What are these F*cking Charges?

Like a lot of people, I have an iPhone 3G. Sadly, I stayed with the AT&T network. AT&T is not the worst network in the world, they’re the second worst. So I was looking over my bill and decided I wanted to break down all these nonsense fees I seem to have and make sense of them all, because they add up. On any given month, I seem to have between 10 and 15 dollars worth of fees, which is in the neighborhood of 150 dollars a year! That’s nothing to sneeze at, let me tell you, especially in this economy. So let’s see what I’m getting for my money. (I searched various links via search engine and since I’m not a journalist, I’m not citing sources, take my word for it or look it up yourself.)

Regulatory Cost Recovery Charge
“The purpose of this charge is to recover our costs. The fee will help AT&T recover those costs associated with providing state-to-state and international long distance service, including expenses for national regulatory fees and programs, as well as connection and account servicing charges.”
In other words: AT&T is passing the buck on this one. Although an occupational hazard of owning a telco, they are making the customers pay. Although I said I wouldn’t cite sources, this comes from AT&T themselves. http://www.consumer.att.com/ccrf/faqs.html

County Gross Receipts Surcharge
“Also known as state/local surcharge, or state tax surcharge, applies to calls between states and some long distance calls within the state. The interstate surcharge is approved by the FCC. This is not a tax imposed on the customer, but a surcharge to recover the higher taxes…”
Ok, so telcos have to pay a tax and somehow that translates to us receiving not the tax, but a surcharge. Got it.

Federal Universal Service Charge
A.K.A. Carrier Universal Service Charge: “Because telephones provide a vital link to emergency services, to government services and to surrounding communities, it has been our nation’s policy to promote telephone service to all households since this service began in the 1930s. The USF helps to make phone service affordable and available to all Americans, including consumers with low incomes, those living in areas where the costs of providing telephone service is high, schools and libraries and rural health care providers. Congress has mandated that all telephone companies providing interstate service must contribute to the USF. Although not required to do so by the government, many carriers choose to pass their contribution costs on to their customers in the form of a line item, often called the “Federal Universal Service Fee” or “Universal Connectivity Fee”.”
Again, passing the buck to customers.

MTA Telecom Surcharge
“This surcharge recovers telephone company expenses associated with mandated New York State temporary metropolitan transportation business tax surcharge (Section 184-A Tax), and applies to customers located in the New York metro area only.”
Oh, the joys of city living, although the stretch of the “metro area” is also a good portion of surrounding area to the 5 boroughs. Apparently this tax has also been temporary for a long time.

State Telecommunications Excise Surcharge
“The Federal Excise Tax was introduced in 1898 by the federal government as a temporary tax to support the nation’s efforts in the Spanish-American War. The tax revenue from the Federal Excise Tax goes directly into the Federal General Fund.”
Yes, when I did research on this tax, this was the CLOSEST thing I could find that seemed to fit what this tax was. It may not be, but the lower on the bill we get, the more shady these “taxes” become.

9-1-1 Service Fee
“Most states require all telephone subscribers to pay a monthly fee that is used to expand and maintain emergency service. The fee is either an amount per line or a percentage of revenue. State law mandates the fee. ”
Ok, fine, it’s 911.

Local Wireless 911 Surcharge
…this one has me stumped.

NY State Sales Tax
Ok, fine, it’s sales tax.

NY State Telecom Tax
This one, I could find nothing on, it almost appears to be named this way on purpose as all of these taxes are “telecom tax.” I do need to note that this is one of the most expensive on the list.

City Sales Tax
Ok, fine, it’s sales tax. …even if redundant.

City Telecom Tax
Again, like its state counterpart, this one is shady. It’s actually more expensive than the state telecom tax. I wonder if these telecom taxes are just being pocketed.

City District Telecom Tax
This one completely has me stumped. Seriously, what is the difference between this and the above?

If anyone has ANY insight to what some of these are, please email me, leave a comment, something! I really don’t understand why it’s okay to increase bills between 15-20% on people with charges that seem completely made up. There seems to be no explanation. I “thumbed: through this out-dated piece of crap: http://www.tax.state.ny.us/pdf/stats/policy_special/telecommunications/2000/local_telecommunications_taxes_and_fees.pdf Good luck finding more recent accounts of what these charges are if you can: http://www.tax.state.ny.us If I turn up anything, you’ll be the first to know. Here’s another list of some explanation I turned up: http://www.dps.state.ny.us/TelecomTaxesSurcharges.html, but plenty of the charges appearing on the bill are not present here. (Wow, I ended up citing some sources after all.)

