# 02 Dec 2005, 05:20PM: Luck:
I went to Bakersfield for a one-day visit with Leonard. We attended his grandmother's funeral.
Rosalie was such a wonderful woman. She treated me like another grandchild as soon as she met me, and was the smartest, sweetest hostess I've ever known. I am so lucky that I got to know her, as well as her husband Dalton, over the last few years. Now they are both gone and all we have is our memories, just as after we die all our survivors will have is memories of us.
Leonard spoke at the service and said that we would all be lucky if our lives we as rich and full of love as Rosalie's.
Yesterday and today, I got to talk and visit with Leonard, Frances, Susanna, Rachel, John, and people in Leonard's extended family whom I don't see as often, like his aunts and uncles (Pat, Don, Garry, and so on) and his cousins, like Shannon, Brett, etc. And I got to see Joel and Leah, Shannon's toddler and baby, who are tiny and very sweet.
We ate and shopped and talked and drove around, and I saw The Music Man for the first time ever (what a great musical). And this morning we ate Frances's great French toast, made from Leonard's perfect bread, inside a warm house as the rain fell on the garden behind.
On the way to and from Bakersfield, Leonard and I played the XM radio, and he tried to guess the bands playing the songs he'd never heard, and we ate at Pea Soup Andersen's.
I am so lucky.
# 02 Dec 2005, 06:13PM: Edutainment:
I'm going to Will Franken's one-man show Good Luck With It tomorrow, and you should too (if you can). Tomorrow's performance includes an optional epilogue about Tookie Williams. I've confirmed with Will that Good Luck With It repeats on Sat., Dec. 10 and Sat., Dec. 17 at The Marsh.
Yesterday night, thanks to a severely overworked video clerk and John's kind lending of his laptop, a bunch of us watched the wonderful 1962 classic The Music Man. Along with The Producers and Chicago, The Music Man has a huckster as its primary character and has the social construction of reality as a very strong theme. When I think about the suspension of disbelief necessary in watching musicals, and the kangaroo court scene in Oklahoma!, I wonder whether the social construction of consensus reality is the subtext of all musials, especially since so many of them have show business as a plot or subplot (viz, Showboat, Kiss Me, Kate, 42nd Street, Bye Bye Birdie, A Chorus Line, Sunset Boulevard, Cabaret, Phantom of the Opera, etc., etc.). But I figure that, even so, Chicago and The Music Man concentrate especially hard on mass delusion for satiric effect.
"The Sadder But Wiser Girl For Me" is a fantastic song and I can't believe I've never heard it before. The term "Shipoopi" and this business of using the evening star to say good night to someone you love are absolutely not elements of my universe. And the ending is almost as apt and deadly as the ending of Urinetown.
Joe and I saw Dr. Phil Zimbardo and a Polish filmmaker speak at the California Academy of Arts and Crafts this week. We got Zimbarded! Joe's account is quite adequate and I direct you to it, as well as to my other previous musings on the Stanford Prison Experiment.
# 02 Dec 2005, 06:48PM: Tales Of XM:
Every time I hear One Night In Bangkok from the very odd musical Chess (which I have actually seen), and those little rap-like spoken-word bits between the refrains occur, I mentally substitute, "Hot town, summer in the city / Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty" from Summer in the City by The Lovin' Spoonful.
# 03 Dec 2005, 11:46AM: Tip:
450 Sutter Pharmacy is wonderful but their hours are Monday-Friday, 9am-6pm. Not that you'd find that information on their website, argh.
# 03 Dec 2005, 01:35PM: Useful Phone Number:
I was reminded last night that many people who have cell phones do not have the phone number of a local taxicab company or dispatcher on their speed-dials. It's useful to have one for many occasions, including ones that don't quite rise to the level of emergency. In San Francisco, I use (415) 920-0715 to reach the Citywide dispatching service, which has never let me down.
# 04 Dec 2005, 09:37AM: Articles You Might Enjoy:
At http://www.insidebayarea.com/bayarealiving/ci_3278439 we have my new MC Masala on sitting on BART with my eyes closed. "....I'm not very disciplined, so I have to close my eyes to ignore the outside world...."
And at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/magazine/04coach.html we have a NYT story about college football, which sounds boring until you find out that it is by Michael Lewis. It is hysterical.
# 05 Dec 2005, 08:06AM: Wuh?:
In my dream, Harlan Ellison was dating a guy I knew. I should have known it was a dream because we all hung out and it was awesome and fun and not awkward at all.Clarification: viz., dream-Ellison wasn't a jerk.
