Iceberglandia

As you may be able to infer from the title, I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve posted my complaints about this company. Is it 5? 6? two thousand?

In any case, here’s a new one. Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually quite thankful towards Bell Canada this time. When I came back from vacation, I was sure my service would be suspended. Somehow, it wasn’t, and hasn’t been. But, cycles must come to an end, measures must be taken, and that, my friends, is why I’m here today.

See, Bell Canada is not the kind of company that bothers itself with actually talking to its customers. So when they determine that your bill is due enough (a random thing, since I’ve had the same problems owing them one month, or six), they give you a call. In my case, since I’m usually at work, they leave a message. A recorded message, beautifully recorded in english and french. So, when it’s time to delete the damn thing, I have to enjoy it in two (TWO!) different languages.
Basically, the message tells you to call 1-800-477-9205 (see? I’ve memorized it by now!), the hours of operation, etc. They do make a point of stating that this “important” call is not for commercial reasons, though. If the call were so fucking important, I’d guess they’d take the time to make a personal call… but no!

So, anyway… I decided to call’em back today, I even got up earlier than usual just to make up for all the shitty music and the odd number of times I’m going to end up giving all my personal information to a whole bunch of people… and things have changed.
Used to be, the recording told you you had 3 options. Or 4, fuck it, who’s counting? One of those options was “if you would like to speak to a customer representative, press 0″. Which is what I was going to do. I needed to speak to an actual human being, to arrange payments.
Today, I got this: “If you want to make a credit card payment, say ONE-TIME CREDIT CARD PAYMENT… if you would like to notify us of a payment, say PAYMENT NOTIFICATION”. That was it. Dammit!
Being that I do not possess credit cards, and I had not yet a payment to notify, I saw no point to carrying on over the phone. “What to do? What to do?”, I thought, as I paced back and forth with the palm of my hand over my right cheek, and my index finger tapping my temple. “Eureka!”, I exclaimed upon remembering I had once set up an account at Bell.Ca, their website.
After several attempts at retrieving my fucking password, I was finally able to log on to my account. A lot of good that did:

According to them, as of today I don’t owe them a damn thing. I wonder if this image will help me in court. Ha! Ha!

But the thing is, I know I owe them. And I want to talk to them, to arrange my payments. Preferably, without having my service suspended. And there seems to be no way to do so. With their automated this and their automated that (how modern – and how rude – of them!), it’s impossible to speak to anyone. I’ll poke around the site a bit, see if I can at least email somebody… but I doubt it.

What I’m going to do is something I dread. I’ll be going to the mall tomorrow, and of course there will be nobody at the Bell Store who will be able to help me beyond writing down the phone number I can call (the same 1-800 number I have now memorized), or suggest that I visit Bell.ca.
That’s assuming I still have service. We’ll see.

Shit, remember when a company used to pride itself in its customer relations? Now it’s like the policy has become WE WANT YOUR MONEY, BUT WE DON’T WANT TO DEAL WITH YOU. HERE’S OUR AUTOMATED RECORDING.

The Iceberg

PS
I was looking around the site, and apparently I’m being charged extra for going over my total GB allowance. WHAT? I swear to god, when I signed up, and hey, when they tricked me into upgrading, I was told the service would be unlimited. Ah, fuck it, I’ll talk about this in a future installment.

I am scared shitless. This situation, these times we’re living in, I tell ya! With everything getting worse and worse everywhere, it’s hard to keep one’s optimism. In case you spent your monday trapped under a rock, just take a gander at this:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/26/news/economy/job_cuts/index.htm

When I first heard that among other companies, the one who is our main customer was laying off twenty thousand people, I figuratively (thank god) shit my pants. These imaginary faeces grew larger when I started hearing about all the thousands of jobs that were terminated in what CNN calls a “bloody monday“.
Things at my company (where I work, dumbass, I don’t actually own it) have been slow for a while. But now that the company that buys all our shit is massively ridding itself of its employees, one can only assume the consequences will have a negative effect on us. Well, I should rephrase that. A more negative effect.

