OH....there are so many things that suck, but I'll try and keep with the theme of this web site, if there is one, so here goes: (and please note that due to the overwhelming amount things that suck, this page will be updated quite often)

The NEW & immediately gratifying TSZ Official Suck List
QWEST, COX, and MOST LIKELY EVERY LOCAL PHONE COMPANY

Alright, I've been paying my phone bill via automatic debit for a while now...and for some reason, I was inspired to actually look at the charges the other night and I'm a bit confused.... I have 2 lines (1 fax, 1 reg) which comes as a package thing for $38.95 So I'm a bit bewildered why my bill is $60.93...which DOES NOT include any long distance (I use a separate billing for that which has nothing to do with Qwest). Now of all the 'extra' charges the biggest one is the FEDERAL ACCESS CHARGE which is $13.09. Um, WTF? I went to the FCC website and tried to figure out what all the various charges were... Of the 9 extra charges and fees, 6 of them were 'taxes' going to everyone from the city to D.C. and I'm not venturing in to the tax debate, for the sake of this particular issue, I'll just pretend I love paying taxes.... OK, so now onto the 3 other items (and the reason for this addition to my things that suck page..... Federal Universal Service Fund $1.14 Arizona Universal Service Fund $.02 Federal Access Charge $13.09. Well, according to the FCC website, the Federal & Arizona Universal Service Fund are on the bill..

..."Because telephones provide a vital link to emergency services, to government services and to surrounding communities, it has been our nation’s policy to promote telephone service to all households since this service began in the 1930s. The USF helps to make phone service affordable and available to all Americans, including consumers with low incomes, those living in areas where the costs of providing telephone service is high schools and libraries and rural health care providers. Congress has mandated that all telephone companies providing interstate service must contribute to the USF. Although not required to do so by the government, many carriers choose to pass their contribution costs on to their customers in the form of a line item, often called the "Federal Universal Service Fee" or "Universal Connectivity Fee."
Excuse me while I choke..... First of all, I'd like to know ANYONE who gets a phone line without paying...no matter HOW poor they are? And high schools and libraries get phone lines free too?! Now without knowing anyone off hand who knows the financials of high schools or libraries, I find that hard to believe, but I'm going to go ahead and pretend (I'm having to do a lot of pretending with this one) that I accept this as fact.....Now, I'm even MORE pissed because it isn't FREE....its just paid for by ME and anyone else who has a phone line and the FCC makes it abundantly clear. "Although not required to do so by the government, many carriers choose to pass their contribution costs on to their customers" Yeah, like the phone company wouldn't jump at any opportunity to 'pass' on their contribution...How can they even call it a contribution when WE'RE THE ONES MAKING IT! I am! Do I get a tax write off or something?! But then onto the most infuriating part of the phone bill.... the Federal Access Charge
This was instituted after the break-up of AT&T in 1984 to cover the costs of the local phone network."..." The FCC caps the maximum price that a company may charge for this. This is not a government charge or tax, and it does not end up in the government’s treasury.
Just fyi, the bold face is on their website, not something I did....in other words, they want to make very clear that they government isn't getting any of this money.....just fyi. So I'm off to find the CAP amount that the FCC puts on this, but no where on their site does it give such a number... I went on a mission to find out what the hell this charge was and why its there to begin with so here is what I found out: I called the FCC...and Qwest....and Cox....and the answer to why they charge what they do is: I don't know, but thanks for the hand job. I.E. The FCC says the CAP is $6.50 per line. But the phone company itself has the choice to charge anywhere from $0.00-$6.50... its up to them..... so take a wild guess what BOTH Qwest and Cox charge... Yup, $6.50. And when I called Qwest to ask how they come to that number here is the answer I got and I'm almost quoting, "its the amount the FCC says we need to charge" I promptly corrected her on this and informed her that the ONLY thing the FCC says about this charge is that they can't charge MORE than the amount.... so then after a call to another 'supervisor' "well its the amount that Qwest has decided it needs to charge"........ Ummmmmmm...... DUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHH But I realized that any further attempt to get to the bottom of this (she already had put me on hold twice, apparently finding only employees just as clueless as herself) with her was pointless so I called Cox, and got someone just as clueless who also threw out the 'well its the amount the FCC tells us we have to charge' and then after he contacted a 'supervisor' told me that they too charge the MAX. So I said to the guy that really then, that should be included in the price of the basic phone line seeing as how it is charged to everyone, the same amount.... and he says to me, 'well Ma'am, Cox could just charge the $18.00 for the phone line but we feel it is better and more helpful for our customers if we break down the cost so that you know where the money is going' and I said, 'well you can't even tell me that! You're telling me that the line itself is $12 (approx) and the cost to have it is $6.50...!' Anyway, I informed him that at least I knew both the local phone companies in my area were equally clueless and both screwing me. Then when I was hanging up the phone he gave the customary 'Thank you for calling Cox today and is there anything else I can help you with?' So I said, 'Anything else? Else? Ummmm....no, I'm still waiting on the first answer'.
In conclusion, Cox and Qwest SUCK...I'd speak for other companies but it would only be an assumption although I'm thinking its a safe one.

