Today a tragedy has occurred. One of the worlds most passionate supporters of animal welfare, top educators and best know TV personalities has died. Steve Irwin, perhaps better known as the Crocodile Hunter, was killed earlier today by a stingray while filming an underwater segment for a future television program that his daughter was to host.

Reports suggest that he was swimming alongside the stingray, while a cameraman swam in front, perhaps scaring the stingray into flicking its tail and barbed stinger up in a defensive maneuvre. The barb, which can be up to 12 inches long, pierced Steve’s heart. Stingrays are normally fairly passive, preferring to swim away rather than an engage even an attacker. Most human injuries by stingray come from accidentally treading on them, and are relatively minor.

It is sad to lose such a great advocate for the animals on our planet, and even worse that it was an animal as passive and graceful as a stingray that should be the cause of that loss.

Rest in peace Steve.

No surprise that I did not get called back as they had promised to resolve the illegal billing past the date that they had terminated the service. I spoke to somebody else though, after having to convince the stupid menu to just connect me with an agent (why is that so hard?) and they promise me that not only will I not be billed again, but that they have applied the credit for the time after the termination already so it should not be deducted from my bank account.

Lucky I didn’t use a credit card ever in my dealings with them though: once again demonstrating their lack of technical ability, an AT&T computer system was hacked over the weekend and 19,000 credit card numbers were stolen from it. The numbers belonged to customers who had purchased DSL equipment at their online store. What concerns me is that this is just the break-in they know about. Given my recent experiences with them, I wonder how many other systems have been compromised that they just don’t know about yet…

A couple of months back I tried to add Wi-Fi hotspot access to my AT&T-Yahoo DSL account while I was away from home. Unfortunately, nobody could help me do this unless I had my last phone bill with me (one support person even asked why I didn’t have it with me, as if I should carry it everywhere I go!). Having spoken with as many people as they would let me (they eventually transferred me to a dead end), I decided to dump them as my ISP. Luckily for me, and unluckily for them, my contract expired around the same time so it was only a few weeks before I could cancel without any penalties.

My research for an alternative lead me to sonic.net. My email question about the process for transferring was answered in under an hour. My phone call a few days later was answered by a human being in a couple of rings – no annoying menu to bypass (just keep saying ‘agent’ until the AT&T menu gives up and transfers you in case you need it).

Once the transfer was complete, I called to ask about port 25 blocking (like most ISPs, they block port 25 to any server other than their own). Rather than fighting with an automated menu to eventually speak to somebody with no clue about anything technical, the phone was answered by somebody who not only understood what I was asking, but was able to suggest solutions for my MacOS and Linux systems. Refreshing.

All good, and I thought I was rid of AT&T internet services. Until tonight when my phone bill arrived with internet service still being billed, and now at a higher rate than when they were actually providing it. I had called them when my Sonic connection went live to confirm that they had terminated the account. I also received a postcard from them confirming the termination. Still they bill me.

A call to their support line got me nowhere until I asked for a supervisor, then suddenly the support person could confirm that my account had been cancelled. But she had to transfer me to billing to do anything about it. After 40 minutes on hold I gave up and called back. This time I asked to speak to a supervisor immediately. He informed me that there was nothing he could do though since the billing department was closed. So, the dummy I spoke to first transferred me to a department that was closed, and, even better, that department doesn’t have an answering service that tells people that. Instead they leave you listening to their lies about how they can help you set up your computer. Don’t these people work for a telephone company?

Anyway, he promises me that they will call me back tomorrow to resolve this issue. So, we’ll see how long it takes to get AT&T to cancel my service, stop billing me for a service they’re not providing, and refund the money they’ve illegally billed me for in the mean time. With interest.

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a DSL provider in the bay area, check out Sonic.net. So far, they’ve already proven that they are better than AT&T by so far it makes me wonder why people even bother talking to AT&T for internet service.

This sign was up in the wall of a dim sum restaurant in San Gabriel in southern California. Isn’t it the point that at least some of the food you order in a dim sum restaurant will be hot? And I would have thought it was even more obvious that Hot Tea would be hot – people would probably send it back if it arrived at their table cold.

Then, the other night I was watching TV and saw a commercial for a car – a Suzuki I think – where a gentleman all dressed for work in a suit and tie walks out of his front door and base jumps down the side of a rock to get to his vehicle. On the bottom of the screen they had a disclaimer that it was a stunt actor and viewers should not try to do the same thing. Really? You don’t say.

A few years ago I remember seeing a sign at Yosemite, in one of the pools at the top of a waterfall, telling people not to swim there. I wondered at the time what sort of person would choose to swim at the top of a waterfall that was several hundred feet high.

What happened to common sense?