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This change has been made to restore membership login capability at this weblog. ExpressionEngine is supposed to support multiple domain cookies, but apparently Verve Hosting does not. Or something. Anyway, if you have already set a login cookie for Yippee- Ki- Yay. us, it will now work for this blog as well as for Yippee-Ki-Yay! Member privileges for cats. iz. perverse. will be fully restored as soon as I can test my own login on this post.

INVINCIBLE

This bloody road remains a mystery
This sudden darkness fills the air
What are we waiting for
Won’t anybody help us
What are we waiting for

We can’t afford to be innocent
Stand up and face the enemy
It’s a do-or-die situation
We will be invincible
And with the power of conviction
There is no sacrifice
It’s a do-or-die situation
We will be invincible

(S. Climie/H. Knight; recorded by Pat Benatar)

This song took on a whole new meaning for me after 9/11. In honor of Patriot Day, I’d like to dedicate it to those who protect us both at home and abroad.

We have managed to control our curiosity fairly well over the past week or so, just venturing a cracked-door peek every other day. But tonight, we opened the shed door all the way to see how things were going. The sound caused five little beaks to open up in anticipation of dinner, with a chorus of tiny cheeps. Mama bird was apparently at the grocery store. I tried to get some pictures, but my camera was just not cooperating for some reason—even the best picture I took turned out fuzzier than the little birds themselves. You can still make out some beaks, though. I’ll post it if I can force my stubborn computer to download the pix.

Well, I’m awake now. So is China.

I was out working in the yard, and I went into the tool shed to get a particular implement of destruction. The shed has shelves with attachments on the front that you can hang tools from.

On the shelf behind my desired thingy was a wad of dried-up yard stuff, which looked like it might have been removed from under a lawnmower or something. But on a shelf?? I gave it the fishy eye, decided it was unlikely to house wasps, and gingerly reached for my tool. Whereupon, out from the wad of debris jetted a bird, so fast I couldn’t even tell what color it was. It exited through a space at the back of the shed where one of the doors is loose (apparently the way it had been getting in there all along).

So now I’m concerned that, between my inadvertently getting too close to the nest, and the wake-the-dead squawk I made when the bird zoomed out, I might have scared a mama bird away from her eggs. Is it still hatching season?

Sure would be cool to set up a webcam for Bird Watch ‘06.

Didja ever notice that the people at those overseas “customer service” centers are trained to be both perfectly polite and perfectly unhelpful? (channeling Andy Rooney)

I gave Circuit City another chance, and they blew it again (after extracting more unearned money from me).

Previously on “Circuit City Sucks”: I made an online payment on the 14th, in plenty of time to be credited by the due date, and found they’re charging an “expedited payment fee” for payments which will be on time, but “only” several days before the due date. See rant from March 15th.

Somehow, that online payment didn’t go through, and of course I didn’t find out about it until I balanced the checkbook more than a week later. I immediately made another online payment, previous amount plus late fee, but then called them to find out what happened to the other one. I know I made the payment, because I can see the check number entry when my browser brings up an auto-complete box.

Naturally, they denied all knowledge of this earlier payment. I was reeeeeally nice anyway, and asked if they could see from their records that I’d been a good customer and always paid on time; they said yes. I asked if they would forgive one late fee, given the circumstances, but the guy (without even faking an apologetic tone) said they go strictly by the book. Against my better judgment, I even asked if they would forgive the fee if I opened the account back up: Nope. Still being reeeeally nice, I said that I regretted that they did not value me as a customer, and that this whole episode was leaving me with a very bad feeling about the whole company. You can guess his response: “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Well, at least I have succeeded in warning over 350 people to date about the “expedited payment fee”, according to the views counter on my post at clarkhoward.com. And my spleen is a little bit vented. But the frustrating thing is, I am quite sure Circuit City does not give a crap about customer complaints, because there are tons of them out there! I can only hope that eventually, enough people will vote with their feet to make a dent in their thus far impenetrable consciousness. Especially since Best Buy has been moving toward more customer-friendly (what a concept) credit card policies.

Last night, Tuesday the 14th, I went online to pay my bill. It wasn’t due until Friday the 17th, and their web site says it takes up to two business days to process a payment. Should be fine, right? But at the top of their payment page, there was a notice about payments on or after the 14th being assessed an “expedited processing fee” of $14.95—essentially a late fee, even though my payment was not going to be late. I called, got the usual call center in Pakistan or wherever (the company administering the cards is Chase), told them about this, and asked them to reverse the charge. They refused. So, I said I wanted to cancel my card. And the guy asks me what my reason for cancelling is (!), and offers me a lower interest rate. I told him that all I wanted was the $14.95, and he refused again. So, I’m done with Circuit City Rewards, and maybe even Chase itself (I have another Chase card, and am going to call and see if they’re going to put this insane policy on it too.)

There are plenty of credit card companies out there (Discover and Citibank are two examples) that give you credit for your online payment right when you make it; as long as it’s in by a certain time on the due date, you’re in good shape. These companies that act like they can’t manage to credit your account for several days are just trying to improve their bottom line with late fees, and that has been a long-standing pet peeve of mine. But this “expedited processing fee” on a payment that according to their own “payment processing” statement would be on time — unbelievable.