We had a lovely Thanksgiving at our friends Greg & John's house, with their soon to be adopted daughter Jocelyn and their foster son Moe. T'was quite nice to catch up with them, and hopefully we'll see them again around Christmas.

I finished watching The Prisoner last night, and ultimately found it lacking. Ian McKellan was, of course, virtually untouchable, but the rest was just bleh. They tried so earnestly to achieve mood that they completely forewent plot. They sacrificed characters we could relate to so they could get the proper balance of spooky and esoteric. I never watched the original series save but for a few episodes, but I can only gather that it was a far superior product, and hopefully managed, like Dark Shadows or similar, to draw its mood and theme and plot out over a prolonged period of time while successfully keeping the viewer engaged and entertained, without giving too much away. Sadly, I pretty much had this one pegged well before the ending. And, seriously, what was up with the dialogue? I'm all for subtlety, misdirection and thoughtful, witty interplay, but a lot of this just didn't make any sense, even if you could follow the convoluted trail of breadcrumbs they were trying (unsuccessfully) to leave for you. All in all, pretty much crap, except for McKellan. Disappointing.

Q's last night of work tonight, and then we're heading up to Mom's for the rest of the weekend. Should be fun.

C'mon, when's the last time you saw Lew Zealand, Doctor Teeth, Scooter, Sam the Eagle, the Newsman, Beauregard, Crazy Harry, or the MANAMANA GUY?!?!

And they are, indeed, performing "Bohemian Rhapsody." WTFOMGROFLBBQ!!!!!!!!!!!!

thespian, you RULE!

Of all the games to be addicted to, why does it have to be solitaire?

NEEDS MUST BED NOW KTHNXBAI

I heard my first Christmas song on the drive home on Saturday ("The Most Wonderful Time of the Year"). On the one hand, I do love Christmas. On the other, it's not even Thanksgiving yet. BAH.

Friday night was fun, as Q didn't have to work so he joined me at gaming. We played Soaps, Betrayal at House on the Hill and TransAmerica (I recently bought another copy of Five Crowns, but no one was up for a rummy game). There was also a new person joining us, so that will make 6 core players in the group plus Q whenever he decides to tag along.

Saturday we got up relatively early (for me) to head up to DC for Q's monthly doll club meeting. Our friend Ed was coming down from Philly, so we wanted to make it. Alas, it turned into quite the ordeal. First, we got out the door a little late, but still with plenty of time. Then right out of the gate we got stopped at the two-lane bridge out of our area for about a half an hour for construction. OK, so we would be a little late, no biggie. Then once we hit the outer loop around DC, everything came to a standstill. We inched along for an hour and a half, Q cursing out the GPS on our phones for being moronic, and debating back and forth about what to do. Finally the choice was made for us - the car dinged that we were almost out of gas, so we scooted across to get off at the next exit. Wouldn't you know it, it was that's the exit they were forcing *everyone* to take, as 495 was completely closed between somewhere around the arena and 50. We got off, found a gas station, and then spent another 45 minutes trying to find a way around all the congestion (ended up going all the way out past Bowie - it was a mess!). What should have taken a little over an hour ended up taking *four* hours. NOT HAPPY.

Anyway, the meeting was still going on, and everyone was very nice about us making it finally, and we stayed and chatted for a while. Unfortunately Ed couldn't stay for dinner, but we dropped one member off on our way into DuPont Circle to meet up with our friend Frank, who was visiting from San Diego. We met up with him and another ex-San Diegan, Bob (friends of Q's and Frank's from the Gay Men's Chorus), and had a lovely dinner at Thai Chef and drinks at JR's (where Q once again proved he still had it, based on the boys hitting on him when my back was turned). It was quite fun, and made up for the horrendous afternoon stuck in traffic.

Sunday we both slept in, caught up on TiVo, and Q went to work. I watched the first two hours of "The Prisoner," and although I can certainly see its faults, it was an ok watch and I'll finish it out, if for no other reason than to see Ian McKellan, who is most stupendous no matter what he does. (I should avoid watching it too close to bed, though - I had some weird dreams last night...)

So now I'm at work, a nice short week. Tomorrow we're having a little pizza lunch, and doubtless they'll let us go early. Q's working all week, but we did get an invite to see friends for Thanksgiving afternoon. Q also found out he's not working next Sunday like we thought, so we're considering heading up to Mom's on Saturday, since if we don't we likely won't see her until Christmas.

So that's it. I know, SO exciting, right? :P

I dunno, I always thought Canadians were suspicious under any circumstances (with their beady little eyes, and their flapping heads all full of lies...)

Source: http://failblog.org/?p=30931

So I ordered something from a small company. Their website says it typically takes them 1-5 days to ship an order out, and I ordered USPS priority mail, which typically takes 2-3 days. I only took a closer look at this information when the order still hadn't arrived in 9 days, and I thought something might be amiss.

I find out from reading their website that they have been plagued with both the flu and equipment malfunctions, and that some orders have been delayed by a few days. This information was posted on their company's discussion boards, but no e-mail was sent directly to any customer with pending orders.

When I suggested that sending such an e-mail might have been more appropriate, I was told that if I wanted to know what's going on, I needed to subscribe to their announcements forum; if I chose not to, then they feel they don't owe customers any other kind of contact, as it was only a few days delay, and as 9 days is within their normal timeframe (which they are now saying is actually 7-10 days).

