Friday, August 31, 2007

not understanding the words coming out of my mouf

I suppose a basic lesson of economics is the demonstration of supply and demand and the proportional relationship between the two. this is not going to turn into a lesson in economics. but what this will hopefully turn into is a lesson on how we the people can fight for the right. for what? for everything.

you may have seen a viral video on yahoonews of a woman paging through (and through and through) 300 pages of her first iPhone bill (see video below) from Asinine Tales and Tribulations (AT&T). pretty crazy. though my bill wasn't quite as long as Yoshimi's (perhaps the name of the blond-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian American featured in the video since that's the name I will use for anyone who battles evil machines, courtesy of The Flaming Lips), it probably was just as expensive. why? I'm not sure...but the programmed auto-matrons who conspire with the Lex Luther types at AT&T would probably point to Section B (for Bullshit, I think that might be my translation though) for the number of daytime minutes.

here's where the fun begins. though I am certainly an exception, at what time does one normally have dinner? ding! ding! ding! If you answered between 5pm and 7pm, you are a winner! and for 100 more points, dinner is considered what part of the day? wow, for all you who thought 'evening,' you thought right. however, since the prizes for answering correctly are no longer available, we will need to take more money from you in order to sustain the health of our lucrative corporation and personal summer homes and weekend getaways from those summer homes. if you were smart enough to answer that you eat dinner with your family from the end of your school/work day through 9pm you will be luck enough to go home with a lower cell phone bill today! congratulations!

so basically customers are charged premium rates for talking between the hours of 7 and 9pm - hours that are generally considered the evening part of the day. on the contrary, if you were to try to visit an AT&T location just before 9pm I would think that they would be long gone. why? well...it's after business hours of course and they don't work then. but not quite evening hours. maybe twilight, shall we call it? is that what the Twilight Zone is based on? the hours between 7-9pm because there isn't a concrete definition of what period of the day that is?

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