I have to say that when we first heard that Ellen Degeneres was going to be the new host on American Idol, both my wife and I did not think she would be all that great.

We thought she would be too funny for the show, taking too much of the spotlight. We were worried that she would be too much like Paula – super nice to everyone, everyone’s “biggest fan”, and just a waste of space.

Boy were we wrong.

We are both pleasantly surprised that Ellen seems to bring that perfect mix of honestly, niceness, and humor. She cracks some jokes, but doesn’t go overboard. She calls things as they are. If someone does a bad job, she tell them, but manages to do it in a somewhat nice way.

Ellen, If you are reading this (which you probably aren’t) My wife and I support you, and hope to see you on several more seasons of American Idol. I’m sorry we thought you wouldn’t be a good fit – I admit, we were wrong.

This last weekend my wife, daughter and I spend some time in Richmond (BC). Richmond, and really most of neighboring Vancouver, are full of rich folk. Here I am driving along in my 2008 Mazda 5 surrounded by vehicles like new BMW 7 series, Mercedes and Austin Martins with the occasional Lamborghini and Ferrari thrown in. Thank god there is also the odd mid-80’s Nissan Sentra, and Hyundai Pony’s around to keep me from the bottom of the food chain.

People have money – they buy nice cars, I get it – I’d do the same, but what get’s me is the parents that buy their kids half million dollar cars as their first vehicle. What’s up with that??

For those who are unfamiliar with BC law etc, The graduated licensing system in BC requires student drivers to have a red “L” on the back of their car (it’s a little 5 x 7 inch magnet), and new drivers, in their first 2 years have to display a green “N” on the back.

On this trip I saw many green N’s on BMW’s and other fancy cars, but there were two that really caught my attention. One was on a new Audi R8 – cost, about $160,000. The other was on a new Lamborghini Murcielago, cost about $450,000. Are you kidding me? Really? What on earth has a 17 year old done to deserve his parents buying him a $450,000 car! New drivers should have to drive cheap little beaters till they learn how to properly drive – I seriously doubt that any 17 year old can truly handle a 631 horsepower V-12. But I could be wrong.

Perhaps I am just jealous. When I first got my license I was stuck driving my dads 85 Ford Bronco II. For a 16 year old it was great to have access to a car, but still, it’s no Lamborghini.

I have had some nice cars since. My Mazda 5 may be a mini-van, but it’s practical for my family, and still kinda fun to drive… Fun to drive? A mini-van? Did I just say that? Man I must be getting old. I miss my 07 GTI, and old 72 Datsun 240z.

Spring is just around the corner, and most people won’t be thinking about snow for some time. Shoveling your driveway is probably one of the last things on your mind but if the Roboplow ever comes on the market you just might get excited the next time the white stuff starts to fall…

This is an old clip form The Hour, with 10 Questions for the Trailer Park Boys. Pretty funny if you like this kinda stuff. If you are offended easily, you may want to skip this video though.

So we recently switched from Shaw Direct Satellite TV to Bell Satellite TV.

So far, the programming is better, the picture is equal, the guide is far superior, and the PVR makes skipping commercials awesome. We record all our shows and watch them after, fast forwarding the commercials – an hour of Lost now takes half the time in front of the TV.

BUT it seems we have ended up with a bit of a dud for our PVR.  In the end it’s all good as Bell is shipping us a new one, but still a hassle.

I will summarize what our problem is in a moment, but first I want to talk about the agent I spoke with last night.

First I want to start by saying he was a very friendly and nice guy. Very polite, but I have to wonder if  it was his first day at the job, and perhaps also his first day using a computer. Here is a snippet form our conversation (as close as I recall it):

Bell Tech: “What is your email address?”
Scott: “scott@..” <interrupted by bell>
Bell Tech:”What do you mean “at”?”
Scott: <confused pause> “um…  didn’t you ask me for my email”?
Bell: “Oh you mean “at” as in email?”
Scott: “um… yes”

This blew me away, here he was asking me for my email, and he had no clue what an “@” was.  Come on people get a clue, this must be the easiest part of your job.

The next was where to send the PVR.  The town I live in is small, and there is no door to door mail service, unless sent via courier. As a result we always put both our street address and PO Box on all bills, mail etc, to ensure that everything gets to us.  This rep had no clue how to include both! He had to ask his supervisor! Now I don’t know about you, but every time I have had to fill in an address form there are two lines for the address. I put the street address on the first line, and the PO box on the second. Its not that hard.

Oh well, what can you do.  Perhaps its time to sell the TV, cut off the electricity, and move to the woods to live as a hermit.

Okay here is my rant for the day.

I am sick and tired of calling businesses and having the automated system ask me for an account number, phone number, or any other piece of information, only to finally reach a real person and have them ask me for the same thing. If your automated system asks me for it, that should be it. Why are you asking me twice? If the live agent can’t see the info I enter into the automated system, WHY DOES IT ASK ME FOR IT?

Yesterday I had to call both Bell and a government office. Both systems asked me for info (one was my phone number, the other my social insurance number) and in both cases, I had to repeat the info to the live agent.

I told my wife that I was going to bitch about this in my blog today and her comment to me was:

“I don’t even bother, I just hit ‘star, star, pound, star, zero, star, pound’ till I eventually get a real person.”

I think I will have to take up that technique cause it seems to work for her.

There are some companies out there who do the job a bit better though. For instance, when I call Mazda to book my car in for servicing, their call display pulls up my account info before they answer the phone.  They usually answer “Hi Scott, calling to schedule servicing?” or some other comment relevant to my account. I like that, makes believe that they remember me and care (even if it is an illusion).