I am a smart chick. I am also open-minded in a new-agey, yoga practicing, meditating kind of way. I am not afraid to try new things. Even things that other people would laugh at, scoff at, or just plain make fun of. I love a good conspiracy theory(and by that I mean a GOOD one. I am not all into every conspiracy theory like SOMEONE I know.) I like to think outside the box.... but I have been ALMOST Letting myself feel guilty for not reading (or perhaps putting on my iPod and listening to) Rhonda Byrne's Book, The Secret. I like books with alternative ways of thinking. I like to read things like The New Revelations: A Conversation with God by Neale Donald Walsh. I like to find and read about people who have discovered that their natural way of thinking is actually shared with other people, and even though it may go against the grain of society (or in Walsh's case, Organized Religion...) just the fact that so many people think and feel in a similar way, WITHOUT someone telling them to.... it's eerie and it just makes sense. It's natural and real and it's like "I feel this way for a reason. I feel this way deep down inside because this is how I am SUPPOSED to feel. I don't need to think and feel like someone else tells me to."
But something about The Secret really throws me off. I think, honestly, that it's the title. And the Cover. And well... the SECRET. It's almost like an infomercial.... that doesn't give any info. It's like "I have the secret of life! I do! I do! And for the Special Introductory Price of $16.95, you can spend a few hours of your life reading about it, and making me rich!" Honestly, if you knew the secret of life... I just don't think you would be writing about it in a book. I could believe that you might CHARGE for it. I could believe that you wouldn't ever share it with anyone except perhaps to your family on your deathbed (like a secret family recipe) But write a huge nationally distributed book and sell it? That sounds like more of a moneymaking scheme than a "secret" to me. And the cover? Making it look all sealed in wax on old cracked paper like it came straight outta DaVinci Code? Just not fair. It's a ScAm I tell you! BEWARE!
So really, I kept tring to tell myself that I needed to read it, to listen to it, anything.... and that it would drastically change my way of thinking and then I looked at the price and I was just so cheap and there are always so many OTHER books that I would rather have, and then I started thinking "What's wrong with the way I think?" and then I thought "What's wrong with deciding what the secret of life is all by myself?" And then I thought... "Do I even WANT to know the secret of life?" and "IS there even a secret?!" and I decided this book is not for me.
This Blog Posting on MSN today really made me giggle, and I enjoyed it. A woman who read the secret and lived by it's principles for an entire two months.... and talked about where it got her.
Showing posts with label Conspiracy Theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conspiracy Theory. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Paved with Profanity....
Okay, let me start by saying, that I have always thought that what the government has to do to stop terrorists is (in my mind) not an invasion of my privacy. I have always thought that if they feel they need to tap phone lines, etc etc to catch a terrorist, so be it. I have nothing to hide. I am not a terrorist. SO what do I care, right?
My thoughts have changed.
Today we had an especially harrowing day at work. Especially. My brain was about to explode when my husband called me. Apparently my brother-in-law, whose phone number I don't even know unless I look it up, received a telephone call ON HIS CELL PHONE from someone claiming to be looking for Meagan Rodgers-Johnson. He had been getting a bunch of calls from numbers that he didn't know, and he wouldn't answer, and they never left a message. So he finally decided to answer. Yeah. He asked them who they were and why they were calling, and they couldn't and wouldn't tell him (they claimed to be protecting my privacy.)
They told him that there was an urgent matter that they needed to contact me about. He wouldn't give them any of my information (thanks thanks thanks!) and the only thing they would tell him is that they were from Afni corporation. So obviously he called my brother right away, all freaked out I am sure. Now let me tell you, I have NEVER given by brother-in-law's name or telephone number to ANYONE. Not even to a friend or family member. I can't even tell you what his number is. I was absolutely horrified that someone was tracking me down via my brother-in-law. How creepy is that? I feel violated.
So I get online looking for this AFNI company and find they are from Bloomington, Illinois. They specialize in "collections" - imagine that.
