The Mysterious Box On The Pole

So this...

...has been like this for about two weeks or so, completely exposed to the air, the rain, etc. It's at the bus stop near my house. It seems important, seeing as it seems to be electronic or communications equipment. So a couple of days after I first noticed it, I tweeted it to the city's 311 Twitter feed...

...and got no reply.

I took a couple more pictures last week. They aren't as large when viewed at full size than I thought. I need to re-check the camera settings on my phone. This is another view of it:

The black box (more clearly seen in the top photo) says "XM" on it, which leads me to think it possibly is related to satellite radio. I know that Sirius/XM uses repeaters in and around cities for its signal. I also thought perhaps it has something to do with police radio communications.

The silver box hanging outside the big container, with what appears to be a phone cord attached, says, from what I can tell from the ground, "Electroline Transponder." And there's some sort of bar code.

This is the door of the big box, sitting on the ground.

It seems to have nothing to do with the traffic lights at the corner (the pole itself is slightly away from the intersection) as they've been working just fine.

The Philadelphia Daily News is interested in this. Can anyone shed some light on what this is?

Eagles Getting What They Deserve

My tweet right after yesterday's latest Eagles debacle was quoted in the weekly NFL wrapup on the Outsports Jock Talk Blog. In case you missed it: "I'll keep saying this til someone listens: Eagles' woes due to bad karma for not addressing DeSean's anti-gay slur."

Obviously there's no scientific proof of this, but it's as good a reason as any. DeSean Jackson called somebody a "gay-ass faggot" on Sirius/XM radio during the summer, while the NFL lockout was still on, offered only a half-assed phony "apology" afterwards, and neither the league nor the Eagles took any action in response -- even after the lockout ended and teams were free to talk to their players again. (I hope you're not tired of reading my posts about it.) Sure, there are lots of problems, but there have been a few bad bounces as well, so why couldn't it be bad karma?

The much-hyped "Dream Team" is floundering. The only sure thing right now on offense is LeSean McCoy, and too often the Eagles don't get him the ball often enough. Michael Vick is struggling (and now has two broken ribs) and the offense is at times fine and other times pitiful. The defense is kind of a mess, especially in the fourth quarter of games. FIVE games lost after having the lead in the 4th quarter is shameful. Andy Reid is his usual arrogant-while-saying-nothing self (although he's somehow 6-for-7 in coach's challenges). And Jackson was suspended for the game yesterday for missing a meeting Saturday because he overslept.

There were reports that Jackson, unhappy with his lack of a contract extension, actually missed/was late for multiple meetings during the week and other players were also late. If that's true, then Reid has lost control of the team. Suspending Jackson might be seen as a good disciplinary reaction but I can't help but wonder what the Eagles would have done if their opponent yesterday had been, say, the New York Giants instead of the Arizona Cardinals. Would Jackson have been out for the game, or maybe just the first quarter?

The Eagles are now 3-6 and it would take a miracle for them to make the playoffs now. And, sad to say, I'm kind of happy about it. I was laughing at their follies a few times yesterday. I don't root for the Eagles to win or lose right now, but I can sure enjoy their troubles since they refused to address DeSean's comment during the summer. You might think that makes me a bad fan, but we'll have to disagree on that one. I'm just on hiatus until...well, I don't know. The media ignored the DeSean story except for a perfunctory report immediately after the story was broken and, even with his current T.O.-like behavior, shows no signs of mentioning it now. There's no pressure on the Eagles to do a thing. So I don't know when my stance will change.

If You Don't Know Sports...

Before I started this blog, I used to write a lot of blog posts for the gay sports website Outsports.com's Jock Talk Blog. I'm not sure my posts were all that popular with the site's readers because they more often focused on actual sports (with a particular slant towards Philly teams) rather than any gay angle. (To a great extent that's because Outsports co-founders Jim Buzinski and Cyd Zeigler Jr. are on top of any such stories very quickly and a post from me would be redundant.) But now and then I found something more Outsports-centric to write about.