I know I shouldn’t panic. I still have a few items to cushion my fall before I hit rock bottom, I guess. I would assume my employers would be smart enough, in case of layoffs, to keep their best workers, and not go by stupid criteria such as seniority. If such is the case, I guess I could feel a little safe.
Let’s pretend I find myself laid off. Turns out they did go by seniority, and being the second-newest guy in our department, I’m out the door. There’s always EI. Yes, the idea of being on fucking welfare sucks. But you gotta eat, right?
Then, there’s the option of taking up a “career” in pouring coffee at Tim Horton’s, or flipping burgers at McDonald’s. If they’re hiring. A big if, because pretty much everybody is looking for jobs right now. Even McJobs.
Then, there’s rock bottom. Counting my blessings and relocating to Mexico, to end up jobless and broke, just like I was in 2005.

Then again, I could use my severance pay to purchase a shotgun and engage in what some call “The Hemingway Solution”. Assuming a shotgun and ammo cost as much as whatever I’d get as severance. But let’s hope it doesn’t get to that point.

Shit!

The Iceberg

I love catching a soccer game on the TV. Especially when I can see games from the mexican league. But having said that, I hate watching soccer games on Telemundo. Azteca América, Univisión and Galavisión don’t bother me. But the annoying way the commentators on Telemundo narrate the goings-on, Jesus fucking Christ!

First there’s the accent. Some South American accent. Argentinian, Chilean, Uruguayan, who the fuck knows. Now, don’t get me wrong, I usually don’t mind foreign accents. Hell, spoken by an attractive female, they are lovely. But… these fuckers sound just awful.

Then, there’s the fact that their enthusiasm is excessive. Remember the latin american soccer commentator on that old Simpsons episode? Something like that. The simplest passing of the ball, or line throw, or lineup change throws these guys, especially one of them, into a fucking frenzy. God forbid somebody actually approach the opposite goal, because you’d swear the poor guy who was narrating the crash of the Hindenberg was a boring old fuck. And if somebody should score a goal, well… the guy’s got lungs, I’ll give him that. It’s the famous GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!!!!! stereotypical scream, times a hundred. Reminds me of this:

Mmmmm! Giada DeLaurentiis!

The Iceberg.

I know, I know… It’s not kosher to admit to liking Fall Out Boy. But fuck you. I’m not saying I’m a fanboy, or anything. I don’t have their posters on my bedroom wall, I don’t go to their shows and I couldn’t care less if they suddenly disbanded.
In my opinion, this song is well-crafted, the video is funny as hell, and despite borrowing lyrics from Nirvana’s “Drain You”, it’s good enough for what it is. It’s not your standard pop-punk fare.
Anyway, here’s the video.

The Iceberg.

It doesn’t get any better than this, dude!

The Iceberg

I haven’t been the greatest football fan throughout my life. I like the sport enough to understand the basics, I know what’s going on in the field whenever I tune in, and I can tell the difference between a safety and a two-point conversion. I’m never opposed to the idea of sitting down to watch a game, or two. Yet somehow, it ranks only above basketball when it comes to professional sports I’m interested in. And that’s because I hate basketball.
I guess there are elements of the sport that I don’t like. For the longest time I couldn’t get over those things. Things like the fact that after every ten second play there was a commercial break. Things like watching these guys dancing in celebration, all macho like, after every little thing they did right. “Ooh, I sacked the QB. I shall dance!”. “Ooh, I made a tackle! I shall swing my arms wildly in celebration!” “Ooh, I ran two yards! I’ll reward myself with a little dancing!”. And what an oxymoron, these guys acting all alpha-male in their tight little pants and ending every spoken idea with the word “baby”. Fortunately for me, the No Fun League put restrictions on such displays of bravado.

