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Fur and Bones

To my shock and amazement, I'm actually jealous of high school students. This doesn't happen often. Most of the time you couldn't pay me to take on a gangly body where none of the parts work right yet, much less being broke all the time and feeling both totally clueless and utterly superior. However, every year 32 lucky students at Seneca high school get to take a year long class in Forensics.

I've paid for the four week version. Let me tell you, it's awesome. Since she didn't happen to have any bodies buried out on the track field, our teacher brought in owl pellets for us to dissect. I'd never heard of an owl pellet before. Apparently, owls like to eat their little woodland friends whole. They can't digest the mousy fur or shrewy bones, though, so they wait until enough of that gets impacted in their stomachs and puke it all up. Some woodsmen actually make a living collecting these balls of furry, bony owl vomit.

Excavating that thing was neat. I found parts from three of Bambi's doomed little friends. My lab partners stood two paces back, only willing to touch with tweezers after I teased the bones loose from the fur with my fingers. It was a neat reminder that most bones don't come in the neat assemblies you see in museums. The bones are all jumbled together in any old random order with bits from other creatures shoved in their for good measure. It's up to you to figure out how to reassemble the body.

As you can see, I gave it a try, but I could only take my Frankenrat so far before class was over.

It never stops

Yes, Insight is up to their tricks again. I got another call this afternoon from an Insight contractor. He said if I didn't pay over the phone right now, he'd shut off my service. Hello, my service is already off! It has been for most of the last month.

This time, I was threatened with Even More Fees if I didn't pay the bribe over the phone right now.

No, he could not explain what the charges are for nor would he tell me how much the new "fees" would be. He wanted $380 right now, over the phone, or else. When asked for a paper bill itemizing the charges, he said he couldn't do that. They're not even pretending they can justify this crap in print.

Once more, we have been instructed to give them random amounts of money or they will fuck up my credit report. This is extortion.

Chaz is taking time off work to talk to Insight at the main office tomorrow. Clearly, nothing I do has been successful, so he wants to give it a try. This is costing us a ridiculous amont of time, money, and stress.

Before I pay them off, I really want a printed itemized list of exactly what they're charging us for so we can enclose it along with the letter to the Better Business Bureau and State Attorney General's office. I don't expect to get it, but a girl can dream. No, this won't save my credit report, but it will make me feel better. Maybe the next time Comcast tries to make a break into this market, my letter will add to the mass of complaints and help tip the balance in favor of switching this corrupt monopoly for one that might be a hair less abusive.

If I want to keep them from making good on their threats to my credit report, it lookis like I really am going to have to pay their entirely made up $170 charge, pay for two months of "service" wherein they mostly kept my system shut down, and pay for the rest of the random fees they're piling on as punishment for not having given in to thier extortion in the first place. This really pisses me off.

I wish I could believe that paying them off would actually work. Once someone starts making threats and demanding random amounts of money, the trust is gone. Maybe they'll go away if I pay them off and shut off my service. Maybe they'll keep sending me "bills" once my cable box is gone and my service shut off. Time will tell.

Total Eclipse of the Moon!

Tomorrow night at 10:00 EST, 7:00 PST, venture out into the cold and enjoy a total lunar eclipse. Seriously. Do it. If you've never seen a Lunar Eclipse before, they're darn spiffy. It looks like the moon is bleeding, perhaps about to be split in twain as in the intro to Thundarr the Barbarian.

Pay us $170 or we'll ruin your credit

Insight Cable continues to make me feel like I'm living in Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Now they want a $170 bribe. They freely admit this is not for a bill. The $170 isn't for a service or product. Nope. There's an accouting error on their part that messed up something in their computer system. No, they can't fix it. Sucks to be me. I can either cough up the $170 bribe or have my credit report wrecked by their bill collectors and remain without broadband.

