Category : The Happy Hormone News
Founded in 1670, back when Canada was pronounced ‘Kanata,’ the beaver was the King of the predators and the British and French mocked each other with slurs like: “Aha, you have a funny accent!’ A small HBC rose to become what it has been for more than three centuries: a Canadian beacon, a symbol of national pride, and as of late a company who sold out to an American dandy with a few billions burning a hole in his pant pocket.
When the world is your oyster,’ said new HBC owner Jerry Zucker after the $1.5 billion purchase, ‘you can get bored of oyster juice pretty quickly.’ When asked what the fuck he meant Zucker replied, ‘I decided to start buying history! I am a genius!’ When pressed to stop smoking marijuana on interviews, Mr. Zucker further explained, ‘Now that I own the HBC group, I am officially changing its place in history, and I am writing myself in it.’
After asking Mr. Zucker for a few tokes of what was obviously good cannabis; he continued, ‘they spread insatiably far and wide and without mercy; they were the Starbucks of your early nation. But its history is a sleeper; there are no car chases and nothing ever blows up good. I am going to change all that.’ After a few minutes, it all started making sense. ‘That’s some good shit, Sir,’ said this reporter.
Throughout its history, HBC represented Canada as a mosaic of overpriced wet, smelly furs to just overpriced clothing today. ‘That’s great and good, but I thought for example, what if HBC employees travelled through Canada in helicopters as early as the 1700’s? That makes sense to me, I always wanted to be live in the 1700’s and I AM a certified pilot. I have tons of changes in mind, like why didn’t fur traders use machine guns? They are awesome! If they had used them they would have fought competition off more easily. If that had been the case, then maybe I would not have been able to buy HBC now. Woah, chicken and the egg man, chicken and the egg…’
Watch for HBC’s revised history to hit HBC’s books section as early as this summer.
–This and all Newsbriefs have been published at the University of Toronto’s satirical newspaper The Toike Okie, and/or the even more twisted BruckNews e-zine.–
Rogers Expands Rogers on Demand
TORONTO- Rogers Communications ever-growing lust to build an imperious monopoly over Canadians announced today details about their upcoming second-generation Rogers On Demand service.
‘It funny how it came to us,’ said an unapologetic Ted Rogers, ‘(The board and) I sat in my arboretum, just beneath my own small ten foot gold statue of myself wondering just how to expand the service beyond just movies. Then it hit us. Not everyone likes to just watch movies.’
According to their news release, Rogers On Demand will now include services from drugs, gambling and prostitution. ‘We simply could not believe we had neglected such an obvious market before. It might be a low denominator clientele, but we are talking hundreds of millions here.’ added Andrew Corripio head of Rogers’s global marketing.
‘You will find our prices to be very competitive. Not only that, there is also the extra advantage of bundling Rogers On Demand with any of our other telephony or cable services, trust me, you will definitely see some real savings on your monthly bill. We are very excited about our prospects.’
After being asked about the fact this initiative might be considered illegal by both local and federal authorities, Mr. Rogers added: ‘I have never given a fuck about what they thought in the past, I see no reason why to I should care now.’
How to be an Internet Playa!
It was only a matter of time before technology and the human mating dance met face to face, went out for a few drinks and ended up in a Super 8. The result? A cyber-jungle of IM services plus a volley of single, dating and discrete encounters sites. A scene not much different than the de-humanizing meat-markets found in any half lit nightclub, it seemed like things were just going to be business as usual.
BUT WAIT!
With the invention of that great equalizer known as the Internet, it is finally irrelevant if you are shy or if your friends call you a Picasso come to life!
THERE IS MORE!
Now not only the ludicrously hot (not you) and extroverted can enjoy the sinful pleasures of straying into the fancy of multiple partners, whether you like it or not!
BUT WAIT!
‘How does this remarkable system, undoubtedly created by a sage in the arts of seduction works,’ you ask?
Simple, I made it a personal quest to travel the world, hopping from frisky Jamaica, to romantic Paris and to the more laissez-faire city of Amsterdam to collect research. The rest of Europe, Asia, and Africa were also on the itinerary—somewhere— but unfortunately, I got as far as mythical London, Ontario before running out of funds and forced to use a Money-Mart to buy the bus trip home. Either way, after ten minutes of Googling, I was able to extract the elixir to create this revolutionary system.
WOW, I AM GETTING A LITTLE EXCITED!
Yes, and you should be.
TELL ME MORE!
As part of your guide into history, you will receive my smouldering ‘How to be an Internet Player’ guide, smack full of essays and ‘how-to’ nuggets. Such as:
Chapter I:
Don’t offer to buy her a drink, you stupid.
Chapter III:
Typos as the lubricant of Internet love.
Chapter VI (a):
Stretching the truth is just another way of saying ‘I like you.’
Chapter VI (b):
Instant Messengers are crude forms of communication, so what if you said you are 6’3’?
Chapter VI (c):
Having a six pack means different things to different people. How to just go with it.
Chapter IIX:
Ask her which Hollywood star she thinks is hot; then tell her you just happen to be his look-alike! If you have any qualms with this, refer to Chapter II.
Chapter X:
How come the women on the Lavalife dating website don’t look anything like the ones in the commercials? The mystery explained!
