FYI: I'll be on vacation the last two weeks of the year, so after Friday, Dec. 20, there will be inconsistent (if any) entries showing up here. I'll be back at work on Jan. 6, and then we'll return to the regularly scheduled program.

Not a lot has gone on lately, so I haven't updated the site. For some reason, writing out how I watched syndicated reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond and had chili dogs for dinner doesn't sound like something I need to do. But now you know, so stop complaining.

I went to lunch yesterday at my friend Colin's house. I mentioned him in my last post when I was talking about how I really can't stand little kids but his kids are cool. Anyway, went to lunch over there and sort of had a little bit of my faith in humanity restored.

See, he's got two kids - one's 4 (Peter) and the other's 1.5 (Tim). I think. I'm guessing at the ages because, well, I don't remember these things (hey, it takes me a while to remember how old I am). Normally, I would not be amused by the antics or the things kids like this say and do. But certain things struck me.

For example, Colin's wife, Kathy, was talking to me and telling me that Peter was "acting out" and she couldn't figure out what was going on. Turns out, what she called "acting out" was him doing things like talking out of turn and not being polite. (Obviously I wasn't there all day, but that's what I saw.) Now, I don't know about you, but that's something I just assume a little kid like that will do. But it seems that can be controlled, and I find that very interesting.

Another thing: Peter was eating lunch and asked "May I please be excused to go potty?" Huh? Jenn's niece usually just mumbles something incoherent that rhymes with "bathroom" and then whines a little and runs for the toilet. This was perfect English I was hearing. Unbelievable!

This all started me thinking, and I'd like to bring forth my (now very solid) belief: One of the prime reasons children in this country are gibbering idiots is bad parenting.

That's right, bad parenting. It seems to me, at least by looking at these two tykes, that if you pay attention to your kids and teach them well, they may just act like the responsible human beings they're supposed to be.

I'm not saying there's no issue with the school system or anything else, but I think this is pretty conclusive evidence that it begins in the home and trickles out from there. Even if you have a pretty crappy school, you can at least grow up with the basics and some good common sense if you have a good parental environment.

I was considering writing an open letter to parents everywhere, right here in the blog. I may still. But for now, let's leave it at that.

This weekend was reasonably eventful. As always, let's start at the top and work our way down, so the entire weekend can be savored by you just as it was by me.

Friday night Jenn and I went to Jenn's niece's preschool Holiday Program.

Yeeeeeeeeah.

Let's just get this out in the open right now: I don't find small children cute, entertaining, funny, or otherwise interesting in the least. I can probably count on one hand the number of people whose kids I find cute. And the "little kid things" that kids do... eh. I don't really care if your kid mispronounced a word or said something that you found funny. Chances are, I'm not going to. You want your kid to impress me? Have him/her speak to me in full, understandable sentences, in a coherent fashion, enunciating words so it's clear what they have to say. That's what impresses me. (My friend Colin's kids freaking rule. Cute and intelligent. That's good kids, and good parenting. I'm down with that.)

Anyway, the program... It was 20 minutes of a bunch of preschoolers not remembering the words or motions to a bunch of songs I've never heard before. I didn't know what they were saying about two-thirds of the time, and I wasn't amused.

I got dinner out of the deal, though, so I'll call it even.

Saturday morning I took my car in for the 15,000 mile service at the dealership. Oil change, etc. One of the things I wanted them to check was the rear window washer fluid squirter doesn't squirt so much as it just dribbles the washer fluid down the window. The front ones work well, what's up with the back one?

Turns out, that's the standard functionality for the thing. Dribbling. The service guy was surprised by this, too, but such is life. About $150 later I was on my way.

Saturday night the Winter Hawks put on quite a show, shutting out the Seattle Thunderbirds 5 - 0. That put our goalie, Lanny Ramage, as the record holder for most career shutouts in the Winter Hawks franchise. Pretty cool. That game was also the yearly Teddy Bear Toss, where you throw a stuffed animal out onto the ice the first goal the Winter Hawks score. This year they collected 4,275 bears, which is the record for the most bears yet. That was quite a sight to see, and the game rocked. I left the arena stoked and ready for Sunday's game.

