Category: Observed (Page 24 of 24)

Upgraded my cell phone plan today. I’m not sure how AT&T Wireless is making money off me anymore. But I remain a satisfied customer.

After four years as a satisfied AT&T Wireless customer, I have learned to keep an eye on new calling plans to ensure I get the most value for my money.

For a while, AT&T Wireless wanted to upgrade me to a lesser plan than my outdated one; they wanted to yank my unlimited evenings and weekends (this in the days of 500-minute off-peak plans) or charge me more for additional services I didn’t need. Then they started increasing their minutes and decreasing the cost. I had:

1. 60 peak minutes and unlimited off-peak for $29.99 a month

2. 200 peak and unlimited off-peak for the same price, because my unlimited off-peak minutes were grandfathered into the original plan (which drove the customer service reps crazy)

3. 250 peak, 1000 off-peak with SMS and an extended roaming area for $39.99/mo (I gave in)

4. 250 peak, 1000 off-peak reduced to $34.99/mo with free national long distance, awarded to me after the customer service rep said, “I can’t give you that plan, but if you lead me to believe you may cancel your account because of this, I’m allowed to see what I can do for you. Is that what you’d like me to believe?”

Today’s New York Times carried an ad for a new mlife “National Network monthly calling plan.” The same $34.99 upgrades me to 300 peak minutes and unlimited night and weekend minutes again. Good deal, eh?

“Unlimited-night-and-weekend minutes are only available for new customers signing up for two-year agreements,” the customer service representative informed me. “But what we can do is give you 3,000 ‘anytime minutes’ instead.”

In my four years as a satisfied AT&T Wireless customer, I have yet to use more than 1100 minutes in a month. Sold.

Frankly, I’m not even sure how AT&T Wireless is making money off me anymore. But I remain a satisfied customer.

I have an incredible hankering to write something and I was really tired of that celebrity spotting piece, so I have compelled myself to jot a new piece in this space.

Alas, nothing has hit. So you’re stuck reading this (and the weblog! the weblog!).

If you’re curious, I am on the cusp of a very busy spring: Fixing up this Web site (very soon), contributing new and exciting pieces to other sites, taking a class, contemplating new print authoring ideas. I have pledged to myself to keep this site running smoothly through the schedule crunch.

So yeah, this is a poor excuse for an essay. At least I’ve relegated skinny-ass Renee Zellweger to the archives.

Sorry!

Men’s fashion basics, from the excellent The Morning News:

Suits

Dress shirts

Pants

Everything else

And via the Morning News, for future reference: classic tie knots.

At Fred’s at Barney’s, a restaurant in a department store at 61st and Madison in New York City, on Saturday afternoon, over lunch, gawking along with the rest of the tables in the northern half of the restaurant:

At Fred’s at Barney’s, a restaurant in a department store at 61st and Madison in New York City, on Saturday afternoon, over lunch, gawking along with the rest of the tables in the northern half of the restaurant: Renee Zellweger, seated with friends at a table for eight, looking cute and scarily thin; soon joined by Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc, tan and goateed, respectively, and both handsome and friendly; and, shortly following LeBlanc’s departure, Courteney Cox Arquette, followed by Jennifer Aniston, which finally made me crane my neck with the rest of the crowd, because they are indeed as beautiful in person as most Americans imagine they would be, Jennifer in particular, as befits her status as one of the country’s cherished faces, even when she’s a little puffy-eyed and casual, like she was at that moment.

We left without seeing whether Brad Pitt showed up.