chuma.org

Adam Tow, you are a GOLDEN GOD. I bow down to your l33t n3w+0n skillz. In case you have no idea what the heck I’m talking about, Adam is working on an XML-RPC library and Blogger API client for the Newton. It’s mad. It’s actually alpha and released right now. And it’s probably going to make me move this blog onto a MovableType system just so I can use it. Schweet.

Last night I had a minor nervous breakdown while calling the Canadian evil empire. See, Sandy had really started to hate the Mot V101 “VBox” she got when we signed up in September. I got one too, and I like it. She didn’t. The voice volume, quite frankly, sucks. It’s great for SMS and the integrated ICQ gateway, however, and I use both of those features on a daily basis. She was more interested in voice however, and so it wasn’t her cup of tea. What she decided to replace it with was a Mot C332, a nice entry level phone which has gotten pretty good reviews. Problem is, Rogers AT&T only sells this phone as part of their ready4u promotion. And also, since Sandy had had her V101 for over 30 days, they wouldn’t take it back: we would have to buy a new handset for full price and then pay for it to be activated. This costs at LEAST $200 for the phone. Which sucks.

After placing some inquiring phone calls at Rogers, we were told that if we had a ready4u phone and an existing contract, we could replace one of the existing phones with the ready4u one (the C332). On to eBay I went, and got a brand-new ready4u C332 for $45.99 USD. Schweet. It arrived last night, and of course I called immediately to get it set up as I’ve outlined. I talked to someone, explained what I wanted to do, and he transferred me to the “activation centre.” The activation centre turns out to be the most inflexible department at Rogers, as the man who I dealt with told me that what I was proposing was not possible, and that I would have to activate the C332 on either the ready4u terms (4 months free, but still a contract) or add it to my family plan as a third phone. Needless to say, I was pissed, as I had called just a scant few days before to make sure that my switch plan could be done. I hung up and let out a groan of agony, thinking that now I was stuck with this handset that Rogers, really, really wanted to charge me up the ass for.

I don’t think men should be allowed to staff or call support lines. Period. The man at the activation centre I talked too wasn’t very pleasant in his tone, and I could tell this through his Quebecois accent. Sandy, seeing that I had been converted into a ball of useless meat, picked up the phone, called Rogers back, didn’t get transferred to activations but instead just gave the nice servicewoman the IMEI of the C332. That was it. It was done. Charge the phone, power-cycle it tomorrow, and it should work. God. Rogers is kind of like a seven-headed blind deaf Hydra. Of course, we’ll see today if this actually worked, but I’m fairly sure that it will.