i want to preface this by saying that i have loved being on tmobile. there are very few places where i don't get reception, and the data is fast. in fact, they've always been rated very highly for customer service.
i can see now that things have changed.
i had a blackberry that started acting funny. i had had it for over a year, and i just figured it was time for it to start acting up. it began losing battery power rapidly, sending blank e-mails at the rate of 3 per second, and showing the white screen of death.
luckily, i had purchased the protection plan, so they sent out a new phone right away. put it all together, loved it, three weeks later, same thing happens.
so i sent it BACK. they sent me yet another replacement. at this point, i have been without a smartphone for two months, but i keep paying for all the service. i hook this one up, and almost immediately get a white screen of death.
i called customer care, and a very nice woman named shelby helped me do an app uploader. that didn't work, so i did a wipe. a complete, restore factory settings wipe. that didn't work. i was told it must be something with my data card. i followed the directions to fix that, and the phone was up and running.
i was stoked, until an hour into work when the phone just went dead. i did the battery pull, and it came back on for two seconds...then, white screen of death!
on my lunch break, i went to the local t-mobile store. they've usually been pretty helpful in the stores. i was told there was nothing they could do there, except make some notes on the account. oh, and i was ALSO informed that they post-dated my new contract, so i couldn't get a new phone until the 27th.
um...
so i called customer service AGAIN. i was talking with a really nice gentleman who agreed that i had exhausted all my options, and they would be happy to send out a new phone. that's when we got disconnected, and i almost cried.
i called BACK. i got another gentleman who asked me all the same questions, twice, then tried to "trick" me.
"where and when did you do the wipe?"
"did you wipe it before or after you turned it on?"
"if you did a wipe, why was there music on your phone?"
he had a hard time ennunciating his words, making conversation unbearable. half the time i had to guess at what he was saying. finally, he managed to make it through his written instructions (after telling me several times to hold on, because he was reading through his papers to give me the right responses.)
do you know what they offered me?
the same. damn. phone. the same one! that i've had replaced twice! they want to do THE EXACT SAME THING THAT HASN'T BEEN WORKING. definition for insanity, anyone?
that, or i could have a nokia phone that was "sort of modeled to look like a blackberry. it has a keyboard." (exact quote.)
i asked for an escalation manager. i was told, "yeah, well, uh, you could do that ma'am, or i could send out this blackberry or this nokia!"
i asked why my only options were either the same damn phone, or a substandard ones.
it's because i'm not eligible for an upgrade until the 27th, of course! because they POSTDATED MY CONTRACT.
see, i'm not trying to get a BETTER phone out of the deal. i want what i'm paying for, and that is for a functioning blackberry. and tmobile is unwilling to do that. i'm expected to cool my heels, WHILE THEY CHARGE ME, with no phone until my contract kicks in.
this is something they should be taking care of. i am not asking for better treatment than the average customer. i am asking to be treated as a paying customer.
it breaks my heart, but i'm seriously looking into paying the penalties for early out on my contract. i can't work with a company who isn't taking my needs as a customer seriously.
and honestly? tmobile? as a customer since 2002, you WANT my business. i guess verizon gets it now!
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
How To Make Spaghetti Sauce: A Simple Guide
this morning i really wanted spaghetti, but we were out of sauce. still, it couldn't be that hard to make some, right? so after some delicious internet trolling, i decided that it was so simple, even a sarah could do it...and you can too!
Step One:
Take out a saute pan. Set the flame on medium.
Step Two:
Open up a can of diced tomatoes. Dump them into the saute pan. Stare as though you expect them to do something.
Step Three:
Poke at them with a wooden spoon. Decide to add a can of tomato paste. Climb up on the counter to dig through the back of your cupboard. Locate can and add.
Step Four:
This is looking better. Stir everything around. Taste it. Mmmm, tomatoey. Wait. Taste again. Holy Crap. This is too tomatoey.
Step Five:
Add olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Pretty good, but it still pretty much tastes like tomatoes with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Liberally shake in some italian seasoning. Stir everything and turn down the heat.
Step Six:
Fetch the jar of crushed garlic from the fridge. Try to open it. Try, Try, Try desperately to open it. Plead with it. Hold the jar under hot water, understanding that it will do nothing. Try to open the jar again. Note that it does nothing. You should have expected as much.
Step Seven:
Look around desperately for a man. Decide that the guy across the street tenting your neighbor's house looks beefy. Put on actual pants instead of the cute, bright red, martini glass covered PJ's you've been rocking all morning.
Step Eight:
Ambush the exterminator. When he can't open the jar, feign understanding. Think bad thoughts of him all the way back into the house. Locate can opener.
Step Nine:
Stab the jar lid dramatically with the pointy end of the can opener. Figure out how to keep the garlic in the fridge later, for now, add a heaping tablespoonful of garlic to the sauce, which is now hotter than satan's armpit. Stir. Taste.
Step Ten:
Suck on ice to soothe the burn on your tongue. Curse the gods of fire. Decide that what this sauce needs is wine. Pick something very special, like Chateau de This Is What I Have Open In My Fridge. Add some wine. Take a swig yourself, for the homies (because pouring it out is just wasting booze.)
