response 26 of 335:

Jun 24 14:53 UTC 2003

I spoke to Evan last night.  He's not in a lot of pain, but does feel a bit
dull in the head.  I think his spirit is a bit broken as well.  I'll pass the
good wishes along when I speak to him next.

response 32 of 335:

Jun 24 21:07 UTC 2003

I've broken my right collar bone too.  It's 3 months of annoyance, but
shouldn't leave any lasting signs (except for probably a crooked
collarbone with interesting "bumps").  At least in my case, it was never
very painful, the annoyance is mainly in terms of keeping things roughly
lined up and stationary while they knit up, then in getting the shoulder
joint to loosen up afterwards.  About the only thing the doctors are
good for is to give you a sort of shoulder harness that is supposed to
help keep things stretched out so they heal right, which is only
moderately helpful.

response 34 of 335:

Jun 25 03:21 UTC 2003

Did he lose any teeth?

response 36 of 335:

Jun 26 00:50 UTC 2003

That's good. What a bummer.

response 38 of 335:

Jun 27 14:19 UTC 2003

The web site that allows you to register your phone number
on the national "Do Not Call" list is up.  It's at:

http://www.donotcall.gov

response 40 of 335:

Jun 27 14:53 UTC 2003

It is.  Just tried to get there a couple times.  Both times--after 
waiting about a minute--I got the "no DNS..." error page.

response 42 of 335:

Jun 27 17:52 UTC 2003

I may have finally found a way to stop the twice monthly Comcast junk mails.
I hunted all over their website for an email address and found one in Investor
Relations.  On the theory that they would be more considerate of their
investors than of their victims, I emailed and got back, so far, two very
polite emails stating that they would forward all my addresses to marketing.

I phoned SBC for the tenth time.  They have, indeeded, blocked 'enhanced
repeat dialing' but the block is not working.  The repair service will check
out why I am still getting the recorded commercial asking for 75 cents
instead of a busy signal.  Last time they check this out by phoning Jim from
my number, but they goofed and checked out the recording that occurs after
8 rings.  Someone clever has already fixed the broken programming on this one.
I now get a friendly phone call from SBC about once a week asking if I am
happy with my service.


Charter One bank has been pestering us with junk mail.  When Jim asked to be
taken off the list he was sent a form letter that required him to fill in his
name, address, phone number, email address and social security number before
they could remove his address from their mailing list or promise not to share
it with third parties.  I phoned when I got more junk mail yesterday and the
guy there insisted there was no way to get off their junk mail list without
providing a social security number so I asked him to mail me the form, which
I would send along to the Michigan Attorney General's Office to report this
as a scam, and maybe they could get us off the junk mail list.  The clerk I
was talking to said it was not a scam, but they did need my SSN.  I asked for
marketing and got forwarded to a recorded FAQ that said to hang up when I was
done listening.  I called again, and went through the same procedure including
the FAQ.  In order to get the form mailed to me, this time I had to provide
a name (they had mailed to 'neighbor').  He insisted I make one up, so now
I will probably start getting heaps of junk mail addressed to A B.  We are
still trying to kill Herman Loth.  Last company had preapproved a mortgage
to this imaginary character (which someone somewhere created by hybridizing
two characters Jim made up as a joke).  They insisted they got all their lists
of names from the public records and Herman must be listed at our county
building, rather than Jim, as the owner of his house.  Nobody sends Herman
tax notices.

response 44 of 335:

Jun 27 19:43 UTC 2003

After 7 hours, I still have not received the e-mails from the 
nospam.gov site.

response 46 of 335:

Jun 27 21:06 UTC 2003

I haven't had much luck with the website.  It's too overloaded.  Doesn't
matter, though, since it doesn't take effect until October anyway.

response 48 of 335:

Jun 27 22:16 UTC 2003

I checked out the Michigan Consumer Protection Division.  They have decided
not to  bother with a Michigan 'do not call' list, which would have cost $5
per phone number to get onto, but to enforce the free national one.  If you
get onto the list by Aug 31 the telemarketers have until Oct. 31 to stop
calling you.  If you miss that deadline, it may take 3 months for them to
stop.  (This implies that the telemarketers have to buy a new list every three
months).  You can still get annoying phone calls from politicians, deputy
sheriffs, anyone else asking for donations or contributions, anyone calling
to arrange a face to face meeting but not specifically asking you in the phone
call to buy anything, etc.  I am going to be rude to a lot of deputy sheriffs.

One piece of good news is they have banned recorded announcements.  Problem
is that the recorded announcements don't usually include phone numbers so it
is hard to track down where they came from when they clog your answering
machine.  Jim says he gets about one a day of recorded announcement or hangup.