45 minutes of listening to Richard Marx, the Backstreet Boys, and Olivia Newton-John, I was ready to commit minor mayhem, but when whoever it was came on the line, I explained that I wasn’t a new customer, just someone who had been deprived of three days of telephone service for no apparent reason.

The bitch hung up on me!!!

I’ve turned it over to my wife. I went to my neighbor’s house, used their phone to call her, and explained what happened in as calm a tone as I could muster (since my neighbor was listening). She can call the phone company directly, and probably get service much quicker than I could.

I also don’t quite understand why my voice part of the telephone service has been disconnected, but my DSL continues to work.

Never mind. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.

On an unrelated note, I’d like to say, “Hi!” to Shane, and recommend a good ranting site to you all. He’s written a nice screed about child support and related items, so go read it, and tell him I sent you. I’m going to go, because I could lose my DSL as soon as they figure out their lapse. And they still refuse to tell me whether DSL service is available at the new house. We have the address, the phone numbers aren’t changing, but they still won’t tell me.

Bastards.

UPDATE: My wife just called me on my cell phone, and it turned out that their offices screwed up, but it would cost us another $60 to turn the new line off, this line back on, and then reverse it again on Monday. I was wrong. They’re not bastards. They’re thieving bastards.

Of course, the drop in record sales has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they are measuring that drop from the height of popularity of boy bands (such as the Back Street Boys and N*SYNC) and the solo acts (such as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera), with no corresponding rise in sales from any up-and-coming equally popular groups, right?

It (equally of course) also has nothing to do with the fact that most music CDs put out in the past two to three years have absolutely sucked donkey scrotums with MAYBE one or two good songs per album, and the rest of it barely qualifies as fluff, filler, or re-releases of older stuff, right?

And it couldn’t have a thing to do with the uncertain economy since September 11th, 2001, and the fact that people have more important things to spend their money on, such as food, shelter, clothing, etc., could it?

And it’s just a fluke that Apple’s music selling system has managed to sell five million songs (at just 99 cents each) in the past two months, proving that there is a market for on-line song sales, isn’t it?

Since it absolutely has to be the fault of the Evil Music Sharers(TM), they are therefore going to be filing lawsuits to alienate their most vulnerable fanbase, not to mention bankrupting them with lawsuits (even assuming they win these suits, the legal fees will certainly make them more willing to spend extra money on music CDs, right, you nimrods?).

Sheesh…

That’s nice to know, I guess. My home weapon is a nickel-plated Rossi .357 Magnum, with a 2” barrel, loaded with hollow-point rounds (no small kids living in the home with us, so no hassles), and a speed-loader, in case there are more than just two or three targets.

I also have to warn you that my wife shoots better than I do. I’m better at target discrimination (the “shoot/no-shoot” decision), but she’s better at putting lead on target.

I do ask, however, that you copy the image to your own server, because if my bandwidth gets sucked out, I’ll delete the picture.

The code is:

<a href="http://www.drumwaster.com"><img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/foldername/Drmwstr2.jpg" alt="Drumwaster’s Rants” border="0"></a>

Here’s the picture (again, please copy it to your server, if you would. It’s only 4,185 bytes/4.08kB)

The Democrats obviously aren’t happy with the product, because they are demanding to see the numbers processed by one of the lead actuaries. “They don’t have the right on the Hill to call up my actuary and demand things,” said Tom Scully, chief of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “These people work for the executive branch, period.” Scully added that Democrats want the memo in hopes of scoring political points, as Congress debates legislation adding prescription drugs to Medicare and making other changes to the program. (Heaven forbid! Democrats trying desperately to make Republicans look bad? Non! Non!)

In other news, the Supreme Court has upheld the right of homosexual people to, well, have sex. In a 6-3 decision, the Court struck down laws prohibiting gay sex, ruling that it was an unconstitutional violation of privacy.

The two Texas men at the heart of the case, John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner, have retreated from public view. They were each fined $200 and spent a night in jail for the misdemeanor sex charge in 1998.