Not long after I first began to blog for Outsports, I wrote a post titled "Should some gays not talk sports?" To summarize: as part of a special NFL section in the Philadelphia Daily News, locally and/or nationally famous people with Philly ties were asked whom they thought was the best Eagles quarterback ever. While many named names -- Donovan McNabb, Ron Jaworski -- Mark Segal, publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News, replied that "My favorite QB will be the first QB to publicly come out…that person will become a hero/role model to many when it happens. Till then any QB that gets the Eagles to the Super Bowl is my favorite." I was mildly critical because I felt that not every question or topic needs a "gay" reply, and besides, there's a big difference between one's favorite quarterback and the best quarterback.

Now I have to be critical again (but this time it's not about Mark Segal).

Sirius-ly?

Ever since I canceled my Sirius satellite radio subscription, they've been trying to get me back. There was the occasional letter. Recently, there were phone calls. Many phone calls. What started out as an occasional call became at least two calls a day. Both in the morning and in the late afternoon or early evening, like clockwork. I did some Googling and found some discussion board comments saying that they're pretty relentless. (Or desperate, as I mentioned in the above-linked post; the letter I got today again offered the $20 for 5 months' service deal.) An automated calling system dials your number. If you answer, you're then connected to one of their representatives. And even if you ask the caller to stop calling you, to remove you from their system, that doesn't always work.

The first times the calls came in, since I didn't recognize the number showing up in my caller ID I didn't bother to answer. There's never a voicemail (since it doesn't connect to the rep unless you answer). One night I finally answered and the caller said, "I'm calling from Sirius/XM..." At that point I hung up. Then the calls began coming twice a day, every day. So I took a new, more fun approach. If I was in front of my computer when the call came in, and if I was listening to music, I'd pick up but not say anything, and just put the phone down on my desk next to a speaker. After a bit they'd hang up. I did this three or four times in a week.

In the last few days I haven't had any calls. I'm not sure if they've finally given up or not. I had planned to begin vehemently cursing out the callers, but I thought of something else instead. On their website I still have an account setup (where I could log in to make payments, etc.). So I changed the phone number in my contact information. Remember the phone number that we used to be able to call to get weather forecasts? That's my new phone number...as far as Sirius is concerned.

How To Save Money On Sirius/XM

There's some excellent money-saving advice in this for you if you currently are a subscriber to Sirius/XM satellite radio, so pay attention. I've been a Sirius subscriber for a few years (back before they merged with XM). Last year at this time, because of my financial situation, I decided to cancel. I changed my mind when they offered me a year at half-price -- about $80.00 instead of $160.00 (I'm rounding these numbers, by the way). I really like listening to music commercial-free, and I'm not able to get a reliable wi-fi signal in my living room to listen to Internet radio (which I'm listening to right now, since I'm in the basement in front of the computer).

Since things still haven't improved, and when my account statement on their website said I would owe $160.00 for the coming year, I again decided to cancel. I called on Friday. The woman I spoke to offered the $80.00 deal again. I declined. She made another offer, which I didn't hear clearly, but I just turned it down again, not bothering to ask her to repeat it. So she said she would take care of canceling my subscription.

The satellite signal still was coming in to the receiver, though. In the last couple of days I've gotten a number of calls from a toll-free number (my caller ID displayed the number but not the name of the caller). I usually let them go to voice mail unless I know the caller, but last night I decided to pick up. It was a recorded message from Sirius asking if I received my bill, saying I owed $160.00, etc. The woman I spoke to didn't do anything. More customer service incompetence.

So I called back today, and told the guy who answered what happened, and said clearly that I cannot afford it and it has to be canceled. He said he would take care of it, but then repeated the second offer that the woman had made last week: five months for $20.00.

Four dollars per month! That tells me that Sirius/XM is really desperate to keep subscribers. I still turned it down, and the subscription was finally canceled and the signal cut off. It's sad but I had to do it. So if you subscribe to Sirius/XM, just threaten to cancel and say you can't afford it and they'll offer you a nice price break.