My brand new cable company... almost.

Brand new cable company!!! I was very excited about this!!! ...yesterday.

Yesterday morning, in fact. I called up a representative from the verizon/fios company and asked them about their rates and whatnot. I talked to a very nice woman who had an accent that made me think she looked enchantingly like the gorgeous latina woman on 'modern family'. Hubba hubba.

Anyway, she told me that she could cut me a deal that would give me cable and internet service WITH a dvr for $20 less a month than those cablevision bastards! AND! not only that-- she could send over a dude to hook it all up for free the very next day (somewhere between 8 a.m. and noon)! I was sold. And i was happy.

Yesterday.

This morning, i woke up and realized that i didn't tell this nice young lady that the cable guy would have to come around to the back of the house. I had visions of him knocking on the front door and finding Indian Beeker and running away quickly, because... well, why wouldn't you want to run away quickly from Indian Beeker?

So, i called them up to let them know about it (the back of the house, not Indian Beeker), and spoke with another nice woman (no accent) who took down my name, address, phone number, and confirmation number, and told me that she would make sure she'd send over that information right away. FINALLY, i thought, a cable company that knows what they're doing!

I turned on the Today show, and watched a bit of Mike and Mike in the morning, and found a few bits of junk food lying around that could easily be called "breakfast" by someone who was between the ages of six and thirteen. Don't judge me (I didn't have to go into work today; i've established a habit of taking the day off after the oscars. it adds to the celebratory feel of the evening. and it also ensures me enough time to return my tuxedo).

So, eight o'clock came and went. As did nine. And ten. And then, as you may have suspected, so did 11. Around 11:38 i started to shuffle in my seat a bit. But not as much as i did when it became 12:05. At 12:20, i decided to give verizon/fios a ring to make sure they were still on their way.

I wound up talking to six different people, this time, most of whom wanted me to repeat all my information, including my confirmation number. As a result, i have it memorized. It's NY50758172.

The last person i talked to was a nice fellow. But he seemed a bit confused. "Did you make this appointment over the internet?" he asked. "No," i said, "i talked with someone over the phone yesterday."

"YESTERDAY?!?!?!" he said. Uhm, yeah. Yesterday.

I had no reason to lie to him about this, but he kept on using the word IF. "Well, if you talked to someone yesterday, it wasn't anyone from MY department!" uh.... alright. Y'know, i mean... fair enough, i guess...?

I'm on the phone for about fifteen minutes by this point, so i ask him what's going on. Did something go wrong? Did those cablevision bastards hack into your system? Was the cable guy on his way over to see me, until he got distracted by the sexy-voiced latina woman?

Finally, the guy says something like, "Aha!" which is followed by a good 42 seconds of silence, until he says...

"yeah, uh, Mr. Martin, i think i know why no one's arrived yet."
Okay...?
"Well, if you talked to someone about this appointment yesterday, they shouldn't have done that. We usually don't schedule appointments on Sundays."
Oh. uh... alright?
"Annnnnd, whoever you spoke to about this, i think they got it wrong. Because, we have it here that you wanted us to arrive on March 8th, 2011."

.......uh...

Seriously, that's what they told me. So i said, "You... y'have it in your system that i scheduled an appointment for March 8th, 2011... and you THINK the person i spoke to got it wrong???"

"Uh, yes, sir, that is correct."

Right.

So, at least for the time being, i'm going to stick with the cablevision bastards. I mean, really, who would you choose? The crappy cable company? Or the crappy cable company?

the five things i fell in love with today...

1) Foreign accents.
2) The Soda Guy didn't know i had the day off today, so he was out in the hallway without pants... again. But at least he had a shirt on this time.
3) i'm pretty happy about evetntually being able to watch the oscars last night. they did come to an agreement-- abc and cablevision. i missed about 45 minutes of the awards, though... and i don't want to talk about it.
4) the hurt locker-- such a great film! very happy it won best picture!!! even happier that Up won for the best score. that dude is a genius.
5) the thought struck me this afternoon that i'll probably get a knock on my door from the verizon/fios guy, somewhere between 8 a.m. and noon, exactly one year from today. Hard for me not to chuckle at that...

song of the night...
"yesterday" by the beatles

movie of the night...
"the cable guy"