Plaidophile

• Verizon, for
  • not putting my apartment number on the shipping label for my DSL modem (and misspelling my last name, badly, even though they have it right on my bills!)
  • taking forever to send the DSL modem out to begin with
  • Not actually clarifying which "recent order" was "successfully completed" on their horrible, speech-navigated phone menu crap
  • using UPS to ship the DSL modem
  • Providing new phonebooks to everyone in my apartment EXCEPT ME because I only got my service a week ago
• UPS, for
  • Not being able to figure out that they could have just buzzed my superintendent to get the package to me since they were going to have to do that anyway
  • Waiting THREE DAYS to leave me a notice that they didn't know my apartment number and that's why I don't have my DSL modem yet
  • Being generally retarded (I can't help but grin at all of the fun anti-UPS ads DHL has plastered all over the subway now... "Yellow is the new brown" and "Competition: bad for them, good for you" and so on.)
• T-Mobile, for
  • Charging 75 cents for a 411 call
  • Rattling off the number really quickly and immediatley forwarding you to the number (after advertising for more T-Mobile services), not giving you a chance to repeat it in case you didn't have a pen ready
  • Getting all flaky when it rains, and suddenly dropping my call just as I'm getting to where I get the information that I need to hear
  • Still not being able to figure out what's wrong with my GPRS service (which I actually pay for as of two weeks ago, but can't get anything but their stupid "sign up for T-Zones" auto-redirect page whenever I try to access anything)
  • Insisting that it's "not possible" to connect to the Internet using the GPRS connection via my computer because they're "different technology" (never mind that I was using the free T-Zones for exactly that for like four months, and that my friend Geof uses their $20 GPRS service as his sole Internet access at home, and that T-Mobile at least claims to provide an unlimited-bandwidth GPRS dialup-replacement service though the T-Zones CSR was all like "No you can't do that" and then I was all like "then what about the T-Mobile GPRS Internet connection?" and he was all like "that is for the WiFi hot-spots" and I was like "No, I think you're mistaken" and he was all like "trust me")
  • Saying that I should power off my phone at least once a day because it's "just like my computer" (which I don't ever have to power off either; funny about that) and also insisting that the phone only reregisters when it powers back on (strange, I could have sworn that when I go under 20 feet of solid concrete every day and then come back up on a different tower five miles away 40 minutes later, the phone would have to totally reregister from scratch!)
• Ikea, for
  • Not putting their phone number on the receipt, necessitating a call to 411 (because I don't have a phonebook)
  • Having items which are missing major parts of their hardware (my new MALUNG red leather recliner was missing its bolts, clips, and mounting post, not making it terribly useful)
  • Playing "musical hardware" with the stuff in their chairs (when I did finally get through and got an answer about what to do, they just said to come in and they'd open up another new one and give me the hardware from that — which made me realize why the box I had was already opened and re-taped! I'd have gotten another one but it was the last red one in stock...)

On the other hand, m4d pr0pz to Corato Pizza for being the best Italian restaurant I've ever eaten at, and for being only two blocks from my apartment. And being extremely cheap. ♥