# 05 Dec 2005, 04:17PM: Worry:
Is Malcolm Gladwell really talking about himself?But if you're the one responsible for those bright new ideas there is no such certainty. You come up with one great idea, and the process is so miraculous that all you do is puzzle over how on earth you ever did it, and worry whether you'll ever be able to do it again.
# 07 Dec 2005, 12:08PM: "House Band" (hat-tip to Leonard):
Leonard and I did a silly song about House. You can listen to the Ogg file of the song in iTunes or WinAmp, as well as many other music players.
# 08 Dec 2005, 12:56PM: Quote of the Day:
Well, there are probably several, including Scott Rosenberg's instantly memorable comment on a person updating Video Dog ("I think he's walking the Dog"), but the only one I have said is: "Well, too bad Tupper & Reed closed; otherwise I would head over to buy the world's tiniest violin."
# 09 Dec 2005, 07:10PM: Manufacturing Consent To Laugh:
I've come up with a commonsensical procedure for manufacturing observational humor. In fact, it's so commonsensical that I refuse to believe I'm the first to invent it. It won't catapult you to the standup A-list, but as long as you are not an introvert and you have a sense of humor, you can string jokes together into bits and bits together into sets and do a fair job at some open mic.
Think of something you are cranky about, or one of those anecdotes you always pull out at parties. Look at its causes or predict likely outcomes of this incongruity. Extrapolate into absurdity, preferably retaining a kernel of the original truth-in-paradox. Make multiple jokes about each premise for a cascade of punchlines at the climax of each bit. Repeat for each topic.
Construct shortest-path segues, turning your group of unrelated bits into a set. Practice saying your set in a little speech to yourself or to friends who have a sense of humor, testing rhythm and diction, iterating through better and better versions of the set. Preferably you'll have at least three punchlines per minute. Once it reliably makes people laugh, it might not make you laugh anymore, but it's ready for the stage.
# 09 Dec 2005, 07:21PM: Articulation:
I was poking through my blog archives recently. Man, I wrote more substantive and funny posts in November of last year than in most months this year, back before I had a weekly column that soaked up thinking/writing time. Anyway, I followed some links and reminded myself that a single month of John-Paul Spiro is more thought-provoking than a year of a lot of other blogs. For example, he tossed off a great encapsulation of what it is to be middlebrow, which I'll have to send to a friend of mine who challenged my definition of the concept. "I like art that appeals to my intelligence and sensibility, not my education."
# 09 Dec 2005, 07:37PM: The Escalator Of Reason:
Hasidic Rebel (who redesigned and started writing again this month) once found himself explaining to his more orthodox wife that learning the arguments against her beliefs might change her beliefs. Perhaps wisely (for her own peace of mind), she told him to keep them from her. I'm reminded of that curious conflict -- which I probably first saw articulated in a tiny story within the ancillary material in a copy of Candide -- when I read this bit of Peter Singer. For good and for ill, it's quite difficult to retreat from unpleasant yet logical conclusions once you start thinking clearly.
# 10 Dec 2005, 07:26AM: On Cutting Through Personal Style:
Sometimes I wonder why I like House (properly House, M.D.). After all, in real life, I'd shut a jerk like Greg House out of my life entirely. But then I remember the writing - not of the plots, but of individual bits of dialogue. The conversations between House and his consciously Watson-esque friend Wilson always slay me. Check the Wilson/House conversation when House is about to go on a date with the sweetest woman on the show:
Dr. James Wilson:
[House is attempting to put on a tie before his date with Cameron] The wide side's too short. You're gonna look like Lou Costello.
Dr. Gregory House:
This is a mistake. I don't know how to have casual conversation. You think you're talking about one thing, and either you are and it's incredibly boring, or you're not because it's subtext and you need a decoder ring.
Wilson:
Open doors for her, help her with her chair -
House:
I have been on a date.
Wilson:
Uh, not since disco died. Comment on her shoes, her earrings, and then move on to D.H.A.: her Dreams, Hopes, and Aspirations. Trust me. Panty-peeler. Oh, and if you need condoms, I've got some.
House:
[sarcastically] Did your wife give them to you?
Wilson:
Drug rep. They got antibiotics built in, somehow.
House:
I should cancel. I've got a patient in surgery tomorrow.
[House moves to the kitchen]
Wilson:
And if you were a surgeon, that would actually matter. That's a good idea, settle your nerves. Get me a beer too.
