Verizon Strikes Again, Comcast Strikes Out

By Karen

After more “rate creep” by Comcast to almost $90/month for plain vanilla cable, Verizon bundled FIOS phone and TV for a few bucks more than I now pay for phone alone.

Verizon needs to work on their “Wait from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for us to show up” policy, but the FIOS TV installation August 10 was seamless, thanks to Mike, a friendly technician from Indiana.

But on my phones, Verizon screwed up in classic mode. I just wanted my dedicated fax line merged into my main line with distinctive ring, retaining the fax number.

No problem, Verizon said. We’ll disconnect the fax line August 10, and reconnect it as distinctive ring August 11. They said it involved another service call, so I’d have to spend a second day waiting between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

No so, said Mike. That’s a remote switch. He even rearranged my phone jacks and reprogrammed my fax so I’d be ready. Then he called Verizon to confirm the phone work, and they told him my fax line had been disconnected since August 4.

WTF?

He gave me a number to call and verify the phone work, and that’s when things got interesting.

The first Verizon rep kept me on hold for half an hour before telling me I couldn’t keep my fax number, even though it was still available.

So I asked to be bumped up and got a nice woman who said I could keep my fax number. She even offered to switch it to distinctive ring on the spot, but the work order for August 11 was apparently set in concrete.

I just checked it, and my fax line works, so the switch was made. There’s just this little nagging mystery of why that line was disconnected a week early.

Verizon FIOS TV leaves Comcast in the dust. I never knew my TV could have such a clear, crisp picture. FIOS lets you access Internet information with widgets, even though I have Clearwire Internet. Accessing On Demand takes mere seconds. And Verizon threw in some free HBO so I can catch up on Season 2 of True Blood.

Superior TV for $80 less, but there are tradeoffs. We’ve lost our beloved horse racing channel, and I can no longer fax and talk on the phone simultaneously. But to dump Comcast, it’s worth it.

Rats Risk Their Lives to be Useful

By Fred

The Chinese Year of the Rat, which ends January 25, 2009, proved lucky for vermin. African Giant Pouched rats have two new career paths, although one is kind of kamakazi.

In Mozambique, rats in cute little harnesses and leashes (just like the red one Yul got for his aborted attempt to meet Santa) sniff out vapors from old landmines. Their noses are more sensitive than mechanical devices, and they’re so light on their feet, they don’t trigger explosions.

"Landmines smell just like kimchi!"

In fact, they’re making dogs, who could do this job, look oafish and inept.

Humans are so excited, they’re considering using rats to find landmines in other parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe. I personally have no problem with exposing rats to this sort of danger, but I would caution people against getting carried away.

You may train a rat to walk on a leash, but he’ll never be your friend. Don’t forget who brought you the Black Plague in the Middle Ages.

In Tanzania, rats are detecting less-than-microscopic traces of tuberculosis in human saliva samples. That must make for nice chit-chat at rodent cocktail parties:

“And what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a spit sniffer.”

Rats are much cheaper than sweatshop labor. When a rat finds what he’s looking for, he scratches, and is rewarded with a piece of fruit or a nut.

You may wonder, if the rats are so smart, why haven’t they realized they can just scratch and get the treat because humans can’t immediately tell if the rat’s done the work?

Here’s what rat trainer Bart Weetjens thinks: “That would be human behavior. The rats are more honest.”

If you’re interested in adopting one of these rodents (no, I’m not kidding), here’s the site for you.

Do We Really Need Fluorescent Cats?

By Adele

Even after a $2 billion presidential campaign, there’s no end to what humans will throw money at. Take Mr. Green Genes. He’s a 6-month-old orange tabby who’s been genetically rigged so his face glows lime-green under ultraviolet light.

(Photo - Rusty Costanza, Newhouse News Service)

Since cats see perfectly well in the dark, turning us into walking night lights is a useless mutation unless we ever decide to revive Disco.

So why do it? Researchers claim cat genes are like humans’, so they wanted to introduce a harmless (?!) new one they could easily track to see if their experiments work. They hope it will lead to human gene therapy breakthroughs, particularly in treating cystic fibrosis.

Meanwhile, this hapless cat, named after Captain Kangaroo’s sidekick on an ancient children’s TV show, has been enduring 15 minutes of fame. He wows ‘em merely by sitting there while somebody shines a black light on him. I caught his act on the Today Show recently. Humans are so easily amused.

They think Genes’ “business” glows in the dark as well, but so far no researcher has dared to “dig in” and find out if that’s true.

