It takes a redheaded woman/to get a dirty job done

[rolanni]

Note to TracFone. I have been a customer for years. Your service is exactly what I need in what I consider to be an Emergency Device at best and a damned nuisance at worst. But. It was your idea that I switch out the cell phone I've been lugging around for three years for a phone half its size (and weight, too, probably) with a pretty light-up dial. Having to stay on hold for thirty minutes in order to talk to a young lady in India who had to put me on hold again numerous times during our transaction, only to find that (1)I cannot transfer my old phone number and (2) I don't presently have a cell phone number at all (or, as far as I can tell, service) on the new phone is ...annoying. I hope that when I wake up tomorrow, I will have service and a cell phone number.

That is an order.

And thank ghod I'm not one of those folks who can't go anywhere without a cell phone glued to one ear...

Public Service Announcement: Sunday is September 30. Do you know where your copy of A Night in the Lonesome October is?

I am as I type burning a CD of the playlist I've been listening to for the last week. Offered here, in case anyone's interested:

Cafe Europa, Deep Forest
Don't Pay the Ferryman, Chris DeBurgh
Rain King, Counting Crows
Dancin' in the Light (Tarbosh), Entrain
Code Monkey, Jonathon Coulton
In These Shoes, Kirsty MacColl
Camel Walk, Southern Culture on the Skids
Red Headed Woman, Bruce Springsteen
'Cause I'm a Blonde, Julie Brown
Walk the Walk, Poe
Life During Wartime, Talking Heads
Atlantic City, The Band
Copperhead Road, Steve Earle
We Can't Make it Here, James McMurtry
Don't Let Us Get Sick, Warren Zevon

It is finally! cool here in the beautiful downtown central Maine. I hope that the weather has finished its little temper tantrum and will now settle back into Proper Autumnal Behavior.

Comments

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

Of course I know where my copy of A Night in the Lonesome October is -- in the bookcase under Z.

There are also almost enough chapters of Fledgling to read one of those a day, too.

:)

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

Ah. Twin A just caught with an unexpectedly obsolescent TracFone herself, when she tried to re-activate it after a lapse and got the "the cellphone model with this serial number doesn't operate in your ZIP Code" message.

Apparently Verizon has gone all-digital with its cellphone networks, and Tracfone piggybacks on Verizon in this region. Or something like that.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

According to the URSUS Catalog, my copy of A Night in the Lonesome October is right where I left it, in the BPL stacks.

Speaking of the BPL, I thought you guys were going to take part in the Bangor Book Festival, but I don't see you anywhere on programming...

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Speaking of the BPL, I thought you guys were going to take part in the Bangor Book Festival, but I don't see you anywhere on programming...

Did I know there was a Bangor Book Festival? Hmm. Maybe Steve talked to them, but in any case -- no. We're not on programming. I think we've somehow offended all the book/writer event organizers in the state.

Have a good time -- say hi! to Kristen for me.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Pretty sure I mentioned it to Steve, back when the Portland snafu rumbled by.

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

Can you reactivate your old phone, or did they wreck that possibility?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

The old phone was going to die on Sunday, regardless. As malkingrey says above, TracFone's carrier has gone all-digital and the phone I had was -- ahem -- "too old" and didn't have the Right Stuff to function on the new! improved! network. The new phone still has no phone number and no service. Sigh. I see another long, annoying phone call to India in my future.

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

I use TracFone, too. Once you get the super-spiffy new phones, all you have to do is turn them on, and they receive the digital signal to update their information. Is way cool. Of course, the person in India still has to code the information for the transfer.

We had an absolute NIGHTMARE, though, because I wanted to move my minutes to the spiffy new flip-phone I'd just bought at Target, and give my dad my old phone to replace the one that had been stolen out of his car. Except, he couldn't move his minutes to the new/old phone, because there was a lock on his account saying it had been stolen, and was not authorized for use. We ended up having to have a new chip sent through the mail, coded to match the old/stolen phone in some obscure way they couldn't explain, then install that chip in the new/old phone, and go through the whole call-India-to-get-the-magic-codes routine again.

On the other hand, I found the people easier to understand than when their helpdesk was in Atlanta. :-) I just wish they were staffed enough that it wasn't such a horrificly long wait time.

[kaellem.livejournal.com]

Um. Is this something that has to be done by calling? I simply use tracfone.com to update mine. But then, I haven't tried to switch phones, yet, so who knows.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

For the switching phones, you've gotta have a human being on the line. When it comes to you, budget at least an hour and a half to do the switch.

[patknuth.livejournal.com]

My copy of A Night in the Lonesome October is packed in a crate with about half of my worldly possessions (the other have sitting in storage in Lenexa, KS) and is most likely on a ship between Germany and the US. I should probably be paying more attention to hurricanes in the Atlantic, but since I can't do anything about it... maybe I'm better off just ignoring the weather reports

I didn't even try to activate my old Tracfone when I got back to the States. The number and minutes that I had on it when I was here last year were long expired and I didn't figure it was worth it. I've got a newer Tracfone to use until I get moved back into the house and decide what I'm going to do about a cellphone.