Not that I am really sur­prised but David Pogue over at the New York Times learned that Ver­i­zon has imple­mented a new pol­icy for its cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Under this new pol­icy employ­ees will be sanc­tioned if they sug­gest that cus­tomers block ser­vices like SMS and data to avoid inci­den­tal costs. I know that my brother blocks SMS because he was rack­ing up a bill for SMS mes­sages he did not want to receive. Now Cus­tomer Ser­vice reps are told to direct peo­ple to buy plans for data and SMS to avoid such costs.

On top of that cus­tomer ser­vice agents are told to avoid cred­it­ing charges unless the cus­tomer first asks for such a credit and even when they do they are only sup­posed to issue an ini­tial credit. Not the best cus­tomer sevice move but its worth­while to know as a Ver­i­zon cus­tomer that you need to request the cred­its and know that you must request these ser­vices be blocked since they will not sug­gest it to you. I you have a friend, fam­ily mem­ber, or sig­nif­i­cant other who is get­ting hit with these unwanted charges on Ver­i­zon make sure to let them know that they must ask for cred­its and have the abil­ity to block such services.

(Via BerryReview.com.)

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/117637-when-tv-became-art-what-we-owe-to-buffy/

In a New York Mag­a­zine essay, Emily Nuss­baum argues that TV became Art in this past decade. But thanks to Buffy that had already hap­pened at the end of the pre­vi­ous one.

(Via Whe­do­nesque | a weblog about Joss Whe­don.)

• Happy Father’s Day to all of my fel­low father’s out there!! Enjoy your well-deserved day. God Bless! #fb #
• Blog: Happy Father’s Day To My Dad! http://gregbo.com/wordpress/255 #
• Father’s Day + Amaz­ing Sto­ries Boxed Set + Spend­ing the day watch­ing DVDs with my Son = Price­less!! #Hap­py­Fa­thers­Day #fb #
• I had for­got­ten just how great Amaz­ing Sto­ries was. I am really enjoy­ing watch­ing these. #

I just wanted to take the oppor­tu­nity to say Happy Father’s Day to my Dad… Dean Wat­son. If it weren’t for the love and sup­port of my father through­out my life, I cer­tainly would not be where I am today. He and my mother, Brenda Wat­son, always encour­aged my cre­ativ­ity when I was a child. Now that I am grown and can see what dark­ness is out there in this crazy world, I real­ize how lucky I am to have such won­der­fully pre­cious child­hood memories.

When I was in my rebel­lious teens, my Father would con­stantly be there to pull me out of some sort of trou­ble or another. But more impor­tantly, later in life as I went through one of the dark­est times in my life (my divorce), he was there for me whole heart­edly. He gave me much needed emo­tional sup­port and a help­ing hand as I needed it.

Basi­cally, I don’t know where I’d be with­out my dad. Now that I am a sin­gle father and rais­ing my child on my own, I try to live up to the role my father played in my life. If I can be half the father for my son that my dad was to me, I will feel blessed. So Happy Father’s Day, Dad! And always know that I appre­ci­ate the things you do!

Visit My Dad’s Web­site: AncientFootsteps.com