Corporate Responsibility

I bought a new cell phone a few months ago. It's small, lets me check e-mail, and lets me talk to people who are far away. In short, I've been pretty happy with it.

One thing that attracted me to said phone was the price tag. It was fairly inexpensive, and with the rebate, I was getting 1/3 off the price; plus, all I had to do was sign a two-year contract. No problem; I'm generally happy with my carrier, so two years is fine by me.

So a few nights back, I checked the rebate's status and discovered it was declined.

Huh.

Following the instructions on the web page, I called the listed phone number, and was told to call a different number. Because apparently, the number listed was the customer service number; I didn't have a problem for them - it was the rebate they offered. Steam started leaking from my ears at this point.

I called the new number, and waited. And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

All the while, I passed time by looking up rival phone companies' plans and phones, and figured I would save them a lot of trouble by simply dropping them and going with someone else. Meanwhile, every six seconds, a recording came on, telling me how they appreciated my business. Right.

Finally, a human voice spoke through the phone. She asked for account information, which I gave, and when I asked why the rebate was declined, she said it was because I didn't sign up for a two-year contract extension.

"Wrong," I interrupted her pre-programmed sales droning. "I signed one the night I bought the phone. Check your records, because I'll fax them to you tonight if you don't find them there."

"Hmm. Let me check." A minute or so passed. "I checked and you were right, sir. I don't know why this happened. I'm expediting your check."

I thanked her and hung up.

Now, I may not be the brightest soul on earth, but two years ago, I purchased two phones through this company, and they tried pulling a similar trick. Unfortunately for them, I keep pretty good records and was able to prove that they were full of crap. It seems awfully strange that the same damned thing would happen to me a few years later. I wonder why they're losing business in droves.

I've long thought the cell phone industry in this country was a joke; phones that are way overpriced so that the discounts can draw in new customers; service that's lackluster at best; oh, and a small honesty problem on top of that. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to envision them declining all rebates automatically, gambling that a fairly small percentage of customers will call in and fight them.

I had already considered going to a new carrier when the contract was up; thanks to this little incident, I'm not considering anymore.

In Honor of Cloverfield

Forget this new-fangled johnny-come-lately I'm-gonna-eat-Manhattan wannabe. Here's a real monster facing his greatest foe:

Stress for Lunch

You want to know what's fun? Going to get a haircut at lunch.

You want to know what's even more fun? Discovering as you're leaving that the gentleman who was finishing up as you arrived accidentally took your jacket instead of his (they're both black leather jackets).

You want to know what's especially fun about this? My car keys, work access card, and cell phone were in the pockets of said jacket.

Ten minutes and about 20 frantic calls to my cell phone, he finally realized his mistake and returned the jacket.

Yikes

One thing about reading history: you get to see just how close we repeatedly come to accidentally blowing ourselves and others up.

Crawling Out of the Weeds

Before I start here, I want to thank everyone for the kind wishes and thoughts in my earlier post. I really appreciate it.

Now, on with the inanity . . .

Christmas crept up on us this year, and by Sunday I was starting to sweat it. Sure, the shopping was finished, but there was the little matter of the seven people we were having over for dinner. The house was a wreck and the fridge was bursting at the seams with provisions. Fortunately, we had a plan.

As Darcy made a pie Monday night, I brined the turkey (If you ever do anything with a turkey, you should brine it - I'm not kidding I brine most pork or poultry these days, and it's well worth the time and effort). And for a brief moment on Tuesday, it looked as if the plan would hold together.

Now, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I've never cooked a turkey before. Chicken? Yes, I've baked, fried, stuffed, sauteed, and broiled many a chicken, but their larger cousins somehow eluded me all these years. So with a hearty laugh of bravado and a healthy belt of cheap whiskey, I prepared to cook the best damned turkey that ever graced a Christmas dinner.

First, I lugged the cooler containing the brining bird out of the sunroom, where it spent the night. I pulled it out along with the lemon halves, cinnamon sticks and bay leaves - I stuffed those into the bird itself. Then taking advantage of a little trick we'd learned - flip the turkey over and cook it breast-side down - all the juices flow into the turkey breast, making it that much more moist and juicy.

