Episode III: Consider This

Whether you loved it or hated it, as long as you saw the movie there's one side of the story you might not be considering, and that is of the movie theater. Digressing this is my first post on here, and I am a concessionist, usher and sometime box office worker with Cinemark 12 in Paducah. Most of us are between 16 and 18, and are just getting out of school. My last day of school this year, conveniently enough, was the 19th, the Thursday that Episode III was released on. After going to see the midnight show (and enjoying every minute of that experience) and going to school that day, I had a 3:00 to 10:30 shift to look forward too. Episode III was showing on 3 screens; putting that in perspective, this was the first time I'd ever seen us get more than two prints of a movie. The extra print was spaced a half hour apart from the others, meaning a longer set, meaning a longer rush for concessions. The general truth is that the 7:00 showtimes are the busiest on any day but Sunday, and the concession stand is busy from 6:30 to 8:00. Now, with all the SW fanboys running around the set's suddenly increased to starting at about 5:00 for the 7:00 movies and not letting up till 8:45, barely giving some of us time for a break. Now repeat this about 20 times and you have the opening weekend. To be blunt, working Episode III was hell. But it was an experience that I'll probably never forget. At the midnight show we had a line of about 1,000 people, stretching from the front door all the way outside, down the entire length of the building, and then turning the corner and going a few hundred more feet. Wow. The rest of the time we had lines from the podium all the way across the lobby, into the arcade, making a loop through the arcade and doubling back the way it came.

This week is posed to be even worse, with The Longest Yard and Madagascar both predicted to break 100 million, in addition to the second week of Episode III. Thankfully I'm not working this weekend; instead I'm going on a cruise to sunny Bermuda. Seems much more preferable.

I'll be on ROM a little bit over the next few days but not much. Send a tell to Nochnoi or just comment if you have anything to say. :)

'Famous Players' Rocks

During the long weekend I was smitten by the Star Wars bug and watched Episodes 1-3. Anyways the heater in our particular room broke down so it was freezing cold but you didn't notice it much once the movie got started and hundreds of sweaty people starting filling the theatre. What was annoying was that halfway through the movie one of speakers broke down and for about 5 minutes there was a noise rivaling fingernails scraping across a chalkboard.

In the end everything turned out okay because one of the managers came in at the end of the film, apologized for the inconvenience and announced that everybody in the audience would be getting a free movie pass!:D

Don't have a lightsaber? How will you defend yourself against the Sith? A site for all you aspiring young Jedi

http://www.howstuffworks.com/lightsaber.htm

Important Safety Information
A lightsaber is not a toy! Keep it out of reach of children at all times. Lightsaber locks are required in most states.
There are two ends to any lightsaber -- one end has the belt ring, while the other end houses the blade arc tip and blade emitter. NEVER point the blade emitter of a lightsaber toward your own body. NEVER look down the "barrel" of a lightsaber, even if you are "sure" it is in safe mode. If you accidentally activate the lightsaber, serious injury could result.

Bell Mobility STILL sucks

Since I couldn't post for the past week because there was something wrong with my computer or something, I'll fill you all in on what happened last Wednesday when I followed up with Bell.

If you remember, I called up on Monday and was told I would hear from a manager in 48 hours to discuss re-signing with Bell. I didn't hear anything, so I called them up.

First, I spoke to someone named Francoise who told me that I couldn't make any changes on my husband's account since the phone isn't in my name. I explained politely to her that the bill comes to both of us (and therefore my name IS on the account). She said that technically the bill was addressed to both of us but the phone is in my husband's name. My brain started to hurt at this point, so I asked her how I could discuss his plan. She told me that I would have to have him call, give his permission to allow me to discuss his plan, then I could call back. GAH!

So, I called my hubby at work (in the middle of a meeting, no less) to tell him to call Bell so I could call Bell. Following this so far?

He called, spoke to someone named Diane and got everything straightened out. He called me back to let me know that I could go ahead with calling Bell back.

I called Bell back and asked to speak to Francoise again, but they couldn't transfer the line to her. Buh? They're the phone company and they can't transfer calls? Whatever.

So I spoke to someone named Ben who was a complete and utter moron. I went through the whole story with him about our car being broken into, that my hubby cancelled the phone and we now need to restart the service again. I also told him that I was told I would hear from a manager within 48 hours. Keep in mind, that after all of this I was rather perturbed. So I nicely, but firmly, asked to speak to a manager. He said he couldn't transfer the call since it was something he could deal with and he would get into trouble for transferring such a call. I told him I understood, but I wanted to speak to the manager since I was promised that call back.

