Those of you who have seen Bruce Lee movies, or any older Chinese movies, will be aware of the voice over dubbing that they use instead of having text subtitles.
The thing that is funny about this is that you see the lips move one way, but the words that appear to be spoken do not match the movements.
For instance, you might get the following:
Lip movements = ching chang chong, ding dang ping chong chong dong.
Words heard = Yes

Now, let's translate that into a Filipina on the phone.(The Missus will kill me for this!)
The purpose of the call is to obtain a phone number from someone.
Filipina's words:
Ung ang bong ding, yung salamat ung pasko trabaho ung telepono number?
Pause.........
Yung pango bag oktober ini ung pag corazan ung yoyo.
Pause......
Ing ung western union ung dang dong bongo pang ikkypoo.
Pause........
Yung tang tong uno kape diri pasko bangodong siggi gas prices?
Pause.......
Yung yung three hundred last month dang dong bong balikbayan box.
Pause....
OK lang, siggy, bye.

This translates to:
Do you have the phone number for xxxxxxxxx?
(No I can't find it.)
OK, goodbye.
- to me - No, she hasn't got it.

And that is why living with a Filipina is like a Bruce Lee movie!

Those of you who read my other blogs on a regular basis will know my capability for whining and complaining.
It is my hobby.
If there are morons in the world doing stuff like running governments, or corporations, I like to expose them for what they are, which in about 75% of all cases, is, complete idiots with no commonsense or morality!

So, it was a great change for me to go out for a meal the other day, and although I tried, I couldn't find too much wrong with things, despite a slow start (That is my introduction for a small whine!) caused by the restaurant not looking like one.

We went to a place in Nova Scotia called Tatamagouche where I seemed to remember there were some fish and chip shops or restaurants.

Well, search as I may, I couldn't find the place I had an image of in my mind. I am getting too old, that's the problem, some days, I don't even know if I am awake or not. In fact I am actually asleep even as I type this!

So, we pull into this nice clean-graveled parking lot a couple of miles out from the town (actually it might be a village!), and there were cars there, so I thought it must be a restaurant, but then we couldn't see a sign saying so, it seemed it might be a bank, so I pulled out to look further down the road.

After a few miles, my rumbling tum told me to go back to the town, to find a place. Well, on the way, we passed a sign, and it was about a restaurant, called Sunrise Mercantile. Now, there's a great name for a bank, but I was surprised that it was a restaurant at the rear of a gift shop that was selling higher quality type goods.

Anyway, we went in, and had a meal there, and the food was just top notch, old chap.
Actually what impressed us was the overall quality of the place.
For instance, the windows were of better quality than the usual commercial stuff. The decor was inviting and relaxing, and the staff were pleasant and informative.

I was a bit worried at first, as I was frightened that it might be a bit like Starbucks with the phony pretentiousness of calling coffee mocha, or latte, instead of coffee. See my entries:
Starbucks1
Starbucks2
Starbucks3

But the pretentiousness was only where needed to be real. The bread was a certain type, the meat too, etc etc etc.

And the meal was just so good. The coffee was excellent, the Missus found the ginger spiced egg rolls (I think that is what they were) really good, but I found them a bit too hot for my boring English palate - never mind, all the more for her!
We are lucky that we do not live nearer there, or I would be eating there every day.
And I found that they actually have a website, interesting:
Sunrise Mercantile

The website is useful, but doesn't allow you to TASTE the stuff. I see now that they sell things online too. As for me, I will just take a trip over there, well worth the bucks spent on the gas, even at todays prices.
Looking at the way everything was done RIGHT, I would have no qualms ordering online from this place. But I don't have to, so, nana, nanana!

You can probably see my previous entries below about the company called Primus.
Here is the update.

We are now a week into the process of attempting to get the issues dealt with by their so-called 'customer care', and we have NOTHING!

The account holder, my friend who asked me to take up the issue on her behalf, as her English is a second language, has today cancelled both Primus accounts, the new one that was set up incorrectly, and the one that was always with Primus.

So, the end result of the behaviour of this company is that they have now lost not only the new account, but the old one that they always had.
Why? Because they have FAILED MISERABLY in giving customer service at ANY LEVEL!
Not only does the Canadian Primus Company not care, but I took the matter up with the American company that presumably owns the Canadian one.

Guess what? SAME RESULT - NOTHING!

They certainly fit my own opinion that when a company stinks, it does so from the top down.
I cannot imagine ANYONE wanting to hold shares in such a failure of an operation, it must be run by morons.
UNBELIEVABLE! What would anyone do if they had accidentally had service fail for some reason?
Go a WEEK WITH NO PHONE! ???????
So, just to cap off this whole matter, here is the action on a step by step:

1 -Customer had a Primus service, and another line that was with another carrier.
2 - Primus sales guy calls and puts the other line onto Primus as well.
3 - Customer gets inflated bill due to line being set up as residential, not business.
4 - At some point customer calls Primus and gets insulted by the staff there.
5 - At some point the staff at Primus agree that Primus was incorrect in the setup, and they agree to fix the problem and adjust.
6 - Primus fail to fix problem, and in fact send account to collection department.
7 - Friend asks me for assistance , I send email, get autoresponse acknowledging that they got the email, together with a reference number.
8 - I send a reminder - nothing.
9 - I complain on the webpage - nothing.
10 - I complain to the US Head Company, - nothing.
11 - After a week since I got involved, the customer gives up and gets both lines transferred over to another carrier. And I am still waiting for the response to my original email.

