October 31, 2003

roger's cable: a true story

When I moved into my new place in April, I had free cable. I guess they forgot to disconnect it, so I was getting it for free.

Several months later, I received the dreaded little red card from Roger's explaining they had cut off my cable service because I was a "new" owner of the unit. This was on October 16, 2003.

On the same day in the evening, I called Rogers to have it reconnected. They told me they would reconnect on Tuesday, October 21, 2003.

On Tuesday, I came home from work to find the cable had not been reconnected yet. I called to complain. Rogers told me their network was down and they could not contact any of their service guys to see where they were. It was 6pm, and they told me that the service people work until 8pm, so they might still be coming. I did not receive a cable connection on Tuesday at all.

On Wednesday, October 22, 2003 (6 days after I ordered cable) evening my cable was reconnected.

On Friday October 24, 2003 cable was out again. I noticed there was a message on my machine. It was fuzzy but I could make out the words "Roger's Cable". I called Roger's to complain. These people were surprised and shocked that I had been disconnected. To them, it made absolutely no sense that someone would come in and disconnect me. They were sorry and told me that they would reconnect me immediately the next morning (Saturday October 25, 2003). They told me I had to be there to get the cable, so I had to cancel my plans for the morning.

Saturday morning came and went. I called Roger's again. They told me that according to my file, someone was supposed to come on Saturday and they didn't know why no one came. They apologized for keeping me in the whole time and asked if I wanted to reschedule. The best they could give me was Thursday October 30, 2003 (14 days after I ordered cable). So I agreed.

Every day leading up to Thursday I started researching on alternatives to getting Roger's cable. Bell Expressvu, StarChoice, Look. None of these are an option for me for two reasons.

1) I'm not allowed to attach a satellite externally to my condo.
2) Even if I was, you need a balcony facing south (CN Tower).

On Wednesday while browsing through Roger's site, I came to realize a cool deal they had for digital cable. Rent a box for $8.95/month, and you still get whatever you ordered before, but then you can get extra stuff. Plus all the channels are free for 2 months as a trial period, and there's no commitment required.

I called Roger's to see if I could add this deal onto what I already had. The lady was nice, she said I could tack on the order for the digital box with (tomorrow) my current order. The difference is before I could just have the cable installed, whereas now I had to stay in so that I could answer the door and let the guy deliver the digital box.

Thursday night, the big day! 14 days after I ordered cable, it was time to get my order, plus digital too! 5-8pm, so I rushed home after work and waited. And waited. And waited some more.

Well, turns out cable was connected while I was home, but no one showed up to give me my digital box, so I had no idea cable had been hooked up. I called to complain once again. The guy checked my file, and found NO RECORD OF ME ORDERING DIGITAL CABLE! Unbelievable!

This is my account of dealing with Roger's cable. This is by no means a warning or anti-Roger's rant. After all, these bastards have a monopoly on cable, so even if you wanted to find an alternative, you can't! The friggin bastards have 100% share on cable, so they can screw around with you knowing full well you'll come back begging for more!

Even better is their lovely phone service. They put you on hold, reminding you to stay on the line because you are in a queue. 30 minutes later you hear a "click" and you've been disconnected. How wonderful! Another time I was on hold for 20 minutes, talked to a guy and give him all my information (home number, address and postal code, full name, the problem i'm having) and he tells me he's going to transfer me to someone who can help me with my problem. At this point 3 things can happen. I could be on hold another 15 minutes and then get the wonderful "click" again. OR, I get transferred to the other guy and this dude asks for my info AGAIN, and then asks me, why that other guy transferred me to him! OR, I get transferred again!

October 29, 2003

searches

funny searches yesterday that lead to this blog site..

"Internet+fragrance+mall+Honestly+yours"
"werewolf+woke+up+naked+buffy+gay"
"hands+on+a+hooker+joe+schmoe+show+pics"
"wtc+papparazi"
"joe+schmoe+finale"

To the person searching for:
"so+come+home+running+Chris+Tomlin+chords", the song's chords can be found here.

October 26, 2003

yay!

Yankees lose!

October 25, 2003

smallville

it seems like the show has changed to Wednesday at 10pm on City, instead of Tuesday's a 8pm. Weird.

Anyway, I missed an episode, last weeks, because Roger's didn't bring back my cable as promised (they brought it back a day later), then two days later, they stupidly cut it off again. What a dumb bunch of idiots.

Anyway, back to the show. Kristin Kreuk is really pretty, still.

One beef with the show I have is this. What happened to Pete? This kid gets virtually no air time, even though he knows Clark's secret and is Clark's best friend. Is this cuz he's black? That's so wrong. Meanwhile, I don't care as much as long as Lana gets more airtime.