There was a time during the Triassic period when I used to be in a football team. I was 12 years old, and except for another 12-year-old, everyone else on the team was between the ages of 9 and 11. It was the elementary school’s team. We never played a game (I lived in a part of Mexico where the closest competition for a kids’ football team would have been at least 500 kms. away), but we used to train. Hard. Whatever frustrations the coaches had, they did a fine job of taking out on us kids. In any case, I kicked ass at it (as much as a 12-year-old can kick ass, anyway). I was the best receiver, the best QB, the best running back, everything. Well, except tackle. The other 12-year-old was fat, see, so he pushed the dummies farther than me. Then I got kicked out of the team, because one day I decided not to train. There went my athletic career.

At that time, or shortly thereafter, there was a gimmick at one of the old ice cream chains, wherein you could get your ice cream in NFL-licensed helmets. Everybody, and I do mean everybody collected the things. Myself included. I wish I still had them, but alas, I’ve had to live without them for 20-something years. Sure, the collection would be somewhat outdated, what with the inclusion of such teams as the L.A. Rams, the Houston Oilers… Fuck, somebody should do that ice cream helmets thing again. It’s due.
In any case, such collection of little helmets was decisive in my team-choosing process.

Around that time, there was a whole NFL craze in Mexico. When I moved to Mexico City, now 13 years old, I had a sleepover at a friend’s house. The next morning he had football training, so I had to go with him. As luck would have it, Someone made a no-show, so I was in the team for the day. The coach was impressed with me, and even said I could make it big. Sadly, I didn’t care enough for the sport. At that time, I had started my life-long fascination with music. No, not playing. Listening to.

Fast forward to the present day. I never thought I would end up having to explain my football favorites to anybody, but such was the case one afternoon while in Mexico. When the conversation subject turned to the fact that I hoped the Pittsburgh Steelers would win their game against the San Diego Chargers, my friend was aghast.
In truth, I couldn’t give two shits about the Pittsburgh Steelers per se, but as I explained to my friend, it was one of those ice cream helmets, along with the Cincinatti Bengals one, that I considered my favorites and for that reason only I considered myself a Steelers and a Bengals fan. Sure, I was excited when the Bengals almost won the Super Bowl. But then Joe Montana had to fuck that up for me. Now look at them. And as for the Steelers, I followed them for a while when they had Kordell Stewart. I’ve always liked QBs that have the balls to run themselves.

I guess I don’t really have a favorite team. Maybe not living in the US does that to you. But then again, many people in Mexico and Canada are huge football fans. It’s surely a geographical thing, taking into consideration the huge number of Dallas Cowboys fans in Mexico, and Buffalo Bills fans up here in Guelph.
I sure did like the Philadelphia Eagles in the playoffs, though. Well, since the last week of the season, when they defeated the Cowboys 44-6. Man, how I laughed at that game. See, I hate the Dallas Cowboys. When that guy from Dallas was about to score and he fumbled the ball and the Eagles guy picked it up and scored, I was literally on the floor laughing.
Yesterday they had a very bad first half, and as well as they played during the second half, it wasn’t enough.

Then it was time for the Steelers game. Steelers won. So in two weeks it will be the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl. For the second year, I will be having a Super Bowl party. Well, by party I mean watching the game with somebody else, as opposed to having it on as background here at home.

In a way, I guess the sport is growing on me. Now it’s just a matter of settling for a team not based on little helmets from yesteryear. As it stands right now, I guess I can say I’m an Eagles fan.

The Iceberg

PS
The helmet I hated the most was the Miami Dolphins one. It had a full face mask that I was never able to put on. Had I succeedded in fitting plastic together, I guess I’d be a Dolphins fan. Go figure.

