Verizon Wants to Bend Me Over, but AZ Makes me happy.

Verizon wants to Rape my manhole! But this makes me happy
So I am in for at least 10 hours on the phone with Verizon DSL services. My latest attempts had me write down numerous phone numbers and bounced me back and forth from Tech Support to Billing far more times than I can count on my figures. I was very aggravated and upset, so I went over to Total Ruckus and Wrote a Thread about my experience with Verizon.

This thread is very scatterbrained and hard to read, because well, I was still furious. So if you want to attempt to read a more in depth breakdown of the events that happened on the phone, read this. Or comment with an email address and I will be glad to respond.

This is how i felt after getting off the phone. Minus shoving a TV remote in my but.


But then I looked at this photo I took in my kitchen last night. And I just had to smile. If you remember back when I remembered to do REVIEW MONDAYS, I wrote one about this delicious nectar of the Gods. And While stopping for cigarettes, I wanted to purchase a few drinks. I normally buy 7-10 at a time. Well I looked in the fridge and there were ZERO, I was saddened. Then I turned around and saw that beautiful sight above. After taking a few out, Amy said "Why don't you just buy the whole case?" I just looked at her with a new profound respect, and thought, this is why I love you.

I was talking about Amy, not the Ice-Tea. Or was I.....

So after this ordeal with Verizon, I come to find that I have not paid my bill in the past 3 months. They tell me this is why my service is suspended. I think, then say, OK. Why was I not contacted and told I didn't pay my bill? Then they tell me, "Well we sent you an email, and then a notice in the mail."

So being at work, I had Internet, so I go to my email and check, and sure enough no email telling me I am past due. Instead I found an email trying to sell me up-graded service. Then I tell them as far as the bill in the mail goes, I am holding it in my hand. It says i owe $0.00 by June 28.

My concern here is it is not June 28 yet, so my service should still be active for 4 more days, and the bill says I own no money. Any way I had to threaten to cancel and they fixed it. And by fixed it I mean charged me $100 to turn my Internet back on.

Moving on. Today after work I am going to research a Ducati Monster Tail Light for The Meepers. I am really looking forward to getting rid of this tail light set up.Then maybe The Meepers will come out of hiding.

OK, so there was a thread of rain that day. Then the sun went ahead and came out for a spell. Literally a spell, it turned me into a Bad Ass for a while. Drinking warm milk, and playing rugby.

In other news. For the past week or so, my shoulder has been bothering me. My left shoulder to be specific. This is because I carry messenger bags. And I do so with my left shoulder. No I am not a messenger, but I ride a bike (The Bianchi) and a scooter (The Meepers) as you know. As you may also know I recently (past 2 months) got a R.E.Load bag for my birthday.

Well, I am not sure if this pain stems from the fact that the still relatively new R.E. Load bag has a very stiff heavy duty strap on it (I have heard it takes upwards of a year to get it broken in), or the fact that I have been rocking messenger bags for 15 years now. My shoulder may be saying "HEY! It's time to think about backpacks." Or it could be saying "Hey this R.E. Load bag is to stiff and the shoulder pad sucks."

As you may have read,a week and a half ago I went in search of the perfect Messenger Backpack. My be my brain was subliminally foreshadowing the future of my health to me. I was wondering why I had the overwhelming urge to look for Messenger Backpacks, when I didn't use them and had minimal interest in them.

Needless to say, I now have interest in them. Though I refuse to stop using my practicaly brand new $300+ R.E. Load bag. Maybe an off and on thing. Maybe I'll switch back to my old Chrome bag (note, mine is Kelly Green) for daily use for a week and see how that works out. I never had a problem with that strap.

Side Bar: I just noticed that Chrome seems to be not making their Kremlin bag anymore, and it is currently in the Backdoor Sale page for $139. That is a good price.

Back on track.

I am also going to try and invent my own shoulder pad this weekend. I think I have some closed cell foam, but I do not think I have any Cordura to wrap over it. I guess I will have to dig around at home.

Also as far as Messenger Backpacks go, even though I said I think the best bag out there is the Chrome Warsaw, I am rethinking the Seagull. I failed to click on the "Order" link during my searching to see the features one can add to that bag. I figured you could, but with out reading them, I wasn't fully informed. Though I think the Chrome will still win out, because I do like their pocket set up much more. But I do love Seagulls U-Lock holster. It seams to swallow the lock, so you can use a full size U-Lock, or a mini and not worry about it falling out. Though Chrome has an inside pocket on their messenger bags that works fine for this and a mesh pocket on the outside. Thought I am a little leary that the mesh pocket is to shallow and the lock will fall out.

I have returned to add a bit of information I seemed to have forgotten over the years. While in college I had my old back pack fall apart. So I ran to Dick's to buy a Jansport to replace it right after class. I wasn't happy with the bag to much. I bought a simple black bag no frills kind of thing. I was a simple guy back then. But I couldn't seem to fit everything in it. So I dug up a old messenger bag I used in high school.

The reason I had switched back to a backpack was simple. Messenger bags suck while riding a skateboard. Though I prefer to not carry anything while on a skateboard, some times I had no choice. Might I add that the pack that broke was a skateboard specific bag that I made.

Well using the old Thrasher bag, I coincidentally bought from a skateboard magazine, I realized I was in love all over again. But this bag was not water proof. Living in State College, there was a great deal of walking everyday to get to class, the store, friends places. So I needed a new Bag, and I found Timbuk2.

Fast forward a few years. I was the proud owner of a motorcycle. So to ride I was and am still paranoid to fall off. So I wore leather jackets, and my style of choice was and is the Cafe Racer. Even though I now ride The Meepers, which is obviously not a motorcycle but a motor scooter, I still want to be protected. Any way, I lost my Timbuk2 bag, which has seems to happen a lot over the years (right now I know exactly where it is). So I grabed that old backpack I bought in college, and wouldn't you know! It is a pain in the ass to get on while wearing a leather jacket. Though my favorite leather jacket is an old heavy gauge blue and white cafe racer (stiffer and harder to get a backpack on while wearing), I wear my lighter gauge black Club jacket to ride in (unless it is cold, then it's a no brainier).

Either way, backpacks are a pain in the ass to use with a leather jacket. They don't exactly take away your mobility, but if they fit properly they are not loose and backpack straps can be cumbersome. Especially heavy padded ones. That's why I stopped wearing them really.

I was always wearing a Cafe Racer Jacket and I always have a bag. It is much easier to toss one strap over you head and adjust with one hand.

That is all, carry on.