Fax War Day 24 Update: 94 faxes sent, 5 in the queue. A MAJOR UPDATE:

V I C T O R Y ! ! !
V I C T O R Y ! ! !
V I C T O R Y ! ! !
V I C T O R Y ! ! !
V I C T O R Y ! ! !
V I C T O R Y ! ! !

Just out of curiosity, I called the Shell Customer Service Center phone line to check my balance. They said my balance was "credit 100 dollars" What? Could it be true? I listened further to the information of my last payment, and the system stated that my last payment was June 28th, in the amount of 160.29, the exact amount of the "fiasco". Apparently, the war is over. Just like Harry Truman before me issued the orders to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I made the difficult decision to drop a major bomb of my own on Shell with the shock and awe fax attack. Apparently today is the day they surrender unconditionally, and I am declared the winner. From this day forward, August 27th, 2007 shall be known as Victory over Shell or (VoS) Day.

There are a few unaddressed issues on the table here, but they should be easy to sort through, if I even decide to care.

1. Why do they say my last payment was this amount on June 28th, when clearly, I have made multiple payments since then?

2. Will they simply cut me a check for the credit balance? If not, I suppose they would be forced to should I close my account.

3. Is it possible that the investigation and subsequent correction was actually completed in June, and simply took a while to post into the account for whatever reason, thus nullifying my need for the fax war in the first place?

4. Did we win the war daddy? A question a child might ask, but not a childish question.

I have made another $20 payment that should go through today, so they will actually owe me $120 total. Now the question becomes do I go for them cutting me a check for what I consider to be my spoils of war, or do I let it ride so to speak, and simply buy about 50 gallons of their gas to zero out my account?

I think the logic here is simple. I continue to boycott their stores, and give them exactly no business. If I buy their stupid gas now, the terrorists win. Plus, with my Vegas vacation coming up next week, it might be handy to have a check for $120 waiting for me when I get back. For some reason, and another reason to bail on them, their web site will not accept my information for managing my account online, so I will have to contact them one last time to request my check. That should be fun. I wonder if they will ask any questions or have remarks regarding my blitzkrieg of faxing.

Since this news dominates today's headlines, I will probably try to install 3 more entries before going on vacation. They are sure to be gems, I have been tossing around a few subjects in my head that I am sure will be quite entertaining.

Now to celebrate victory with a lovely beverage, or 8.

Fax War Day 22 Update: 80 faxes sent, 2 in the queue. I have escalated to 6 a day.

The new technological world we live in can be a cold hearted place, because a lot of the human interaction ha been replaced by machines. I embrace the new world, because I think less human interaction involved with our day to day transactions creates a more precise world. Very rarely these days do you have to write something down, and give it to someone else to read. Also seemingly growing more is people having to type in strings of numbers, which also reduces human error. This situation can also have a down side.

The situation I am referencing is my recent purchase of show tickets to The Beatles based Ciqrue du Soleil show in The Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. I accidentally entered the incorrect show date. My bad, no question about it, I screwed up. Well, since the tickets are "e-tickets", they email them to you. The second this email leaves their server, there are absolutely NO refunds or exchanges whatsoever, because for all they know, you printed out your tickets, and now you are trying to rip them off. This is a good measure, and I completely understand why; however, if this was 10 years ago, I would simply call The Mirage box office, explain the scenario and they would have taken care of it. But these days, no go!

So now I have these tickets that are useless to me. Great. Wait a second, the same reason that I am in this shitty scenario in the first place, is the exact same reason why it is probably not a big deal. Since things are so technologically advanced, with a few clicks of my mouse, and a few keystrokes, I can have these bad boys up on eBay, and just sell them to someone who can use them. Yaaaay!

I stick the tickets up on eBay. Since the event is only 10 days away, I put the auction up for 7 days, and started the bidding at a penny. I put int he description the story of how I got them by screwing up, and how some lucky chap could benefit from my stupidity. I figure any money at all that I can get for them is better than losing 100% of it by just tossing them out the proverbial window. Within 5 minutes of the auction going up, I get an email from a guy who just so happens to be going to Vegas, and wants to buy the tickets right out. He told me he would not have the money until the next day, but I really didn't care, so I told him fine, and that I would do the deal for 100 bucks. I paid $154.30 so I was taking around a 50 dollar hit, but hey, I would take a $154.30 hit if I didn't sell them, and I make some guy happy in the process. I tinkered around with eBay to try and figure out a way to just sell the tickets to the guy for 100 bucks, and couldn't figure out how to do it (damn technology!). Anyway, by the time the guy had gotten the money setup to pay me, the bidding was already up over $100!!!. It was sort of a bummer, but I am a man of my word, so I told the guy to just Paylpal my the money and I would give him the tickets. A few minutes later he gave me the money, and I sent him the tickets, then cancelled the auction. I wonder how much money I could have made back, or even if I could have made a small profit, but those things didn't really matter at that point, so I didn't dwell long.