Well if you recall, I recently had a little issue where I forgot to pay my $60 Verizon bill and we decided that instead of continuing service with them and paying a $30 fee and having to setup a new account with a new number, we would switch to Vonage and pay 1/3 that cost per month. And we did. And we love Vonage. So I have this bill for Verizon, and they added all these bogus charges onto our account (you pay a month in advance you know) and I asked them to remove them, including the month of service that we hadn't even USED, and they told me that they can't, but that once another billing cycle happens, they will credit the amounts incorrectly charged. And of course they wanted me to "pay for it in full" and then they would "issue me a refund" for what I overpaid. Yeah right. Not a fucking chance.
SO one they corrected the bill, I wrote a check and put it in the envelope, and it's above the visor of my car waiting to be mailed.
SO Verizon, in that time, sent my account to collections (not a big deal, I don't really care, what are they going to do, shut off my phone? LOL.) but since the number they had on my account before was my VERIZON number, and that obviously doesn't work anymore, so they don't have a phone number to call and harass me at (oh, poor poor Verizon.) And so they started to look through my phone records, and my previous account activity, and found someone that we called with the same last name, and sent HIS contact information, his CELL PHONE number nonetheless, to their collection company. When I got ahold of that collection company, that poor guy on the other end, whoa he got an earfull It amazes me that the only bad word that came out of my mouth was "bastards" because I wanted to say "Tell Verizon they can go fuck themselves." and it was very difficult not to. I keep thinking "this is so WRONG! I have to have some rights! Should I be calling a lawyer?"
So I called husband and he was in just about the same mood that I was in when he found out it was Verizon. He said "I ought to write a god damn letter to our senators and tell them just what I think of this." I can not believe that Verizon used my own phone records to track me down, and distributed my family's contact information to a 3rd party collections company. And all this when every fucking time you called Verizon about your own account, they had to "ask my permission" to look at the account. Because they were so worried about my fucking privacy. Right. And then they go and distribute my family's personal information in an attempt to track me down over $82 fucking dollars.
So what do you all think of wire tapping and release of phone records now? Are you even just a little bit creeped out that you can be tracked down via your family members? I'm sure my barcode arm tattoo will be in the mail anyday now. Or maybe they want it on the back of my neck and I will have to shave my head so they can scan me from behind. Not sure how I feel about getting fucked from behind by the Government.
My thoughts have changed.
Today we had an especially harrowing day at work. Especially. My brain was about to explode when my husband called me. Apparently my brother-in-law, whose phone number I don't even know unless I look it up, received a telephone call ON HIS CELL PHONE from someone claiming to be looking for Meagan Rodgers-Johnson. He had been getting a bunch of calls from numbers that he didn't know, and he wouldn't answer, and they never left a message. So he finally decided to answer. Yeah. He asked them who they were and why they were calling, and they couldn't and wouldn't tell him (they claimed to be protecting my privacy.)
They told him that there was an urgent matter that they needed to contact me about. He wouldn't give them any of my information (thanks thanks thanks!) and the only thing they would tell him is that they were from Afni corporation. So obviously he called my brother right away, all freaked out I am sure. Now let me tell you, I have NEVER given by brother-in-law's name or telephone number to ANYONE. Not even to a friend or family member. I can't even tell you what his number is. I was absolutely horrified that someone was tracking me down via my brother-in-law. How creepy is that? I feel violated.
So I get online looking for this AFNI company and find they are from Bloomington, Illinois. They specialize in "collections" - imagine that.
Well if you recall, I recently had a little issue where I forgot to pay my $60 Verizon bill and we decided that instead of continuing service with them and paying a $30 fee and having to setup a new account with a new number, we would switch to Vonage and pay 1/3 that cost per month. And we did. And we love Vonage. So I have this bill for Verizon, and they added all these bogus charges onto our account (you pay a month in advance you know) and I asked them to remove them, including the month of service that we hadn't even USED, and they told me that they can't, but that once another billing cycle happens, they will credit the amounts incorrectly charged. And of course they wanted me to "pay for it in full" and then they would "issue me a refund" for what I overpaid. Yeah right. Not a fucking chance.
