http://www.theonion.com/onion3821/life_jackets_issued.html

Ok, so I try to call the 248-920 exchange on my POTS line. (which is in the 248-683 exchange)
Note that these numbers are both in the Pontiac, MI ratecenter. If something is in the same ratecenter, It's ALWAYS local.

I get a "You must dial a 1 before calling this number" intercept (indicating it's a long distance call)

So I call the operator.
The operator doesn't know what a ratecenter is. (Isn't it neato that I know more about telephone billing than the operator? Does anyone else here when operator was a skilled position and the operators actually sat at consoles that could do things to the phone network? I do…)
Then the operator tried to convince me that all calls were supposed to be dialed as 11 digits with a one and described ten digit dialing to me.
I then said "If you dial a 1, it's 11 digit dialing"
"No it's not"
"Count the friggin digits!"
"Well, that's how it's supposed to be dialed for local calls"
"Not in Michigan it's not, we have toll alerting. I understand 10 digit dialing, and when I dialed it that way it didn't work. It claimed a local number was actually long distance!"
"Would you like to speak to your phone carrier?"
"I'm speaking to them right now! The announcement just before you picked up said "MCI"!!!"
"Sorry sir, I'm from Ameritech"
"WHAT!?!?!? I'm an MCI customer!"
"Yeah, let me forward you to their customer support line"

I call it and it's customer service for MCI, my local phone carrier.
They inform me that their repair offices are closed for the night (CLOSED!?!?!)
I get another number to call.

The person there informs me the numbers are in a DIFFERENT LATA and thus long distance.
I'm like "Excuse me, a different LATA?"
"Yes"
"They're in the same city…"
"Yea, that can happen sometimes"
"HOW!?! They're in the same AREA CODE!" (Note to those not familiar with telco billing, area codes almost always end at LATA boundaries..)
"I don't know sir, that's what the computer said"
"But the computer is wrong. The switches are literally a few blocks from each other!"
"I'm sorry sir, I can't change the computer"
"They weren't in a different LATA yesterday!"
"I'm sorry sir"
"Forget this, I'm calling the public service commission"
"Ok sir, have a nice day, thanks for calling MCI"

Whatever, time to call the MPSC.

Anyone know if I can get TDS Metrocom in Waterford? I'm highly considering switching to them.

I just thought this was really funny. I was out last night exploring and we got hungry and stopped at a Chi Chi's. We ate, and I went to the bathroom, and they had those urinal ad poster things there. One of them started out something like:
"Throw your cigars in the truck. Heck, drag them behind your truck."
http://www.armoredhumidor.com/

A quote from the page:
The Armored Humidor features a watertight, unbreakable case that meets military specs for high impact, humidity and immersion. Inside, Humidipak?s two-way humidity control responds to the outside climate to eliminate all fluctuations in humidity?preventing any loss of essential oils and flavor in your cigars while in the travel humidor.

heh, who the hell buys this stuff?

http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/05/31/internet.filtering.ap/index.html

w00t!

Score one against the religious right who feel they must censor everything at any cost.

w00t. I finally got my qpage server working again.
Note to anyone who uses isapnp devices under kernel 2.4 – if you have a script that runs setserial, run it with the following parameters:
setserial /dev/ttyXX auto_irq skip_test autoconfig
The port and IRQ can change, even the stuff shown under dmesg isn't necessarily right. setserial usually figures it all out.

You'll know if this is a problem because you'll get errrors like:
ttyXX: LSR safety check engaged!
in your kernel message ring buffer (dmesg for those who don't know what I'm talking about)

Anyway, there's my useful content post for the day. w00t!

I don't feel like screwing with the images. They're big. I'm on ISDN. Thus, I'm not doing an IMG tag.
Click here -> http://mainframe.timmins.net/~noweb4u/people/
Take what you want.
I left them big so you can have a better looking picture to do whatever you want with.

I am speaking specifically to you, – your assassin photo is here.
Anyone who wants to see what denis looks like bald, see the above url. :->

Oh, , your axe photo is here too. Don't forget that you have to use the IP address to access it. (10.69.8.254)

I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed. See all of you tomorrow!

I've:
* Got 1 week to file my 2000 tax return, and am waiting on an IRS-1099 form to do so.
* been woken up in the middle of the night in my underwear by friends screwing around
* been driving a car that is getting scarier and scarier. I really need those new bearings.
* been asked by my work to surrender $1500 in pay because of a mistake THEY made.
* been dealing with a fraudster on eBay
* dealt with a T1 cross connect screwup that was Level(3)'s fault
* dealt with an Oracle database cluster failing in strange and new ways
* learned how to make really annoying flash animations
* started signing CC reciepts in bizarre ways
* mailbombed a friend of mine via livejournal
* passed out because I ate too much rice
* lusted after caffinated soap
* preordered the eminem CD
* watched a bunny get gibbed by a friend of mine's car in the car ahead of me 🙁
* helped work on a friend's deathtrap^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H house.
* tagged said house
* did things I would rather not mention. Not bad morally or ethically, but just not stuff I'm going to admit in a public forum. , and know what I'm talking about here.
* assisted in prank calling my girlfriend
* been on the other end of a similar prank involving
* renewed my lease at my cheap ass apartment complex

God, what a crazy 7 days it's been. I can only wonder what the next 7 will bring.