“Everyone is born unique, but so many die as copies.”

Regarding many extremely angry people lately over AT&T, how they do business, other things and probably most of all their “Unlimited” data plan’s extremely expensive overage charge pricing… They say;

“But I can tell you that we go to considerable lengths to inform customers of the limits involved in these plans. We display the plan usage limits and overage rates on our collateral, terms and conditions, and on att.com, And customers can check their usage using myWireless Account or by using the usage monitoring capability on the AT&T Communications Manager application.”

Well. If I log in to my account I see;

137.69 of Unlimited. This is only the 2nd of the month. 137.69 WHAT of “Unlimited”? Bytes? Kilobytes? Megabytes? Gigs?! BITS?! It isn’t just how crooked and wrong it is to consider 5GB unlimited and charging huge amounts of money for overage – But to flat out lie in interviews when people need only look at their account and see they’re full of crap?!

How are you supposed to avoid going over limits if they don’t tell you what measurement your usage is being measured in?!!?

I’ve got unlimited everything… What insane charges will I get hit with if I unwittingly go over the limit?

Link: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news
/att_charges_woman_5_large_overage_charges_gets_sued

Blaming Net Neutrality:
http://stopthecap.com/2009/10/23/at-blames-net-neutrality/

After my horrible experience yesterday with Sushi 21 in the Balboa Fun Zone, Newport Beach, I wanted to make sure everyone knew they had no problem selling rotten, putrid fish.

That brought me to wanting to share my list of great places around here.  So here it is:

While sort of on the subject. Some of my favorite places…

San Shi Go, Newport Beach – Top notch place. I go for the sushi. I rarely bother with the ice cream but their own flavors (toasted black sesame!) are great. Just tell Daisuke (Dice-K) or Sho Go Chris sent ya.  :-)  They’re happy, fun, smart, intuitive and caring.  Order something not on the menu or particularly Japanese off the bat so they know you mean business. (Spicey Cod Roll’s kick)

Kappo Honda, Fountain Valley – Honestly I don’t think you can expect the sushi to be 200% as I would most places, but it’s still good. This is izakaya. It’s well priced, the variety is endless and they’re open late. More women come here than I think you’ll see at izakaya in Japan.  :-P  Try the mozuku or the gizzard yaki. (I know gizzard, yuck, tastes great) Either way, snack on drunk food and guzzle booze all night.

Kitayama, Newport Beach – Here’s a classy all around Japanese place with great everything. Chefs are on the ball, they pretty much do it all right. I’d definitely suggest going with a group large enough to get a $100 minimum bill so you can call in and reserve a tatami room first, just don’t wear your 40 hole docs or you’ll spend too much time getting your shoes on & off.

Wafu of Japan, Costa Mesa – The owner is my hero. Small, personal, well priced, always best quality, always PACKED. Virtually an ideal place except for the part about it always being FULL. Anyone who hasn’t gone here is missing out on life.

Anyone who doesn’t frequent any the above should reconsider their opinions on Japanese food in Orange County, or anywhere else. (and probably should die in a fire)

Great Bill Mahr quote someone recently sent me;

I would say that the feminine values are now the values of America; sensitivity is more important than truth; feelings are more important than facts; commitment is more important than individuality; children are more important than people; safety is more important than fun. I always hear women say, “Y’know, married men live longer.” Uh, yes, and an indoor cat…also…lives longer. It’s a fur-ball with a broken spirit that can only look out on a world it will never enjoy, but it does technically live longer.

Totally worth watching this video:

American culture, fairness, morality, womens lib…

So, switching to the new version of Kubuntu (9.04) was well worth it, extremely nice.  Down side is that you’ve also got to switch to the latest version of Amarok, which I was just starting to love, and now I hate it.  They’ve entirely ruined it. Made it uglier, removed any of the features I used except for the ones that they kept which don’t work anymore… It’s just an all around disaster and the alternatives…  Phew.  Wow.  Well I’ve changed over to just using qmmp now.  The up side being that qmmp streams ebm-radio.com’s OGG streams absolutely, perfectly, flawlessly; which I can’t say about many players on many operating systems – so, bonus there.

If anyone knows of any good way to cause deep emotional discomfort to the jerks making amarok; please do let me know.

I also see the average number of ogg listeners online at any given time are increasing.  I like to see that, people should really bother to listen to EBMR at that kind of quality level…