Oh, except that I didn’t.  When I sent the email off, it bounced back with a message saying that the email address didn’t exist.  WTF?  So, yet again on Tuesday, I called the call center.  I don’t know why they want to go through all the gory details of the ticket each and every time I call.  This conversation went something like this:

“I just need the senior technician’s email address.”

“But, ma’am, I don’t have that information.”

“Ok, just transfer me to the technical team so they can give me that information.”

“But I need to know why you are calling tonight.”

“You have my case number, and I’m calling to get an email address.”

“But, ma’am, I need to know which team that is.”

“Well, you have my case number.  I’ll wait a moment while you read the file.”

I don’t think he actually read the file, but he did transfer me to the technical team.  I finally got a technician who read my file and gave me the correct email address for the senior technician.  (And this is why I should be talking to customer support people who speak the same dialect as I do: when you say VEE and I hear THREE, then I repeat back THREE to you twice and you hear VEE, this does not make for a very happy customer service experience.)  I resent the email (which never bounced back), requesting that the senior engineer call me at 6pm the following evening.

Now, despite the fact that I was feeling extremely unwell on Wednesday, I sat by my phone and computer from 6pm until 7pm without a call from anyone.  Since I was pretty sure any further sitting up would cause me to vomit, I headed back to sleep for another 12 hours.  On Thursday, I sent another email to the senior engineer requesting a call for Friday at 6pm.

Now, on Friday, I received an email asking me to rate the service I had received from Microsoft… seeing as they had closed my ticket.  Again… WTF??  So, yes, I filled out that survey.  I gave Microsoft the lowest possible rating in every category.  Ah, if only I could have used negative numbers!  They wanted to know how they could make Microsoft support better.  Well, gee.  How about if you hire people who can actually help?  That would be swell.

Instead of any kind of fun on Friday night, I gave Microsoft yet another call.  I bullied my way past the gatekeeper.  I refused to speak to the technical support person.  I only wanted to speak to a manager.  From this point, in all fairness, my association with Microsoft improved ever so slightly.  Rochelle was very accommodating.  Since I’d been waiting for a call back from a senior engineer since Sunday, I told her I really didn’t want to have to wait another two or three days for a senior engineer to get around to contacting me.  In fact, I’d really prefer if she would get one on the line right away.  It wasn’t right away, but she did call me back in about 15 minutes.

I then proceeded to spend the next three hours on the phone with Anthony.  After about two hours, the phone lost its charge and cut us off, but he called me right back.  He tried all manner of things — again, in a spirit of full disclosure, some things I would not have thought to try.  Finally, he decided to conference in a technician from Dell Support.  After about 15 minutes, Mark at Dell found one of their knowledge base articles that stated that there’s some peculiarity with the Vista installation on my specific model of laptop and that the only way to install Windows 7 is to perform a custom (i.e., clean) install.

As disappointing as this was, Anthony was good enough to provide me with the phone number for Microsoft’s “Money Back Guarantee Team” who, according to him, would be happy to assist me in getting a full refund for the software.  Of course, I have to wait until Monday for that.

Was that great, or what?  I really think I’m going to go join the Unitarian Jihad.  In fact, my new Jihadist name is Sister Flaming Shuriken of Acceptance. If you’d like to join us, you can get your own Unitarian Jihadist name from the Naming Committee.  I have to go make some flower arrangements now.  And then I will probably bake some cookies.

So here’s what I don’t get: why the hell did I stop watching Psych in the first place?  It’s freaking hilarious!  Shawn and Gus crack me up, and at least half of the time so does Lassiter.  We’re done with season one, on to season two.  We’re going to watch another three or four episodes tomorrow night, so leave us alone.

I think I’m going to have to dig out all my k.d. lang CDs today.

This brings all manner of thoughts right to the forefront of my mind, causing a collision that makes it difficult to write about any one thing.  But I’ll work on separating it all out.

First, can you say “hubris”?  Wow.  Going with the assumption that the Entity Known As God is greater than anything a mere mortal could comprehend with the three-pound (give or take) lump of goo in our heads, how could a mere mortal say that he or she knows anything about the mind of said Entity?  On a tangent to that, how do we even know whether or not something godlike even has emotions?  The honest answer is, “We don’t.”  Also tangentially, it would appear that mere mortals have a fondness for anthropomorphizing, well, everything, really.  So the Entity Known As God has emotions because we mere mortals have emotions.

I’m not arguing for or against the existence of the Entity Known As God, by the way.  But all mythology makes the Entities Known As Gods look and act and think and feel an awful lot like the people who are writing the stories about the ENAG.  I’m just saying that we mere mortals are kind of arrogant in thinking we might know what the ENAG is or is not thinking or feeling.

Next, I think I’ve figured out those bizarre people of Westboro Baptist Church.  Since they say that God hates America, they themselves must be anti-American, and not even Americans at all.  But I don’t think ENAG cares much about arbitrary geopolitical borders on this, or any other, planet.  Kind of like how I don’t care what the ants in the colonies are doing under my lawn… as long as they don’t put their little piles of sand in my driveway, I won’t run them over.

And then there, “God hates…”  Wait.  What?  No.  Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.  (Catholic grade school… give me a break.)  Does that mean that Jesus isn’t God?  Well, some people believe that.  But I thought Christians believed that Jesus is God.  So that means that the bizarre people of Westboro Baptist Church aren’t Christians.  Ah!  Now we’re getting somewhere.  Now it all makes sense!