Sunday. Mmmmm. This is a horse of a different color.

A little family laundry to air out, here: My granddad (mom's dad) is pretty cool. I think so, at least. He makes me laugh and he's always doing something interesting, from digging gold out in the sticks to going down to Mexico to get all of his dental work done. He is, above all, known for his rather creative gifts, most of them involving wood products of some nature manipulated via jigsaw. Every once in a while, though, he goes on these kicks of "I'm not getting anyone anything, I hate any holidays and all gift giving." This, friends, is one of those years.

Of course, that doesn't apply to Granddad's girlfriend's family (Grandma's dead, before you ask, so that part is kosher). Her family gets gifts of all shapes and sizes. It's just his own family that he won't get gifts for. I, and the rest of the family, not only find this peculiar but also frankly irritating. One would think "what's good for the goose is good for the gander," right? Treat everyone equally? Not here, man. We're getting the short end.

I do not want to imply that I am entirely gift-driven. I don't care one way or the other. What outrages me (and everyone else) is the unfair/unequal treatment. If anything, one would think that he'd be looking out for his own first and foremost, but that's not what's going on here.

Anyway, Granddad's idea this year was that he'd get everyone together and have a holiday meal on him. Okay, I can handle that. I'm down with the food thing. Since some of the family lives in Washington and some live in northern Oregon, a halfway point needed to be chosen. This was to happen on Sunday at 11:00a.

Here's where the fun begins.

Granddad chose a restaurant he likes called "Spiffy's" in, uh... Chehalis? Centralia? I can't remember. Milepost 68 on I-5 - you can't miss it. There are only four things there: two gas stations and two places to eat. One of those places is Spiffy's.

Not knowing what to expect, I started asking around to the various family members that had eaten there. Folks laughed when I asked about "Spiffaria's" and asked why I hadn't already eaten at the "Home of the Brown Lettuce." That didn't bring my hopes up any, but I tried to be positive.

My parents, Jenn, and I all set out for Spiffy's around 9:00a. We were told it takes about two hours to get there, so we figured we'd get there right on time.

We pulled into Spiffy's parking lot at 10:15a. So much for the two hours. Forty-five minutes until everyone was supposed to be there, and we've got nowhere to go and nothing to do. We drove around the two gas stations and the other place to eat ("The Mustard Seed") and then went back to Spiffy's when we realized there was nowhere to visit.

Spiffy's needs a new roof. And a new sign outside. Maybe some new blinds and a paint job.

I think you see where I'm going.

Interestingly enough, Granddad and his girlfriend were already there. Guess we're not the only ones who found that two hours was an hour too long to drive.

We went in, early as we were, and got seated in the back. On the way, I was treated to read the "Scripture of the Day" on the wall in the entryway, got to browse the stack of Jeff Foxworthy tapes by the cash register, and walked past the buffet.

We'll get back to the buffet in a minute.

The room we were seated in, besides being unheated, had a full waiting station (cash register, milk/coffee dispensers, etc.), an organ, and a podium. Apparently this was some sort of multipurpose affair. We took our seats and made small talk until others started to arrive.

As people arrived, the trend seemed to be "everybody stand up and run to the door and greet the person coming in rather than making the person come around." That got to be tedious, so I stopped greeting. I'm sure that was perceived as unsociable or rude, but I really don't care. You get what you get, and that's that.

Folks showed up I didn't even remember. My granddad's sister? I think I've seen her like twice ever. Jenn mentioned that she didn't know anyone, and I was like, "Hey, now you know what it's like when I go to every event with your family - thousands of people who show up that I don't remember and will probably never see again." That's what it's like, too - complete melee.

People, of course, also fawned over the children in the group (kids of my cousins... what does that make them to me? like, second cousins or something?). In light of my thoughts on how children don't amuse me, this part of the thing didn't have any draw for me, either.

