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Okay, I take it back. He’s hilarious. But not for the reasons he’d like to think he is.

There was a perfectly good car show on KEZW. For some reason, the production director thought this one would be better. Better for whom? Not for the listeners who would rather hear Tom Collins, The Auto Answerman, a talented, real radio guy, running the show with the smooth precision that years of radio experience can afford. He fielded calls, gave car reviews, handed off questions to his guests and kept it interesting. And in all that time, I don’t think I heard him say, “Ya know,” once.

I doubt this car repair show will last long. No one can listen to that voice week after week and resist the impulse to stab themselves in the ear. So, they’ll tune out, the show will get no calls, and the advertisers will go somewhere else with their money.

I’ll be tuning around to find the new home of The Auto Answerman – a real radio show. I’ll let you know when I find it. Ya know?

This plan to “go green” is more about saving green than it is about helping the environment. By moving offshore, (7 miles, in fact) to international waters, Google will save tons of money in property taxes, and its energy will be free. Sounds like a great idea.

Is it?

An “anchored” ship doesn’t always stay where it is supposed to. Ask the folks in New Orleans about that. Then there’s the weather. If another Ike or Ivan blows through, will the data center hold up? Yesterday’s editorial cartoon by Wayne Stayskal may be more prophetic than funny: http://www.gocomics.com/waynestayskal/2008/09/15/

Then there’s the issue of building a big enough data pipe to the rest of the internet world, and keeping it secure. Of course, if you’re not paying taxes and your energy is free, that leaves a ton of money for infrastructure.

I find it hard to believe that this will not have an impact on the aquatic life around them. The fishes may not appreciate the hot bath as their home waters are constantly circulated through the data center. Not to mention all those little creatures who will be cooked as they move through the cooling pipes.

I’m guessing that this effort to “go green” will not sit well with the environmentalists. Building outside the reach of any court who may wish to control their impact on the environment is a pretty smart move.

Honestly? Their negative impact on the environment may push their market share over to another search engine. This could be the kick in the butt Yahoo needs to get back on top.

I’m not alone. In fact, JD “Illiad” Frazer says it much better than I can, in ONI: LEARN TO COMMUNICATE CLEARLY YOU BLEEPING BLEEPITY BLEEP

I agree with JD: In my experience, most customer service screw-ups come from broken communications between the customer and the CSR.

Big Business, don’t you get it? Good Customer Service is what keeps your customers loyal. If you fail at this, you fail. Period.

We went to Rock Bottom Brewery in Loveland for dinner Thursday night. Their onion rings were greasy, soggy, and ice cold. Husband’s meat loaf dinner was mushy and tasteless, too, by the way. So, for an informal review of Rock Bottom Brewery, I’d have to give it one point out of ten. The one point is for the friendly, although somewhat inattentive, waitress. The atmosphere was average – what you’d expect for a large chain. Big, new, crowded, noisy.

But, back to the onion rings. I’ll give you a list of the top three places to get stellar onion rings, and a couple to definitely avoid.

#1 and the absolute best: Runza. There are no Runza Restaurants in the Denver area, so I have to stop by their Loveland restaurant to get my fix. Unfortunately, I am very rarely in Northern Colorado, so I don’t get these very often. If you’re in Lincoln, Nebraska, you may remember Rock & Roll Runza – art deco 50′s interior and wait staff on roller skates. It was a fun destination. Too bad they went corporate.

#2 and a strong contender: Sonic Drive-In. I’ll qualify this, though, with a disclaimer: it definitely depends on which Sonic you go to, and when. You want to go when they are busy, so the onion rings are absolutely fresh when you get them.

#3 Dewey’s All-American Grill. Their rings are plentiful, crunchy, and divine. They’re served all stacked up on a post, which is fun. Bonus: the dipping sauce. Good enough to lick the bowl. Double-bonus: friendly, attentive wait staff, a zillion tv’s tuned to every game you’d want to see, and you don’t have to eat in your car.

The bad: Okay, I’ve already mentioned Rockbottom Brewery. Another forgettable: Denny’s, where the onion rings are worse than the ones I make at home (which, by the way, I dump out of a bag and put in the oven).

The absolute worst onion rings of all time: Burger King. Chopped onions in a soggy batter that soaks up grease without getting crunchy. Ick.

One location, at 1400 E Hampden in Englewood, CO, has gone another step to prove they are better than those other guys, and now provide free power, too. A power strip encircles the public seating area. You can browse the net, and recharge your cell without fighting for an outlet. Way to go to make life even better for all of us harried, laptop-laden entrepreneurs!

This week, they handed out samples of coffee to take home to brew. I got a little bag of “Columbia,” enought for a small pot. Husband brewed it, and gave his review, as follows:

Two days after I made my last post, I was poisoned. Not deliberately, or with malice (as far as I know). I was poisoned by an incompetent, worthless excuse for a doctor. She was my doctor for a couple of years, so she knew me and my history. She knew all the medications I was on. They were written into the chart every time I saw her. Nevertheless, she prescribed a drug that is NEVER supposed to be prescribed at the same time as one I had been taking for years. When she prescribed the new drug, I asked her specifically about interactions. She said not to worry; there were none.

She was very wrong. That one error, and the errors she compounded on top of that one nearly killed me. Literally and completely.

Over the course of the next 2 1/2 months, the new medication slowly increased the blood level of the original medication to a dangerous, and then critical level. I went back to see her several times complaining of extreme fatigue. She ordered a sleep study, and then a CPAP machine. It didn’t help, because the sleep problem was caused by the new medication she had me on. She never considered that as a cause, even though I asked.

I complained of diarrhea and nausea. She recommended Immodium and a bland diet. My condition continued to worsen. Even though diarrhea, nausea and extreme fatigue were indicators of dangerous blood levels of the medication I had been on for years, she never saw the signs.

