21 days.......

We missed our summer monsoons and had all of the season's rain in 5 days last week.  Today we called Monroe County Mosquito Control and asked them to bring the napalm.  We've got huge ANGRY mosquitoes.  No, wait; they're not ANGRY; they're totally PISSED OFF and we're gonna pay for it.

The MC lady was here within half an hour and found the likely source:  the swampy jungle lot behind ours.  She said that she'd actually forgotten about it; the people who recently rented the house nearby threw their yard cuttings into the jungle and closed off the path she'd made to get in and inspect.  She's going to spend time this winter (!!!  we need to get rid of the m'effers NOW!) cutting new paths into the lot (which is owned by the county; I can't imagine why no one has bought it /sarcasm) so it'll be easier to spray in there.  We're going to throw away our huge pot of bromeliads since water naturally collects in them and they're a prime breeding ground for these m'effers.  And these aren't just your run-of-the-mill m'effers, they're the REALLY ANGRY aggressive ones that carry dengue fever.

So while the weather is just about perfect these days, we can't go outside without coming back inside with huge red welts all over us.  I took two doses of Benadryl today; good thing I'm used to it or I'd have slept all day.  MC lady said that we had 20 inches of rain in those 5 days.

Tomorrow is the body painting contest in Key West at Fantasy Fest, so if it doesn't rain (thank God Rina is turning away from us) we'll go into town to watch the festivities.  And take photos.  I'm still getting hundreds of hits each month from people looking at last year's nekkididity.

Did I mention that these skeeters are tough little m'effers?  Yeah, thought so.

The Infernal Revenue Antiservice

I've debated about this post; do I want to risk bringing the IRAS' wrath upon my head? Audits? Fees? Lies?

We bought a house last year. My name is on it. I haven't owned a house in over 10 years. We qualify for the homeowners' rebate that the IRAS trumpeted about so much in the last year.

I'm convinced that the IRAS has done everything possible to make it almost impossible to get this rebate. In spite of urging everyone to file electronically for everything else, to apply for this rebate one had to send in reams of paperwork. While other people were getting their normal refunds within days, this one takes weeks.

No, wait, it's been over two months since we sent it all in.

And it gets better.

There's a web page where one can check his refund status. I check that page daily. At first it told us that we'd have our refund April 27. Then May 15. Then it said that we needed to call them. So Tom called. They didn't have any of our paperwork. We had to send it all in again. However, somehow they knew that we'd sent it in, but they couldn't find it. Doesn't make sense to me, but then the IRAS makes anything but sense.

So Tom faxed all of the papers again. Soon the web page said that we'd been approved for the rebate and we'd get it around June 1.

Then June 15.

Then the page again said to call them.

They've decided that we don't qualify. We can reapply, but we have to wait until they send us a letter about it. Around June 7.

As each stalling technique appeared, I became more and more convinced that this program is all a big lie. Now the news is so excited that homebuying was UP because of the rebate program. I'm betting that many of those excited homeowners are also finding out that they don't qualify. However, with the possibility of an $8000 check being waved around our noses, we'll all jump in and keep trying.

Lemmings. We're all lemmings.



P.S. Our accountant says that 80% of the rebate requests are currently being refused. Why am I not surprised?

It'stoodamncold

There you have it. One word. My reason for not doing a thing.

It'stoodamncold.

It was 8 degrees this morning. Eight. Eight. Unfrickingbelievable.

Yeah, yeah, I know that it was 31 in Miami this morning. It's been in the low 40s at night in the Keys. 31 is almost four times warmer than it is here, and 40 is five times.

I'm considering retiring and moving to the Keys without a job. It's five times warmer there at night. So we won't be able to pay the mortgage. The house in WV is locked in ice anyway. No one, including its owner, can get to it anyway.






I wish I could just leave. I won't because I'm too responsible to bail. But I'll think about it a whole lot.