Once things settled down a bit, we got menus to order off of. It turned out, most folks were having the buffet.

Ah, the buffet. "Home of the Brown Lettuce" accurately describes everything in the salad bar. I would not be surprised if this was leftovers from last week's buffet. The hot foods had enjoyed some serious time under the heat lamps, and the gravy had a nice skin on it that you couldn't readily puncture with a fork. In fact, the only things that looked decent were the baked goods, but I wasn't in the mood for solely baked goods at the time, so the buffet was out of the question.

Instead of the buffet, I ordered a seafood pasta dinner. (Hey, dinner started at 11:30a, and by my clock, it was damn well 11:40a!) I didn't want the salad so I substituted clam chowder. Jenn ordered the chicken cordon bleu with a baked potato.

A while later the waitress came back and said they didn't have baked potatoes that early. Jenn was a little disappointed but got fries instead.

Shortly after that, the waitress brought everyone's salads (for those who got the salad). At that time, she told my dad (who also ordered the chowder) and I that they were out of clam chowder, so we had our choice of chicken noodle soup or cream of rice. I don't really like either, especially because both usually have huge vegetables floating about in them, but I picked the chicken noodle.

Our soup arrived around the time everyone was finished with their salads. I got two cracker halves with mine, and the soup had not stayed in the bowl too well, coating the outside of the bowl, the package of crackers, my spoon, and the saucer. I cleaned that up and ate the three vegetable-free bites of soup.

Around halfway through my soup, the waitress came back to tell me they didn't have any noodles in the place (though three of the 10 dinners they offered were pasta). Great. I switched my order to the halibut dinner, same as my dad ordered. Misery loves company, right?

I finished my soup about the time the food started arriving (for those who didn't get the buffet; the buffet eaters were almost done eating by now). A few folks got burgers (which turned out a bit dry, with lots of "filler" material on them) and Jenn's chicken came. Sadly, the chicken seemed to have done its time under the heat lamp, too, and was bound to give her cotton mouth. There was sort of a dicey "cheese sauce" on there that looked like hollandaise, but we couldn't figure out what it was. Either way, not good.

Dad's halibut showed up and he started to eat. By this time, everyone's got something but me, and I'm pretty hungry.

Fully 15 minutes after everyone's gotten their main meal, I finally got my halibut.

I think I made out better than most folks because it was actually okay. There was a lot of it, and it seemed just a little dry, but I wasn't expecting much. Dad liked it, too, so I think we were the only two reasonably satisfied folks there.

After everyone finished eating, we got booted from the room because a new party was coming in at 2:00 and we needed to be out by 1:00.

We left, and out in the parking lot everyone exchanged gifts. Well, not everyone. Lots of people. In the back of my parents' car seemed to be gifts for everyone in the family. I mean, a huge pile of presents. People ran madly back and forth through the rain with their soaking packages, loading up cars and getting things moving. From my view in the backseat, I noticed two things: First, everyone had gifts for my Granddad. I found this sort of hypocritical, since no one did anything but complain about Spiffy's. Second, when we left, our car was empty except for two or three very small packages. Everyone else seemed to have problems getting their trunks closed and so forth. I guess I feel like we got the short end of that whole deal.

Oh well. It's over now, and that's what matters.

That evening at 5:00p we went to the Winter Hawks game and watched them get totally trounced by Spokane. So much for the unstoppable feeling from the night before.

To close off Sunday, we watched a rockin' episode of Alias. They've finally involved Marshall, the tech guy, in the missions, and that's a lot of fun. I love that show.

And now it's Monday. I took my car in to get the repairs on it started and when we called the car rental place, they didn't know I was supposed to have a car. That figures. We got it set up, though (the rental chick, Carolyn, was kinda hot), and now I'm driving a 2002 Chevy Impala. It's a little odd, considering it's so big compared to my car, but it's better than the Babemobile.

