irritations, large & small

Where to start? Perhaps with my Email woes. My original ISP was schlurped up by one of the big players here in Canada, Primus by name if not by performance. Now, one of the big players in the USA (a monopoly in many areas), Comcast, is blocking the mail server of my original ISP. The main reason I stayed with Primus was not to lose my original Email address. Obviously, it's time to think again. It's a big problem, since my primary correspondent & good friend is a prisoner of Comcast, which is acting a lot like Big Brother. They don't even permit users to "whitelist" their friends... It has taken me nearly a month to get decent service from Primus, although I'm now in contact with a very pleasant guy in tech support. Problem is, his solution isn't working on my PC. Therefore it must be something on my PC? Why do I have the feeling this is oversimplified? At any rate, I've used up the better part of a day's vacation trying to fiddle with the dang software, and my frustration quotient is extremely high.

And then there's family. Do I really need to go into detail? Probably not -- I've noticed that this is quite a common refrain around the mid-winter holiday season. Of course, I could echo the refrain at pretty much any time of year, but will let that pass for now. Fortunately, the visit was short, and I have the rest of this week to myself. I may calm down any day now.

I'll be spending tomorrow evening with my partner. We'll likely tune in for the finale of the Royal Canadian Air Farce, but will NOT follow that up with The Hour's interview with Sarah Palin. For pity's sake, could they not find anyone better to interview on New Year's Eve...like, any Canadian they dragged in off the street? Sheesh.