Quick update

Two weeks in Florida, lovely (if somewhat cooler than usual) weather, work around The Cat House, lots of FaceBook time on the Crack (and utter irritation for several days when the Crackberry network was down and no one had told me about it) (by no one I mean RIM, of course, the people who own the company), walks around our new neighborhood, observing the wildlife, playing with grandkids, floating in a warm pool on Christmas night, three days of driving seven hours a day each way (my butt cheek gets numb, okay?), living in our place in the Keys, having to leave and come home, then the little surprise of finding 6" of ice and snow on our driveway in WV, two weeks after it snowed and over a week since a minor ice storm, not being able to drive up the driveway, cracking the front bumper of our less than 2-months-old Prius, getting stuck and having to walk uphill to the house in the dark in the snow and ice and 10 degree temperature with 40 mph winds while wearing clogs because one doesn't need real shoes in Florida even in the winter with no depth perception in the dark and faulty balance on a smooth surface on a sunny day while trying to balance several large tote bags on my shoulders and falling down and losing a clog while screaming "WHY ME?" (or something like that only a lot more profane) at the cold stars as I sat on the ice without one shoe not being able to balance enough to stand up to look for the damn shoe and Zippy had run ahead up to the house and was patiently barking at the front door for someone to let him into the nice warm house while I was crying and snotting without any tissues halfway up the driveway thinking that I was going to die within sight of my own house and no one would ever find me and a bear might eat my barely-frozen carcass and it's all because I can't move to Florida until we sell our house in WV or I get a good-paying job in Florida which isn't likely this time of year (either one) then the next morning I called the guy with the tow truck who came after daylight to pull the car out of the ditch (where I almost took out the side of the new car by getting this---------->close to a huge bolt on a fence post) then dragged my crap back down to the car after deciding that I was not going back to that house until the spring thaw or June, whichever comes first then still being stuck in the damn driveway about 6' from the actual road and spending half an hour trying to get the car that six feet while getting this------->close to the For Sale sign in the ditch by the road until a nice man took pity on me and pulled me out of the driveway and I will not go back to WV until I'm sure that I can make it up that damned driveway and last night my shoulder muscle spasmed and Betty had to help me to bed because it was agonizing to move and it hurt so bad I didn't sleep well even after taking some percocet or something like that so today I went to the doctor who prescribed a muscle relaxant that shouldn't make me dopey but sort of has so I'm going to go to Betty's house and take another one and see if I can sleep.

*deep breath*

Zippy and I are living with Betty for a while.

If it's this bad now, what's gonna happen when the government takes over health care?

Grrrrrrrrr.

I am so irritated/angry/pissed off at my mail-in prescription service. If I didn't save money by sending them our 90-day prescriptions, I'd never use them again.

Back in March, before we went to Florida, I mailed in a page of refills with six or seven new prescriptions stapled to it. The week after we got home, the refills arrived. Not one of the new prescriptions had been filled. I called the service and was told they hadn't received the new prescriptions. I told them that if they got the refill authorization, then they had to have received the new ones. They were all stapled to that one stinking page. No, they didn't have them. And we were out of a couple of meds.

Ron, or Rod, whoever he was, offered to call the doctor and ask her to fax the prescriptions to him. I thought that was the end of that.

A few days later, two of the new prescriptions arrived. Two. 2. Dos. I called the service again. They'd not received the others. Called my doctor. Yes, they'd faxed all of them. Once again, my prescription service screwed up.

I had a doctor's appointment last Wednesday. She told me she'd faxed the prescriptions the week before, but she'd do them again.

A few minutes ago, I called the stupid prescription service again. Only one prescription had been received, they'd filled it, and I have to allow 7 or fewer (I love that distinction) days to get them. Ooookay. I called my doctor's office yet again. They'd faxed in three prescriptions for me at the same time they'd faxed that one for Tom. But the damn service had not received my prescriptions.

My doctor's office is once again faxing the prescriptions. I am almost out of two of them.

If things are this damn f^cked up when insurance is run by private companies, what the hell is going to happen when the government takes over our health care? Will we end up like Canada and not be able to get surgery that we need because they're too busy? Like Great Britain where women with breast cancer are left to die because the drugs to fight it are too expensive?

I do not have a good feeling about this.


P.S. I am feeling a little better each day. Just a tiny bit better, but at least it's moving in the right direction.

XM Radio officially sucks frog innards

Until Tuesday morning, I loved XM Radio. Unconditionally. While I only listened to a handful of stations, I loved them. Unconditionally.

