Thursday, March 30, 2006

late at night

Three Cheers for Surgery!

The surgery, it is scheduled. April 28th…or perhaps the week before. His PA said that he might move it up a week. Doesn’t matter to me. I told him he had from the 15th of April, until the end of the month. We have cheapie concert tickets (Better Than Ezra & Sister Hazel) on the 13th, and Leigh-Ann’s brother & wife and my cousins and their son will be here around the 10th of May, so I should be healed by then.

The Lortabs stopped working for me (4 weeks of not being able to take anything else because of the injections, left me with damned tolerance for them), so I got a new prescription of Combunox. I looked it up and it sounds better. I much prefer Advil with my narcotics over Tylenol, and I think it’s safer, too. Tylenol never works for me. Plus, I asked him for a prescription for patches for my bladder - Oxytrol, until the surgery. He had no idea what Oxytrol was. I made them look it up and prescribe it. I won’t get any of the meds until Monday or Tuesday because Oxytrol is rare and Combunox is Sched II and they don’t have it. It’s a busy, probably pain inducing weekend, so I’ll be glad to get new meds at the end of it. Tomorrow we’re going to a Wrangler’s game with Helly and her fiancé, Alan, who I met through Nancy’s blog, and then the weekend is the Glass/Bead Expo. All of that ambling kills me.  But, I only have to wait until Tuesday for higher strength meds.

I was warned that I could die, be paralyzed, lose bladder control, etc. Dying, that doesn’t bother me.  He also said that the surgery might not work if the nerve is too damaged. I’m hoping that since I got a little relief from the first injection, there’s some hope of a successful surgery. He said, “Are you sure? You don’t want to just live with it?” No way. I can’t even grocery shop without pain at the end. At 41, I don’t want to “just live with it” because it’s making me grow out of my clothes. I can’t do any exercise because I can’t move after even picking weeds for five minutes. I must admit, I’m a tad excited about the physical therapy and exercise afterwards. I can’t wait to fit into my old clothes. Even my old fat clothes would make me happy for a while.

The price? Something I don’t even want to think about. I’ll call the day after I get the bill and make payment arrangements.  I’ve already got a $6000 injection(s) bill here and a $400+ MRI bill.  Fun, fun, fun.

Saturday, March 25, 2006

lunch time

Mildly Motivating

Flickr Toys are fun.

Friday, March 24, 2006

early evening

Pandora - My Mistress

When I tried Pandora’s music program, I was intrigued.  It was fun to find new artists, even though I couldn’t pick exactly what music I wanted to hear.  My first ten hours were free (they now have a free, ad-supported version), then I joined for a small sum.  After a few months, I cancelled, not because I didn’t like it, but because I wasn’t really using the service that much.  Not long after I cancelled, I received an email from Tim Westergren (well, me and probably tens of thousands of other people) giving me an additional 9 months of the paid service, for free.  Now that, THAT is good customer service.  And when I had a problem with my account (ugh, case sensitive logins), I wrote to him, even though I know he must be a busy busy guy, but his email address was one that I had handy.  Unlike Yahoo!, the founder of Pandora wrote back to me, and within 24 hours my problem was fixed.

Just to spite MusicMatch, when my free Pandora subscription is up, I’ll pay for a new one.  And look, on the bottom of my right sidebar, you can see the songs I’ve marked as favorites.  What’s weird is that I don’t own a single album by any of those artists, except Yaz - it was just a way to keep track of interesting songs by people I’d mostly never heard of before.  And, I’m angry at MusicMatch, so I’m advertising Pandora because they’re cool and nice.  I’d try to get a job with them…if I had any sort of qualifications whatsoever.  Since I can’t, everyone go to Pandora and use their service.  If you like it, which you probably will, toss them a few bucks for a subscription…to spite Yahoo for ruining MusicMatch’s customer service.

early evening

Idiot of the Day - Yahoo Customer Service

Once upon a time, I joined a really cool music program - MusicMatch.  I’m sure you’ve all heard of it, but you never knew about my deep and (I thought) undying love for MusicMatch and its “On Demand” service where I could choose practically any artist I wanted and I could listen to their music.  I don’t have an iPod and most of my music listening is done at my computer, so MusicMatch was the perfect service for me.  They even had really fabulous customer service.  Over the past three years (wow, time sure flies, I had no idea I signed up that long ago), I’ve had a couple of technical problems and they were always resolved quickly & politely, by email.  Because, after all, they are an online only company - it makes sense that email would be their main form of contact because they know that every single one of their customers is using their service…online.