House:
No beer.
Wilson:
You're gonna eat before dinner?
[House reaches into the fridge and takes out a corsage.]
House:
This is pretty lame, right?
Wilson:
I think she likes lame.
So my guess is that, after three years of customer service and living in The Real World, I've toughened my resistance to perceived arrogance. I can better derive useful data from what people say, even if I don't like the style, unless the style is the message in 90+% of cases, in which case I stop listening. This is why I've stopped reading Heather Havrilesky's snarky TV criticism and Skot Kurruk's blog. This is also why I keep reading, say, the Nielsen Haydens' lit/politics blog and software/economics essays by Paul Graham; I may not like their style of sweeping generalization, but they are saying interesting and important things, and I'm more willing to put up with unpleasant style for information and wisdom now than I used to be.
Someday I should really do an overhaul of my links page. It's inevitable but not urgent; learning what can wait and what can't is another skill I'm on the way to picking up.
# 10 Dec 2005, 08:36AM: HOWTO Write Hackish Standup, Part II:
Leonard suggested that I follow up my bare-bones standup comedy writing HOWTO with an example. I'll start with some really unsuitable observations and anecdotes, explain why they are unsuitable for the easy procedure I'd outlined, and then take some more suitable ones and develop them into a routine.
Unsuitable observation: The character of Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man is an archetypal Trickster God. Yes, this is true, and I think it is amusing to consider bringing other common gods from polytheistic systems into early twentieth-century River City, Iowa. But observational humor at its easiest immediately connects with the audience. You can't count on most audience members having seen The Music Man and most certainly won't know what the Trickster God archetype is.
Unsuitable anecdote: When I was the stage manager for Heather Gold's one-woman show, I Look Like An Egg But I Identify As A Cookie, various people were in charge of getting the ingredients for the on-stage baking from Heather's house to the venue. One day, when it was Heather's responsibility, she showed up early for the show (which was great) but, as we discovered about 45 minutes to showtime, without the ingredients.
I immediately dispatched a friend of Heather's to go to the nearest convenience stores. When she came back I hurriedly poured and measured everything on the stage, which had no curtain. People had already begun to take their seats. So they witnessed me warming the ice-cold butter by setting it atop the toaster oven and hitting the Toast button. And they watched me take a meat hammer to the block of brown sugar that was masquerading as granite, and then use the spiky side of said meat hammer to grate three quarters of a cup of sugar off the rock and into the little clear bowl. I joked with the audience, announcing that this was not part of the performance but sort of a Hints from Heloise prelude.
This may or may not have been the performance in which we ran out of vanilla extract, I asked the chefs at the hotel restaurant for help, they gave me two whole vanilla beans, and I had to slit and scrape them in a manner I'd only seen done on TV cooking shows.
Anyway, this anecdote is like the observation above; it takes too much setup because audience members won't know what the Egg/Cookie show was. And the ending isn't very funny to people other than me; it may be a "you had to be there" story. I could exaggerate how difficult the brown sugar was to grate, or lie and make jokes about the trouble I had with each single ingredient, or cruelly mock Heather and her friend for imagined incompetences, but I think that's far too much trouble to take for far too little payoff.
A more suitable anecdote: When I was at UC Berkeley, I was (I believe) the only Sumana on campus, so I thought it would be easy to get sumana@uclink.berkeley.edu. But I couldn't because it was already taken by Stacy Umana.
I think this is much more suitable. It's short. Most people in comedy audiences are familiar with email addresses, in particular the username tradition of "first letter of first name and all of last name," and with the mild frustration of not getting the username you want. And people are unfamiliar enough with my first name, and with the last name "Umana," that the incongruity is instantly obvious.
More suitable observation: A popular mockmeat brand, Morningstar, shares its name with Satan, who was Lucifer or "the morning star" before falling from grace.
Like the Music Man/Trickster God analogy, this note is an observation about some bit of religious trivia connecting with pop culture (I say food is pop culture). But it's more accessible. Now, accessibility isn't everything, and if you're as practiced and amazing as Greg Proops or Patton Oswalt, then you can throw in Milton and the photoelectric effect and it works and you've reached a higher plane. But for the first-timer at the open mic, accessibility makes timing and high punchline frequency a heck of a lot easier, because you get through the setup that much faster.
So here is how I might pathetically spin out those premises:
When I was at Berkeley, I wanted my name for my email address. sumana@uclink. And I thought that would be fine because I was the only Sumana on campus. But I couldn't, because there was a Stacy Umana.
