Oh this is rich. A brilliant shining example of everything that’s back assward and fucked up about modern capitalism. Namely that two REAL beavers could probably manage a company better than the virtual rodents that represent Bell here in Canada. Soft and cuddly my ass.

The following is a transcript of my vain attempt to get Bell to stop spamming me a month after I cancelled my subscription to their service. I must note that the customer service agent was slow as fuck, indicating either she was eating a rice noodle bowl or she had ten chat windows open at once.

(Incidentally chat based customer service is none the less faster than trying to find a human voice on the phone, even if they end the conversation with silly macros.)

System

Welcome Nathan Taylor.

System

Connecting to server. Please wait…

System

Connection with server established.

System

Ganesa (SCI-274225) has joined this session!

System

Connected with Ganesa (SCI-274225)

Ganesa (SCI-2742 25)

Hi Nathan Taylor, welcome to Bell Sympatico Services, my name is Ganesa (SCI-274225), how may I help you today?

Ganesa (SCI-2742 25)

Good evening, Nathan.

You

I’d just like my ap.films@gmail.com address removed from whatever system is sending me “Information from our discussion” messages.” on a daily basis.

Ganesa (SCI-2742 25)

Do you wish to stop receiving spam messages for ap.films@gmail.com

You

yes

Ganesa (SCI-2742 25)

I am really sorry, we have no access with gmail account, since it is sympatico Internet service help desk, however, I suggest you to contact google for further information about your gmail account.

You

No, YOU’re sending me emails.

You

I’ve recieved over 100 emails from bell tech support in two months.

Ganesa (SCI-2742 25)

Are you sympatico Internet service subscriber?

You

I was, I cancelled my service a month ago. Now i get even more emails.

Ganesa (SCI-2742 25)

May I know, your b1 number and complete address with postal code, so that I can pull your account and check with that.

You

My original was B1NAQK62, however there were problems with that account and it may have been changed to a second B1 temporarily. Area code is h4c 3g7

Ganesa (SCI-2742 25)

Thank you.

Ganesa (SCI-2742 25)

I really appreciate your patience.

Ganesa (SCI-2742 25)

Nathan, I have remove the gmail address from our records, hence you will not receive any more mails to your ap.films@gmail.com from sympatico.

Ganesa (SCI-2742 25)

Is there anything else I can assist you with?

You

That’s all. Thank you very much!

Ganesa (SCI-2742 25)

You are most welcome.

Ganesa (SCI-2742 25)

Thank you for choosing Bell and have yourself a great day.

Don’t forget to visit our new Sympatico Internet Forums website by following this link: http://www.bell.ca/internetforum

and also our Customer Service web site at this link: http://service.sympatico.ca

Ganesa (SCI-2742 25)

Have a great week ahead!

Ganesa (SCI-2742 25)

Thank you for your business.

System

Ganesa (SCI-274225) has left this session!

System

The session has ended!

Charlotte Burke, Senior Vice President, Consumer Internet Services

Thank you very much for you letter welcoming me to Bell’s WiMAX Internet service. While the letter was full of hyperbole, catch phrases and without a doubt identical to the letters received by thousands of other WiMAX customers, I do appreciate getting your name so that I can send you this letter in response to your service.

Rather than getting wrapped up in flowery rhetoric to soften the blow and be “diplomatic” I’ll cut right to the chase since I’m living in Quebec now and complaining is something of a national sport here. I also have some faith left in the power of free markets to deliver ever improving service, so I’d like to think, perhaps naively that my criticisms might, just might improve the service received by others. One can only hope.

I’ll skip the Internet service itself for the moment since that isn’t where things began to go sour.

It all began when I discovered that I wasn’t eligible for DSL Internet in my new apartment but that there was an alternative called WiMAX which was slower and more expensive, but hey - this is 2008, how could I live without Internet? Bell.ca never really explained what WiMAX was or how it worked, but it assured me that it was as simple as 1-2-3. Sadly 1 never arrived.

After more than two weeks my modem still hadn’t arrived despite assurances that it would reach me in 3-5 business days. When I called the help line I navigated the usual labyrinthine telephone option maze and when I finally reached a living breathing human being had to reiterate all the information I’d previously punched into the buttons of my phone - leading me to wonder why I’d bothered to run the maze in the first place. The operator could not help me.

