Random Friday

I have spent the entire week, but several hours of that just today, trying to resolve a PayPal issue when THEY decided my TOTALLY LEGITIMATE payment from my REGULAR client hadn't been authorized.

John, Mary, and Bill, you're idiots.

Candy, you rock hard. Thank you.

I also ended up yelling at the call center for my bank. One way in which PayPal is full of idiots is that when I try to add a bank account, I get an error message that First Name has to be only letters, numbers, and spaces. THERE IS NO FIRST NAME FIELD. The third person I talked to at PayPal, I mentioned this to him. He watched me try to do it, and told me to find out from my bank exactly how their name is written for online transactions. So I did.

And they told me I need to put in TD Bank. Apparently, Commerce Bank is now TD Bank. I expressed surprise at this, because I'd received no notice of a change in hands. She insisted that it was in my statements for months, and that at the main web page it tells me this, and forwards me to TD Bank. I told her no, it doesn't, and that I use commercepc.com and have been for 10 years or more. She kept telling me that at commerceonline.com it does. I ended up getting kind of snarky at her.

Then I got off the phone and checked my statements. No notice of a change. I went to commerceonline.com and sure enough, there's TD Bank, endorsed by Regis and Kelly, no less (yay). The site looks exactly like what I'm used to, except it's green instead of red and blue.

Really mad now, I called back. Graham, the supervisor, in his yummy accent, fell all over himself apologizing for the incorrect information. Commerce Bank HARRISBURG hasn't changed, only Commerce Bank of NEW JERSEY has, and the dumbass who took my call should have been able to see my location, even without account info. He calmed me down and I even did them a favor by pointing out that I could access my account info through both commercepc.com and TD Bank. He found out it shouldn't be that way and won't be soon, so I should just continue on as usual.

Me = vindicated.

Except that I still can't add an account to PayPal.

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NaNo is getting away from me. Between nonfiction and editing jobs and PayPal issues and meetings this week, I've written very little. I HAVE managed to write every day (before today), which is good, and I'm technically 950 words above the NaNo goal. But I'm about 7,000 words behind my personal goal. Blergh. If you look at my NaNo Buddies list, you'll see that three of them are way ahead of me. I have a feeling they're pretty gleeful about it, too. :) Two are close behind and probably about to pass me.

I am, however, ahead of CE Murphy. Considering how much she writes and that she's a big-name published author, that's kind of cool. Considering she's also revising one of her books, and that she's written nearly 400,000 words so far this year...well, my accomplishment seems to sink to the "petty" level. LOL

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I don't have much to say about last night's Supernatural. It was one of those episodes that's only okay though there's nothing really wrong with it. It doesn't invite extensive debate, which is good, because we need episodes like that. It was fun and yummy and yielded two supreme brother moments, and that's enough for me.

Random thoughts:

1. Sam's voice nearly killed me. I don't know if he had a cold, or if his voice is maturing to match his face, but guh. I'm not eager to watch it again, but I'll turn it on in the background so I can hear him.

2. I knew Dean was lying! My heart breaks for him for being so alone, and also for Sam for being unable to help him. There was a moment when he said "the things I saw...there aren't words." I think he was going to say "the things I did" and stopped himself. It was one of the most honest moments they've ever had together, and I loved it.

3. The existential suicidal teddy bear was hilarious. Number One couldn't stop giggling. That was helped along by the tiny bench the boys sat on outside the liquor store. Oh, boys. Gigantic boys.

4. There were some flaws, which I was surprised to see from Ben Edlund. I wanted a twist where the hot chick had wished for the geek to love her instead of the cliché we had. The resolution of the wishes seemed off. Pulling the coin from the well reversed them, but they didn't demonstrate consistency. Sam was easy--he'd been dead, so there wasn't anything about the wish for him to remember. Mom and Dad were back from Bali, but sunburned, so it wasn't like their wish never happened. Ditto the bear with the stuffing coming out of his head. But the hot chick didn't remember anything. She returned exactly to what she'd been before, except a month had gone by that she doesn't remember. And the bullies remembered Todd turning over the truck, but does Todd remember having superpowers?

5. On the other hand...there were little things I loved, too. Dean using his own research-fu to find the origin of the coin, while Sam confronted the invisible boy. I like when they switch around their regular roles. "But why am I here?" "For tea parties!" They consistently cast little kids who tickle me endlessly. Dean trying to counsel the kid, sympathizing even though he fully admitted he didn't know what it was like to be bullied, and then playing victim and being all smug when it worked. All in all, I think the good outweighed the less good. This ep will probably be in the bottom half for the season, all told, but that's not an indictment.

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I have to rake leaves tomorrow. Can I tell you how much I really don't want to do that? Mostly because they all seem to have fallen into our neighbor's yard this year, much more than usual. I don't mind raking them from his yard--they are our trees--but he doesn't clean up after his dogs. Which I'm not judging, really--it's his yard--but it gets so bad there's nowhere to step that's not poop-covered. So I'm thinking I won't be touching most of those leaves this year.

*sigh*

Have a good weekend, everyone!