People did not use to have this problem. Can you imagine some guy, scratching out [pantomime] name after name on his kid's birth certificate?
"Dammit, there's already a John Smith?"
"Okay, I've got it. John Smith 1111111111."
And the stupidest thing to put in there is the year. I mean, come on. You're going to have that email address for more than a year! When I see crazydaisy98@aol, should I think that you've been on AOL for seven years, or that there are 97 other crazydaisies on AOL?
Names are so useless. I mean, there's this brand of mockmeat, soy bacon and stuff, called Morningstar -- which is another name for Lucifer, for Satan.
So, because I'm a vegetarian, I have to eat Satanburgers?
But I guess this proves that those Christian groups really don't care about the devil. I could open Satan's Used Cars and they wouldn't boycott me unless I hired gay people.
But just imagine how Satan feels!
The strongest and mightiest adversary of God, and all he gets is vegans?
Plus, you know he can't get the email address he wants, because some twelve-year-old goth kid took it.
darklord@hotmail, taken. Damn!
Now, that's the set before iteration through practice to make the thing not suck. But you get the idea. Only a few sentences between punchlines, the punch word as the last word of the punchline, exaggerated-yet-logical extrapolations from the incongruity dressed up with opinion ("stupid") and Satan. Definitely get Satan in there.
# 13 Dec 2005, 06:57AM: Conversation From Last Night:
[Context: A few of my friends have leads on job opportunities that would be pretty awesome, such as jobs at the Make-a-Wish Foundation and People Magazine.]
"Job interviewers can't ask you your ethnicity, or whether you're married, or a veteran, or disabled, or gay. But they can ask, [Darth Vader voice] 'What is your greatest weakness?'....'I'm a total chocoholic!'"
# 13 Dec 2005, 12:14PM: Mind Games -- The Good Kind:
My column this week discusses party games Taboo, Balderdash, and Once Upon A Time. I also address the fundamental problem to which party games are a solution.
Some of us need a foundation or a skeleton for a get-together, something to provide a structure for the evening, without which unalloyed conversation is as uncomfortable a prospect as a tightrope walk or an impromptu speech.
# 13 Dec 2005, 04:23PM: From Bangalore To Bengaluru:
My dad will probably be happy that Bangalore is modifying its name. I have a few questions. Won't outsiders get even more confused about whether Bangalore has anything to do with Bengal? Is "N. Gopala Swamy, a software geek" correct journalistic style these days for a first reference? What'll happen to the potheads who get such joy from the sobriquet "Bongalore"? The answer to that last one: not much, probably.
# 13 Dec 2005, 05:13PM: The Mildest Of Wins:
Worker: Did you just throw money at me?
Customer: I want to pay for my order.
Worker: *pick up the money and hold it out to him* Sir, I am not going to process your order until you treat me like a human being.
Respecting the dignity of the worker at the fast-food place is a wee part of "what we call 'manners', 'civilisation' or 'humanity', depending on the calibre of yokel you're trying to educate."
# 13 Dec 2005, 06:10PM: Work Into Play:
At Games of Berkeley the other day, I met the son of the woman who invented Set. An indexing system meant to help her find patterns of genetic inheritance turned into one of the most replayable and challenging games I've ever played.
# 13 Dec 2005, 10:39PM: Has Peak Oil Not Hit These People?:
Song and jetBlue have nice sales through this Friday, if you're fine with onerous blackout requirements.
# 14 Dec 2005, 12:37PM: Request For Suggestions:
Is it actually interesting to an outside observer that I did not learn to ride a bicycle until the weekend after my college graduation ceremony? Has everyone else already made a decision as to whether cable stations should cut out blackface song-and-dance numbers when broadcasting fifty-year-old movies?
In any case, if you wish I'd write a column about a particular topic, let me know. Maybe I have forgotten some hilarious, columnworthy story that I have told you.
# 15 Dec 2005, 06:46AM: Unavailability Notice:
I'm going to be rather difficult for my friends and family to get ahold of for the next few days. Busy busy busy.
Speaking of busy: on Saturday night I have to attend two different parties on opposite sides of the Bay. One, and only one, requires an outré costume.
# 17 Dec 2005, 06:33PM: End Busy Signal:
No parties tonight, just resting and drinking fluids. So, no costume either, except sweats. Is "Reclining Jogger" a costume?
