Monday, May 24, 2010

Criss-Cross-Pollinating Utilities

It's madness. Madness!

The phone company wants to sell me cable TV. The cable company wants to sell me landline phone service and search engines are pushing their own browser.

Next thing you know, the gas company will be selling me water and sewage services!

...Okay, blast you, okay. I'll adjust. But if ever I see a Power & Light company service truck with tinkling bells and an ice-cream freezer on it, that'll be the last straw, dog-gone it, the very last straw.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am flat-out amazed you don't see a $bucks truck trolling around the burbs Saturday mornings playing Norah Jones on speakers. </ot>

Jim

LabRat said...

Fuck Google Chrome. I'm holding out for Google Crom.

Drang said...

And is there a reason that a utility shouldn't be able to sell more than one service? Aside from the Libtard BigNannyGov urge to regulate, I mean.

Roberta X said...

D. W. --And the reason I shouldn't be a touch unnerved by such changes in The Way Things Always Were Before? ;)

Never said it shouldn't happen; it just creeps me out.

The Citizens Gas/Indianapolis Water thing, though-- Pure magical thinking in the Mayor's office. The city is funnin' us, claiming A) they will make money from the sale and B) water rates will go down.

'Splain me that; Citizens Gas does sometimes end up with excess bux on the books that they have to either give back or find a useful home for, but not to the tune of the selling price of a water utility. That money has to come from somewhere and if we don't cough it up in taxes, we'll part with it in the form of higher water bills.

--Which (IMO!) wouldn't be out of line if we were payin' to shore up the crumbling infrastructure; there was a lot of deferred maintenance in the old Indianapolis Water Company days and the present operator (Veolia) has been running in "fireman" mode from the start. Adding another layer of debt won't change that.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

So Bobbi, are you saying that if IPL showed up to read your meter and offered you a free ice cream novelty, you wouldn't think that was kind of cool? :)

(Yeah, I know, they don't read meters anymore. Work with me, here...)

D.W. Drang said...

Didn't realize you were talking about a government monoploy. Bound to screw it up.

JC said...

Dear Lord, the girl's cone mad!

Old Grouch said...

Well, in the old days the power company used to sell and install major appliances. The ground floor of IPALCO's Monument Circle building was once a showroom, full of (electric) ranges, refrigerators, and water heaters.

(OT- Where have I been? Deathmarch project and travel. Not home yet.)