We're done, Verizon. [mic drop]

... and I'm out (previously: In which I am about to cancel my Verizon home DSL and Verizon update). The service continued to be terrible, intermittent with bad. Both options were disagreeable to me, as a customer, but the variability was even more frustrating. Could they not simply deliver a consistently bad service?

I priced it out, measured my usage and the bandwidth available, and I'll get more consistent, sufficient service by doing almost anything else. My personal favorite is to inscribe individual packets by hand on nuts, and pass these off to squirrels and birds, who by means of their own mysterious communication networks, eventually pass me back the data I requested. (Current bug: this arrives in the timing and placement of bird poops on my car windshield, which I must decode by hand. Don't worry, I'm writing a script to do it automatically.)

In a practice which apparently recurs annually, I add to my list of "forsworn companies" every August. This time it's Verizon: never again, Verizon. You have forced me to listen to at least 10 cumulative hours of your "on hold" music. Never again.

This post's theme word is inveigle (v. tr.), "to get something or to persuade someone to do something by deception or flattery." They could no longer inveigle me into subscribing to the service.

Free-range standing sink

 I was out on a walk and noticed this free-range sink, hooked up to the exterior of a building:

Just so you know, you can't park here.

This post's theme word is extrality (n), "exemption from local laws: the privilege of living in a foreign country, but subject only to the home country’s jurisdiction." The sink enjoyed extrality rights and the lawn hoses were jealous.