Yes, it looks ugly, but let's be realistic - who carves a turkey at the table? If I tried that, my guests would be covered in grease, skin and scraps of meat. Plus, if I'm using an electric carving knife, someone's going home without a nose or a finger or two. And when they leave the house, covered in turkey trimmings and bleeding from various cuts, all the stray dogs within a five-mile radius will descend upon them.

And folks, that just wouldn't be pretty. Not at all.

So after inserting the thermometer into the thigh, and inserting a second one into another part of the bird (I don't trust my remote thermometer. It tried to kill me earlier this year, and things just haven't been the same since), and dropped it straight into the oven.

A few hours later, I checked my lying-ass thermometer, which said the bird was a good 155 degrees, meaning it had to come out soon. The backup said it was 180 degrees. That was bad. That meant I'd overcooked it, and I would be serving my guests Jack-in-the-Box. So we took it out, and after poking and prodding it with both thermometers, we decided our 18 pound turkey was finished cooking.

In three hours. Three short hours.

An hour before everyone was slated to arrive, I started carving the turkey. I became a little concerned when I flipped it over and discovered the temperature-popper-thing hadn't popped out. I became more concerned when I cut into the turkey and found the meat had a nice pinkish-red look to it the deeper I cut into the bird.

Last time I checked, raw turkey is probably not high on most people's delicacy list. And unfortunately, stuffing it into the oven wasn't an option - I was trying to turn cornbread soup into cornbread stuffing.

We decided a little cornbread stuffing would be a great accompaniment to dinner. After a little poking on the internets, I found a recipe, which I doubled, only to find the contents of the bowl didn't resemble stuffing so much as it resembled a bowl of runny scrambled eggs.

Fuck it, I thought, and chucked that bad boy into the oven. I checked it 30 minutes later, only to find I had a nice cornbread soup going. So I did what any smart cook would do . . . I turned up the oven and hoped some of that liquid would find its way out of my stuffing.

Unfortunately, this pan took up valuable real estate in my smallish oven, and if I didn't want to poison our guests, I had to do something with the turkey.

After poking around the kitchen, I found some baking pans. I carved up the bird, and dropped the pieces into the baking pans along with some pan drippings and I covered it with aluminum foil. An hour later, I took them out of the oven.

And I'll be damned if it didn't work. The turkey was edible (and quite tasty if I say so myself), the stuffing, while still a touch moist, was pretty good, and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Most importantly, no one complained of stomach pains or other food poisoning symptoms.

So after eating a fine meal, exchanging gifts, and scaring a poor innocent family as they watched me play Scrabble, Darcy and I flopped down on the couch together, and enjoyed a successful, if somewhat stressful Christmas dinner - hopefully the first of many.

Unfortunately, the magic Christmas elves didn't find their way into the kitchen, which looked as if someone ransacked it during a tornado. And even though I swore we'd be ringing in the new year before we'd see the kitchen counters again, we were able to shovel our way through the mess, returning things to the status quo.

Wow

I'm not sure whether to laugh, groan, or write the newspaper (granted, it's the New York Post - I doubt they'd care, especially considering that most New Yorkers probably don't even realize that there actually is a state called Missouri - it's one of those 49 other states that isn't New York, and someone writing a letter from there isn't high on their list of concerns) at this headline.

Another Goodbye

There are moments you hope never end; moments that are so perfect you want them to last on forever. Take this picture - it was taken about a month ago. It's my grandmother, Mimi, playing with her newest great-grandson. Three days earlier, he'd arrived in the United States in the arms of my brother and sister-in-law. Aiden was meeting his new great-grandmother for the first time.

Unfortunately, all perfect moments come to an end.

Two weeks ago, my phone rang at work. It was my mother, telling me that she was following an ambulance to the hospital. My grandmother had apparently suffered a stroke sometime that morning, and she had most likely been alone several hours before anyone knew there was a problem.

