!Choice

"This is the right deal at the right time," Verizon's chief exec, Ivan Seidenberg, said in a statement Monday. He said the merger will allow the company to "drive efficiencies, increase cash flow and pursue new revenue opportunities." Translation: Verizon expects to make a lot of money. ... "This is really bad for consumers," he said. "The first thing you'll see is a reduction in quality of service, followed by a slowing in price decreases and a slowing in innovation." Shames added: "Any semblance of competition has pretty much been stamped dead by the gold rush we're seeing in the telecom business right now." In recent months, phone companies have deflected charges of a renewed monopoly-in-the-making by pointing toward potential competition from the cable industry. ... Moreover, he said many consumers' bills will go up because phone and cable giants increasingly will offer only packages of bundled services, not individual products like high-speed Internet access. "Companies always say that the next merger will be the one to unleash competition," Cooper said. "The reality is that these are consolidations. They take alternatives away from consumers." SFGate.com

How dare they try and tell me this is good for the consumer. Our government won't stop this kind of crap because our government makes money off the over all phone bill. The higher the phone bill, the more tax revenue they make.
So, what happened to AT&T Wireless? Cyngular bought AT&T Wireless, but not the name "AT&T Wireless". SBC is buying AT&T, minus the Wireless unit, bu including th rename "AT&T Wireless".  What does this mean? SBC intends to buy Cyngular at some point, probably. Or, SBC intends to compete with Cyngular. I'm with T-Mobile. They have a toe hold in Europe.

Anna's review of Vargo's

Here's my review of Vargo's: Vargo's is absolutely wonderful. The food was fabulous. I had a shrimp & crab cake appetizer that was wonderful and a good size, Wyatt had scallops that were really good & he raved about the sauce. We both had the Vargo's salad that had feta, ginger pears, mandarin oranges and a vinaigrette over an iceberg lettuce wedge. For a main course I had Snapper Ponchetrain that was wonderful - especially the lump crab meat. Wyatt had steak with a mushroom sauce that was absolute perfection. Both came with mashed potatoes that were in a heart shape and baked/fried - it was like a tarter tot on the outside and mashed potatoes on the inside! Great! Also baby carrots and green beans - yawn. For desert Wyatt had ordered the heart shaped chocolate roll, but switched to crème Brule which I also had. The waiter went ahead and brought the roll along with our two crème brules. Good thing he switched. That chocolate roll was the only bad thing served. It was spongy and watery at the same time. Not good. The crème Brule was good, not as good as our other food had been. I was really impressed that there wine list is very very reasonable. Most of the wines were in the $30 range! The one I picked was $19.50!!! It was a Berringer Gamy Beaujolais (sp?). Since Wyatt had steak and I had fish, we needed one that would pair with both. It's actually a great wine for the price. That's my new favorite restaurant! Anna Banana