And there’s some sort of law that says you have to add things to your kitten photos.

OK, I think that’s enough! Comments are closed! :-)

A co-worker came to me today — he had planned to take his dog to Brambleton Veterinary Hospital and was looking for the phone number when he found my site instead.

Needless to say, he’s chosen to go somewhere else.

But he gave me some interesting info.

Apparently, Dr. Linda Jennings DVM had a previous partner, Linda Eick. After some kind of disagreement (”fight” was his term, but I don’t know if that’s accurate), Eick left to start her own practice: Big Lick Veterinary Service. And Eick is apparently a wonderful vet.

In fact, it can take a while to get an appointment at Big Lick. Ditto for Cave Spring, Roanoke Veterinary, and every other vet in the area.

Except Brambleton Vet. In fact, you’ll probably find that you have no problem getting an appointment there — they have a lot of free time.

We had only gone to one other vet in the area, and only for an emergency, so we had no idea that typical waiting times were longer. Had we realized that Brambleton Veterinary Hospital had much more free time than other local vets, we may have thought twice.

As promised, here’s a photo of one of the kittens the SPCA has us fostering for a few weeks. Not a great shot, but all kittens are cute.

We had them out and were playing with them for a good hour, and they did not want to go back in their crate! But it’s amazing what a bowl of cat food will do to distract ‘em.

A couple of people claiming to work for Dr. Linda Jennings have weighed in, in one of the comments sections. They tried and, I think, failed to make some points.

So let me ask some questions.

1. Why would you not allow my wife to call someone who could have provided a Visa number to pay for your services immediately? She offered repeatedly to have a friend or family member do that; you would have had your money immediately.

2. Let’s say I was the horrible, mean person you want to make me out to be — that I stomped my feet and called you bad names. I paid our bill in full and on time and in cash. How does that justify Dr. Linda Jennings calling what she thought was my wife’s place of employment and demanding that she be fired? How is that in any way professional?

2a. In that call, Dr. Jennings claimed that I came in to your office screaming and cursing. I have proof that this isn’t the case. I realize you aren’t lawyers, but take a shot — how is that not slander?

3. How can you explain the office manager (TP or KP or whatever his name was) claiming that my bringing my wife her checkbook was somehow evidence of fraud? He said he was suspicious because Karen got the checkbook 10 minutes after she called me (from your phone), and he expected it to take 20 minutes.

4. How do you explain the vet tech saying that she wouldn’t give PJ pain meds until we sorted out the payment issue that you created? If he got his meds, why not say so? If he didn’t, do you consider it professional to leave an animal under your care in pain because you don’t like his owner?

5. How do you explain the pet sitters, former employees, and other people involved with the local animal community who have posted here supporting my impression of Dr. Jennings? Is it a vast conspiracy?

6. Why did you lie about what I said in your office? (I didn’t call anyone a “F**** B****”) Why did you lie about who came to your office on the 15th? (Just me, not both of us.) Why did you lie and say my wife cursed at you? (She most certainly did not.) Why did you lie and say that my wife waited to inform you she didn’t have her purse? (She told the staff immediately, in fact.)

6a. Do you think this pattern of lying is a result of a medical condition?

7. We have brought our three dogs and two cats to you for the past couple of years and always paid immediately and in full. Yet you refused all our offers of payment. On the other hand, the emergency veterinarian was happy to take our check even though we walked in late at night and she had never met us before. Explain.

8. Dr. Jennings claimed that a significant number of your regular clients pass bad checks on to you. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that regular customers would be willing to sever a relationship in that way if they were satisfied with the service?

9. Was it Dr. Jennings herself or one of her customers who was willing to suborn perjury? You said in one message that someone had clients who would be willing to testify to things they didn’t see, as I pointed out. Thank you for leaving that message, by the way. It could come in handy.

Two negative experiences in a row is a but much, so I wanted to share something positive.

I switched to a laser printer from an inkjet because I rarely print in color and a laser is much less expensive to operate. (We actually bought two Samsung ML-2510s, and they’re wonderful.)