Wait, I loved one of them unconditionally. The others had too many commercials, and they annoyed the hell out of me. If we have to pay for radio, then I don't want 5 minutes of commercials every 10 minutes.

XCountry, channel 12, was my channel, our channel. Tom and I ran across it three and a half years ago on the way to Myrtle Beach for Kara's wedding. We'd just gotten XM and hadn't learned our way around it yet, but that day we discovered XCountry. We were in love immediately.

I think that the first song to which we really paid attention was "The Boys from Oklahoma (Roll Their Joints All Wrong)" by Cross Canadian Ragweed. Hilarious, and wow, commercial radio (by which I mean those sucky local stations we have) doesn't play anything like that. Then there was "Choctaw Bingo" by James McMurtry and also by, I think, Ray Wilie Hubbard. It starts, "Strap them kids in, give 'em a little bit of benedryl and some cherry coke". We were hooked. We've discovered Last Train Home, Peter Cooper, Robert Earl Keen, Corb Lund, Todd Snider ("B double E double R U N, beer run") and hundreds of others that we never would have heard of if not for XCountry.

And now it's "Outlaw Country", taken over by stinking Sirius radio which bought XM, and I knew there would be trouble, playing Roger Miller (oh come on, he's an outlaw???) and other old crap that could be found on other channels or, even better, on those local stations that play the same shit day in, day out, same time each day.

Examples of shit Outlaw Country plays: "Hammer Down Radio with DJ Rig Rocker 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM". Great, while I'm driving home, just what I want to hear. I loves me some big rig trucking songs. NOT. "Elizabeth Cook's Apron Strings 7:00 AM - 11:00 AM Sassy country singer Elizabeth Cook kicks off your morning from Music City, where she cooks up a scintillating mix of music, recipes and household cleaning tips." I've always wanted recipes and household cleaning tips mixed in with my music. This is considered outlaw??

And this--"Meredith Ochs in Outlaw Country 8:00 PM - 12:00 AM
Smart, sassy siren-voiced Meredith Ochs brings over a decade of music journalism and radio commentary to your nights in Outlaw Country!" How many sassy singers do we need? And commentary? No thank you.

One thing that we really really liked about XCountry was that there were NO commercials, no commentary, no shit that we used to hear on regular radio between songs or instead of songs. XCountry focused on music. After a set of songs, the dj would say what songs they were, by whom, and that was it. On to more music.

Doesn't this one sound like fun? "Johnny Knoxville & Roger Alan Wade
A hell-raisin' hour of hot pickin', finger sniffin' frog stickin' Outlaw mayhem with "Jackass" star Johnny Knoxville and his cousin - musical misfit Roger Alan Wade." Finger sniffin' frog stickin'? Eeeewwwwwww. That pretty much sums up my feelings about Outlaw Country.

The XM Channel Linup (yeah, they can spell) FAQs state that XCountry is now Outlaw Country with the same music as before. So far, all I've heard is Roger Miller and other shit that I wouldn't listen to if all other music had vanished from the face of the earth.

Can you tell that I'm not happy? I'm so upset that I'm considering cancelling our subscriptions to XM (the fact that we can no longer afford to pay for the family's subscriptions does not come into play here. I mean our personal two subscriptions.) Why pay for that shit when I can listen to the sound of my own ears ringing for free?

I don't want classic country. The stations in my area play that ad nauseum. I don't want truckin' country. I don't want Outlaw Country.

I want my XCountry back. And I want it now.

Do we ever win?

Remember our new hardwood floor? Yeah, that $4000 hickory floor. The one that we're enjoying so much.

It's warping and cracking. In many places. Tom's brother will come over to inspect it. (His brother's family owns a flooring store, and they installed it.) I'm sure they'll fix it; they run a very reputable place with quality products.

But right now, we are not pleased. With the floor, not the family.

By the way

No one has come in for their emergency copies. Not one person.

And the 8.5" x 14" paper tray is broken. It was intact when I left this morning.

Mumble mumble

$1000 later, I have a temporary crown and three replaced fillings and lips so numb that I'm biting them and don't know it. I'm also drooling when I try to drink water.

It's a lovely day in the neighborhood.

Evidentally teachers can't read or understand a sign on the door that says I'm gone and will be back later. I came back to a pile of to-be-copied-ASAP papers on my desk.