I guess the lesson here is simple folks, if you run your own business, add a surcharge of some sort. Make it $5. If you can get 5 dollars from every customer just because they’re your customer, think of the extra money you’ll make over the years.

Venting about Extra Credit

Extra Credit Question

Resolution 1280 x 720 pixels, File size 800K

Resolution 1280 x 720 pixels, File size 83.6K

…just sayin’. I still love my professor in a non-homo way.

*Images provided by http://twitter.com/JasonInNJ

I Prove Jeff Jarrett Sucks

I’ve been watching wrestling for almost 19 years. I have seen a lot of faces come and go. One face, however, that should have gone a long time ago, but managed to stick around, is that of Jeff Jarrett. Jeff Jarrett is not enjoyable to watch at all. I never was excited about him, either for or against him. I just didn’t like the guy, not in the “I boo the bad guy” way either. Disliking a bad guy in wrestling (for you non-wrestling fans) is known in the business as “heat.” A wrestler gains “heat” by appealing negatively to the fans. Jeff Jarrett has simply bored the life out of me whenever he is taking up precious TV time. As a heel (wresting jargon for “bad guy”) he generates no heat, the fans just want him to go away. As a good guy, he’s just boring. Both sides of that coin see him doing the same thing, breaking a guitar over someone’s head. Unlike the Honky Tonk Man who predates him, nobody cares when he does it, partially because he did it way too much.

So after being a unentertaining wrestler for a long time, he founded his own company and has been there ever since. He made himself champion, of course, for a while. It took several years before I think he may have finally realized just how lousy he was to watch. But onto my main point, how do I actually prove that Jarrett sucks?

This is Barry Horowitz

Barry Horowitz was what is known as a “jobber.” This means that he basically lost every match to major superstars who were being made to look good. He collected a paycheck and move on with his life. Horowitz, however, shocked the world once, by winning a match against a then-superstar known as “Skip.” Skip claimed this was a fluke and the two tangled again, only to see another victory for Horowitz. The feud came to a head at Summer Slam 1995, so you have this jobber appearing on a major pay per view event. For only a minute, the entire world rallied behind Barry Horowitz hoping he would overcome the evil Skip. To those of us who remember this, I ask you, have you ever cared about any Jeff Jarrett match nearly as much as this one Barry Horowitz match? To those who only are finding out about this now, I’ll answer for you, “no.” Jeff Jarrett has never garnered as much interest as this one match with Barry Horowitz. I cannot think of any further evidence I need to present to relay this message any clearly. Barry Horowitz, who was not particularly interesting as a performer still managed to perform on a level higher than Jeff Jarrett has been able to attain.

M2J Wants You to Vote!

AirTran Sucks

I sit here in the Atlanta Airport at 4 AM telling this story.

Upon arriving for our 5:35 departure from LGA (flight 288) we were told that there were delays going to Atlanta (which was the original plan) and that there would be a 12 hour layover and our flight to Houston would depart at 8:30 AM. Shaniqua was very unsympathetic and didn’t seem to care what we were told previously by other employees, or what our boarding passes (which had been printed moments before) said. The plane continued to be delayed. Several members of our party checked online, called airtran customer service and one person (Jade) spoke to Chantell, who said everything was fine, despite the delay, we would be heading to Atlanta and then Houston on the same flight (as planned). Another employee (a gate agent) relayed the same info.

We waited on the runway for a very long time, in addition to the delay. We finally took off around 10, for a flight that was scheduled to leave at 5:35. We arrived in Atlanta at about 12:20. We were then informed that the flight to Houston, Texas was indeed in the morning. We were again greeted by a bitchy woman who cleverly hid her nametag with a scarf. We snapped a picture, however.

She was very controlling and impatient with us, as if we were doing something wrong. She wasn’t able to help us very much and sent us to customer service. We then spoke to Keith and Barbara, both who also didn’t offer us any help. They gave us a telephone number for customer care and told us to try them in the morning. We were offered a voucher for a DISCOUNT at a hotel. In other words, we’re sorry we stranded you in a city you didn’t intend on staying in, spend more money. By the time we got to the hotel, we would have about 4 hours before we would simply have to leave, it was a slap in the face.