I called again a few days later, ran the same gamut, waiting for the Minotaur to leap out of my receiver, finally reached a human being and finally got an answer to my question. The modem shipped, the address on the package didn’t exist, and so it was sent back. I confirmed my address with the agent on the phone, something I’d done on my previous call and, now that I think of it one of your operators had called me a week before to confirm my address as well, though they never told me what for. Checking my email at work I confirmed that my original order receipt had the correct address on it. Obviously there’s an issue between your sales and shipping departments.

So finally my modem arrives at my door and I eagerly plug it into the wall and the computer, ready to relieve a month’s drought of Internet with an orgy of email and YouTube only to find - nothing. No signal. Notta. I am somewhat computer proficient and tried everything I could think of to make things work before calling your dreaded help line, and as usual I plunged through seven levels of menus and inputted everything except my social insurance number on my phone’s tiny keypad - only to have to tell your operator everything all over again when I was finally released from hold.

He told me to move the modem. “Is it in a window?” What the hell kind of a technology is this? It has to be in a window? It has to be pointed at a Bell tower? I’m on the ground floor of a brick building facing an inner courtyard, there are no phallic Bell monstrosities in eyesight! Okay I’ve got a couple of blinking lights on my modem, I only had to move a cabinet and put it next to the window by my bed with the modem on top so that I hit my knee every time I get out of bed. Sure its inconvenient, but it’s the Internet right? We all have to make sacrifices. Good thing I just happened to have a 50ft CAT-5 cable sitting around to run halfway across the apartment to the computer.

Still nothing. I hear the flurry of keystrokes on the other side of the line. He tells me to unplug my Internet and leave it alone for an hour or so - maybe it’ll fix itself. It doesn’t. I call again. Different operator, same maze of options. This operator doesn’t seem to know what’s going on either and there don’t seem to be any notes from the previous operator to help. Again the problem isn’t solved. Try again tomorrow.

I don’t have time to call Bell every few hours in the hopes that something’s changed so I don’t call again until a couple of days later. Now my account is erased and started from scratch, then my operator gets confused and has to get someone more senior to work on my account. Another ten minutes on hold, awkward silence throughout. Try it now…

Finally the Internet works. Or so I think.

The speed is nothing to write home about, in fact its about a quarter of the advertised “speeds up to 2Mbps!” but what can you expect with a modem sitting in the bedroom window pointed at a brick wall. Who the hell approved this technology? Was it you Charlotte? I’m sure it looks great on a traderoom floor, but in real life applications its leaves much to be desired. But wait, it gets better.

Over the next couple of weeks, my Internet connection proves itself to be remarkably unstable. The speed fluctuates all over the map with no rhyme or reason from moderately fast to mind numbingly slow. I can kind of tolerate this, though it is more than a little bit annoying. What passes beyond annoying are the service outages. We’re not talking about one little service interruption for an hour, no, we’re talking about spending half a day without the Internet despite the happily blinking lights on the modem, blinking along every time I hit my knee on the dresser.

Over the course of two weeks the Internet went down at least half a dozen times for an hour or more, two or three times I was down for more than four or five hours. This isn’t service. This is like trying to deliver the mail by carrier pigeon right next to the International Pheasant Hunter’s Association. Totally unacceptable.

Finally I canceled my service which surprisingly only involved getting transferred between a couple of different departments at Bell. We’ll see if I get my modem deposit refunded. If not you’ll certainly be hearing from me again.

In the end I called up your competition TekSavvy to see if they could provide me with Internet service with some reliability. I spent no time wading through telephone menus, talked to a real human being and was registered in a few minutes. The modem arrived before expected and my connection worked the moment I plugged the modem in.

Most interesting of all however was what I learned in researching TekSavvy. I discovered that they buy their line access from you and resell it. What makes this interesting? What makes it interesting is that Bell claimed that my address was not eligible for high speed ADSL, and yet at this very instant I’m composing this message connected to a Bell copper line, going into a Bell central office, which means you had the capacity to give me this service all along and put me through the hell of WiMAX and lost me as a customer for nothing. Oops.

But that’s fine with me. TekSavvy shows me much more respect as a customer, offers better rates and unlike you and your fascist cousins supports Net Neutrality. You as an ISP are making many of the same mistakes as the MPAA and the RIAA by alienating your most influential and devout customers. Your poor customer service and business practices are creating a demand for alternative providers like TekSavvy. I only hope that you begin to learn from your mistakes, streamline your business practices, focus more on customer service and respect the privacy rights of your clients.