Job security.

Dentist

Let's get it out in the open right up front.

I fucking hate dentists. And I have an appointment in less than an hour.

When we were kids, we had an old dentist whose equipment was made in the mid to late 1800s. He was a sadist. He was 95 years old, couldn't see, and shook. Good qualities for a dentist.

He traumatized Betty and me so much that, as adults, we kind of... neglected to go to checkups.

Both of us were motivated to go back in the last few years by molars starting to break (some were nothing but filling; that old dentist was very liberal with the drill) and our dislike of pain. Broken molars hurt like a mofo. I ended up having two pulled because they came at a time that I simply couldn't afford to have root canals and crowns. By the time of the last incident two years ago, I had dental insurance (mostly worthless) and opted for a crown. No root canal. Yet.

So now my dental insurance (mostly worthless) will go up over 100% Oct. 1. The system has chosen the least expensive policy (mostly worthless) so we've decided to put away that money each month to use on dental bills. But till September 30, I still have insurance (mostly worthless) so Tom made an appointment for me to go in this morning. I won't make phone calls if I can avoid them and refused to go into the office to make the appointment myself.

Besides the sadist dentist we had as children, I dated a dentist who I'll call "Chip" (thinly-disguised) to protect him from angry patients who might read this. I've never met a man with more contempt for his patients. He bitched if they cancelled appointments because of illness, and he bitched if they didn't and came in and shared their germs.

It honestly makes me wary of all dentists.

So, I'm off to see the sadist wizard to see if he's any better than the others.

At least I still have dental insurance (mostly worthless).

I could just scream

I shouldn't even stop long enough to breathe, but I have to vent.

It's almost 3:00 on a Friday, I leave (supposedly) at 3:30. But I'm buried. Absolutely drowning in copy requests that have to be done by 7:30 a.m. Monday. So I'll be in tomorrow, at least.

But get this--a teacher just called me. She had the collosal nerve to say, "I don't have a THING ready for Monday. How late can I get something to you and still have it Monday morning without having to go to Staples and pay for it myself?"

There's nothing to add. I'm speechless.

Don't get a Garmin!

Before we left home, I kept telling Tom that we should buy a gps since we don't know where things are in California. He didn't, but when he picked us up at the airport two weeks ago, he'd rented one from Avis.

We rented a Prius, which averaged 46 mpg on a trip that included the Yosemite Valley and mountains and lots of climbing hills and mountains on our travels. Loved it.

But the Garmin--it has to be the cheapest model available. Alamo charges $10 a day for it, so in a month's time, they've paid for the thing and can still rent it to other unsuspecting gullible easily lost travelers and make a mint. So, anyway, it's a piece of shit crap and shouldn't be allowed to clutter a car.

The first day we tried to find a Target or WalMart, and it couldn't find one. In all of San Diego. It managed to lead us almost to Costco, but it told us to turn left after we'd gone through the intersection, so we had to find our own way. We asked for a KMart; it took us to Sears and triumphantly announced "arrive at destination".

That night, we tried again. We wanted seafood, chose a restaurant it listed, and drove and drove till it told us that we were arriving at destination on right. Uh, no. Empty lot. Tried again. Another empty lot. Third time didn't work either, so we turned it off and ended up at Denny's. Not my restaurant of choice, especially on vacation.

Next night, it happened again. We gave up after it circled us around SD for an hour and took us back to our hotel. Which did not have a restaurant.

It did lead us directly to Disneyland, though, and to our motel nearby. One of two triumphs for Garmin (the other was the Cheesecake Factory today, although I have to add that it took us to the mall, not to the actual restaurant).

Other than that, it took us far out of our way every time we used it (we stupidly naively kept giving it a try) and wasted hours of our time. It quickly got to the point that, when Tom said "ask the Ga--" I'd unplug it and stick it in the glove box.

So, when we turned the car in a few hours ago, Tom told the clerk at Alamo about our trials, and the dear man refunded the entire amount of the Garmin rental.

And they lived happily ever after. The end.

I paid my $3

so I've been online for almost 6 hours. I think I'll just leave the computer on all night. So there, cheap-ass motel owners.

The packing

Oh, the packing. I hate packing. I really hate trying to squish three weeks' worth of stuff into one little carryon with one personal item.