 

AT&T WIRELESS

Well it's official, I hate my wireless provider... Now this isn't really something new but AT&T's most recent ad campaign had pushed me over the edge. I don't know what happened, AT&T used to be great...but now THEY SUCK. Hardcore. I'd say it's just a 'Phoenix' thing but I've had bad service when I've been in Chicago and L.A. and I've heard that it also sucks on the East Coast and if I had to guess, I'd say everywhere else in this country. So what is it about this ad campaign that has really pissed me off? Well in case you haven't seen any commercials for it, they have a montage of people talking about something with the last words before cutting to the next person being 'AND' and then a voiceover says something like, "Ever notice how conversations never end with AND?" and then they talk about some new "&" plan or something. I think they figured they were being clever with using the & from AT&T but whatever it is, it made we want to reach into the TV and strangle the announcer. You see, AT&T, my cell phone conversations routinely end with "AND".... and that's because EVERY OTHER CONVERSATION I HAVE ON MY DAMN PHONE GETS FREAKING DROPPED! So YES, my conversations DO end with AND...AND that's because AT&T service SUCKS.
I even called customer service one day and I'm not sure what my mission was, I think I just wanted to bitch...but I end up having a 20 minute conversation with the customer service rep and she eventually tells me that she has to use one of the other service providers because AT&T doesn't get good service where she lives. Um....HELLO? WTF? Of course I said that I'd love to switch my provider except that I'd be paying out my ass to get out of my contract...so I'm sort of stuck until my contract expires, courtesy of the shiaty, sucky, infuriating company that she works for. Even their customer service sucks, I mean I've called before and complained and the only suggestion that I get is that I get out of my contract. Um....yea, duh you freaking morons, is that what AT&T pays you do to? Tell people that my only option to ending my horrible service is to leave their company?! Well, AT&T you SUCK, your customer service sucks, your service sucks, your commercials suck and did I mention that you SUCK?

 

COX TECHNICAL SUPPORT

So I pay a small fortune each month to have Cox high speed internet and so I expect to get what I pay for, which is 24/7 high speed internet access, right? OK, fine, sometimes there are problems....and the connection goes down, I can understand that, but the past few weeks, my connection has been going down randomly and then reconnecting anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 hours later. But after figuring out that it was not just a 'ME' problem (i.e. something with MY connection only) but other friends of mine with Cox had been having the same problem for a couple weeks I decided to call the Cox tech support number... So I call the Cox technical support number, now mind you, this was at 11:00 p.m. Atlanta time (which is where I was calling apparently) and I literally sat on hold for AT LEAST a half hour. Now, fine, I have to sit on hold, but it is what the recording says to you while you are on hold that really pisses me off...(this is quoting as best I can remember) and also please remember that this is not a general Cox customer support number, it is very specifically the Cox TECHNICAL SUPPORT number:
    "Did you know that you know that rather than waiting on hold, you can get 24 hour a day technical support by visiting our website at support.cox.net? You can also email us at techsupport@cox.net and we will respond within 24 hours."

Well now let's see, if I could go to your website or email you, THEN I WOULDN'T BE F*#$ING CALLING YOUR TECH SUPPORT NUMBER NOW WOULD I?! If it were something with my account, I would call customer service, don't ya think? Eventually I got through to some guy and after informing me that his 'screen' showed no outages or problems in the entire state of Arizona, and he provided ZERO tech support or help (I'm shortening the conversation for your benefit here) I informed him of how stupid the hold message was and got off the phone. So you see, the biggest thing that sucked wasn't even that my connection was having issues, but that they pour salt on your wound with that damn, "you can go to our website..." crap while sitting on hold. I don't think I've ever cursed at a message more times in my life....Idiots

 

LOCAL NEWS

Some networks are worse than others, and usually the 'owned' stations (those that are owned by the network as opposed to an affiliate of one) are pretty good, but other than that, they SUCK. Aside from all the obvious reasons they suck like having bad anchor people, a poorly trained production crew, and what seems like pages and pages of SPIN, there are other reasons, and in case you are wondering if your local news sucks, here are some signs that they do:

1) Everything is 'Breaking News', even if it happened yesterday. And my personal favorite was a 'Breaking News' flash here in Phoenix that had the helicopter reporter saying something to the effect, "We are live over the scene of a school bus that has stalled on the Freeway. There are no injuries reported and a second bus in on the way to pick up passengers". Great. Thanks. I needed my regularly scheduled programming to be interrupted for that.

