Hi. My name is Gonzo & I'm addicted to...

[Gonzo]

ELECTRICITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so incredibly pissed I could, did & will scream again(isn't that a movie?). 71.5 hours without electricity!!!!!! It wasn't the ice storm, that was over. There is no excuse for the monopolistic power companies to make people wait like that. I live less than 2 miles from downtown fort (it's 1902) wayne-ON PURPOSE. I like living in the city, always have. Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas, Chicago. Never has it gone to 48 hours without power--NEVER!!! Durin gthe Northridge quake in '94, we in Hollywood had power in about :20 minutes. The entire city, except the areas of mass destruction, had it in under 40. My nephew and I called them at least 30 times, to hear; "we hoping by tomorrow evening"(day one), "tonight or tomorrow afternoon"(day 1.5), "it should be on in the morning"(night 2), "we are figuring by this evening"(day 2.5)---FINALLY, at 4:18am, this moring, the truck pulls up out front. The guys get out and tromp through my back yard with flashlights(pissing off my dog ("ruff-someones out there, let me eat them PLEASE-ruff"). They "study" the transformer behind my house for about 5 minutes, then tromp through my yard again & CLIMB IN THEIR TRUCK & LEAVE. I'm starting to fume now. So, I head upstairs top see where they are going & they're gone. 5 minutes later the power is on-WOOHOO, civilization has returned.

The most maddening part is, they were called at 4:35am one day one & told of this problem. As of 10:30PM of day one, my neighborhood had it's power back, except the last five house on this side of the cul-de-sac & the first six on the nest block over. They replaced one fuse & NEVER FUCKING CHECKED THE REST!!!!!!!!!!GODDAMNIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER, you SUCK. You owe me for about $70. dollars in food that spoiled in my fridge/freezer, 3 days of satelite & cable & for RUINING MY BIRTHDAY you shits. Make that check out for $10,000. and maybe I won't hold your next 50 bills until I "get around to it because I'm BUSY"!!


We need choices in utilities & that needs to include the "new" utilities being able to provide service too. Our gas company has "competition"-NIPSCO provides the service entrance, the hardware & the service, while the "competition" provides a choice of suppliers-usually at a higher rate. In LA, there was Pacific Bell & GTE for local phone providers. If you wanted to change companies you had to move to one of the areas served by the other company. Our idiot politicians don't know what competition means.......



sorry, I didn't mean to carry on so long-well yea, I did I AM PISSED

 

[fury]

Nice vent! Sorry to hear about the power company keeping you in the cold for your birthday. That would piss me off to no end too!

Here, have my sledgehammer

 

[Q]

UTILITY COMPANIES SUCK! no two ways about it....they are money grubbing monopolies (which I was under the impression since about 7th grade were illegal)

I've been known to chase down a Florida Power & Light truck, but the bonehead told me to buy a generator.

 

[s4]

Sorry to hear that buddy, but look at this way. At least you didn't get struck by lightning or something.

Happy B-Day Gonz. Celebrate now and forget the last couple of days!

 

[fury]

Yup. Be glad you still have to have a birthday next year

Q: Monopolies themselves aren't illegal... when companies abuse their monopolies, e.g. Microsoft, is illegal.

 

[Gonzo]

I pay my bills on time & expect service for that money. I was abused

 

[fury]

The DOJ probably won't think so.

 

[Q]

The DOJ probably won't think so.

Yeah, well they suck too.

 

[Professur]

I live in Montreal. Do I need to say any more?


One way to get services to move fast is to tell the operator that they've got 1 hour, and then you're going up the pole yourself. they know that they're liable if you get hurt up there (it's their property), so they move.

Living up here, I own a variety of 12 volt appliances, just in case.

 

[Q]

I once threatened to go to Kmart and buy a shotgun and blow the damn transformer off the pole. FP&L didn't give a shit.

 

[fury]

I'm lucky to have an OK power company... they usually fix outages within 20-30 minutes.