The case began when a neighbor with a grudge faked a distress call to police, telling them that a man was “going crazy” in Lawrence’s apartment. Police went to the apartment, pushed open the door and found the two men having anal sex.

Never mind the embarrassing part about getting caught having sex, wouldn’t the men now have a civil case for recovery of costs against the neighbor? The costs of filing appeals all the way to the SCOTUS must be impressive, to say the least.

On a climatological note, Los Angeles is expected to hit 88 degrees today. and they’re complaining about the heat!!! This far inland, we average about 10-20 degrees hotter than LA, depending on the prevailing winds (if they’re from the coast, it’s a little cooler, but when they from the desert, it’s much warmer), so we might hit triple digits today. I guess summer is making up for the slack from last week.

UPDATE: On the SCOTUS case about the two men from Texas, Steven den Beste points out something of which I was previously unaware, which may shed some light on the neighbor’s complaint and the police’s stupidity.

The Iraqis say that the clashes were provoked by searches of private homes for heavy weapons, which they claim was a violation of women’s privacy. But British Army Lt. Col. Ronnie McCourt said that the attack was unprovoked.

“The six military policemen who were trying to retrain the local police were murdered, as far as we’re aware,” McCourt said to a Sky News reporter on Wednesday in Basra. “The enemies of peace have claimed that the United Kingdom forces are conducting violent searches of Arab homes and have not respected property. This is simply not true.”

The need to search for the weapons is clear, especially now, and the Saddam loyalists have already demonstrated that they will use any location to store military equipment, including hospitals, mosques, and private homes. But we shall have to wait and see how things develop this weekend.

In other news, former Georgia Governor and nationally known segregationist Lester Maddox died earlier this morning. He was selected ("not elected” - and I’ll bet that’s where Je$$e Jack$on got the slogan) to the Gubernatorial position by the Georgia Legislature after no candidate received a majority of the votes cast in the 1966 election. But when he was barred by law from succeeding himself as governor, Maddox won the office of lieutenant governor and put his energy into fighting the new governor, future President Jimmy Carter.

Lester Maddox was 87.

In still more news, it seems that one entrepreneurial type in the LAPD has been accused of rifling through police files on various celebrities and selling personal information about those celebrities (such as birth dates, Social Security numbers, unlisted phone numbers, any restraining orders on file, and type and make of personal automobiles) to tabloids. The officer, identified as Kelly Chrisman, denies all charges.

It looks like the temperatures here are going to be climbing into the standard summer ranges. For those of you who are wondering, according to the National Weather Service (NWS) database, it is supposed to climb to highs of 107 - 113 F (41 - 45 C) this weekend. I guess I shouldn’t have said anything, huh? Serves me right, since I’m going to be helping move not one, but two housefuls (housesful?) of furniture and about a bajillion boxes. I guess I should be happy it’s going to be the proverbial “dry heat”, which usually translates as just a bad sunburn and clear roads, since everybody will be staying indoors or going to the beaches, where it will be a lot cooler.

Have a great day!

June 24: Everybody’s Gone Surfin’!

1. Surf sites at random, or have a set list of regular reads? I usually just visit my BlogRolled sites.
2. Do you visit mostly blogs, or news or other sites? Mainly blogs, but I also have a few fun and informational sites (such as the IMDb) I use for reference purposes.
3. Do you go online every day, or just a couple of days a week? Everyday, unless I simply cannot.
4. Do you allow comments on your blog, or not? I do, now that I can track the truly offensive posters, and make sure that they don’t get to post their crap and just walk away scot-free.
5. Do you shop online at all, or at regular stores? I got burned using my credit card online ONCE, and it will never happen again.
6. Have you ever done online bill-paying/banking, or not? No. Just that shopping experience. Once, and I was suddenly signed up for a site I had never even heard of, at $39.95 per month.
7. Which news site do you prefer… MSNBC.com or CNN.com? Or do you prefer some other one? Some other one - those both suck. Not to mention their admitted bias’.
8. Live chat rooms, or message boards? Message boards.
9. Instant messaging or e-mail? E-mail.
10. Yes or no: have you ever met, or at least talked on the phone with, another blogger? If not, would you want to? Why or why not? No, I haven’t, but (depending on whether my wife concurred) I might like to meet one or two. I would be honored to shake the hand of Bill Whittle, for example.

