie that starred Hugh Grant, The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain.


Maggie Mountain in the Sierra Nevada

I’ve worked in the Sierra Nevada at Mountain Home State Forest. I could see Mount Whitney. I now live near the Mayacamas Mountains. The thing is just a big hill.

The Very Model of a British Gentleman

Michael Dirda writes in an essay for the Chronicle Review titled James Bond as Archetype (and Incredibly Cool Dude) that he wants to be “Bond. James Bond.”

What guy doesn’t? He’s suave and sophisticated; and he gets to blow stuff up.

Dirda writes,

“007 calls to mind a more sophisticated version of that favorite adventure-movie archetype: the underestimated man. Sooner or later, the long-suffering rancher, mocked and abused by the bad guys, will wearily strap on his six-guns — and reveal a lightning draw and a deadly aim.”

Excuse me now, won’t you? I’m off to read Baccarat for Dummies. I’m told it’s similar to Faro and Basset so it should be a snap.

Book Banner Headline

Time reports that as mayor of Wasilla, Palin tried to ban books from the library. According to John Stein, the former mayor (and the guy Palin defeated), “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving ‘full support’ to the mayor.

(read the story here)

By the way when you watch the video, remember a rhetorical question is a “question to which no answer is expected.” It is a rhetorical device used for dramatic effect; you know, “emphasizing style at the expense of thought.”

I think Palin expected an answer.