A week ago, I stood in a sweltering, institutionalized room in the hospice wing of a nursing home, watching her slowly fade. The stroke had been massive, and at 93 there was little hope of recovery. She was only able to communicate intermittently at best, so we gathered, we watched and waited.

It's hard watching anyone go through something like this, let alone a loved one. You don't know how aware she is; whether she knows that she's surrounded by family; how much of her survived the stroke.

And I think that's the cruelest part of it all. She was fiercely independent. She lived alone up until the stroke, and she fought like hell for three years against even a cleaning lady coming in once or twice a week. (Incidentally, she fired her cleaning lady the day before the stroke). She despised the cane and later the walker, but she realized that they had become necessary. Her mind, while still sharp, was trapped within her slowly failing body.

She raised her two children alone after my grandfather died in 1950. She was 36. She didn't have her GED until 1966; she worked until she was 82. She carried a picture of my grandfather in her wallet until the day she died.

Seeing her lying in a hospice bed, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to laugh was nearly unbearable. I only hope that our presence there made it a little easier on her.

We buried Mimi on Sunday. Family, friends and loved ones trudged through the snow and ice to say farewell. We miss her, and we always will.

Humbug

Yesterday, I made my first post-Thanksgiving trip into retail world. In the best of times, I try avoid the retail world, around Christmas time, my hermit instincts take over and I start trying to figure out how I can do all my shopping over the internet, which I hear they have on computers now.

To most people, the Christmas shopping season is a wonderful time spent thinking about loved ones while trying to find that perfect gift. It’s capped by a day of family get-together time. In the meantime, the poor retail workers see the dirty underbelly of all this magic.

I spent ten years working at Target, and even though I didn’t drink back in my impressionable youth, a few nights working the floor at Target after December 1, and I was thinking how nice a bottle of whiskey would be. (Of course, part of me wanted it simply to throw the empty bottle at the woman who just finished calling me everything but a white man because she figured it would be fine to wait until Dec. 23 to buy her kid the Bouncing Tigger doll).

Black Friday is that much blacker if you have to wake up at 4:00 to trudge into work on a freezing cold morning, only to find 800 people lined up at the doors, and if you’re really lucky, you draw the short straw and get to open the doors for them. Fortunately, I never “won” that particular lottery. I suppose it could have been worse – I could have had to be into work in time to open the place at 4:00.

My favorite memory of those times was working as a cart jockey on Christmas Eve and counting the number of empty liquor bottles in the carts and strewn across the parking lot. Merry Christmas indeed; in those days my goal was simply to make it home without becoming the hood ornament of the beaten-up Plymouth swerving from one side of the road to the other.

All this went through my head as I wandered the store, not listening to the Christmas Carols piped in over the PA and trying to finish up so I could go home.

Fortunately, the express line was short. Unfortunately, the cashier was brand-new, and Lord, was he slow. As I finally made it to the front of the line and handed over my cash for my $6.64 purchase, I began to wonder why it was taking so long for my change to find its way back to me.

It seems that the cashier didn’t enter $10 as the amount tendered, so he had to figure out how much change to give me – the machine simply said I wasn’t owed any change, which he knew was wrong, to his credit, but unfortunately, his math skills weren’t far enough along to actually figure out the exact amount.

“It’s $3.34,” I said. He thanked me and handed over the change, which I suppose is a plus. I once trained a kid as a cashier who could neither do the math to give change nor did he know how much each coin was worth. Needless to say, he became a cart jockey relatively quickly. For all I know, the kid’s probably teaching math somewhere nowadays.

In any case, it’s basically my same annual case of the Christmas blahs. Once upon a time, I thought that when I was finished with retail, I would be cured of them forever; however, it seems like they hibernate somewhere in my soul, waiting to come out on Black Friday and plod along through until the New Year.

The lesson here seems to be that I shouldn’t shop. Ever. And I really need to dig out my Bah Humbug shirt soon. It’s time has come.

Rambling Post-Thanksgiving Post

Thanksgiving was fun as always, but this year we had an extra reason to be thankful. Meet my nephew, Aiden. In addition to being awfully cute, he very quickly figured out how to work a crowd, which served him well at assorted Thanksgiving dinners and open houses over the weekend.