For whatever reason, I have frequent dreams (nightmares?) of airplane disasters. Or dreams where there are disasters and planes. As far as I remember, the first one was when I was probably 12 or 13 years old. I was inside an airplane, flying through the air, and when I looked down at the planet, it was all destroyed. Volcanoes, fire, etc. After that, I can’t count the times when I’ve had dreams of planes falling out of the sky. I was traumatized by watching the events of 9/11 live on the news. Why, the night after arriving from this past vacation, after not sleeping for 30-odd hours, I dreamed there was a plane crash right outside my house.
Then, not even a week after flying through JFK airport in New York, a plane decided to take a dive into the very Hudson River I had seen from the window of my plane.
Yet, I am still in love with flying. Not so much dealing with airlines, airport security, and air travel in general. But I’m always the guy looking out the window trying to guess what I’m flying over. “Is that Indianapolis?” “Hey, look! It’s the Dawg Pound (Cleveland’s NFL Stadium)!”. And on more than one occasion, “Stupid clouds!”.
My grandfather used to fly. My dad’s biggest frustration (well, maybe second biggest, behind me not being whatever he expects of me) is that due to his eyesight, he was never able to get his flying license.
I learned on this trip that my 8 year old nephew has made the move from loving cars to loving planes. Still, he said he was afraid to fly. I tried as best as I could to explain that statistically, planes were safer than cars. He started asking questions about bombs and terrorists. I told him (and I’m aware I don’t have my facts straight, but at least it helped to dispel his fear) the last time a bomb had blown a plane was way before he was born, and it happened on the other side of the planet.

So, anyway, what I’m trying to get at is that there seems to be a fascination in the family with airplanes. And much like myself, my nephew also has a tendency to think about aircraft disasters.
When I was hanging out at a friend’s house, he decided to entertain me with his collection of videos. Among others, he showed me this one. I was in awe. Too bad my sister’s internet service was, um, out of order. My nephew might have liked to watch it.

Just…Wow.

The Iceberg.

This economy thing is bad. As if you needed me to tell you.

As it stands, since summer of last year overtime was cancelled at work. “There goes the extra income”, I thought. Then, in December, we were brought down to a 4-day work week. Still, I managed to go on vacation. But now that I’m back, things don’t look too bright. At least for now. Worse still, I’m undergoing what’s going to be a rough few weeks.
See, I incurred in a couple of unplanned expenses while down there. I came back to find I didn’t even have enough to pay my whole rent for January. My landlord wasn’t too happy yesterday when I gave him half of what he expected. The service companies (Bell Canada and Rogers) have been calling and sending text messages insisting I pay immediately, OR ELSE. If you thought my ex-wife hated me before, you should see the conversation I had with her today.
I returned to work on the second week of the pay period, which means that next week I’ll get paid for four days of work. Out of that, 66% goes towards what’s left of my January rent. Whatever I have left, I’ll have to stretch for two weeks. Then, when (if – there’s always the possibility of layoffs) I get paid again, that’ll be February’s rent. So, in case I don’t get laid off, fired, etc., I’ll be having money sometime late february. Well, let me rephrase that. My services and ex-wife will have my money. At least I have some groceries for now.
So that leaves me, well, pissed off, scared, depressed. To make matters worse, it’s fucking freezing out there.  Of course, I’m not just sitting on my ass being pissed off, scared and depressed. I’m trying to find an answer.

Therein lies another problem. I don’t want to ask for handouts, or even a loan. First, because I’m too proud. Second, because while useful now, it would make this personal crisis longer.

The only other option is searching for another source of employment. Part-time, even. Just to make up for what I’m losing at my regular job. I’m not opposed to the concept, and in fact would welcome the opportunity. The thing is, so would everybody else, right now. So the job market is pretty much full. And companies, well, they just aren’t hiring. But, I’ll keep trying.

I’m actually surprised I still have my internet, but I’m not counting on it to be active for much longer. I’ll give them a call and see if they understand their customers’ situation. If not, we’ll have to go our separate ways. In the end, hard times require one to strip to the essentials, and as necessary as the internet is, it’s not vital.

