As any sentient being in the United States is aware by now, Starbucks has partnered with T-Mobile to offer wireless “hotspots” in most of the Starbucks throughout the United States.

They offer 3 different plans, all of for which you can sign up on the (hot)spot: $29.95 per month for unlimited access, or one of two “pay as you go” plans – either the $9.95 for a 24 hour “day pass”, or the “.10 cents per minute with a 60 minute minimum” pass.

Be *very* careful! Don’t be lulled into thinking that if you use the .10 cents per minute pass judiciously, such as by loggin in, grabbing email, and logging out, you can keep your usage low, incurring only the minimum $6.00 fee if you are quick and careful.

The 60 minute minimum is *per* log in. If you log in, grab email, and log out, you will have incurred a $6.00 charge. When you check your email again a half hour later, you will incur an additional $6.00 charge, and so on.

Now, perhaps this should have been obvious to me, but it wasn’t – at the time that I signed up, the wording was ambiguous (“per session” was, I believe, what it said). Now (1/2/04) it says “per session per login”, whatever *that* is supposed to mean. Only once you have actually signed up and are logged in can you find language, should you bother to read the rate plans again, which clearly says “$6.00 minimum per *login*”.

I pointed this out to a nice CS rep when I discovered my *$42.00* bill for roughly an hour at a Starbucks, who offered to let me talk to a manager – thinking, I think, that perhaps he would reverse some of those charges which were so clearly racked up due to a misunderstanding..who would log in 7 times in an hour for $42.00 when they could have stayed logged in for that same hour for $6.00? I didn’t even *ask* the manager to reduce my bill – I just pointed out that the language on the sign up page had the potential to confuse, and he instantly started telling me that I had agreed to their terms and conditions, and he was not going to reduce the charges.

THAT just lost them my patronage. Had I asked, and he refused, I’d be annoyed but take it on the chin, but to jump in and tell me up front that they weren’t about to reduce the charges, but that he would pass on the information about the confusing language simply added insult to injury.

Buh bye, T-Mobile Hotspot.

Being homeowners, from time to time we suffer the slings and arrows of home ownership, namely something breaks and needs to be fixed..NOW!

Such was the case with our main sewer line, which, as confirmed by two independent authorities, really needed to be replaced if we wanted the brown, foul-smelling slurry to stop backing up into our shower and bathtub, and onto our floors.

The work completed, and water turned back on, we joyfully put our new plumbing to the test. And the master toilet promptly backed up, venting its spleen and bile, as it were, all over the bathroom floor.

As one might imagine, especially after having spent all that money on a new sewer line, we were less than amused.

We called the plumbing service back in. This time only the toilet was involved – that much we could tell, as everything else was working perfectly, and nothing else had backed up.

We were duly advised that we needed to replace the toilet. “Ok”, we thought, “we’ve trusted these people this far (and they were recommended by a contractor whom we trust a great deal), what’s a toilet between friends?”

The installer came and installed the new toilet.

It promptly backed up the next day, all over the floor, following my husband’s first test run, as it were.

We called the plumbing service back out.

This time we were advised that the problem was not the brand new toilet, but… my husband.

“Your husband, his poo is too big.”

Say what?

“What do you recommend we do?”

“I dunno, maybe you take him to hospital.”

“Really, we should go to the hospital because you think his poo is too large? Is there anything else we might try?”

“You maybe keep two sticks by the toilet, and he smash and crash the poo before flush.”

Really, I couldn’t make this up.

Instead we replaced the toilet with a better brand, with a larger colon. Yes, the tunnel at the back of your toilet through which the waste descends is called the ‘colon’.

And, oh yes, we switched plumbers.

Dateline Yakima Washington, December 23, 2003: The health department has just announced the first U.S. case of “mad cow disease”, the clinical name for which is bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

Well, we kind of figured that it had to happen sometime. Makes me all the more glad that I’m a vegetarian, and the rest of our family doesn’t eat beef.

But the part which is stunning (and sickening), even to jaded me, is this – and I quote from the AP story of 12/23/03:

“Veneman said the Holstein, which could not move on its own, was found at a farm in Mabton, Wash., about 40 miles southeast of Yakima, and tested preliminarily positive for the brain-wasting illness on Dec. 9. Parts of the cow that would be infected ? the brain, the spinal cord and the lower part of the small intestine ? were removed before the animal went to a meat processing plant.”

[Full story at http://tinyurl.com/22jjm]

Excuse me???

The cow is *unable to move on it’s own*, is found immobile, and is
*sent for slaughter and sale*??? And then a few weeks later someone says “Hey! That cow was sick!”???

Well…DUH!!!

Beef! It’s what’s for brainholes.