Still, you gotta feel somewhat bad for Sam Jones III. He must've thought he was getting that "Big Break" when he signed on and read the part about being Clark's best friend and getting to be in the know of the secret powers. But he gets nothing. He more like just a recurring character on the show.

Give Pete more love guys. C'mon!

October 20, 2003

Riesen

We are having so much fun with this candy. I bought a package of it and we've been eating it. One guy won't have any, insisting it smells like shit. But it doesn't.. it's smooth chocolate, not too sweet, not too sticky like some other caramel candies.

He was saying how even if I gave some to a homeless man, he would not eat it.

Then we played with the words of course. One guy would say 'hey ebrian, give me one riesen', then i'd say 'i have no reason to give you a riesen!'. Then the guy who doesn't like them says 'even a homeless guy would have no riesen to live'. hahaa

October 17, 2003

mcdonald's

noticed someone searching my page for McDeal information. Here in Canada, here is monday to friday:

Monday - Big Extra Meal
Tuesday - Big Mac Meal
Wednesday - McChicken Meal
Thursday - Two Cheeseburgers Meal
Friday - Fillet O' Fish Meal

If you have a McDeal meal, it is $4.27. You can also just get the burger(s) for $1.39 that day. It's a good deal, in my opinion. Anytime you can fill your belly with a drink, fries and a burger all for under $5, that's a good deal.

My schedule looks like this:

Monday - Big Extra Meal
Tuesday - Big Mac Meal
Wednesday - McChicken Meal OR Manchu Wok ($5.97). I usually get the 2 items deal. Noodles, shanghai pork and either green bean beef or pepper chicken.
Thursday - Manchu Wok (5.97) or a Calzone ($4.27) from Mrs. Vanelli's
Friday - Often times Friday we go out together to eat. It could be Pho or Mamma's Pizza. Or just a random restaurant in the area. I could also have the lamb dinner or roast chicken dinner from the Friendly Greek, or a submarine from Subway. Submarines are a bit more expensive because I find that a half sub isn't enough to fill my stomach, whereas the full is too big. I can finish it, but end up feeling sleepy for the rest of the afternoon. Plus it's around $7. The Greek food is eiher $5-7, depending on which meal, or whether you get a salad or not. Or I could have another Calzone.

In a week I am spending around $25 on lunch food. I guess if made my own lunches, it would cost around $10/week. But then again, time is money and spending that extra hour on Sundays (or for some people who prepare lunch the night before) just isn't worth that $15/week, to me.

Right now I am limiting myself to spending approx. $100/week, as in that's all I take out per week. Some weeks I'll have $40 left, other weeks I'll have nothing left. So I figure as long as I limit myself to that amount, in the end I can only spend that much on average, per week. I'm spending on average about $150/month on various bills.

The other day I was calculating my expenses and realized that I'm not making much money at all. I think many people at work would be surprised I was making so little.. but then again it's only my first year of working. Then you factor in the fact that I'm living on my own but my parents paid for it, and how I really only paid 1/3 for my car. Plus most guys my age have a girlfriend, and since I don't one that saves me quite a bit too. All in all I am living a pretty good life.

Speaking of that my parents are constantly in my ear urging and guilting me into finding a girl and getting them some grandkids. Dad makes a good point that the older I get, the pool of good women gets smaller. This is a really good point. Less than a year ago my opinion on getting married was that the only point of getting married was to have children. I love children.. thus I always felt that the alternative to marriage would be adoption.

However, ever since my family moved away I have really started to cherish the times whenever I am with friends. I now value that companionship, so I think more about finding that special someone than I did before. Guy friends are one thing, but eventually that guy is going to look for a girl, and then he will have less time for me, eventually having NO time for me. Thus it brings me to my final point.

Living. Money. A job. God. I'm so close to "having it all"...

October 15, 2003

quick update

yea-yea, i've been busy ok.

i've travelled about 600 km in the last 3-4 days in my car. the agape retreat was far. but it was good. moving onto agape would be kinda scary seeing as my mom was going there just 5 months ago. but they are good people.

fantasy football has been rough.. i've gone 1-5 in the last two weeks.

after a whole week to do devotions, i'm only on day 3 of purpose driven life. i swear i'll be better! doh!

saw 'kill bill' yesterday. overly-hyped movie. is it just me or was this movie really *yawn* boring? okay, so people's limbs and heads were chopped off. so what? what about the other 1.5 hours of nothingness? qt - i'm disappointed. the toes part was funny tho.

getting fed up with my computer.. overheats all the time, especially now with heat turned on

my dad is coming back tomorrow! i'm so excited.. i miss him so much!