It is as if this Primus company is run by some kind of Genghis Khan style control freak, who has assumed a position of conflict before looking at the issue. Maybe all of Primus profits are made by incorrectly overcharging, then hoping that the customer will go away.

Thank God I have my own service with my ISP, and my Long Distance with Yak. There just is NO ROOM in my life for this kind of Primus stupidity. 
 

You are better off without Primus phone service, and here is why:

You would think that a company hearing from somebody who is obviously skeptical of their service would go the extra mile to prove that individual to be incorrect.
It is now several days since I first contacted Primus Canada on behalf of a friend, and here is the update:

1 - They have failed to properly respond (I did get an auto-response from the first email) to the email I sent.
2 - They have also ignored the follow-up email I sent that had a link to my blog comments about how poor their service seems.

They appear to be shooting themselves in the foot, as they are now far worse off than before they did a sales job supposedly to increase their business.

Would YOU get a phone service, or any other product for that matter, with a company that fails to respond in any reasonable way when you attempt to contact them?
They now not only have their original customer totally irate with them, they now also have me the same way.
There is not any chance whatsoever that I would even entertain getting service from them even if it was offered free. SERIOUSLY!
Imagine if I was their customer and the phone was improperly cut off. We know that this is possible, as they have a proven record of screwing up. They also now have a proven record for annoying people.
As a customer, I would then be left hanging with no phone, and no answers.
The only good aspect of this is that if they are not responding, then they are also not making promises that are a pack of lies. Or maybe they only do that during verbal communication.
When a company stinks this bad, you are better staying well clear of them. They not only have the basic problems, but a firm record of failing to even look into the issues that they themselves have created.

I guess it is time to ramp this whole matter up to the level of the parent company in the US.

It seems others have had issues with this company, too:
http://www.ehmac.ca/everything-else-eh/31751-primus-stinks-1280-dollar-phone-bill.html

A friend of mine asked me for some help as she was having trouble getting an issue with her phone service sorted out.
She has a business, and had a 1-800 number that was a service from Primus.
She had another local number that was also for business, and that was with another carrier, who I believe she was reasonably happy with, but maybe not.
Anyway, some bright spark sales moron representing the Primus Canada company phoned her and suggested that she get both phone services from Primus Canada.
She went ahead after a little discussion, and assumed all was set up as  agreed.
THEN SHE RECEIVED HER BILL!
The idiot at Primus had fouled up, and set up the local number as a residential number, not a business number. Now, I don't know the exact chronology of the whole thing, but she has phoned Primus Customer Care more than once. She has had the supervisor there agree that her service was incorrectly set up. She has had them agree that they will get it set up correctly.
She waited for the billing adjustment, and what does she get instead? More residential billing, plus a threatening letter about collection.
So she asked for my help, and I thought it better to do it in writing so we are sure that the communication is correctly understood by all parties.
I sent them an email TWO DAYS AGO. I get the autoresponse, you know, we value you as a customer, etc etc. And we are experiencing longer than usual response times due to high volumes.

I have an idea as to why they might be behind:
They fail to do things correctly.
They fail to acknowledge their error until after the customer has repeatedly called.
They say they will fix the error and don't.
They generate additional errors by allowing long time lapses, causing billing to go to collection.
And finally, from my own experience, they cannot even answer the simplest of questions.

The question that I posed, and that I require an answer to before we proceed any further is not an earth-shattering piece of calculus, it was as follows:

As an initial move, Ms XXXXXX would like to know if you are prepared 
to look further into this matter with a view to achieving resolution. 
A simple yes or no. You are either prepared to fix this error that 
Primus Sales has created, or you are not. And if it is the case that 
you are not, then we can presumably save a lot of words if you say so 
asap.

And I have nothing in return. Two days. You have to admire them for lack of caring.
They have invaded their own customers peace, created a problem, refused to acknowledge it until after multiple calls, then they have failed, failed failed , failed FAILED FAILED FAILED.

They would have been ahead of the game if they had just left her alone.
If I try to call, the wait times are listed as over 15 minutes. I just don't want to be waiting holding for these incompetents for that long.
I believe she might be ahead of things by cancelling service, and getting another carrier to take the business, and then taking Primus to Small Claims Court ASAP to recover her lost money and force them to correctly re-bill her. At least that way she would 'freeze' the error and prevent them from adding more errors to the situation.