Lost and Found

Usually things like "lost weekends" are forgotten relics of your past. In my case, though, I seem to have lost a week or so in advance.

Don't ask me why, but I'm convinced that October is over at the end of this week. Maybe it's because I have the latest in my monthly series of Watkins Glen Appearances From Hell this Friday (those are set for the last Friday of the month), but still. There's a full weekend and the better part of a workweek with a 10 at the front of it, and I seem oblivious to it.

Yesterday was Weird Al's 48th birthday, which makes him a bit more than two weeks older than I am. In response to a post about it (a very kind soul who said "48 isn't old";), I thanked the poster with the tag line:

Love,
47 for another week-and-a-half

The hell I am. I was closer to 2½ weeks short of that millstone when I wrote that, and still am now. I have a possible trip to the NYC area, not this weekend or next, but the one after that. It's not any sudden onrush of winter causing it- the weather this month has ranged from seasonal temps, at worst, to damn hot at times as recently as Monday- and the Halloween obsession this year, though not as wiped out as last year's, is still subdued in comparison to some prior years (though I did walk the dogs past a party of Flintstones the other night).

::The light dawns::

Sorry, Erin, but maybe 48 really is old.

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Helpful hint for any regular listeners to the Kevin Smith Smodcast:

This week's episode, titled "Jersey Justice League" or somesuch? Hit play, then move your time-slidebar past the 20-minute mark. Especially if you are, have been or are planning on eating. 

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Best costume idea of the season (though still coming in behind the immortal Hamburger Helper Helping Hand costume of some renown from a few years back):

A child of a Friend of this page is going as a vacuum.

Just make sure not to attach the hose to the exhaust end, or there'll be candy all over the neighborhood.

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In the shameless political development of the week:

Giuliani announces support for Boston in a certain sporting event I promised not to mention

What a shameless shill for New Hampshire voters. And this only days after the debate where he made fun of Hillary for her own ephemeral allegiances.

All I can say to you, dude, is this: Get out of my damn yard.

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Back to make sense of this desk, possibly getting a clue about what month it is.

One.... Cingular Sensation. Or whatever their name is this week.

After months of putting off the task, our three-member family is fully cellularized again.

Eleanor had the newest and least-complained-about mobile phone in the home, while the others ranged from mostly dead (mine- lacking any display function whatsoever) to missing (Emily's). Next week (oops, beginning of the following week) is the anniversary of the emergency trip to Florida that turned us into a two-cell household, and that, in the mobile business, means Free^* New Phones With New Two-Year Agreement, so I made the journey at the end of the day to the local AT&T emporium to replace the dead and the fallen.

Close to two hours later, I was almost laying there among them.

I picked a good time- right around quitting time beats the afterwork rush from downtown and points east- and I made our selections, activated both new phones, and agreed on prices and terms by pretty close to 5:05. One credit card swipe would seal the deal.

Or not.

That swipe took out the entire terminal being used by my (very nice, and totally blameless) Wireless Sales Associate.  We stared at frozen screens (her whole terminal, my little "sign in the little box here" swipe-card display) for many minutes before realizing, yes, the cellular bed done got shit again.  In a store full of the hottest new iPhones and Razrs and Blacks-berry available for the customers to buy, the poor customer service reps have to use a mishmash of old computer parts (mine being stuck with a turn-of-the-century Cherry keyboard, her co-worker a Compaq) to activate and implement the back-office transactions enabling them.

When it was clear that Cherry wasn't going to be popped any time tonight (after a second attempt to sign up the transaction, requiring two brand new phones to be unwrapped, activated and, in the case of mine, reattached to my SIM card), we moved one terminal down to Compaqland, unwrapping a third Emilyphone in 45 minutes and finally, FINALLY, getting the deal signed up and paid for.

At one point, I heard my WSA and her manager talking about the problem, and I overheard the Sekrit Nam of AT&T Wireless's state-of-the-art in-house operating system for transactions of this kind:

It's called Opus.

My associate was probably too young, but her manager had already admitted to having been married, and was probably old enough to get the reference: You realize, don't you, that your computers are driven by a system named for a dysfunctional penguin?

I'll be charging my new Motorola Razr all night. In my anxiety closet.

(Thanks, as always, to elbiesee, this time for the icon:)

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^* "Free," in mobilespeak, means "slightly cheaper than the cost of a firstborn child." We did get free swag in exchange for the delays, so I really can't complain about it too much.