I just had another horrible experience with AT&T customer support, and I know I’m not alone. They have to be one of the most hated companies on earth for this reason. I just tried logging into their website to make changes to an account and since I do this so […]
Category: rant
Listen to me rant about various things
I Speak For The Trees
[continued from Part 1] After meeting with the contractor that Ameren dispatched to walk my property line and mark trees, he invited me to walk the line with him. I was glad I did. Not only did this give me an opportunity to recalibrate his understanding of easements, but it […]
I Am The Lorax
I am not a fan of Ameren. Ever since I spent seven days without electricity in the throes of a St. Louis summer, there is very little that company can do to find favor with me. I’m sure I’m not alone. That incident in July 2006, where a half million […]
Hey Airline Industry!
Recent surveys have indicated that the airlines are getting worse instead of better when it comes to customer satisfaction, one of the key areas being on-time arrivals. Now it doesn’t take a genius to realize that arriving on time is heavily dependent on departing on time, so it follows that […]
Missourah
This is addressed to those who routinely mispronounce the name of my home state. Some of you, inexplicably, are from this state and you still don’t know how to pronounce it. Since you somehow managed to escape any proper instruction in its pronunciation, allow me to enlighten you. It is […]
Bye Bye DirecTV!
Earlier this year, I documented my Home Theater PC project. My primary motivation for this endeavor was to find a viable alternative, preferably less expensive, to my subscription to DirecTV. I had been a customer of theirs for over 10 years, and in that time I watched my monthly fee […]
The Big Box Office Bamboozle
It looks like my prediction about Avatar is on track to come true, but the box office reports today reminded me just how pointless box office reports are. I already know the answer to this question, but why do these reports still use dollars instead of gross tickets sold? Hey […]
Spammers Have Ruined The Internet
If you’ve ever gone through the process of getting a new phone number, you know that the previous owner’s reputation and associations may haunt you. The phone companies are supposed to let phone numbers lie fallow for some period of time (usually a year) before they reassign them to new […]
Whither Tobacco
This is the halfway point in this year’s 30 Days of Blog, and I thought I would devote at least one day responding to the man who started all of this. The Numb Trolleybus is singing Congress’s praises for finally making the move to regulate tobacco products. And I shared […]
Adventures in Linux-Land
Look, I’m a software guy, okay? I’ve been banging around on computers since my first TRS-80 that my dad bought in 1982. I’m a software engineer for the world’s largest aerospace company. And I’m here to tell you that as far as computer operating systems go, we as a civilization […]
Wanna Play Monopoly?
As I write this, there are still over 500 people in the St. Louis area without electricity, according to AmerenUE‘s outage map. Granted, that number is down from almost 700,000 people. And, granted, this is following the worst storm damage in Ameren’s 100-year history. But is it acceptable? A half-million […]
Why AOL Sucks
Almost exactly ten years ago I wrote my first rant on this web site entitled “Why AOL Sucks.” It is nice to finally have confirmation of this fact. I’m sure the 5,000 employees losing their jobs would agree with me at this point. I must admit, however, that AOL’s business […]
Take My Identity, Please
I just can’t win. Between my employer and the Veteran’s Administration, and their penchant for storing my personal data on easily-stolen laptop computers, I might as well just post my name, birthday, and Social Security number right here on my web site and save all those thieves the trouble. And […]
Why Movies Suck
So it’s been almost five years since I last ranted about this topic. But recent developments have forced me to reevaluate my own attitude towards the entire movie-going experience. It’s no secret that I go to a lot of movies. But I used to enjoy them a lot more than […]
Why Netflix Sucks
In April of this year, I received an email from Netflix informing me that in June they would be raising their rates from $19.95 per month to $21.99 per month. In response, I fired off some hate mail and I’m sure I wasn’t the only customer to respond negatively to […]