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Friday, Jul. 09, 2004 - 1:38 a.m.

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Techical Difficulties and NonFlowered Dresses

Ahhhh, what a day!

Fortunately I went from feeling totally like I am overwhelmed by things, hopeless and whatever... where do these feelings come from? ... to feeling quite fine. I suppose one's internal workings aren't supposed to have much to do with externals, but they do.

Spent the first two or three hours of the day dealing with paperwork and business type shit. The reasons I didn't want to grow up to be an adult, when I was a child... dealing with stuff.

My Visa card is expiring, and I just got the new one, so I needed to update every place that has automatic billing. What a pain. Fedex, paypal, geocities. Every place needs a username, a PIN or a password, and sometimes a "security key" on top of it all... it is insane. Add in Air Canada, and Aeromiles and what a mess. Some have security questions (must be more than 20 characters), some have max 8 character usernames, some minimum 6 characters. So I am always coming up with new witty passwords and usernames. BLEEP that is NOT the right password... to get a new one, jump up and down, call china before 6am, enter the new PIN which we will fax you, into the automated telephone system, which will send you a new temporary PIN by email, which you have to enter into the members update page once you have chosen a permanent password, so that we can phone you and confirm. And do you have a business phone #? Oh, you work from your home, so it is the same number? Well, do you have a cell? No? How about giving us your dentist's niece's phone number at school. then, cuz we NEED a second phone number. Your mom? What do you mean she doesn't know where you are at 3pm on Tuesday, if we can't reach you? Doesn't she have one of those little satellite global positioning chips implanted into your inner ear, so she knows where you are from Vancouver, even if you haven't called for a week, and the last time you only chatted about how to take coffee stains out of tea towels??

Jeesh.

And I've learned a couple things:

1) If after clicking on the flight you want, fill out your PIN, all your personal info, your visa # and all, and then click "back" in your browser to check whether the flight info is indeed correct (a window comes up saying "are you certain?" when you click the "finalize purchase" button... and of course why would they bother to put the flight info on the same webpage as the "are you certain?" prompt window??)... all your info and flight reservation will disappear into the ether. You will get an error prompting which says, "to go to the previous page you were on at aircanada.com, click back on your browser". And when you click back on your browser, which is after all how you got the error page to start with, it will give you another error page.

2) Once you have gotten an error page, all is lost. Go back to page one. choose your flight again.

3) If you have JUST lost your booking info and you attempt to get your flight again, the system will not give it as an option for 15 minutes. Indeed the $214 ticket option that was available will not show up when you need to start from GO again. It will come up as $313. Yes, $100 more expensive for having clicked "back" on your browser.

4) If you call aircanada.com technical help, they will be no help. They will tell you that it is no fault of your own... it must be MY computer that loses my booking. I am the only one in the whole world, internationally, who has ever lost a booking by clicking "back". Ever. EVER EVER EVER. (I am perhaps the only one in the whole world who actually phones them instead of kicking their computer to death, or deciding to fly WestJet).

5) Of course it is not a technical web deficiency either that the flight info doesn't show on the same webpage as the "are you certain?" prompt before you make your nonrefundable purchase. Of course it is my computer's fault as well, that when you click on any of the "contact us" "help" "technical assistance" links, they don't open in a new window, so you cannot actually look at what you were having problems with when you contact them for help. Make sure you do screenshots of ANY aircanada.com page before clicking ANYTHING else. yup. Or you are screwed. Start again. Go back to zero. Rebook at $100 more. Change your computer.

Anyhows. I did not kill the computer, and unfortunately my death ray intentions did not seem to activate long distance to off the stupid "technical help" guy.

And after 20 minutes apparently the $214 option reappears. It is now booked, and I hope I am flying the days I want and not in 2007, cuz I clicked "purchase" instead of "back" when it asked if I was certain. sheesh.

Other than that, I spent a really fun 20 minutes trying to draw very clear technical type drawings of the doggy cart screw-on system to explain what sort of washers I wanted, at the hardware store. It did not work. I was asked to lower my voice at minute #21. Again, the death ray intentions did not work. I think I need to actually do hands on. Even two feet seems to scramble the rays.

I ended up buying a sheet of 12 garden hose washers for 89cents, without staff assistance. They worked.

Then I went off shopping for mom's birthday prezzie. Fortunately she told me last night, that I couldn't shop for flowered dresses for her "cuz you don't know what kind of flowers i like", and she told me "I have a tummy now"... so I bought a nonflowered rayon dress in offwhite and dusty blue with a sort of scratchitti giraffe pattern on it, in a cut that flatters and hides tummies. 15% off. A steal. I was nice there. The lady rewarded me with a lollipop. Score.

And I got all sorts of flashy wrapping up stuff, including a pink lei and yellow tissue paper. All was wrapped up and packed and at the post office 10 minutes before 9pm closing time.

The finishing the mommy birthday shopping was the external event that made me relax. Yay. The dress is really nice. It is not a gift certificate for Chapters (what an incredibly dull suggestion, and how can she expect me to actually bike downtown? I am lazy, what!!) but it is nice.

Now I will go work on the adult language ed drawings to send em off tomorrow. Got my comics page up and posted. The world is alright, though still or rather again, catpissy.

Hope y'all are having a nice summer day, just like me,

da wenchola.

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previous meanderings - future past

Goodbye Michael. May your next life be kinder to you. - Thursday, Jun. 25, 2009
Taking Care of Your Cows - Thursday, Jun. 25, 2009
Saint Joseph robs the cradle and eats spaghetti - Sunday, Jun. 14, 2009
sticky notes and broken irises - Friday, Jun. 12, 2009
The FOODCOMMANDER - Monday, Jun. 08, 2009

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