The death of new landline accounts

Remember kids: “Carne Asada is not a crime,” says Phil Greenwald, an attorney for taco truck vendors in Los Angeles County.

… I admit, there is hardly a reason in this day and age to have a home phone – apartment complexes with phone enabled door opening is one example where you need it. And if it wasn’t for me having an MSN e-mail account, I would dump it.

So when I signed up with Verizon for the Internet last year, I had to sign up for the phone. I got the cheapest account I could and went on with my life.

But more often than not, when my home phone rings it’s not for me. It’s not even for my roommate either. I found out soon enough that a lot of people have been trying to run from their credit life.

For a while, we’d been receiving calls from and we just ignored it. That was until for I was woken up early in the morning for nearly two weeks with calls for one guy. As many of you know, waking up early is not a hobby of mine (read the last blog.)

Each time the phone rang I told them that person doesn’t live here. Each time they said they would take him off the list. Each day they would call. I finally had to write down the case number and call them back and say this person doesn’t live here, and I did that twice.

I thought I was clearing a hurdle when I forgot it was voting season. The first call was about a local measure. The second followed about 35 minutes later in Spanish wanting me to vote for Obama. That call made me wonder why since California is such a lock for him.

Anyway, the point is I really have no use for this phone line other than it gives me the Internet. I got the cheapest plan and can only make outgoing calls in a five mile radius from where I live.

Maybe one day I’ll kill the MSN account and be free of the landline.

… I unknowingly started a stretch where I am two days into working at least eight of nine straight days. However, I have a feeling it will be more like 12 of 13.

With co-workers schedules the way they are, someone had to bite the bullet. And, of course with me being single without a family, why not?

I say unknowingly because when I left work last Tuesday, I had two days off the following week. Then when I got back, I noticed the change.

So, I’ll be tired but I’ll have overtime. I can always use some extra money.

… So in a bold step, I’ve booked a flight to Tokyo. Yes I spent $1,067 dollars to fly more than 5,000 miles away to experience what it’s like leaving one day in the morning and arriving the next day. Or, to look at it another way, leave in the afternoon and arriving that same morning.

Why would I do such a thing? Well a friend gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse. He had five free hotel nights with Marriot and said all I had to do was pay for my flight and expenses and I could go. He also wanted to go with someone who also didn’t speak the language, because as he put it, “It’d be more fun.”

What a guy that guy is.

So I’ve started to plan for a trip that is less than six weeks away. I’ve bought a book that actually contained a second on how to spend four days in the city. It doesn’t get more perfect than that.

I guess the first thing to figure out is learning how we are going to communicate in a way that doesn’t get us arrested and/or beat up.

As I said before, this is a bold step for me. I’ve only been to three other states and never another country. I’m looking forward to this with excitement and a little fear. After all I hate to fly.