Thursday Gripes

Today's definitely a B&M day.... bitch & moan. Lots of little things happening, so in my vain attempt to not sweat the small stuff... here we go:

1. We've had newspaper problems for months. We get 3 local papers (all different) one or two days per week. Let me see if I got this... the Times on Tuesdays and Fridays, the Record on Thursdays and the News on Saturdays. We also get a morning paper, The Province, on Sunday through Friday. Since springtime, we usually get the Times once a week, sometimes not at all. The Record's been fairly good. The News, with its "Good morning!" banner on the front page, usually makes it in time for dinner. We were missing one or two copies of the Province each month. Now, I know the people at the Times on a first name basis these days because I've called so often. I honestly asked if someone had reported us for being bad people because I couldn't understand how we could be missed on a Friday after getting the paper on the Tuesday.... annoying.
   Well, now the Province is "supposed to" arrive by 6am in order for working people to read it over their breakfast. During our nasty winter storm (did I write about that???), we missed an entire week's worth of papers. My in-laws, living 3 blocks away, got 3 of their papers one day and another on its regularly scheduled day. This week, I noticed (see #2 below) we have a new delivery person for the Province in our neighbourhood. On Tuesday(see #2!), we got our paper at 11:30, on Wednesday we got it at 9 (and the paper lady complained and said it was in our mailbox, although we never saw it there before 8:30 when the kids went to school. Today, it's 9:35 and there's still no paper. How many days in a row can we complain??
2. OK, so the paper lady... *shakes head* I noticed when I was having breakfast that there was no paper. I thought it a little odd, but assumed my wife had taken it with her to work earlier that morning. When I went to leave to pick up my son from preschool at 11:30, I couldn't get out of our driveway because someone had parked across my driveway. I walked out to the street and looked up and down to see if there was anyone around and didn't see anyone. A little worried about being late picking up the boy, I went back inside to call my in-laws to see if they could get him. They weren't home. My next call was going to be to the school saying i'd be there ASAP but couldn't get out of my driveway. So, I'm on my cellphone and dialling when this woman walks up to the car. I'm about to go nuts on her (hello? There's 40 feet of clear shoulder on either side of the driveway, lady!!), when she hands me the Province. At 11:30!! So, she gets an earful, which she returns the next day when she says she had the paper in our mailbox by 9am. Yeah, whatever. What's your excuse today? Just more incentive to cancel our subscription and walk down to the store and pick it up every day. Good exercise!
3. I looked into some legal advice for the car accident, since I haven't heard anything in a while. The process, as I understand it, is that since I protested their conclusion, the dispute goes to an internal review committee before anything else is done. If they still find in her favour, then my final remaining option is to sue. But I can't sue the insurance company, I have to sue the other driver. AND, the insurance company will pay for the lawyer --for her. There's supposed to be an insurance adjustor working on my behalf and one working for the other driver. I've never heard of that before. I wonder if it'll ever end...
4. I was total butt-kicker supreme in my hockey pool last week. I went from 13,584th place to 4th. Nice jump! This week, however, I'm back to my traditional role and saw from one game last night that a guy I traded away at the last minute had a 6-point game. The guy I took instead (his teammate) didn't register a point. Doh.
5. The web design stuff is nearly at an end. I agreed to one final major edit. This final edit adds in content for their press/media section and they sent me a ton of scans to add to the site. Most scans are on angle, meaning I have to straighten each one out before I put it on the site. Some are on an angle and upside down. I'm pretty sure they keep a draft email to me running all dya and whenever they think of something they add to it. They send me all the written content for a page in several font styles, sizes... some in bold, some italicized, and some barely discernable as properly-written sentences. Lots of work and apparently, my "check is in the mail." We'll see about that too :(
6. My son's preschool Christmas show was last night. I recall writing about my daughter's preschool show... let me find it... and how I referred to it as "short attention-span theatre." Well, it took a few years but the trait's been passed on from the parents to their children. Holy crap! I sat near the back of the church with video camera in-hand and my daughter standing beside me because everytime I hit the 'record' button, the lady in front of me stood up to take a picture of her grandson. Everyone knew exactly who he was too --the boy continually jumping off the stage for the entire production. I also pointed out, to my parents, the girl who screams loudly whenever I go to the preschool to pick up my son. She's a screamer and is always into something that ends in screams and tears. As I said it, she fell off the stage. She also fell down hard... twice... during the reception later that night. Anyway, back to... the back... of the church where I politely filmed my son's "performance" and quietly cursed the people standing up to take pictures. I noticed (yes, get ready for it) my father sitting down, cursing the people in front of him as they stood up to take a picture everytime he did. He started muttering (loudly) and the lady turned around and asked if it was okay to stand up to take a picture (something she should do before standing in front of someone anyway), my father said yes and then he convinced everyone to move down the row about 2 feet so he could see again. She was standing for a baout 5 minutes at this point. My father finally had the opportunity to get a picture without her with her video camers in front of him. As he snapped the picture, she leaned over right in front of him.
   In a way only my father can do it, he offered to give the film to the lady since he "only got pictures of [her] ass and back." Yes, more confirmation I'm turning into my father....
7. I was doing some gaming research (read: playing video games) and I unintentionally finished a game. I can't remember the actual number, but there's a statistic that says most game players (60%) never finish a game after they've started. So, imagine finishing one without evern trying. It was a good game too, for the most part. One of the things I like about a game with so much in it, after you've finished all the major points of the story, you can continue to play and explore and find new things. And I'm doing one of those right now :)