My husband came across this article about the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce mistakenly faxing confidential records to a scrapyard in West Virginia since 2001. The owner has tried everything to get them to stop and has been told, among other things, that it's not CIBC's problem and that he's failed to cooperate with their attempts to rectify the situation - when he's been the one begging them to stop for years! I stopped banking with CIBC years ago, largely because of their very poor customer service, and now I never will again.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/T PStory/LAC/20041126/CIBC2 6/TPFront/TopStories" title="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/T PStory/LAC/20041126/CIBC2 6/TPFront/TopStories" target="_blank"http://www.theglobeandmail.co...

Since I'm married to an American (and it was his birthday yesterday), I took half of this week off to celebrate his b-day and Thanksgiving with him (and, okay, I really needed a break from work). I just finished watching the Macy's parade, which is such fun.

So, have a great big Happy Thanksgiving, American pals!

It seemed so easy...my Internet provider was having a special on ADSL service and I finally decided to get it. (One of the last straws was that my entire book club was horrified that I still had dial-up when we went online at my place to read an article.) Well, it took them a while to get back to me. Then they kept sending me the contract as an attachment, and I couldn't open it. When I finally solved that, I faxed it to them and never heard anything for weeks. Turns out at one point they did phone but I didn't get the message. They never really tell me what to do, but I get the impression we need to go and pick up the modem from them, so my husband does. Doesn't work. Turns out we need a network card. Husband goes and shells out still more money to them for the card. Still doesn't work. Husband spends hours calling them up, doing what they tell him, still doesn't work.

Turns out that because we have an entryphone in our apartment, we need a splitter. Now, on the contract it asked you to check a box if you had an entryphone and then in tiny print said that in some older buildings, a special $100 splitter might be required, do you need one? Well, I have no idea and my building is only 8 years old, which I don't think counts as "older," folks. So the Internet company refers us to the phone company who appear to subcontract the ADSL part out, or something. Anyway, we get a message on the machine from a guy from *garbled* ADSL saying that he'll be by on Monday to check the phone between 8:00 and 5:30. Great, that old standby. Husband tries to call the guy at the number he left on the machine, and they've never heard of the guy and have no idea what my husband's talking about.

So, come Monday we have no idea if the guy will actually show up. If he does, he doesn't know our buzzer code to get into the building, so who knows what will happen. In the end, it was a woman and it appears to have only cost $40 for the splitter (Lord knows what'll show up on my Internet bill). BUT, IT STILL DOESN'T WORK! The woman told husband that sometimes they get modems that right out of the box just don't work. So, my husband has to go and pick up another modem today.

ARG! Dial-up may be slow, but it's a hell of a lot easier.

I saw a blurb about this on Much Music this morning and went looking for an article to see if it was true. A group called HOPE is offering people a "high-quality" CD (like Ray Charles or The Ramones) in exchange for their Ashlee Simpson ones, based on her lip-synching debacle and the fact that she's crap. I have to say, I think it's kind of cool. Snotty, but cool. Just because her sister's famous doesn't mean she automatically deserves her own CD. Every teenie starlet under 17 and her dog is recording an album these days, it's ridiculous.

Here's the article: http://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/entnews/eo/20041116/1 10066250000.html" title="http://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/entnews/eo/20041116/1 10066250000.html" target="_blank"http://entertainment.tv.yahoo...

Diabetes or no, I get really excited about Christmas candy at this time of year. And my very favourite are Cadbury's Roses. You can usually only get them here at Christmas. I bought a huge-o box the other day and am trying not to eat the whole thing in 48 hours flat. I don't even really recall where I first came upon them, but they make me happy. Mostly it appeals to my Anglophile-ness and also it's a Christmas thing and Christmas things always make me gleeful.

Sorry about the bleakness below, folks. I still feel a bit bleak, but am getting better.

To lighten things up, here's a fun online superhero test on The Incredibles site (which we keep trying to see and haven't managed yet). My superhero name is Turbo Thunder Girl - woo hoo! :)

http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/incred ibles/superhero/index.html" title="http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/incred ibles/superhero/index.html" target="_blank"http://disney.go.com/disneypi...

I don't normally watch the news, as I know it's 99% bad. But the breakfast shows are usually a bit more lighthearted, so I was watching this morning while I had breakfast. But a news update came on and it included graphic footage of some Oregon teens who thought it would be fun to take turns beating the crap out of another kid, film it, set it to music, and pass out DVD copies of it. What the hell is wrong with the world? It made me cry and still is. Add to that the crawl at the bottom about a pregnant mother of 7 being dead (don't know how, but probably in some horrible, preventable way) and last night I heard the desperate pleadings of a mother whose teen daughter had either run away or been abducted.

Why on earth do I want kids so badly? It seems like they'll either be tormented, tormentors, or end up with a physical or mental disability or die in some horrifying way. There seems to be so little hope left in the world these days. Sometimes I wonder why we bother going on.

My husband and I are going to my church's shoebox party tonight. Every November the congregation gets together to fill shoeboxes with gifts for kids overseas. You've probably heard of it, Operation Christmas Child http://www.samaritanspurse.org/home.asp" title="http://www.samaritanspurse.org/home.asp" target="_blank"http://www.samaritanspurse.or....

I haven't set foot in the church of my childhood for...golly...I'd say at least 10 years. I'm just not a churchy person. But everyone's really nice and I feel a bit guilty that they've never met my husband. Even though I hadn't been to church in ages, they were adamant about having a bridal shower for me because I'd done so much work with the Sunday school in my university days.

So, we're off there tonight, armed with a big bag of dollar store toys and school supplies. It's a fun way to get the festive season started, even if I'm not quite ready for it yet (since we've already had our Thanksgiving, the Christmas hoopla started November 1, we don't even get a bit of a cushion). And I love to buy toys and hate the thought of kids going without at Christmas. So hopefully this will bring some cheer to at least a couple of little folks.

(I must say, though, I've had the song Shoebox by Barenaked Ladies in my head all week.)