PPV: Predicting possible violence.

It's a good thing I don't have a blood pressure machine at home. I don't really want to know where my BP is sitting right now.

I went to the Bell store this morning to deal with some issues with our cell phones. As a result of unsatisfactory answers, Albert no longer has a cell phone. But I am saving $20 a month.

The service personnel asked if he could help me with anything else. As a matter of fact, yes. I need to get the Canucks Pay-Per-View package added to my Bell satellite programming before the first ppv game coming up on Saturday.

"Sorry ma'am, we can't do that here at the store. You must log onto bell.ca or call the sky dish number."

Ridiculous. But I understand this is not the poor guys fault, and I thank him and head off home.

I logged onto bell.ca and clicked around in circles for 20 minutes until I got to a page that told me that I needed to call a customer service rep at this 800 number to complete my transaction.

I call the 800 number. I beep and blip my way past the press 1 for self help, hoping I'll talk to a real person and praying they speak English. No such luck. I don't know exactly what's involved if you press 1 for self help, when pressing 3 for a technician gets you a voice recording asking you to press more numbers and suggesting it might be quicker and easier to connect online where the user friendly website is capable of all manner of things. (except changing your programming)

At one point I made my selection on the keypad and the annoying computer voice replies, "I cannot understand your input. Goodbye." And the phone went dead. What the... ? I didn't even get an option to back up and try again.

So I dialed the 800 number again, beeped and blipped through some hoops and just when I thought I was getting somewhere, I hear the dreaded on hold music with the occasional recording telling how important my call is to them.

What I want to know is, what is Bell's "normal volume of calls." I have never called when they are not experiencing a "higher than normal volume of calls." Stupid me for calling when everyone else is calling.

I listened to 3 annoying pieces of music and the phone clicked and I got a dial tone.

Third time's the charm they say, so I dialed the 800 number yet again. This time I wasn't messin' around. I went straight for technical help, pressing the options as if my TV service wasn't working at all. Good choice. I actually got through to a real human. Now, his first language was not English, and I suspect English was perhaps not even his 2nd or 3rd language, but he had a human voice, so I could work with that.

58 minutes later, after explaining what the Canucks were and what a "package" of pay-per-view games was, the young man assured me that the programming was in place as of that moment and I would now be receiving all 17 games of the 2006-2007 season, with the first one being Oct 22, 2006.

Uh.... buddy.... this is Sept 18, 2007 and the 06-07 season has been over for months now.

"Oh, I am sorry. Let me speak with my technical team. May I put you on hold for a few minutes?" Funny how the first time he put me on hold it was for "a moment" the next time it was "a minute" then "two minutes" now it was "a few minutes."

"Yeah," I replied. "It's been and hour and 20 so far. What's another few?"

Long story short, I guess the Canucks aren't having an 07-08 season. At least not in Bell's world on my TV.

"Ma'am, is there anything else I could help you with?"

I did not have the ambition or patience to ask about changing my programming to High Definition. At this rate, I suspect we'll be watching the games elsewhere anyway.