Chapter XIII:
How to type with only your left hand.
Chapter XX:
So, she ended up being a man? How to just go with it.
THIS IS PURE GOLD… I AM SALIVATING!
Yes, but there is more! Aside this soon to-be New York best seller, you will also get my 24\7 email support in case you have any questions. Yes, I will personally read and analyze your concerns and will advise in a true mentor like fashion. Send me your questions and orders to: Sendmeyourmoney@techemail.com
IS THERE A CATCH?
Are diamonds ever free? Most women have to get married just to get one. But don’t worry; you don’t have to marry me. I will settle for only five easy payments of $19.95! Yes! Benefit from my lack of pride! You will be enjoying the benefits of this brilliant system in no time, whether you like it or not!
I really dislike Rogers. I am one of the many who has had a history of bad experiences with their services. Also, I have found some of their procedures to be sneaky and underhanded.
For example, I got a Nokia 6190 through Rogers three years ago due to a corporate deal I was illegible through my place of work. When I got it, I was advised by the salesman in the corporate store that I had fifteen (15) days to try the phone and if I did not like it – either phone or service or both— that I could return it for a full refund. ‘Okay,’ I thought, ‘that’s fair.’ Case in point, Fido used to have a thirty-day return policy, but since Rogers bought them they have fallen into line with their parent company and reduced it to fifteen days as well.
Luckily I made my mind of whether to keep the phone or not after a really quick call to my then new voice mail system. Imagine my surprise when I called Rogers to cancel.
‘Have you used it?’ Was the CSR’s first question, ‘Yes, I did.’
’Then most likely you cannot return the phone.’
‘Why?’
‘If you use the phone for more then fifteen (15) minutes then you void your option to cancel the contract. Unless you pay the ‘contract cancellation fee.’
‘How much is that?’ I asked as I went through the phone’s call timer. ‘Twenty dollars for every outstanding month, to a limit of $200.’
‘The man at the corporate store forgot to mentioned that small fact.’
‘Fifteen minutes is pretty short, with Fido you can use the phone for as long as you want for 30 days. How is anyone supposed to figure how good their phone is if they can only use it for fifteen minutes?’ ‘That’s what is in the contract, Sir.’
’Eight minutes,’ I said to the CSR. ‘I have only used the phone for only eight minutes!’
‘Can’t be, because we have been talking for more than 15 minutes.’
‘I am using my landline.’ You are not getting me that easily I thought.
‘Okay, what I would recommend then is just drop by the store you bought it and ask for a refund. I would also recommend that you do not use the phone.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
I got a full refund the next day. But I could not help to wonder how many times this happens out there. Less then a year and a half ago, Peter one of my friends was stuck having to pay the $200 dollars because he made the mistake of expending his allocated 15 minutes on hold to speak to a CSR to cancel his service before the deadline. ‘You can’t cancel Sir, you have exceeded the fifteen minutes usage clause.’
‘But I have used them to call your Help line to CANCEL the line.’
Sorry Sir, the limitation is fifteen minutes so in your case to cancel is no longer an option.’
In Peter’s case he was forced to pay the $200 as he was advised that his account would otherwise be sent to accounts receivable and promptly forwarded to a collection agency, which would stain his credit rating.
Marcus, colleague of mine, who works with me but used to work for Rogers as a CSR told me that he was regularly reminded by management that if they found errors in people’s accounts that they should not bring it up unless a customer brought it up first. Since according to management the system would auto correct itself anyway. He never believed it though.
Which brings me to another of my stories of woe. I must have been on some cheap drugs but I somehow brought myself to giving Rogers another try, mostly due to a very attractive offer my job was once again promoting. I bought a Motorola T720 and whether it was the abysmal reception (I lived in a condo 3 minutes away from their downtown headquarters which is littered with reception towers!) or the fact that every single bill for the four months I was with them had errors. I ended paying the $200 to get the bloody hell out of Rogers. Luckily I was able to sell the phone so I managed to cover most of the expense. You can imagine my annoyance since my Fido account has never had a SINGLE billing error, and I had by then been with them for over 6 years! Too bad Rogers bought Fido last year, and they now share the same billing system. Damn you Rogers.
Heck, there is even a guy who got so fed up after being screwed by Rogers that he created a website in which people could voice their rants. He seems to have relaxed a bit, but the rants are still an excellent and more often than not hilarious read: http://www.ihaterogers.ca/index.htm
On more recent news, you may like to read the following story that just ran in the Globe and Mail during the weekend, because if you are with Rogers then this could happen to you. A law professor was in total shock when she received a $12,237.60 bill from Rogers. It seems her phone was stole from her home while away and over three hundred long distance calls were charged to her account, including calls to foreign countries such as Pakistan, Libya, Syria, India and Russia. Quite a change from someone whose average bill is $75. What it is even more shocking is Rogers’s propensity to just look the other way, even though they have admited to possessing the technology to track fraud-in-process, alarm the client and freeze the account. After all, the true colours of how a corporation treats its clients are most obvious in the efficiency it resolves your concerns and not by just seating back and collecting your monthly payments.
Good one Rogers, very smooth. Click here for the article.