My eyes are burning a bit, which reminds me of the time I finally admitted I had allergies. I was visiting a friend in a poorly ventilated apartment. Two cats lived there. As the hours went by, I developed classic allergy symptoms, including ones I'd never before experienced or properly understood. How can eyes itch?! I'd thought; no more.
Did you know you can get 500 pills, each containing 10mg loratadine, for less than $50? I now know this!
# 19 Dec 2005, 06:30AM: Social Mobility, Greed, and Uncomfortable Timeliness:
The power was out for about twelve hours yesterday. Seth - thanks for looking up outage information on my behalf.
While I was lighting candles (do Jewish families ever use menorahs as regular candelabras?), other Bay Area residents were reading my column about the weaver, the barber, and the eight jars of gold.
I could tell a hundred different stories about the weaver, in which his wife killed herself, or he moved to the city altogether, or he performed an extraordinary prayer and Fate rewarded him, telling him that it had all been a test. Based on those different descriptions of what happened to the weaver, I could waggle my finger at the children and say, "Be careful what you wish for," or "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," or "Keep your nose to the grindstone," or "God helps those who help themselves."
# 21 Dec 2005, 11:39AM: Big Giant Announcement:
I have been extraordinarily fortunate in the caliber of the institutions that have employed me since I left college. I did a tour as a retail warrior at Berkeley's landmark of literacy, Cody's Books. I've now worked for more than two and a half years at another incredible institution -- I'd been reading Salon Magazine for years and couldn't believe it when they called me for an interview, much less hired me.
I've been reading Joel Spolsky's weblog for years and he's consistently given me new ways to look at software, economics, psychology, and a mess of other fields. So I applied for the Fog Creek Software Management Training Program and Fog Creek has done me the honor of accepting me.
Fog Creek's office is in the Fashion District (a.k.a. the Garment District) of Manhattan, in New York City. Within the next month, Leonard and I will sell and give away a lot of belongings, pack, and find and move into an apartment, probably in Brooklyn or Queens, with a reasonable kitchen.
Three and a half years ago:
Paulina, my roommate at the time: "You could go to New York and try to make it big."
Me: "Oh, that's so twentieth-century."
Last month:
In other cycle hypotheses, many smart suburban/small-town/small-city Californians I knew went to Berkeley, then moved to San Francisco, and are now moving to New York. I assume they will then move back to smaller towns to have kids.
It's all happening fast, but it was prefigured long ago.
Please email recommendations, advice, and congratulations.
# 23 Dec 2005, 06:08AM: Praise:
Oh sweet blessed haircut. Dry in 60 seconds! A teaspoon of shampoo per wash! Hairbrushes sit, despondent, unused and collecting dust!
# 23 Dec 2005, 10:10PM: Collections Of Links For Advice:
Book-shipping advice from one who knows!
The Moving Scams website is being very helpful to me in finding a way to get stuff across the country.
Note to self: join MeFi and ask this user and this user for moving-to-NYC advice, based on hints they've dropped in some threads.
Leonard and I need a two-bedroom in Queens or Brooklyn with a non-awful commute to midtown (Fog Creek is on 8th Avenue around 37th St.). We'll be looking in all the usual places: Craigslist, etc. If you have special magical knowledge of a place with the below-mentioned criteria, please let me know.
Apartment criteria listed in descending order of importance:
Under $1800/mo
2 bedrooms
Brooklyn (Park Slope? Sunset Park?) or Astoria in Queens
<= 5 minute walk from subway, 10 minute walk maximum
<= 3 blocks to full service grocery store
Low crime neighborhood
Washer/dryer in building
Low street noise at night, preferably during day also
Dishwasher
Big kitchen
Well-lit by natural light
Part of house rather than apartment building
Gas range rather than electric
<= 10 minute walk to restaurant clusters
Known responsive landlord
Little or no vermin problem
On first floor of building
Things that are okay:
1 bathroom
Small apartment building (< 6 units)
Open questions
How much storage space?
# 26 Dec 2005, 09:09AM: Request For Help:
There is one piece of sentimental-value furniture (a large dresser) that needs to get moved down to Leonard's mom's house in Bakersfield, and we'd pay to get that moved. If you know someone with a pickup truck who regularly travels between San Francisco and Southern California, please let us know.
# 26 Dec 2005, 10:52PM: Clutter Chronicles:
When I think about the word "clutter," I think that I like the sound of the word, and that I like "decluttering" as well. But then I remember that the Clutter family was the Midwestern clan whose murder formed the premise of Capote's book In Cold Blood. And then talk of joyous decluttering seems in bad taste.