October 08, 2003

yesterday i read day 1 of the purpose driven life. i can't decide whether to do it in the mornings or at night. for now, i'll do it at night, but in the future (if i can ever catch up on my sleep that missed 3 weeks ago) i would like to switch it to a morning devotion.

it took me approx. 40 minutes to read, reflect, write and pray on Day 1's reading.

October 06, 2003

commitment

after a really challenging sermon this sunday, i've decided to make a commitment to making devotions part of my daily routine. i've been through this a thousand times, 'going back to daily devotions', but each time the urge has passed and dwindled.

this time, i'd like to post this up so that those of you reading can keep me accountable. i'm going to keep a written diary rather than computer, because i know from experience that i cannot keep myself from being distracted whenever i am on the computer. for now, i will read a chapter every day until i find a good devotional book. in my diary i will keep track of the chapters i read, date and time i read it, my thoughts on the scripture and also record what i feel is my level of spirituality at that time.

i think this is a step in the right direction. throughout my bad and good times, my faith in God has remained very strong. it's time i made a commitment towards not only having a strong faith, but also a great personal relationship with Him.

October 04, 2003

raptors

tonight we had a draft for raptors tickets. 9 teams drafted for season tickets (a pair). monchichi and i are sharing, and we got the lakers, 76ers, celtics, heat, and chicago (preseason). we were forced to take a preseason ticket because we got one of the top 4 picks. we got 2nd.

i'm excited.. i really like the Lakers this year, even if Kobe ends up in jail (more on this later), they still have Malone, Payton and Shaq. It's a stacked team and should be able to compete with teams like the Spurs or Kings, who are stacked as well. 76ers, another player I've always wanted to see is Alan Iversion. He plays with so much heart and desire. Sure he jacks up 30 shots per game, but it's the valiant effort that I admire. We got Celts too, Paul Pierce -- all heart and soul.

The Heat's rookie Dwyane Wade is my pick this year for rookie of the year. I think he'll get tons of playing time, and he's the only scorer on the team. All you need is a high scoring average to get an ROY. And yeah, it IS spelled 'Dwyane', not D'wayne like D'wayne Bates of the Minnesota Vikings..!

Finally I'm happy about the Chicago preseason game too, although I would have preferred the game against the Greek team, Chicago is Toronto's final preseason game, so I suspect we'll see maybe 1 quarter of Vince, and then a good 36 minutes of Chris Bosh.

Kobe. This is just speculation, but in my honest opinion, I think a woman gets a certain amount of unfair power in rape cases. If it's down to his word against hers, the woman almost always gets the benefit of the doubt. What if Kobe had sex with this girl, and afterwards she asked if he'd call her, and he said no way! Easily she could have been upset enough to claim rape, knowing that a guy with a high profile like Kobe (or Mike Tyson) would at the very least pay her off. Either way, she gets her revenge.

Hypothetically, any woman would have an easy time winning such a case.

The thing that has always bothered me about Mike Tyson has been that the woman called him in the middle of the night and asked him to come over to her hotel room. If anyone has seen or read about Mike Tyson, you know he's not exactly the type of guy you call over for some emotional or family crisis. This girl called him over for sex, plain and simple. Okay, so maybe he was a little rough on her? It still doesn't take away from the fact that she intended to have sex with him. That bugs me that he still gets, what, 5 years in prison?

Now if the same thing happened to Kobe, that would be a different story, because he's a nice guy who someone WOULD be call over if there was a family or emotional crisis. Also I read that this woman accusing him has mental instabilities and recently tried to commit suicide, twice. And she isn't going to be put on the stand. What's up with that? How do we know she isn't just doing this for the fame and money? A woman who is suicidal, could just be out for some attention and a big settlement.

Bah.. what bothers me most about all of this is that Kobe Bryant is my favorite basketball player. He's never said anything foolish or stupid that I've seen in his one-on-ones or post game interviews. He married his highschool sweetheart, he's brimming with talent. I know it's naive to think that this guy might be perfect and that he's probably not.. but i'm a believer.

October 03, 2003

the red team wins!

how many times did you guys get this question yesterday:

"are you voting tonight?" (I respond)
"why not?"

Why not? The simple response would be -- because Mike Harris isn't running. But that would only lead to even more questions. How about "because to me it's just red against blue."?

