Bag of Randomness
Thursday, June 25, 2026

Here’s something I thought would take 10 minutes max, but it’s now taken days and is still unresolved.

I got my Frontier Internet (A Verizon company) online statement. It said there are updated deals and promotions, and I should contact them. So I logged in to my account and started a chat session.

The rep told me she couldn’t help me because I’m in a homeowners association (HOA), and I would have to contact them. I told her I live in a rental house, and the area I live in isn’t part of any HOA. She insisted she can’t help because my account is labeled as part of an HOA, and I needed to call the Frontier department that handles HOA accounts; she gave me the phone number. She also informed me that it would be up to the HOA if I could change my plan.

I remember that about a year or two ago, I called Frontier just to see if I could get a better rate. It was handled in less than 10 minutes, and I received a much better deal. So, all of this is bewildering. Anywho, I called the number and fought through the phone tree. Eventually, I spoke to an agent who said her department couldn’t help me and didn’t understand why the other agent had provided me with her number. So, I decided to call the number on my bill.

This next rep informed me that yes, indeed, my account is labeled or tagged as HOA. And only the HOA would make any changes to my account. Again, I clarified I’m not part of an HOA, but then explained that I’m actually part of a “bulk contract discount” that gets looped in with the HOA-labeled accounts, and other agents just see “HOA” and go off of that. I sought to clarify if this was something due to something I did, and she couldn’t answer. However, she gave me a phone number to Utility Profit, and explained that if I were eligible for any promotion or discount, they would go over them with me. For the record, I’ve never heard of a “Utility Profit.” She ended the call by telling me that if I didn’t like anything that Utility Profit had to offer, I could call her department back, ask to get removed from the “bulk contract discount,” and be treated as a regular customer. It appears that Utility Profit is a tool that property managers use, and I haven’t found anything really negative about them.

Well, I called Utility Profit. I get a message saying they don’t take real-time calls and that I’ll receive a text to schedule a call with a representative. Sure enough, I get the text, but I can’t schedule the call today or the following day.

I’m sure I’m the only person who feels this way, and I will proudly own it, but I hate backup cameras on automobiles with a passion. Why? Because of the countless times I’ve been annoyed beyond all get-out, driving in parking lots looking for a spot with a vehical in front of me, watching them pass a spot and thinking I could then snag it, see them abruptly stop, only to back in and take what I thought was mine. This was never a problem before the backup camera, and now people who normally wouldn’t back into a spot, especially drivers of large trucks and SUVs, pull this annoying stunt. Granted, they have the right and aren’t doing anything wrong, but it annoys the living heck out of me.

Rant over.

1st-of-its-kind mission will attempt to save aging space telescope using robot spacecraft – NASA’s Swift telescope could be destroyed in months if nothing is done.

This will be pretty darn impressive if they can pull this off, especially when you check out this detail – 250 days!. And, they launch this coming Saturday.

How many Dallas Mavericks fans know that Shawn Kemp’s first NBA practice was with the Mavs, all because of a dunk contest he heard on the radio? He was an 18-year-old student at Trinity Valley Junior College in East Texas. He heard on the radio that the Mavs were holding a dunk contest, and the winner would get to practice with the Mavs all weekend, for a total of three practices. Little did he know that he would be practicing with future teammates Detlef Schrempf and Sam Perkins. Hear him tell the story himself below.

So, why was he at Trinity Valley Junior College in tiny Athens, TX, a thousand miles away from his hometown in Indiana with a population of about a thousand? In short, he was committed to Kentucky but had low SAT scores. He was advised to avoid the media spotlight and go to Texas, as junior colleges in Texas were a hotbed of elite basketball talent at the time. His childhood friends later noted that Trinity Valley was a blessing because it was far enough away that “he could just be Shawn,” giving him his first break from fan expectations since the fifth grade. But get this, he connected with Larry Johnson, who was balling at Odessa College. Jerry Tarkanian was doing his best to recruit LJ, and the master plan was for Kemp and LJ to go to UNLV together. Kemp abandoned the UNLV plan after befriending Magic, moving to California, and playing pickup games with the Lakers legend at UCLA.

 

I recently canceled my YouTubeTV subscription; the price hikes have been outrageous. Here’s a brief history of their base plan.

  • 2017 (Launch): $35 per month
  • 2018 (March): $40 per month
  • 2019 (April): $50 per month
  • 2020 (June): $64.99 per month
  • 2023 (March): $72.99 per month
  • 2025 (January): $82.99 per month

Thankfully, I was recently gifted an older version of a vSeeBox and have since canceled all my subscription services, as the device allows me to stream (or use video-on-demand) anything on any platform, watch cable or live television (over 2,000 channels), and watch any pay-per-view event without a subscription. I never heard of the device until I was gifted one, and learned its main competitor is the SuperBox. It’s almost too good to be true. You’ll have to do your own research, but here’s an article comparing the two.

One feature I really enjoy is the 24/7 channels of a specific television show that run without any commercials. Some are sequential, but I like the ones that play them in random order. Some of the ones I watch the most are Black Mirror, Cheers, House M.D., The X-Files, ALF, Knight Rider, The Simpsons, and The Office. I just wish there were a Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, and Better Call Saul version of those channels.

Oh, and if you are an NFL fan, yes, the NFL Sunday Ticket is a part of this, as well as any televised sport in the U.S. or abroad.

Earlier this month, the Oregon Symphony had a JAWS in Concert performance. Someone came prepared.

I feel sorry that our troops have to do this, but this soldier couldn’t have handled it any better.

So that Saul Goodman return video wasn’t just a one-off

A week later, Saul is back again, this time educating the viewer on the ins and outs of representative democracy. Saul4Democracy now seems to be an ongoing series, and I couldn’t be happier to see more of everyone’s favorite ambulance-chaser.

The perils of driving a banana car.

Giant Banana Pulled Over in Montana: Driver Says Cops Have Stopped Him 100s Of Times 

His favorite stop happened in a small mountain town in West Virginia. A traffic light turned red. Braithwaite stopped. The light turned green and he made a leisurely turn through the intersection.

A few moments later, flashing lights appeared behind him. A police officer marched up to the banana and delivered the news.

“‘The reason I pulled you over, that light back there, you peeled out.'”

For a moment, Braithwaite didn’t know if he was being serious or not.

Here’s how it started.

Loyce Edward Deen was the first and only aviator buried at sea inside his airplane. – It was part necessity, and all honor.

 

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