In any event, I've been culling and sorting in preparation for the move. Thank goodness that Frances has opened her garage to long-term storage for Leonard and me; I'd feel wrong lugging my high school journalism clippings to whatever tiny garret we end up renting.
It'll be great to use the sewing machine that Leonard, Frances, John, Susie, and Rachel got me; thank you. Once I mend that pile of clothes in my closet, Leonard and I will be able to pick more effectively which clothes to take east.
On the train back from Bakersfield, as I read the D.H. Lawrence that Frances and Rachel got me (thank you!) and thought about all the things I have to do, I fell into conversation with the fellow next to me, a philosophy professor on his way to interview for a new job at the New York City convention of the American Philosophical Association. He told me about the weird letter from a prospective student who figured that he knew philosophy because he'd read Nietzsche and Rand. He told me of the university-wide essay contest that kept a requirement that the submitted essays had to have been written for a class so the judges wouldn't have to read thirty triumphalist Objectivist rants. And he told me about the student who plagiarized an entire paper from one of Kant's lesser-known works in a class taught by a Kant scholar. And he told me, once I'd mentioned the NYC intimidation factor:
"New York City is so big that it seems like it might kill you. But just remember that it has failed to kill many, many people stupider than you."
The fear of the difficult is just another decadence that I should dismiss, just another piece of clutter to toss.
# 26 Dec 2005, 11:09PM: The Irregular, Finite, Fantastic Golden Braid:
When I was in sixth grade, I got a bookmark at school that displayed the twenty-six letters of the alphabet in American Sign Language. Somehow, starting with that, I have now filled and overflowed a shoebox with hundreds of bookmarks. I doubt I'll have time in the next few weeks to properly sort and label the things. Someday, after I put up my travelogue for the first time I ever visited New York, and after I've moved there.
What a tremendously baroque civilization we have! At first bookmarks were ribbons sewn into the bindings of books. Then they were pasteboard advertisements for patent cures and the like. Now they are paper and plastic and metal, ads for everything and nothing, fanciful clips, inspirations and tassels. So much human energy has been poured into my little shoebox, so much effort to keep me from having to dogear or remember a page number.
The Holy Tango of Poetry. Search requests in a certain order. Sometimes the beautiful complications of the world that we've created together just overwhelm me. I should lay down and rest in this beautiful world.
# 27 Dec 2005, 02:31PM: Charity:
It's the time of year for people to sing the I-got-horrible-gifts waaaaanthem. I have no such complaints, but several years ago, when I graduated from high school, my parents' friends gave me various inappropriate presents, including two self-help books. One was a primer on emotional intelligence. The other: a copy of A Christmas Carol with a huge Dickens-dwarfing epilogue or prologue dictating how the reader could undergo a Scrooge-like transformation.
Jessa Crispin pointed me to an essay on the moral lessons of A Christmas Carol by Michel Faber, author of The Crimson Petal And The White, and I figure that his take on the tale is much better than the self-help gobbledygook would have been. I would be remiss if I did not also point you towards James Morrow's fictional response to Dickens in Bible Stories For Adults.
# 28 Dec 2005, 11:21PM: MC Masala Reprint:
This week's column got published Sunday, Christmas Day. So they reprinted the column I'd written back in July, about my interest in Christianity.
# 30 Dec 2005, 09:58AM: Tiny First-World Problem:
You paid for two-to-three-day shipping, which is labelled with the shorthand "2-Day" at the online store. Then you find out that the damn item did not get given to FedEx for two days, and the store doesn't pay FedEx enough to deliver on Saturdays, and FedEx never delivers on Sundays (there is no good reason for a multinational corporation to completely forgo Sunday deliveries! What if I needed communion wafers stat?), and Monday is in theory a holiday because it's the day after New Year's Day, so there you go! It takes a week for the "2-Day" item to get to you, and even the kind customer service agent's refund of the expedited shipping fee does not soothe the wormwood in your heart.
Bah!
# 31 Dec 2005, 02:53PM: Social Overload:
Hung out with many, many people over the past few days. Even more tonight. I've known Seth longer than I've known Leonard and soon we'll live on different coasts. A wedding, a movie, a comedy show, a game night. Exhausting, saying goodbye.
[Main] You can hire me through Changeset Consulting.
This work by Sumana Harihareswara is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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