Go back a few posts and see where I mentioned the AT&T Mark the Spot iPhone application. See where I mentioned how they would be getting a flood of complaints?

I have used the app six times already. As I was pulling out of the parking lot after work I got a text message from Jen asking me why I wasn’t taking calls. I had no idea what she was talking about so I called her. Or at least I tried. I dialed and nothing happened. After about a minute of dial-tone-free dead air I got the double beep of a hang up.

There’s the first complaint I posted.

I tried calling our home number and got the same results.

There’s the second complaint I posted.

I sent a text message saying I didn’t know what was wrong. I then rebooted the phone. I called Jen again and got a voice message saying that my call could not go through at this time. What??

There’s the third complaint I posted.

I called our home phone again and got the same message. No dial tone. No attempt to place the call. Just the screw you message.

There’s the fourth complaint I posted.

I then received a text from Jen saying she couldn’t get through to me and would meet me at the place we went to tonight. At that time I noticed that my earlier text to her had failed to go through.

That’s complaint number five.

Just as I posted that complaint the phone actually rang. It was Jen. I answered and immediately the call was dropped.

That’s complaint number six.

Screw you AT&T. Screw you right in your stupid ass.

________

On an unrelated note, I am posting this using the new Google Chrome for Linux beta. It’s been running for about 10 minutes now without crashing. Already the Linux version is better than the Windows version. Is anyone surprised by that? I sure ain’t.

I just found a site that has a 15 day extended weather forecast. Here’s what they have for New York, NY for the weekend after next:

It looks good if we left Friday evening and came back Saturday night.

Of course I have as much faith in a 15 day forecast as I do in monkeys flying out of my ass. But still, it’s fun to look.

Where did I put that $200,000? I had it with me a minute ago.

I want to take a ride into space on a commercial spacecraft. Five minutes of weightlessness is worth a good 200K, isn’t it?

I think so. Sign me up for a seat on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo!

(assuming there is enough leg room for some one as tall as I am, and enough ass room for some one as wide as I am. If the seats are small and cramped together I will be shite out of luck, eh?)

I just installed an app onto my phone. AT&T Mark the Spot.

The application lets you instantly send a complaint to AT&T when they drop a call, have a call fail, have a gap in their coverage network, or any fun things like that. I guarantee that once the word of this gets out to users their data servers will be flattened by the incoming deluge.

Serves them right.

Do you ever have one of those days? Where nothing bad happens yet everything bugs you? Where you are hyper sensitive to annoyances?

I do. Not often, but I do.

I have a sneaking suspicion that today might become one of those days. I have no idea why… except maybe I’m just at the low ebb of my you-have-a-long-commute cheeriness cycle. Some times I don’t mind the long commute. Sometimes I do. This morning after sitting at one light in Methuen for four cycles, and then another light in Concord for four cycles I think I reached the nadir. (I hope I used the word nadir correctly. I think I did. I could look it up to make sure, but I would rather convey my question about it to you, the kind reader, than actually act on my impulse to use the English language correctly for a change. In other words, I am that rare combination of long-winded and lazy. But I digress…)

This weekend we have a game night to attend. Jen and I have missed the last couple of these and I am hoping we’ll have enough of our errands done in time to go this time. It’s at Larry and Nawal’s house and I want to see it. They recently redid the entire interior. I literally will not recognize the joint when I’m there.

On Sunday we are borrowing the kids from their dad to take them to a Christmas Party. My father has been a member of the organization that runs the Bingo at church. Every year for as far back as I can remember they have had a kids Christmas party for children and grandchildren of members. I went to it for years. Now for the first time my step kids get to go to it too. Santa Claus will be there, of course, handing out a gift to each kid. Rob will be there with a camera full of fresh batteries snapping away. Ho Ho Ho

The weekend after that we have the kids. Jen and I had talked a few weeks ago about the possibility of an overnight trip to New York. We talked about it and then forgot about it. Then last week we had a talk about how we were kind of feeling the need for a day trip somewhere. Sort of like our trips to the mountains. Drive for a while, do something fun, drive back. I started thinking about New York again. I thought, wouldn’t it be swanky for us to drive to New York to do some Christmas shopping. It would, wouldn’t it. Even better, wouldn’t it be cool to bring the kids to New York to see Rockefeller Center and some of the other sites in all their Christmasly decorated glory. We have to wait for the extended weather forecasts to get out to that weekend, but it might be something we end up doing. If we do, you’ll see 10,000,000 pictures or so.

Okay, talking about game night and Christmas parties and a lit up New York has greatly improved my mood.

Your humble narrator thanks you.

New Kids in the Hall!
New Kids in the Hall!
New Kids in the Hall!

An 8 episode mini series airing on the CBC. Please please please let some US network (preferably one on cable that won’t have to censor any of the fun stuff) pick this up so I can see! Puh-Leeeeze!

I left the house at 7:10am today. The kids were buckled in and all the things they needed to bring to their dad’s and to school were loaded into the trunk. That’s 5-10 minutes later than I would have liked to have left, but it was okay. I did have to scrape ice off the windows before leaving though.

I had to stop and get gas. I didn’t fill the tank, I just put $20 in. I did have to wait for the pump to ask me questions like, is this a rewards card? It also seemed to take a long time to authorize my debit card (dial-up speed?), and it pumped slow.

I dropped the kids off at a decent time but then got stuck in a little traffic getting back to the highway. I was behind some one who seemed to be overwhelmed with fear of turning right. It didn’t take long though.

I exited route 93 and had to wait a few minutes on the ramp. It always takes a little time but it seemed worse today.

I had a long wait at a light on route 38. Another, longer, wait at route 3A. The wait turning onto route 4 was much longer than usual. I was starting to do a lot of clock watching at this point.

I usually spend less than 5 minutes on route 4. Today I spent over 15. Then I had a long wait turning onto Old Bedford Road. I had the normal wait crossing route 2, but that wait is pretty long on the best day. It was at that point that I got stuck behind “the slow guy.” Speed limit 40 translated into 27-28 miles per hour.

I punched into work at 9:17. 127 minutes after I left the house.

I take all those back roads and side streets to avoid route 128 and all the traffic it suffers through on a daily basis.

It turns out that because of this everyone else did too.

Jen told the kids that from now until the big day we would watch nothing but Christmas specials. That bumbed out a certain eight year old who wanted to watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Then it occurred to me… don’t all of the Potter books include a chapter on Christmas break? Well there you go, all of the Potter movies ARE Christmas movies! We blew through Sorcerer’s Stone and then jumped forward to Goblet of Fire on Blu-ray.

Merry Christmas Hogwarts!

The 2009 “Dead Relatives Tour” is winding down. Another enjoyable day with family. It sounds morbid but it’s really a good thing.

It’s going to snow tonight.

I hate snow.

We are at Target trying to get snow outfits for the kids before we need them… Unlike last year.

I’m hoping that being prepared results in the snow giving us a miss this year.

Hope hope hope