2) Most of the money spent at the station goes to the graphics department. Puuuleeeeeaaassseeee, talk about graphic happy people, its ridiculous. If you add the 'breaking news' sign, then you get, this next sign,

3) which is that when your news does have breaking news (or at least their version of breaking news), they announce, "And now, we have breaking news" and then it goes to their 'Breaking News' graphic and intro. Now, maybe it's just me, but if it were that 'breaking' it seems pretty asinine to take the time to show your stupid graphic.

4) You live in Phoenix.

5) The anchors consider themselves celebrities, and

6) When covering a news story, they have reporters at like 5 different locations (the corner that an accident happened at, in front of the house of one of the victims, outside the studio itself for no good reason, and interviewing a cousin of the friend who knows the guy who gets his hair cut by the butcher of the girl who was hurt in the accident)

 

BAD DRIVERS

Please refer to the P.A.I.D. page.

 

PETA

Just for the record, I happen to love animals, with a passion, and PETA can claim whatever they want, but their main objective is to get attention for themselves. Here is one of PETA's latest campaigns, The Chicken Holocaust. Not only is it offensive, but I mean come on, did they really think they were going to gain any more supporters from this? Of course not, they just want to 'shock' people and have everyone think they're bad asses on a mission. Please, if they really wanted to help animals they wouldn't be trying to piss everyone off and not want to help their supposed cause.

 

MONTREAL CANADIAN FANS

You know, I've grown up a huge hockey fan, and I also happen to love Canada, but booing the USA National Anthem at a hockey game?!?! Montreal Vs NY Islanders And just FYI - The Islanders won the game 6-3.

 

PHOTO RADAR

Phoenix loves photo radar, and why wouldn't they? These unmanned vans with cameras take a picture of you and your license plate and then 'poof' you get a ticket in the mail. So I guess we are to just assume that the equipment was working correctly, and I guess we should assume that the camera took into account all other factors like whether there was another car next to you, or some other circumstance.... Well, I've been caught, and gotten out of 2 tickets, so here is my advice, and don't pay anyone to tell you this cause here it is.....for free:
  1) Getting a ticket in the mail doesn't mean much, toss it, cause what the town hopes is that you figure, 'well, I must have been speeding, I guess I better pay up', and there ya go, no police were involved (no one pulled you over) and all they did was send you a little note in the mail and they get hundreds of dollars for that. Not a bad way for a town to make money. But the truth is, that unless you are 'PERSONALLY' served by someone, you DO NOT HAVE TO DO ANYTHING. Unless you have a mother like mine, who answered the door, which brings me to my next piece of advice,
  2) OK, so know you're served, now what you do is go down to the police station and request to view your photo which they claim they don't even have to do, they're just being nice, but anyway, look at the picture....does it look like you? I mean someone else could have been driving your car right? Well, I didn't do this, but if you say that you are sure it isn't you, they will ask you who it is and you have to give them names, so unless you really want to get someone in trouble for something they didn't do, unless of course it WAS them driving, then I wouldn't do this. So then the person behind the window will take their little magnifying glass and most likely say, 'Well, it looks like you to me, but would you like to request a hearing?'
  3) OK, at this point my hand is getting tired and I am getting pissed off even typing this so if you find yourself in this situation, please e-mail me and I would be more than happy to tell you how I got out of these tickets.

 

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

As a University of Arizona Alum, it is in my nature to think ASU sucks, but it wasn't until I attended an ASU v UofA basketball game, that it became clear to me just how bad ASU does suck. Never mind the academic program there, I mean no one really considers ASU to be anything but a joke college anyway, but it is the attitude of the students and/or fans, that really did them in. This brings me too my next thing that sucks......

 

FANS THAT CHANT 'OVERRATED'

So at this ASU v UofA basketball game, the dumbass Sun Devil fans start chanting, 'Overrated'. Now, given, UofA was losing this particular game, but please, we all know that UofA has an awesome basketball team so 1) It seems pretty asinine to be chanting 'overrated' because really, that's just suggesting that your team is beating a bad team, which doesn't say much for your team, and 2) I began chanting, 'Your not rated', and they weren't, so I guess I'd rather be overrated than not rated at all. That's OK, my opinion that ASU fans and students are truly retarded was proved even more after my friends and I went to a local ASU bar after the game. We were drunk and talking all kinds of smack and the guys were still drooling all over us and apologizing for being mean. I mean sure we're hot, but we were spinning all kinds of crap about their school and they were still clueless. I've often thought about getting a UofA license plate for my car that says ASUCK, but considering I live in Phoenix, I'd rather not risk having my far messed with.