Long story short, he got really nasty with me and threatened to hang up on me. Goooooo customer service! So I beat him to the punch and slammed the phone down. *cough*

I called back and spoke to someone named Wendy who actually *gasp* listened to what I was saying and put me through to a manager. I was probably on hold for about 3-5 minutes before the manager (David) got on the phone. I complained, of course, about how Ben treated me, but he didn't seem to really care.

We discussed the plans, we're not saving a cent, but my hubby wanted to stay with Bell regardless because of their coverage. *shrug*

At the end of the call, I again complained about Ben and David had the gall to say to me "were you rude to him first?" I just sat there staring at my phone in disbelief as we ended the call.

If it were up to me, I would have dropped Bell altogether after that kind of treatment. Oh well, at least he's now got a phone again.

Meh.

My life is nowhere near as exciting as Kroz's so I'll talk about my Dad....

Ever since my dad got his new shoes his feet have been hurting so thinking that he needs new orthorics he visits the podiatrist (foot doctor) to see if anything can be done. Thirty minutes later and after a series of tests, the doctor examines my dad's shoes and announces that he has discovered the problem.... It turns out that my dad had inserted the left orthodic into his right shoe and the right into the left. Doh.

Lianne's prom pictures.

Kroz harassed me into posting prom pictures here.






My date and I.

Lianne

Bell Mobility SUCKS

So, for those of you who have been following the blog lately know that our car was broken into. We got the car back last week and found out that there was $6200 damage. YIKES! Thank goodness for insurance, we only had to pay the $500 deductible.

One thing I forgot to mention in the previous blogs is that my hubby has (well, had) a bad habit of keeping his cell in the car. So while we were waiting for the police to arrive, we obviously didn't touch the car and we were unsure if the cell was stolen. To be safe, he called up Bell and cancelled his cell phone. He was also told that when he reactivates the phone he would get a good deal.

He wanted to reactivate his cell and went into the Bell World store. That's right, Bell isn't just a store, they're a whole world! He talked to the clerk behind the desk and explained what happened and that he wanted to reactivate the account. He currently had a plan that was $25/month for 100 minutes. The clerk, to protect her identity I'll call her "twitbitch" suggested that he could save money by getting a package for $35/month for 200 minutes. Ok, granted he'd double the minutes, but he only needs the cell for emergencies.

He explained to "twitbitch" that he only uses the phone for emergencies and he's never even used the 100 minutes/month as is. He asked her "how would paying $35/month be saving me money when I currently pay $25/month?" She gave him a look like a deer caught in headlights and couldn't form a coherent thought after that. She told him to call up Bell on Monday morning to see if he could get a better deal. Now keep in mind that he's been with Bell Mobility for six years, you would think they would want to keep him happy (or any customer for that matter) since there is so much competition out there.

Anyways, he asked me to call Bell this morning to try to get a better deal than what was offered. So I called up and spoke to another buttmunch who offered him the same deal, but suggested he could save $2/month if he took the $35/month package because he could bundle two of their services. IF he took that package he'd be paying $33/month instead of the $35/month, but that's still more than the $25/month he was previously paying.

I explained to the guy that we were supposed to get a good deal, etc., but it didn't seem to phase him. This guy just didn't seem to get it. Anyways, I asked him to put in a request for a manager to call us to discuss a better package. I also mentioned that I wasn't happy with him, I asked "how are you enticing us to stay with Bell Mobility? We could just go with Fido, Rogers, Telus." to which he had no response and just recited whatever was on his script and said "Is there anything else I can help you with? Thank you for calling Bell."

Yes, thank you indeed.

Hey.. from now i am in... be carefull.i will be listening you :)

Have you heard the jingle?!?

Ohhh... I get to be part of the "once-known-as-*Imm*" board!!! I feel so special! It's even better than that idea to hold a "toe nail painting-ice cream-massage-pizza-how to make balloon animals" party!!!

So life is good, other than no one came to my party but my stuffed Pound Puppy and my hippo... I am having a young-life-crisis, highly considering quitting both my jobs in nursing as well as real estate, and finding something altogether new! I do have high aspirations of going back to school this fall, and at the moment don't really know what to study, so I plan to just get my associates in business to start. *sigh* Is this normal?

My Pound Puppy is named Fred... I named him Fred when I was probably 5 or 6... thought it was the greatest male name in the world! Thank the Lord I did not have the chance to name a child at the time. The other one doesn't have a name. Fred has been through a lot. In tenth grade, my dog at the time (a real one), Pinot, got ahold of Fred one morning when I must've pushed him off the bed (yes, I still slept with him at 16). He tore his face to ShReDs!!!

When I woke up and found it, I bawled for an hour!!! That same day, I took him to a friend's house, whose mother did a lot of sewing. It took her about two weeks to get him back to me, but she did a Dr. Frankenstein job on him, and recreated his face... not quite the best plastic, err cloth, surgeon around, but I had Fred back.