Maid In Manhattan is the story of a hotel maid, Marisa Ventura (Jennifer Lopez), who meets a rich politician, Christopher Marshall (Ralpf Fiennes). He doesn't realize she's a maid, they fall in love, she gets exposed, they fall apart, then they come back together.

That's pretty much it.

Maid in Manhattan is the epitome of formulaic filmmaking. I could have written this myself in my spare time at work by printing out Cinderella and changing the names. Not ten minutes into the show, you can see what roles everyone plays in the story and you know exactly what's going to happen. If you've seen it once, you've seen it a thousand times. As such, I won't go into the plot. You know the story already. If you don't, you've been living in a cave.

What I will say is this: It wasn't as bad as all that. I mean, as far as Cinderella stories go, this was an okay rendition. I'm not a big J.Lo fan, so I'm not giving extra credit that she was in it; pretty much anyone could have played any of the roles in this thing and it'd still have come out the same.

This was definitely a chick flick. Jenn walked out thinking it was pretty good. I don't necessarily disagree, but I do think she liked it more than I did. After all, she is the proud owner of way too many Julia Roberts DVDs.

I saw it for free on a sneak preview and I'm glad I didn't pay the full evening price for it. I could maybe see going on the matinee for a lunch date or something, but in the end, I'd say wait until it comes out and rent it. Save your money and go to Die Another Day instead.

I went in this morning to get the estimate on the damage from the sideswipe on Friday. The body shop guy looked at it, noticed that it spread from one panel (my rear bumper) onto a second panel (I got nicked on the rear driver's side panel, too) and let out a low whistle. I didn't find that a good sign. My tail light on the driver's side was also cracked.

In the end, the repair cost tallied up to $1067.38. Thank goodness for insurance, is all I have to say. The tail light alone cost like $200 to replace.

I'll take it in Monday to have them start work on it. I'll be getting a rental car, which is good. Last time I had to get my car fixed I ended up driving The Babemobile (which has since been sold off). I can only hope I don't end up in some stupid Ford Escort.

Just got a call from this guy Bill over at Farmer's Insurance. I'll take my car in to the body shop for the estimate tomorrow morning, then take the car back this coming Monday for the final work to begin on it. I'll get a rental car Monday so I can get to work. (Yay?)

Well, this is all coming together. Hopefully my car will be done for Christmas.

Every year I try to be creative in my Christmas gift wrapping efforts. Usually I'll try and go for a theme, so that all the gifts under the tree from me are distinctive.

I've done movies (wrapped the packages in movie posters and used old film as the bows), generic (brown paper only), and high security (entirely wrapped in a layer of duct tape) to name a few.

This year I was having a difficult time figuring out what to go with. I ended up choosing a variation on a previously mentioned theme: Authentic Postal.

Every gift will be wrapped in postal-standard brown paper. They will be sealed to postal standards using brown postal tape. The contents of every gift will be wrapped in bubble wrap for protection, and each package will be labeled with an authentic-looking UPS-style tracking label, printed up on the local laser printer.

I'm stoked. I think I'm going to start wrapping stuff tonight when I get home.

My weekend was eventful from the word go.

The festivities started as soon as I left work. I got maybe half a mile before I was rear-ended. A diagram of what happened looks something like this:



Basically, I was stopped at approximately the place where one lane splits into two. This guy suddenly decides that, rather than wait, he'll just go ahead and take the curb and try to skinny past me because, hey, 1984 Ford Pickups are tiny cars that can just squeak through anywhere. Needless to say, he scraped right up the rear of my car.

I, of course, am a little taken aback at the audacity of the driver in question, but, well, shit happens and it needs to be dealt with. So I honk my horn at the guy and he stops. I stop my car, start to get out, and he takes off. Shit.

I start my car back up and floor it to catch up to him. After about a mile of chasing the guy down, he finally pulls into a 7-11 parking lot. Turns out it's a kid, maybe 17 or 18 years old, tops, driving his dad's truck. No wonder he claims he "didn't know he hit me" - he's gonna get his ass kicked when he gets home. (How could you not know? My car rocked back and forth with the force of the impact, so he had to have felt something...)

Anyway, my car looked only cosmetically damaged... at least it was still drivable... and I called my insurance company (Progressive) when I got home.

I could not recommend Progressive Insurance any more than I already do. These guys rock. The last time I had something happen to my car, I was very pleasantly surprised with the speed with which they handled the claim - I mean, they came to me and got everything taken care of by the next day. The only thing I had to worry about was getting my car to the body shop. Yeah, boyeeee.

However, on speaking with the Progressive claims office, it turns out I have two options - I can either go through my insurance, pay the $250 deductible, and get no rental car while my car's in the shop or I can file a claim with the other driver's insurance - Farmers - and deal with their overhead but get a rental car while mine's being fixed.

I chose to go the Farmers route, since I need to have transportation to get to work and all. Thus began my call to Farmers.

Around three hours after the accident had happened, this guy still hadn't called it in to his insurance, so I filed the claim for him. That wasn't the hard part. The hard part starts now because Farmers is this vast, slow, annoyingly inconvenient company that doesn't like to pay out. What I "get" to do now that I've filed the claim is: wait two business days to hear back from the claims adjuster; take my car to them to have them take pictures and provide an estimate; wait while they process that all; then get a check that I can pay the auto body company with. I don't know how they're going to arrange the rental car, but I'm sure I'll get some piece of shit Ford Escort or something that I can't fit into worth a damn.

To sum it up: I'm a little irritated that the whole thing happened. And that was just Friday night.

Saturday wasn't too bad. During the day I was pretty lazy and played some more Kingdom Hearts, then that evening Jenn and I went to my parents' house to watch some holiday movies. We watched It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas (probably the best Muppet movie to come out for a loooong time, available only from ShopNBC.com) and Planes, Trains and Automobiles (okay, so that's more of a Thanksgiving movie than a Christmas movie, but still). That was pretty cool, except they always get this damn Papa Murphy's stuffed Chicago style pizza that seems to have an inordinate amount of onions in it (I'm not an onion fan). I think next time they come over I'll have, like, eggplant and lima beans or something so they finally get it. It's pretty nasty.

Sunday I played a little more Kingdom Hearts and went to the Winter Hawks game against Tri-Cities. That was probably the longest hockey game in history, or at least it felt like it. I totally wasn't into it, either. I half-jokingly asked Jenn if she wanted to go home in the middle of the second period and she was all for it. In the end, we lost in overtime, so it wasn't even for a success that we put up with that crap. It's unfortunate they can't get themselves together this season. While I hope they can pull it out for the second half of the season, I admit I don't have a lot of faith. Besides, I'm thinking if they don't make it to playoffs, that's money I don't have to spend on the tickets. :)

And now it's Monday, and I have lots to do. I still haven't bought Jenn's Christmas gift(s), only because she can't tell me anything she wants, and the stuff she did say she wanted is now no longer carried by the store it was sold in, so I'm sort of up a creek. I guess I'll do my best; since she doesn't show any interest in anything in particular, I suppose the flip side of that is that she can't complain if she doesn't like what she gets.

One positive note: I just checked, and Amazon finally finished refunding me the money they wrongly charged me for my last order. Yay!

I've heard from a couple of people that come by to read the site that I should offer "some sort of language warning" up front because I cuss every once in a while. Well, I was thinking about that while using the restroom just now, and I've decided that my response to that is simple:

Fuck that.

I'm not here to entertain your kids or read you Richard Scarry books. I'm here to write about me (which, while admittedly self-centered, is the point of the site). You, I presume, are here to read about me, which automatically makes you my best friend ever.

In the process of writing about me, I try to approximate my actual thought processes and feelings, so that you might get an understanding of how I tick. I further hope by doing this that I can read back through this jumbled mess and maybe even I can get a better understanding of what the hell I'm thinking.

The point is, you're here of your own volition. You're here because you love me, or are learning to love me, or maybe you hate me and want to figure out how to psychologically punish me in the most egregious fashion. Regardless, you came to me, most likely already knowing me, so you probably had an idea of the substance you were stepping into before you got here. The fact I carry a "Fuck Off" mug around with me at work should have clued you in.

So, anyway, there's your warning. If you don't like it, tough cookies, baby.

In other news...

I thought about it today (again), and the more I think about it, the more I think I need one of those digital camera/cell phone things so that I can easily take pictures of the stupid crap I see. I am constantly bombarded with visual spectacles of moronic proportions, and I am always willing to share lunacy with my audience. The only problem I can see is that I find so many ludicrous things around to share with folks that I'd very soon run out of disk space on my account and I'd have to find a new place to host this blog. Which would also mean money out of my pocket, and, me being the cheap bastard I am, I'm not willing to part with said funds. So until I start feeling generous (or acquire the digital camera, at which point I don't think I'll be able to resist the Urge to Herbal), you'll just have to make due with my textual descriptions.

I won't tell you too much about my latest bout with stupidity, but let's just say I have another restroom etiquette rule: If you splatter on the toilet seat, clean up after yourself.

I'll leave the details to your imaginations.

Now that this Kingdom Hearts thing has invaded our lives, it's become sort of an obsession. I believe Jenn is starting to understand the conversion of a game from a pastime to an addiction, just as I understood when I first encountered Grand Theft Auto 3. It's no longer just something to sit down and play; it's a common reference point that we can share and see what's going on with the other person's game.

Jenn's a bit further ahead than I am as far as her characters are concerned, but I've taken more time to go through each world you must traverse and get all of the things so I don't have to go back.

A few nights ago we watched A Very Merry Muppet Christmas on NBC and were very pleased with it. We had just recently been complaining about how Kermit the Frog really doesn't sound like Kermit now that Jim Henson's dead, and with this latest movie, I was pleased that his voice was nearly spot-on. They also paid a lot of tribute to the original Muppet movies and had some great humor for both the kids and the adults.

I ended up buying the VHS tape (along with a "Best of Muppets CD") from ShopNBC.com. Normally I would never consider buying a VHS tape in my land of DVDs, but I asked the customer service folks and they said they weren't going to release it on DVD. Anyway, I look forward to that getting here so I can see it again. Great stuff.

Hmmm... Oh - I get the Zamboni newsletter (what - don't you?) and saw in this latest one that they're coming out with a remote controlled Zamboni ice resurfacing machine. I think that's a must-have for yours truly. Jenn's dad has a remote controlled truck, my dad has a Hum-Vee... I need the Zamboni. (Speaking of Zamboni, a lot of their clothing items are on sale. For those looking for gifts for Trav, there you go...)

I've started reading a book called The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. It reads a little like the Harry Potter series, but has a much different world; rather than placing magic into today's world like Harry Potter does, this series takes place in a world where you might recognize the names of things, but that's about as far as it gets. Sort of alternate universe style. Anyway, it's really quite good so far, though I'm only on page 50 or thereabouts, so you don't have to take my word for it.

Finally, I'm in the process of installing and testing SharePoint Portal Server v2 beta 1. After talking to the Microsoft guys about it, it looks like a lot of the work I've done on customizing v1 over the past year will basically amount to jack squat because they're changing the whole thing so drastically. On one side, I'm happy that they've improved everything so greatly; on the other, I can't help but feel like I've basically just been spinning my wheels for the past year now because I've gotta start all over from scratch - there's no "migration path" for these things. C'est la vie.

Thanksgiving came and went without incident. Rather than the standard (lesser alternative) of turkey, my family celebrated with a great lasagna and some shrimp ravioli in scampi sauce. Two thumbs up from me - both were excellent, and I ate until I nearly burst. I didn't even have room for dessert! Great stuff.

After eating, we played some games. We have a Survivor board game that we hadn't played before and busted out. It was actually pretty fun, but it takes a long time to play, and the longer you play, the more people you have sitting around, bored, having been voted out of the game. I can see where it may not be a holiday game, too, because you sort of have to choose favorites and vote people out. It was fun, though. Also, Dad mustered up a Clue card game that played similar to the board game but went a little faster. I liked that one a lot. Apparently, it's sort of hard to find, though, so if you see it and you like Clue, grab it up.

That, in a nutshell, was Thanksgiving.

Friday I worked, and I had hoped it would be a slow day, me being the only person in the department, but that was the day our WOS (wireless office services) system went berzerk and stopped letting phone calls go through to anyone who has a cell phone. This, of course, included me and the rest of the tech guys, and loads of other folks, too. The real catch is that I was the only one here, and I couldn't call the phone guy for help because his phone was one of the ones affected! I eventually figured out that if I left the immediate campus, I could call my boss because he had gone on vacation and separated his phone from the system. He came in and we did a very technical procedure to restore service - we turned the system off and back on again.

I dunno. It worked, so all was well.

Saturday morning was spent in Kingdom Hearts. The more I play it, the more I like it. There's really only two things I'd fix on it to make it better: First, in some places the camera bugs out and it's hard to figure out where you're going. Second, there's a piece of the game that involves you building and configuring a space ship to fly around in; that's unnecessarily difficult to figure out and really doesn't have anything to do with the game proper. Take it out. Other than that, it rocks.

Saturday night our friends Jason and Tracy came over for some teriyaki chicken sandwiches and some games. We played Catch Phrase and Zobmondo, both of which were quite fun. I hadn't played Zobmondo before (though I'd had it for a while and meant to), so it was good to finally bust it out. You definitely need a few people for that, though.

Sunday Jenn and I decided that we needed the strategy guide for Kingdom Hearts, so we picked that up at Best Buy (a store I loathe for their shitty return policy, but where you can find some stuff that it's difficult to find elsewhere). While I was there, I saw that the Kelly Osbourne album (Shut Up) was out, so I bought it.

I'm actually very pleasantly surprised with Kelly's album. It's sort of punky and hip. I don't know what I was expecting, but either way, it came out ahead for me. I can't say she's got the most awesome voice in the world or anything, but her songs are catchy, if maybe a tiny bit repetitive. I found myself toe-tapping all the way to work this morning.

The best songs on there are "Shut Up" (the title track) and "Too Much of You." There is, of course, the requisite ballad at the end of the album, which wasn't all that great. Then again, I listened through the entire album waiting for it, since doesn't every rock album have one?

The album itself is short - I was able to listen to the entire album on my commute to work this morning, about 45 minutes. I don't think that's a problem, but it is what it is.

In all, I think it's a pretty good album, and I'm not sorry I picked it up.

Sunday night we went to the hockey game and watched the Winter Hawks finally win one. They've really been sucking lately, so it was nice to see a win come out of 'em for a change.

This morning brought some interesting news: The Amazon.com people have finally received their own taste of my irritation. While shopping there on Friday, I found that I had like $100 worth of gift certificates on my account. Hey, no problem for me! I did my shopping and it all came out of the gift certificates. Well, they finally got around to looking at my account in the depth I wanted them to, and they realize that they owe me $11 and that they miscredited me $120 on my account. They further asked for me to authorize them to charge my card for the amount of my order. Interesting how they want immediate action when the shoe's on the other foot, isn't it?

So I mailed them back and said, basically, that I'm not a thief and I understand that accidents happen, but if they wanted me to authorize them to charge my card, they'd have to call me the way I told them to do in the first place.

Not an hour later, I got an email with the customer service phone number for Amazon.com so I could get in touch with them. Yay, me!

For the record, and for anyone who wants it, the customer service phone number for Amazon.com is 1-800-201-7575. (For the non-US folks, it's 1-206-266-2992.) I challenge you to find that on their site anywhere.

I called them, talked to a guy named Brad, and got everything straightened out. I authorized 'em to charge my card (see? I'm not a bad guy) for the stuff I bought, and everything will be sorted out shortly.

I'm gonna rip 'em a new one if it's not. I got your number now, baby!