Okay, so two of our Whirlpool appliances needed servicing (dishwasher and refrigerator). I called Whirlpool and they set me up with two appointments (one today and the second one on Monday) with the company they contract out to - A & E Factory Service. I was taking today's and Scott would take Monday's appointment. A & E was scheduled to be here between 12 and 5. Five rolled around and no technician. I call their 800 number and the woman tells me that she'll get a message to the technician and have him call me.

Tick... Tick... Tick... Tick...

It was then 6:15 and still no technician, not even a call. I called the 800 number again. I get put on hold while the customer service rep checked into what was going on. Then she told me this convoluted story about how the technician put the order number for today's service call in the computer and it said it was scheduled for Monday. That didn't seem right to him, but he couldn't get a hold of anyone at the company to figure it out.

Flag on the play. I'm going to call BS on that one. He must have known sometime before 5 about this "confusion" and he couldn't get a hold of anyone? Giant pile of crap. We went round and round while she tried to make this stick. Finally, she told me that I needed to call back tomorrow and talk to someone in Routing.

I was so beyond irritated that I ended up just hanging up on her. She just kept talking in circles and trying to make it seem like it was no big deal that he hadn't shown up. Easy for her, she didn't take a half day off work to waste at home waiting for someone to show up. In going online, I found a ton of postings by people complaining about A&E Factory Service.

I've already written an email to Whirlpool telling them what I think about them using A&E considering their horrible customer service. I still have to call A&E back tomorrow but I'm also looking for someone local so that I don't have to use them at all.

UPDATED: Called A&E again. Evidently the rep last night that told me to call and ask for Routing was lying. They "claim" they can't transfer me to the Routing department. I spoke to a supervisor who was extremely rude to me. I asked if someone could determine why the technician didn't show up and give me an explanation. Her response - "We won't do that" and when I tried to ask why, her response - "I won't address that with you". Oh and she claimed that there was never any record that anyone with A&E had spoken with me yesterday, so basically she was saying she didn't believe anything I said. Nice way to cover their asses..

1) Post a list of up to 20 books/movies/anime/TV shows/video games/bands [fannish etc.] that you've had an obsessive fannish love or interest in at some time in your life.

2) Have your f-list guess your favourite character/member from each item.

3) When someone guesses correctly, strikethrough the item and put the name of your favorite character next to it.

My list (off the top of my head and in no particular order):

1 - Battlestar Galactica
2 - Coupling (UK version)
3 - The Office
4 - Stargate: Atlantis
5 - Sanctuary
6 - Star Trek (reboot)
7 - Star Wars
8 - Lost
9 - Heroes
10 - West Wing
11 - Firefly
12 - Stargate
13 - UC: Undercover
14 - Supernatural
15 - X-Files
16 - Lord of the Rings
17 - Magnificent Seven
18 - Chuck
19 - Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan books
20 - Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld books

So a movie came out this year that looked really fun and interesting. I haven't had a chance to see it and with how things go, I probably won't see it till it's out on dvd. Anyway... I was at Borders one day and saw the book that the movie is based on. I picked it up and got around to reading it this week (I had to put down the other two books I was reading because they were both annoying me). I really really dislike the narrator. I want to just slap her across the face and tell her to she's a whiny brat. I'm going to finish the book because I'm halfway through it (it's a really fast read) but man, I am disappointed.

I've been a serious slacker in discussing what I've read the last couple of months but I'll put down what I can remember:

My Life in France - Julia Child: Absolutely delightful book. I could just hear her voice through the whole thing. It made me want to run out and buy her cookbook. It also really made me want to travel to France again (though her France of the 50's is very different from the France today).

Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously - Julie Powell: I bought this book at the same time as the one above. I read this one second and was very disappointed by it. I wanted to hear more about the cooking and less about her crappy apartment and the job she hated.

Ghost Hunter - Jayne Castle: I picked this up because I had read a novella in an anthology that took place on her futuristic world of Harmony. I believe this is the third book in the Ghost Hunters/Harmony books but it stands alone. I would like to go and read more books in the series, as well as trying some of the books under her other names. It was pretty easy to pick out the bad guy early but that's okay because the Heroine and Hero had great chemistry.

Doubleblind - Ann Aguirre: This is book 3 in the Sirantha Jax series and it so totally rocked. I read the book really slowly and drug it out over a couple weeks - primarily because I love these characters so much that I didn't want to get to the last page because I knew it would be a while before we'd get the next book. If you're a fan of futuristics and you're not reading this series - why the hell not??? Run out immediately and pick up Grimspace. Believe me, you won't be sorry.

Okay, that's all I can remember off the top of my head. I have three partially read books on my nightstand, two more downstairs, and another one in my purse. I just can't commit to any one book right now and am skipping around a lot.

