Have you ever had ORANGE caesar salad dressing?

Me neither. Not until today.

And now I am sick to my stomach. I ordered food for lunch with extra for dinner later tonight since Mike won't be home. What a waste. I had to throw the entire order out. You guys in the area? Agrodolce Italian SUCKS. Orange ceasar salad dressing that did not even TASTE like ceasar salad dressing! I can not even BEGIN to describe what the small taste on the tip of my finger tasted like but I immediately felt ill (and still feel as if I may hurl). The rest of the food was bland and I tasted the (child sized) portion of spaghetti I got for later tonight. Ewww. The sauce had ZERO flavor.

Worse. I'm still without lunch hours later. Waiter on the Way told me the owner of the restaurant would call me tomorrow. He's NOT going to like what I have to say.

Blogroll is down

The blogroll is down again. This time, the entire site is down. I don't know what I'm going to do without my blogroll. *whinwhinebitchmoanwhine*


Edit* Once again, whining prevails. The blogroll has returned.

Edit again* Well, damn, the blogroll is down again.

My blogroll won't show up for me again. I know it's there, I checked the code. Maybe if I whine about it again it will show up like it did last time.

EDIT* Whining wins again.

Well Poo

The blogroll isn't working. What am I supposed to do without my blogroll? All my favorite blogs, conveniently bookmarked in one place, now I can't access them. *fidget*

EDIT* Of course, as soon as I whine, it's working again. It always happens that way.

I promise to use these powers only for good.

The Saga of Harry Potter or Why I Hate Amazon.com

We were promised, nay *guaranteed* delivery of Harry Potter by 7pm yesterday. 7pm rolls around and no sight of the book. I was busy (though at home) so I decided to wait to contact them until this morning. Their website is completely unhelpful - keep this in mind because it will relate to a comment from one of their (thankfully not in Bangladesh) "customer service" reps I talked to this morning. I can not access the order on the website. It's simply not there, in spite of the fact that I have received no less than 5 separate emails about my order. One this morning about 3am telling me the price dropped a dollar and I'd be getting a credit on my next statement (gee, a whole dollar?).

UPS HAS the shipment one town over and has since FRIDAY but, guess what? It didn't get delivered yesterday and there was someone home all day long too. So I try to get help via the amazon.com website and it's a complicated labyrinth of webpages with ZERO helpful information. I click on "contact Amazon.com" and, lo and behold, there is NO customer service phone number to be found. Why? They don't want you to have it because, and I quote "we're an internet based company". Well, golly gee, I never would have guessed. Don't you think an "internet based company" would have a HELPFUL website where their customers can get the answers they need in that case?

I finally found the customer service phone number on a website that was, you guessed it, NOT amazon.com. People have taken to posting their customer service phone number on various webpages because you can't get it from amazon.com (by the way, if you need it it's 1-800-201-7575). So after jumping through THOSE hoops, I call. I give the guy my order number. He wants to verify my email address. No problem. Then he wants to verify my mailing address. Okay. And my name as well. Mind you, I have now verified 4 separate pieces of "security" information for them.

Guess what?

It's not good enough. NOW I must jump through an additional hoop or these geniuses can not access my account. Now I have to figure out which credit card I used and give them the last FIVE digits as well as the expiration date. And they tell me they're doing ME a favor. All I want is my book and my money back. They guaranteed me something they did not deliver. But no, they can't help me. Oh no, until I give them the information they need for MY protection, they say, I'm out of luck.

After going round and round with them, I finally told them to screwthemselves and I'll call back later when I can dig up whichever credit card that MIGHT have been used for the order. And I am going to demand my money back as well as my damn book and then I am going to terminate my amazon.com account as soon as I have both.

World Horror Con Update

I'm cancelling my trip to New York. I just got off the phone with the hotel. I'm still sick and, frankly, not feeling any better. No way I'm making the drive from Maryland to New York and I can't imagine giving the freaking flu to everyone at the convention. What a disaster that would be.

I'm crying like a baby right now. I'm SO tired of being sick all the time and I honestly can NOT remember what it feels like to be healthy and well. It's not just being sick, it's having to miss this convention that I LOVE attending and seeing people I really only get to see once per year. I am so disappointed right now and I just hate myself for not being able to get well.

So I'm having a meltdown. The weather has been freaking gorgeous and I can't even enjoy it. I can't do the things I love to do anymore because I just don't have the energy and everyone looks at me like I'm insane. Or like I'm making it all up. It's not all in my head.

I rarely update. I know I should but I just don't. I hate putting my politics out there for the entire free world to see, especially when I rarely discuss them with people I know and happen to like. Part of the reason is there are just so many people out there who are waiting to jump on someone, anyone, and tear them apart for their beliefs. It's not that I can't handle it when someone disagrees with me. I enjoy a good debate as much as the next person. No, what I can not abide are people who think their opinion is the only viable opinion and instead of arguing their stance with logic they resort to name calling and high school grade insults. I left high school behind nearly twenty years ago and, honestly, have no desire to go back.

My best friend, Kate, has asked me more than once why I don't read or comment more in her blog. I do read it, though not every day and sometimes not every week but I do read. I even comment occasionally. The reason I do not comment often is not because of Kate herself or her politics (which I only occasionally disagree with and even then it's generally only on minor points). Kate has developed quite a following on her blog and the majority of them fall into the name calling/high school grade insult category. They simply can not abide anyone who may have an opinion counter to their own and, again, instead of arguing their stance with logic and intelligence immediately pull out the insult card. They'll argue and say that they only do this to the "trolls" who start out by being generally stupid and insulting. Granted, they've not done it with me, but I am still reluctant to post anything even remotely contrary to what they believe.

Does this make me a coward? Probably. Though I like to think of it as avoiding a headache for both myself and my best friend.