Blog Number 308

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I am on the paperless program with AT&T.  This means of course that I do not get a bill in the mail but rather get my bill via email.  AT&T uses the sbcglobal.net domain name.and (as far as I can tell) will not allow me to receive my bill at any other address other than the one tied to that domain.  There is just one problem, I do not need an email address.  I have had my own domain for about 8 years now and have no desire to change email addresses.  I tried having that email forwarded to my other account but no dice.  I actually had it working once but then received an email indicating that I was accessing their email server incorrectly along with various warnings of what would happen if I did not cease and desist this activity.  At any rate, I check my sbcglobal.net email address every 3 days or so to see when I get my phone bill.  I think I have explained that I only signed up for DSL service with AT&T since it was cheaper than high speed cable internet.  This is due to the fact that all the online deals only worked if the online service could verify your street address.  Since we live on a fairly new street, no online sign up form would work for me.  So, long story short, I signed up for the $4 per month phone service ($14 with fees and taxes) and the $25 per month DSL service.  This month's bill was $5 higher for some reason and so I dug deep and got the courage to call the AT&T help desk for billing questions.

I got through pretty quickly and I explained the reason for my call.  I explained that I did not need the phone service and only got it to get the DSL service.  The said that I should have received a notice on the last page of my February bill explaining the increased fees.  I decided not to belabor the point by saying that I did not receive any bill indicating this (least wise one with a "last page").  She immediately offered to upgrade me to the higher speed internet for $5 more per month.  I explained that I was calling about an increase and certainly was not interested in anything that cost me more.  She did the math for me and said that it was only 17¢ more per day (not even the cost of a cup of coffee she said).  I then asked how much I could save by going to a lower speed service.  She then moved her focus over again to the higher speed service where I could be free wireless service.  I told her that I only had one desktop PC and had no need for wireless.  She then moved on to DISH network and how convenient it would be for me to have only one bill (albeit one at least $30 higher each month) for my phone, internet and TV.  I told her that I did not have and did not want cable or DISH.  She then moved on to the phone service and told me for another $32 per month I could get unlimited long distance, caller ID, etc.  I told her (again) that I did not use this line (other than calling the AT&T billing dept.).  She then told me for only $5 more than that, I could get unlimited international phone calls.  This lady was amazing!  I called to complain about $5 and she wanted to sell me over $70 more per month in services that I kept telling her that I did not need.

Once I hung up I checked out the online form for high speed cable again and to my surprise they can now verify my address.  They have a 6 month offer for $15 less per month (now) than DSL so I think I will sign up.  Of course I will have to call the AT&T folks again to cancel (sigh).  Guess I will have to think about that again.

It is getting a little late but I still have time for...

Words my wife tried to use in Boggle

sog: verb - something er rather that has to do with the adjective soggy (e.g. The milk caused the cereal to sog)

This is not a word and I did not allow her to play it.

Random Bad Quality Pictures With My New Cell Phone

If you can't read the words, it says "TWO USES: It's a Fly Swatter.  It's a Barbeque Lighter."  I did not look at the price but this does not seem like a great idea to me.  The guy who came up with this concept had to be one great salesman.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon