In other people's blogs, I usually find the mundane stuff to be the most interesting. Of course, this site got a huge bump in traffic because of the story of my proposal to Tessa which got picked up by the legendary Ev on his website, but for me, you don't always have to write something life-changing in order to be fascinating. I think the stuff The Gus writes down the street is better when he's dealing with extension cords and shitty neighbors.
So if mundane stuff is your cup of tea, here's a treat: I spent the entire day on the phone with Earthlink and Verizon. As I write this, I have DSL coming in on ALL THREE PHONE LINES. "Most people make do with one," I hear you say. No fucking duh! THAT'S why I was on the phone all goddamn day!
By the time the sun set, I had set up our new Earthlink service, got Verizon to give me a kickback of $147 (wow!), installed caller ID and a rollover line, cancelled Verizon DSL... and tonight, I can actually send email from my own computer. Notice to Verizon: your policy on sending email fucking blows. By not permitting residential customers to use any email address they damn well please in the "From:" field of sent emails, you are insuring that no patron with their own domain name - or an old email address they wish to keep sacred will bother to sign up. Earthlink doesn't care what your email address is, neither does Taconic Technology up at the farm - hell, Time Forkin' Warner didn't even care. Why do you? Don't you know that the internet views censorship, even the technical kind, as a disease, and finds a way to work around it? Tonight, I am a bacterium, and I just mutated into something more powerful.
Speaking of powerful bacteria, it is 90 degrees at night here in the city, so hot that John Lasala, his friend Melissa, Tessa and I abandoned our dinner at the un-air conditioned Prune and opted instead for Chez Es Saada, which rocked. We sat in the cool, cool basement and swapped stories all night, something I love to do with the esteemed Mr. Lasala. John is truly brethren, and it's even more amazing that he and Tessa went to Choate together back in the Bronze Age.
Afterwards, we concluded our East Village fandango by meeting Sean, Michelle and the Astoria boys at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge, truly one of the more depressing holes in Manhattan. It reminds me of the bar George Bailey stumbles into during the nightmare Potterville sequence of "It's a Wonderful Life" I'd be surprised if they even had mixers like Coke and orange juice. It's the kind of place where you knock back three shots of Ol' Grandad after being fired from your job three days before Christmas. Funny, though, we always have a good time there.
Posted by at July 1, 2002 11:49 PM