the radio business sucks

i'd forgotten that WGMS got bought out. WGMS is, er, was the classical music station i streamed during the day. not the best, but it was the local one. so i listened. no more.

about 20 minutes ago, it suddenly became a crappy classic rock station. i hate this. i can deal with stations changing ownership and thus format. but why the hell do they have to change the format in the middle of the fucking day? i'll never understand this. what if i listened in the car, and suddenly the station is playing different music on the afternoon commute than it was on the morning drive? it's confusing and rude.

anyway, fuck you new owners, for putting yet another classic rock station on the air. bastards. i'm back to streaming from king FM. so what if i get the weather and news from seattle? at least i get good music.

hey, it actually snowed!

not much, mind you. about an inch and half. but it still makes me happy, even if it's unlikely to last past today. now it actually looks like winter outside my window.

looks a wet snow too. perfect for snowballs...

another perk of telecommuting

i can make fresh scones in the afternoon, when the mood strikes.

i fucking hate comcast

dear fucking god, how can one company be this fucking incompetent? not only have they just now, finally, cancelled my service in connecticut (that was supposed to be shut off in august, mind you). not only have they just now, finally, refunded the money they've been stealing from me since then. but to top it off, they fucking charged me for an un-returned converter box. brain-addled incompetent assholes.

see, i wouldn't mind that charge, except that i returned the fucking box. problem is, i returned it in maryland. and god forbid any of the local offices communicate. at all.

so, i call the customer service number and am informed that get this resolved i have to fax their billing department my receipt. why, i ask, do i have to fax your company my copy of the receipt you gave me? don't you have that information? i think i melted the poor dimwit's brain with that. see, she couldn't help me, because it was the national help line. uh, what? there is no central customer database for your company?

useless, useless, useless people. in all the times i've called, i've spoken to just one competent person. it's fucking ridiculous.

it's gerald ford's fault...sorta

normally, i'm not one to speak ill of the dead, let alone blame them for anything. today's production issue, however, is entirely gerald ford's fault.

why? because he died. near a holiday. and they had his "national day of mourning" yesterday. thus, the stock market treated yesterday as a holiday. right after a holiday. after a weekend. this is a problem, because it wasn't an offical holiday, and therefore not in the holiday table that a certain bit of code i once wrote references to see if prices exist for any variable funds on a particular date.

last friday is the most recent date that has prices. were yesterday listed as a holiday in the table, the code would loop back to friday. since it wasn't, we error out.

how then, is this ford's fault, instead of the fault of whomever is supposed to update the holiday table? because he decided to die at year-end. when all the year-end financial processing jobs are running. so no one was was about to change tables in the middle of that, lest it screw up something.

damn you gerald ford! even from beyond the grave, you strike at me!

EDIT: 12/5 as claude notes, it's actually nixon's fault. or spiro agnew's.

my apologies

for turning on word verification. i hate it (mostly because it's a bit buggy), but the spam bots have found me. so there it is.

happy new year

joy. back at work. where's my coffee?

it's, well, not amazing...interesting, how quickly accustomed one gets to not working when you take a week off. though i think it's not so much the having to work that is undesirable, as it is having to turn the alarm clock back on. that just sucks; i hate those things.

anyway, hope the holidays were enjoyed by all.