As for the long weekend, it was hectic and very busy, including time spent finishing a job I started a couple of weeks ago - pulling up the carpeting on the first floor of my house. After studying the underside of the carpet, I've come to the conclusion that someday scholars are going to discover that the name Trudy descends from ancient Aramaic and translates into "very small bladder". Egad. There might have been one or two spots on the dining room floor she didn't hit, but I sure wasn't seeing them.

Saturday was spent at the aforementioned open house for Aiden, where he was exposed to birthday cake for the first time. Apparently, he wasn't a big fan of sweets, until Darcy gave him the cake she'd baked for him. Now, he's a thirteen-month-old sugar junkie, crawling the floors of his new home, looking for a fix.

Or maybe he's just crawling. I hear kids do that, after all.

In any case, Aiden is back at home with his new family and settling in nicely by all accounts. Welcome to the family, Aiden.

Faux Pas

I've taken to the gym again - especially since I get free membership at the JCC, thanks to Darcy's employment there. Overall, I've been very happy with the experience - people are really there to exercise, if they're going to chat, they take it elsewhere.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I work on cardio training. Right now, I'm focusing on building endurance by treadmill running. After I get over my total hatred of running, I may try taking it up outside, weather permitting, but for now, I'm sticking to the treadmill. After a treadmill session, I hit the elliptical machine, where I can work on cardio and read while doing it. (Yes, they have TVs, but once you've seen Judge Judy 100 or so times, the novelty wears off).

Wednesday, I carried in my latest acquisition from the library - a dual biography on George Patton and Erwin Rommel, two of the most famous generals of World War II. As I carried it into the building and glanced down at the book.

And noticed the cover was liberally sprinkled with swastikas. As I'm walking into the JCC - also known as the Jewish Community Center.

Yes, there were stars as well, but seeing as I was walking into a building containing people who in all likelihood:

• fought in the war
• survived a concentration camp

I thought that perhaps I should go ahead and leave it in my locker. I realize that my intentions were pure, but a small part of me feared chugging away on the elliptical machine, reading my book as an elderly gentleman walks by, sees the cover, flips out, screams "Auschwitz!" and smacks me upside the head with a cane.

Next time, I'll pick an alternate book from the nightstand. It just seems less painful that way.

Random Musings

After much hand wringing, debating, and household disasters, we finally set a wedding date, so things are finally moving along on that front. In about six months, Darcy and I will get married on a sunny Jamaican beach. Unless it rains. Or a hurricane hits. But right now, I'm aiming for an optimistic outlook.

Other things I've been chewing on lately:

• After two weeks of trying, I'm giving up on Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. Typically, I find the stories behind the underground or indie music scene to be fascinating. However, this book continues driving home a simple truth about many rock and music stars: they're narcissistic fuck-ups. And really, if I wanted to learn more about fascinating narcissistic fuck-up, I'd read (or update) this blog more often.
• I actually started watching more television this year (thanks DVR!). I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but interestingly, the shows with better pilot episodes (Chuck, Reaper) are falling flat on their faces, thanks to their paper-thin premises, while shows with so-so pilots (Bionic Woman) are slowly improving. The writing is still fairly clunky and cringeworthy, but the show is in serious danger of not taking itself too seriously. And really, any show that features Isiah Washington getting kicked square in the nuts isn't half bad.
  
• Watching DVDs of The Wire. This show makes me wish I'd ponied up for HBO. This is what Homicide could have been without all the "input" from NBC. Luther Mahoney was clearly a prototype for Avon Barksdale, and watching the case against Barksdale develop over the course of the season (I'm on season one) has been a hell of a ride. I'm dying for the next DVD to arrive courtesy of Netflix.
• Wanted: uses for apples. I think we're going apple picking tomorrow, meaning my kitchen will be overrun with approximately 20 lbs. of apples. I like apples. I like apple pie. Hell, I like applesauce, but I'm hoping there might be a few other options out there. Suggestions?

That's all for now. I need to get back to actually being productive. Enjoy the weekend!