I'm not a historical romance reader (probably because the overwhelming majority of them seem to be set in Victorian or Regency England and well... snooze...), but I was looking at my TBR shelves at home and saw a historical I had picked up sometime last year. This one is a Medieval historical and I'm sure I thought at the time that I could get behind that. So I'm 50-60 pages into a book with 269 pages and I believe that we've already been told about 15 times that the hero's loins are on fire or burning for the heroine.

First time - Okay
Second time - Sigh
Third time - Eyeroll
Fourth time - Really???
Fifth time - Don't they have a cream for that?

A technician will contact me shortly -- does that mean 5 minutes or 5 hours? People it's lunch time and I feel like I'm chained to my desk while I wait for a call because this organization's stupid online application is not working correctly. Argh!

I already have a monster headache and this is only making my frustration worse.

So have you seen that Laughing Cow cheese commercial where the woman talks about taking the bus home from work, putting on her slippers, picking up the remote, and then remembering she drove to work that day... yeah, that was almost me yesterday. I never drive to work, but yesterday theemmer asked if I would drive so that I could schlep her and her luggage in to the city (what a pain in the ass she is ;) ). I was leaving work for the day and standing by the elevator talking to our facilities manager when suddenly a light bulb went off (I'm sure people could hear it) and I went "Oh my gosh, I drove today!". I don't remember what she and I had been talking about but something triggered in my head that I had driven. Two seconds before that I had been thinking about how I didn't want to have the obnoxious woman who gets on the train in Tukwila sit next to me again (she always does if I'm alone).

Scott got a great video of Jakob on the move tonight. He was crawling to Scott who was in the kitchen. He had never touched the kitchen floor before so it was something new and funny to him.

When you call and leave a message desperate to get information verified for a background check on your new job, call from a phone that doesn't cut out every other second. Because then when I call you back you might be able to hear me (which you couldn't) and then when you call me back, I barely get two sentences out before your phone is cutting out constantly and I can't hear or understand a word you're saying.

It's TBR Challenge Day and can I just say that I have been a horrible slacker in the reading department the last month. I think I've started at least a dozen books and only one of them I would consider finished (though I only read half of it). I have just had no luck with anything. The one I read and half finished (I'll explain) was What Happens in Vegas...After Dark. It contains 4 short stories, only 2 of them which I read.

What Happens in Vegas...After Dark is a follow-up to an anthology from last year featuring the same four authors. I only finished two stories in that one as well (though I tried to read the other two). The two authors I read were Anya Bast and Lauren Dane. I think I enjoyed the stories in the new anthology more than the ones in the first (which I really liked), though I couldn't tell you why (and it wasn't just because these had a paranormal twist).

And while I was earlier having issues with finding things to read, I'm currently reading two books that I'm really enjoying: Black and White by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge. There's not enough super hero books out there. Though I find myself more intrigued by the Then than the Now sections of the story. Red-Headed Stepchild by Jaye Wells. Fantastic twist on vampire mythology, action, humor, great heroine (who's kick-ass without being obnoxious).

Stolen from around the bend...

Ask me my (fannish-or-non-fannish) Top Five [Whatevers]. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! And I will answer them all in a new post.

What is it this year with me and bug bites?????????????? Remember the post with the pictures of the bites on my arm? Well, that made sense because we were at the drive-in, the windows were open, etc. But bug have been going crazy on my feet and ankles. This morning I counted in the shower... in various states of healing, between my feet, ankles, and calves, I have EIGHTEEN bug bites! WTF????????? Four of them appeared this weekend. It looks like I've been putting out cigarettes on the top of my feet. I've been going through tons of cortizone cream and other remedies people have suggested. I'm losing my mind!

But on the plus side, it was a productive weekend. Saturday, theemmer and I did our grocery shopping together. And I was reminded why I grocery shop typically on Sunday mornings and not Saturday afternoons. Sunday, the little monkey wanted to get up at 5:30. So I got up, we hung out and played till Dad got up. Then he took over for a little bit while I started cleaning the kitchen. I got the whole kitchen cleaned, including running the self-clean cycle on the oven. Scott vacuumed the whole house. I dusted downstairs and did 5 loads of laundry.

Oh and one other little thing I managed over the weekend... send out a novella to Samhain for a call they had out for space opera novellas. Now, might not seem like a big thing but it's the first thing that I've actually submitted somewhere. And even if it's rejected, I consider it a positive thing because I submitted it in the first place. Now on to the next WIP (though I am taking a couple days off because I ran myself ragged last week writing).

So I was having so much getting ready for the fantasy football draft in the league that my husband is running that I thought it would be fun to do an all-girls league. I've got 6 people so far and need at least 4 more. If there's anyone who's interested let me know and I'll send you an invite for the league.

Choose your genre show, answer the questions using episode titles from that show--if possible, don't repeat any.
( My Life According to Battlestar Galactica )

I'm sitting in bed (in our air conditioned bedroom - only room in the house with air) trying to get some words down. I have J in a cocoon of blankets asleep next to me. I like this.