• Verizon: better than you think we are

    It’s been a while since we dropped the land-line. We’re relying on our cell phones full time. It’s worked out well so far, or until recently when we stopped getting a signal on our block. It’s been pretty infuriating, considering the damn phones work everywhere else. I get a better signal in elevators and stairwells than in my backyard, so I figure it’s not my phone. I’ve done everything Verizon tech support has suggested, short of taking them up on a free new phone… with a new two year contract of course.

    Saying you’ve got a beef with your wireless carrier is like complaining about the refs in sports. None of them are perfect and it’s not like you’ve got any real choice, so what’s the point? Well, at least my in-laws get a signal at our house with AT&T. Yeah, I know. Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. What can I say? At least I’ll get an iPhone out of the switch.

    To tide us over at home until January (when our contract is finally up) we’re giving Skype a try. Three bucks for nationwide calling ain’t bad. It’ll be a bit of a pain calling folks back when incoming calls drop out on the cell phone, but we’re hoping we can put up with it for a few months. Skype is a bit more expensive to receive incoming calls, and we’re not keen on keeping the Mac powered up just to receive calls (or buying a Skype phone just for three months).

  • Scared

    We all hear stories about kids being abducted. Some of them are even pretty close to home. This morning the Sheriff’s office was out in force down the street – at Beth’s bus stop – apparently because a white van had pulled up and grabbed a kid.

    That’s way too close.

  • McCain, economics, and regulation

    Talking Points Memo | Just Thinking:

    Let me get this straight. John McCain’s top economic advisor, former Sen. Phil Gramm, is the guy who authored the deregulation law that most agree is the ultimate cause of today’s financial meltdown. Tomorrow’s and probably next week’s too. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. John Thain, CEO of Merrill Lynch, which swirled into brokerage oblivion today, is one of McCain’s top economic advisors too. And now McCain says he’s going to clean up the mess by putting in tighter regulations and oversight even though he’s always supported lax oversight and his top economics guy is the one who loosened the rules in the first place.

    9/16/2008 NYT:

    “I’m always for less regulation,” he told The Wall Street Journal last March, “but I am aware of the view that there is a need for government oversight” in situations like the subprime lending crisis, the problem that has cascaded through Wall Street this year. He concluded, “but I am fundamentally a deregulator.”

    Later that month, he gave a speech on the housing crisis in which he called for less regulation, saying, “Our financial market approach should include encouraging increased capital in financial institutions by removing regulatory, accounting and tax impediments to raising capital.”