Les Bonnes Choses

I checked the mail on the way home today. I believe it was pretty much all crapface^a, so the effort would have been a total waste of time, were it not for the fact that it provides fodder for my blog. So in no particular order, here's what was noteworthy in my mailbox today:

An opportunity to join The Allied Network, which appears to be a matchmaking company. They provided a business reply envelope and a questionnaire to describe yourself and the sort of person you'd like to meet. There's also a chance to win a dodgy cruise to the Bahamas - I can't imagine that the prize for a contest that requires no outlay of money could possibly be anything but the shabbiest, most disappointing and peril-ridden experience one could ever have. However, part of me wants to screw with them by submitting bogus information about myself looking for the most unlikely combination of characteristics in a single person. Perhaps a wealthy Scientologist with an advanced university degree who enjoys opera, fishing and MMORPGs.

The other thing in my mailbox that raised my ire was a notification from Rogers that, if I want to continue enjoying my "good deals"^b, then I need to contact them as soon as possible and commit to a 2-year contract for all my services. I will certainly be contacting them, however it will be to tell them that they can thank the jackass who dreamed up this obvious ploy to guarantee future income on their accounts for losing a customer. I was just checking out Primus to see what their home phone rates are like. I will then make good on my promise to cancel my cable, because we watch approximately 4 hours of television per month, at a whopping rate of $19.50 per hour of television watched. I'd wager that the naughty channels at the hotel are less expensive than that^c.

^a Crapface is the name we give to telephone solicitors. As in, "the phone is ringing - oh, nevermind, it's Crapface.
^b The use of the term "good deals" is intended to be ironic here, as we are paying Rogers about $200 per month.
^c The actual dollar-per-minute for the naughty channels may in fact be higher because I recall that John once read that hotel PPV programs are watched for an average of about 5 minutes, presumably because the plots are unengaging.