The Canadian parliament (for the more liberal part) was appalled at the idea of selling corporations permits to produce more greenhouse gases and using the money to plant trees.  Now, while perusing the Internet, I found a site that’s selling them to individual consumers, making everyone feel good inside for driving their old crappy cars and heating their houses to a balmy 22 degrees.

“The Carbon Shop”

While I think that a company lining their pockets with money may seem a noble cause when a banner of environmentalism is flown, it strikes familiar with Europeans protesting the seal hunt and greenpeace protesting pollution with aging diesel ships that leak petrol into the oceans they’re fighting to protect.

WE fight television with commercials, obesity with food (dietary supplements) and pollution with gasoline.  If that’s not enough, I was in Shipshewana, the largest Amish settlement in North America and their flea market included a Mary Kay booth.  So, even the Amish are not immune to hypocrisy and the wide swath cut by the scythe of American capitalism.

We’re all doomed for failure because there is no way to rebel against the society we’ve built for ourselves without sacrificing personal comfort, which is always the thing we fight to hang on to the most and what got us here in the first place.  “Fight fire with fire” is an old expression, but a stupid one, because everyone knows you fight fire with water and that frogs butts are water-tight.

I would not buy this product.  vTech is not supporting it with windows Vista and even if they decide to in the future, it’s not worth the risk.  Listed on Skype’s website are several alternatives.

The telephone is a USB/Standard Cordless phone that works with Skype.  In windows XP it’s fine but under windows Vista it is recognized as a sound device rather than a telephone, rendering it useless.

I’m beginning to lose faith in western Canada, as Trudeau did before me.  For the 4th month now this company has billed my credit card after confirming three times that my account was canceled.  Now I’m finding it humorous, but still frustrating. 

At least this time they contacted me within 24 hours and ensured me everything would be remedied. It would seem that things have changed somewhat. So all of this may not have been in vain.

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

For what’s it’s worth.  I’m posting this here because the DMCA suppresses everything the 80s tought us about making mixed tapes for the girls we love.  Well, bite me.

Dear Kris,

VTech Communications
Consumer Sales and Service Center

*Notice how vtech didn’t blow me off for writing the wrong department?  Well I hope something good comes of this, like a 60% off coupon for Big and Tall.

#  Gary Jones :: BlueFur.com Says:
April 30th, 2007 at 1:42 pm e

Two things in regards to this post

1. You are using our logo which is copyright infringement. Remove the logo or legal action will be taken.
Poor nomenclature: It is not copyright infringement, it’s intellectual property theft.  I have since replaced the anti monsterhosting logo with a superior one.

2. You have doctored these responses and edited them from the originals.
Redundant: It is assumed that doctoring something refers to editing it from the original.  Nothing was doctored, I will voluntarily forward the emails to anyone who asks.  Besides, they’re JPGs you can verify their integrity yourself.

You are obviousy a very shallow person who is willing to do anything to be right.
Projection: The point I am making is that you do not respect your customers.  This has been proven true by you:

a)calling me a liar
b)threatening to sue me
c)calling me shallow

I don’t need to prove myself right Gary, your doing a fine job of that for me.

Down with Bluefur!
Down with Monsterhosting!

I bought a Skype phone from vtech some time ago and absolutely love it.  Now, it doesn’t work with Vista.  This wouldn’t be so bad, since a lot of companies are having a difficult time keeping up to microsoft and thier new OS.

The problem arose when I logged into their support site to look for new drivers.  vtech has officially taken the position that they are abandoning any attempts to make their USB phones Vista compatible.  Since this is my primary phone, it’s actually holding me back from upgrading my machine to Vista.

SO I sent them a letter too.  We’ll see what happens.

Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone who just won’t quit?  (besides me…I’m never wrong)  Specifically, I find it incredible that people can defend their points with the same paper thin justification and still feel like they’re coming out ahead.  A perfect example of this is when children simply say, “No it isn’t!” to end an argument, feeling as though this blanket statements covers all logical opposition to their claim.

Gary threatened to sue me, so I put up a new anti monsterhosting logo.  I like this one better.

I don’t want to insult people, but since I usually end up doing that in some way shape or form, I’m posting this anyway.  My last post, about bluefur has been met with criticism and illogical banter from an employee there.

I’ve been really entertained by this entire thing.  Almost as much as Logitech, who actually turned out to be good chaps.  Mainly because they, unlike bluefur, abandoned all hope of defending their pride and sought to placate their customers rather than implicate them.  Logitech took me 8 months of bantering but at least I got a 300 dollar remote out of the deal.  All I seem to be getting from bluefur is upset, illogical and repetitive arguments which leave me wishing I had my moderation queue activated.

I haven’t even begun.  Give me a moment and I will post my interaction with bluefur here so you can all decide for yourselves.

Bluefur’s customer service is awful.  I’m not certain how many of you actually rent webspace for internet sites, but do yourself a favour and avoid these people like the plague.

The finer details are that I cancelled my account there and they kept charging me money…for three months.  After I contacted them and told them they were stealing from me they accused me of being “threatning” and “unprofessional,”  which was probably true…but who cares!  I had to contact my bank and the Better Business Bureau to force them to reverse the charges and they did…three months later.

The conclusion:  Bluefur Canada also known as monster hosting is garbage and I would never deal with them.  Right now I’m with 1and1 and they seem to be fine.

***Rant complete

Some of you may remember the heartless letter to Logitech I posted about sometime ago.

Some time ago, Logitech reduced the functionality of my remote by removing its ability to have channels listed on it.  Since there are no numbers on the remote, only a scroll wheel I got really pissed and sent them 3 letters.  The first was nice, the second was terse and the third…well it was like Papa Bear.  Now today I sent them a final letter asking them what I was supposed to do with my worthless remote.  Then, I decided to phone them and talked to a nice lady in Tennessee. 

After about 5 minutes of verbal regurgitation about the power of one and fairness and justice in a corporate world she agreed to mail me a brand new 250 Us Dollar remote control.

Remember that story about the starfish?  Well this is one starfish who threw that stupid guy on the beach in the ocean and exclaimed: “Hey!  I’m suntanning here!!!”

You can read my original post here, and take note that this has been something I’ve been chipping away at for 10 months.