In June, after the worthless sleep study, my husband went to my appointment with me, to share his concerns with the doctor. He told her that my brain function was affected. I was having problems tracking conversations, and my reaction time was so slow, I was no longer able to drive. She said to give the CPAP machine 90 days to straighten everything out.

At the end of July, after several worthless appointments with the doctor, my husband demanded I be seen right away because I was so weak I couldn’t stay out of bed for more than an hour or two at a time, all my symptoms had advanced to where I could no longer keep any food down, and I had constant diarrhea. I couldn’t take care of myself, couldn’t walk up and down stairs, couldn’t even sign my own name.

When I was seen by a Physician’s Assistant, she determined I was extremely dehydrated, and decided I must have a “bug.” I stayed in their office the better part of the day while they administered intravenous fluids. At the end of the liter of fluids, she asked if I’d like another, as if she was a waitress asking if I’d like a drink refill. Since I was feeling somewhat better (not completely, but at that point not at death’s door) she sent me home with prescriptions for compazine and lomotil, and ordered bedrest. She said I should call the next day, Friday, for results of the blood tests they ran. She repeated that several times, stating that if I wasn’t feeling better, or if the results indicated something wrong, I should be seen in the office on Friday, so as not to need to go to the Emergency Room over the weekend.

No one would return our calls on Friday. I called for results, and so did my husband. No one called back while the office was open. My husband called the answering service that evening and insisted that they have the doctor call me asap, as I was not feeling any better.

The doctor called that evening and said they didn’t have the results yet. We have since learned that that was a lie. Since I told her I was not feeling any better, she told me to double up on the medications they had ordered.

I did, and went to bed. What happened next is a hell that I hope no one ever goes through.

During the night, I went into a delirium. My brain, so swollen in reaction to the poison in my system no longer registered rational thought.I didn’t recognize my surroundings. I believed I was being held captive. Any noise outside the room was interpreted as sounds of my captors. I was more frightened than I had ever been before. It was only going to get worse.

The next morning, Saturday, my husband, who was at work, called the doctor’s office and insisted that someone call me with test results, and determine what needed to be done next. When the doctor called me, she said she didn’t have the results, but my husband had insisted she call me. She asked me to come to her office to see her. In my delirium, I was convinced that my husband was dead, and I told her so. The only thing this butcher did right during this entire ordeal was to call 911 and have the police check on me.

The police came, saw the condition I was in, got in touch with my husband, and called an ambulance. My system was so toxic when I got there, a toxicologist was called in to consult on my case.

I was hospitalized for a month. During that time, my kidneys failed, my lungs filled with fluid, and my heart slowed to a near full stop. The called a Code Blue on me. I was put on a respirator. I had a heart catheterization. They were pumping so many drugs into my heart to keep it going that they put a “direct line” in my neck that went straight to my heart. I had tubes going into and out of places all over my body. And during it all, because my brain swelled in reaction to the poisoning, in my mind I was in Auchwitz.

The doctors and nurses in the hospital were wonderful. Because of them, I lived. I learned to talk again, and walk again, and take care of myself. My husband was a rock. He showed me his love that is too deep to measure. He was constantly by my side. Because of him, I made the journey back from the hell in my mind. I owe him my sanity.

In the final accounting, there are scars that will be with me for a long, long time.

In the still of the night, when I’m waiting for sleep, all those things that I know absolutely didn’t happen, come back to me in a flood. And they feel as real as I had originally believed them to be.

What I tell you next is what I believe to be the most outrageous.

The “doctor” who doesn’t deserve the title was removed from my care the day I went into the hospital. Five days later, when my husband was finally able to take a moment to call their office to demand the test results that were never provided to me, and to reinforce that she was not my doctor, this woman had the audacity to call the hospital to demand my records. She called immmediately upon hanging up from speaking to him, claimed she was my physician, and demanded that my records be sent to her. She said that my husband was “very upset that he hasn’t been kept advised of his wife’s condition and care.” This was more than an outright lie; it was a criminal act. She lied about being my doctor. She stole my medical records for what I can only believe were for her use to cover her ass.

This call of hers opened the floodgates. Before her call, no records were sent. From that point on, and long after my discharge, this doctor continued to receive copies of my records, and initialled them as they were placed in my chart in her office. She knew she wasn’t supposed to get them, yet she did nothing to stop them from being sent to her. Of course not; she asked them to be sent, in violation of HIPAA law.

Once home from the hospital, we ordered copies of my medical records. Interesting to note, she never wrote in the chart that she prescribed the offending med. Or she removed the notation. The only record is the copy of the original prescription that we obtained from the pharmacy. The test results that “never arrived” were actually there before their office opened Friday morning. She made notes in my chart about the dangers of my medication interaction after the fact. This was evidenced by what she, and her office wench said to the 911 operator.

Their office staff lied when my husband asked them about the call to the hospital. They lied when he asked them about the records being sent to their office. They also lied and said they wouldn’t charge us for the office call that Thursday. They actually had the nerve to send the bill to our insurance company, and then lied and said they never said they wouldn’t charge us. Then lied some more.

We have filed complaints with our insurance company, the state medical board, and every agency that may have any interest, and nothing has been done to make this doctor, her supervisor, or anyone involved responsible for any of the willful or careless acts committed. Malpractice is one thing; the practice has insurance to cover that. Criminal misrepresentation and theft of private records is another.

If you live in Colorado you may come in contact with this person. (Unfortunately, I’m prohibited from posting the name of the doctor. Doctors get protection, victims do not.) But this can happen anywhere.

Don’t trust your doctor on face value. Research every medication they prescribe before you take it. Research every side effect, containdication, and things to watch for. If things seem to be going from bad to worse, get another opinion. Your life may very well depend on it.