 

[Q]

Bite me

 

[fury]

RAAAAR! *pounces on Q and takes a nice chunk out of her with his teeth*

 

[PostCode]

They owned by Enron?

 

[Gonzo]

I'm lucky to have an OK power company... they usually fix outages within 20-30 minutes.

*Smacks Fury with a 270lb transformer*

The company bought by AEP was good, but this megacorporation is serving about 1/3 of the US now & is a bad monopoly

 

[Q]

RAAAAR! *pounces on Q and takes a nice chunk out of her with his teeth*

yike..........yike.........yike...... you didn't need to take a chunk outta me, I was just still mad about DMMD, that's all

 

[fury]

What company with that large of an area isn't a bad monopoly?

 

[Gonzo]

to follow through on the humourous thread title
*Not for the weak spirited nor children*

It started at birth, which of course I can't remember, but I KNOW there were electric lights. I was amazed, passing thru the birth canal at the amount of vibrance (after spending 9 months in a blackened cave) and luminosity. I was hooked. I can remember, as a small child, walking into a room & hitting the switch & [color=dark-blue]Blam!![/color], there was light. It was a stroke of power mad frenzy. I could go into any room in my house & there it was, just waiting, a switch, usually on the wall, occasionally actually part of a lamp or appliance. With the mildest of effort the device would, magically, begin it's ooperations. What a rush. What magnificance. My little hand, holding so much power. It grew worse as I got older.

I recall, barely, that we had a TV with a wired, get that you young'uns, a wired remote control. I didn't need to get up anymore to change any of the 13 channels(we didn't have UHF channels in Phoenix) Oh, the glory & simplicity of it all. Reaching over my left shoulder to power up a light & down to the coffee table to go from Tom & Jerry to the Wallace & Ladmo show & I NEVER HAD TO GET UP.

Then one day we had a thunderstorm. Oh the horror. It one brief flash we were (gasp) in the dark! The inhumanity of it. I recall walking into the bathroom & (sobbing) the switch didn't turn on the light.(sigh of sorrow). I just reached up (by ingrained addiction I now know) & it wasn't there.:sad: After a time, the epower just returned. Oh Joy, we are returned to a state of normalcy. Relief. Happiness.

Now, jumping ahead, this had happened, in eerily similar circumstances, from time to time over the years, with nearly exact reactions. Some of the major changes since my childhood are, we no longer haved wired remote controls. Our VHF/UHF televisions have become satelite powered entertainment centers, with 80, 100, sometimes even 150 channels of shit to bitch about. I, fessing up, am the no-longer-proud owner of a 150 channel receiver, with a hard drive, in which to pause live TV(unheard of even 5 years ago). I, ashamedly also have 3 more Tvs in my house, another 150 channel receiver, a 100 watt per channel, Dolby Digital enabled stereo receiver, a 2:frown: VHS players, a DVD player, a CD player, a three headed cassette player and a computer. There are too many attachments to list for the computer, but, imagine, it's not far from the "Home Entertainment Center". I am so ahamed.

Buttons, switches, tuners, CD-Burners for gods sake. Digital cameras, cam-corders, lights EVERYWHERE, refrigerators, freezers, microwaves, waterbed heaters, game consoles of almost every variety. Fans, air cleaners, air conditioners, forced air furnaces, telephones & answering machines. Cell Phones.


Help me, I am an electicity junkie. Please help, I can't stop myself I have become one with my appliances & I need help.

 

[fury]

It's OK, Gonz. We're here for you.

Your experience may seem typical, but it's not. Every experience is different. Every situation is different. With our help, you can defeat this obstacle. You can overcome your fears. With our help, you will make a full transition from an anxious electricity junkie to a crazed electricity addict. When we're through with you, you'll never be able to touch a non-electric light source or a conventional calculator (aka abacus) again!

 

[Q]

You know you've really hit rock bottom when you go to Home Depot and buy the biggest generator they have there and have a garage full of gas cans filled up ready to go.