I Got UVERSED!

Tech for the modern family is the great hemorrhage now. It is as essential as gas. Cellphones, landlines, cable, Internet. The modern family needs it all but the cost...the cost. So I was coasting along when I got telemarketed by a dude who told me he could solve all my problems. One bill. Less Cost. And he would give me a three hundred dollar Visa card for just signing up! Wow. One bill. All the headaches in one central point. And the channels, the speed, the service. Sign me up bro.

He did. And I got UVERSE. And I coasted along and my first bill was just seventy three dollars. Wow. You mean for my cellphones (3) my Internet and my basic tv and Internet just seventy three bucks? Something is wrong here. Hey, don't worry about it. You are good  my salesman told me. Your next bill will be more but you will have all the savings. Alright. Meanwhile I'm on the VERSE. DVRing from my phone. Watching shows on my phone. Styling.

And then I got my second billl....seven hundred and eighty three buckos! Wow. I got UVERSED! So I called up my now non existent saleman and was handed off to the call center. Hours on the phone and guess what I found out? It was all perfectly correct. You see I was prorated, serviced charged, over the topped, moved over, combined, double rated, adjusted, added onto, special serviced, upgraded, downgraded, new contracted, started up, signed on, subtracted, and finally specially considered and at the end I owed SEVEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTY THREE DOLLARS. Man... I get UVERSED!

And so I checked around. Yeah man. I had UVERSE. Past tense all of my friends. Nobody STILL had UVERSE. Everybody tried it and got the UVERSE Shaft and ended up back with their original carriers. So I asked for a payment plan. Oh yeah we have a plan...you pay now or you pay a week from now buy you are paying or we cut off your service...ALL OF IT. And so I knew they had me .

What about the three hundred dollar visa card? Oh  well. You have to stay with us for ninety days and then it takes six to eight weeks to get it. Wow...did I get UVERSED. So I am in my extraction mode, but it's going to take some time. So when they call you and tell you they are going to stick it all on one bill and that you are going to save a bunch of money...HANG UP THE PHONE.

Lest you get...UVERSED!

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Tech Dads

The old dad who fixed everything around the house with and adjustable and Philips head and a hammer, adjusting training wheels on bikes, the errant leaky faucet, the malfunctioning lamp that just wont stay lit, have been replaced by the tech dads of 2012. Tech dads around Christmas are not the men staying up late to put together the bike. The tech dad is hunched over his laptop solving tech problems for his kids much the way the old dads used to solve problems with a wrench.

Take Christmas day. I set up two notebooks complete with getting them online and punching in encryption codes and changing screen savers and passwords. Not a big deal really. The tech dad nightmare was my seven year olds Mp3 player. I get why Steven Jobs did such a great thing with the IPOD, because the old technology barely worked. Two hours to get the little bugger to talk with rhapsody and download music then I just started sliding over my own mp3 files from my laptop.

Then it was on to the remote control helicopter. No biggie really except extremely difficult to fly. Many crashes. Then onto setting up the digital camera so it would download. Not extremely difficult. The Uverse guy shows up and I have to transition all computers to the new provider. Rebooting and passwords and encryption keys. Setting up the phone to Tivo and control the television. Some tech issues to resolve between televisions.

The mp3 player craps out. The notebooks cant find the WIFI and my sons speakers need to be hooked up and his phone wont sync to the axillary jack on his receiver. Encryption keys and rebooting and the tape monitor circuit for the phone and recharge the mp3 player. All is well until the wife's laptop crashes.

Tech dad is on the job.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
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Hemingways Attic...surviving as a writer