Having plenty of time to kill, we chilled out for a while (Sean, Jade, and myself) and ate, chatted, and then they slept. I reformatted my Mac for some reason, and then tethered my iPhone again to us as a modem instead of paying their nonsense Wifi fee. I googled “Airtran sucks” and surprise surprise, quite a lot of stories that matched my own. This is the most unprofessional airline ever. If you have ever been fired from a job, fly airtran and you’ll feel like a Fortune 500 CEO.
I’m done for now, hopefully the next post I have is more happy news.

Michael Phelps – Proof at Last!

Michael Phelps (as most of you know) was recently exposed as a pot smoker. Maybe this was an isolated incident, maybe not, but instead of focusing on stuff like his sponsorship losses, suspension, etc., how about this one: marijuana is okay!

For years, I’ve had to endure this smear campaign against marijuana. It was beaten into me begining when I was a wee tot. I had to watch after school specials (ok, I guess I didn’t have to), dumb movies about how marijuana ruins your life in school (those I had to watch), and dumb commercials about how horrible pot was. At first pot made you bad, changed you into a monster and would bring you down and everyone around you. The bad kids smoked weed. When that campaign failed, it was changed to a “Weed makes you lazy and do nothing”  type of message. Now you could be nicest guy in the world, but weed would take away your life by making you lethargic and boring. This didn’t work either. Then, they tried to play up the simple fact that it was illegal. Of course, this message held some truth, however, any person with a 10 cent brain would then question, “why is it illegal?” I won’t go into the particulars, but this history of marijuana and the events leading up to its illegality is a heaping pile of malarkey. Now they try to market that weed somehow compromises your goals and makes you not cool. You will wear a lot of shirts with dumb crap on them, or stand in the middle of a room while people pose you like doll if you smoke weed (you know damn well what I’m talking about).

Enter Michael Phelps. Phelps can probably pat himself on the back for a job well done in anyone’s book. He’s won more gold medals than anyone in history. He inhales…

So now, you people who preach nonsense about marijuana can take all your babbling and shove it! Phelps is proof that weed poses no real threat. What are you going to say, “Maybe he would have won more medals if he didn’t smoke weed?” Well that’s speculation. “Maybe he stopped smoking for the Olympics.” Then marijuana is not addictive and is even less dangerous than cigarettes and alcohol, both of which are legal.

It’s time to face the fact everyone, marijuana is only a problem for one reason: it’s illegal. Why is it illegal? As far as I can tell, there’s a vast majority of people in this country who are active users. Majority should rule in this situation. If alcohol and tobacco are ok, then so must be marijuana. Marijuana is ok! I can’t say it any more simply.

WWE = FAIL

I usually don’t like to get too much into wrestling stuff here, but this time I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. There’s been a developing story that is brewing lately. I’ll give you some back story to make this all make sense. This is Randy Orton:

Randy Orton is in his late 20s, he’s a former WWE Champion and has been competing athletically for most of his life. Basically, he’s nearing (if not already in) his prime. Recently, he attacked the owner of the WWE (Vince McMahon). He brutalized the old man and we were all anxiously waiting for the rest of the family (also with powerful executive roles) to respond. This past Monday, they did just that. It made for horrible story-telling.

Basically, Orton found a loop hole to prevent himself from being fired for his actions. Firing him would cause a bad chain reaction – a lot of legal mumbo jumbo. He begged to be fired to the boss’s daughter, to which she responded, “…too easy…” So what happened next?

This is Shane McMahon:

Shane is Vince’s son. Shane McMahon is not an athlete. He has never been WWE Champion, nor a serious competitor either. He’s about 11 years Randy Orton’s senior. On Monday night, he walked into the ring and began throwing horrible punches at Randy Orton. A great deal of them did not land. Randy Orton has a group he formed with two other wrestlers who tried to aid him against Shane. After Shane fought them all off, being the lone warrior he is (not), Randy Orton was knocked unconscious. Repeating this makes me sick.