Genes came from a fertilized egg spiked with the fluorescent gene that was implanted into a surrogate mother, and he already has issues. For example, he doesn’t care for strangers or like being held unless it’s his idea.

Next, they plan to let him mate. His girlfriend will be in for a shock if her kittens glow.

Then the head researcher wants to take him home to live happily ever after with her other 2 cats. For Genes’ sake, I hope they don’t mind living with FrankenCat.

Flaky Fugitive Obsessed with Canine Boogers

By Adele

Fifty-eight-year-old Bernann McKinney made news recently for paying a South Korean firm $50,000 to clone 5 puppies from her late beloved pit bull Booger. As her photo cuddling the puppies was flashed worldwide, some thought she bore an eerie – if bloated – resemblance to Joyce McKinney, a former beauty queen who allegedly kidnapped a Mormon missionary in England in 1977, tied him to a bed as her sex slave, then jumped bail and prosecution.

Bernann McKinney with Booger clone - Photo Ahn Young-Joon, AP

At first Bernann denied being Joyce, although both women’s full names happen to be Joyce Bernann McKinney, they were both born in Newland, N.C., on the same day in the same year, and they share the same Social Security number.

Now she admits it’s her, but says the alleged sex crime was a tabloid fabrication because the missionary was willing. She was caught stalking him again in Utah in 1984 and skipped out on that trial, too.

My question is: Should she be propagating pit bulls? Bernann claims she did it out of love for the dog she saddled with a gross name, who died of cancer two years ago.

She found Booger on the side of the road nearly 12 years ago. A month later, he saved her life by throwing himself on her mastiff Tuffy, who was chewing Bernann to bits. Joyce survived, and once Booger recovered from his own injuries, he became her self-trained service dog during her long recovery. He could pull her wheelchair, open doors, retrieve clothes from the dryer, and help her remove her shoes and socks.

Brenann had tissue from Booger’s ear preserved, then gave up her home to raise the money to produce 5 replacement dogs, all of which bear variations of the name Booger. She just can’t let that demeaning, gag-inducing name go.

The innocent puppies, just a few weeks old, are now being raised by 2 surrogate Korean mutts who bore them.

Bernann plans to keep 3 pups and donate 2 to be trained as special needs dogs. She already has 5 other dogs and 3 horses.

But should an unrepentant sexual predator be breeding a herd of potentially vicious dogs? Doesn’t it sound a little too Boys from Brazil?

With so many harmless, homeless dogs dying in shelters, it would have been a greater tribute to a former stray like Booger to save already-born dogs. For what Bernann paid for clones, she could have given many dogs good lives.

In the end, this nut case is just setting herself up for heartbreak x 3. Those puppies have identical biological clocks. If she thought Booger’s death was traumatic, how’s she going to take it when his 3 descendents pass all at once? Will she go pounce on another missionary?

I don’t think she should be given a chance to find out.

Vista SP1: Another Scourge from Microsoft

By Karen

Once again, Microsoft offers the fix to launch a thousand problems. If you see Service Pack 1 coming, take your PC and RUN the other way.

My mother wanted a laptop to check e-mail while away on vacation. While helping her find a deal, I noticed Vista SP1 came standard on everything.

(Cue to the Jaws theme here.)

Ten hours later, I’m still trying to get her new Acer Extensa to run Office 2007, Norton 360, and a few games right.

Of course, the biggest snag is Office 2007. It keeps saying “version doesn’t match.” Yesterday I tried to download a 218-MB “Office SP1” update that failed midway.

But hope springs eternal. As I type this, I’m downloading 300 MB of Microsoft updates, praying they’ll fix something.

In my book, Bill Gates stands right behind Bush and Cheney as the world’s most evil influences.

Microsoft’s motto should be “Bend over.” Their products are always so bloated and buggy, they sustain a vast third-party support industry that troubleshoots, works around, and documents their infinite deficiencies.

And now after bilking the world out of billions of dollars – partially our own fault because we let his inferior, execrable operating systems become the “standard” – Gates has turned philanthropic.

I hope he’s establishing a large foundation to rehabilitate the hapless souls being driven mad trying to get a Vista PC up and running.

I endured similar agony last August without SP1 when I replaced my own desktop system and laptop. Switching from XP to Vista meant rebuying every software application. Some that were supposedly “Vista-ready” still don’t work right.

And now that I’ve seen Vista’s first major “fix,” I know my next computer will be a Mac.