I don't like Mondays

Our internet connection conked out sometime this morning. It was working fine at around 7am when I first got up. Then at midday, when I sat down to check email and the flist etc, there was no connection to be had. DB phoned comcast, who talked him through everything he'd tried already *snerk*, then informed him it must be something that cannot be repaired by talking. Hence an appointment was made. For Wednesday. Are you fucking kidding me, comcast? You better deduct two days of service from the next bill. Two days without internet? I don't think so. thankfully, savvy daughter whispered to me which connection is hijackable, so that's how we're online right now. I don't think it affects anyone; the neighbourhood all go to sleep by about 10.30pm.

But of course, the one day I'm not online all the time is the day the excitement happens *grumbles*. The sshg_exchange has revealed all its culprits of this latest round here. It's been an awesome one!

First of all, I must thank inspired_ideas for the awesome art for me. I have been very lucky in every exchange I've participated, and now every time I see the moon, I will think of this wonderful piece of art. Thank you, inspired_ideas!

I can now finally thank all the awesome people who were more or less voluntarily involved in my writing No Music More Enchanting.

Without shiv5468, scatteredlogic, and ginny_weasley31, there wouldn't be an exchange. You mods are purely made of awesome!

Without sshg316, there wouldn't have been the prompt that resulted in NMME. Thank you, my friend, for writing a prompt that was tailor-made for me! *glomps*

The story would be full of plot holes without the skills of little_beloved's alpha reading skills, lacking commas in the right places and grammatical errors without the eagle eye of southernwitch69. Thank you, my dear friends, for turning this work into something legible! *glomps you both*. Also a big thank you to shalimar1981 who was literally standing by to answer any questions I might have about Munich, since the last time I visited there was 19 years ago, and my memory isn't all that good. :-)

I still have quite a few exchange stories to read; two colds and RL aren't that conducive to reading leisurely. If I haven't left a review, I haven't read it. But I'm looking forward to reading them. There've been quite a few gems in there, and the art this round has been pretty amazing, too.

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First of all, before I forget, and while the internet connection is working, thank you dickgloucester for the tip to mandolin the potatoes and baking them at a lower heat over a longer time!
It worked absolutely perfect! About a pound of potatoes, spread over a jar of home-made sauerkraut, with a bit of cream with spices added, in the oven at 250F over a good two hours. Both sauerkraut and potatoes turned out absolutely perfect.

And belated and nearly belated birthday wishes to elfarren and a_bees_buzz! I hope you've had wonderful birthdays and may this year be the best yet!

I am srsly grumbling at comcast right now. I know they have a fairly decent reputation, which is why we went with them when we moved here. And aside from the occasional storm-related outage, we've had no problems. Although frankly, if I headed a company, I'd insist on crediting a day's worth of internet access each time it conked out for whatever reasons, but alas. That's why I don't own a company I guess. They still insist they never did cut us off, however, tonight, the internets came back, but demanded us to download some software. Naturally, I scoffed at that, seeing that we have wireless and both the iMac and the macbook pick up any connection without downloading software when it's a wireless one. DB downloaded it on his laptop, kept getting error messages, and eventually gave up. An hour later, yahoo IM on the iMac coughed some and suddenly told me I have new email. Yup, suddenly, we all were online again. Now isn't that funny. At some stage yesterday morning, after 7am and before 12.30pm, DB phoned comcast to downgrade the TV. When we moved and were new to comcast, we had this special offer, like x number of tv channels plus internet for a very low amount, like $75 a month or something like that. Then, six months later, we were suddenly charged $150 a month for the same package. It took us a while to make up our minds, but seeing as the only time we watch tv is when there are tornadoes about, it really isn't worth paying that amount. So finally, DB phoned them to downgrade. Only to be told that if we subscribe to only the very basic package, it's going to cost us $20 more than if we subscribe to the next package up because the very basic one involved an additional $15 for internet access. WTF? Okay, so we took the package that works out cheapest for us, somewhere around $48, which includes the internets and a few tv channels we never watch. An hour after that phone call, we lost our connection. And how strange is it that it's back now, after hours, but well before the technician is due to turn up to "check out and repair" our connection??? /rant

I've had enough of Memphis for the moment, so Sara and I will be going to Little Rock tomorrow. JK. She's got tickets to see some rock band and I'm in need of a change of scenery. :-) I should have wireless internet at the hotel, yay!

ETA: Someone pointed out that I'm thoroughly ignorant of so called music... So I'm attempting to put it right here: The bands she is going to see are: Breaking Benjamin*, Three Days Grace, and Seether. Of which Breaking Benjamin are the bestest. *hmph*