I can't begin to express how much I hate this company. They won't let me pay my actual bill unless I pay the bribe, too, so late fees are being added. It's crazy. Insight employees have told me to my face that it's all totally bogus, but, in their words, "the only thing you can do is pay it." When I have some free time again, there are letters to the BBB and Attorney General's office in my future. Bribery is bullshit.

I can't beleive how many hours of my life this company has sucked up in the last few months. It's appalling.

I'm trying to focus on the positive, though. I had a very encouraging phone interview this week. When the recruiter says, "You'd be awesome for this job," I think odds are good. I'm not holding my breath on anything. I've been on a gazillion interviews in the last few months. Hopefully, they'll call back to set up an in-person interview next week.

I'm also enjoying the heck out of my forensics class. I can't believe a local high school offers an entire semester of forensics as a senior level science class. That's so cool. Four weeks is nifty. A whole year of it would be amazing. It's a great way to get kids (and the senior citizens who mostly populate my class) deeply interested in multiple branches of science.

WTF?

I am lucky to be alive!

Ten minutes ago, a battered old blue sedan nearly ran me over in the post office parking lot. Feeling a bumper graze my knees was heart stopping enough, but the hood was scrawled with giant white shoepolish reading, "I AM COME UNTO YOU AND REBORN IN YOU."

What?

Get back, you parasite! I expect dinner and drinks before you come within five feet of me - and don't use that, "premature sporation" excuse! No comming. No rebirth. NO! I am not volunteering to have your alien spawn eat its way through my living abdomen before overtaking the earth.

Oh, wait. I forgot. It's okay to nearly kill people as long as you quote the Bible at them first. That's patriotic!

Volunteering

To take some of the sting out of job searching, I'm volunteering with the local branch of the MS Society. It's a great way for me to use my uncanny ability to sweet talk people into charitable donations. This time, I'm working for an actual good cause instead of, say, coming up with a year's worth of Boardgames Meetup prizes.

Helping round up coffee, face painters, and a bouncy castle really makes me miss working on SF ConComs.

Second major storm in a week

It's apocalyptic outside - pounding rain, intermittant electricity, a constant wail of sirens. I couldn't resist throwing on a jacket and taking a walk.

That's right - a woman walking by herself in the dark. In most cities, that would be asking for an assault. One of the things I love about Louisville is the crazily low crime rate. This is the safest city I've ever lived in. Well, unless you're within 500 feet of me on the 4th of July. In my defense, I still have all my fingers and toes - and so do the rest of you. Okay, except for John, but that's not my fault.

There's something about powerful weather that makes me want to be in it. I once sat in a windowsill watching a tornado rip down the street while my family shouted at me from the safety of the basement. No summer passes without me hanging out on the lawn in shorts and a tank top during a warm, heavy rain. Tonight, it's a clammy 60 degrees out. It'll be down to 30 by tomorrow.

My jeans soaked through within seconds of stepping outside, but it took a good six minutes before my shoes leaked.

The nearest stoplight is flashing red on all corners. I saw a car spin out of control and finally stop facing the wrong way in traffic. An ambulance zoomed around it, adding to the cacaphony of sirens.

There's something etheral about dark, empty parking lots illuminated only by flickering store signs. Any second the lights could fail entirely. The part of my brain raised on movies and TV expects vampires to crawl out of the sewers in search of human victims. After all, in Louisville Zombie season doesn't start until August.

Juno

See it before the trendy popularity makes you hate it on principle. It really is a good movie.

Without giving away any plot points, one of the details I love most about this flick is it's portrayal of a great stepmother. Stepmothers get harsh treatment in both books and movies. Out here in reality, I personally don't know a bad one. Linda's been great to me. Billie's been great to Chaz. Among my friends who have stepkids, they all genuinely love them. It was awesome seeing a realistic relationship instead of the usual ugly plot device fodder.

And to our stepmoms - you both rock.

It really IS a series of tubes!

A ship's anchor ripped through the undersea tubes connecting India and the Middle East to the internets.