SO one they corrected the bill, I wrote a check and put it in the envelope, and it's above the visor of my car waiting to be mailed.
SO Verizon, in that time, sent my account to collections (not a big deal, I don't really care, what are they going to do, shut off my phone? LOL.) but since the number they had on my account before was my VERIZON number, and that obviously doesn't work anymore, so they don't have a phone number to call and harass me at (oh, poor poor Verizon.) And so they started to look through my phone records, and my previous account activity, and found someone that we called with the same last name, and sent HIS contact information, his CELL PHONE number nonetheless, to their collection company. When I got ahold of that collection company, that poor guy on the other end, whoa he got an earfull It amazes me that the only bad word that came out of my mouth was "bastards" because I wanted to say "Tell Verizon they can go fuck themselves." and it was very difficult not to. I keep thinking "this is so WRONG! I have to have some rights! Should I be calling a lawyer?"
So I called husband and he was in just about the same mood that I was in when he found out it was Verizon. He said "I ought to write a god damn letter to our senators and tell them just what I think of this." I can not believe that Verizon used my own phone records to track me down, and distributed my family's contact information to a 3rd party collections company. And all this when every fucking time you called Verizon about your own account, they had to "ask my permission" to look at the account. Because they were so worried about my fucking privacy. Right. And then they go and distribute my family's personal information in an attempt to track me down over $82 fucking dollars.
So what do you all think of wire tapping and release of phone records now? Are you even just a little bit creeped out that you can be tracked down via your family members? I'm sure my barcode arm tattoo will be in the mail anyday now. Or maybe they want it on the back of my neck and I will have to shave my head so they can scan me from behind. Not sure how I feel about getting fucked from behind by the Government.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Wonder Woman is Powerless!
The first thing that crossed my mind at 6:40am when I was awoken 2.25 hours early? Oh No, Did I forget to pay the power bill? I haven't forgotten in 5 years but since there was clearly no power and I had clearly been forgetful and not feeling well lately, I was sure that my morning would begin with another confrontation with Ameren IP. Specifically regarding their conversion of Illinois Power's "levelized plan" into their own hell-spawned "budget plan" (as in the "we just busted your fucking budget" plan.) If you are confused, read this prior post for all the details.
Of course Ameren had offered no assistance or payment plans to get through our month of "unlevelized" bill, so I had taken it upon myself to tell them that I would make my own payment plan, which they didn't like, but I told them tough. So now I was thinking that they had decided that they were sick of my payment plan, but upon thinking it through more clearly, I remembered that I had just made another $150 electronic payment yesterday, so unless they decided to punish me for paying, it was probably a townwide outage. I am telling Evan "look up and down the street, does anyone else have power?" He is going "no one else has lights on" and that was such a comforting moment. So Evan had to leave without a shower so that he could accompany a family member on an expedition, and I lay in bed calling Illinois Power on his cell phone via 411.
I am still in denial about AmerenIP because I still want to call them Illinois Power. It took me almost two years to call GTE "Verizon" and I am still calling the local bar "Ricky's" instead of "the Dawg House."
So while I am praying that their touchtone menus don't say "We have disconnected your service for non-payment" (without a disconnection notice) I get "we are aware of your outage. we expect your service to be restored by 8am. There are 400 residents in your outage area without power." That tells me someone sheared off a pole or something so I can finally rest and go back to sleep. With a mental note to pay the water bill and another power bill installment on Friday.
P.S. Feeling better today, going to take a nice bath and go to work at noon. Hoping to be less hormonal today than Sunday and yesterday.
P.P.S. I wonder if Blogrolling is "powered" By AmerenIP. It looks like they are down this morning too. Oh the HORROR! How will I get to my other morning blog reads!