Oh, I almost forgot. Since my initial tech support calls to your call center I have been receiving daily SPAM emails from Bell purportedly in response to my call, but the emails have no content except for pointless links to customer surveys, FAQs and special offers. One is enough. Every day is excessive. Yesterday I got a blitz of 16 such messages. I wouldn’t be surprised if your system is filled with such repetitive and unnecessary garbage eating up bandwidth and resources. Stop wasting everyone’s time and get your shit together.

- Sincerely, Kay O. Sweaver

My tummy’s been upset lately, hard to say exactly why but diet seems a reasonable enough guess given how this whole tummy thing figures into the whole body mechanism. Anyways I decided to start dropping more fruits and vegetables into it in an effort to appease the damn thing. So I had a salad tonight. A nice salad, two kinds of lettuce, tomato, red onion, swiss cheese and a nice Italian dressing. All in all a good vegetarian meal.

And yet…

The craving…

Less than ten minutes later I cranked open the fridge and sliced off a few chunks of pepperoni. Meat chaser for my salad.

I try, I really do, but I’m a goddam carnivore no matter how you cut it. Don’t think you could kill an animal for food? Tell you what. If the grocery store stopped selling meat I’d be out there strangling squirrels with my bare hands.

I like meat.

“Did you ever have a job that you hated and worked real hard at? A long, hard day of work. Finally you get to go home, get in bed, close your eyes and immediately you wake up and realize… that the whole day at work had been a dream. It’s bad enough that you sell your waking life for minimum wage, but now they get your dreams for free.”

Two nights in a row this has happened to me. What’s the point when the difference between eyes open and eyes closed is indistinguishable?

I am sick of working in my dreams.

I am sick of dreaming of living on the leather couch in the fluorescent humming lunch room.

I am sick of potential.

I ache for the apex.

I rail against the trough.

This is enough.

There is a war going on for your mind

“Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.” - Winston Churchill

Living in a city like Montreal that sits firmly on the fracture between two glacial language formations is without doubt an interesting experience. For those that have grown up here it may be hard at times to see the forest for the trees, but for a starry eyed prairie boy there are trees a plenty.

Language is a hot issue here, and why not? Language afterall may well be the root of consciousness, certainly the root of culture and society. How we communicate with each other is almost more important than what we actually say and here there are so many ways to say so many things.

Montreal isn’t strictly French, nor is it strictly English, nor do those two languages even begin to represent the city and all of its other languages. I know many people who are fluent in three or four languages. I know a few who really only know one. I have felt what its like to be kicked back to the minors in terms of the ability to communicate and understand - something that few of us experience if we don’t venture out of our native culture for an extended period and try to make a life for ourselves.

Montreal tries pretty hard to get bilingualism right though there are of course people on either side who just can’t bridge the divide and some that are vehemently opposed to even trying.

A report was recently leaked from a government taskforce in Quebec that seems to say that in order to make it in our increasingly integrated world Quebec needs to increase its tolerance and understanding of immigrants’ cultures and probably most nettling, learn more English. Of course the shouting started early and loud. And then I found a thread of comments trailing after a blog entry by people espousing the use of Esperanto as a universal language.

Of course I’ve heard of Esperanto, the attempt a century ago to create a truly universal language for politics, commerce and universal understanding. Needless to say it never really took off. I’ve only ever met one person who spoke Esperanto, a fellow from Brussels while playing pool in a dingy old pub in the Australian outback. So it was interesting to hear from the old language again more than five years later.

I watched a video on the language and read through those comments. Everyone claims that its ridiculously easy to learn and so, rather than making snap judgments based on little to no first hand experience I made a decision. I’m going to try and learn it.

Why not?

So I’ve been working myself into a frenzy the last twenty four hours or so by watching documentaries about oil, namely Robert Newman’s comedic History of Oil, Amory Lovins talk at TED and Who Killed the Electric Car? I’ve been alternating from despair to outrage to a serious case of “I’ve gotta do something!”

Hard to believe I didn’t think of this sooner. Many of us want to save the environment AND continue to live with our admittedly excessive standard of living. With peak oil and global warming not only looming but sitting right there in the room (shhhh! nobody say anything!) we really, really need to act. The self-centered part of me is just worried about filling the tank in the car, paying the bills and what’s going to happen to my WestJet stock if oil prices keep climbing. Which is what led me to this…

If I’m worried about my stocks maybe I can save myself with other stocks, namely green stocks. If through my investments I can help alternative energy producers gain a foothold and develop their technology, well my bills will go down, there’ll be less demand for oil - lowering or stabilizing the price, which helps my WestJet stock, and on top of it all I’ll be making money off of the alternative energy stocks as they become more and more popular.