First, I feel like I'm being preached at, that not knowing my order might be delayed is *my* fault; second, they don't do a very good job of taking a conciliatory tone with a customer; and third, they seem to think that web-based information dissemination is adequate, and it's more than any of those bigger companies would offer, so they don't need to do any more.

Do you think this is acceptable customer service?

(It's a shame, really - I will likely order from them again only because they are the only people to offer certain products, and they do seem to offer a valuable service, but the tone was so snotty it just really, really put me off.)

Edited to add: They're sticking by their 7-10 day timeframe (no guarantees, of course). I ordered it on the 11th, which means that under normal circumstances I would have expected to receive it tomorrow (at the latest). They just told me it should go out today, which means I won't receive it until Monday, the 23rd. That's a total of 12 days, so they still missed the mark. A simple "FYI/just in case" e-mail would have prevented me even having to visit their website, let alone get into this with them on their discussion boards.

For the record, I'm *extremely* concerned about the impending Eggo shortage. I have waffles EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND. This is most distressing. MOST.

Fake emergency at work today, to test our emergency response procedures. Alas, t'was not a simulated zombie attack. (Why do they *never* read what I put in the suggestion box?)

Could NOT get to sleep last night, tossed and turned until well past 4 am, woke up tired and my stomach was in knots, so I called out sick. Slept all afternoon, Q and I did a little grocery shopping, and now I'm going to get to bed and hope for the best. BLEH.

This weekend was Sloth-O-Rama. We survived several days of rain last week (yay rain!), so Friday night we finally got up to Waldorf to pick up Q's comics, and we perused the mall a bit (and started our holiday shopping). Saturday we both slept in, and Q started back on 12-hour shifts. Once he left I went into full Bum Mode - TiVo, movies, internet, games, BLAH. Went to bed late, we both slept in again yesterday, lather, rinse, repeat. WONDERFUL.

No big plans this week - work, some grocery shopping, whatever. Saturday is his doll meeting, which I'll probably go to because I think Ed is coming down from Philly, so that'll be fun. Q has off Tuesday through Saturday, then it's back to work Sunday for 6 days straight - ugh. Poor boo. With him working we're not going up to Mom's, but friends have invited us over for Thanksgiving. I have off Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, so if the weather's nice I'll try to get some Christmas decorating done. I also have a plan for some family gifts that I may get started on as well.

So, yeah. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along...

Nothing beats a thorough forehead cleaning from your kitty. :)

Happy Friday the 13th anniversary to my honey! You're a pain in my ass, but for some reason I still love you... :P

I'm loving all this rain, and I got a little bonus before leaving work today - a power surge that set off the fire alarms! w00t! And people acted like I was in charge! :D

So, on the one hand, the Catholic church is EXTORTING Washington, DC by threatening to pull all of its public services if same sex marriage is approved, impacting one third of DC's homeless (the majority of whom are ostensibly heterosexual, it should be noted), as well as other services.

Let's read that again - THE CATHLOLIC CHURCH IS BLACKMAILING THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AT THE EXPENSE OF THE PEOPLE IT PURPORTS TO CARE ABOUT.

Let that sink in for a bit.

Meanwhile, on the other hand, the Mormon Church gave its full support to an equal rights bill in Salt Lake City that bans discrimination against gays and lesbians in housing and employment, and it was passed unanimously by lawmakers. WTF is up with that?

Of course, the ordinances had to include very specific language that clearly exempted THEM from being affected by the law, but, hey, it's a step in the right direction, right? So let's just forget the MILLIONS OF DOLLARS they threw at California to ban gay marriages there (which, of course, they're still against), m'kay? THANKS!

BIZARRO WORLD OMG!

My sources:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111116943.html?hpid=topnews

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gay_rights_mormons

Olbermann is quickly taking the place of Jon Stewart as my favorite television commentator EVAR (after Joel McHale, of course).

And Prejean, please go away. Please. You're a lying, hypocritical, cowardly, sensationalist, money-hungry moron, and everybody knows it. Just... go.

Mmmm... hot leaf juice...

How sad is it that I got really, really excited to buy chicken breasts on sale at Food Lion last night for like $2.00/lb.?

In other news, mmmmm... stir fry...

Orly Taitz is not someone the birthers should be proud of. I admit there are some serious liberal wackos out there, but this woman takes right-wing nutjob to a whole new level. Getting smacked down by a judge in a written opinion should really only cause people to shun her, yet they continue to shout "corrupt judges!" and embrace her ever-more crazy schemes. (And for the record, no, there will be no trial on Jan. 23 where Obama has to finally - FINALLY! - produce his REAL birth certificate. Really. Get over it.)

As someone pointed out to me, if the birthers were right, then we'd get Biden/Pelosi. Is that what they want? Oh, no, it's not - what they want is for the entire 2008 election to be declared void and either have another election or, simpler, just put McCain in, wait for him to die, and then OMG WE'LL HAVE PRESIDENT PALIN AT LAST YAYMYHEDXPLODZ!!!ONEONE!!!

(Don't ask me why I read this stuff. I really do have better things to do.)

Do ducks make good pets?