In order to get the laptop in, I'm going to have to take out some clothes. Not taking the laptop is not an option. Not. An. Option. I need it, like I need my knitting (and enough to keep me busy for 3 weeks) (and extra). I'm taking a giant leap of faith by leaving my Denise needles at home. Except the two that are in my current project, Tropical Tee. What if I finish that and don't have anything else to work on? Oh, yeah. I left some sock yarn at my daughter's house, so I can pick that up. I'll take out a bunch of books I'm taking to the kids, so that'll even out.

It's rained for four days, so the three tops that I'm trying to air-dry aren't air-drying. I guess they'll have to go in separate plastic bags so they don't mess up the other clothes in the suitcase. (Suitcase? It wouldn't hold a suit.)

Should I take out a bathing suit? I have two in there. But that would mean I'd have to try one on, and it's too humid to try to wrestle that thing over my hips.

I'm only *cringe* taking the sandals I'll wear and a pair of rougher shoes for the gold panning. Gotta have rougher shoes for that.

I haven't even put in a jacket yet. San Francisco was very cold when we were there 4 years ago (in June; that wind is wicked there) and we were wishing we'd taken jackets. It can get chilly at night in some parts of California (quit laughing, Californians. I hear it's been hot there this summer, what with all the fires and things, but I have to pack for every eventuality).

Books? I have the one I'm reading and one other. Never work. Two more should come in the mail next week; if they do, Tom can bring them with him.

I gave myself a hit-and-miss pedicure today; that should hold till I get back. I found this cool pen called Little White Lies that has white polish in it; it won't hold up to close scrutiny, but no one's going that close to my toes.

Taking medicines with me is a nightmare. I have to make sure I have enough for more than three weeks; I don't want to run out of xanax. I'm sure I'll need that. (How many times did Tom tell me to take one this weekend?)

I took everything out of my purse and scattered around my tote bag, my camera bag, and my knitting bag. I'll never find anything again. Now I have to gather the gels and liquids and put them in a quart-sized ziplock bag, if I can find one. Fortunately I bought philosophy bath and body products last time I was in Orlando and left them at J's house. When we get to California, one of the first things we'll have to do is stop somewhere and buy bath and body stuff to last while we're out there; I can't carry enough 3-ounce bottles to last two weeks! I need my Amazing Grace body-firming lotion! Crap, I can't buy that and then throw it away in an airport.

I've got to quit this rambling and get back to packing. I hate packing. Did I mention that?

Quick note

Summer's here! The sun is shining, it's warm, and I'm happy.

I've been moving beads up the yarn for hours at a time, trying to get to the point that I can finish the test knit. It's boring.

We did buy a new modem, and after quite a bit of frustration, cursing, and in spite of another visit with customer "service", the new wireless modem installed itself and is working. I haven't even attempted to try to use the laptop with it. I'm afraid the air will turn blue.

So. That's where we stand now. I'm on vacation and loving it. I will work at school for a couple of hours tomorrow, but that's it for now.

I will eventually post photos from the Last Train Home (click on their name in the sidebar) shows last weekend, and I have some other things I want to blog about, but they'll have to wait till probably next week. My sisters and I are heading to the NC mountains for a nice, long weekend with our cousins.

Oh, and I think Claudia fired me.

About Verizon

We live in the sticks, so our internet options are limited. 1) dialup 2) satellite 3) dsl. Number 1 is completely unacceptable now that I've had high-speed access at work and at home. We tried satellite; it's very expensive, not that fast, and every time a cloud went by the signal was dropped. So, when Verizon offered dsl in our area in January (everywhere else in the world had dsl two years ago; like I said, we live in the sticks), Tom ordered a modem and we switched over.

We've been pleased with the speed; it's better than the satellite connection was, and it hasn't gone out once. Until this weekend.

We left home Friday morning and didn't get home till 7 Sunday evening. I noticed that the lights weren't glowing on the modem. I immediately checked the computer (which had been left on all weekend); it was fine. Printer fine. Answering machine fine. Phones fine.

Back up. The phone worked. This is dsl, which comes in over the phone line. The phone line works. No dsl. The answering machine is plugged into the same outlet as the modem. Tried plugging modem into another outlet and resetting it. No lights.

