Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

More comics at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat

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bengals, cats, comics, mini-cats, monster cat, silly, snow, tennyson

This was our conversation this morning. The nice thing about having Monster Cat hover like this is that he effectively blocks the mini-cats from getting into my cereal bowl. Mostly. Abby is especially sneaky and quick. If he’s not blocking, I need to hold my bowl to keep it away from her!

More comics at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat

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cats, cereal, comics, milk, monster cat, silly, tennyson

If you have an AT&T voice plan at the $59.99 (or $89.99 for Family plans) or higher price point, you have the “A-List” feature for free! This feature arrived with little fanfare back in September 2009 and I’m sure there are lots of people who have the feature who haven’t even looked at it yet.

What’s A-List? It’s a list of 5 phone numbers (US only) that are free to call or receive calls from. The best part? You can put any national number on the list – land line, cell phone, toll-free number (directory assistance and 900 numbers need not apply).

How to save? Actually use it! Look at your calling habits and pick your most-called numbers. If you spend 3 hours a month listening to the movie times for your local theater, add that number to your A-List! Add your conference call numbers. Add the main line or the primary line that shows up on caller ID when people dial out of your office or your client’s office. Think outside the normal “friends and family” numbers.

If your cell phone is your primary phone line and you max out your minutes, this list could totally save you money! Overage charges are not cheap!

My iPhone is my primary phone line and I use it for work as well as for personal calls. So who’s on my A-List?
- My parents. An hour or several hours a month saved.
- 3 conference call lines I use for work. Hours and hours saved each month.
- My boss’ desk number. Another couple of hours saved.

I can update my list online at any time and changes take about a day to take effect. Many of my friends and family have A&T cell phones themselves, so calling them is already free under the Mobile-to-Mobile feature.

So let’s talk numbers. I have 3 days left before the end of my plan’s month. I have used 1606 minutes so far. Less than an hour of that time is Night/Weekend time (unlimited minutes on my plan). Of the remaining 1550 minutes, 895 minutes have been charged against my Anytime Minutes (i.e. the 900 minutes in my plan). Scanning down my list of calls, it looks like about 45 minutes are covered by Mobile-to-Mobile. Leaving more than 600 minutes covered by A-List.*

10 hours of time I’m not paying extra for! (I’d be saving even more if my developer contact was in the US rather than Canada!)
I am able to maintain a lower cost cell plan thanks to A-List!

As a contractor, I don’t always need more than 900 minutes a month for months in a row. But when my minutes go up, it’s often for conference calls and long calls to the same number. I can manage my A-List to compensate for these peak usage months and keep my plan at a lower level. During the slow months, I accumulate Roll-over minutes that also help compensate for the peak usage months.

I think AT&T was one of the last carriers to add a “free calls to your specified numbers” feature – so if you’re hitting your limit for cell minutes on another carrier, try this with your equivalent plan. Adding conference lines and the main office number (the main, umbrella number that shows up when anyone calls from inside the office) to your free list could save you a serious number of minutes.

So why bother? The next step up from my monthly plan is the Unlimited plan at only $10 more per month… but $10 per month is $120 per year that I’d rather have in my pocket. And even though I’m being reimbursed for my cell phone costs at the moment, that doesn’t mean I will be in the future at my next job… not to mention between jobs.

*If you hadn’t guessed, I’m really not much of a phone person. Most of my calls are work-related.

a-list, AT&T, cell phone, savings, service, work

More comics at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat

Become a fan of Monster Cat on Facebook!

And… follow Monster Cat on Twitter!

cats, comics, monster cat, silly, tennyson

More comics at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat

Become a fan of Monster Cat on Facebook!

And… follow Monster Cat on Twitter!

cats, comics, monster cat, silly, tennyson

I love my car. It’s an adorable Mini Clubman. It’s the right size (though a little daunted by the unplowed roads) and the right amount of zip for me.

However… I’m approaching the end of my rope with my car and my car dealer.
I cannot in good conscience recommend Minis anymore. Sorry.

Last year, I spent multiple visits to the dealer getting things fixed or installed that shouldn’t have been an issue in the first place.

Today, I asked them to actually diagnose the problem that has blown a rear speaker twice. They installed the 3rd speaker in 14 months and failed to find an actual problem. But did jokingly tell me to turn down my bass. Uh huh.

Oh and they got to replace my gorgeous chrome hood scoop, a splurge when I ordered the car, because the bloody chrome was peeling off the bloody scoop. “Defective” was the note on the invoice. And now, it shouldn’t happen again they promise me. Uh huh.