Shit.

Amazing that selfishness leads to saving the world but it does.

So I’m entering the hardcore research phase. I don’t have a ton to invest, but I’ll put in what I can, and when I can afford it, well I’ll be driving an electric car and just keep pushing this wave onwards.

I may not have the scientific or legislative know-how to make big changes for the environment, but I can give money to the people who do. And so can you.

Just got back from a Bruleurs get together, and love ‘em as I do I have to say things are slow. I know there are a lot of burners in town, but the critical mass of a bunch of them all in once place at one time doesn’t seem to happen much. Which brings me to…

The Pound

This is my place, the greatest place I’ve found so far in Montreal. The Pound is so fucking magical its hard to describe. Anything can happen. Its so open and chaotic and bubbling with potential and creativity. I’m seriously bummed that I’m not going this week due to work. It truly is the highlight of my week.

So, the plan is to try and mix the ingredients. Get Burners to the Pound. Get people from the Pound involved in Burner kind of stuff. Heck. If I can mix some UE into it all who knows what’ll happen!

Party at my place. Soon.

I don’t think I understood all the hullabaloo over net neutrality until I had to get an Internet connection at my new apartment. Now granted its an unusual space. Hundred year old factories turned loft apartments aren’t your everyday install, but its led me to some interesting places…

First Bell tells me I can’t get DSL here. Initially I accepted that and took their second option which turns out to be wireless transmission from their central office over on Atwater. Well the signal is crappy and inconsistent, move the receiver a millimetre and it loses the signal, not to mention I have to put it in the window upstairs which is incredibly inconvenient. Even without touching it the bandwidth wobbles around wildly and I’ve had two outtages within the first week. Great job Bell.

Enter Videotron. The installer showed up today then couldn’t find the cable box. Now in all fairness I understand that this building is kind of hodge podge, but, you’d think that after the first half dozen installs that Videotron might set things up properly, or at least have comments on file attached to the address explaining what’s going on. After wandering around with the installer for an hour he finally left without having done anything.

Then I start the research, and this is where I really start to see the shady undertones of the whole thing, that is on top of the total incompetence of the major players.

I can’t get Limewire or SoulSeek to work on my Internet connection, because Bell/Sympatico blocks them. A bit of research reveals that pretty much all the major players are “shaping” or “throttling” Internet traffic with impunity deciding what you can and can’t do and how much you can do it. Self imposed data police. Great.

Of course it gets even better. In the spirit of competition Bell and Rogers and their ilk are obligated to let independents play on their systems as well. Unfortunately they’re continuing to shape and throttle the accounts of users under their competitors - which kind of eliminates the point of competition and creates a… dare I say it… a duopoly cartel that can use its muscle to keep anyone else from getting a foot in the door.

And it gets better. People switching from say Bell to an independent ISP frequently find their speed drastically reduced, even though their Internet is coming from the exact same infrastructure. That’s right Bell “accidentally” changes your circuit to a slower setting. Oops.

The more I read the more disgusted I get.

So I’m cancelling both Bell and Videotron and going with Teksavy. Sure its coming from Bell copper, but at least they only get part of the money.

Oh, did I mention that it took Bell over two weeks to get my Internet to me in the first place? Bra-fucking-vo.

When I woke up the first time my room was dark. Twilight strode in through the window, making everything little more than muted greys, blacks and that blue that comes from Hollywood night scenes. As I blinked awake I noticed three distinct, tiny coils of smoke in the corner of the room by the dresser, and something moving. There in the darkness, no more than a foot tall was a woman in tight army fatigues and holsters wielding some sort of weapon which she had just shot at me three times.

This isn’t real.

I’m dreaming.

Sweet!

I leapt out of my dream bed in my dream body and proceeded to throw this comic book figured woman - who was by now full sized into the door and proceeded with a furious makeout session, ready and eager for my first lucid dream fuck.

In all the excitement I managed to wake myself up a second time, this time in my real body and my real bed. Frustrated but excited I willed myself back to sleep, and in moments I was experiencing another false awakening in my dream room. What woke me up but something attacking me through the sheets, rushing and scurrying around the room!

After frantic tussling amongst pillows and sheets on the bed and onto the floor I found myself face to face with some sort of rat/badger thing - oddly reminiscent of the coke badger from Its All Gone Pete Tong.