Damn. That means a call to customer "service". It took me hours on hold and then talking to an actual human back in January when we installed this thing and then hooked it to the wireless router. I just didn't think I could go through that frustration again.

But. I'm working at home off and on during the summer. Without internet access, I'm screwed. I can't even check my email to see if my boss has any updates for me. So I called customer "service".

I didn't have to wait too long for a real human voice, but the stinking menu requires oral communication, not button pushing. I don't like that. I don't like phones. Talking to a computer without cursing is not easy for me. "I'm sorry, I don't understand that response" just brings forth more cursing and more "not understand"ing.

So the human was nice and very helpful; he informed me that my modem was dead (Einstein that he was) and since it was out of warranty, I'd have to WAIT A FREAKING MINUTE HERE. It's out of warranty? We've had it for 5 freaking months. We're under obligation for 12 months, and their modem craps out after 5?

So he kindly transferred me to billing where I could hash it out with a woman who spoke heavily accented English through a tin can and unwaxed string from another country. It made communication difficult, although she "feels the same as you do, ma'am" that I have to buy another freaking modem and don't think I should have to pay for it since it was ONLY FIVE MONTHS OLD and we have to keep paying for dsl through them for another 7 months. (If I want to be totally accurate, I have to say that we're going to have to keep Verizon dsl forever or until another option comes along in the next century or so.)

So the Lady of Spain checks with her manager, but even though her empathy was oozing through the tin can and string, she couldn't do anything about it. She could have a new modem to us in "only 3-5 business days". I asked if I could go to a local Verizon store and pick one up. "Oh yes, you'll have it in 3-5 business days." If I actually went in and asked for one? "Yes, in 3-5 business days. May I order one for you?" No, I'll go to Circuit City and see what they have. "Oh, but I must inform you that you'd have to have the same modem." The same modem that crapped out after only 5 months? I think not. I'll buy another brand. "Then I must inform you that Verizon cannot guarantee that this modem will work." They can't guarantee that the piece of crap they sold us earlier would work longer than three months, either. Our old wireless router that we bought when we had the satellite access installed is still working, even with Verizon's choice of modems, so I really don't see a problem using a different brand of modem.

The best thing about the call was hearing over and over, "If you don't want to wait for a human representative (my paraphrasing), you can solve all your problems by going to www.verizon.com. No amount of shouting that I couldn't go to their freaking website without freaking internet access seemed to faze the disembodied voice, either.

P. S. I'm at work now, but it's my last day until August, so the freaking internet access must be fixed. Today. I didn't realize just how freaking dependent I am on it.

The weather inside

I understand why the school is cold in the winter. With the cost of fuel rising, it makes sense to cut back the thermostats in the schools. We can control the temps in our rooms by just a few degrees cooler or warmer, which also makes sense; some people would jack it up to 80 if they could.

But now, May 22, why is it so freaking cold in here? It's the same as it was all winter, which is frigid. Are they still trying to heat the building or air condition it? Is any "conditioning" on at all?

Why do I need to wear winter clothes year round??? I've been much warmer, personally, than I used to be; I can't stand to wear sweaters or anything with a high neck. But in my office, I always have to have a jacket handy, and I wear it almost all the time.

I want summer.

Almost FO

I finished the last row last night and started--or so I thought--the castoff. Um, yeah. That didn't go so well. I thought it was a perfectly normal castoff, but the way it's written, I just can't get my mind around it. So I tried one, it wasn't right, and put it aside to ask Claudia about it today.

This isn't a good representation of the beauty and color of this yarn, but with the flash, the brown was far too red. It need sunlight, and it's pouring again today. I finished it last night after the sun went down, of course.

I was knitting this from one huge (500 grams) ball of yarn, all from one hank, which was a bear to wind into a ball by hand. I didn't want any ends to weave in. Chester decided to change that.

Chester the Cat is very very naughty when it comes to yarn. He doesn't play with it and get it tangled in knots. He doesn't grab it like Zippy does and drag it down the hall, completely unharmed. He's a Stealth Yarn Cutter. He sneaks up when I leave my knitting for only a minute and chews the yarn in half, then sneaks off. I usually don't know it's happened till I come to a wet section of yarn and realize that something's amiss.

