Well, dear readers, what a weird yesterday it was. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, what a weird yesterday it was. And it kept veering from the weird to the weirder, interrupted occasionally by nice things and even getting some work done. I can really live without the weird and the weirder, frankly, so be gone weird and weirder because you are bugging my butt cheeks.
I got about nine hours of sleep – that was one of the nice things. Then the helper came by and picked up some stuff, and then, after answering some e-mails, I went and had a Cobb salad and a bagel. Then I picked up no packages, did some banking, and came home.
Then the weird began happening. I’d asked a friend to call the hotel in New York to get me changed from two double beds to a queen or king. When she called she was told my reservation, made on the twenty-third of October through Priceline and paid for immediately, had been cancelled on November third. Say what? First of all, it is not possible to cancel via Priceline once you’ve booked. Second of all, the money was still out of my account. She called back to see what was going on, and I called Priceline. First I wasted my time talking to someone in the Philippines, but when she finally understood what I was talking about, she told me they’d relocate me and I had to talk to another person. I rather vociferously told her I was not going to be relocated, and that I wanted the same type room in the same hotel. She switched me over to a fellow, who said they’d had some system error that had canceled a bunch of reservations. I asked if someone was ever going to call me and tell me that or if I’d just show up and not have a room. He told me they’d been calling people but obviously hadn’t gotten to me. I told him I wanted what I wanted, and he put me on hold, called the hotel and got me the same deal and a king-sized bed. He couldn’t give me a hotel confirmation number because it hadn’t gone through the system yet, but gave me a new Priceline confirmation number and promised to e-mail me as soon as the reservation hit the hotel system.
About an hour later it got weirder. I hadn’t gotten the e-mail, so I Googled the name of the hotel, went to its site, and called the reservation number listed there. But when the idiot I was talking to began to tell me she didn’t know what I was talking about and that the confirmation number I was giving her was not a number they used, I began to get very irritated. She finally said, “Who are you calling?” I said the name of the hotel. She said this isn’t the hotel it’s Expedia. I said I got the number from a site calling itself the hotel. She said it’s Expedia. I hung up before I went to the bad BK place. I then went to a different listing for the hotel and that had a completely different number, which means Expedia has set up a bogus mirror site for the hotel, which is pretty disgusting and possibly illegal. I called the hotel and they confirmed my reservation, and as soon as I got off the phone the confirmation e-mail from Priceline came, so at last I can breathe easy about that malarkey.
I then buckled down, Winsocki, finished choosing the songs for the holiday show, made a show order, and then wrote the entire commentary. It took about an hour, because we’ve done some of the material so I could just cut and paste the commentary from those shows. But it’s great to have that out of the way. There is another slight irritant going on, but not one worth talking about and one which I will deal with today or tomorrow in one way or another. I then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched one of those “thrillers” on Netflix, this one called A Murder of Crows, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Tom Berenger. Horribly written and directed, none of the actors have a chance. Forget the preposterous set up, but twenty-one minutes into the film if you don’t know exactly how each and every beat of the story will play out from that point on then you should turn in your bad thriller card. That is due mostly to very bad make-up. Mr. Gooding, decent though he may be in other things, cannot carry the lead in a film like this. Mr. Berenger tries to have some fun, but is not quite successful in that regard. The other cast members are adequate and nothing more. The music is rancid, and by the end of the film you’re so far ahead of the story and the characters that it just holds no interest whatsoever. I can’t seem to find any box office reports, nor is there any studio logos on the main titles, either independent or major, which means it probably went direct to DVD.
After that, I had a few telephonic conversations, did some more work on the computer, and took a shower and washed the weird and the weirder down the drain, where it will hopefully remain.
Today, I have no idea what the HELL is happening. I’m sure I’ll eat, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I may or may not visit Mystery and Imagination Books – it’s been months since I’ve been there – and I may or may not be seeing a play.
Tomorrow, I’m handing off the holiday show music to the musical director, and then, once again, I haven’t a clew as to what the HELL is going on. Then I’m just getting everything ready for the trip to New York, New York and spending every waking minute trying to get people off their ASSES to actually book tickets to our shows. Then on Thursday morning I shall be on my way to the city that never sleeps. I’m seeing two shows while I’m there, and Friday we have a really long day of rehearsals that goes to the early evening.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, eat, hopefully pick up packages, maybe visit a store, maybe see a play and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Have you ever had any irritating things happen with reservations you’d booked to anything? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, hoping the weird and the weirder is done for good.