Our local power company know as PG&E in Northern California sucks royal ass. They don't take credit cards from the two largest banks in the nation, so I have to go into their office in the Mission District which is always crowded and usually has at least one pissed off person harrassing the tellers whenever I visit the office.

All of this is necessary because I forget that the uncrowded office in Alameda is closed from 11 to 12 Noon and because PG&E can't afford, or won't allocate resources to update their systems to accept those three digit codes that appear on the back of the credit cards now.

The good news I got from the teller that helped me today? They will probably close this particular payment center at some point within the next year. Lovely. All of the propaganda about how great PG&E is on the walls when I go into these payment centers is just that: propaganda. I won't even get into how the shell corporation raked in California power users' dollars when deregulation was implemented and Californians were getting totally screwed and tattooed by Enron. Thanks PG&E! Too bad you're a monopoly in this market!