All this work was done under warranty at least.

I did get a loaner car at least. The free dealer loaner was one of the nice features of buying the Mini. Of course, this morning it was not a feature. After pointing out to the service guy the puddle of ice water and slush making their entrance hazardous to say the least, I then stood in the cold (well, only 30°) and wind while the service guy futzed to find me a car with gas. This was apparently a huge challenge because the car I ended up with barely has a couple gallons. And I wonder if they knew the engine service light is on. Plus it was out of windshield washer fluid. I’d like to say “you get what you pay for” in this case but I really don’t feel like I got what I paid for with my Clubman at all, free loaner or not.

So let’s invoice the day in car ownership:
- Warranty repair but no diagnosis of problem that keeps blowing my rear speaker.
- Warranty replacement of the defective chrome hood scoop.
- Free dealer loaner for the day with very little gas (the warning light came on), no windshield washer fluid in the middle of a messy winter month, and the service light on. Good thing I didn’t have to commute into the City. At least the car was clean and only smelled faintly of cigarette smoke.

And all this is *after* Mini Corporate support got involved when I complained about the service in December.

It’s been a bunch of little things that have gone wrong with this car, some of which have been directly related to the dealer’s inattention to their job, but I didn’t have this many problems with my Subaru in 11 years. I’m lucky that very few have been safety-related but is that next problem that will come up? I’m annoyed because I don’t have much choice but to buy the extended warranty for this car because it’ll be cheaper than the intermittent repair of future defects that haven’t had time to surface because I only have 9000 miles on the car. Anyone know a good lawyer with Lemon Law experience?

ETA: I feel stupid complaining about little stuff like this, but I had hoped to keep this car as long or longer than my previous car. I just don’t know that it will happen now.

annoyance, bad service, chrome issue, clubman, lemon law, mini, problems, speaker problem

More comics at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat

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bengals, cats, comics, kittens, MCCS, mini-cats, monster cat, silly, tennyson

We now return you to the conclusion of the most recent box storyline which was so rudely interrupted by our special reports on the SNOWPOCALYPSE.

More comics at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat

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bengals, boxes, cats, comics, kittens, mini-cats, monster cat, silly, tennyson

More comics at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat

Become a fan of Monster Cat on Facebook!

And… follow Monster Cat on Twitter!

cats, comics, monster cat, silly, snow, tennyson

Seen here: Before and after photos of the front yard and sidewalk. No, you can’t tell there’s a sidewalk in the top photo. That’s kind of the point.

My knees, calves and feet don’t hurt. This is probably because for a great deal of my snow-clearing time this morning I was standing in snow up to my mid-thighs, effectively icing down all my muscles below the snowline.

Everything else? Kinda sore.

We got about 20″ total from this storm plus the snow the plow pushed back onto the sidewalk when he pushed back the snowbank. Again.

The snow ate a mini van. It also hid the Durango rather effectively. The Clubman is gone.

I went out about 9:30 a.m. to start clearing. The Best Neighbor in the World and his wife joined me about an hour later. I’d only gotten to the end of the walk from the house by that point. By noon, we’d cleared all the sidewalks and the front of the driveway. (Our driveways are side by side.) Cutting through the snowbank pushed into the sidewalk and the driveway required me to break up the snow and feed it to the snow blower as Best Neighbor pushed it. It’s a wee, electric snow blower but we really adore it. Our 1-2 punch to the snowbank snow allowed us to push through the work fairly quickly (compared to shoveling alone at least) but was pretty brutal on my arms and shoulders.

Last night, I shoveled off the flat roof of the porch in the middle of the storm. I wasn’t going to do it but I moved about 16″ off it and I’m glad I did. This was my first roof-shoveling experience. I’m not a fan of heights but somehow it’s easier to do when you can convince your brain that the snow will break your fall. Now the roof is clear and if we get more snow I won’t have to worry about the silly flat roof for a bit. Of course, if we get another 20″, I’ll be out there again.

Though I will admit there’s something lovely and meditative about being out in a snowstorm at dusk and being on top of a roof just enhances the feeling. Very few people were out doing anything. A car or truck would be go by here and there, but mostly it was just me, the trees and the snow.

The sun is great – it cleaned things up nicely this afternoon. You can even see part of the Durango!

Strangest sight of the storm: an El Camino with a big Eagles (the local football team) logo from fender to fender with a snow blower in the back. I’ve seen it twice now and have yet to get a photo.

The latest snow photos start here.

All in all? It’s starting to feel like home.

snow, SNOWPOCALYPSE, weather