Merry Christmas

Christmas from the 90's

'Tis the season

Today is December 21st, 2004. It is the third week of December. It is the official start of winter. When I think of winter, I think of snow. Then I look around and wonder where it is. True, yesterday there was actually some snow and today it was cold enough that it stayed around; unlike past winters when it was more green than spring. I remember when I was a kid we had -20 to -30 degree temperatures and at least one foot of snow on the ground at all times. I was able to make giant-ass snowballs bigger than I was and snowball fights were wars where you had to balance your ammunition/building materials ratio or else you were screwed.

I now digress about a comic I read in the Globe and Mail when I was 15 or 16. There was this kid walking by an old man sitting on his porch. The old man was yelling at the kid saying, "You kids don't know how lucky you are. In my day we had to walk uphill both ways through three feet of snow in the middle of summer to get drugs!" Ha ha. Still makes me smile.

Ofcourse talk about winter inevitably leads to talk about Christmas. Last year I was a real Scrooge. Not literally. I bought presents for everybody, but I didn't feel the spirit of Christmas.
I kept thinking it was too commercialized. Even though I was taking part in making it even more commercialized. If you came by my house on any given day up 'till Christmas, you would've thought we didn't celebrate it. No one put up lights or the tree. The lack of a tree and anything Christmas-related only added to my holiday depression.

This year, however, is different. I'm suddenly full of holiday cheer. I think the biggest difference this year is the weather. It only seems like Christmas to me if there's snow during the holiday. It just doesn't seem the same if there isn't. I hope there will be enough to make a snowman this year.

I'll have pics of what I got my family and what I received this year after Christmas. I should've taken the pics before I wrapped them, but I guess that's a lesson for next year.

Rogers sucks

Over the weekend I was studying at school for my exam tomorrow. I called home to see if someone could pick me up at the subway station so it wouldn't take me an hour to get home. The phone rang twice before and automated voice mail picked up telling me that my cell phone service was cancelled because of non-payment. I found this odd because I had set up pre-authorized payment from my credit card in September.

When I got home I called them. The representative told me that my service was cancelled because my invoices were being bounced back to Rogers; and that was because the postal code of the address they were being sent to was slightly different from my actual postal code. He put me on hold twice while finding out this information.

He ended up restoring my service, but gave me another number to call to fix the potal code problem. I called it immediately after only to have the automated voice mail tell me to call back
during regular business hours.

Now here's something you should remember when dealing with voice mails that have a long list of options. If all you want to do is skip the electronic bullshit and speak to a real person, just press zero. It's a default built into the system that bypasses all the other options and puts you in line with a customer service representative.

So on Monday, I call them again. The rep. told me that the postal code was slightly different and that it should be changed. She put me on hold while she sent off the right forms and what-not.

I should mention now that this isn't the first time this has happened. Last year the same thing happened with my sister's phone. When my contract is up I'm switching over to Bell. I've never had this problem with them.

In the end, everything's fixed. I didn't ask them to credit me back the time I'd lost because it was only a couple days. And it's exam time. I'm not going to be calling up anyone to hang out anytime soon.

Hypocrisy is me

This is being posted not 15 minutes after I said I wouldn't use such things as bloggers. I didn't feel the need to post stuff about my day that I wouldn't even tell real life people much less online people. Then I thought of it as an outlet for things pent up inside. Like a diary or a journal , if you will. I don't intend for people to read what I write, but that's out of my control.