Grah. They could have said something...

` Verizon is a very sneaky little company that apparently alters its way of doing business behind their customers' backs. Last night, when I tried to save my next blog entry, I was instead rerouted to Verizon Avenue's sign-up screen. First off, I tried another browser, and when that didn't work, I erased everything Verizon from my hard drive. Still, all I could get to was Verizon Avenue.
` 'Oh well,' I thought, puzzled. 'At least there's Phil's computer.'

` And then I found that no, there wasn't.

` When I called tech support this afternoon, the nice man said; "Do you live in Oregon or Washington?"
` Aha! That was when I learned about their devious 'net enforcing' plan! So, they had to erase the perfectly acceptable account we already had (as it wasn't even ours to begin with) so I could sign us up for a new one.

` And so, I've had to catch up on my e-mail a bit this evening. Amusingly, in my old Yahoo account's spam folder I found this badly-written story about someone (apparently, a hermaphrodite) with a 'guardian angel'. It was so pathetic I felt the need to publicly slander it, so here it is:

Marvin is a person who remembers and uses his power. One dark night the power came to her aid in a dramatic fashion. She was settling down from her first night at a retreat center in the California foothills when he realized he needed something from his car.
` Carefully making his way, he stepped back into what appeared to be tall grass at the edge of the parking lot. Seconds later, he woke up in a six-foot culvert. Wedged in head first, he could not right himself or climb out.
` Feeling blood on the back of his head, she thought, "No one knows I'm here, and it's midnight". Suddenly, with no memory of how things happened, he found himself standing beside her car!

` Assuming this story even happened to a real person at all, I'd guess the cause for not remembering what had happened was because of a memory lapse caused by a head injury such as a concussion.
` Who knows how this 'Marvin' really escaped? Perhaps he/she wasn't stuck as fast as he/she had first thought? Most likely, though, the story is either exaggerated or possibly completely fabricated.
` So.... why would anyone think that this was caused by a supernatural force of any kind? What is with people for sending these stories around, anyway? Grah.