Anyway, I went looking for where to get cheap refills. I could buy a Samsung brand cartridge, an off-brand cartridge, or I could get a refill kit.

If you’ve ever read your spam, you know there are a lot of toner companies out there, so I spent a heck of a time figuring out which was good and which wasn’t.

So lemme save you the trouble: TonerRefillKits.com. Yep, it’s a lousy name, I know. But I took a chance with a refill kit for my printer and spent about $40 instead of more than $100.

I got lucky ’cause my printer uses cartridges with a handy refill hole, but the store also sells this fancy hole cutter you can use. The instructions were disturbingly clear — they look like they were written by a real writer, not some English-as-a-fourth-language techie.

Refilling took about 5 minutes, three of which I spent reading the instructions to be sure I didn’t miss anything.

Most cartridges can be refilled at least twice before the internals get all screwy, after which you can buy an empty one and toner separately. It saves a ton — I went from paying about 10 cents a page for an inkjet to 3 cents a page for the laser, to 1 cent per page for the refilled laser. Cool beans.

So yeah, TonerRefillKits.com — highly recommended. (Ditto for those Samsung printers!)

Oh — two other things. To get an idea of the quality of writing in the instructions, read the “About Toner” page. Good stuff.

And… you get a bag of M&Ms with every order. :)

If you live in Roanoke, Virginia, I strongly urge you to avoid the Brambleton Veterinary Hospital in Southwest Roanoke County. The staff there is incredibly unprofessional, and it makes me worry about the quality of care the animals receive.

(If you don’t live in Southwest Virginia, ignore this post. Or, if you’re feeling kindly, link to it. That’ll push it up on Google. :)

We have been customers of Brambleton Veterinary Hospital for more than two years with our three dogs and two cats. We’ve always paid our bills immediately and never had a problem. We’ve also brought in injured strays to them, as well as animals we’ve fostered for the local SPCA.

Bottom line: We’re good customers. More than five good customers, actually.

And Brambleton Veterinary Hospital treated us like dirt. Literally like criminals.

My wife brought in our dog PJ today when he was injured. The vet at Brambleton Vet took care of him and said the best place for him was at home. But in her rush, my wife didn’t grab her purse. She called me so I could give our Visa number over the phone, but the Visa is tied to our savings account which had zero balance. So she asked to pay by Amex, but Brambleton Veterinary Hospital doesn’t take it.

So she called me back and told me to bring the checkbook. I made the 10-minute drive and dropped it off. But then — and I still can’t believe it — the idiot at Brambleton Vet said that my wife got her checkbook too quickly and he didn’t trust it. (She had said it would take me 20 minutes to get there, but she overestimated how long it would take me to get Sam in the car.)

She offered to have a friend with a Visa call and pay over the phone. No. At this point, he said, he would only take cash because “her story changed too many times.”

The fact that her story changed because she was offering him different ways to pay didn’t seem to matter.

I got on the phone and read the idiot at Brambleton Veterinary Hospital the riot act. He kept changing his story — first the problem was that my wife got her checkbook too quickly. When I said, “So you’re saying you think she ran out and mugged someone who just happened to have the same name and address? Look at PJ’s [the dog’s] tag. Our phone number is on it and it matches the check!”

But the moron at Brambleton Vet (did I mention it was in Roanoke?) couldn’t see the stupidity. Then he changed his story to the fact that my wife offered different forms of payment.

In reality, the guy wasn’t going to give our dog back. He was going to hold the poor thing hostage despite the fact that the vet said it would be better for him to be home. Despite the fact that we are long-time customers with lots of animals and lots of friends. Despite the fact that he had five files on our animals, all showing us in not only good standing, but perfect standing.

He got upset when I told him that, as we work with the Roanoke Valley SPCA, I would make sure that no one who adopts a dog or cat is given the name of Brambleton Veterinary Hospital. (And the SPCA gives a lot of vet recommendations.)

“Your husband is threatening our business,” he told my wife.

“After the treatment you’ve given us he ought to,” she told him.