Being the happy science fiction loving nerd that I am, my theory about the bizarre people of Westboro Baptist Church is that they’re aliens from another planet (atheists, of course) that have come here to sow negativity and dissent so we mere mortals are ripe pickings for their evil overlords who will show up here one of these days to harvest the lumps of goo in our heads as a gourmet appetizers.  And then they’ll build a galactic bypass.

This time around, I got a couple of new prescriptions… both generics, both covered by my insurance, and both available at the pharmacy around the corner.  One is for pain, the other to help me sleep.  We’ll see how that goes.  I also need to get some blood drawn for my semi-annual blood tests.  Looks like he added about eight extra tests, so I’m hoping to have some blood left to donate to the Red Cross.  My weight stayed the same, which pleased me because I haven’t had the energy to exercise and pleased the doc because he seems to think “the holidays” are a mad food fest for everyone.

Since the last appointment, I had a slight decrease in severe-pain days, but an increase in absolutely-no-energy days.  The lack of energy is typical for this time of year, and is exacerbated by lack of sleep.  Since the last pain medication made me puke all day, I’m hoping this one will be better and knock the severe-pain days down to zero.  The last sleeping medication made me wake up feeling like I was extremely hung over, and I’m also hoping for better results from this one.  As I’ve said before, good sleep is something I yearn for.  I’m pretty sure getting sound sleep every night (or at least most nights) will go a long way towards alleviating the feelings of hostility I feel towards the world.  I know I would appreciate that, as would my family, friends and coworkers.

Oooh, and maybe if I get more energy, I’ll be able to exercise again.  I really do feel better when I spend 30 to 40 minutes on the treadmill in the morning!

I made my Secret Family Recipe sloppy joes (vegetarian style) for Christmas dinner and the whole family went out to dinner to a new-ish local restaurant with the Spousal Unit’s stepmom a few days after Christmas.  Jolly good fun!

I mentioned the books I read, but I should point out I’m a complete book nerd.  I printed out labels for about 250 books, attached them to the spines of the appropriate books, and shelved said books in Dewey Decimal order.  (I picked Dewey over Library of Congress numbering because my first job was in a library, and we didn’t have any of that crazy LoC stuff at the time.  It’s nostalgia, pure and simple.)  I have another bookcase full of books that I need to put in my most excellent Collectorz book database so I can label them, too.  I do so love being a complete geek.

I had a couple of other things on my To Do list, but… meh.  Whatever.  I relaxed a lot.  And that was the whole point.

I hope Toolbar feels better soon!

I like Christmas songs… almost all of them.  I don’t necessarily like all the people out there who try to sing Christmas songs, though.  (I’m talking to you, Mariah Carey.  Some of us practice long and hard to hit and hold the notes that are actually written on our sheet music, and then you just go out there and make millions of dollars not getting anywhere close to the notes written.  I don’t like you, girlfriend.)

When I’m driving around in the car, any Christmas song is good enough for singing (except if that Carey woman is singing… that’s just plain annoying).  But when I’m singing with my peeps from Capital Pride Singers, there are a few sacred songs that are just so beautiful for a full chorus that I’d sing them every year.  (My fellow singers, however, do not generally agree with me.  And I can’t blame them.  Singing Ain’t No Mountain High Enough drove me insane after the tenth time I sang it with the Artemis Singers.)  But Festival Sanctus and Angel’s Carol are so outstandingly beautiful that they’re almost breathtaking (which is not a good idea when you’re trying sing, by the way).

Two other songs I absolutely adore — as solos — are O Holy Night and Silent Night.  I’m especially fond of “my” version of Silent Night, wherein I sing the first verse in Irish Gaelic, the second verse in German and the third verse in English.  O Holy Night was my audition song when I auditioned for the Denver Women Chorus.  I’m thinking of learning the Irish Gaelic words for next year’s Christmas show with CPS.

Christmastime isn’t the happiest time of year for me.  Singing has always been something that lifts my spirits.  So what Christmastime means to me is a chance to sing a whole lot of songs that I know really well and it’s a chance to learn some new ones.  When I’m singing, I’m breathing deeply… and when I’m breathing deeply, I’m not falling into that dark pit of depression.  And for just a few weeks, I’ll even put up with singing along with Mariah Carey.  (But girlfriend, you are so out of here on New Years.  The radio it going off, and I’ll be back to my CDs.  That don’t involve your warbling.)

Living in New York, I’ve had the opportunity to experience “New York style” pizza.  Not bad.  In this area, Paesan’s has the best pizza.  Their sauce is tasty, the cheese is plentiful, and the requisite fold-over is not hard to attain.  Oh, how I miss eating it!

Before living in New York, I lived in Colorado where they have “Colorado style” mountain pies at Beau Jo’s.  The crust is a treat…  drizzled with the accompanying honey, it makes a fine dessert to any of their many ingredient combinations.  If you are ever out that way, do check it out!  It’s definitely worth a visit.  And I really miss it.

However, I grew up in Chicago, which has the best pizza in the known universe at Giordano’s.  The pie is wonderfully thick, the crust is light and flakey and buttery, the sauce is outstanding, the filling ingredients plentiful and the cheese a delight.  I miss Giordano’s pizza most of all.  If there is any pizza that could lure me away from this vegan diet, it would be Giordano’s pizza.

Nowadays, I make my own pizza at home using Berkshire Mountain Bakery’s spelt pizza crust and Soya Kaas mozzarella-style soy cheese (both available at the Honest Weight Food Co-op, by the way).  It’s pretty good pizza, if I do say so myself… but it’s not Giordano’s or Beau Jo’s or Paesan’s.