Racing Every Way on the Sea

Today I get to go pay some bills. As we also have to pay the rent in something like four or five days, this is a source of much stress. Cue the creative financial management, ho!

Finally got some information back regarding the Girly trade paperback and Amazon.com. After a lot of phone tag and irksome dealing with tracking numbers on the part of the intrepid matthigh, it has been ascertained that Diamond has received two restocks on the trade, which they have actually shipped to Amazon.com and which have been received by Amazon. That means Amazon has the books. At this point, about the only thing the customers who have ordered from Amazon and who are still waiting on their orders can do is contact Amazon customer service to pitch a fit at them. Pitching fits at me, or poor long-suffering superhappy will not do any good at this point- as Amazon has the books, and Diamond has the books, it's now up to Amazon to make good on the orders they took. I do notice that Amazon changed the shipping terms on the book from "ships in about 3 weeks" to "ships in about 1 or 2 months", and I have no idea what the hell is up with that.

We also have to go pick up three books at the printers, which means more subscriptions and trib copy packages need to be packed up. It also means more rearranging in the storage to make room for the new boxes. There's also more mail order to do. So, once I am done with the bills today, I will be doing that sort of thing and also doing some more order processing paperwork. I must also remember to download a couple of tax forms so I can go handle that as soon as we can afford it.

In the exciting world of my personal life, I've felt vaguely lousy for the last couple of days. Not full-on sick, just run-down. I went to sleep fairly early last night after watching an episode of Buffy and two episodes of Angel. If the Angel episode hadn't been a two-parter, I would have gone to sleep after the first one. As it stands, I passed out during the Cocteau Orpheus that I was trying to watch on TCM. The only things I have left now are the vague impression of a lot of pretentious French poets with perfect hair and 1950's casual togs and the mental image of a bitchy and glamorous looking Frenchwoman with all-black clothes and black hair. I'm looking forward to October on TCM, as they're planning to show a lot of cult movies every Friday night. They'll be hosted by Rob Zombie, which is kinda eh, but at least they will be showing them.

Racing Every Way on the Sea

Today I get to go pay some bills. As we also have to pay the rent in something like four or five days, this is a source of much stress. Cue the creative financial management, ho!

Finally got some information back regarding the Girly trade paperback and Amazon.com. After a lot of phone tag and irksome dealing with tracking numbers on the part of the intrepid matthigh, it has been ascertained that Diamond has received two restocks on the trade, which they have actually shipped to Amazon.com and which have been received by Amazon. That means Amazon has the books. At this point, about the only thing the customers who have ordered from Amazon and who are still waiting on their orders can do is contact Amazon customer service to pitch a fit at them. Pitching fits at me, or poor long-suffering superhappy will not do any good at this point- as Amazon has the books, and Diamond has the books, it's now up to Amazon to make good on the orders they took. I do notice that Amazon changed the shipping terms on the book from "ships in about 3 weeks" to "ships in about 1 or 2 months", and I have no idea what the hell is up with that.

We also have to go pick up three books at the printers, which means more subscriptions and trib copy packages need to be packed up. It also means more rearranging in the storage to make room for the new boxes. There's also more mail order to do. So, once I am done with the bills today, I will be doing that sort of thing and also doing some more order processing paperwork. I must also remember to download a couple of tax forms so I can go handle that as soon as we can afford it.

In the exciting world of my personal life, I've felt vaguely lousy for the last couple of days. Not full-on sick, just run-down. I went to sleep fairly early last night after watching an episode of Buffy and two episodes of Angel. If the Angel episode hadn't been a two-parter, I would have gone to sleep after the first one. As it stands, I passed out during the Cocteau Orpheus that I was trying to watch on TCM. The only things I have left now are the vague impression of a lot of pretentious French poets with perfect hair and 1950's casual togs and the mental image of a bitchy and glamorous looking Frenchwoman with all-black clothes and black hair. I'm looking forward to October on TCM, as they're planning to show a lot of cult movies every Friday night. They'll be hosted by Rob Zombie, which is kinda eh, but at least they will be showing them.

Take That, Phone Company!

So, for the last few years, we haven't had long distance service. Southwestern Bell/SBC/AT&T/whatever they call themselves today charged such ridiculous fees for it and we kept getting our long distance service changed without our explicit permission (we got "slammed" like three times... yeesh), so we opted to simply NOT HAVE IT. The phone companies were always completely baffled by this whenever they tried to call and get us to sign up for it, but we had calling cards, which worked fine. And, with the internet, we don't really have to call that many people long distance. Well, our plain old vanilla phone bill has been creeping up on the dollar-meter over the last two years. Apparently, when you refuse to play the long distance service game, the phone company finds other ways to charge you. And charge us they did. Our monthly phone bill for plain old vanilla local service, with caller ID, an unlisted number (which they listed *anyway*, despite repeated calls to customer service to keep it unlisted), call waiting with caller ID on that (I hate being surprised on the phone), and nothing else was running us about $45-50 a month. When we first got the service, it was about $30 a month.

Our phone service has also been *horrible* this last month, as someone in the building has gotten fresh DSL or something, so often, in the evenings, we'll have our end of phone conversations disrupted by LOUD SCREECHING RHYTHMIC STATIC. The people on the other end of the line can't hear it, only we can. We have been told there is nothing wrong with the lines. Uh, what?

Enough was enough today. When I went in to pay the cable/internet bill, I signed us up for digital phone. Because we already get the high speed internet (essential for business) and we have a digital cable box (essential for sanity, since we so rarely leave the house), we got a huge discount package, so we will get to keep our same phone number and be getting local service, caller ID, call waiting with caller ID, AND unlimited long distance service for only $2 more than we were already paying for the cable/internet. This will also save us about $43-48 per month. The cable guy comes on the tenth to fix everything up for us.

IN YOUR FACE, AT&T.

Take That, Phone Company!

So, for the last few years, we haven't had long distance service. Southwestern Bell/SBC/AT&T/whatever they call themselves today charged such ridiculous fees for it and we kept getting our long distance service changed without our explicit permission (we got "slammed" like three times... yeesh), so we opted to simply NOT HAVE IT. The phone companies were always completely baffled by this whenever they tried to call and get us to sign up for it, but we had calling cards, which worked fine. And, with the internet, we don't really have to call that many people long distance. Well, our plain old vanilla phone bill has been creeping up on the dollar-meter over the last two years. Apparently, when you refuse to play the long distance service game, the phone company finds other ways to charge you. And charge us they did. Our monthly phone bill for plain old vanilla local service, with caller ID, an unlisted number (which they listed *anyway*, despite repeated calls to customer service to keep it unlisted), call waiting with caller ID on that (I hate being surprised on the phone), and nothing else was running us about $45-50 a month. When we first got the service, it was about $30 a month.

Our phone service has also been *horrible* this last month, as someone in the building has gotten fresh DSL or something, so often, in the evenings, we'll have our end of phone conversations disrupted by LOUD SCREECHING RHYTHMIC STATIC. The people on the other end of the line can't hear it, only we can. We have been told there is nothing wrong with the lines. Uh, what?

Enough was enough today. When I went in to pay the cable/internet bill, I signed us up for digital phone. Because we already get the high speed internet (essential for business) and we have a digital cable box (essential for sanity, since we so rarely leave the house), we got a huge discount package, so we will get to keep our same phone number and be getting local service, caller ID, call waiting with caller ID, AND unlimited long distance service for only $2 more than we were already paying for the cable/internet. This will also save us about $43-48 per month. The cable guy comes on the tenth to fix everything up for us.

IN YOUR FACE, AT&T.