Step Eleven:
Recall that this wine tastes great with chocolate. Open up a fun sized baby ruth bar. Proceed to enjoy it with another swig of wine. Boy howdy, cooking is fun!
Step Twelve:
Taste the sauce. Doctor with more spices to taste. Let the sauce simmer. Meanwhile, make pasta and drink more wine.
Step Thirteen:
This is optional, but as I was making the sauce, I noticed that most of the neighborhood men had gathered to watch the neighbors' houses being tented. I don't know what they planned to accomplish with their supervision, as I'm pretty sure none of them have ever personally tented a house. Anyway, it's always fun to appear at their side without them knowing it. They're always caught off guard, plus, it gives you something to do while the sauce simmers.
Step One:
Take out a saute pan. Set the flame on medium.
Step Two:
Open up a can of diced tomatoes. Dump them into the saute pan. Stare as though you expect them to do something.
Step Three:
Poke at them with a wooden spoon. Decide to add a can of tomato paste. Climb up on the counter to dig through the back of your cupboard. Locate can and add.
Step Four:
This is looking better. Stir everything around. Taste it. Mmmm, tomatoey. Wait. Taste again. Holy Crap. This is too tomatoey.
Step Five:
Add olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Pretty good, but it still pretty much tastes like tomatoes with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Liberally shake in some italian seasoning. Stir everything and turn down the heat.
Step Six:
Fetch the jar of crushed garlic from the fridge. Try to open it. Try, Try, Try desperately to open it. Plead with it. Hold the jar under hot water, understanding that it will do nothing. Try to open the jar again. Note that it does nothing. You should have expected as much.
Step Seven:
Look around desperately for a man. Decide that the guy across the street tenting your neighbor's house looks beefy. Put on actual pants instead of the cute, bright red, martini glass covered PJ's you've been rocking all morning.
Step Eight:
Ambush the exterminator. When he can't open the jar, feign understanding. Think bad thoughts of him all the way back into the house. Locate can opener.
Step Nine:
Stab the jar lid dramatically with the pointy end of the can opener. Figure out how to keep the garlic in the fridge later, for now, add a heaping tablespoonful of garlic to the sauce, which is now hotter than satan's armpit. Stir. Taste.
Step Ten:
Suck on ice to soothe the burn on your tongue. Curse the gods of fire. Decide that what this sauce needs is wine. Pick something very special, like Chateau de This Is What I Have Open In My Fridge. Add some wine. Take a swig yourself, for the homies (because pouring it out is just wasting booze.)
Step Eleven:
Recall that this wine tastes great with chocolate. Open up a fun sized baby ruth bar. Proceed to enjoy it with another swig of wine. Boy howdy, cooking is fun!
Step Twelve:
Taste the sauce. Doctor with more spices to taste. Let the sauce simmer. Meanwhile, make pasta and drink more wine.
Step Thirteen:
This is optional, but as I was making the sauce, I noticed that most of the neighborhood men had gathered to watch the neighbors' houses being tented. I don't know what they planned to accomplish with their supervision, as I'm pretty sure none of them have ever personally tented a house. Anyway, it's always fun to appear at their side without them knowing it. They're always caught off guard, plus, it gives you something to do while the sauce simmers.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Royal Wedding Watch
The following is an actual transcription of a conversation that took place last night:
Me: *sigh*
Matt: What's wrong?
Me: it's just...our wedding's going to suck.
Matt: What makes you say that?
Me: okay, well, you know how i've been stoked about the royal wedding? and how i've been watching all the shows leading up to it?
Matt: yeah...
Me: well, they're going to have, like, 3 receptions! one with thousands of canapes and champagne! i LOVE canapes and champagne!
Matt: i hate champagne. what's a canape?
Me: it's not all about you. so anyway, the second reception is this HUGE banquet! and the third is a disco!
Matt: what, is this 1973?
Me: *glares* we're only having ONE reception. and you know what the kicker to this all is?
Matt: i honestly have no idea.
Me: she gets a TIARA. a TIARA! like, apparently the queen just has this huge collection of tiara's just kicking around in her queen-vault, next to the stone of scone and stuff, and if she likes you she lets you choose. if she doesn't like you, she gives you one. she gave diana one, but diana spurned her to wear the spencer tiara. but fergie! fergie didn't get any of the crown jewels! the queen bought hers new!
Matt: i think the stone of scone is in king edward's chair, not in the queen's vault...
Me: matthew. focus. anyway, kate's probably going to be able to choose a tiara. which is what brings me to my next point.
Matt: my head hurts.
Me: let's say i marry prince harry, which is totally plausible since we're the same age and i'm a nice lady -
Matt: *snicker*
Me: i COULDN'T wear a tiara because my head is too big! i'd have to ghetto rig it with dental floss!
Matt: *clutches his stomach in laughter*
Me: *sigh* all the bad things happen to me.
Matt: but the important thing is that even though ours isn't the royal wedding, theirs won't
feature dinosaurs!
Me: *stares blankly*
Matt: ...except for the older royals?
