A Quickie…

…because I’m now on pay-per-minute dialup. Yup, I’ve finally bitten the bullet, waved by-by to AOL and signed up for broadband. Unfortunately, my spanking-new broadband modem won’t arrive until next Tuesday, so I’m on BT’s “how much a minute??!!??” dialup service until then. Hence the lack of posts. However, looking on the the bright side, I’m getting so much more work done now that I’m unable to spend hours surfing!
There was nothing actually wrong with my AOL service – it was dial-up, but 24/7 surfing for a fixed monthly payment is a bargain. However, it revealed its fatal flaw earlier this year, when my credit card finally crumpled into its bitter little death (don’t ask). My AOL payments were being made by credit card, so when my connection was cut off, I duly rang their help centre, explained the difficulty and asked for another method of payment.
Now, I can state quite truthfully that AOL’s help centre staff are indeed helpful – polite, pleasant, friendly, eager to assist. So I’m pretty sure that the note of sorrow I detected in the operator’s voice was genuine when he explained that there was no other method of payment. None at all. (Clearly some accountancy wonk at HQ has decreed that the cost of non-plastic billing is greater than any possible revenue from the plasticless Great Unwashed.)
How about sending them a cheque – please, pretty-please? After some higher-up discussion, he granted my request. “But only this once, you must make other arrangements in future.” Happy happy joy joy!! I kiss you, Mr AOL Call-Centre Man!!
A couple of months later, I repeated the process. Once again my petition for reconnection was granted – once again I was a happy bunny.
But – much as I liked chatting to the genuinely pleasant call-centre staff – it couldn’t go on. When my connection was refused yet again, I decided that I would no longer go beseeching pretty-please to AOL. Six weeks ago, BT finally rolled out its broadband service to this area. And you don’t need plastic to pay for it. So – into the future with BT Broadband!

I’ve got Transit almost ready to print – except I’m waiting for the all-important Council News, which won’t reach me until Sunday. Botheration – I’d expected to be posting the camera-ready copy to the printers yesterday. I’ll have to phone him later and tell him it’s going to be late.

Anyway, I’ve spent enough money this morning….