Diamond Dave’s Blog

It happened again! A year and a half later, the replacement UPS that I got from APC bit the dust. At least this time it didn’t catch fire and attempt to burn down the house. But this time around, I’ll just get another brand. Don’t want to put up with tech support from India again.

I see that the French telecom giant Alcatel is yet again attempting to buy American telecom company Lucent (formerly Western Electric division of AT&T). This time I have a feeling it will go through. Yet another chapter in telecom history will be closed. But like the AT&T/SBC merger - if a tree falls and no one hears it, does anybody care?

Spent several days last week in Chattanooga, TN on business. Nice town, but wouldn’t want to live there. Took pictures of the telephone central office buildings for my Telephone World site.

I saw on Drudge that Susan Sarandon will be playing Cindy Sheehan in an upcoming movie. A nut playing a nut. How fitting.

It was bound to happen considering how the NFL free agency works, but Antwaan Randle El, who was an instrumental player in last season’s Pittsburgh Steelers has jumped ship and gone to the Washington Deadskins. Guess money wins over team loyalty. Ben and Jerome tried to keep Randle El around, but he saw greener pastures ($$$) with the Deadskins.

The gay cowboy movie didn’t win Best Picture at the Oscars. Boo hoo! NOT! I just hope that movie just fades away soon. Enough is enough about it! I mean, I really don’t want to see butt pluggers on the big (or little) screen.

Also in news.. lets see.. SBC (now AT&T) plans on merging with BellSouth. 22 years ago the monopoly was broken up, now it looks like it may reform. Verizon operates in quite a bit of territory, co-owns the best cell system in the country, and recently purchased a long distance company (MCI). SBC co-owns the second best cellular company (largest by footprint and customer base), operates in quite a bit of territory, and also purchased a long distance company (AT&T). Sound familiar? Wonder who’ll buy Qwest next? (Probably neither - they’re in debt up to their eyeballs.) But one has to wonder… it may be Ma Bell all over again soon, very soon.