Me: WHO HAS A DENTAL FLOSS TIARA?? being royal is going to be such a pain in the butt.
Matt: you can't marry harry. you're marrying me.
Me: well i KNOW that. for now. but later on, after i've married you and we've divorced and i've accumulated hollywood money, i'll be just like grace kelly.
Matt: *incredulous* HOW will you be like grace kelly?
Me: because i'll be the hollywood princess who is pretty who marries into the monarchy!
Matt: i'm going to bed.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Lisa
*just a fair warning: any comments asking how it happened, why it happened, etc will be removed for the sake of the family. thank you for your understanding.
i hate that my blog has become a series of memorial posts, i really do. but when a life is worth writing about, it should be documented.
as is the case of my friend lisa.
lisa was murdered on sunday. out of respect for her family, i'm not going to go into any details or post any links to news stories. there's been enough of that out there, and rather than focus on how it ended, i think it's better to focus on who lisa was.
lisa was...lisa. she was the most genuinely authentic person i've ever met. she was tiny, and loud, and boisterous, and hilarious. she was gorgeous and photogenic. the same word keeps popping up on her facebook now, and i think it's the most descriptive of her personality: firecracker.
lisa and i met through mutual friends in high school, then went on to share many classes together. the most notable was our AP art history class. "man!" she would exclaim. "why do we have to spend all this time memorizing dates and times when we could just be out looking at art?"
she'd do hilarious impressions of our teacher. it was really something to see this teeny, tiny vietnamese girl draw herself up, put two fingers under her nose to simulate a mustache, then say in a deep, booming voice: "the HAGIA SOPHIA!" in a dead on impersonation of our big, croatian, mustachioed teacher.
there was one field trip we took to the norton simon museum in pasadena. the teacher pretty much hopped off the bus, told us to meet at the museum at 1pm, then took off. lisa and i had shared a bus seat on the way up, and played blackjack. we spent the day together, poking in and out of various shops. we went to a coffee shop and had lunch, we spent an hour or two in the comic book store. she was fearless.
on the way home, we shared her headphones and listened to her cd player. if memory serves me correctly, we actually only listened to one song on repeat the entire time. "aeroplane" by the red hot chili peppers.
in ap enviro sci, we were seated at a table for four with our friend manny. we would pass the headphones around, me and manny rocking out to coldplay, and lisa trying to get us to understand her love of "boys who look like anime characters." i remember when we all had to create a biome for class, and we were sitting around my dining room table. her mom would drive over to see if lisa was done or needed a ride home, meanwhile, lisa was putting bright pink feathers on our carniverous duck. "this duck needs to be fabulous!" she exclaimed.
it's quite a testament to lisa just how many people are devastated by her loss. even those of us who only maintained facebook contact after high school feel it. she was the brightest light, and the world is darker now that it's been extinguished.
RIP, firecracker.
i hate that my blog has become a series of memorial posts, i really do. but when a life is worth writing about, it should be documented.
as is the case of my friend lisa.
lisa was murdered on sunday. out of respect for her family, i'm not going to go into any details or post any links to news stories. there's been enough of that out there, and rather than focus on how it ended, i think it's better to focus on who lisa was.
lisa was...lisa. she was the most genuinely authentic person i've ever met. she was tiny, and loud, and boisterous, and hilarious. she was gorgeous and photogenic. the same word keeps popping up on her facebook now, and i think it's the most descriptive of her personality: firecracker.
lisa and i met through mutual friends in high school, then went on to share many classes together. the most notable was our AP art history class. "man!" she would exclaim. "why do we have to spend all this time memorizing dates and times when we could just be out looking at art?"
she'd do hilarious impressions of our teacher. it was really something to see this teeny, tiny vietnamese girl draw herself up, put two fingers under her nose to simulate a mustache, then say in a deep, booming voice: "the HAGIA SOPHIA!" in a dead on impersonation of our big, croatian, mustachioed teacher.
there was one field trip we took to the norton simon museum in pasadena. the teacher pretty much hopped off the bus, told us to meet at the museum at 1pm, then took off. lisa and i had shared a bus seat on the way up, and played blackjack. we spent the day together, poking in and out of various shops. we went to a coffee shop and had lunch, we spent an hour or two in the comic book store. she was fearless.
on the way home, we shared her headphones and listened to her cd player. if memory serves me correctly, we actually only listened to one song on repeat the entire time. "aeroplane" by the red hot chili peppers.
in ap enviro sci, we were seated at a table for four with our friend manny. we would pass the headphones around, me and manny rocking out to coldplay, and lisa trying to get us to understand her love of "boys who look like anime characters." i remember when we all had to create a biome for class, and we were sitting around my dining room table. her mom would drive over to see if lisa was done or needed a ride home, meanwhile, lisa was putting bright pink feathers on our carniverous duck. "this duck needs to be fabulous!" she exclaimed.
it's quite a testament to lisa just how many people are devastated by her loss. even those of us who only maintained facebook contact after high school feel it. she was the brightest light, and the world is darker now that it's been extinguished.
RIP, firecracker.
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