The hippo? Well, he's chenille, and soft... and still nameless. Lost in the void, perhaps? Yes, I am now 23 years old, and still sleep with stuffed animals, but I figure that until something more lively kicks them out, I'll keep it up. Makes me feel loved. ;)

Alas, the bread on my balcony, for those of you who've heard this story, is still there. One of these days I'll buy a broom and sweep it off, but today is not that day. Tomorrow? Not then either.

I worked last night, so I'm going to play ROM for a bit, wear myself out, and get to sleep (with my boys). Aww, damn... just drank my diet cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper from a water jug, and it's poisoned. Manah manah!

I like Kinko, and covet all that is his

That's right. Whether you hate Kinko's or not, sweetheart, I only wish we had such finely-named stores here (point of information, we call them "shops" - we're quaint like that).

It's been so long since I spoke to any of you, you probably thought the rash that is me (lime disease) had finally gone; the last scabs had been picked off, and that little patch of redness that caused so much embarassment at the last pool party you went to had died down.

Well crack out the ointment, Alice, 'cause here I am!


What to say, what to say... Much has happened over the last few months, but I'm going to start with the most exciting and work my way down to the banal.

So the other day, I went to the "store" (I feel so cosmopolitan saying that... It's like boutique, but it only comes in a 24-pack) to pick up some sundries, and moved on by entirely unhindered until I got to the checkout, whereupon I was greeted by a gent, resplendent in his Somerfield teal and navy T-shirt, who could only be described as a troll.

Now, before I continue, I should say that I have absolutely nothing against the troll community per se; indeed, I could well have become a member on physical grounds many a time before now. No; the issue I took with this particular troll was that he was handling my goods.

And he had a head cold. Yes, girls and boys, he sneezed into his hands, and kept on rolling tin after tin of marrowfat peas down the chute into my waiting bag. Being the polite, retiring British type that I am, I said nothing. Now, thankfully, some kind soul (similarly attired, and armed with a roll industrial-strength paper towels) decided to render aid to this poor creature, who seemed utterly perplexed by the entire experience (sneezing, that is, not my visit).

So he tore himself off a slab and blew, before looking up at me enquiringly, before slowly returning his gaze to the tissue, then to the barcode scanner. For one awful moment, I thought he was going to scan it and send it my way, but thankfully the kindly provider of paper towels decided it was break time for our troll, and he hulked off into the cave of wonders at the back before he had chance to do anything untoward with his expulsion.


And that was the most exciting event of the past few months. The rest pales in comparison, though I did enjoy a lovely trip to France to see my mum. Were it not for the fact that I am so horribly, horribly poor, I'd have to say I enjoyed a positively cosmopolitan lifestyle, yet I must confess I took issue with those much-loved champions of the people, customs officers.

Now, it's been a while since I had a good, long look at myself in a mirror, but if someone were to think I had a slightly terrorist look about me, I'd think it a slightly odd comment. But these stalwart sentinels of international peace and goodwill thought either this, or felt a curious attraction to me that they felt could only be slaked by frisking me; rather too briskly for my tastes. Thankfully, I'd remembered to empty my pockets of any offending golf clubs, corkscrews, ski poles, mercury, loaded firearms, gunpowder, throwing stars, spray paint, viral organisms, nitric acid, carbon dioxide cartridges, fiberglass repair kits, pool cues, liquid nitrogen, fertilizers, swimming pool or spa chemicals, pesticides, car batteries and radioactive pharmaceuticals, so we skipped the trip to the small side room, but the damage was done! I was offended! I haven't be called so much as a troublemaker since I flipped off my French teacher in year 8, and now I'm being branded by the British transport police as a supporter of terror? I think not!

But the fun didn't end there. Once on the plane, I and the rest of the passengers were greeted by the pilot, who sounded like a bad Bond villain. This didn't inspire confidence. Add on to this fact that the steward looked like our aforementioned troll, this usually happy flyer was feeling decidedly uncomfortable.

But an hour later we landed, safe, sound and entirely without incident (doubtless due to the customs officials' sterling work) in the sleepy hamlet that is Dinard airport. After walking across a mildly undulating tarmac runway to "passport control" (a Frenchman with a pillbox hat and a squint), I arrived in "baggage handling" (a dwarven runway of rollers that suitcases were thrown down), where I saw a wonderful sign:

This is luggages belt

only dangerous for children

In a moment of recklessness, I considered leaping on it and claiming that, as I'm not a child, I should be perfectly safe. Thankfully, my British sensibilities kept me from it, while simultaneously allowing a decidedly fragrant Frenchwoman to push in front of me in the queue. And I claim I can't multitask!