Moment of Silence . . .

. . . for my fallen i-pod. The good always go out too young.

Here Goes Nothing

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 2312296

Most Expensive Playlist Ever

Here's a list of the songs that cost Jammie Thomas $222,000 in her failed defense against an RIAA lawsuit. It came from here.

• Guns N Roses "Welcome to the Jungle"; "November Rain"
• Vanessa Williams "Save the Best for Last"
• Janet Jackson "Let's What Awhile"
• Gloria Estefan "Here We Are"; "Coming Out of the Heart"; "Rhythm is Gonna Get You"
• Goo Goo Dolls "Iris"
• Journey "Faithfully"; "Don't Stop Believing"
• Sara McLachlan "Possession"; "Building a Mystery"
• Aerosmith "Cryin'"
• Linkin Park "One Step Closer
• Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar on Me"
• Reba McEntire "One Honest Heart"
• Bryan Adams "Somebody"
• No Doubt "Bathwater"; "Hella Good"; "Different People"
• Sheryl Crow "Run Baby Run"
• Richard Marx "Now and Forever"
• Destiny's Child "Bills, Bills, Bills"
• Green Day "Basket Case"

I'm not sure I'd ever want to pay $1 for a Gloria Estefan album, let alone $9,258. (Miami Sound Machine? That's another story entirely). I wish I could say I was surprised she lost, but I'm not. My big question now is whether these artists are going to see one penny from this judgment The RIAA won on their "behalf".

Waking Up

At least when I came home, my new MacBook Pro was waiting for me. Ooh. Shiny.

Night Terrors

Boss runs in 20 minutes before I'm ready to leave, declaring a drop everything emergency. A piece of documentation HAS to make it in the next build. Crap.

After running around for 40 minutes and nearly finishing, I learn that this piece of documentation is not required to fix the bug after all, so I didn't have to do anything. Crap.

Nightmare Continues

I was halfway to work this morning when I realized that I left my headphones at home.

Nightmare Begins

The bed collapsed in the middle of the night . . . again.

T Time

I spent the morning revelling in the peace of quiet and solitude. There were no slot machine ringing away; no video screens threatening me with Rita Rudner or Carrot Top visits; no bright lights shining in my face.

Truthfully, I kind of miss it already, but it's great to be home.

Men live by a few simple rules; one of the most important is what goes on the road stays on the road; however, I'm going to share one tale, because it must be told.

If you're looking for a quiet spot to toss back a couple of martinis and reflect on the week, stay the hell away from the Hofbrauhaus. Imagine a giant room full of long tables, and each of those tables contains about 20 or so people, drinking from one liter steins full of beer. It's Vegas, so most people are already gloriously, raucously drunk. Oh, and there's a band playing "Sweet Caroline" and "Summer of '69" between bouts of "Ein Prosit" ( Zicke, zacke, zicke, zacke, hoi, hoi, hoi!) in the corner. And the room's singing along.

The room was full of energy; it was loud. It was crazy. It was a roomful of fools, and apparently, one or more of them needed pitying. Because Mr. T walked in the door.

Yes, Mr. T. Mr. motherfucking T.

At first, no one noticed, he walked in with a small entourage and took the seat next to us. I'm ashamed to admit that he walked right past me, and while I thought he looked familiar, I didn't recognize him (I just finished one of those steins and was starting on the second). But someone did, becuase I soon heard the buzz: "Mr. T! Mr. T!"

The house got wind of the celebrity and decided to celebrate, because the next thing I know, the house band is playing the theme to the A-Team, and Mr. T runs up on stage and danced along to it. Afterwards, he returned to the table and continued partying with his friends.

We moved on to further adventures in a sleep-deprived weekend.

And so, I add Mr. T to the top of my list of celebrity encounters. Seeing Mr. T in Vegas is far more interesting than pissing next to Bob Costas and not nearly as awkward as realizing that Bobby Bonilla was sitting next to me at a strip club.

Viva Las Vegas

I'm off to the happiest place on Earth for a few days of drunken debauchery and donkey poker for this guy. I'll be back Sunday.