In summation, the duality of the world today is certainly interesting. Sure, you make a few wrong keystrokes and you get screwed by a machine, but then you can turn around and use another machine to make it alright. Seems like The Mirage should have a side business as an auction house for their own tickets, and charge people a few bucks (like eBay does) to buy and/or sell. Hmmmm. I wonder what people who are not quite as savvy as me would have done in this same situation. Who cares 8-).

Fax War Day 19 Update: 64 faxes sent, 1 in the queue.

It is odd how people in your life sort of come and go, for whatever reason. This happens to everyone, I suppose, and it is normal. It starts early in life. Some people you go to school with move away, and you never hear from them again. Then later in life people go off to college or whatever they decide to with their lives and you never hear from them again. Then in your adult life people that you work with get new jobs, and you hear from them for a while, but slowly over time, they drift away, never to be heard from again. I notice this a lot in hockey. You become teammates, then friends, with people on your team, but eventually, something happens that causes you, or them to drift away.

Some of these people check in from time to time, or I will contact them, just to make sure that all is well. Sometimes there is a little weirdness after not being in contact with them for a while. With other people it is like I just spoke to them the day before. The phenomenon is quite interesting.

Can you imagine if this were not the case? Can you imagine what life would be like if you stayed close with everyone you were ever friends with? Imagine the phone numbers you would collect! I think this would be a logistical and administrative nightmare.

Fax War Day 15 Update: 48 faxes sent, 5 in the queue.

I am going on vacation. I fucked up all my vacationing plans all year. I have determined that everyone should go on vacation well before they get the feeling that if they don't, they might destruct. I think I let myself get to that point again. When I wake up, I just want to go back to sleep. Then I drag myself into work, and sit there all day browsing the interwebs. Little things start to piss me off, like stupid people, bad drivers, the evening news.

Anyhoo, So I am going to Las Vegas. September 3rd through September 8th. I got a West Wing room at the MGM Grand, normally $189.99 a night, for only $69.99 a night, except for Friday night, which I had to pay 129 bucks for. So a deep discount all the way around, since I am a past gust and a member of their player's club.

I got tickets to Wayne Brady. Additionally, I intend to see The Amazing Jonathan again, whereas he is quote entertaining. Also on the schedule is Ka (Cirque), Love (Cirque based on the Beatles), Blue Man Group, and Hans Klok (magician that has Pamela Anderson in his show). Snoop Dog is doing a show at the Hard Rock by the pool, but I believe it is standing room only, so I will probably have to take a pass on that show, although it would be quite the experience. I don't intend on gambling much at all, but I may play some speed roulette, and sit in front of a slot machine or two for free drinks if I get the notion.

Also, Sunday, Sept. 9th is the MTV Video Music Awards which is in Las Vegas, so I am sure the town will be steeped in all sorts of celebrities and such, so I will be sure to have a fast camera handy in case I run into Brittney Spears or Paris Hilton.

Well the fax war with Shell / Texaco is in full swing. I have been trying to hit them four times a day. There was a break through of sorts. I got a letter in the mail from them claiming they are investigating the issue, and to assure me that I am NOT responsible for the for the disputed amount during the investigation, and that the "initial investigation" may take up to 60 days. I assume this means they received my fax, but who the hell knows. If I were them I would add something to the form letter saying we received your fuckin fax, blah blah blah...

So I noticed that the date on the latter is August 4th, which was the day after I started faxing them. By the time I received their letter, I had faxed them a total of about 20 times. So I started thinking, now that they are working on it, should I stop faxing them. I turned to my team of advisors, and they said no go. I did not win yet. It is not truly a win until I have the money back, or the credit in my account. So fax war is still on strong!

I am currently up to 36 outgoing faxes since August 3rd, and I am pretty much hitting full stride at 4 faxes per day. Since I figured out how to queue them up for 24 hours in advance, I may kick it up a notch every week, and increase the amount by one, until I receive full satisfaction.

So I started thinking about something yesterday... My current monthly truck payment for my new Dodge Ram 1500 Laramie QuadCab is $537.89. My monthly Insurance bill from Geico is $92.57. My monthly average gas bill is $350.00. This comes to a grand total of $980.46. A couple of out of the norm trips to wherever would round my gas bill up and bring the grand total to a $1000.00 a month. A THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS! Just to drive around, and I pretty much do not go anywhere but to work, and to hockey. THAT IS 12,000.00 A YEAR! You could by a meager house around in these parts for that kind of scratch, and be building some nice equity. Or, you could invest that money into mutual funds and make a killing. I suppose ultimately it is not realistic to dream about what you could do with the full 12 grand, because you would still have to get around somehow, but lets analyze.

You could buy a brand new Mini Cooper fresh off the lot for 17 grand, so the payments on that bad boy would be roughly $250 a month, and the gas bill would roughly cut by 75% since the Mini gets 4x the gas mileage of my truck, bringing gas down to roughly $85 a month. Insurance would drop quite a bit as well. Let's estimate that it would drop down to 60$ a month. It can't really be half as much because only a portion of the insurance premium is for your own vehicle replacement. So that would give a monthly total of $400 a month after rounding out a bit, which is $4800 a year, a savings of $7200.00! On top of all that, I am sure there are even cheaper cars that get better gas mileage.