So much for this week’s round. On to last week’s…

June 17: Reading

1. Newspapers or magazines? Neither, usually. By the time they hit the newsstand/mailbox, the news cycle has changed already.
2. Books-on-tape or regular books? Books that you can hold in your hand.
3. Paperback or hardcover? I have both, but paperbacks are easier to carry around.
4. Fiction or non-fiction? Both. I also prefer “speculative fiction”.
5. Sci-Fi/Fantasy or romance novels? I would rather use romance novels as indling, and I don’t even have a fireplace!
6. Borrow from library or buy books (either new or used)? I buy them unless (as in the case of that 4F, Mikey Moore, or Shrillary) I don’t want to give them any of my money. I borrow those from the local library.
7. Subscribe to magazines or buy on newsstand? I buy my magazines from the newsstand, even though I’m paying the store and the distributor, too.
8. Current best-sellers or classic literature? A little of both.
9. Read books once, or re-read favorites every so often? I re-read my favorites over and over, but my wife doesn’t want to re-read her books. It evens out.
10. Here in the U.S., we have two hot best-sellers...former First Lady Hillary Clinton’s memoirs, and the new Harry Potter book (coming out June 21). If you had to read one, which one...Hillary or Harry? Why? Harry Potter. It bears a closer relation with the truth than Shrillary’s does.

Whew! Thanks for stopping by, and we’ll play again next week.

If you have any information or advice (informed advice), she can be reached at moxiegirl1979@hotmail.com.

Thanks, everyone.

UPDATE: Jim has e-mailed asking me to correct my entry to reflect that he is not making the assumption as to the miscreant’s identity, but rather he is reporting what Veronica thinks. I have made the correction in the above phrasing, and I apologize for even implying that he was making any accusations as to anyone’s identity. I should also point out that even Veronica hasn’t (yet) made any announcements or accusations, only announced her personal suspicions, based on questionable circumstances.

It was an unusual first-time experience, to say the least. It was a video conference Hearing, where the BVA (Board of Veteran’s Appeals) member was in Washington, D.C., and we were in LA. He was sitting fairly stationary and had a camera pointed at him the whole time, but since there were going to be two of us on our end, they had a nifty little device controlling the video camera that pointed it at whoever was doing the talking in our room (mainly my rep), and pulled back to show both of us whenever we were both silent for more than a few seconds.

It lasted for about 20-25 minutes, and at the end, the BVA member hearing the case seemed quite satisfied with what he had heard, and my rep (who has done hundreds of these hearings) said that he thought it went as well as any of the ones he has done. The fact that the BVA member had no additional questions when we were finished (in fact, he was actually crossing them off a list as we were talking) showed that we had covered, pre-emptively, all of the points that a review of the written record had brought up. Plus the experience that my rep had with the procedure made it certain that the issues were going to be discussed efficiently and professionally.

I didn’t get to meet up with the asshat the VocRehab representative, and I really didn’t think it would be a good idea to go down and meet him, either. I wasn’t sure I could have kept my temper, and there were guys throughout the building with guns. (The FBI is also located in that building.)

I got the impression that it would be two to three months before we heard back from them (which would put the next step sometime in late September). I had also requested a copy of the written transcript for my own records.

Other than the 100+ mile trip (in each direction), it was a pretty good day, and even kinda fun, but I’m tired, and so I think I’m going to surf the Web for a little while, and then go fetch the wife from work, and crash early. She can fix supper tonight…

For those of you who wrote, I would like to say, Thanks for the support, guys, and for everyone out there (except for that troll, who must be getting close to running out of ISPs), I hope you have a great afternoon.

UPDATE: I guess we had another troll visit, so I just deleted the comment and blocked the IP address block, but for those of you who are interested, it was 216.7.23.35. Go show him a good time, and send him my regards.