Tidbits 10/14/06

Chase Visa is punishing us for a transposition.
“Transposition” is an old term from our long-ago banking days, wherein two figures in a number are transposed.
E.g. the amount due to Chase Visa last month (which includes the shed) is $6,951.36. The bill-pay I authorized was $6,591.36; a difference of $450.
All transpositions are divisible by nine. If your balance-strike was off by an amount divisible by nine, you looked for a transposition.
“Well, if a person had processed it instead of a machine,” Linda said; “they probably would have caught it.”
I can imagine the celebrating among the cubicles in Wilmington, Del. (home of Chase credit-card processing): “Hooray! Finally got those guys. You made a mistake. Gotcha!” (Don’t drop your kuchen.)
The finance-charge — our penalty — was $141.86; 19.24% A.P.R. on an average daily balance of $4,043.03.
No wonder the credit-card companies are snowing us with solicitations.

Our 93-year-old nosy neighbor (that’s 93, Bubba; not 92) decided to get a snowblower attachment for one of his many garden-tractors.
This was despite previously contracting for his driveway to be plowed out.
He bought a blower-attachment at a John Deere place, and they were supposed to deliver it yesterday. A second guy was supposed to come out and mount it.
The snowblower was supposed to be delivered at 1 p.m. The store called up: “Are ya there?” they said. “Can’t deliver it if you’re not there.”
So they sat quietly in an anteroom all afternoon. No snowblower.
Finally the mounting-guy showed up at 4 p.m.
“Where’s the blower?” he asked.
“Never got it,” nosy said.
“Ya mean it was never delivered?”
“Nope.”
“It was supposed to be delivered at 1 p.m.”
“Well, it wasn’t.”
Nosy called up the store and canceled the order.
“We can deliver it next week.”
They tore up the check right in front of me.

Linda noticed a customer at the post-office wearing an “Eric Massa” button.
Eric Massa is the Democratic candidate running for REPUBLICAN Randy Kuhl’s local Congressional seat.
Don’t know as we’re pro-Massa, but Kuhl is a jerk.
“I’m a life-long Republican,” customer said; “but I’ve had enough.”
“Dubya and his lackeys are hardly Republicans in the mold of Abe Lincoln and Barber Conable.”
“What they are are glutinous opportunists; shills for the fat-cats. Kuhl is a jerk.”
“Five girls shot to death in an Amish schoolhouse, so Dubya convenes an anti-school-violence summit instead of funding school-security — humoring us with mindless blathering about “gentleness.”
“After Columbine, school-security funding was around $150 million; last year it was only $5 million; and this year it’s not in the budget at all.”
“And Iraq is only a diversion. We attacked the wrong guys on flimsy evidence. Now all the terrorists are coming to Iraq. Thousands of American boys have been sacrificed to rectify daddy’s blunder.”
“I’m a life-long Republican, but Dubya and Kuhl have made me a Democrat.”

It has gotten cold enough to require 1) the heat; 2) long underwear; 3) gloves; and 4) the electric-blanket. We haven’t yet performed the ceremonial removal of the air-conditioning bridge — and probably won’t until the end of the month. We’ve had our first frost, and will probably have Indian Summer; in which case the AC may still be needed.
I look at the web-cam at the mighty Curve (Curve web-cam), and the trees there haven’t turned at all. Here they have. I plan to take along the long-underwear; have used it before.