Oh fuck…

I stood up, oblivious to the little monster and tried flicking the lightswitch a couple of times. No response from the lights in the room.

I’m dreaming again.

I wake up — again — for real.

So goes my first foray into lucid dreaming. Apparently it isn’t willpower, careful intention when going to bed or dream masks that bring on the lucid state - rather it seems like a week of drinking and backwards sleeping habits does the trick.

Or maybe I just got lucky. My friend who was staying with me in Montreal for the week told me that I’d been talking in my sleep a few nights before which is something I don’t normally do, so maybe there was already something going on with my sleep state.

In any case I’m confident that it’ll be easier to revisit the lucid dream world now that I’ve finally pierced the veil for the first time. The first thing to work on will be maintaining my composure while lucid dreaming so I don’t wake myself up from a flight across an alien skyline or sex with a room full of Amazon warriors. This will just naturally become easier with time.

The journey begins…

Blogging really is a cruel passtime, not entirely sure why I do it, besides the obvious inflated ego. I mean really, when its dry its dry - nothing to report on, zilch of interest, just ho hum. Then a ton of things happen and you’re too busy to write about them and feel hopelessly overwhelmed when finally you decide to put fingers to keyboard. Aye. Well, such this is being of the latter. How’s that for craptastic English?

First things first. The move is on. I have to say a big fucking merciful thanks to the ditz who manages my building for letting me move in a week early. What a fucking Godsend. With memories of stuffing my car to absolute capacity for the drive across country its a relief to only jam a managable number of boxes into its every orifice for a multitude of short trips to deck the place out. I’ve done two loads and I think I have two more, the second just because I have no Internet set up there yet so I’m going to leave this humming strumming machine on this desk until the last possible moment, otherwise I lose all of you wonderful people. Yeah fuck whatever.

Its big, its empty, it echoes like a motherfucker. I need furniture and appliances like nobody’s business. But I’m a cheapskate so aside from a bed I intend to pay little to nothing for all my new stuff. That’s what the curb is for. The dumpster diving ban is officially lifted and I can’t pretend I’m not thrilled. I already scored a corner planter thingy that sort of fits the steampunk aesthetic I think I’m going to go for. Next trip is to the wealthy Anglo neighbourhood of Westmount. Oh yeah…

Next off is last Thursday night at the Pound. Good times. Jan wasn’t there but the other German was with his Belgian friend in tow. I love how Montreal is kind of a default Europe where I get to meet all sorts of ex-pats and visiting Euros on their way through the crass joke that is America. Why travel when the people come to you? Of course Alex and Dave were there as well, along with Jacob and the usual Pound “staff.” Everyone got invites to my house warming, Maud got two because I was so baked by the end of the night I couldn’t really remember what was going on. We played soccer in the back during one of the sets. That’s what I love about the Pound, its just freewheeling. There was a dog too, no idea…

I ended up sleeping in a nest of coats at the new apartment since its a shorter walk there than it is to the place on Fullum. It may sound uncomfortable, but when you have a dozen coats for every possible ocassion from cyber-punk invasion to Siberian death marches you’re talking about a lot of padding.

So I worked though a hangover Friday afternoon dreading my later night obligations. See I’d agreed to help volunteer at an event Friday night for a woman off of Tribe, mostly out of curiosity as to what her events looked and felt like. What I really wanted though was a chance to sleep, not minding the door from 11pm until 2am. Well truth be told it was one of the best things I did because it was like wandering into a dome tent at Burning Man around Destiny and 8:30. The vibe was amazing. Definitely on the hippy end of the spectrum, but after the punk DIY sense of the Pound it was the perfect pendulum swing. I got a rhythmic massage (which finally seems to have solved that kink I’ve had ever since a wave in the Dominican took me and thrust me headfirst into the beach like a reluctantly terrified ostrich), then had some wonderfully open and honest dialogue with some truly beautiful people, danced a bit and… oh hell. Got to oogle four of the sexiest young women I’ve seen in a long, long time.

Unfortunately I got stuck there until almost three thirty, my damn volunteer gene kicking in and making me stay to help clean up even though I had to be up to work today. But it was all for the best, with no kink in my back and still wafting throught he scent of that wonderful vibe I had a great day at work, at once focussed and calm, fully able to express myself and have fun.

So now I’m packing the last of my things to load into the car tomorrow morning and bring to the loft on my way to work. Everything is proceeding beautifully. Life is good. Montreal is good. Things will only get better. Wheeeee!