Anyhow, after arriving, the story gets decidedly less interesting, and it's 4am, so I must away. I'll be back in the summer, when my publisher is very kindly paying for my internet connection, but until then, I hope to make one or two additions to this fair blog.


With love and parsley,



Gothos.

Drip Drip Drip...(part deux)

So, the refrigerator repairman came up to the apartment Friday afternoon to take a look at the leak (which of course had stopped completely by the time he arrived).

He opened up the refrigerator door, saw it wasn't leaking and said 'well there's nothing I can do unless it's still leaking', closed the door and left. I'm sure I had a pretty dumbfounded look on my face as he walked out the door.

In a way I can kind of understand that, but you'd kind of think he'd check things out. He said he'd be back if it started up again, but he said that it looked like the fridge corrected itself. Since when is a fridge like a borg ship (in that it fixes itself?) Oh well.

I decided to keep the bowl in the fridge just in case it started leaking again. Well, lo and behold, on Saturday morning when I went to make breakfast, the once-empty bowl was now full of ice...again. It looks like we're going to have to have him come back...again.

The weird thing is, the leak stopped once more.

Is the refrigerator repairman a) as useful as tits on a bull, or b) as useful as a screen door on a submarine? You decide...vote now!

I Hate Kinko's

Since Kroz just posted something about how miserable she was... let me add my story to hers.

The activity involved putting together 25 CARE packages, baking, and - my contribution - a booklet with assorted advice to graduating seniors, from our young adults group. So I spent the whole afternoon putting it together, and finally decided around 6:30pm that I wouldn't make the martial arts banquet. Bummer, since I really wanted to go...

But anyway, stayed and finished that. Joy and I went to Kinko's at about 9pm, because that was the only place we could get photocopies that late. I wanted to make it to OfficeMax, but they closed at 9pm... boo. We got there, and I was given the runaround. The guy behind the counter quoted me one price, gave me some completely fictitious prices (7c a copy? Since when did Kinko's offer 7c a copy?), then I noticed the sign said something else, confronted the other guy (he said it was 10c a copy).

So I began my photocopying. After one bit where I figured out that I had flipped two sides of one page of the booklet, we started photocopying... well, to make a long story short, I jammed the photocopier three times, and once, when I wasn't looking, it started photocopying in blue and cyan, and switched to cardstock, and then went back to white. What the random? (As JW would say.)

The guy told me he could credit my account. But he didn't tell me NOT to print a receipt, so I went to go print a receipt so that we could keep an accurate record. Well, guess what? Their software made it so that he couldn't post a refund. So, instead, he gave me a bunch of their 25 copy passes and said he wouldn't charge me for three of them. Great.

I then moved to a second copier, and started photocopying. Well, one thing I noticed is that when it finished with 25, it stopped photocopying - and would photocopy the last page as single-sided, if that's what it took. Frustrating. I then managed to jam the card inside the reader, where the copier said "insert card" and the card reader said "insert card," but no amount of pressing the button would allow me to get the card back, because, of course, it was already in the reader.

Now understand that I had been a big stress-ball all afternoon because I wanted to make the banquet, and then I wanted to make it to the copy center at OfficeMax before it closed, but I had to be patient and so was stuck with Kinko's. Then one must understand that these photocopiers are just like the ones that we have at school, and I know that if all things went well, I should not have had this problem, and we would have been out in about fifteen minutes.

It took us a whole hour to finish photocopying 200 double sided pages. ONE HOUR.

At the end, I was so frustrated and relieved that I screamed outside of Kinko's, just to get that cathartic experience of expressing my abject horror of the way we were treated, the cost, the completely idiotic experience, and me with no punching bag...

Drip Drip Drip...

So, for those of you that read the last blog entry know how my hubby and I spent our weekend...

At noon I was getting my things together for work and ran into the kitchen to fix my lunch. I noticed at the bottom of the fridge that there was a bit of ice. I thought that was weird and simply cleaned it up. I closed the fridge and had a little something to eat.

When I came back to the kitchen to put something away in the fridge, I had a mini-flood going on in there. Water was continuously pouring out of the top of the fridge and I had to call my super.

He came up about 10 minutes later and said 'looks like your fridge is on the fritz'. I held my tongue and didn't respond with the ever popular and sarcastic 'no, really?'. We're not too sure what's going on but I cleaned out the fridge and stuck a bowl under where it's leaking.

The super told me that we're either going to get a new fridge or perhaps it's just a simple point of turning a screw or something inside. Who knows.

So as the old saying goes 'bad things always happen in threes'. I guess if you guys don't see me later I was probably trampled by water buffaloes.