This is one of the worst examples of story-telling I can think of. Shane McMahon is not an active member of the roster. He’s a business man, actually, he’s daddy’s little boy. He should not be able to walk out to the ring and beat up on a main eventer. Even you non-wrestling fans should be able to see this. Imagine if Noah Bennet just walked up the Sylar on Heroes and punched his lights out. Imagine if Perry White kicked Superman’s ass because he was the boss! This is horrible! This story had so much momentum and this latest episode just took the wind out of the sails. I just had to complain, sorry.

Sirius: The Worst Radio On Radio

I try to usually try to avoid airing personal grievances here, however, this is one I just feel the need to vent.

My troubles started one morning while on a drive. I was listening to the 80s station on my Sirius radio. Suddenly, I realized there was no longer any music. I now had “Call to Activate” on my display instead of the song and artist names. This would mark the second Sirius radio I had that apparently stopped working for no reason.

I called Sirius up to see what I could do, failing any decent solution, to order a new radio. Of course Sirius could not do anything right by me. My radio was out of warranty, so the basically told me I could buy a new radio. The most they could offer me was a new radio at a new subscriber discount. Big whoop. Of course, I would need to pay a new activation fee, because they were technically canceling my subscription and I’d be a new customer. That was a little frustrating. So I see they have an “Al La Carte” service now, for about half the monthly fee as before ($6.95/month). I was down for this. Only one radio supported “Al La Carte.” It was $130, but they gave it for me for $100. Of course “activation” was $15. So there goes that. The Al La Carte stations charged an additional 25 cents for “premium” stations. I asked the representative for the Howard Stern stations (100 & 101) for the extra 50 cents a month. They said that was no problem. I ordered the radio.

Upon receiving the radio, I called to activate. They told me my radio didn’t support Al La Carte. …I double checked the box.

Anyone see that there? Well after an hour and a half of being on the phone with Sirius, they finally gave up and had me send the radio back. They told me that they would send me the new radio as soon as I called them back with the tracking number of the old radio coming back to them. I shipped it, called up, the representative told me that she was aware I was told they’d ship out the new radio as soon as they had the tracking number, but that was wrong and wasn’t gonna happen. I had to wait for them to receive the radio. Once they received it, I called back to find out if the new radio had been shipped, the next representative informed me that the replacement radio should have been shipped out as soon as I gave them the tracking number after all.

Finally, I got my radio. Would this be the end of my misery with Sirius?

The cost of the Al La Carte package was not $6.95 + 50 cents, but $12.95! $12.95 was the same price as the all inclusive package I was paying for all these years. Well, now I could just pay that again, but I purchased this particular radio under the pretense that I didn’t need to be paying the same amount anymore, especially since, I don’t listen to bluegrass or Korean talk radio and didn’t need them. I don’t know how Sirius justifies this monthly fee for Al La Carte plus Howard, it costs the same as the full Sirius package, except includes about 80 less stations. So after arguing with the representative for a while, he granted me the $7.49 price for what I wanted…for a month. I feel completely snubbed by Sirius and think that within a month, I will no longer be a subscriber and will send this radio back for a refund. Thank you Sirius, you have done wrong by this customer. It’s no wonder your stock is in the toilet.

Behold the BS that is “Green”

So this week, USA and NBC (same company) have changed their watermarks at the bottom of the screen from the normal to green. They do this to promote “green week.” What does this mean? Nothing!

<– they changed to something like this –>

I’m using NBC as an example, but plenty of companies have been pushing this green nonsense. To show just how dumb and full of crap this is, I have decided to make the top of my website green for “green week.” For me, what does this mean? The same thing: nothing. All I have is the top of my website now green. I don’t plan on conserving energy by turning things off that I’m not using. I don’t plan on making any more effort to recycle. I’m not going to reuse any paper towels. Who cares what I do though? I have green on my website somewhere! Green marketing is a sham. Telling people to use paper bags for a week and those weird looking bulbs that last longer isn’t going to save the world, sorry.

Role Models Predictions

I’m going to predict what is going to happen in the movie Role Models. The children will be a pain in the ass. The role models won’t get along with them, for a while. As they grow slightly closer, some serious issue will rear its ugly head and they will all come together in perfect harmony. After they have overcome this issue, there community service time will be up, but they will remain role models to the young boys even though they are no long required to by law, because this will touch everyone’s heart. Go see it and tell me if I’m right.