Regardless of which government runs the province, people are going to be unhappy. For me, every which way I will be affected both negatively and positively. I believe it's pure folly to worry about politics unless they are telling me I have to start paying to breathe, or that I can't pray in public anymore or read the Bible without paying a tax. Because outside of those things, I really could not care less. I'll take issue if my normal daily life is drastically changed, but otherwise I care as much about the Blues and the Reds (and the Oranges, Greens etc) as I do about whether or not "J Lo" is getting married again.
friendster

friendster.com was originally a place my friend told me about and I thought it was just stupid. but recently having added people to my direct friends' list, i have started to find it more interesting.

what's the point of this site? i believe the purpose is to meet people. this is a marvel of an idea -- meeting total strangers who just happen to know someone that you also know. cutting down the 4, 5, 6 degrees of separation down to 1-2. it's kinda neat. the coolest thing about it is clicking on one of your own friends, and then on one of their friends, and then seeing one of your own friends on a friends' friends' friends list. now THAT is cool.

blaster

damn kids..

i got hit with the blaster a few days ago. yea i know, why didn't i patch it? because i couldn't. microsoft thinks i have an invalid cdkey to my xp disc. okay, so it's true, but still, doesn't everyone? i was looking at the ms site the other day. xp pro is $600! are they our of their minds? their operating system is worth more than my computer, stereo, tv -- combined. that's ridiculous. and which of these is the least reliable? of course, the OS.
fellership

my fellowship at church is going through some drastic changes. we started out as a 19-28 age span, but this fall we are making a big change to it. the reason for the change is that many highschool graduates have had trouble transitioning into from the highschool fellowship to ours. the reason being there is a gap between the ages in the fellowship, mainly that it's a slew of people who are 23+ and then a bunch of 19-20s.

the age gap is inconvenient and not our fault; it's just that many church people that age have gone to schools outside toronto. as a result, our fellowship continues to get older, and the younger people find it less and less appealing to attend.

so, time for big changes. the fellowship "genesis" will no longer allow anyone 25+.

conveniently, we've had small groups throughout the year, and only the older groups have been attending. so we could just continue on with the groups, and just stop going to those large group activities that including the younger people.

however, we need new small group leaders.

i've been approached (albeit jokingly) to be a leader. i don't see myself as a leader. i've done leadership roles in my highschool fellowship and it just didn't really work out back then. i don't see that changing now.

i've been going to this church for just over a year now. i finally feel like a part of the "family". it's a big church, afterall. i am volunteering to be part of the welcoming committee. i couldn't do that before because i had no way of getting to church on time.

October 02, 2003

limbaugh vs. mcnabb

three points i'd like to make about this recent thing between these two people.

1) a bad team makes a bad qb look worse, and a good team can make a bad qb look better. in all cases, the team around him makes him look good or bad. take qb's like trent dilfer, troy aikmen, tom brady. these are all below average qbs who are a product of a good system, which make them look good when they really aren't that good. dilfer helped baltimore (a team known for its defense) win a superbowl. now some would say dilfer guided the team and a good solid qb. but a person in the know would realize that dilfer simply didn't make the mistakes he usually makes, and it's the defense that won them the SB. same goes for tom brady when the pats won it a couple years ago, and now clearly sucks. troy aikmen won quite a few SBs, but it a product of a good offense coupled with the one of the greatest runningbacks in the history of the sport. this "great" never threw more than 20 touchdowns in a single season.

that said, i don't consider mcnabb in this category of quarterbacks.

2) limbaugh was wrong, the media doesn't particularly want to see black quarterbacks succeed in the nfl. if that were the case, they would have made a bigger deal out of daunte culpepper last season, when he struggled mightily. aaron brooks is struggling right now, no one has said anything about him either.

3) the philadelphia eagles should have seen this coming. andy reid, and the rest of coaching staff, the gm, even the fans should have seen this coming. philly's offense is struggling and they're blaming mcnabb. hello?! mcnabb is all they have on their offense. you got last years' receivers, james thrash and todd pinkston -- neither of these two would be a wr3 in most teams. you got duce staley, who has had a decent career due to a good offensive line. chad lewis, one of the oldest tight ends in the league. realizing that you have an overachieving offense last season all in part due to your quarterback, and not signing anyone of any significance in the offseason -- THIS is why donovan mcnabb has struggled this year.

October 01, 2003

happy birthday!
today my lil bro turns 16. wow! happy birthday!

i suggest going for that driver's license and not holding off like i did. driving, to me, is a necessity but i still think it's overrated (just ask danny heatley and his pal dan snyder). but getting that insurance going early on will do wonders for you later on in life.

when i turned 16, dad took the day off to be with me. we were gonna see "virtuosity" the movie with denzel washington and russell crowe. when the time came i asked dad when we were gonna see it, and he told me, right after i mowed the lawn. what a great birthday that was! mom bought me the forrest gump soundtrack that year for my birthday.