Ryan’s Ramblin’

Next July, Michael Bay’s transformers movie comes out. I’m not really holding my breath that it’ll be a good Transformers movie (it certainly won’t hold up to the original animated classic), but I’m hoping it’ll be a fun action movie. Well, the Transformers trailer is now up (warning, shitty Java interface), and I have to say it looks like it’ll be a fun little romp. The movie has definitely been Michael Bayified, and I *really* hate the look they’ve given the Transformers (especially Megatron… wtf?) but I’m sure it’ll be a fun little romp regardless.

I was so looking forward to seeing Glen Phillips play here in Dublin next month. He’s the former frontman for Toad the Wet Sprocket, if you don’t know who the hell I’m talking about. And if you don’t know who Toad is, you clearly haven’t known me for very long, as they’re one of my all time favourite bands. Sadly, Glen has to cut his trip short due to a family emergency. Blast it all to heck! It makes me very sad, but I also hope that everything is alright with his family!

Sylvester Stallone is spending an inordinate amount of time responding to 10 questions a day from readers at Ain’t It Cool News. He comes across surprisingly witty and self-deprecating. It’s really a very entertaining read. Here’s the first 13 parts:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9-10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
.

This is a what the map of all the countries I’ve visted in Europe (not pictured, the Canary Islands, although they are technically part of Spain [and geographically, part of Africa? I’m unsure, though they certainly are much closer to Africa than Europe], I didn’t feel it was fair to include Spain in my list) will look like as of December 31st, 2006. That’s a lot of Europe to have seen in only 16 months living in Ireland!

Click on the map to make your own, if you want.

I know I haven’t written in ages. I do know this. I just haven’t gotten up the motivation to do so. But when Rannie related his experiences with Bell (I’ve had similar shitty experience with them) and asked if anybody had any experience with Rogers, I started relating my Rogers cancellation experience in a comment. Then I realized that it was turning out quite long. So, I decided it was a perfect time to get back on the ol’ blog horse. And here we go!

I’ve never really been *all* that bothered with Rogers, except for one of the times I tried to cancel my internet and cable with them. About 2 years ago (actually, I’d say it was almost exactly 2 years ago), I was moving back home to live with my mom for a month or two until Liz got back from Ireland (which, incidentally, didn’t happen, which is why I am over here now), and thus didn’t need internet OR cable. So first I called the cable company service line to get the cable cancelled. I explained the whole thing to them, told them I was moving, told them no, I didn’t need it at the new place because it was already installed there, etc etc. After 10 minutes explaining the situation to them, they finally actually looked at their screen and found out that no, I couldn’t cancel my service with them because I had the Rogers combined service thing, with mobile phone and internet and cable all in one. So they transferred me to THOSE people. I had to explain the whole situation again. 10 minutes. Then they told me that no, *they* couldn’t cancel me EITHER, they had to transfer me to the “cancellation department” (otherwise known as the “customer retention department” - btw, if you ever want to get good deals from pretty much *any* service provider, and a competitor has a plan that you like better, call and tell your service provider you want to cancel so you can switch to that competitor. They will fight very hard to keep your business, usually matching or bettering the competition’s offer). Another 10 minutes to explain the situation. No, I really don’t need internet at the new place. They really already have rogers cable and internet. No, really. No, I don’t know the people that are moving into my old place, and even if I did, after being on the phone with you jackasses for an hour and a half (oh, did I mention I was on hold for AGES every time I got transferred?) there’s no way in hell I plan on recommending them to you. Seriously. No. I just want to close my accounts. Are you even listening to me? Stop talking! I know about Rogers’ wonderful plans, I’ve used them for 3 years! Gah! DISCONNECT ME!!!!

Eventually, I got them to agree that I didn’t, in fact, need a second internet or cable line at my mom’s house. But it was hard going. They’re a tenacious bunch, all right, those customer retainers. Oh, and did I mention that I was at work trying to cancel my service? Yeah, so my work friends were laughing their asses off when I was explaining the exact same thing the third time around. They thought I was just fucking with them, that after the second time they really did cancel my service. Nope. Three times lucky, baby!