Robot, Book, Bowling

ROBOT ON THE PHONE: My computer has been funky for the last couple days, or rather, my internet access has been funky for the last couple days. Funky as in, it either won't work at all, or it suddenly quits. So this morning, driven to madness, having already unplugged everything and plugged it back in, and taken the cable that goes from the computer to the modem and reversed it, etc., with no luck, I called the 1-800 number for Charter tech help. I waited patiently as the phone informed me that they were sorry that Gwinnett County, Georgia was having cable issues today; I pressed all the correct buttons and was connected with. . . a robot. The robot was so annoying; she sounded like she'd been trained by the same people at the temp service where I got fired for not being hard sell enough. "I'm sorry," she said when I was rude to her, "I don't understand you. Please say Yes or No." That made me feel bad, but not, you know, that bad. Also, and I hate it when this happens, the robot made me go through all the steps I'd already gone through: namely, unplugging the modem, turning the computer off, replugging the modem, turning the computer back on. Of course this had no effect when I did it on my own (I'm sorry. I don't understand you. When your computer is on again, please say continue is what she said when I told her that, with bonus added four letter words,) but when I did it while being guided by the robot, it worked. So keep your fingers crossed that it keeps on working - yesterday it kept cutting out all on it's merry little own.

BOOKSHOPPING: Since I couldn't get on the internet yesterday, I was forced to lazily read all day. I finished rereading Katherine Kerr's Deverry series and then, of course, I was sad, until I bethought myself of the money still left on my Christmas Barnes & Noble gift card. So I went on down there and, caught up in the madness, I bought Diana Gabaldon's book Fiery Cross because it had finally come out in paperback. I do not labor under the misapprehension, by the way, that the Outlander books are great literature, but utterly absorbing they are, and since I had this vague idea that there was a new one out, I got excited. Well. There is a new one out. It isn't Fiery Cross. Fiery Cross is old, and I think, although I'm 600 pages in and still not completely sure, that I read it before. Certainly there is a hardback copy in this house. It's A's and she dragged it out to show me, after, alas, I had already bent the cover of my new paperback, damn, damn, damn, but it's here. So I decided that I must have missed it, settled into bed to read, and read 520 pages before it started sounding ominously familiar. That just isn't a good sign. I read a lot, a tremendous amount, and when I'm seriously into it I read about 100 pages an hour, but I have an acid test for good writing: I don't forget it. I don't forget much, and while I've forgotten and reread things before, I do think 500 odd pages is a new record for getting that sinking, deja-vuish feeling that oh, you have been here before.

BOWLING: I went bowling with the bloggers on Friday night and oh my god, we had too much fun. It was great but yesterday my legs hurt all day; you know you are pathetically out of shape when bowling leaves you in pain. After the bowling everyone came over here to drink heavily and I think a good time was had by all. I would like to point out that I was not particularly hungover yesterday, although granted, somewhat disinclined to do anything but read. However, I drank way more on Friday night than I did last Monday, yet I was far, far sicker on Tuesday than I was yesterday. The ways of beer are inscrutable, yo, and mysterious.