So, that’s the current state of things. Here’s to hoping things improve. Soon.

The Iceberg

So, if memory doesn’t fail me, last time around I was on my way to a nice romantic dinner with the gf. I left the cyber cafe I posted from, and a couple of blocks later I ran into a good friend, who offered to drive us to the restaurant. I’ll be posting about said dining experience sometime later. Suffice to say it wasn’t all I had expected.
The gf had a plan to see one of her friends afterwards and I didn’t. Yet. Her friend picked us up after the restaurant, and they dropped me off at home. I watched the second half of the San Diego – Indianapolis game, but by the time they stepped into OT I had a friend at the door picking me up. We went to a friend of his’, and inexplicably we found ourrselves awake and drinking whisky at 7.30 AM. Of course, after that, we had to go for breakfast. A couple of drunken antics later, I ended up walking into my apartment at 10 to 9. This time, the gf was not only unamused, but full-blown pissed off. How pissed off? This was sunday morning. We spoke again on Wednesday.
I finally got to see another friend, for a second (and last) time. This time it wasn’t a bottle of Jack and a bottle of rum. It was just a bottle of rum. My family played a couple of tricks on me, and my friends all but disappeared. This was after everybody was pretty much informed that I would be leaving on friday. Oh well, more “me” time. I did my rounds of shopping for things I can’t find here, I went to the market to that place where you can buy metal T-shirts (and walked out with another Mayhem, and a Behemoth long-sleeve – but without the Dark Funeral one I wanted), and not much else. Finally friday came, and it was time to go.

I had agreed to go to Monterrey to see a couple of friends who had promised to make dinner. I arrived early, and my friend came through with his promise to make pulled pork. I had a lot of that, and some cod sandwiches. We ended up talking until the early morning, when it was time to leave for the airport.

I had woken up (not by choice) friday at 8 am. I slept a couple of hours on my flight from Monterrey to New York (I waited for the service carts, and was successful in ordering a beer – take that, Continental and American). I landed in NY on time, fucked around the airport until it was time to board my flight to Toronto. I was comfortably sitting at gate 31, watching the first half of the Ravens – Titans game when I stumbled upon Richard Kind. Not being a celebrity freak, I opted to keep just the anecdote. Besides, Richard Kind is not that big a celebrity. I only remember him from Spin City and Mad About You. Anyway, having not slept a whole lot I was pleased with the opportunity to entertain my mind with the game until it was time to board.
It was until we were all inside the shitty plane that we were informed that there was going to be a delay. Stupid fuckers, least they could’ve done was let me watch the game. Anyway, I slept for about another hour. Soon, we were in Toronto. I don’t know if it was the long hair, the weary expression on my face, or just a random thing, but somebody didn’t like the look of me, and I was sent to an extra security search. Stupid people going through my underwear and my magazines and my bags of groceries in hopes to find something illegal. They finally let me go, and I arrived home. I honestly wasn’t expecting to come home and see I still have internet, but that was welcome. I’ll call those fuckers up tomorrow to beg them not to suspend my service until I can pay.
Right now I’m watching the Steelers – Chargers game, the Eagles already took care of the Giants. Tomorrow I’ll have to show my shitty face at work. I’ll have to deal with my ex-wife and her stupid demands. I’ll have to figure out when to buy groceries. But tomorrow is another day. Right now all I care about is that I had a good vacation. That the Eagles won. That mexican beer tastes even better in Canada. That I miraculously still have internet access.

Vacation over. Back to reality.

Shit.

The Iceberg.