Okay, the previous paragraph was the good about MusicMatch.  Now, the bad.  They were taken over by Yahoo.  Yahoo has TERRIBLE customer service, and Leigh-Ann and I have had several different complaints with them over the years, so it’s not something new.  Their customer service was terrible for their web hosting, for their fantasy sports (the fantasy sports programs themselves are fine) and now for MusicMatch.  That’s one reason I worried when they bought Flickr and wanted to force people to log in with Yahoo ids.  I have a log in, I don’t need to change it to a Yahoo one.

A couple of weeks ago my bank decided to send me a new ATM card, which I didn’t want.  My card wasn’t expired, I wasn’t having a problems with it, and I have a bunch of things that automatically charge to that account.  Clearly, I didn’t remember every single one of them since VirginMobile threatened to cut me off, as did TiVo…and MusicMatch DID cut me off.  Unlike Virgin & TiVo, MusicMatch completely reset my account when I added the new credit card number; meaning, my subscriptions that I’ve had for over THREE YEARS were gone.  I’m pretty sure I was grandfathered in for certain prices.  Anyway, they apparently wanted me to sign up as a new customer, which I thought was ridiculous.  So, I filled out the customer service form on their website, detailing my problem and asking them what I should do.  Really, there was a form, set up for customers such as myself, to ASK THEM QUESTIONS.  But, I should’ve known that after Yahoo took over, the pitiful “call us” response was forthcoming.  I’m not sure why they think I want to sit on hold, after I’ve already written my questions…AS…THEY…ASKED, on THEIR form.

This is the response I got to my very specific email:  You can contact the Musicmatch Billing Support department Monday through Friday, 5AM to 5PM Pacific time (GMT -08:00), via telephone at (888) 814-2524. If all our representatives are busy and your call is not received, please try again during a period of lower call volume, such as the afternoon on later days in the week.  I’m supposed to sit on hold to get customer support (remember, I’ve been a customer for three years), for an online service?  Oh Yahoo, why do you have to be so crappy?  I will not call you.  I will not call any company who has email and does business online.  I don’t like to make phone calls and I think email is the perfect invention, communication at any hour of the day or night.

So, Yahoo!!!!!!!, if you don’t write back and solve what should be a simple and expected problem (other people get new credit card numbers too, no?), I’m not going to subscribe again.  My love is fickle and I hold a grudge.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

mid-afternoon

Leafs Discovery

I realized something today - I’m not really a Leafs fan.  I’m a Tie Domi fan (or Voldemort), and it isn’t much fun watching when he isn’t playing.  Yeah, I like Darcy Tucker, Ponikarovsky reminds me of my nephew, Tellqvist is a nice story of a second string goalie getting a chance, but even though the last game was fast and pretty good, I didn’t enjoy it that much.  Tonight’s game will be the same, but main concern is how well my fantasy hockey players will do.  My apologies to the true Leafs’ fans out there.  I’m glad that baseball season will be starting soon.  Even though I haven’t watched the Dodgers much in recent years, they’re still my team, no matter who the players are.  I miss the Yeager, Garvey, Lopes, Russell, Cey infield, but it didn’t make me want to stop watching the whole team when the players were different.  Sure, I was really mad last year when my first round fantasy pick, Eric Gagne, got injured, but now I’m excited to see him play again this season.  Plus, Nomar - a cool and interesting trade…and Mia Hamm is pretty cute.