So I’m heading off to various message boards to tell this story. Then I’ll contact the Better Business Bureau and whichever state agency regulates animal hospitals. And, as my wife put it, every time there’s an empty space in the appointment book, the people at Brambleton Veterinary Hospital in Roanoke will have to wonder if it’s because of us.

Oh, and Karen is going there first thing in the morning, with cash from our checking account, to free PJ the dog hostage.

Update: I didn’t know this at first. The veterinary technician at Brambleton Vet refused to give our dog pain medication until we had paid in cash. Now the state veterinary board is definitely on the list.

Update 2: More on the story in this post.

Ugh. Just… ugh.

So I have an article in today’s Roanoke Times about how domain-name squatters have grabbed the dot-com versions of all the victims — jarrettlane.com, kevingranata.com, etc. I don’t write about domain names very often for the RT, so I found myself writing and re-writing the section that dealt with the whole domain-name thing.

I expect my USAT readers, seeing as they’re reading the Tech section, to know the difference between domain names and Web sites. When it comes to the RT, though, I need to do a bit more handholding.

Anyway, if you feel the urge check out the story and let me know if it worked.

Unfortunately, they cut out my sidebar where I explained some terms:

Domain name: roanoke.com, redcross.org, and so on — these are addresses on the Internet that can be used for e-mail (e.g., andrew.kantor@roanoke.com) or for a Web site (www.roanoke.com).

Anyone can register a domain name, typically for less than $10 per year. Registering a name simply gives you the right to use it; you then need to find a Web host to set up a site using your domain.

Web site: A domain name is just an address, but a Web site is what you build at that address. You can own a domain name but not put a Web site there, a process called “parking.” Depending on where it was registered, a Web site of a parked domain may come up blank, or it may have generic content and a note like “Under Construction.”

Registrar: A company that allows people to register domain names. There are currently about 580 in the United States that can register .biz, .com, .info, .mobi, .name, .net, and .org names.

Web host: Separate from a registrar, it provides the software and computer space to set up a Web site and e-mail addresses using a domain name. Hosts charge as little as a few dollars a month for a site.

Sometimes there’s a fun and easy way to deal with idiot drivers. Case in point:

I was driving from my home the other day, and had just crossed an intersection into a narrow street. Coming the other way was a woman in an Audi. My side of the street was full of parallel-parked cars, but there was a gap on hers. I moved forward so I was across from that gap and she could zip around me.

But no. She wasn’t smart enough to do that. Instead, with a grimace on her face, she came right at me and stopped right in front of me, blocking both of us from going anywhere. Then she motioned for me to get out of her way.

The only way to do this was to back up into the intersection. So no way. I shook my head, and she indicated that she wasn’t going to move. Genius, I tell you. I indicated the same. So we sat there, me refusing to back up into an intersection, she refusing to use the space to her right to go around me. Incredible.

So I broke the stalemate. I reached over, grabbed my camera, and started shooting. I made sure she saw me shoot her license plate — CATMOB — as well as her face. When you’re a moron and someone can prove it, it tends to spur you into action.

Making faces that looked like she was either constipated or the reverse, she proceeded to make a big deal about ’squeezing’ by. Of course, had she not been an idiot and come over to my side of the road in the first place, there would have been plenty of room.

Here’s what it looked like. There’s empty space in front of the white Nissan on her side. (Click for larger.)

And here’s CATMOB’s lovely face. Hope she finds a bathroom soon.

Oh, well. I had hoped to be able to register a .it domain — specifically, jackrabb.it — by simply saying I lived in Italy. No go. Although the registrar took my money and set things up on its end, today I got an e-mail from Verisign’s Global Registration Services entitled “Conferma di richiesta di registrazione per indirizzo web.”

Essentially, it wanted me to fill out and sign a two copies of a registration agreement swearing that I lived in Italy. (It asked for a bunch of info like “fiscal code” and “VAT number” that I wouldn’t know how to forge). One copy is in English, the other in Italian, and they have to be mailed in. I suspect a US postmark would give things away.

Oh, well. As my old theater prof would say, “A great idea not fully realized.”