I love my truck, and I certainly don't mind paying the premium to drive such a fantastical ride, and it sort of relates to my theory of splurging in times of prosperity. When things are good, and you are doing well, live a little, because you only get to ride this planet once (usually), but to some extent, it is sort of disgusting to spend money like its nothing, when a lot of other people can hardly get by month to month. On the other hand, fuck 'em, because if they used their brains like me they would have access to the same resources I do.

I am not exactly sure what all this means.

The Texaco/Shell Operation Phase II: Fax War has begun. I have now faxed the proof of payment to them approximately 10 times. Now that the work week has begun again, I will be on a regular schedule of faxing them 3 times a day until I get my money back.

This weekend I decided that since I always have hockey on Saturday, that I would be able to make better use of my time if I learned to do things on Friday. So this Friday I made the decision to go to a friend's house to play guitars and hang out and stuff.

I decided to arrive having eaten, so my best gal picked up some food on her way home from work. She went to Wendy's, and at my request got me a hamburger that is a substitute for a burger they used to have but appear to have discontinued. The former burger was a Quarter Pound Texas Double Cheeseburger. For those of you not from Texas, "Texas" in burger names usually means it has mustard, and pickles. instead of mayo or whatever the hell usually comes on them. In the case of Wendy's, the replacement burger has mayo, and no pickles.

Anyhoo, so I ate one of those. Instead of dwelling on the fact that the Texas Double was gone, I decided to embrace change and eat it with mayo and the tomato, which I usually remove. Fine, it tasted ok, can't complain. Went to my friends house and had a few beers, nothing to heavy. I would estimate maybe 4 or 5 beers, 6 at the very most. Little while later, I had some espresso flavored vodka mixed with sprite. Kinda icky, but not too bad. A little while after that, something hit me like a ton of bricks. BAM, suddenly I felt dizzy, and I was sweating profusely. I proceeded outside in the backyard and commenced to puking. It was not a particularly hard vomit session, but I was disappointed nonetheless, because it broke my streak.

So, I was not vomiting because of the alcohol, I can drink 8 times that amount and not even bat an eye. Is it possible that the tomato and mayo on the burger made me sick? I felt awful the rest of the night. The next morning, I was still feeling really nauseous and sweating profusely from time to time. At one point, I even started sort of dry heaving. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I appeared to sort of have a black eye! It was not a normal black eye, but I could see a lot of busted blood vessels under my left eye, and the rest of my eye looked unnatural. The only conclusion I could draw from that was that I had puked too hard, even though it didn't seem like it.

So I felt bad the rest of the day, but I had to push on because I had an important hockey game that night. Regardless of my bad time, I played fairly well, and we won the game 8-0. Now, I have had food poisoning before several times and none of them were like this, so I am not exactly sure what the hell the problem was. It was quite bizarre.. and I cannot with any certainty say what exactly transpired to make this situation occur.

Other than that, my plan of utilizing the weekend to its fullest worked out great. I may try and take on more expeditions on Friday nights, since Saturday's are locked up by hockey pretty much year round.

It has been a while since I last posted about the Texaco Shell fiasco. Here has what has transpired since my last report. I called one day to check the status and got the run around, so I kept asking for a higher ranking manager. I eventually got to one lady who seemed to be in charge, and seemed to be willing to do whatever she could to help me out. The conversation ended with her promising that she would call me on Friday of the week I called in to let me know if they received the fax, or if I would need to fax it again. Friday, of course came and went, and this CUNT never called. If you are bored and want to talk to her, her name is Jamie and her employee number is "KYO0034". You can contact her at 8008392267.

Anyway, so I let it go for a few more weeks, all the while asking my bank to keep faxing the stupid proof of payment in to them. It started taking my bank several days to respond to my fax request, so I started sending them a new email every single day asking them to fax the damn thing to me instead of Shell so I can take matter into my own hands.

All the while I have been purposely boycotting Shell. If I can, I will never go there again in my entire life. Anyway, so today I am sitting at work and the fax from my bank finally came in! Now I have the proof of payment Shell needs. Now... NOW! the REAL MOTHER FUCKIN FUN CAN BEGIN.

I experimented a little while at work trying to streamline my operation. The plan? Simple. I am going to war fax Shell until I receive full satisfaction. I am going to automate the process of faxing this stupid fucking proof of payment to them 3 times a day, morning, noon, and night, until my case is resolved, and maybe even a little bit longer 8-).

I am having trouble getting my fax server at work to send the stupid thing to them, because it appears to be failing due to "special information tones", which are basically the three tones you hear when you dial a disconnected number. I know the number works because I can dial it manually, and a fax system answers. Tomorrow I am going to try a regular manual fax machine and see if it goes through.

That is where things are at right now. I guess I will update again in a few weeks, when Shell has accumulated nearly 65 faxes from me. Good times.