Monday, June 23, 2008
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Spent all day catching up on email after being out of the office for 2 days. Also had a web team meeting with Susie and Eric D. Lunch with Joel at Golden Rice Bowl. General Tso's chicken lunch special for Joel. Cashew chicken lunch special for me. My fortune: Absence makes the heart grow fonder. 25 18 20 12 43 19. All of our food and drink was disappointingly colder than expected but we didn't complain because we were hungry. We probably won't go back for a long time. $12.50 before a $2.50 tip. Dinner at home with Patrick: slow-cooked chicken in tomato sauce, potato salad, steamed asparagus. Discovered beautifulagony.com. Watched amazing jump rope on YouTube. Sonic wrote back saying they could drop my monthly DSL bill to $24.95 per month and it would be month-to-month, which is more like it, but I still feel a little ripped off after having paid such a high rate for years and not thinking to complain about it or switch. It's the business of broadband, folks—pay attention and keep them on their toes or you'll pay the price like I did. In short, ask before you sign up what the rate will be after the 1-year introductory rate, then after your 1-year contract is up (and every year thereafter), ask them if they'll renegotiate your rate. Companies like sonic.net say publically in forums that it's not bait-and-switch because you receive an e-mail message with the details (probably amongst a long and boring list of other terms of service), but I still believe they are being deceptive because the post-1-year cost does not ever seem to be disclosed on public web pages before you sign up. (Try to find it!) And, they don't voluntarily lower prices in order to stay competitive—i.e., they would rather risk creating an unfavorable relationship with their complacent customers in order to make more money than make less money and keep all their customer relationships favorable. Imagine if every broadband customer called his or her ISP once every month just to ask if their rate can be renegotiated—perhaps that would make ISPs a little more proactive in providing competitive rates. So I'll stick with Sonic for now, but broadband companies better watch out because internet service is a business that can change very quickly, and people remember unpleasant experiences more than they remember the pleasant ones. For me, that unpleasantness is about $1,800 I probably didn't have to pay. Stretches. Weight training: super advanced bridge, advanced side plank, crunch. Stretches.