So far, so good.

Above photo: SOURCE GAS Customer IDontCare Representatives

SOURCE GAS is a pain in the ass! Is your time not as important as theirs? The plummer makes a 3:30 appointment and shows at 3:30; the cable company, Bresnan in this case, makes an appointment from 3-5, and since that is a long time to wait when maybe you have other things to do, the tech will call a few minutes in advance of arrival so you can race home if necessary. And, if we miss each other, will come back!

SOURCE GAS, on the other hand, expects you to wait for 4 hours- hey, big boy, you wait fohl houl- and if their scheduler mistakenly sends the tech out at a time when you said you would not be home and were assured you would be scheduled otherwise, and then doesn't reschedule you for two more days though you have been waiting to take a shower, cook a meal and wash dishes, and have some heat on a chilly night for nearly a week (we Americans are so spoiled rotten). So, you tell them that your time is also valuable and you are going to charge them for every hour you wait, beginning with the 8 you waited on the originally scheduled day for someone to return and hook you up, there is an uncomfortable silence on the phone followed by, "You can't do that."

Guess what people? You tell me I can't do something, and I am liable to throw that right back in your face. SOURCE GAS, expect a bill, and collection action if you don't pay. I am saving my money for the local little guy.

And with that, here's Edison:

The Little Squeaky Wheel gets the Grease First

How much lead ya got in yer pencil Spanky? How much grease ya got in yer gun? Wouldn’t those make great lines for a bluegrass song? I have actually been screwing around with words to this song, and may record it an put it on youtube if I can line up the usual suspects to record it with me. I am hoping to have a five string banjo player over this week for a "Porch Session" or "Kitchen Junket". Darest I invite an accordion player? I am a very strong advocate of the "Trickle-Up" theory of macroeconomics. Yes, I realize that you haven’t heard that phrase before. It’s because it’s one of my microeconomic theories that actually will work if applied to macroeconomics. I do have notebooks of calculations written in pencil for this kind of stuff that resembles Albert Einstein on Acid…hey we share birthdays… so why not? It’s probably not interesting to most so I will leave out the math with the Greek letters in it. It’s fairly simple in concept. If you want to think globally and act locally, pay the little guy first. Sever the financed albatrosses if you must. Let the bank take back your four wheelers, boats, and snowmobiles. Who can afford to run them with gas prices as they are? Go on modest vacations and get-a-ways, and let the overpriced hotels stew in their own juices. Let the real estate market continue to plummet until it hits the bottom…then buy. Be creative, and push your income as far as you can go with it… legally. This will take a bite out of crime, as I’ll get into in a bit.

Tomorrow, we continue with a favorite subject of mine: POVERTY.