The answer is a resoudning “no” according to a local smog test facility. That’s what the tech told me as I waited for my test to complete. He was sharing his desire for a new job and the thanklessness of his customers.

Most of the people he sees have cars 10+ years old and the owners are seniors. They’re paranoid about the pollution testing system in general, are financially tight, and don’t understand the process. They’re unhappy to be there but are forced to by California law.

During his five years working there not a single person has volunteered for a smog test because they were concerned about their impact on the environment. Even the eco-friendly bunch don’t bother until their California registration is due.

If you consider that smog checks are required every couple of years (based on the age and type of vehicle), a car might be polluting for an entire year before the test is required. But it seems that no one bothers until they’re forced to.

In January I wrote about implementing GTD. I didn’t take any photos but if you close your eyes and imagine perfectly labelled file folders (3-tab style) using a Topic/Subtopic taxonomy, that’s it.

I purged old folder, papers, and other junk from my filing cabinet, and most importantly, made sure there was extra space to add new folders. No longer does paper-to-file lie forgotten in a pile…it goes straight in.

What’s left is the remainder of my office, mostly books. More on that in another post and lest I forget, my desk looks nothing like the old one. Photos soon.

Monday night was the Phoenix show and last night was Los Angeles at the Staples Center. In all, the shows were good but Sting was up to his old tricks.

He seems to look back and turn up his nose on The Police’s early works. He may be all about jazz and the lute these days but punk/ska/reggae was their calling card so suck it up and play it. As expected, he messed around with tempo, obstensibly making fast refrains into slow moving trains. According to what I’m told by friends, a Rolling Stone article says Sting wanted to change every song but Stewart and/or Andy put their foot down. Thank god.

The first few tracks at Phoenix lacked energy but it got better a few songs in. Andy rocked out far younger than his 65 years. Stewart, aside from an identical mop of now-gray hair, bangs out the beat like not a day has passed since Synchronicity.

The LA show was a bit different. Far more energy from the get-go but Andy wasn’t on his game. Stewart, as always, rock solid. At both shows Sting’s vocals were strong, even if he loves to slow it down for whatever self-serving reason. This was my first time seeing the same band twice in one tour and I’d do it again for any band I’m passionate for.

The set list included a good mix of older tracks but the order was off. Starting the show with Message In A Bottle is polar-opposite of every Sting show I’ve seen since he went solo with Dream Of The Blue Turtles; Synchronicity II should have been first. The Phoenix set ended with So Lonely, a great song with fast beats. In Los Angeles the set ended with Next To You which bombed because it’s a lesser-known track and doesn’t leave a lasting impression. The right closer is Tea In The Sahara which was strangely missing although it made the rounds for the original Synchronicity tour.

Toward the beginning of June my EarthLinkStink DSL service went dark. I gave it a day or two and checked into the local coffee shop for wi-fi. Days later it was still dead so I called EL’s technical support and it took them weeks to get it working again.

They told me “there was a problem in my neighborhood since the original date of my problem” which prompts the question why they didn’t notify customers about extended downtime. That statement was an outright lie because their support site said nothing of planned (or otherwise) downtime. I presume the tech was passing the problem along the support chain, customer be damned.

Outsourcing to India, quite frankly, blows. Fortunately, there wasn’t a language barrier or sarcastic techs, rather a mix of things. They’re not sincere when they say “I’m sorry you’re experiencing a problem.” No, you’re not sorry and if you were sorry my service wouldn’t be down for this long. You’d pass me to a supervisor without begging for it.

They follow the troubleshooting script (or flowchart if you will) to a proverbial “T.” If you interject a single word that doesn’t fit the correct response at the right step they simply ignore you. You can say you’re Bill Gates or the designer of the DSL modem and they’ll still tell you to reboot Windows or the modem. They should be checking the circuit on their end first and then put the customer through hoops.

Having been down almost a month I was offered nothing for my time. That’s not entirely true, I was told to call the billing department once I was back on-line and they’d credit me. No, no, no you should automatically be doing it. I’ve called in five times and done with it.

The icing on the cake was when my DSL recovered and I had trouble with my router’s PPPoE. It turns out I needed to re-enable the modem’s Bridge Mode but the tech support rep simply said “we don’t support routers, good bye.” She didn’t even offer to help although EL’s web support system includes instructions on Bridge mode specifically for people with routers.

My ratings of EarthStink on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best:

1. Hold time: 7
2. Courteous: 8
3. Sincere: 1
4. Expertise: 1
5. Proactive: 1
6. Follow-up: 5
7. Quick resolution: 1
8. Average rating: 3.4

Since last week I’ve had nothing but trouble with wi-fi. My home’s wi-fi is flakey and now my DSL is down. I sought refuge at a local hotspot and my “regulars” are all having trouble: Starbucks and the local library. I’ve also discovered that Windows running under Parallels Desktop won’t work at a T-Mobile Hotspot.

I swear this problem is following me wherever I go. Redondo Beach…Westchester…you name it.