Well, so far, it’s been good. I’ll be narrating the details throughout the next couple of weeks, but so far I’ve managed to see almost everybody I wanted to see. Except for a few friends, which of course is always the case. But I’ve had a great time with my friends, my family, hell, I even got to spend some time with my daughter. Apparently, she enjoyed herself with me, and she enjoyed her Christmas presents. This was the last Christmas in which she’ll be waiting for Santa Claus, however. I plan to give her the newsflash sometime this year. It saddens me, but it’s something that has to be done.
Of course, I’ve kept my “Guadalupe Reyes Marathon” tradition in full blast. But at what price? There are days when I swear I’m going to end up in the hospital. But so far, nothing, so that’s good news.
Christmas was fun. I spent Christmas Eve with the “in-laws” (quotation marks due to us not being officially married), and Christmas Day with my family (sans my daughter, who arrived on the 26th). I had a good time, and it was nice to see everybody appeared to enjoy the presents I got them. Especially the kids. Good food, good times, and copious amounts of alcohol. After seeing my family on the 25th, my friends called me up and told me to meet them at a party. I got to see most of my friends there, and you guessed it, more alcohol was had.
My daughter arrived on the 26th, so I met with her around 5 PM. We decided to go to the movies, since it’s one of the very few opportunities for me to take her to see a kids’ movie when it’s still in theatres. We went to see “BOLT”. Incredibly, I walked out not annoyed, but entertained by the movie. That rodent character had me laughing.
The next day my daughter left for a family trip with *THAT* side of her family. A friend arrived in the evening, we had some beer, and later went to another friend’s house. I got home at 5. The GF wasn’t at all pleased. On the 27th I hooked up with another old friend, who thought it was a good idea to spend an evening with a liter of Jack Daniels and a liter of rum. I got home the next morning (the 28th) at around 7. The GF was surprisingly not pleased, again. She waited until I got up, and decided to walk out on me. Suitcase in hand, she said I was too much of a drunk (me? a drunk?), and left me. Five minutes later, she came back and said it was her idea of a joke. (December 28th is, in Latin American countries, the equivalent of April Fool’s.) Har-dee-har, said I. Funny, indeed.
My daughter came back, she spent the night with me, and the next day we hung out with the family. On the 30th, it was my ex’s birthday, so I knew there wasn’t even a point in asking if I could see my daughter. I decided to wait for New Years. More partying, more boozing, more trying to hook up with friends I had yet to see. Then, as we were getting ready to go to a BBQ at my sister’s house, my GF got a call. Her grandmother had passed away. So she went to Monterrey to attend.
At 7 PM on New Year’s Eve, I still hadn’t the slightest idea as to what the fuck I was going to do for celebrations. I had a couple of invitations, and since I don’t have a car, I couldn’t be everywhere. So I decided to go to my sister’s inlaws’. Around 2 am, I called my ex and asked if I could spend time with my daughter, since they were leaving on the 2nd. Strangely, she said yes, and even drove her to where I was. We got to my place around 3, but my daughter had something she wanted to do before going to sleep. I had shown her the few games I have on my iPhone, so of course she wanted to play. Finally, at 5, I had to take the damn thing away from her. In the morning she woke up with a really bad throat. I called her mom, we rushed to the hospital, she was given pills, syrups, inhalations, and *gasp* a shot. My daughter is 8 years old. She is relatively thin, plus, she was weak from her illness. How it took 3 people to hold her down while her grandmother gave her the shot is beyond me. Hearing her scream in pain destroyed my soul. But it was nice that of all people present, she found the most comfort in me. A couple of hours later, she was doing fime. We went to my dad’s, and then it was time to say goodbye.
Sorry for the long paragraph.
Last night I finally got to see another friend. We hung out until 4 am. My GF, yet again, was not pleased. I’m making it up to her as we speak. We’re on our way to a fancy place for dinner. I just had to stop by this internet café thingie to wish everybody a happy new year. I know I’m 48 hours late, but hey… wasn’t it worth the wait?
Anyway, I gotta run. Apparently, she’s getting anxious.
Unless something magical happens, I can’t promise I’ll post soon. There is a very big possibillity that Bell has suspended my service. But if I can post one last time from down here, I promise I will.

The Iceberg.