Of course Ameren had offered no assistance or payment plans to get through our month of "unlevelized" bill, so I had taken it upon myself to tell them that I would make my own payment plan, which they didn't like, but I told them tough. So now I was thinking that they had decided that they were sick of my payment plan, but upon thinking it through more clearly, I remembered that I had just made another $150 electronic payment yesterday, so unless they decided to punish me for paying, it was probably a townwide outage. I am telling Evan "look up and down the street, does anyone else have power?" He is going "no one else has lights on" and that was such a comforting moment. So Evan had to leave without a shower so that he could accompany a family member on an expedition, and I lay in bed calling Illinois Power on his cell phone via 411.
I am still in denial about AmerenIP because I still want to call them Illinois Power. It took me almost two years to call GTE "Verizon" and I am still calling the local bar "Ricky's" instead of "the Dawg House."
So while I am praying that their touchtone menus don't say "We have disconnected your service for non-payment" (without a disconnection notice) I get "we are aware of your outage. we expect your service to be restored by 8am. There are 400 residents in your outage area without power." That tells me someone sheared off a pole or something so I can finally rest and go back to sleep. With a mental note to pay the water bill and another power bill installment on Friday.
P.S. Feeling better today, going to take a nice bath and go to work at noon. Hoping to be less hormonal today than Sunday and yesterday.
P.P.S. I wonder if Blogrolling is "powered" By AmerenIP. It looks like they are down this morning too. Oh the HORROR! How will I get to my other morning blog reads!
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
AmerenIP can KISS MY ASS
So yeah, I am pretty postal over AmerenIP.Once upon a time there was Illinois Power. And when it was good, it was very good, and when it was bad, it was VERY VERY VERY Bad.
Then Ameren came along and purchased Illinois Power, and together they made a demon child hell spawn known to the peasants as AmerenIP.
Illinois Power had this wonderful thing called a Levelized Payment Plan in which they spread your high high gas bills out over several months, allowing you to pay a fixed payment amount each month, which was higher than usual in the summer to make up for the lower than usual payment they allowed you to make thru-out (new spelling) the winter.
When AmerenIP was born, it was an evil evil little thing, with horns and hooves. It decided that the Illinois Power Levelized plan was too consumer friendly. It MUST be destroyed! So AmerenIP started their own little plan, called the Budget Payment Plan. And It was crap. They decided that you would get a budget payment amount, every month, but they would have 1 evil month where they would bring all the charges that you hadn't yet covered on your budget plan, and make them all due in one month.
Then when they sat down and thought, "hmm, which month would be the bestest month to make people pay this extra amount?" they decided that it would be DECEMBER! Happy Holidays and Happy High Heat Bills! Yeah for December! The perfect choice.
Then they determined that for that month when they brought the balance forward, they would ALSO take you OFF the levelized payment plan, making you pay your ACTUAL bill that month, PLUS the added remains of the budget/levelized plan. What better month than December!?
Let's review.
1. New company
2. New Bills that are harder than hell to read and understand.
3. New Terminology. New names. More confusion.
4. Make you pay budget plan remnants in one lump sum.
5. Make that Lump Sum due in DECEMBER!
6. Make you also PAY YOUR ENTIRE bill that month, without a levelized amount.
So that gets me a $339.00 bill
WHOO-HOO!
Problem is that I schedule all my bills. SO I scheduled my regular December levelized payment amount and never even NOTICED that the bill they were sending me was for MORE MONEY otherwise I probably would have blown a gasket in December and right around the Christmas Cash Crunch.
But this month, when my bill comes and it is WAYY WAYYY too much money, I start to worry, and I look back and see the evil that they have created!
Why not choose to do this in JULY when my regular bill would be just $88 and I could easily afford to tack on an extra $32 in levelized $$ that I hadn't paid yet through the plan? Oh no. DECEMBER sounds much better (#*!*&#%^#), because my unlevelized bill would be close to $300, plus the $32, plus on top of that I would want to celebrate a Godly Holiday like CHRISTMAS and therefore the devil hooved and horned AmerenIP could wave their forked tongues and tails in my direction and say WE ARE THE ALL POWERFUL AMERENIP, thereby ruining the Christmahannakwanzaa in the eyes of children and parents everywhere.
Isn't there a place on the internet where we the people can rise up against our utility companies? I need to write a letter.
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