What Does AT&T Mean By a “Brief” Outage?

12/30/10: We have U-verse, the whole package of land line, Internet, and TV. Around 6:00 PM, the Internet connection slowed down to the pace of sap in January. Around 6:30 or so, the phone line and Internet connections were dead. Scary not to have a phone line. Glad we have a mobile phone for such an event. Oh, the TV feed was working fine.

After an hour of being out, I called AT&T U-verse using my AT&T mobile phone. The first three times I called, the computer voice on the line told me the circuits were busy and try later. Then I got through and waded into the swamp of a computer voice asking me questions and telling me it couldn’t hear me. After about 5 minutes of this, I was put in line for “the next available service representative.” Close to a half-hour later, a nice young man answered. When I told him my area code and number, he said there was total outage in that area, that they knew about it, had no idea what had happened, had no idea how long it would take to get fixed.

We live in west St. Louis County. Through text-messaging to other U-verse customers, I found out that friends who live farther out than us also had no telephone or Internet. Friends who live in the City of St. Louis (about 25 miles to our east) were also out. There were also spotty DSL outages here and there in the area, or greatly slowed service.

After over two hours of dead lines, it all came alive again. I emailed KSDK-TV, the local NBC affiliate about this. Their response to me was as follows:

“Here is what AT&T Says happened...

“Due to an equipment issue, some customers in the St. Louis area may have experienced a brief disruption to their Internet, wireless and/or landline phone service this evening. Almost all service has been restored, and customers do not have to do anything to have their service return. It will happen automatically.

“We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused our customers.”

And there is almost no noise on the Internet or on the news services (local or national) about any outages at all. So, what is “brief?” Is over two hours brief? I guess brief is in the eyes of the giant corporation.

Texting for Seniors

This is from a friend of mine who got it from who knows where.

May want to pass this on to your more senior friends...
Since more and more Seniors are texting and tweeting, there appears to be a need for a STC (Senior Texting Code)...


ATD: At The Doctor's
BFF: Best Friend Farted
BTW: Bring The Wheelchair
BYOT: Bring Your Own Teeth
CBM: Covered By Medicare
CUATSC: See You At The Senior Center
DWI: Driving While Incontinent
FWB: Friend With Beta Blockers
FWIW: Forgot Where I Was
FYI: Found Your Insulin
GGPBL: Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low!
GHA: Got Heartburn Again
HGBM: Had Good Bowel Movement
IMHO: Is My Hearing-Aid On?
LMDO: Laughing My Dentures Out
LOL: Living On Lipitor
LWO: Lawrence Welk's On
OMMR: On My Massage Recliner
OMSG: Oh My! Sorry, Gas.
ROFL... CGU: Rolling On The Floor Laughing... And Can't Get  Up
SGGP: Sorry, Gotta Go Poop
TTYL: Talk To You Louder
WAITT: Who Am I Talking To?
WTFA: Wet The Furniture Again
WTP: Where's The Prunes?
WWNO: Walker Wheels Need Oil

Apostrophe Apoplexy

We’ve gotten several holiday cards addressed to The Hirsch’s. And some of them have the senders’ name in the same form. Where in the world have folks gotten to think that the possessive apostrophe somehow can be used to denote a plural form of a name? Hey, the plural of Hirsch is Hirsches. So, if you really mean The Hirsch’s, to what of the Hirsches are you referring? And, to be even more picky, if you have addressed this implied possessive to both of us, wouldn’t it be The Hirsches’ since there are two of us?

Your’s for holiday cheer.