The Big DumpTruck

Mr. Dump called me from Aubachon Hardware (on Rt 12/North Main Street) to tell me that fire engines from 4 different communities appeared to be dealing with something near the Fitchburg line. Like near the MART garage. There was no smoke, but there were fire engines and ambulances.

There is no way on the planet to find out what is going on in a timely manner unless it's some sort of MAJOR happening that gets picked up by the news wires. Nothing on the Telegram or Sentinel (no duh) websites either. Now for the latter, even if they had a reporter helping to put out a fire, it wouldn't make their website until tomorrow afternoon. It really isn't reporting "news," it's reporting "olds".

Anyhoo, apparently there were lots of trucks and at least one was from Devens. That is some serious mutual aid if they're sending fire trucks from Devens. And yet, I know nothing. He didn't go near it, he had to go home and put the new spool of string on the trimmer. They discontinued our trimmer, doncha know. And Amazon said it could take one to four weeks to ship a replacement pack to us. Holy jungle cruise, Batman! In 4 weeks we won't be able to locate the dog if he stands near the fence!

So these are my two complaints of the day:

• I want every single piece of information that might impact me in any way to be instantly available on the Internet. Every day, all day.
• Aubachon Hardware - why the hell have you allowed squatters to own your domain? What the hell?! They cannot possibly have a claim to [DON'T CLICK IT!] aubachonhardware.com. Geez, what a stupid move! How the hell are people supposed to find you if they cannot type in the most logical domain name? That's it, I'm having Mr. Dump call them to yell at them.

Labels: News, Sentinel, Telegram, yardwork

Okay, I don't think I should open THAT can of worms, knowing most of you are probably up late every night trying to work that puzzle out on your own. But the Worcester Telegram did figure out a way to annoy me today, and I figured I'd complain about it here because that's why I pay hosting fees and domain registration fees every year. That's what it's all about, my people.

The Telegram, a good source of local (Leominster) news, decided that instead of having a page of news items of specific interest to the "North" (which is where the Leominster, Fitchburg, Gardner, etc. stories were), and another for West, and another for Blackstone Valley, etc., they would just lump us under the heading "Suburbs".

Great. No offense to Hopkinton, but your news stories aren't really all that important to me. And I'm sure mine are not to you. So what the Telegram has effectively done, is go the Boston Media route of closing their eyes, blocking their ears with their fingers and saying "Nya nay nya I can't see you! You don't exist!" to anything outside of the 128 belt.

If I didn't have such a long history of being completely annoyed with the way the Fitchburg Sentinel is run (I love LOVE LOVE! when they run stories about events after they happen, not before, so that I can sit and feel badly that I didn't know about it. No, really, that's fantastic.

So ya, there may be a war going on, people dying and starving, etc., but I'm really ticked off that the paper has decided they can't be bothered to give us our own page any more.

Labels: 01453, Leominster, News, Sentinel, Telegram