Holy Customer Service!

In keeping with my quest to bring back the music, I decided to set up an iTunes account. I was skeptical about putting my credit card number 'out there', so I came up with the idea of buying a gift card from a 'real life' store, and then using it as my payment option when setting up the account. It seemed like a great idea, until I wasn't able to make it happen.

I entered all the pertinent information, but the card was deemed invalid. I tried it a day later, and got the same response. I called the store that I bought the card from, and they assured me that they had activated it. I tried several more times, but no dice. Finally, I set up an account using my credit card, and then tried to redeem the gift card after the fact. Kinda defeated the purpose of the gift card, but I wasn't going to give up on the $25 already spent. When I attempted to redeem it, I was informed that the card was already redeemed. WTF? Great. I was already anticipating the hassle of dealing with customer support.

I sent off an e-mail, and was informed that my case would be dealt with within 48 hours. Surprisingly, it was! Somehow, probably during one of my supposed failed attempts at setting up the account with the gift card only, I managed to create an account under a different user name. This meant that I set up two accounts, one with the gift card, and one with the credit card. All in all, I would say that this was my fault. I felt stupid, and sent back a note saying, "Thanks, whoops, sorry!", and then went on to redeem the gift card. Apple done good, as far as I was concerned.

Today, I got another e-mail from the same person at Apple's customer support, thanking me for the opportunity to assist me. Then as a show of good measure, she told me that she is giving me a credit on my account for one free song download. Good measure??? Really? Wasn't I the one who messed up? Then I looked for the credit on my account, and saw that they had given me five credits! Five free songs because I'm too much of a tool to set up an account properly!

Then, I got another e-mail from another person, exclaiming that they were so pleased that they successfully sorted out this matter for me.

I was reminded of the self-satisfied doors from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:

“All the doors in this spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.”

As the door closed behind them it became apparent that it did indeed have a satisfied sigh-like quality to it. “Hummmmmmmyummmmmmm ah!” it said.

I Got free stuff though, so I'm not complaining.

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It's a good thing that I posted before I went out to dinner last night. We got home at 11, and there was no way I could have strung any words together at that hour on such a full stomach. We had Mediterranean food for lunch, and Indian food for dinner, and it is possible that we combined nations that just don't get along. Needless to say, romance was not to be had. Can't say that either of us found the option too appealing. Today isn't looking good either based on the groaning I'm hearing from the other room. Aren't you glad you asked? I guess you didn't ask. Sorry. Moving right along, today I discovered that my immersion in technology may have irreparably damaged the part of my brain that is supposed to be reserved for the 'real' world.

This morning I took Pumpkin to gymnastics, where the parents always sit in a room upstairs, looking down at the gym where the kids are. We always watch our kids, but we also tend to be distracted by our own, grown-up conversation. Ahhhhh, grown-up conversation........what was I saying? Distraction. Right. During such a distraction, I missed one of Pumpkin's turns on the balance beam. That always makes me feel bad, and really, I should have been paying better attention, but in all honesty, my immediate response was to grab the remote and rewind. I actually felt a moment of frustration when I couldn't do it.

If that wasn't bad enough, I made another similar error while I was talking to another mother. She was griping about how her work Christmas party falls on the same night as another event that is important to her. I actually started saying out loud, "Can't you just record one of them?" I only got as far as "Can't you...", but the fact that I got that far means that I badly need to be spending more time out of doors.

Coming Out of the Dark Ages

In 2002, I moved close to my office. I no longer had a commute worth speaking of. Sometimes there was no time to hear even one song on the radio on my way to work. I lost touch with all the new releases and hits. I lost opportunity to play the music that I already owned. This was the beginning of my musical decline. It only got worse in 2005, when our first born came along, and sapped up much of my free time. Kicking back to some tunes while reading a crappy magazine became something I could only dream of.

Hubby enjoys music, but primarily in passing. He has provided no influence in my musical education, and has never played any tunes around the house. He and I both got into downloading every song from the '80's back in the days of free Napster, and we do have a couple of iPods floating around, but the MP3 collection is getting tired, as we haven't really kept up.

There is an iPod that is designated for me, but it was initially Hubby's, and not actually ever presented to me. I don't entirely know how to reset it and get it up and running, not that I've tried. We also have a Mac, which is an excellent device for organizing music, but I must confess, it has been a bit of a waste thus far. It's really lightweight and small, so it's great for surfing the net while watching TV, but for the most part, we don't (know how to) maximize its potential.

The sad thing is that this is coming from a house that is packed to the rim with the latest technology. Hubby brings it all home, sets it up sometimes haphazardly, loses manuals, and gives me operating instructions on a need-to-know basis. This bugs me because I'm was always fairly savvy when it came to this stuff. Don't get me started on the state of our home theatre. Anyhow, back to the music thing, I've finally decided to deal with it as my life without music is starting to get me down.

I'm starting by loading up every disc I own onto the Mac, getting the iPod up and running, and rolling with it from there. So far there is a heavy slant towards the '90's, but it's a start. It should only be a matter of time before I am inspired to seek out new things once I tire of Blink 182 and The Cranberries.

While I was sitting in the kitchen, loading up some James Brown, I became impressed that a disc that was compiled in 1985 had all the useful information for being organized by iTunes. This is probably small potatoes to the rest of y'all, but it has never mattered to me that CDs have all the behind the scenes information encoded within. I remarked on this to my mother, who made me feel better by saying, "I'm not impressed by any of this computer stuff. The most impressive thing to me is still the fax machine."

Mom, you will not be receiving an iPhone for Christmas.

YEAH TOAST! (I'd cue the song if I knew how)

I am on my fourth toaster oven in approximately six months. The first one was the one that hubby bought ten years ago for $50 or so. It worked, but the LED was broken, and it seemed kind of rinkydink compared to the cooler ones that grace the countertops of some of my friend's homes. It may also have been taking too long to toast, but it is possible that I just perceived that to be the case to justify buying a new one. That toaster has since been given away.

The second one had convection technology, and although I know what convection means, I'm not certain it actually adds value to whatever I'm re-heating. Nonetheless, it was on sale, shiny, and certainly better than the old one, right? At least until it crapped out about a month ago.

I returned the dead one and upgraded to the third one that would undoubtedly be engineered better than the second. It sure looked snazzy! It was almost double the price of the last one but had to be worth it, right? It wasn't until I got it home that I realized that it wasn't convection. I still wasn't sure if that mattered, so I decided to live with it. Unfortunately, the door seemed to be flawed, and if it was jiggled too far to the left, it wouldn't close, so I decided to return this toaster oven as well.

Now I am more rehearsed in toaster ovens than anyone should really have to be. I decided that I should have convection, just because it may one day reveal itself to be something useful to me. I also decided that I had to find one with a better set up than toasters two and three. Both units had three knobs each, which required some sort of adjustment depending on what you were doing. So sad is the person who sets the top knob to "Toast", but leaves the middle knob on "Bake". Such a frustrating start to the day! Both of these units also had another common flaw: THEY SUCKED AT TOASTING! Bells and whistles galore, but all I want is to make my bread a little crunchy without having to preheat and wait ten minutes! Oh, and it would be great if it could be modulated easily so it doesn't burn half of the time!

Toater ovens have become like the appliance version of Murphy Brown's secretary around here. I have now brought home number four. It cost three times the amount of the second one, and has been promised to resolve my other problems. It did a dandy job on the kid's nuggets and fries tonight (don't judge me!), but the true test will be if it can brown my bread in the morning with minimal aggravation.

Yannow, the original one actually did work quite well...