Yay-ish
Somewhere between listening to someone singing about his hatred for cooperate magazines and confining my hatred for long unsuccessful conversations with Matlab, I got an email from Karen telling me she's got the tickets to the zoo. She signed off with a 'yay'. It's not hard to make me smile, and little things like that did the magic. I decided next weekend would be a good time to visit, a week till my guy boss came back and the week after the gal boss wants me to meet with someone called Patricia. I wouldn't mind takine more days off and work from Karen's but there's not much in Calgary, it's very similar to Edmonton except... a nicer city. I won't have my bike with me so I can't go for bike rides, and the LRT map confuses me. Sure, I'm terrible with directions, but that's what maps are for. I shouldn't have to read the sun and the stars to get on an LRT.
Anyways, I was trying to buy bus tickets online before the end of today so I can get the 7-day advance discount. Naturally, something has to go wrong with the online booking system as I was trying to do it before I go out for cheap movie with my roomate. I called up customer service when I was in the car, and while the lady was cheerful and helpful ("I hear that more than 20 times a day hon, that online thing just doesn't work, I don't know why, we're the company here and we're not online.. yes, you're talking to a real person..."), 20 minutes into the conversation, (after winding up the car window coz she can't hear me, removing 'Apt' and fixing the exact placement of '-'s and spaces on my address because there was a mismatch with my credit card billing add.), she told me there was a server error. All right, it's not a big deal, I can always visit some other weekends, or just pay extra 20 dollars. But it gets personal when computers won't let you be cheap, and I am cheap. The lady sympathized with my frustration and told me to try later before midnight. I got home ten minutes before midnight and I finally managed to purchased a ticket online. It's sort of weird how much satisfaction that gave me, probably more than visiting the zoo itself at this point. Maybe more weird for my roomate, who watched me ran into my room after watching a thriller (Mr. Brooks), yelling 'yes!' 5 minutes later, and proceeded to cutting sausages in the kitchen (I skipped dinner). But hey, as far as I am concern, I counter ripped the bus company 20 bucks, that's 4 baby watermelons or one large salmon fillet or 12 beers or 1/2 of my savings. I say it's celebratory - yay.
Anyways, I was trying to buy bus tickets online before the end of today so I can get the 7-day advance discount. Naturally, something has to go wrong with the online booking system as I was trying to do it before I go out for cheap movie with my roomate. I called up customer service when I was in the car, and while the lady was cheerful and helpful ("I hear that more than 20 times a day hon, that online thing just doesn't work, I don't know why, we're the company here and we're not online.. yes, you're talking to a real person..."), 20 minutes into the conversation, (after winding up the car window coz she can't hear me, removing 'Apt' and fixing the exact placement of '-'s and spaces on my address because there was a mismatch with my credit card billing add.), she told me there was a server error. All right, it's not a big deal, I can always visit some other weekends, or just pay extra 20 dollars. But it gets personal when computers won't let you be cheap, and I am cheap. The lady sympathized with my frustration and told me to try later before midnight. I got home ten minutes before midnight and I finally managed to purchased a ticket online. It's sort of weird how much satisfaction that gave me, probably more than visiting the zoo itself at this point. Maybe more weird for my roomate, who watched me ran into my room after watching a thriller (Mr. Brooks), yelling 'yes!' 5 minutes later, and proceeded to cutting sausages in the kitchen (I skipped dinner). But hey, as far as I am concern, I counter ripped the bus company 20 bucks, that's 4 baby watermelons or one large salmon fillet or 12 beers or 1/2 of my savings. I say it's celebratory - yay.
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