With this knit, I've been extremely careful to keep the yarn out of Chester's reach. I don't leave it sitting for even a second. I've kept the yarn in the plastic bag in a Sephora bag, pulling out just enough to knit with. But in one unguarded moment when I pulled out too much, he cut it.

(Why is Blogger turning photos on their sides? I don't have time to delete and reupload this morning.)

So there are a couple extra ends to be woven in. I hate weaving in ends.

Damn cat.

The Stupids continue

What is it with my brain? Why can't I take a simple knit and purl pattern and just knit it, dammit?

There's nothing difficult about this thing. Nothing. N o t h i n g. So why can't I just get on with it?

True to form, I'm unknitting more than I actually knit. Claudia's gonna rip this baby out of my hands and forbid me to ever touch her yarn again. Yes, it's that bad. I should have finished it a week ago, but I'm still struggling with it.

If I tell you a secret, will you keep it? Promise? I discovered what I consider to be a pretty major flaw in my knitting last night, but I did not rip it out. Nope, I just struggled with my ocd-ness and let it go. Just breathe through it. Don't go back. Okay, it's probably not that big a deal, but I'm hoping that Claudia won't notice it. I think that I knit a few too many rows of double short rows, but it's symmetrical, so it should be okay. At least, that's what I tell myself.

You can't tell that I'm postponing picking that knitting back up, can you?

Ticketmaster

I hate Ticketmaster. Their "system" to discourage scalpers from getting all the good seats has pretty much turned into a huge moneymaking venture for TM itself. Once you get into their ticket-buying page, you have to type in a two-word "security check", which slightly slows down those of us who just want two decent tickets, but it doesn't appear to stop the scalpers.

My sister, Betty, said that once you actually buy tickets, you get an option to immediately sell them on Ticketmaster's Thievery TicketExchange site. As you might imagine, these tickets aren't resold at face value; they're jacked up, especially any in the front sections of the arena. Tickets in those sections start at $260 (face value is $120 plus TicketMaster's "convenience charge" of $18+ for each ticket) and go up to $449. (They're just as bad, or worse, on ebay.)

This is how TM "protects" the ticket-buying masses. This way you can be sure that you're buying a genuine ticket instead of a counterfeit one, since they hold the tickets and send them to the poor sap tired, crazed fan person who buys them.

The American Express Gold Card presale for Neil Diamond went on sale last Friday. Betty is a die-hard ND fan; once before she, Joan, and I had tickets, but not great ones, (they turned out to be pretty great for Joan and me, though), so the day or two before the concert, Betty went on ebay and bought a front-row ticket. Joan and I were to the side of the stage but on a higher level, and we had a good view of the band, the stage, and Betty. We so enjoyed watching her enjoy the show!

So, back to my story before my lunch gets cold: Tom has a Gold Card and graciously donated it for the cause. I informed my boss that I was going to take about half an hour of personal leave (she laughed) to try to buy tickets. I spent 45 minutes trying to find something decent, but nothing came up that I was willing to buy. I finally gave up out of frustration and hunger. The only sections that were selling that I ever saw were across the stadium.

However. TicketExchange was already showing tickets in the front sections, for the prices listed above. How did they do that? I'm a fast, accurate typist; I mistyped the security words twice in 45 minutes. Many times I got a page that says, sorry, no tickets available. So, here I am with a very fast internet connection and a decent computer, and I couldn't get a ticket anywhere near the stage.

We both tried throughout the last week, but only those far-away sections were available.

Have you seen the commercials for American Express, bragging how they got tickets to a sold-out concert? Lies. Tom called AmEx and asked about their tickets for the ND show. They gave him a number to call, and guess what? That person told him that TM handles that; they have nothing to say about where the tickets are. He told her that the seats were crap and they should be ashamed to put their name on the presale. She wasn't any help.

So this morning was the start of the ND fanclub presale. Betty, after nearly having a stroke when nothing decent showed up in the first ten minutes, finally got two tickets in the back of section 2, which is center in front of the stage.

You know, we'd boycott TM if there was any other way to get tickets to the shows we want to see. But they're the only game in town at most large venues, so we're stuck.

So we buy tickets and gripe about TicketThievery and go to the concerts anyway.